Chapter IV

In a railway carriage that had long before left Genoa with the

ultimate intention of getting into Rome, a girl sat, tranced in

satisfaction, looking from the window, throughout an afternoon of

spring. To speed thus leisurely between succeeding pictures of a

scenery and life she seemed to recognize from some prior state of

existence--although now, in fact, seen for the first time--was a joy

sufficient to annihilate fatigue.

The milk-white oxen ploughing the red fields; the peasant women at

work amid young vines; the sheets of wild flowers; the pink and white

and blue-washed villas, with their terraces and palms and flower-pots;

the hedges of roses, and groves of olive and eucalyptus; above all,

the classic names of stations, albeit placarded in a commonplace

way,--made Miss Evelyn Carlyle, lately a passenger of a steamer

arriving at Genoa from America, turn and twist from side to side of

the carriage, and flush and thrill with satisfaction, after a fashion

causing her father, who accompanied her, to rejoice that they occupied

their apartment undisturbed.

As evening closed upon the scene, she at last consented to throw her

head back upon the cushion of the seat, and admit she was a prey to

the mortal consideration of exceeding hunger. Since leaving Genoa, a

roll and some cakes of chocolate, only, had supplied the luncheon for

a journey of ten hours. Therefore, when the train, stopping after dark

at a little buffet, was promptly forsaken by its passengers, Eve and

her father joined the eager throng craving refreshment at the hands of

a perspiring landlord and his inefficient aids.

"If I could only make these fellows understand, perhaps they would

stop to listen," said Colonel Carlyle, growing wroth at the

struggling, vociferating, jostling crowd massed in a small room,

snatching for food like hungry dogs.

"Allow me to--By Jove, it's the Colonel!" said a voice behind him,

whose possessor was trying to pass on.

"Ralph Corbin! Where did you drop from?" and, "Ralph, this is too

delightful" were the greetings received by the young man thus

unexpectedly encountered.

"I am on my way from Nice to Rome to meet--er--some friends who are

expected there for the Silver Wedding festivities," said he, with

becoming blushes.

"I know," exclaimed Evelyn, gleefully. "I was sure they had something

to do with it."

"But it's uncertain whether they have returned from Greece yet; and

it's awfully jolly to meet you, anyway, Eve, and the Colonel. Here,

let's get some food, and I'll go in your carriage for the rest of the

way, of course. I'd not an idea you were coming out this year."

"Nor we, until a fortnight since," said Eve.

Ralph capturing a supply of bread, and fruit, and roast chicken, they

made off with their booty to the train, and the evening passed in

merry chat and explanation of their plans. Evelyn, however, by no

means lost the consciousness of her advance for the first time upon

Rome; and when, after crossing the Tiber at midnight, and catching

glimpses, on either side the railway, of ruins that heralded their

vicinity to the goal of her hopes, she was keyed to high excitement.

Ralph laughed at her disappointment as the train ran slowly into a

large, modern station lighted by electricity, and decorated with

hangings of gold and crimson, a crimson carpet spread across the

platform to one of the doors of exit. When they enquired of the

_facchino_ who took their bags in charge, what great arrival was

expected, the man answered with an indifference worthy of democratic

New York: "It is for the Silver Wedding of their Majesties, Signor;

but there are so many Kings and Emperors and Princes in Rome now, we

have ceased to take account of them."

"We have struck Rome at a crowded season," said Ralph, "and I don't

know that you are going to like it overmuch. I say, Eve, if Somebody

doesn't come for another week or so, what a heaven-send you and your

father will be to me for company!"

"That is the most cold-blooded way of making use of us to kill time

with," said Eve; but she bestowed on him a well-pleased smile. To her,

Ralph had been ever a chum,--a dear, good fellow, who was the best of

company. His unexpected appearance here promised to add tenfold to her

pleasure, while his hopes in the affair hinted at between them had

been, for some time, familiar to her in detail.

"And all this while I have never told you," he went on, in his boyish

manner, "that at Nice I fell in with that swell New York cousin of

yours, Vance Townsend. Not half a bad chap, if he is rather

close-mouthed. Shouldn't wonder if he's in Rome, now, like everybody

else in this part of the world."

"Townsend?" said the Colonel, with animation. "Glad to hear there's a

chance of seeing him. Just a year--isn't it, Eve?--since he visited us

at the Hall. Well, there's no doubt we are in luck, if we meet Vance

as well as you, Ralph."

"The funny part of it is," whispered the joyous Ralph to Evelyn, "some

of the people we both knew in Nice put it into Townsend's head I was

coming here to meet my _fiancée_. And you know, Eve, I am not engaged

to her yet; her mother put us on probation for six months. The six

months are out next week, though, and I don't think it would hurt

Maud's mamma to hurry herself a little bit to get here, do you? How

you will admire Maud's style, Evie! Her hair is dark as--" etc., etc.,

until Evelyn cut it short by jumping into the carriage drawn up in

waiting for them.

Just now, she was not as well prepared to listen as usual. Certain

feelings she had believed extinct proved themselves to have been

merely dormant. Even the spectacle of Rome _en fête_, by night, its

bands and fountains playing, its streets still filled with lively

promenaders, did not wholly distract her from this sudden tumult of an

emotion she was not prepared to define.

Constantly, during the crowded days that followed, while they drove

hither and thither, attracted but provoked by the jumbling of ancient

and modern in these haunts of history, she tried to persuade herself

she was not ever on the alert to see somebody who did not appear. For,

from among the many acquaintances and a few friends encountered in the

streets of the sociable little city, Vance was persistently missing.

Ralph, however, whose sweetheart also kept her distance, proved his

philosophy by devoting his days to the Carlyles; and thus, under a sky

blue as the fabled Elysian fields of Virgil, the festal week went on.

Wherever their Majesties of Italy and Germany passed in public, they

were greeted by thoroughfares black with people, windows and balconies

blazing with flags and draperies, the clash of bands and the clank of

soldiery.

The coachman engaged for the service of our friends would contrive,

wherever bound, to take on the way some passing show of sovereigns;

and, upon a certain fair day, for no reason avowed, he drove them into

the tangle of vehicles and people always seen surrounding the doors of

the Quirinal Palace whenever there was a chance to catch glimpses of

royalties upon the move. There ensconced, the saucy, bright-eyed

fellow stood up, pretended his inability to get out of the snarl,

gesticulated, talked to his friends and threatened his enemies in the

crowd, while visibly rejoicing in the opportunity to see all likely to

occur in that coveted quarter.

"Look here, cabby, if you don't move out of this to the Baths of

Caracalla in just two minutes and a half," began Ralph, at last, in

emphatic English; but he had no reason to go on, as the driver, seeing

the young man's face, gathered up the reins, and extricated himself

with much dexterity from the crowd.

Neither of his passengers noticed that a gentleman, in a carriage just

then crossing theirs, looked at them, leaned forward, gave orders to

his coachman, and at once proceeded to follow on their tracks.

In the glorious ruin of the greatest of temples to athletic exercise,

Evelyn drew a deep breath of delight. Nothing in Rome, not even the

Colosseum, had so impressed her with the grandeur of bygone

achievement in architecture as this wondrous pile, with its vast

spaces, the gray walls breached by Time, out of which maidenhair grew

and crows were flying--"crying to heaven for rain," as the guide

poetically explained; the stately columns of red porphyry grouped

around the beautiful mosaic floors; the lace-like traceries of carven

stone; the niches and pedestals from which marvels of old sculpture

had been removed; over all, the air that is gold and balm combined!

Evelyn leaned against a column abstractedly, while Ralph and her

father walked about, discussing with their guide facts and statistics

of the Thermae. They had indeed strolled quite out of her sight, when

a shadow on the pavement beside her caused her to look up. If an

answer to thought be no surprise, then was not Evelyn surprised; for

the person confronting her was Vance Townsend.

"I have known that you were in Rome ever since the night you arrived,"

he said, without preamble other than coldly offering her his hand. "I

happened to be at the station to meet an English friend, when you

came out; and I saw you get into your carriage and drive away."

"Then you can hardly claim to have earned a welcome from us, now," she

began to say, lightly, but found it impossible to go on, checked by

the look upon his face.

"I make no pretences," he said, bitterly. "If you care to know that I

have either kept you in view every day since, or else have gone for

long rides into the country, where I saw nobody, it is quite true. I

have done everything foolish, everything foreign to my principles and

habits, to satisfy, or to get away from, the feeling the sight of you

aroused in me. I wonder what you'd think, if I told you I've been

wandering about pretty much ever since I parted with you, a year ago,

trying to get you out of my head. Many's the letter I've written to

you and destroyed. Twice I set out to see you, and once I got back

into the neighborhood of your home. When I saw you in the crowd at the

station here, I actually thought I was possessed--" He checked

himself. "I beg your pardon. I have no right to say these things to

you, I know."

"You? You?" she could only repeat, bewildered by the meaning in his

tone and the expression of his eyes. "Is it possible that you--"

"That I fell in love with you that time when you were holding me to

account for a thousand transgressions, committed or not committed?

Yes, it is quite possible. That need not prevent our remaining good

friends, need it? I hope I've too much common sense to ask you to

indulge in a discussion of these points, now; during the past week,

I've been engaged continually, and I trust with some success, in

disposing of the last remnant of hope I may have cherished that some

day things might work around to give me at least a chance."

"You make me very unhappy," she exclaimed.

"That is far from my wish," he said, more gently. "Just at present you

ought to be walking on roses. There! Your father and Corbin are coming

back this way. I want to ask you to help me to excuse myself in your

good father's sight, if I seem unsociable."

"One word," she said, the blood flaming into her cheeks. "It is due

you to know that long ago, soon after you left us, I received a letter

from Katherine Crawford,--a letter that made me understand many things

I had judged harshly in your conduct."

"Mrs. Crawford has been always kind to me," he answered. "And no one

rejoices more than I in her present happiness."

"Yes, she is happy,--perfectly so,--and her life is full of the duties

that best suit her. She says it was all planned out for her by

Providence, and kept in reserve until she was fit for it."

"So runs the world away!" he exclaimed, with a whimsical gesture.

After that, the others came, and there was much talk of the subjects

naturally presenting themselves. When they moved out of the enclosure

to go to the carriage, Vance walked with the Colonel, following Evelyn

and Ralph.

"You will dine with us at our hotel this evening?" said the older man,

at parting.

"I am sorry that I am engaged," Vance answered, with appropriate

courtesy, "and that to-morrow I am off for Sicily. Sometime, later on

in your wanderings, I shall hope to run upon you again. This is the

worst of pleasant meetings in travel, is it not?"

When they were seated in the victoria, he shook Evelyn's hand last.

* * * * *

The day was finally at hand that was to bring Ralph's sweetheart--with

her incidental father, mother, two younger sisters, and a

governess--to the quarters engaged for them at Rome. In the young

man's enthusiasm, he did not forget to wonder what cloud had passed

over his Cousin Evelyn's enjoyment of the place, the sights, the

season. He even consulted the Colonel as to whether Eve might not be

unduly affected by the crowded condition of the town, and proposed for

them to change to a quieter spot. And Eve's father, who had had his

own anxieties on this point, prevailed upon her to give up the

engagements she had made with apparent zest, and resort to Naples and

Sorrento.

To Naples, accordingly, they went, the faithful Ralph accompanying

them, at the cost of a night-journey on his return to Rome for the day

that was to see his happiness in flower. He drove with them to their

hotel, through the interminable streets, lined with palaces and

thronged with paupers, and saw them ensconced in pleasant quarters

facing Vesuvius, whose feather of smoke pointed to good weather. They

dined together in a vast _salle-à-manger_, where, in a gallery, was

conducted during their repast a noisy and mirth-provoking concert of

fiddlers, mandolins, and guitars,--the performers singing, shouting,

dancing, as they played. There was an hour before his train left, in

which, while the Colonel smoked upon the balcony of their

sitting-room, Eve walked out upon one of the quays with her cousin;

and this hour Ralph determined to improve.

In the last day or two, trifles had shown this astute young man that

the depression of his cousin (for whom he cherished no grudge

because, a year or two before, he had been wild to call her wife, and

she would not hear of it) had been coincident with the meeting in Rome

with Townsend. That very morning, he had found at his bankers', had

read and put into his pocket, a letter written by Vance on arriving at

Taormina, which had thrown upon the subject a new and surprising

light. Just how to convey his discoveries to Evelyn, the most proud

and sensitive of creatures about her sacred feelings, he had not yet

decided.

They talked of the bay, of the mountains, of Vesuvius. Calmed and

enchanted by the hour and scene, Eve wore her gentlest aspect, and

Ralph felt emboldened to begin.

"This is as it should be," he said, with an air of generalizing. "You

will go to Sorrento and Amalfi and Capri, and your roses will come

back. I shall not forget you, Evie dear, because I am getting what I

most want in life. You have always been to me a thing apart, and I've

told Maud so, over and over again. By and by, I shall bring her to the

Hall, and let her see you at your best, as its mistress. For you are

not quite the same over here, Evie, as in Virginia air."

"Perhaps I am growing old," she said, smiling. "But never mind me. We

shall miss you, Ralph, and it will require the greatest heroism to do

without you. After this journey, nobody need tell me that 'three is

trumpery.' We know better, do we not?"

"Why not send for your other cousin to take my place?" said Ralph,

seeing his opportunity. "He is at Taormina, and would come,

undoubtedly. I had a letter from him this morning, by the way. The

most characteristic letter,--just like the man."

No answer. Ralph felt as he were treading a bridge of glass.

"To explain it, I should have to go back to the evening of that

meeting in the Baths of Caracalla. He came to me at the hotel, and

after a friendly chat, just as he was leaving, took occasion to say

some uncommonly nice things about my relations with (as I thought)

_Maud_; so I thanked him, and gushed a little about her, maybe,--in

my circumstances, a fellow's excusable,--and off he went, I never

suspecting that he all the time thought I was going to marry _you_."

Here Ralph was rewarded by a genuine start and a blush, but still Eve

did not speak.

"A day later," Ralph went on, determined now to do or die, "something

I recalled of our conversation made me realize the mistake he was

under, and I wrote him a letter explaining it. Such a time as I had to

find his whereabouts! His banker had no instructions to forward

anything, and I won't tell you all the ups and downs of trying to get

at him. Finally, in despair, I sent the letter, on the chance, to

Taormina, and from there he answered me."

At this point, in revenge for her indifference, the diplomatist

remained, in his turn, silent, until Eve, who could bear it no longer,

turned upon him her beautiful young face, glowing in the evening light

with an eager joy. "And--and?" she exclaimed, impetuously.

"He is a good sort--Townsend," went on Ralph, reflectively. "I've an

idea, Evie, that if you and he could have managed to hit it off, you

would have suited each other capitally. He would be the kind likely to

settle down into a country gentleman, too; and you would never be

happy in town. He has brains and a heart, in addition to his good

looks and manners, and a restrained force of character that would be

an excellent balance for this little impulsive lady, whose only fault

is that she jumps at conclusions instead of working to them."

"You are perfectly right about that, Ralph," she said, laughing away a

strong desire to cry. "I am learning wisdom, however, with rapidly

advancing years. And you do only justice to my Cousin Vance, in your

estimate of him. No doubt," here she swallowed a nervous catch in her

voice, "if he told the truth in his letter, he congratulated you upon

being allied to some one other than the young person who made his

visit to Virginia last year a very hard test of patience, to say no

more."

She stopped, and tried to turn away her head. But Ralph, looking her

gently in the face, read there what gave him courage to launch the

last arrow in his quiver.

"Whatever he said, I saw through it, Evie dear. And I--I could not

wait to write an answer. I telegraphed my advice to come to Naples as

fast as steam can carry him."

* * * * *

Shortly after her conversation upon the quay with Ralph (who,

returning to Rome, had been duly translated into anticipated bliss),

Eve and her father took advantage of a perfect Sunday for the

excursion up Mount Vesuvius.

In a landau with two horses,--a third to be annexed on the

ascent,--they traversed the long street formed by the villages of San

Giovanni, La Barra, Portici, and Resina, stretching from the parent

city--a street suggesting in the matter of population a series of

scattered ant-hills. Such a merry, dirty, shameless horde of all ages,

who, abandoning the dens they called homes, had issued forth under the

sun blazing even at that early hour of morning in his vault of blue,

to bivouac in the open highway, was never seen! Marketing,

chaffering, vending, gossiping, cooking, eating, drinking, performing

the rites of religion and of the toilet, the hum of their voices was

like the note of some giant insect. It was when a stranger's carriage

came in sight that the air became suddenly vocal with shrill cries for

alms; vehicles and horses were surrounded, escorted by noisy beggars,

whose half-naked children offered flowers, or turned somersaults

perilously near the wheels.

Resina passed, they could breathe more freely. The street turmoil was

succeeded by the peace of a country road mounting between lava walls,

over which glimpses of sea, of deep-red clover in fields, of vineyard

or lemon grove, were finally succeeded by glorious, unobstructed views

of the mountains, bay, and city. In the region of recent overflows,

they saw the most curious spectacle, to the newcomer, of fertile

garden-strips of green, where clung tiny houses, pink or whitewashed,

daring the mute monster overhead, while close beside them the

mountain-side was streaked with ominous stains marking the spots

where other homes had defied him just one day too long.

Higher still, in the track of the overflow of 1872, they experienced

the striking effect of entering into a valley of desolation between

walls of living green. Here, the lava in settling had wreathed itself

into the forms of dragons couchant, of huge serpents, and other

monstrous shapes that lay entwined as if asleep. Up above, arose the

main cone of the crater, smooth as a heap of gun-powder, vast,

majestic, cloud-circled; taking upon itself in the intense light a

blooming purple tint; the smoke issuing from its summit now soon

melting into space, now showing dense and threatening.

Evelyn, in whom the novelty as well as beauty of the scene had aroused

fresh spirit, looked more like her old self than her fond father had

seen her for many a long day. But it is fortunately not given to

parents, however solicitous, to see all the workings of young minds;

and the good gentleman would have been indeed surprised had he divined

the mainspring of her animation. While he was indulging in a few mild

objections to the length and slowness of the drive, the rapacity of

wayside beggars, the heat of the sun, etc., such as naturally occur to

the traveller unsupported by sentimental hopes, to our young lady the

condition of motion was a necessity, and the act of getting upward a

relief.

For the plain truth was that, since the last talk with Ralph, Evelyn

had given rein to a thousand emotions repressed, during the months

gone by, with stern self-chiding.

Until now, recalling the year before when Vance had left her to an

unavailing sense of regret for her harsh judgment of him, she had

hardly realized what their intercourse together had meant to her. But

the period of his visit was, in fact, succeeded by one in which her

salt of life had lost its savor; and Evelyn, to her dismay, found that

her affections had gone from her keeping to this man's, acknowledged

to have been the suitor of her friend.

That Katherine had refused Vance, and straightway married another

lover, made very little difference to one of Eve's rigid creed in

these matters. To her, love declared was love unchangeable; with air

her heart she pitied Vance for his disappointment, and blamed herself

for having repeatedly wounded him without reason. By means of this

mode of argument, she had naturally succeeded in raising Townsend to

the pedestal of a martyred hero, which, it may be conceived by those

of colder judgment, did not lessen his importance in the girl's

imagination.

As the months had gone on, and she had had nothing from him save

packages of books and prints sent according to promise, as to a polite

entertainer who is thus agreeably disposed of by the beneficiary of

hospitality extended, her feelings had taken on the complexion of

hopeless regret for an irrevocable past. What Eve had henceforth to

do, according to her own strict ordinance, was to live down the

impulse that made her give her heart unasked. The stress of these

emotions had, in spite of her brave efforts, so worked upon her health

that the Colonel, as fond of home as a limpet of his rock, determined

to try for her the change of air and experience, resulting as we have

seen.

And now, on this dazzling day, a "bridal of earth and sky" in one of

the loveliest spots upon earth, she kept saying to herself, "By

to-morrow--to-morrow, at latest--he will be with me! And then--and

then--and _then_--!"

The carriage halted at a little wayside booth for the sale of wines

and fruit. A dark-skinned woman, bearing a tray of glasses, with

flasks of the delusive _Lachrymae Christi_ (made from the grapes

ripened upon these slopes) came forward to greet them. On Evelyn's

side, a hawker, with shells and strings of coral, and coins alleged to

have been found imbedded in the lava near at hand, importuned her.

But, rejecting the others, she beckoned to a pretty, bare-legged boy

carrying oranges garnished in their own glossy, dark-green leaves; and

so busy was she in selecting the best of his refreshing fruit, she

hardly observed that another claimant for her attention had appeared

close beside the wheel.

"Please go away, my good man," she said at last, laughingly, without

giving him a glance. "Indeed, I want nothing you can supply."

"That is a harsh assertion," Vance said, in a low tone meant for her

ear, and then proceeded to greet both his cousins outspokenly.

He had reached Naples early that morning; had ascertained at their

hotel that they were engaged to start for Vesuvius at a given hour;

fearing collision with a party of strangers, had set out alone to walk

up the mountain and take his chance of intercepting them; and had

waited here for the purpose.

"After you had been journeying all night?" said the Colonel, with

unfeigned surprise. "Why, my dear fellow, in your place I should

have--"

Just then he intercepted, passing between Evelyn and Vance, a look

that startled him. That his sentence remained unfinished nobody

observed. The Colonel drew back into his corner, as if he had been

shot.

If she had divined her father's feeling, Eve could not have pitied

any one who was gaining Vance. And Vance, at that moment, believed all

the world to be as happy as himself!

* * * * *

To a love-affair so obvious, the ending naturally to be expected is of

the old-fashioned and inevitable sort. In the beautiful Indian summer

of the following autumn in Virginia, these two people were duly

married at the Hall. From far and wide came relatives to wish them

joy; it was like the gathering of a Scotch clan at the summons of the

pipes. Prominent among the revellers at the dance following the

nuptial ceremony was Cousin Josey, who, in a pair of antiquated

leather pumps with buckles, led down the middle of a reel with his

cherished "Lady-love." To please the old boy, Evelyn had worn the

little string of pearls bought by him, years before, for a bride who

was never to be. And so everybody was content, and one of the cousins

said it was "exactly like a weddin' befo' the wah."

Out of Season

Chapter I

"No; no house-parties till the middle of July. Dear knows, what with a

string of big dinners, my two little dances, and those tiresome

Thursdays in January and February when everybody came, I have done all

that could be expected by society from paupers like ourselves," said

Mrs. Henry Gervase, settling herself in a wicker chair, on the veranda

of her country home, and looking approvingly at her water-view.

"Paupers!" said a lady from a neighboring cottage, who had dropped in

to call. Mrs. Gervase's friends rarely liked to commit themselves to

positive comment upon her statements until certain which way the cat

was meant to jump. Mrs. Luther Prettyman, the wife of the dry-goods

magnate, whose good fortune it was to own the land adjoining the

Gervase property at Sheepshead Point,--a recently famous resort for

summer visitors on our far eastern coast,--now contented herself with

a little deprecatory giggle that might mean anything, and waited for

Mrs. Gervase to go on.

"Oh, well! everything is comparative; and on the scale by which people

measure things in New York, to-day, we are simply grovelling in

poverty. John,"--to her gardener,--"you have got that row of myosotis

entirely out of line; and, remember, nothing but salvia behind the

heliotropes. I like a blaze of scarlet and purple against a blue

sea-line like this. Heavens! what a perfect afternoon! The atmosphere

has been clarified, and those birches in the ravine 'twinkle with a

million lights.' My dear woman, I make no apologies. Any one who wants

me at this season of the year must take me as I am. After eight months

of bricks and mortar, dirty streets, and stupid drives in the Park, I

am fairly maudlin over Nature when I get her back in June.

"I went to a concert where Paderewski played a night or two before he

left America; and I give you my word that while the music was going on

I put up my fan and plainly heard the babble of this little brook of

mine, and the lap of the waves over the rocks at high tide, with, now

and then, the notes of the song-sparrow that comes back every year and

perches on my Norway pine. Somebody said of me afterwards, at supper,

that I had been having a little nap. They may say anything of me, I

believe, and some idiot will be found to credit it. But please don't

accept the newspaper report that I am to have Mr. and Mrs. This, or

Mr. That and Mrs. T'other, stopping with me at Stoneacres during June.

I am much too busy with my granger-work, and my husband too

industrious doing nothing, to play host and hostess now."

"I did not know; I only thought--" ventured Mrs. Prettyman. "You see,

everything is so dull here, socially, till August. And when one has a

guest coming who is accustomed to a great deal of fashionable

gaiety,--a young lady, a distinguished belle,--one naturally grasps at

the idea of such pleasant house-parties as yours are known to be, dear

Mrs. Gervase."

"We shall be dull as ditch-water," answered relentless Mrs. Gervase,

turning around to survey the struggle of a fat-breasted robin to

extract from the turf a worm that continued to emerge in apparently

unending length. "And if you _will_ have a girl out of season, why,

put her on bread and milk and beauty-sleep, give her plenty of trashy

novels and a horse to ride, and she'll do well enough."

"But--perhaps I am wrong--surely Mr. Gervase told Mr. Prettyman, when

they were smoking on our veranda last Sunday, that you are expecting

your nephew, Mr. Alan Grove."

"That's just like Mr. Gervase,--a perfect sieve for secrets," quoth

Mrs. Gervase, contemptuously; "when I particularly requested him to

mention Alan's visit to nobody. The poor boy is completely used up

with work, and has engaged to get a paper ready to read before some

scientific congress next month, and finds himself unable to write a

line of it in town. Here, I have promised him, he may have absolute

quiet--not be called on to play civility or squire-of-dames for any

one; and, I may as well warn you _now_, he's not to be expected to do

a _hand's turn_ of entertainment for your girl. Besides, I happen to

know that he can't abide 'society' young women. He is plunged up to

the neck in electricity, is poor, ambitious, clever, on the way to

sure success; and I'm going to back him all I can, not put

stumbling-blocks in his path."

"How plunged up to his neck in electricity?" asked puzzled Mrs.

Prettyman.

"Electric law, my good soul; did you think it a new kind of capital

punishment? The lucrative law of the future, I've heard wise men say.

Simpkins!" hailing, with irresistible command, a butcher's cart that

seemed possessed of a strong desire to drive away in a hurry from a

side entrance to the house. "_Simpkins!_ Oh! there you are; I meant to

leave orders with the cook not to let you get away again to-day

without a word from me. I noticed, on the book, that you had the

effrontery to charge sixty cents a pound for spring chickens here in

June. Now, don't tell me! The way all you natives do; you have a short

season, and must make the most of it. This is not your season, or my

season, either. Wait till August before you put on the screws. And

your sweetbreads, eighty cents a pair, when _you know_ that when Mr.

Gervase and I first came here to live, you were _throwing sweetbreads

away_, till we taught you the use of them! Now, mind, I shall get

tired of sending friends to you to be fleeced in August, if this is

what you do to me in June."

"I must be running off," said Mrs. Prettyman, arising from her spot of

shade and luxurious comfort in the deep veranda filled, though not

encumbered, with picturesque belongings, with stands and pots of

blooming plants in every nook. "I'll declare, nobody's flowers do as

well as yours. And the wages we pay our head gardener! It makes me

really envious."

This, be it known, was a clever stroke on the part of neighbor

Prettyman. Secretly resentful of the tepid interest in the personality

of her expected guest,--who, in the eyes of the house of Prettyman,

was an event,--she yet did not dare attempt to bring the greater lady

to yield sympathy upon the spot. Mrs. Gervase's weakest side was for

her flowers. She possessed the magic touch that alone nurtures them to

perfection, and with it the proud love of a parent for children that

grow inclined according to her will.

"Hum! We do pretty well, considering this house is built on the ragged

edge of nothing over the sea, and is swept by all the winds of heaven,

in turn, and sometimes all together. And, in a climate where one goes

to bed in the Tropics and wakes up at the North Pole, what would you

have? John, there, though I'll not set him up by telling him so, has

learned all I know about flowers, and picks up new ideas every day. By

August, now, these beds and stands will be worth looking at. What did

you say is the name of the young person who's coming to stop with you?

If you've nothing better, suppose you and she and Mr. Prettyman come

over to dinner Saturday. Alan has promised me not to work at night,

and by that time my plants will all be in the ground and my mind at

rest."

"Thank you so much," said the lesser luminary. "It is always a treat

to dine with you _en famille_; and it is--didn't I mention

her?--Gladys Eliot who is coming to us to-morrow."

"Gladys Eliot! Why, she's gone with her people to London for two

months. I saw her name in the _Teutonic's_ list last Thursday. Those

Eliots would never in the world let slip another chance for her to

make the great match they've set out to get."

"Nevertheless," said Mrs. Prettyman, with some show of spirit, "Mrs.

Eliot, who is my old school-friend, wrote me, the day before they

sailed, that Gladys had taken it into her head to stay behind, and

begged me to keep her till her aunt can come up from Baltimore in July

and take the girl in charge."

"Three weeks of Gladys Eliot!" remarked Mrs. Gervase. "My poor woman,

I pity you. By the end of the month there will be no health in you. A

professional beauty, who has run the gauntlet of four or five years of

incessant praises, has been advertised like 'Pear's Soap,' in England

and America, and has failed to make her _coup_! I remember what Alan

Grove said about her no longer ago than Christmas of last year: 'I

haven't the advantage of Miss Eliot's acquaintance, but her and her

kind I hold in abhorrence,--denationalized Americans; hangers-on of

older civilizations that make a puppet-show of them; spoiled for home,

with no rightful place abroad; restless, craving what no

healthy-minded husband of their own kind can give them.' Bless me--and

_those two_ are going to _meet here_!"

"I think Mr. Alan Grove need not concern himself," said Mrs.

Prettyman, driven to bay. "Mrs. Eliot mentioned in her letter that

Gladys--it is no secret, evidently--is nearly, if not quite, engaged

to marry some one the family feels is _in all respects_ all they could

have hoped for her."

"Then it must be either that Colonel Larkyns, the very rude man with

large feet, who walked all over my velvet gown at the Egertons', last

winter,--came over with Lord Glenmore, whom the Eliots tried for and

couldn't get,--or else McLaughlin, the Irishman who made such a lot of

money in Montana. The two men were running evenly, 'twas said. Let

me think--didn't I see her at Claremont on McLaughlin's coach, last

month? Pray, my dear, are we to congratulate you on having Mr.

McLaughlin, also, as a member of your household, before long?"

"Oh dear, dear!" continued the plain-spoken lady to herself, when poor

Mrs. Prettyman, fairly routed, had retired without honors from the

field. "Why is nature so heavenly kind to us in American places of

resort, and 'only man is vile'? Why does this struggle for place, this

pride of vogue, these types of our worst social element--I hate that

word 'social,' it sounds vulgar; but what else expresses this for

me?--follow one into this earthly Paradise? Here I have got myself

into a pretty kettle of fish with Alan Grove. He will be bored to

death and his visit broken up, for we can't rid ourselves of people

who sit in our pocket, like the Prettymans in summer; and he will be

running upon this Eliot creature perpetually. If Henry would help me,

we might--but he is so abominably friendly and cordial with country

neighbors, there's no hope from him. Besides, if a girl is pretty, it

makes no earthly difference to my good man whether she is a fiend of

calculation and cold-heartedness. I declare, I've no patience with

Henry, anyhow."

So saying, Mrs. Gervase went out to drive with the offender in

question, behind a pair of sleek cobs, in a little buckboard of tawny

wood with russet leather cushions and harness,--his latest

present,--and soon, in cheerful companionship, forgot all sorrows amid

such views of land and water as Sheepshead Point people think only

Sheepshead Point can offer.

Chapter II

To reach Sheepshead Point, a boat steams daily, and several times a

day, from a station on the line of a great railway skirting the

eastern Atlantic coast. Issuing from a drawing-room car there, a young

woman, dressed in a tight-fitting skirt and jacket of sailor blue,

with a loose shirt of red silk belted around a taper waist, her small

head with its sailor-hat half shrouded from view in a blue tissue

veil, walked lightly ahead of Mr. Alan Grove and, attended by an

elderly maid, went far forward to stand in the bows of the boat.

Grove, struck by the grace and distinction of her carriage, looked

again, and then was conscious of an actual fierce jump of the heart.

"Can there be two of them?" he asked of his inner man. "Doctors tell

you if you keep your body in good order, and your mind healthily at

work, you will never see a ghost--and yet--that's the double of the

woman who sailed away from me last Thursday; who's haunted me during

the six madly misspent weeks since I had the misfortune to be told off

to take her in to dinner. Oh! no, it isn't. Yes, it is--by Jove, it

_is_ Gladys Eliot."

He was never so astonished. Believing her to be at that moment on the

ocean, nearing British shores, Grove was fairly staggered when Miss

Eliot, turning, espied him and, by a graciously easy nod, summoned him

to her side. Considering the manner of their parting a few weeks back,

he wondered at himself for the immediate abjectness of his obedience.

It was a favorite phrase of Gladys Eliot's admirers to describe her as

having a "Duchess of Leinster head and throat." Nature had certainly

bestowed upon this daughter of nobody in particular in the Western

Hemisphere a pose of a proud little head upon broad, sloping

shoulders, as fine as that much-photographed great lady's. She had, in

addition, a pair of innocent, Irish-blue eyes and a guileless smile; a

voice, in speaking, that was sweet and low; and the best or worst

manners in the world, so critics said, according to the desirableness

of her interlocutor.

"Mr. Grove! How perfectly extraordinary that you should be here," she

exclaimed, giving him the tips of her well-gloved fingers, while the

maid and dressing-bag withdrew discreetly into the background.

"Did you expect me to remain forever on the steps of the Claremont

tea-house, like a monument of a city father, to adorn the suburbs of

New York?"

"You are so quick-tempered, so unreasonable! How should I know you

were going to take such dire offence? But please--I can't quarrel away

off here, or even justify myself. If you are going to remain furious

with me, at least gratify my curiosity first, and tell me how you came

on this boat, and where you are going. Then, if you are so inclined,

you may retire into your shell and sulk."

A soft light was shining in her eye. Her voice was pleading; her face,

most beautiful. Grove, promising himself, in street vernacular, to "go

off and kick himself" directly afterwards, took his place at her

elbow and gazed down hungrily upon her artless, changeful countenance.

"Rather tell me why you are not about to plant your triumphant banner

on British shores once more. I read your name in the list of those

sailing. The newspapers have given all of your summer plans in detail,

all the country-houses that are to receive you, all the aristocrats

that are to send invitations to dinner, to meet your ship at

Queenstown."

She colored slightly. "As usual, you are making fun of me. What would

be the use, since you won't believe me, of telling you my actual

reason for backing out of this English visit, and letting my mother

and sister go without me? No, I shan't flatter you by showing my real

self."

"I have seen enough of your real self, thank you. I believe I prefer

the unreal, the imaginary woman I suffered myself to fancy you to be

for a brief space after our acquaintance began."

"Now you are rude," she began, her voice faltering ever so little, but

enough to shake his equilibrium. He made a movement towards her; and

she looked him in the face, trying to keep down the tingle of

satisfaction in her veins. For Gladys's experience of men had taught

her to recognize in a certain phase of incivility the existence of

passion unsubdued. It is only indifference in his sex that can

maintain an armor of polite self-control towards hers.

Grove caught the transient gleam in her eye, and read it aright.

Immediately he was on the defensive, and his manner froze.

"I believe you know my aunt, Mrs. Gervase, in town," he said. "I think

I saw you at one of her dances, in January."

"Mrs. Gervase is the dearest thing," interrupted Miss Eliot, conscious

of blankness in her tone.

"She may be, but it would be a brave person who would tell her so. She

is a delightful, but autocratic, personage; and one of the treats of

the year for me is to get away to her and my uncle for a holiday, when

they have no one else. This is one of those rare occasions. The

cottage people who have come down to Sheepshead have a tacit agreement

to keep to themselves, just now. They are supposed to be getting

their houses to rights, and making gardens, and what not. Mrs. Gervase

says they are really wearing out the past season's gloves, and putting

tonics on their hair, and trying new cures and doses, for which there

was no time before leaving town. The days will pass in doing as we

please, and in the evening we shall dine well (for the Gervases have a

corker of a cook), after which my aunt and uncle and I will take each

a book and a lamp into some nook of the library, and read till

bedtime. You can't imagine a life more to my taste."

"Prohibitory to outsiders, at least," said Gladys. "This is, as I

suppose you mean it to be, awfully alarming to me; for I haven't told

you that I am for three weeks to be Mrs. Gervase's nearest neighbor. I

am going to visit an old friend of my mother's,--Mrs. Luther

Prettyman."

Grove experienced a sensation of dismay. The Prettymans! Château

Calicot, as he had dubbed their new florid "villa," built on the shore

in objectionable proximity to his uncle's house, some three years

back! He remembered the vines planted, the shrubs set out, the rattan

screens hung, the final adjustment of chairs by Mrs. Gervase, in the

attempt to shut out every glimpse of the Prettyman belongings from

their place of daily rendezvous on the veranda at Stoneacres; his

uncle's sly amusement when the cupola of the Prettyman stables, and

the roof of a detestable little sugar-temple tea-house were projected

on their line of vision, spite of all. Mrs. Gervase could not forgive

herself for not having secured that point of land when land was so

ridiculously cheap. On an average of once a day, she reminded her

husband that she had begged him to do so, and he had put it off until

too late.

Mrs. Prettyman, unvisited by Mrs. Gervase for many months after the

red-brown gables of her costly dwelling rose into prominence at

Sheepshead Point, had gradually found her way into quasi-intimacy at

Stoneacres. Mrs. Gervase, protesting that her neighbor was

commonplace, vacuous, a being from whom one could derive nothing more

profitable than the address of a place in town to have one's lace

lampshades made a dollar cheaper than elsewhere, allowed herself, in

time, to take a mild but perceptible interest in Prettyman affairs.

Through force of habit, she had grown accustomed to survey the

Prettyman lodge-gates, in driving, without remarking upon "the

absurdity of gilded finials to iron railings, at a rough, seaside

place like this." Nay, the noses of the Gervase cobs were now not

infrequently turned in through these gilded railings. Mr. and Mrs.

Gervase dined periodically with the Prettymans. The Prettymans

repaired more frequently to Stoneacres. Mrs. Prettyman made capital,

in town, of her friendship with "dear Mrs. Gervase." This, Grove, like

the rest of the world, had come gradually to know and accept. But it

grated on him to hear that the woman who, so far, had furnished his

life its chief feminine influence should be associated in this way

with the mistress of Château Calicot. It belittled his one

passion--now put away as dead, but still his own. This, indeed, set

the crowning touch upon his misfortune of meeting her again.

Chapter III

"My dear boy, you might have knocked me down with a feather," said

Mrs. Gervase, upon capturing her nephew at the wharf and driving away

with him. "Tell me at once what you mean by knowing Gladys Eliot, and

arriving with her in that intimate sort of way, just as I had, with

infinite trouble, succeeded in bluffing the Prettymans with a mere

dinner on Saturday! Now you will be _having_ to call. _You_, of all

people, hitting it off with Gladys Eliot!"

"Give yourself no concern," put in Mr. Gervase, who was driving,

looking back over his shoulder with a beaming smile; "I offer to throw

myself into the breach. A woman as beautiful, as tall, as placid, as

Miss Eliot commands the best homage of my heart. I forewarn you that I

am going desperately into this affair. Such luck never came my way

before."

"Stop at the confectioner's for the macaroons, Henry," said his wife,

ignoring transports. "Alan, you are looking wretched. When I think of

those ruddy, brown cheeks, and the look of vigor you brought out of

your college athletics a few years back, I'm inclined to renounce mind

and go in for muscle exclusively. Oh, that wretched grind of life in

New York that crushes the youth and spirit out of you poor boys that

have to toil for a living! Surely, it isn't _only_ law that's worked

such havoc in those pale, thin cheeks--"

"My dear Agatha, your sympathy would put a well man in his bed," said

Mr. Gervase, whose keen eyes took in more of the actual situation than

did his wife's.

"Oh well!--stop here, please; no, I won't get down, Jonas sees me; he

will be out directly, with the parcel--you must see, Henry, that Alan

has changed, even since--"

"Alan, let me tell you of a bill our friend Jonas, here, who is a bit

of a horse-jockey, as well as local confectioner and pastry-cook,

sent in recently to your aunt. He had been selling her a mate to her

chestnut, and the account ran this way:

"'MRS. H. GERVASE TO I. JONAS, DR.

1 lb. lady-fingers $ 0.30

One horse 250.00

½ lb. cream peppermints 0.20

------

Total, $250.50'"

Grove was glad to cover his various discomforts with a laugh. But he

did not find it easy to elude the vigilance of Mrs. Gervase, who bided

her time until an opportunity presented itself for an uninterrupted

talk with him.

"Stretch yourself out on that bamboo couch, and let me put the pillows

in," she said, when they two adjourned to the veranda, in the twilight

after dinner. "It is such fun to have a boy to cosset once more, with

my own lads at college, and three weeks to wait before I can get Tom

and Louis back from New London after the boat-race."

"You have such an inspired faculty for making men comfortable," Grove

remarked, from the depths of his _bien-être_.

"Custom, I suppose. An only daughter, with a father and three brothers

to wait upon till I married, and a husband and two sons to impose on

me since. I should not know how to handle girls. I like them, of

course,--find them all very well in their way,--but they bother me.

Perhaps it is that there are no old-fashioned girls any more--no young

ones, certainly. They come into the world like Minerva from Jove's

brain. They are so learned, or clever, or worldly-wise, read

everything, see everything, hear everything discussed, have no

illusions--but, there, I can't explain my preference. Men are

captious, obstinate, whimsical, by turns; disappoint one continually

in little things--but in the main they are so broad and big; scatter

nonsense into thin air; are so loyal and unswerving to their beliefs;

know where they stand, and, having made up their minds to action, do

not change."

"In short," remarked Grove, "you are like the little servant-maid in

Cranford, when they told her to hand the potatoes to the ladies first.

'I'll do as you bid me, ma'am, but I like the lads best.' My dearest

auntie, there must be guardian angels specially appointed to look

after our sex, and you are one of them. This is the age and America is

the field for the unchecked efflorescence of young womankind. But when

the conversation takes on this complexion, I feel it to be unfair not

to allow the defendant the assistance of counsel; though, even if

Uncle Henry were here, I am sure we should both be demolished

speedily."

"Never mind Henry," said that gentleman's representative. "He has got

a new letter from a man in London whom he keeps for the purpose of

making him miserable with catalogues of sales of books and papers he

can't afford to buy. But he potters over them, and marks the lists,

and writes back to the man in London, and, as you know, we do manage

to become possessed of much more dear antiquity than the house will

hold or our income warrant. This time, he is buried alive for an hour

to come, for it is about a sale of Sir Philip Francis's letters and

manuscripts at Sotheby's very soon."

"I don't believe the real 'Junius' announcing himself would get me out

of this bamboo chair and away from this deepening of eventide upon the

sea and islands, the afterglow of sunset melting into moonlight, the

soft caressing of the salt air blending with those hidden heliotropes

of yours! Now, dear lady, let's go back to the concrete. I knew, the

moment your eagle eye fell on me this afternoon, you would find out

all that in me is. For so many years I've been telling you my scrapes,

I may as well out with the latest and biggest of them. Two months ago,

I took Gladys Eliot in to dinner at the Sargents'. I kept it from you

in town, for which you'll say I am properly punished. I fell in love

with her, like a schoolboy with green apples, heeding not the danger

of unwholesomeness. After that, I met her when and wherever I could

push my way to her. I thought of her, sleeping and waking; received

from her looks and tones and words that would, as the lady novelists

are so fond of saying, 'tempt an anchorite;' _believed_ in her!"

"My poor child, how wretched!" said Mrs. Gervase, promptly.

"So it proved. Last but not least of the comedy,--I skip the

details,--I was deluded into buttoning myself up in a fluffy,

long-tailed, iron-gray coat that I got in London last spring and had

not had time to wear, put on a bunch of white carnations, and drove

out to one of those inane Claremont teas in my friend Pierre Sargent's

trap, because, forsooth, _she_ asked me. For an hour I suffered

martyrdom in that little greenhouse sort of a veranda, with people

herded together gossiping, and not setting their feet upon the lawn

over the river that they came out to see. Women talked drivel to me,

waiters slopped tea over me, and we walked on slices of buttered

bread. Then _she_ came--on the box-seat of that brute McLaughlin's

drag, having eyes for him only, so that every one talked of it!"

"I remember--and I could not imagine what brought you there. Yes, I

sat down on a little cake and completely ruined my new porcelain-blue

_crépon_--those waiters were very careless. Jolly faded it trying to

take out the spot, and Mathilde had the greatest trouble to match the

stuff. Alan, that man McLaughlin ought to be drummed out of polite

society. The girl who would receive his attentions, let herself be

talked of as likely to be his wife, cannot at heart be nice. When your

dear mother and I were girls, we would not have _looked_ at a big,

vulgar creature like that, simply because he drove four-in-hand and

was known to be rich. He would never have been asked to your

grandfather's table. The materialism of this age takes, to me, no form

more objectionable than the frank acceptance of such as he by women,

old and young."

"Exactly," said Grove, grimly. "And when I met her at his side, she

turned away from him one moment with a banal jest for me, and then

quickly recaptured him, as if fearful he would escape. That, even my

infatuation would not suffer. I turned on my heel, and, until I met

her by chance on the boat to-day, have never seen her since."

"What can have been her reason for not going abroad?" said Mrs.

Gervase, eagerly--a trifle suspiciously.

Grove was silent. In his ear sounded a dulcet voice, murmuring as the

boat neared shore: "Perhaps, when you have consented to feel better

friends with me, you will come and let me tell you _why I stayed_."

"You know, of course, that everybody says she is engaged? Her mother

has hinted it to Mrs. Prettyman. If it be to this McLaughlin, then God

knows you are well rid of her. If that be a blind, Alan dear,--you

know it was always my way with you boys to scold about little things

and let great ones pass,--I shan't add a word to your self-reproach;

but I'll warn you--oh! I won't have the sin on my soul of letting you

go unwarned. That woman, no matter whether she thinks she loves you or

not, would make your misery. The parents of to-day don't trouble

themselves to train up wives for the rank and file of our honest

gentlemen. They create fine ladies, and look about for some one to

take the expense of them off their hands. It is common talk that the

Eliots have been strained to their utmost means to carry their girls

from place to place, with the expectation of making rich marriages.

The beauty and success of this one has apparently blinded those poor

people to the consequences of their folly. The girl has been brought

up to fancy herself of superior clay,--her habits are luxurious, her

wants extravagant.

"More than all, for five years she has been fed on the flatteries of

society. Personal praise is indispensable to her. She has lived and

consorted with the most lavish entertainers of the most reckless

society in our republic. Even supposing that you won her beauty and

graces for your own, what on earth could you expect to offer her in

exchange for what she would give up? My poor, dear lad, I'm talking

platitudes, you think; but you and Tom and Louis shall not be allowed

to wreck your futures upon such as Gladys Eliot, while I have breath

to speak. I'm afraid I think all marriages a mistake for young men. I

know they are, as we measure and value things, in what we call

'fashionable life.' Go out of it, by all means, if you can. To take

_her_ out of it you would find to be quite another matter. And now,

after this long homily, I've one question to put. Answer it, if you

like--if you think I've the right to ask it. After seeing her again

to-day, do you feel there is danger in her proximity?"

"You have certainly torn sentiment to shreds," said Alan, getting up

from amid his cushions and beginning to stride up and down the long

veranda. Mrs. Gervase watched him without further speech. That he did

not again allude to the subject sent her to bed with keen anxiety and

a renewed regret that Mr. Gervase had not taken her advice about

buying that point of land before it fell into the hands of the

Prettymans.

For the two or three days following his arrival at Stoneacres, Grove

made no attempt to see his neighbor's guest. Once, indeed, they

encountered her on horseback, while driving together in a family party

in the buckboard, behind the cobs. Mr. Gervase, who, in his later

enthusiasm about the Junius correspondence, had forgotten his

charmer, asked who was that stunning, pretty girl, and, on being

rallied by his wife, declared his poor sight was at fault, and that he

meant to call on the Prettymans that very day; but Saturday brought

with it the appointed dinner, without other overture from Stoneacres

than cards left by Mrs. Gervase when the ladies were from home.

Grove was hardly surprised when, on descending to the drawing-room in

evening clothes, he found only that very colorless pair of Prettymans.

Miss Eliot, it was alleged, was suffering from too long a ride in the

hot sun of the afternoon to make the effort to come out. He saw in the

countenance of his aunt a look of relief, which she at once proceeded

to mask by unusual suavity to mankind in general, her flattered guests

in particular.

"The worst is over; I am safe," Grove decided. "But I like her all the

better for that womanly holding back. Now, to live down my folly as

best I can."

He threw himself into hard work, and the days passed healthily. Mrs.

Gervase had begun to relax her vigilance, to breathe almost free of

care, when, upon one of his morning rides, ahead of him in a forest

glade, he espied Gladys Eliot, in the saddle, attended by one of the

Prettyman boys, a youngster of thirteen, mounted on a polo pony in

process of "showing off" his and his master's accomplishments.

At the sound behind them, both Gladys and the boy turned to look; and

Grove saw that he could not retreat without a decided lack of dignity.

He therefore rode by them, receiving from Miss Eliot a faint and

chilly nod; from the boy,--an acquaintance of last year,--a more

cordial salutation.

"I say, Mr. Grove, _can't_ Punch take that fallen tree?" cried out the

lad, in shrill treble. "_She_ says it's dangerous, because the bank is

caved. Hold on one minute, and I'll show you he can clear it, bank and

all."

Punch, proving nothing loth, jumped the obstacles in question

gallantly, but on the far side slipped on something, and spilled his

rider among a bed of tall bracken, in which the boy lay, lost to

sight. Both Grove and Gladys were in a minute at his side, shocked at

finding him white and senseless.

"It was not the fall," she said, rapidly. "He has heart-trouble, and

his mother is always anxious about a sudden shock for him. He will

outgrow it probably, the doctors say. Here, you hold him in your arms,

while I get water from that brook. I know what to do, and he will soon

come to himself."

Grove found himself silently obeying her behests. He was struck by her

prompt presence of mind, her deftness, and good sense. "What an

admirable trained nurse is lost to the world in her!" he thought, and,

when all was done, and the boy gave token of returning life, sat

still, content to crush down moss and ferns, awkwardly holding his

burden, while Gladys knelt so close that her breath in speaking fanned

his cheek.

"It wasn't Punch's fault. I've got a big bee buzzing in my head," were

the welcome words they at last heard from the sufferer.

"Yes, I know, Jim dear, but don't talk now till the big bee flies

away," and the boy, closing his eyes, appeared to sleep.

"Lay his head on my lap, and then, if you don't mind riding back and

ordering some sort of a trap, without letting his mother know--"

"I can't leave you here. It is too far from home, and the country

hereabouts is quite bare of dwellings. Nor would I like you to ride so

far alone. There; let him sleep, and we will watch him till he wakes.

No doctor could have treated him more cleverly than you."

"It's the result of a 'First Aid to the Injured' class I went to once,

perhaps. But I always had a knack with ill people," she said, dropping

the deep fringes of her eyes upon damask cheeks.

* * * * *

That evening, Grove could do no less than call to inquire after Master

Jim, who, not much the worse for his attack, kept his adoring mother

in durance at his bedside, while Grove sat watching the opal flushes

die out of a western sky, in company with Gladys. Quite another

Gladys was this, in all save beauty and her dulcet voice, from his

enslaver of town life.

And now, to Mrs. Gervase's ill-concealed dismay, visits, meetings,

rides, boating, began and continued daily. Grove was teaching Miss

Eliot chess, he said, and the other things were what they call upon

the stage "incidental divertisements."

A fortnight of glorious weather had passed thus, when, on the eve of

Grove's return to town and work, he asked Gladys to go out in a boat

with him to watch the sunset on the water.

"Now you have told me there is no reason I may not speak, I can wait

no longer for an answer," he said, as, resting on his oars, he scanned

her face eagerly. "When a man tears his heart out and throws it at a

woman's feet, surely he offers something. But that, you know, is my

all. If you can consent to share the kind of life mine has got to be

for the next five or six years, I think I see daylight beyond. By that

time, your first youth will be gone, you will be forgotten by the

people who court you now, you will be a nobody in their esteem. To me,

you will always be the one woman of the world. You will have the full

love of my heart; and you shall see what that means, when a true man

pours it upon you unrestrained. I don't pretend to be worth it, Heaven

knows. But I do say you have never before been loved by a man like me,

and you know it and feel it thoroughly. It's for you to take or leave

me, accepting consequences."

"What a stand-and-deliver kind of love-making," Gladys tried to say;

but she was deeply stirred. Remaining silent, her eyes filled with

tears; her head drooped towards her breast.

"Gladys!" cried he, exultingly.

"Don't you see, now, the real reason why I could not go abroad?" she

said, smiling on him brightly, and lifting, at the same moment, her

ungloved left hand to put back a loose lock of hair that the wind had

blown across her cheek. Grove, gazing at her with his whole soul in

his eyes, became aware of a ring upon the fourth finger,--a ring of

such conspicuous brilliancy and choice gems as to convey but one

meaning,--and his expression changed.

"Oh! I hate it! I shall give it back!" she exclaimed, a burning blush

settling upon her face. "I did not mean--it was an accident. I hate

it, I tell you! Why do you look at me like that?"

She tore the ring from her hand, and impetuously put it out of sight.

Presently, as Grove, in mechanical fashion, resumed his rowing without

a word, she cried out, passionately:

"Why do you not ask me to explain all the--circumstances of my life

since I saw you last? Why can't you understand that a girl situated as

I am has temptations that at times seem to her irresistible? Need I

mortify myself by telling you that I am _driven_--driven till I feel

as if I would do anything to get rest from eternal lectures about what

a rich marriage has got to do for me--and for others? Yes, you are

right in saying that a man like you never before asked me to marry

him. Because I feel that--because--because--Oh! you are cruel not to

speak--to help me! How can I put into words that I am willing to give

up all--"

It was impossible, facing the rigid coldness of his face, to go on.

She sat in wretched silence till they reached shore, and he gave her

his chilly hand to help her upon the float. Then the touch of her

fingers sent a tremor of relenting into his veins.

"Oh, if I could! If I could! But he too--that other one--believed.

Tell me; he does not still believe in you?"

"I hate him," she said, doggedly. She shivered a little, as the

quickened breeze of evening struck her thinly-clad form.

Grove, clasping her hand, gazed into her eyes with a desperate resolve

to read her heart.

"Let me go--it is no use," she said, turning away from him.

And, with a sigh deep as Fate, he loosened his hold of her--forever.

On Frenchman's Bay

Chapter I

From Maxwell Pollock, Esq., No. -- Fifth Avenue, New York, to Stephen

Cranbrooke, Esq., ---- Club, New York.

"May 30, 189-.

"My dear Cranbrooke:

"You will wonder why I follow up our conversation of last

evening with a letter; why, instead of speaking, I should

write what is left to be said between us two.

"But after a sleepless night, of which my little wife

suspects nothing, I am impelled to confide in you--my oldest

friend, _her_ friend, although you and she have not yet grown

to the comprehension of each other I hoped for when she

married me three years ago--a secret that has begun to weigh

heavy upon my soul.

"I do not need to remind you that, since our college days,

you have known me subject to fits of moodiness and depression

upon which you have often rallied me. How many times you

have said that a fellow to whom Fate had given health,

strength, opportunity, and fortune--and recently the treasure

of a lovely and loving wife--has no business to admit the

word 'depression' into his vocabulary!

"This is true. I acknowledge it, as I have a thousand times

before. I am a fool, a coward, to shrink from what is before

me. But I was still more of a fool and a coward when I

married her. For her sake, the prospect of my death before

this summer wanes impels me to own to you my certainty that

my end is close at hand.

"In every generation of our family since the old fellow who

came over from England and founded us on Massachusetts soil,

the oldest son has been snatched out of life upon the

threshold of his thirtieth year. I carried into college with

me an indelible impression of the sudden and distressing

death of my father, at that period of his prosperous career,

and of the wild cry of my widowed mother when she clasped me

to her breast, and prayed Heaven might avert the doom from

me.

"Everything that philosophy, science, common sense, could

bring to the task of arguing me out of a belief in the

transmission of this sentence of a higher power to me, has

been tried. I have studied, travelled, lived, enjoyed myself

in a rational way; have loved and won the one woman upon

earth for me, have revelled in her wifely tenderness.

"I have tried to do my duty as a man and a citizen. In all

other respects, I believe myself to be entirely rational,

cool-headed, unemotional; but I have never been able to down

that spectre. He is present at every feast; and, although in

perfectly good health, I resolved yesterday to put the

question to a practical test. I called at the office of an

eminent specialist, whom I had never met, although doubtless

he knew my name, as I knew his.

"Joining the throng of waiting folk in Dr. ----'s outer

office, I turned over the leaves of the last number of

_Punch_, with what grim enjoyment of its _menu_ of jocularity

you may conceive. When my turn came, I asked for a complete

physical examination. But the doctor got no farther than my

heart before I was conscious of awakening interest on his

part. When the whole business was over, he told me frankly

that in what he was pleased to call 'a magnificent physique,'

there was but one blemish,--a spot upon the ripe side of a

peach,--a certain condition of the heart that 'might or might

not' give serious trouble in the future.

"'Might or might not'! How I envied the smooth-spoken man of

science his ability to say these words so glibly! While I

took his medical advice,--that, between us, was not worth a

straw, and he knew it, and I knew it,--I was thinking of

Ethel. I saw her face when she should know the worst; and I

became, immediately, an abject, cringing, timorous thing,

that crept out of the doctor's office into the spring

sunshine, wondering why the world was all a-cold.

"Here's where the lash hits me: I should never have married

Ethel; I should, knowing my doom, have married no one but

some commonplace, platitudinous creature, whom the fortune I

shall leave behind me would have consoled. But Ethel!

high-strung, ardent, simple-hearted, worshipping me far

beyond my deserts! Why did I condemn her, poor girl, to what

is so soon to come?

"On the fifteenth day of the coming August, I shall have

reached thirty years. Before that day, the blow will fall

upon her, and it is my fault. You know, Cranbrooke, that I do

not fear death. What manly soul fears death? It is only to

the very young, or to the very weak of spirit, the King

appears in all his terrors. Having expected him so long and

so confidently, I hope I may meet him with a courageous

front. But Ethel! Ethel!

"She will be quite alone with me this summer. Her mother and

sisters have just sailed for the other side, and I confess I

am selfish enough to crave her to myself in the last hours.

But some one she must have to look after her, and whom can I

trust like you? I want you to promise to come to us to spend

your August holiday; to be there, in fact, when--

"In the meantime, there must be no suggestion of what I

expect. She, least of all, must suspect it. I should like to

go out to the unknown with her light-hearted, girlish laugh

ringing in my ears.

"When we meet, as usual, you will oblige me by saying nothing

of this letter or its contents. By complying with this

request, you will add one more--a final one, dear old man--to

the long list of kindnesses for which I am your debtor; and,

believe me, dear Cranbrooke,

"Yours, always faithfully,

"MAXWELL POLLOCK."

"Good heaven!" exclaimed Stephen Cranbrooke, dropping the sheet as if

it burnt him, and sitting upright and aghast. "So _this_ is the cranny

in Pollock's brain where I have never before been able to penetrate."

Later that day, Mr. Cranbrooke received another epistle, prefaced by

the house address of the Maxwell Pollocks.

"Dear Mr. Cranbrooke," this letter ran, "Max tells me he has

extended to you an invitation to share our solitude _à deux_

in your August holiday. I need hardly say that I endorse

this heartily; and I hope you will not regret to learn that,

instead of going, as usual, to our great, big, isolated

country-place in New Hampshire, I have persuaded Max to take

a cottage on the shore of Frenchman's Bay, near Bar

Harbor,--but not too near that gay resort,--where he can have

his sailboat and canoe, and a steam-launch for me to get

about in. They say the sunsets over the water there are

adorable, and Max has an artist's soul, as you know, and will

delight in the picturesque beauty of it all.

"I want to tell you, confidentially, that I have fancied a

change of air and scene might do him good this year. He is

certainly not ill; but is, as certainly, not quite himself. I

suppose you will think I am a little goose for saying so; but

I believe if anything went wrong with Max, I could never

stand up against it. And there is no other man in the world,

than you, whom I would ask to help me to find out what it

really is that worries him,--whether ill-fortune, or

what,--certainly not ill-health, for he is a model of

splendid vigor, as everybody knows, my beautiful husband!"

"This is what she calls pleasant reading for me," said plain, spare

Stephen Cranbrooke, with a whimsical twist of his expressive mouth.

"At any rate," he read, resuming, "you and I will devote

ourselves to making it nice for him up there. No man, however

he loves his wife, can afford to do altogether without men's

society; and it is so hard for me to get Max to go into

general company, or to cultivate intimacy with any man but

you!

"There is a bachelor's wing to the cottage we have taken,

with a path leading direct to the wharf where the boats are

moored; and this you can occupy by yourself, having breakfast

alone, as Max and I are erratic in that respect. We shall

have a buckboard for the ponies, and our saddle-horses, with

a horse for you to ride; and we shall pledge each other not

to accept a single invitation to anybody's house, unless it

please us to go there.

"Not less than a month will we take from you, and I wish it

might be longer. Perhaps you may like to know there is no

other man Max would ask, and I should want, to be 'one of us'

under such circumstances.

"Always cordially yours,

"ETHEL POLLOCK."

"I asked her for bread, and she gave me a stone," he quoted, with a

return of the whimsical expression. "Well! neither he nor she has ever

suspected my infatuation. I am glad she wrote as she did, though, for

it makes the watch I mean to set over Max easier. After looking at his

case in every aspect, I am convinced there is a remedy, if I can only

find it."

A knock, just then, at the door of Mr. Cranbrooke's comfortable

bachelor sitting-room was followed by the appearance inside of it of a

man, at sight of whom Cranbrooke's careworn and puzzled countenance

brightened perceptibly.

"Ha! Shepard!" he said, rising to bestow on the newcomer a hearty grip

of the hand. "Did you divine how much I wanted to talk to a fellow who

has pursued exactly your line of study, and one, too, who, more than

any other I happen to be acquainted with, knows just how far mind may

be made to influence matter in preventing catastrophe, when--but,

there, what am I to do? It's another man's affair,--a confidence that

must be held inviolable."

"Give me the case hypothetically," said Shepard, dropping, according

to custom, into a leathern chair out at elbows but full of comfort to

the spine of reclining man, while accepting one of Cranbrooke's galaxy

of famously tinted pipes.

"I think I will try to do so," rejoined his friend, "since upon it

hangs the weal or woe of two people, in their way more interesting to

me than any others in the world."

"I am all ears," said Dr. Shepard, fixing upon Cranbrooke the full

gaze of a pair of deep-set orbs that had done their full share of

looking intelligently into the mystery of cerebral vagaries.

Cranbrooke, as well as he could, told the gist of Pollock's letter,

expressing his opinion that to a man of the writer's temperament the

conviction of approaching death was as good as an actual

death-warrant.

Shepard, who asked nothing better than an intelligent listener when

launched upon his favorite theories, kept the floor for fifteen

minutes in a brilliant offhand discourse full of technicalities

intermingled with sallies of strong original thought, to which

Cranbrooke listened, as men in such a case are wont to do, in

fascinated silence.

"But this is generalizing," the doctor interrupted himself at last.

"What you want is a special discussion of your friend's condition. Of

course, not knowing his physical state, I can't pretend to say how

long it is likely to be before that heart-trouble will pull him up

short. But the merest tyro knows that men under sentence from

heart-disease have lived their full span. It is the obsession of his

mind, the invasion of his nerves by that long-brooding idea, that

bothers me. I am inclined to think the odds are he will go mad if he

doesn't die."

"Good God, Shepard!" came from his friend's pale lips.

"Isn't that what _you_ were worrying about when I came in? Yes--you

needn't answer. You think so, too; and we are not posing as wise men

when we arrive at that simple conclusion."

"What on earth are we to do for him?"

"I don't know, unless it be to distract his mind by some utterly

unlooked-for concatenation of circumstances. Get his wife to make love

to another man, for instance."

"Shepard, you forget; these are my nearest friends."

"And you forget I am a sceptic about a love between the sexes that

cannot be alienated," answered the little doctor, coolly.

Cranbrooke had indeed, for a moment, lost sight of his confidant's

dark page of life--forgotten the experience that, years ago, had

broken up the doctor's home, and made of him a scoffer against the

faith of woman. He was silent, and Shepard went on with no evidence of

emotion.

"When that happened to _me_, it was a dynamite explosion that

effectually broke up the previous courses of thought within me; and,

naturally, the idea occurs to me as a specific for the case of your

melancholy friend. Seriously, Cranbrooke, you could do worse than

attack him from some unexpected quarter, in some point where he is

acutely sensitive--play upon him, excite him, distract him, and so

carry him past the date he fears."

"How could I?" asked Cranbrooke of himself.

There was another knock; and, upon Cranbrooke's hearty bidding to come

in, there entered no less a person than the subject of their

conversation.

Even the astute Shepard finished his pipe and took his leave without

suspecting that the manly, healthy, clear-eyed, and animated Maxwell

Pollock had anything in common with the possessed hero of Cranbrooke's

story. Cranbrooke, who had dreaded a reopening of the subject of

Pollock's letter, was infinitely relieved to find it left untouched.

The visit, lasting till past midnight, was one of a long series dating

back to the time when they were undergraduates at the university.

There had never been a break in their friendship. The society of

Cranbrooke, after that of his own wife, was to Pollock ever the most

refreshing, the most inspiring to high and manly thought. They talked,

now, upon topics grave and gay, without hinting at the shadow

overlying all. Pollock was at his best; and his friend's heart went

out to him anew in a wave of that sturdy affection "passing the love

of woman"--rare, perhaps, in our material money-getting community,

but, happily, still existing among true men.

When the visitor arose to take leave, he said in simple fashion: "Then

I may count on you, Cranbrooke, to stand by us this summer?"

"Count on me in all things," Cranbrooke answered; and the two shook

hands, and Pollock went his way cheerily, as usual.

"Is this a dream?" Cranbrooke asked himself, when left alone. "Can it

be possible that sane, splendid fellow is a victim of pitiful

hallucination, or that he is really to be cut off in the golden summer

of his days. No, it can't be; it must not be. He must be, as Shepard

says, 'pulled up short' by main force. At any cost, I must save him.

But how? _Anyhow!_ Max must be made to forget himself--even if I am

the sacrifice! By George! this _is_ a plight I'm in! And Ethel, who

adores the ground he walks upon! I shall probably end by losing both

of them, worse luck!"

The morning had struggled through Cranbrooke's window-blinds before he

stirred from his fit of musing and went into his bedroom for a few

hours of troubled sleep.

Chapter II

Mr. and Mrs. Pollock took possession of their summer abiding-place on

a glorious day of refulgent June, such as, in the dazzling atmosphere

of Mount Desert Island, makes every more southerly resort on our

Atlantic coast seem dull by comparison. To greet them, they found a

world of fresh-washed young birches sparkling in the sun; of

spice-distilling evergreens, cropping up between gray rocks; of

staring white marguerites, and huge, yellow, satin buttercups, ablow

in all the clearings; of crisp, young ferns and blue iris, unfolding

amid the greenery of the wilder bits of island; haunts that were soon,

in turn, to be blushing pink with a miracle of brier-roses.

And what a charmed existence followed! In the morning, they awoke to

see the water, beneath their windows, sparkle red in the track of the

rising sun; the islets blue-black in the intense glow. All day they

lived abroad in the virgin woods, or on the bay in their canoe. And,

after sunsets of radiant beauty, they would fall asleep, lulled by the

lapping of little waves upon the rock girdle that bound their lawn. It

was all lovely, invigorating, healthful. Of the cottagers who composed

the summer settlement, only those had arrived there who, like the

Pollocks, wanted chiefly to be to themselves.

In these early days of the season, Max and Ethel liked to explore on

horseback the bosky roads that thread the island, startling the mother

partridge, crested and crafty, from her nest, or sending her, in

affected woe, in a direction to lead one away from where her brood was

left; lending themselves to the pretty comedy with smiles of sympathy.

Or else, they would rifle the ferny combs of dew-laden blossoms, all

the while hearkening to the spring chatter of birds that did their

best to give utterance to what wind-voice and leaf-tone failed to

convey to human comprehension. Then, emerging from green arcades, our

equestrians would find themselves, now, in some rocky haunt of

primeval solitude facing lonely hilltops and isolated tarns; now,

gazing upon a stretch of laughing sea framed by a cleft in the

highlands.

Another day, they would climb on foot to some higher mountain top, and

there, whipped by tonic breezes, stand looking down upon the wooded

waves of lesser summits, inland; and, seaward, to the broad Atlantic,

with the ships; and, along the coast, to the hundreds of fiords, with

their burden of swirling waters!

Coming home from these morning expeditions with spirit refreshed and

appetite sharpened, it was their custom to repair, after luncheon, to

the water, and by the aid of sails, steam, or their own oars or

paddles, cut the sapphire bay with tracks of argent brightness, or

linger for many a happy hour in the green shadow of the sylvan shore.

The month of July was upon the wane before husband and wife seemingly

aroused to the recollection that their idyl was about to be

interrupted by the invasion of a third person. Ethel, indeed, had

pondered regretfully upon the coming of Cranbrooke for some days

before she spoke of it to her husband; while Max!--

The real purpose of Cranbrooke's visit, dismissed from Pollock's mind

with extraordinary success during the earlier weeks of their stay upon

the island, had by now assumed, in spite of him, the suggestion of a

death-watch set upon a prisoner. He strove not to think of it. He

refrained from speaking of it. So delicious had been to him the draft

of Ethel's society, uninterrupted by outsiders, in this Eden of the

eastern sea; so perfect their harmony of thought and speech; so

charming her beauty, heightened by salt air and outdoor exercise and

early hours, Max wondered if the experience had been sent to him as an

especial allowance of mercy to the condemned. To the very day of

Cranbrooke's arrival, even after a trap had been sent to the evening

boat to fetch him, the husband and wife refrained from discussing the

expected event.

It was the hour before sunset, following a showery afternoon; and,

standing together upon their lawn to look at the western sky, Max

proposed to her to go out with him for awhile in the canoe. They ran

like children, hand in hand, to the wharf, where, lifting the frail

birch-bark craft from its nest, he set it lightly afloat. Ethel,

stepping expertly into her place, was followed by Max, who, in his

loose cheviot shirt, barearmed and bareheaded, flashing his red-dyed

paddle in the clear water, seemed to her the embodiment of manly grace

and strength.

They steered out into the bay; and, as they paused to look back upon

the shore, the glory of the scene grew to be unspeakable. Behind the

village, over which the electric globes had not yet begun to gleam,

towered Newport, a rampart of glowing bronze, arched by a rainbow

printed upon a brooding cloud. Elsewhere, the multicolored sky flamed

with changing hues, reflected in a sea of glass. And out of this sea

arose wooded islands; and, far on the opposite shore of the mainland,

the triple hills had put on a vestment of deepest royal purple.

"I like to look away from the splendor, to the side that is in

shadow," said Ethel. "See, along that eastern coast, how the

reflected sunlight is flashed from the windows on that height, and the

blue columns of hearth smoke arise from the chimneys! Doesn't it make

you somehow rejoice that, when the color fades, as it soon must, we

shall still have our home and the lights we make for ourselves to go

back to?"

There was a long silence.

"What has set you to moralizing, dear?" he asked, trying to conceal

that he had winced at her innocent question.

"Oh! nothing. Only, when one is supremely happy, as I am now, one is

afraid to believe it will endure. How mild the air is to-night! Look

over yonder, Max; the jewelled necklace of Sorrento's lights has begun

to palpitate. Let us paddle around that fishing-schooner before we

turn."

"Ethel, you are crying."

"Am I? Then it is for pure delight. I think, Max, we had never so fine

an inspiration as that of coming to Mount Desert. My idea of the place

has always been of a lot of rantipole gaieties, and people crowded in

hotels. While this--it is a little like Norway, and a great deal like

Southern Italy. Besides, when before have we been so completely to

ourselves as in that gray stone lodge by the waterside, with its hood

of green ivy, and the green hill rising behind it? Let us come every

year; better still, let us build ourselves a summer home upon these

shores."

"Should you like me to buy the cottage we now have, so that you can

keep it to come to when you like?"

"When _you_ like, you mean. Max, it can't be you have caught cold in

this soft air, but your voice sounds a little hoarse. Well! I suppose

we must go in, for Mr. Cranbrooke will be arriving very soon."

Ethel's sigh found an echo in one from her husband, at which the

April-natured young woman laughed.

"There, it's out! We don't want even Cranbrooke, do we? To think the

poor, dear man's coming should have been oppressing both of us, and

neither would be first to acknowledge it! After all, Max darling, it

is your fault. It was you who proposed Cranbrooke. I knew, all along,

that I'd be better satisfied with you alone. Now, we must just take

the consequence of your overhasty hospitality, and make him as happy

as we are--if we can."

"If we can!" said Max; and she saw an almost pathetic expression drift

across his face--an expression that bewildered her.

"Why do you look so rueful over him?"

"I am thinking, perhaps, how hard it will be for him to look at

happiness through another man's eyes."

"Nonsense! Mr. Cranbrooke is quite satisfied with his own lot. He is

one of those self-contained men who could never really love, I think,"

said Mrs. Pollock, conclusively.

"He has in some way failed to show you his best side. He has the

biggest, tenderest heart! I wish there was a woman fit for him,

somewhere. But Stephen will never marry, now, I fear. She who gets him

will be lucky--he is a very tower of strength to those who lean on

him."

"As far as strength goes, Max, you could pick him up with your right

hand. It may be silly, but I do love your size and vigor; when I see

you in a crowd of average men, I exult in you. Imagine any woman who

could get _you_ wanting a thin, sallow person like Cranbrooke!"

"He can be fascinating, when he chooses," said Max.

"The best thing about Cranbrooke, Max, is that he loves you," answered

his wife, wilfully.

"Then I want you, henceforth, to try to like him better, dear; to like

him for himself. He is coming in answer to my urgent request; and I

feel certain the more you know of him, the more you will trust in him.

At any rate, give him as much of your dear self as I can spare, and

you will be sure of pleasing me."

"Max, now I believe it is you who are crying because you are too

happy. I never heard such a solemn cadence in your voice. I don't want

a minute of this lovely time to be sad. When we were in town, I

fancied you were down--about something; now, you are yourself again;

let me be happy without alloy. I am determined to be the _cigale_ of

the French fable, and dance and sing away the summer. Between us, we

may even succeed in making that sober Cranbrooke a reflection of us

both. There, now, the light has faded; quicken your speed; we must go

ashore and meet him. See, the moon has risen--O Max darling, to please

me, paddle in that silver path!"

This was the Ethel her husband liked best to see,--a child in her

quick variations of emotion, a woman in steadfast tenderness.

Conquering his own strongly excited feeling, he smiled on her

indulgently; and when, their landing reached, Cranbrooke's tall form

was descried coming down the bridge to receive them, he was able to

greet his friend with an unshadowed face.

The three went in to dinner, which Ethel, taking advantage of the

soft, dry air, had ordered to be served in a _loggia_ opening upon the

water. The butler, a sympathetic Swede, had decked their little round

table with wild roses in shades of shell-pink, deepening to crimson.

The candles, burning under pale-green shades, were scarcely stirred by

the faint breeze. Hard, indeed, to believe that, upon occasion, that

couchant monster, the bay, could break up into huge waves, ramping

shoreward, leaping over the rock wall, upon the lawn, up to the

_loggia_ floor, and there beat for admission to the house, upon

storm-shutters hastily erected to meet its onslaught!

To-night, a swinging lantern of wrought iron sent down through its

panels of opal glass a gentle illumination upon three well-pleased

faces gathered around the dainty little feast. Ethel, who, in the days

of gipsying, would allow no toilets of ceremony, retained her

sailor-hat, with the boat-gown of white serge, in which her infantile

beauty showed to its best advantage. Cranbrooke was dazzled by the new

bloom upon her face, the new light in her eye.

Pollock, too, tall, broad-shouldered, blonde, clean-shaven save for a

mustache, his costume of white flannel enhancing duly the transparent

healthiness of his complexion, looked wonderfully well--so Cranbrooke

thought and said.

"Does he not?" cried Ethel, exultingly. "I knew you would think so.

Max has been reconstructed since we have lived outdoors in this

wonderful air. Just wait, Mr. Cranbrooke, till we have done with you,

and you, too, will be blossoming like the rose."

"I, that was a desert, you would say," returned Cranbrooke, smiling.

Involuntarily it occurred to him to contrast his own outer man with

that of his host. Somehow or other, the fond, satisfied look Ethel

bestowed upon her lord aroused anew in their friend an old, teasing

spirit of envy of nature's bounty to another, denied to him.

As the moon transmuted to silver the stretch of water east of them,

and the three sat over the table, with its _carafes_ and decanters and

egg-shell coffee-cups, till the flame of a cigar-lighter died utterly

in its silver beak, their talk touching all subjects pleasantly,

Cranbrooke persuaded himself he had indeed been dreaming a bad dream.

The journey thither, of which every mile had been like the link of a

chain, was, for him, after all, a mere essay at pleasure-seeking. He

had come on to spend a jolly holiday with a couple of the nicest

people in the world--nothing more! His fancies, his plans, his

devices, conceived in sore distress of spirit, were relegated to the

world of shadows, whence they had been summoned.

When Ethel left the two men for the night, and the butler came out to

collect his various belongings, Pollock rose and bade Cranbrooke

accompany him to see the mountains from the other side of the house.

Here, turning their backs on the enchantment of the water view, they

looked up at an amphitheatre of hills, dominated in turn by rocky

summits gleaming in the moon. But for the lap of the water upon the

coast, the stir of a fresh wind arising to whisper to the leaves of a

clump of birches, Mother Earth around them was keeping silent vigil.

"What a perfect midsummer night!" said Cranbrooke, drawing a deep

breath of enjoyment. "After the heat and dust of that three hundred

miles of railway journey from Boston, this _is_ a reward!"

"We chose better than we knew the scene of my euthanasia," answered

Pollock, without a tremor in his voice.

A thrill ran through Cranbrooke's veins. He could have sworn the air

had suddenly become chill, as if an iceberg had floated into the bay.

He tried to respond, and found himself babbling words of weak

conventionality; and all the while the soul of the strong man within

him was saying: "It must not be. It shall not be. If I live, I shall

rescue you from this ghastly phantom."

"Don't think it necessary to give words to what you feel for me," said

Pollock, smiling slightly. "You are not making a brilliant success of

it, old man, and you'd better stop. And don't suppose I mean to

continue to entertain my guest by lugubrious discussions of my

approaching _finale_. Only, it is necessary that you should know

several things, since the event may take us unawares. I have made you

my executor, and Ethel gets all there is; that's the long and short of

my will, properly signed, attested, and deposited with my lawyer

before I left town. Ethel's mother and sisters will be returning to

Newport in a fortnight, and they will, no doubt, come to the poor

child when she needs them. There _must_ be some compensation for a

decree of this kind, and I have it in the absolute bliss I have

enjoyed since we came here. That child-wife of mine is the most

enchanting creature in the world. If I were not steeped in

selfishness, I could wish she loved me a little less. But all emotions

pass, and even Ethel's tears will dry."

"Good Heaven, Max, you are talking like a machine! One would think

this affair of yours certain. Who are you, to dare to penetrate the

mystery of the decrees of your Maker--"

"None of that, if you please, Cranbrooke," interrupted Pollock; "I

have fought every inch of the way along there, by myself, and have

been conquered by my conviction. Did I tell you that my father, before

me, struggled with similar remonstrances from _his_ friends? The

parsons even brought bell and book to exorcise his tormentor--and all

in vain. He was snuffed out in full health, as I shall be, and why

should I whine at following him? Come, my dear fellow, I am keeping

you out of a capital bed, from sleep you must require. There's but one

matter in which you can serve me,--take Ethel into your care. Win her

fullest confidence; let her know that when I am not there, _you will

be_."

Cranbrooke went to his room, but not to rest. When his friends next

saw him, he was returning from a solitary cruise about the bay in a

catboat Pollock kept at anchor near their wharf.

"Why, Mr. Cranbrooke!" cried Ethel, lightly. "The boatman says you

have been out ever since daybreak. But that we espied the boat tacking

about beyond that far rock, I should have been for sending in search

of you."

"Cranbrooke is an accomplished sailor," said Max. "But just now,

breakfast's the thing for him, Ethel. See that he is well fed, while I

stroll out to the stable and look after the horses."

As he crossed the greensward, Ethel's gaze followed him, till he

disappeared behind a clump of trees. Then she turned to her guest.

"Let me serve you with all there is, until they bring you something

hot," she said, with her usual half-flippant consideration of him. "Do

you know you look very seedy? I have, for my part, no patience with

these early morning exploits."

"If you could have seen the world awakening as I saw it, this morning,

you would condone my offence," he answered, a curious expression Ethel

thought she had detected in his eyes leaving them unclouded, as he

spoke.

Chapter III

No one who knew Stephen Cranbrooke well could say he did anything by

halves. In the days that followed his arrival at Mount Desert, Max

Pollock saw that his friend was lending every effort to the task of

establishing friendly relations with his wife. From her first

half-petulant, half-cordial manner with him,--the manner of a woman

who tries to please her husband by recognition of the claim of his

nearest male intimate,--Ethel had passed to the degree of manifestly

welcoming Cranbrooke's presence, both when with her husband and

without him.

As Max saw this growing friendship, he strove to increase it by

absenting himself from Ethel, instead of, as heretofore, spending

every hour he could wring from the society of other folk, in the light

of her smiles. His one wish that Ethel might be insensibly led to

find another than himself companionable; that she might be, though

never so little, weaned from her absolute dependence upon him for

daily happiness, before the blow fell that was to plunge her in

darkest night, kept him content in these acts of self-sacrifice.

But, as was inevitable, his manner toward them both underwent a

trifling change. His old buoyancy of affection was succeeded by a

quiet, at times wistful, recognition of the fact that his friend and

his wife had now found another interest besides himself. But he was

proud to see Cranbrooke had justified his boast that he "could be

fascinating when he chose;" and he was glad to think Cranbrooke at

last realized the charm Ethel, apparently a mere bright bubble upon

the tide of society, had to a man of intellect and heart. "It was as I

said," the poor fellow repeated to himself, trying to find comfort in

the realization of his prescience; and when Ethel, alone with him,

would break into pæans of his friend, and wonder how she could have

been so blind to the "real man" before, Max answered her loyally that

his highest wish for both of them was at last gratified.

Then the day came when there was question of a companion for Ethel in

a sailing-party to which she had accepted an invitation--and for Max

was destined an emotion something like distaste.

They were sitting over the breakfast table,--a meal no longer

exclusive to wife and husband, as had been agreed, but shared by

Cranbrooke with due regularity,--when Ethel broached the subject.

"You know, Max, I was foolish enough to promise that irresistible Mrs.

Clayton--when she would not take no for an answer, yesterday,--that

_some_ of us would join her water party to-day. It is to be an idle

cruise, with no especial aim--luncheon on board their schooner-yacht;

the sort of thing I knew would bore you to extinction--being huddled

up with the same people half the day."

"It is the opening wedge--if you go to this, you will be booked for

others, that's all," said Max, preparing to say, in a martyrized way,

that he would accompany her, if she liked.

"Oh, I knew you would feel that; and so I told her she must really

excuse my husband, but that I had no doubt Mr. Cranbrooke would accept

with pleasure. You see, Mr. Cranbrooke, what polite inaccuracies you

are pledged by friendship to sustain."

"I _will_ go with pleasure," Stephen said, with what Max thought

almost unnecessary readiness.

"Bravo!" cried Ethel. "This is the hero's spirit. And so, Max dear,

you will have a long day to yourself while I am experimenting in

fashionable pleasuring, and Mr. Cranbrooke is representing you in

keeping an eye on me."

"You will, of course, be at home to dinner?" said her husband.

"Surely. Unless breezes betray us, and we are driven to support

exhausted nature upon hardtack and champagne; for, of course, all of

the Claytons' luncheon will be eaten up, and there are no stores

aboard a craft like that. Will you order the buckboard for ten, dear?

We rendezvous at the boat-wharf. And, as there is no telling when we

shall be in, don't trouble to send to meet me. Mr. Cranbrooke and I

will pick up a trap to return in."

Max saw them off in the buckboard; and, as Ethel turned at some little

distance and looked back at him, where he still stood on the gravel

before their vine-wreathed portal, waving her hand with a charming

grace, then settling again to a _tête-à-tête_ with Cranbrooke, he felt

vaguely resentful at being left behind.

The clear, dazzling atmosphere, the sense of youthful vitality in his

being, made him repel the idea of exclusion from any function of the

animated world. He almost thought Ethel should have given him a chance

to say whether or no he would accompany her. Was it not, upon her

part, even a little bit--a _very_ little bit, lacking in proper wifely

feeling, to be so prompt in dispensing with his society, to accept

that of others for a whole, long, bright summer's day of pleasuring?

This suggestion he put away from him as quickly as it came. He was

like a spoiled child, he said to himself, who does not expect to be

taken at his word. Ethel well knew his dislike of gossiping groups of

idle people; equally well she remembered, no doubt, his frequent

requests that she would mingle more with the world, take more pleasure

on her own account. And Cranbrooke,--dear old Cranbrooke,--of course

he was ready to punish himself by going off on such a party, when it

was an opportunity to serve his friend!

So Max put his discontent away, and, mounting his horse, went off

alone for a ride half around the island, lunching at Northeast Harbor,

and returning, through devious ways, by nightfall.

Restored to healthy enjoyment of all things by his day in the saddle,

he turned into the avenue leading to their house, buoyed up by the

sweet hope of Ethel returned--Ethel on the watch for him. Already, he

saw in fancy the gleam of her jaunty white yachting-costume between

the tubs of flowering hydrangeas ranged on either side the walk before

their door. The lamps inside--the "home lights," of which she had once

fondly spoken to him--were already lighted. She would, perhaps, be

worrying at his delay. He quickened his speed, and rode down the

avenue to the house at a brisk trot. The groom, who, from the stable,

had heard the horse's feet, started up out of the shrubbery to meet

him. But there was no other indication of a watch upon the movements

of the master of the house.

"Mrs. Pollock has not returned, then?" he asked, conscious of

blankness in his tone.

"No, sir; not yet. Our orders were, not to send for her, sir, as there

was no knowing when the party would get in."

"Yes, the breeze has pretty much died out since sunset," said Pollock,

endeavoring to mask his disappointment by commonplace.

He went indoors; and the house, carefully arranged though it was, with

flowers and furniture disposed by expert hands to greet the returning

of the master, seemed to him dull and chill. He ordered a cup of tea

for himself, and, bending down, put a match to the little fire of

birch-wood always kept laid upon the hearth of their picturesque hall

sitting-room.

In a moment, the curling wreathes of pale azure that arose upon the

pyre of silvery-barked logs was succeeded by a generous flame. The

peculiarly sweet flavor of the burning birch was distilled upon the

air. Sipping the cup of tea, as he stood in his riding-clothes before

the fire, Max felt a consoling warmth invade his members and expand

his heart.

"They will be in directly," he said; "and, by George, I shall be as

ready for my dinner as they for theirs."

In one corner of the hall stood a tall, slender-necked vase, where he

had that morning watched Ethel arranging a sheaf of goldenrod with

brown-seeded marsh-grasses,--a combination her touch had made

individual and artistic to a striking degree. He recalled how, as she

had finished it, she looked around, calling him and Stephen from their

newspapers to admire her handiwork. He, the husband, had admired it

lazily from his divan of cushions in the corner. Cranbrooke had gone

over to stand beside his hostess, and thence they had passed, still in

close conversation, out to the grassy terrace above the sea.

Now, why should this recollection awaken in Max Pollock a new sense

of the feeling he had been doing his best to dispose of all day? He

could not say; but there it was, to prick him with its invisible

sting. Then, too, the dinner-hour was past, and he was hungry.

He went out upon the veranda at the rear, and surveyed the expanse of

water. Far off, between the electric ball that hung over the wharf of

the village, and the point of Bar Island, opposite, he saw a bridge of

lights from yachts of all sorts, with which the harbor was now full.

He fancied a little moving star of light, that seemed to creep beneath

the large ones, might be the Claytons' boat on her return, and, after

another interval of watching, called up a wharf authority by

telephone, and asked if the _Lorelei_ was in.

"Not yet, sir," was the reply. "Probably caught out when the wind

fell. Will let you know the minute they are in sight." With which

assurance Mr. Pollock was finally driven by the pangs of natural

appetite to sit down alone to a cheerless meal.

There was a message by telephone, as he finished his repast. The

_Lorelei_ was in, and Mrs. Pollock desired to speak with her husband.

"We're all right," Ethel's voice said, "and I hope you haven't been

worried. They _insist_ on our going to dinner at a restaurant, and, of

course, you understand, I can't spoil the fun by refusing. _Couldn't_

you come down and meet us?"

His first impulse was to say yes; but a second thought withheld him.

He gave her a pleasant answer, however, bidding her enjoy herself

without thought of him, and adding: "Cranbrooke will look out for you

and bring you home."

It was quite ten o'clock when they arrived at the cottage, Ethel in

high spirits, flushed with the excitement of a merry day, full of

chatter over people and things Max had no interest in, appealing to

Cranbrooke to enjoy her retrospects with her. She was "awfully sorry"

about having kept Max from his dinner; "awfully sorry" not to have

come home at once, but there was no getting out of the impromptu

dinner; and, of course, they had to wait for it; and she was the

first, after dinner, to make the move to go; Mr. Cranbrooke would

certify to that.

"I don't need any certification, dear," said Max, gently; but he did

not smile. Cranbrooke, who sat with him after sleepy Ethel had retired

from the scene, felt his heart wrung at thought of certain things that

never entered into Ethel's little head. But he made no effort to

dispel the cloud that had settled over his friend's face.

By and by, Cranbrooke, too, said good-night, and went off into his

wing, and Max was left alone with his cigar.

The day on the water had verified Max's prediction that it would prove

"an opening wedge." Ethel, caught in the tide of the season's

gaieties, found herself impelled from one entertainment to the other;

their cottage was invaded by callers, their little informal dinners

were transformed into banquets of ceremony, as choice and more lively

than those of their conventional life in town. The only persons really

satisfied by the change of habits in the house were the servants,

who, like all artists, require a public to set the seal upon their

worth.

Max, bewildered, found himself sometimes accompanying his wife to her

parties; oftener--struck with the ghastly inappropriateness of his

presence in such haunts--stopping at home and deputing to Cranbrooke

the escort of his wife. To his surprise, he perceived that Cranbrooke

was not only ready, but eager, on all occasions, to carry Ethel away

from him. But then, of course, this was precisely what he had wished.

And Ethel, who lost no opportunity to tell Max how "good," how

"lovely," Cranbrooke had been to her, was she not carrying out to the

letter her husband's wishes? He observed, moreover, that Ethel was

even more impressed than he had expected her to be with that quality

of "fascination." Cranbrooke's mind was like a beautiful new country

into which she was making excursions, she said once; and Max, after a

moment's hesitation, agreed with her very warmly.

At last, Maxwell Pollock awoke one morning, with a start of

disagreeable consciousness, to the fact that this was the eve of his

thirtieth birthday. Occupied as he had been with various thoughts that

had to do with his transient relations to this sublunary sphere, he

had actually allowed himself to lose sight of the swift approach of

his day of doom. Now, he arose, took his bath, dressed, and without

arousing his wife, who, in the room adjoining, slept profoundly after

a gay dance overnight, went alone to the waterside, with the intention

of going out in his canoe.

Early as he was, Cranbrooke was before him, carrying the canoe upon

his head, moving after the fashion of some queer shelled-creature down

to the float.

Max realized, with a sense of keen self-rebuke, that the spectacle of

his friend was repellant to him, and the prospect of a talk alone with

Stephen on this occasion, the last thing he would have chosen.

And--evidently a part of the latter-day revolution of

affairs--Cranbrooke seemed to have forgotten that this day meant more

than another to Pollock. He greeted him cheerily, in commonplace

terms, commented on their identity of fancy in the matter of a paddle

at sunrise, and offered to relinquish the craft in favor of its owner.

"Of course not. Get in, will you," said Max, throwing off his coat;

and, taking one of the paddles, while Cranbrooke plied the other,

their swift, even strokes soon carried them far over toward the

illuminated east.

When well out upon the bay, they paused to watch the red coming of the

sun. Beautiful with matin freshness was the sleeping world around

them; and, inspired by the scene, Max, who was kneeling in the bow,

turned to exclaim to Cranbrooke, with his old, hearty voice, upon the

reward coming to early risers in such surroundings.

"Jove, a man feels born again when he breathes air like this!"

Cranbrooke started. It was almost beyond hope that Max should use such

a phrase, in such accents, at such a juncture. Immediately, however,

the exhilaration died out of Pollock's manner; and, again turning away

his face, he showed that his thoughts had reverted to the old sore

spot. He did not see the expression of almost womanly yearning in

Cranbrooke's face when the certainty of this was fixed upon his

anxious mind.

The two men talked little, and of casual things only, while abroad. As

they returned to the house, Cranbrooke made a movement as if to speak

out something burning upon his tongue, and then, repressing it, walked

with hasty strides to his own apartment.

The day passed as had done those immediately preceding it. Calls, a

party of guests at luncheon, a drive, absorbed Ethel's hours from her

husband. When she reached home, at tea-time, he had come in from

riding, and was standing alone in the hall, awaiting her.

"How nice to find you here alone!" she cried, going up to kiss him,

and then taking her place behind the tea-tray. "Do sit down, and let

us imagine we are back in those dear old days before we were

overpowered by outsiders. Never mind! The rush will soon be over; we

shall be to ourselves again, you and I and--how stupid I am!" she

added, coloring. "You and I, I mean, for he must go back to town."

"You mean Cranbrooke?" he said, as she thought, absent-mindedly, but

in reality with something like a cold hand upon his heart, that for a

moment gave him a sense of physical apprehension. Had _it_ come, he

wondered?

But no, this was not physical; this was a shock of purely emotional

displeasure. Could he believe his ears, that Ethel, his wife, had

indeed blended another than himself with her dream of returning

solitude?

"Yes, it will be all over soon," he said, mechanically. "Had you a

pleasant drive? And did you enjoy the box-seat with Egmont?"

"Oh! Egmont, fortunately, can drive--if he _can't_ talk," she

answered, lightly. "I suppose I am fastidious, or else spoiled for the

conversation of ordinary men, after what I have had recently from

Cranbrooke. By the way, Max dear, are you relentless against going

with us to-night, to the _fête_ at the canoe club? You needn't go

inside the club-house, you know. It will be lovely to look at, from

the water."

"With _us_? Then Cranbrooke has already promised?"

"Yes, of course; he could not leave me in the lurch, could he, when my

husband is such an obstinate recluse?"

"And how do you intend to get there?"

"By water, stupid, of course; how else? I will be satisfied with the

rowboat, if you won't trust me in the canoe; but Mr. Cranbrooke is

such an expert with the paddle, I shouldn't think you would object to

letting me go with him. It will be perfectly smooth water, and the air

is so mild. Do say I may go in the canoe, dear; it's twice the fun."

"I think you know that, unless I take you, it is my wish you go

nowhere at night in a canoe," he answered, coldly.

Ethel was more hurt at his tone than disappointed by his refusal. She

could not think what had come over her husband, of late, so often had

this constrained manner presented itself to her advance. She set it

down to her unwonted indulgence in society, and promised herself,

with a sigh of relinquishment, that, after this summer, she would go

back to her life lived for Max alone.

Then, Cranbrooke coming in with two or three visitors, who lingered

till almost dinner-time and were persuaded easily to stop for dinner,

there was no chance to indulge in meditations, penitential or

otherwise. When her guests took their departure, it was in the little

steam-launch, she and Cranbrooke accompanying the party, and all bound

for the _fête_, to be given on a wooded island in the bay. As they

were leaving the house, something impelled her to run back and, in the

semi-darkness of the veranda, seek her husband's side.

"Max darling, kiss me good-by. Or, if you want me, let me stay with

you."

"No, no; I want you to enjoy every moment while you can," he said,

withdrawing from her gaze to the shadow of a vine-wreathed column.

"Max, your voice is strange. And once, at dinner, I saw you looking at

me, and there was something in your eyes that frightened me. If you

hadn't smiled, and lifted your glass to pledge me, I should not have

known what to think."

"Ethel! Wife! Do you love me?" he said, catching her to his heart.

"Max! Why, Max! You foolish boy, we shall be seen."

"Tell me, and kiss me once more, my own, my own!"

"They are all aboard except you, Mrs. Pollock," a voice said; and,

from the dew of the lawn, Cranbrooke stepped upon the veranda.

Max started violently, and let his wife go from his embrace.

"You see how rude you are making me toward our guests," said Ethel.

"You have my wrap, Mr. Cranbrooke? Good-night, Max; and to-morrow I'll

tell you all about it. Better change your mind and come after us,

though."

"Max need not trouble to do so," put in Cranbrooke, in a muffled

voice. "As usual, I will fill his place."

Max thought he almost hurried her away. They went down the slope of

the lawn together; and, at the steep descent leading to the bridge,

he saw Ethel stumble, and Cranbrooke throw his arm around her to

steady her.

And now, a passion took possession of Maxwell Pollock's being that

impelled him to the impetuous action of following them to the wharf,

and gesticulating madly after the swift little steamer that bore them

away from him.

"He dared take her, did he, when she would have stayed at a word from

me? I see all, now. Specious, false, damnably false, he has snared her

fancy in his net. But she loves me, I'll swear she loves me, and I'll

snatch her from him, if it is with the last effort of my strength. Is

there time? Well, what is to come, let it come! While there's life in

me, she is mine."

A moment, and he was afloat in the canoe, no sign of weakness in his

powerful stroke with the paddle, no thought in his brain but the one

intense determination of the male creature to wrest his beloved from

the hands of his rival.

* * * * *

Every one conceded this to be quite the prettiest and most taking

event of the season. The rustic club-house, its peaked gable and

veranda defined with strings of colored lanterns, sent forth the music

of a band, while to its portal trooped maidens and cavaliers, landing

at the wharf from every variety of craft. The woods behind were linked

with chains of light, the shore below lit with bonfires, and more

evanescent eruptions of many-hued fireworks. Rockets hissed through

the air, and broke in a rain of violet, green, and crimson meteors,

till the zenith was a tangled mesh made by the trails of them;

fire-balloons arose and were lost among the stars; little fire-boats,

launched from vessels stocked for the purpose, bore their blazing

cargoes out upon the tide; other unnamed monsters were let loose to

carry apparent destruction zigzag through the waves. Every attendant

yacht, sloop, launch, rowboat, or canoe, with which the water about

the island was covered, carried quaint decoration in the guise of

Chinese lanterns. Some of the smaller boats were arched with these;

others tossed bouquets of fiery bubbles into the air. Creeping about

at a snail's pace among the crowded boats, invisible canoes carried

silent passengers; an occasional "oh!" of exclamation at the beauty of

the scene, the only contribution people felt inclined to make to

conversation. It was a pageant of bedazzlement, as if witches, gnomes,

spirits of earth, air, and the underworld, had mingled their resources

to enchant the eyes of mortals. And over all, sailed the lady-moon

serenely, forgotten, but sure that her time would come again.

Max found his launch without difficulty, on the outer circle of the

amphitheatre of light. As he had divined, it was empty, save for the

two boatmen.

"The ladies went ashore, sir," one of his men said, in answer to his

inquiry. "All but Mrs. Pollock, sir."

"Mrs. Pollock? Where is she, then?" he asked, briefly.

"She took our rowboat, sir, and went off on the water with one of the

gentlemen. Mr. Cranbrooke, I think it was; and they ordered us to wait

just here. No good going ashore, sir, if you want to see. It's better

from this point, even, than nearer in."

"Very well," said the master, and at once his canoe moved off to be

lost in the crowd.

He had sought for them in vain, peering into all the small boats

whenever the flash-light of the rockets, or the catharine-wheels on

the coast, lit the scene. Many a tender interlude was thus revealed;

but of the two people he now longed with the fever of madness to

discover, he saw nothing.

At last, in a burst from a candle rocket, there was a glimpse of

Ethel's red boat-cloak, her bare, golden head rising above it. She was

sitting in the stern of the rowboat, Cranbrooke beside her, their bow

above water, their oars negligently trailing. Ethel's eyes were fixed

upon the glittering panorama; but Cranbrooke's eyes were riveted on

her.

With an oath, Max drove his paddle fiercely into the sea. The canoe

sped forward like an arrow. Blind with anger, he did not observe that

he was directly in the track of a little steamer laden with new

arrivals, turning in toward the wharf.

A new day dawned before the doctors, who had been all night battling

for Maxwell Pollock's life, left him restored to consciousness, and

reasonably secure of carrying no lasting ill effect from the blow on

his head received by collision with the steamer.

Carried under with his canoe, he had arisen to full view in the glare

from a "set piece" of fireworks on the shore, beside the boat

containing Cranbrooke and his wife. It was Cranbrooke, not Ethel, who

identified the white face coming to the surface within reach of his

hand, then sinking again out of sight. It was Cranbrooke, also, who

sprang to Pollock's rescue, and, floating with his inert body, was

dragged with him aboard the launch.

As the rosy light of the east came to play upon Pollock's features, he

opened his eyes for the first time with a look of intelligence. At his

bedside, Ethel was kneeling, her whole loving soul in her gaze.

"Is this--I thought it was heaven," he said, feeling for her hand.

"It is heaven for me, now that I have you back, my own darling," she

answered, through happy tears.

"Have I been here long?"

"A few hours since the accident. The doctors say you will be none the

worse for it. And, Max dear, only think! This is your birthday! Your

thirtieth birthday! Many, many, _many_ happy returns!" and she

punctuated her wish with warm kisses.

At that juncture, Cranbrooke came into the room and stood at the side

of the bed opposite Ethel, who had no eyes for him, but kept on gazing

at her recovered treasure as if she could never have enough.

Max, though aware of Stephen's presence, made no movement of

recognition, till Ethel spoke in playful chiding.

"Darling! Where are your manners? Aren't you going to speak to our

friend, and thank him for saving you--saving you for _me_, thank God!"

She buried her face in the bed-clothes, overcome with the

recollection; but even with the exquisite tenderness of her accents

thrilling in his ear, Max remained obstinately dumb to Stephen

Cranbrooke.

"Forgive him; he is not himself!" pleaded Ethel, as she saw Cranbrooke

about to go dejectedly out of the room.

"Some day he will understand me," answered Stephen, with a gallant

effort at self-control. Then, withdrawing, he murmured to himself:

"But he will never know that, in playing with his edged tools, it is I

who have got the death-blow."