I.

Nowhere could the idea of peace be more serenely, more majestically,

expressed. The lofty purple mountains limited the horizon, and in their

multitude and imposing symmetry bespoke the vast intentions of beneficent

creation. The valley, glooming low, harbored all the shadows. The air was

still, the sky as pellucid as crystal, and where a crag projected boldly

from the forests, the growths of balsam fir extending almost to the

brink, it seemed as if the myriad fibres of the summit-line of foliage

might be counted, so finely drawn, so individual, was each against the

azure. Below the boughs the road swept along the crest of the crag and

thence curved inward, and one surveying the scene from the windows of a

bungalow at no great distance could look straight beyond the point of the

precipice and into the heart of the sunset, still aflare about the west.

But the realization of solitude was poignant and might well foster fear.

It was too wild a country, many people said, for quasi-strangers, and the

Briscoes were not justified in lingering so long at their summer cottage

here in the Great Smoky Mountains after the hotel of the neighboring

springs was closed for the season, and its guests and employees all

vanished town-ward. Hitherto, however, the Briscoes had flouted the

suggestion, protesting that this and not the spring was the "sweet o' the

year." The autumn always found the fires flaring on the cosy hearths of

their pretty bungalow, and they were wont to gaze entranced on the

chromatic pageantry of the forests as the season waned. Presently the

Indian summer would steal upon them unaware, with its wild sweet airs,

the burnished glamours of its soft red sun, its dreamy, poetic,

amethystine haze. Now, too, came the crowning opportunity of sylvan

sport. There were deer to stalk and to course with horses, hounds, and

horns; wild turkeys and mountain grouse to try the aim and tax the

pedestrianism of the hunter; bears had not yet gone into winter quarters,

and were mast-fed and fat; even a shot at a wolf, slyly marauding, was no

infrequent incident, and Edward Briscoe thought the place in autumn an

elysium for a sportsman.

He had to-day the prospect of a comrade in these delights from his own

city home and of his own rank in life, despite the desertion of the big

frame hotel on the bluff, but it was not the enticement of rod and gun

that had brought Julian Bayne suddenly and unexpectedly to the mountains.

His host and cousin, Edward Briscoe, was his co-executor in a kinsman's

will, and in the settlement of the estate the policy of granting a

certain power of attorney necessitated a conference more confidential

than could be safely compassed by correspondence. They discussed this as

they sat in the spacious reception hall, and had Bayne been less

preoccupied he must have noticed at once the embarrassment, nay, the look

of absolute dismay, with which Briscoe had risen to receive him, when,

unannounced, he appeared in the doorway as abruptly as if he had fallen

from the clouds. As it was, the brief colloquy on the business interests

that had brought him hither was almost concluded before the problem of

his host's manner began to intrude on Bayne's consciousness. Briscoe's

broad, florid, genial countenance expressed an unaccountable disquietude;

a flush had mounted to his forehead, which was elongated by his premature

baldness; he was pulling nervously at his long dark mustache, which

matched in tint the silky fringe of hair encircling his polished crown;

his eyes, round and brown, and glossy as a chestnut, wandered

inattentively. He did not contend on small points of feasibility,

according to his wont--for he was of an argumentative habit of mind--in

fact, his acquiescence in every detail proposed was so complete and so

unexpected that Bayne, with half his urgency unsaid, came to the end of

his proposition with as precipitate an effect as if he had stumbled upon

it in the dark.

"Well, that's agreed, is it? Easily settled! I really need not have

come--though"--with a complaisant after-thought--"it is a pleasure to

look in on you in your woodland haunts."

Briscoe suddenly leaned forward from his easy chair and laid his hand on

his cousin's knee.

"Julian," he said anxiously, "I hate to tell you--but my wife has got

that woman here."

Bayne stared, blankly unresponsive. "What woman?" he asked wonderingly.

"Mrs. Royston, you know--Lillian Marable, that was."

Bayne looked as if suddenly checked in headlong speed--startled, almost

stunned. The blood rushed in a tumultuous flood to his thin cheeks, then

receded, leaving his face mottled red and white. His steel-gray eyes

suddenly glowed like hot metal. There was a moment of tense silence; then

he said, his voice steady and controlled, his manner stiff but not

without dignity, "Pray do not allow that to discompose you. She is

nothing to me."

"I know--I know, of course. I would not have mentioned it, but I feared

an unexpected meeting might embarrass you, here in this seclusion where

you cannot avoid each other."

"You need not have troubled yourself," Bayne protested, looking fixedly

at his cigar as he touched off the long ash with a delicate fillip.

There was a great contrast in the aspect of the two, which accorded with

their obvious differences of mind and temperament. Briscoe, a man of

wealth and leisure, portly and rubicund, was in hunting togs, with

gaiters, knickers, jacket, and negligee shirt, while Bayne, with no trace

of the disorder incident to a long journey by primitive methods of

transportation, was as elaborately groomed and as accurately costumed in

his trig, dark brown, business suit as if he had just stepped from the

elevator of the sky-scraper where his offices as a broker were located.

His manner distinctly intimated that the subject was dismissed, but

Briscoe, who had as kindly a heart as ever beat, was nothing of a

diplomat. He set forth heavily to justify himself.

"You see--knowing that you were once in love with her----"

"Oh, no, my dear fellow," Bayne hastily interrupted; "I never loved

_her_. I loved only my own dream of one fair woman. It did not come true,

that's all."

Briscoe seemed somewhat reassured, but in the pervasive awkwardness of

his plight as host of both parties he could not quit the subject. "Just

so," he acquiesced gladly; "a mere dream--and a dream can make no

sensible man unhappy."

Bayne laughed with a tense note of satire. "Well, the awakening was a

rude jar, I must confess."

For it had been no ordinary termination of an unhappy love affair. It

befell within a fortnight of the date set for the prospective marriage.

All the details of publicity were complete: the cards were out; the

"society columns" of the local journals had revelled in the plans of the

event; the gold and silver shower of the bridal presents was raining

down. The determining cause of the catastrophe was never quite clear to

the community--whether a lover's quarrel with disproportionate

consequences, by reason of the marplot activities of a mercenary relative

of the lady's, advocating the interests of a sudden opportunity of

greater wealth and station; or her foolish revenge for a fancied slight;

or simply her sheer inconstancy in a change of mind and heart. At all

events, without a word of warning, Julian Bayne, five years before, had

the unique experience of reading in a morning paper the notice of the

marriage of his promised bride to another man, and of sustaining with

what grace he might the rôle of a jilted lover amidst the ruins of his

nuptial preparations.

In the estimation of the judicious, he had made a happy escape, for the

cruelty involved in the lady's methods and the careless flout of the

opinion of the sober, decorous world were not _indicia_ of worthy

traits; but he was of sensitive fibre, and tingled and winced with the

consciousness of the cheap gibe and the finger of scorn. He often said to

himself then, however, as now to the friend of his inmost thought, "I

would not be bound to a woman capable of such treachery for----"

Words failed him, inadequate, though he spoke calmly. His face had

resumed its habitual warm pallor. His clear-cut features, something too

sharply defined for absolute regularity, with the unassertive effect of

his straight auburn hair, his deliberate, contemplative glance, his

reserved, high-bred look, the quiet decorum of his manner, were not

suggestive of the tumult of his inner consciousness, and the

unresponsiveness of his aspect baffled Briscoe. With some inapposite,

impulsive warmth he protested: "But she has had bitter cause for

repentance, Julian. Royston was a brute. The only decent thing he ever

did was dying! She has been an awfully unhappy woman. I know you will be

sorry for that."

"Neither glad nor sorry. She is nothing to me. Not because she dealt me a

blow after a very unfair fashion, but because she is nothing in herself

that I could really care for. She has no delicate sensibilities, no fine

perceptions; she is incapable of constancy. Don't you understand? She has

no capacity to feel."

Briscoe had a look of extenuating distress--a sentiment of loyalty to his

fair guest. "Oh, well, now, she is devoted to her child--a most loving

mother."

"Certainly, she may grow in grace--let us hope that she will! And now

suppose we talk a little about that wonderful magazine shot-gun you have

so often offered to lend me. This is my chance to prove its values--the

only time in the last five years that I could spare a week from the

office."

He rose and turned with his easy, lithe grace towards the gun-rack, but

Briscoe sat still in pondering dismay. For it was obvious that Julian

Bayne had no intention of soon relaxing the tension of the situation by

the elimination of the presence of the jilted lover. Pride, indeed,

forbade his flight. His self-respect clamored for recognition. There was

no cause for humiliation in his consciousness, and he could not consent

to abase himself before the untoward and discordant facts. He did not

disguise from himself, however, that, if he might have chosen earlier, he

would have avoided the ordeal of the meeting, from which he shrank in

anticipation. Already he was poignantly conscious of the heavy draughts

it made on his composure, and he raged inwardly to note how his fingers

trembled as he stood before the rack of guns, now and again a weapon in

his hands, feigning an interest in examining the construction first of

one and then of another.

The entire place suggested a devotion to sport and whole-souled

hospitality. The vast spread of the autumnal landscape, in wonderful

clarity and depth of tint, was visible through the large, open front

doors. There was an effort to maintain in this apartment the aspect in

some sort of a lodge in the wilderness; the splendid antlers over the

mantel-piece, beneath which, in a deep stone chimney-place, a fire of

logs smouldered; the golden eagle, triumph of taxidermy, poising his

wings full-spread above the landing of the somewhat massive staircase;

the rack of weapons--rifles, shot-guns, hunting-knives; the game-bags;

the decoration of the walls, showing the mask and brush of many a fox,

and the iridescent wings of scores of wild-fowl; the rugs scattered about

made of the pelts of wolves, catamounts, and bears of the region--all

served to contribute to the sylvan effect. But the glister of the

hardwood floor, waxed and polished; the luxury of the easy chairs and

sofas; the centre-table strewn with magazines and papers, beneath a large

lamp of rare and rich ware; the delicate aroma of expensive cigars, were

of negative, if not discordant, suggestion, and bespoke the more

sophisticated proclivities and training of the owner.

In the interval of awkward silence, Briscoe remained motionless in his

easy chair, a rueful reflectiveness on his genial face incongruous with

its habitual expression. When a sudden disconcerted intentness developed

upon it, Bayne, every instinct on the alert, took instant heed of the

change. The obvious accession of dismay betokened the increasing

acuteness of the crisis, and Briscoe's attitude, as of helpless

paralysis, stricken as it were into stone as he gazed toward the door,

heralded an approach.

There were light footfalls on the veranda, a sudden shadow at the door.

The next moment two ladies were entering, their hands full of autumn

leaves, trophies of their long walk. Bayne, summoning to his aid all the

conservative influences of pride and self-respect, was able to maintain

an aspect of grave composure as, fully warned, he turned to meet them.

Nevertheless, the element of surprise to the new-comers rendered it an

awkward moment to all the group. Mrs. Briscoe, considerably in advance

of her guest, paled at the sight of him, and, silent and visibly

shocked, paused as abruptly as if she beheld a ghost. It was a most

uncharacteristic reception, for she was of a gracious and engaging

personality and a stately type of beauty. She was tall and graceful,

about thirty years of age, in full bloom, so to speak, extremely fair,

the delicacy of her complexion enhanced by the contrast with her dark

hair worn _en pompadour_. Her gown of dark red cloth, elaborately

braided and with narrow borders of otter fur, had a rich depth of color

which accorded with her sumptuous endowments.

The rôle of cordial hostess she was wont to play with especial

acceptability, but now she had lost its every line, its most trivial

patter. She said not one word as Bayne clasped her hand with the

conventional greeting, but only looked at him with her hazel eyes at once

remonstrant, pleading, compassionate.

The moment of vantage, short as it was, afforded by the precedence of her

hostess in the matter of salutation, gave Mrs. Royston the opportunity to

catch her breath and find her voice. She had not seen this man since,

five years ago, he had left her home her expectant bridegroom. But beyond

a fluctuating flush in her fair cheek, a dilation of her blue eyes, a

flutter of those eyelids which he had always esteemed a special point of

her beauty, being so smooth, so full, so darkly lashed, she conserved an

ostensible calm, although she felt the glance of his eye as sensitively

as red hot steel. But he--as he dropped the hand of his hostess and

advanced toward her guest--in one moment his fictitious composure

deserted him. For this was not the widow in weeds whom he had expected to

see, not the woman of whom he had trained himself to think, when he must

needs think of her at all, as another man's wife. This was his own fair

Past, the unfulfilled promise of his future, the girl he had adored, the

ideal wife whom he had worshipped in his cherished dreams! Just as always

heretofore, she stood now, so fresh, so fair, so candid-seeming, wearing

her white serge gown with her usual distinction, a spray of golden-rod

fastened in her mass of yellow hair that glowed with a sheen of differing

gold. How had time spared her! How had griefs left her scathless! It was

an effort to reflect that two years and more had elapsed since he had

read the obituary of Archibald Royston, with scornful amusement to mark

the grotesque lie to the living in the fulsome tribute to the dead.

In some sort, Bayne was prepared for change, for the new identity that

the strange falling out of events betokened. He had never realized her,

he had never divined her character, he would have said. She was now, as

she had always been, an absolute stranger. But this little hand--ah, he

knew it well! How often it had lain in his clasp, and once more every

fibre thrilled at its touch. With all his resolution, he could not

restrain the flush that mounted to his brow, the responsive quiver in his

voice as he murmured her name, the name of Archibald Royston's wife, so

repugnant to his lips. He was in a state of revolt against himself, his

self-betrayal, to realize that she and the two Briscoes could not fail to

mark his confusion, attributing his emotion to whatsoever cause they

would. Indeed, in the genial altruism of host, Briscoe had succeeded in

breaking from the thrall of embarrassment to shield and save the

situation.

"Why, here is Archie!" he exclaimed resonantly. "How are _you_, old

man?" His clear tones were vibrant with disproportionate elation at the

prospect of a diversion of the painful interest of the scene.

For at the moment a fine blond boy of three years burst in at the rear

door of the apartment and came running to meet Mrs. Royston, just

apprised, doubtless, of her return from her afternoon stroll. He looked

very fresh in his white linen dress, his red leather belt, and twinkling

red shoes. With the independent nonchalance of childhood, he took no note

of the outstretched arms and blandishing smile of Mr. Briscoe, who sought

to intercept him, but made directly toward his mother. His gleaming

reflection sped along in the polished, mirroring floor, but all at once

both semblance and substance paused. With a sudden thought the child put

his dimpled hands over his smiling pink face, while his blue eyes danced

merrily between the tips of his fingers. Then he advanced again, lunging

slowly along, uttering the while a menacing "Mew! Mew! Mew!"

His mother had no heart for his fun. She could scarcely summon the

strength and attention requisite for this fantastic infantile foolery

when all her capacities were enlisted to support her dignity in the

presence of this man, necessarily inimical, censorious, critical, who had

once meant so much in her life. But she could not rebuff the baby! She

would not humble his spirit! She must enter into his jest, whatever the

effort cost her.

It was poor acting certainly. She affected fright, as the child expected.

She cowered dismayed. "Oh, oh!" she cried, watching his erratic approach.

"What _is_ that?" She pretended flight, but sank into a chair, apparently

overpowered. She gazed down at the child with the lifted hands of horror

as he clasped the folds of her gown, his eyes shining with fun, his teeth

glittering between his red lips, his laughter rippling with delight. "Me

scared oo,' mamma," he squealed ecstatically. "Oo didn't know what me

was. Oo t'ought me was a great big bear."

Whereupon she looked down at him with amazed recognition. "Is it _you_,

Archie? Dear me, I thought it was a great big bear."

"Mew! Mew! Mew!" he repeated in joy.

"Why, Archie, old man, bears don't mew!" cried the genial Briscoe,

recovering his equanimity. "Bears _growl_--didn't you know that?"

He straightway began to teach the little fellow a very noisy and

truculent vocalization of the ursine type, which Archie, who was a great

favorite with his host, eagerly imitated, Briscoe appearing throughout

the duet at the pitiable disadvantage of the adult imbecile disporting

himself in infantile wise.

The tumult of the child's entrance had the effect of relaxing for Briscoe

the tension of the situation, but when Archie's nurse appeared at the

door and he ran away at her summons, the host looked apprehensively about

the circle as the party ranged themselves around the fire, its glow

beginning to be welcome in the increasing chill of the evening.

Ordinarily, this was a household of hilarious temperament. Life had been

good to the Briscoes, and they loved it. They were fond of rich viands,

old wines, genial talk, good stories, practical jests, music, and sport;

the wife herself being more than a fair shot, a capital whip, and a

famous horsewoman. Even when there was no stranger within the gates, the

fires would flare merrily till midnight, the old songs echo, and the

hours speed away on winged sandals. But this evening neither host nor

hostess could originate a sentence in the presence of what seemed to

their sentimental persuasions the awful tragedy of two hearts. Indeed,

conversation on ordinary lines would have been impossible, but that Bayne

with an infinite self-confidence, as it seemed to Mrs. Briscoe, took the

centre of the stage and held it. All Bayne's spirit was up! The poise and

reserve of his nature, his habit of sedulous self-control, were

reasserted. He could scarcely forgive himself their momentary lapse. He

felt it insupportable that he should not have held his voice to normal

steadiness, his pulses to their wonted calm, in meeting again this woman

who had wrought him such signal injury, who had put upon him such

insufferable indignity. Surely he could feel naught for her but the

rancor she had earned! From the beginning, she had been all siren, all

deceit. She was but the semblance, the figment, of his foolish dream, and

why should the dream move him still, shattered as it was by the torturing

realities of the truth? Why must he needs bring tribute to her powers,

flatter her ascendency in his life, by faltering before her casual

presence? He rallied all his forces. He silently swore a mighty oath that

he at least would take note of his own dignity, that he would deport

himself with a due sense of his meed of self-respect. Though with a

glittering eye and a strong flush on his cheek, he conserved a deliberate

incidental manner, and maintained a pose of extreme interest in his own

prelection as, seated in an arm-chair before the fire he began to talk

with a very definite intention of a quiet self-assertion, of absorbing

and controlling the conversation. He described at great length the

incidents of his trip hither, and descanted on the industrial and

political conditions of east Tennessee. This brought him by an easy

transition to an analysis of the peculiar traits of its mountain

population, which included presently their remarkable idiosyncrasies of

speech. When he was fairly launched on this theme, which was of genuine

interest to him, for he had long fostered a linguistic fad, all danger of

awkward silence or significant pauses was eliminated. He found that

Briscoe could furnish him with some fresh points in comparative

philology, to his surprise and gratification, for he never expected aught

bookish of his host. But like men of his type, Briscoe was a close

observer and learned of the passing phase of life. He took issue again

and again with the deductions of the traveller.

"You think it queer that they use 'you-uns' in the singular number? Then

why do you use '_you_' in the singular number? I haven't heard you

'thou-ing' around here this evening. Just as grammatical in that respect

as you are! And on the same principle, why do you say 'you were' to me

instead of 'you was,' which would be more singular--ha! ha! ha!"

"What _I_ think so curious is the double-barrelled pronouns themselves,

'you-uns' and 'we-uns.'" Mrs. Royston forced herself to take part in the

colloquy at the first opportunity.

"Not at all queer," Bayne promptly contended. "The correlatives of that

locution appear in other languages. The French has _nous autres_, the

Italian, _noi altri_, the Spanish, _nosotros_."

"And pray consider our own classical 'we-all,'" Mrs. Briscoe gayly

interposed, surprised that she could pluck up the spirit for this

interruption.

"More interesting to me is the survival in this sequestered region of old

English words and significations, altogether obsolete elsewhere,"

continued Bayne. "Now, when I asked the driver yesterday the name of a

very symmetrical eminence in the midst of the ranges he said it had no

name, that it was no mountain--it was just the 'moniment' of a little

ridge, meaning the image, the simulacrum. This is Spenser's usage."

"Look here, Julian," said Briscoe, rising suddenly, all his wonted

bluff self again, "if you fire off any more of your philologic wisdom

at us I'll throw you over the cliff. We are skilled in the _use_ of

words--honest, straight talk--not their dissection. I want to get at

something that we can all enjoy. Tune this violin and come and play some

of those lovely old things that you and Gladys used to practise

together."

"Yes, yes, indeed," exclaimed Mrs. Briscoe cordially, and, rising

promptly, she approached the piano.

Briscoe also started toward the instrument, to open it for her. "Mrs.

Royston and I will be a generous audience and applaud enthusiastically.

But stop--what is that?"

He suddenly paused, the lid of the piano half lifted in his hands, the

scattered sheet music falling in a rustling shower to the floor.

"What _is_ that?" he reiterated, motionless and hearkening.