CHAPTER XXIV.

All this time Alec was walking, like a sentry, up and down beside the

old man's corpse. He was not alone. When the others had gone he found

that the young American had remained with him. He came back from the

lower trees whence he had watched the party disappear.

"Come to think of it," he said, "I'll keep you company."

Something in his manner convinced Alec that this was no second thought;

he had had no intention of leaving. He was a slight fellow, and,

apparently too tired now to wish to stand or walk longer, he looked

about him for a seat. None offered in the close vicinity of the corpse

and Alec, its sentinel; but, equal to his own necessity, he took a

newspaper from his pocket, folded it into a small square, laid it on the

wet beaten grass, and sat thereon, arching his knees till only the soles

of his boots touched the ground. To Alec's eye his long, thin figure

looked so odd, bent into this repeated angle, that he almost suspected

burlesque, but none was intended. The youth clasped his hands round his

knees, the better to keep himself upright, and seated thus a few yards

from the body, he shared the watch for some time as mute as was all else

in that silent place.

Alec's curiosity became aroused. At last he hesitated in his walk.

"You are from the States?"

"Well, yes; I am. But I reckon I'm prouder of my country than it has

reason to be of me. I'm down in the mouth to-night--that's a fact."

A fine description of sorrow would not have been so eloquent, but

exactly what he sorrowed for Alec did not know. It could hardly be for

the death merely.

Alec paced again. He had made himself an uneven track in the ragged

grass. Had the lineaments of the dead been more clearly seen, death

would have had a stronger influence; but even as it was, death,

darkness, and solitude had a language of their own, in which the hearts

of the two men shared more or less.

At length the American spoke, arresting Alec's walk.

"See here," he said, "if what they say is true--and as far as I know it

is--he's got up from being dead _once_ already."

The emphasis on the word "once" conveyed the suggestion which had

evidently just occurred to him.

"Oh, I know all about _that_ story." Alec spoke with the scorn of

superior information, casting off the disagreeable suggestion. "I was

there myself."

"You were, were you? Well, so was I, and I tell you I know no more than

babe unborn whether this old gentleman's Cameron or not."

Alec's mind was singularly free from any turn for speculative thought.

He intended to bring Bates to see the dead in the morning, and that

would decide the matter. He saw no sense in debating a question of fact.

"I was one of the fellows in that survey," explained Harkness, "and if

you're the fellow we saw at the station, as I reckon you are, then I

don't know any more about this old gentleman I've been housing than you

do."

Trenholme had an impulse to command silence, but, resisting it, only

kept silence himself and resumed his tread over the uneven ground.

"'Tisn't true," broke in the other again, in unexpected denial of his

own words, "that that's all I know. I know something more; 'tisn't much,

perhaps, but as I value my soul's salvation, I'll say it here. Before I

left the neighbourhood of Turrifs, I heard of this old gentleman here

a-making his way round the country, and I put in currency the report

that he was Cameron, and I've no doubt that that suggestion made the

country folks head him off towards Turrifs Station as far as they could

influence his route; and that'll be how he came there at Christmas time.

Look you here! I didn't know then, and I don't know now, whether he

_was_ or _wasn't_--I didn't think he was--but for a scheme I had afoot I

set that idea going. I did it by telegraphing it along the line, as if

I'd been one of the operators. The thing worked better than I expected."

Alec listened without the feeling of interest the words were expected to

arouse. To his mind a fellow who spoke glibly about his soul's salvation

was either silly or profane. He had no conception that this man, whose

way of regarding his own feelings, and whose standard of propriety as to

their expression, differed so much from his own, was, in reality, going

through a moral crisis.

"Well?" said he.

"Well, I guess that's about all I have to say."

"If you don't know anything more, I don't see that you've told me

anything." He meant, anything worth telling, for he did not feel that he

had any interest with the other's tricks or schemes.

"I do declare," cried Harkness, without heeding his indifference, "I'm

just cut up about this night's affair; I never thought Job would set on

anyone but his wife. I do regret I brought this good old gentleman to

this place. If some one offered me half Bates's land now, I wouldn't

feel inclined to take it."

Trenholme returned to his pacing, but when he had passed and re-passed,

he said, "Cameron doesn't seem to have been able to preach and pray like

an educated man; but Bates is here, he will see him to-morrow, and if he

doesn't claim the body, the police will advertise. Some one must know

who the old man is."

The words that came in return seemed singularly irrelevant. "What about

the find of asbestos the surveyor thought he'd got on the hills where

Bates's clearing is? Has Bates got a big offer for the land?"

"He has had some correspondence about it," said Trenholme, stiffly.

"He'll be a rich man yet," remarked the American, gloomily. "Asbestos

mines are piling in dollars, I can tell you. It's a shame, to my mind,

that a snapping crab-stick like that old Bates should have it all." He

rose as with the irritation of the idea, but appeared arrested as he

looked down at the dead man. "And when I think how them poor ladies got

their white skirts draggled, I do declare I feel cut up to that extent I

wouldn't care for an asbestos mine if somebody came and offered it to me

for nothing this minute."

Then, too absorbed in feeling to notice the bathos of his speech, he put

his hands in his pockets, and began strolling up and down a beat of his

own, a few yards from the track Trenholme had made, and on the other

side of the dead.

As they walked at different paces, and passing each other at irregular

times, perhaps the mind of each recurred to the remembrance of the other

ghostly incident and the rumour that the old man had already risen once.

The open spot of sloping ground surrounded by high black trees, which

had been so lately trodden by many feet, seemed now the most desolate of

desolate places. The hymn, the prayer, that had arisen there seemed to

leave in the air only that lingering influence which past excitement

lends to its acute reaction.

A sudden sharp crack and rustling, coming from out the gloom of the

trees, startled them.

"Ho!" shouted the American. "Stand! Is there any one there?"

And Alec in his heart called him a fool for his pains, and yet he

himself had not been less startled. Nothing more was heard. It was only

that time--time, that mysterious medium through which circumstance comes

to us from the source of being; that river which, unseen, unfelt,

unheard, flows onward everywhere--had just then brought the moment for

some dead branch to fall.

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK III.

"_Nothing is inexorable but Love_."

CHAPTER I.

That which is to be seen of any event, its causes and consequences, is

never important compared with the supreme importance of those unseen

workings of things physical and things spiritual which are the heart of

our life. The iceberg of the northern seas is less than its unseen

foundations; the lava stream is less than the molten sea whence it

issues; the apple falling to the ground, and the moon circling in her

orbit, are less than the great invisible force which controls their

movements and the movements of all the things that do appear. The crime

is not so great as its motive, nor yet as its results; the beneficent

deed is not so great as the beneficence of which it is but a fruit; yet

we cannot see beneficence, nor motives, nor far-reaching results. We

cannot see the greatest forces, which in hidden places, act and

counteract to bring great things without observation; we see some broken

fragments of their turmoil which now and again are cast up within our

sight.

Notwithstanding this, which we all know, the average man feels himself

quite competent to observe and to pass judgment on all that occurs in

his vicinity. In the matter of the curious experience which the sect of

the Adventists passed through in Chellaston, the greater part of the

community formed prompt judgment, and in this judgment the chief element

was derision.

The very next day, in the peaceful Sunday sunshine, the good people of

Chellaston (and many of them were truly good) spent their breath in

expatiating upon the absurdity of those who had met with the madman upon

the mountain to pray for the descent of heaven. It was counted a good

thing that a preacher so dangerously mad was dead; and it was

considered as certain that his followers would now see their folly in

the same light in which others saw it. It was reported as a very good

joke that when one white-clad woman had returned to her home, wan and

weary, in the small hours of the night, her husband had refused to let

her in, calling to her from an upper window that _his wife_ had gone to

have a fly with the angels, and he did not know who _she_ might be.

Another and coarser version of the same tale was, that he had taken no

notice of her, but had called to his man that the white cow had got

loose and ought to be taken back into the paddock. Both versions were

considered excellent in the telling. Many a worthy Christian, coming out

of his or her place of worship, chuckled over the wit of this amiable

husband, and observed, in the midst of laughter, that his wife, poor

thing, had only got her deserts.

In the earlier hours of that Sunday morning rumour had darted about,

busily telling of the sudden freak the drunkard's violence had taken,

and of Father Cameron's death. Many a version of the story was brought

to the hotel, but through them the truth sifted, and the people there

heard what had really occurred. Eliza heard, for one, and was a good

deal shocked. Still, as the men about the place remarked that it was a

happy release for Father Cameron, who had undoubtedly gone to heaven,

and that it was an advantage, too, to Job's wife, who would now be saved

from further torment at her husband's hands, her mind became

acquiescent. For herself, she had no reason to be sorry the old man was

dead. It was better for him; it was better for her, too. So, without

inward or outward agitation, she directed the morning business of the

house, setting all things in such order that she, the guiding hand of it

all, might that afternoon take holiday.

Some days before she had been invited by Mrs. Rexford to spend this

afternoon with them and take tea. Then, as it was said that Principal

Trenholme, in spite of a sprained ankle, had insisted upon taking the

Church services as usual, all the fine ladies at the hotel intended to

go and hear him preach in the evening. Eliza would go too. This

programme was highly agreeable to her, more so than exciting amusement

which would have pleased other girls better. Although nothing would have

drawn expression of the fact from her, in the bottom of her deeply

ambitious heart she felt honoured by the invitations Miss Rexford

obtained for her, and appreciated to the full their value. She also knew

the worth of suitable attendance at church.

Sunday was always a peaceful day at Chellaston. Much that was truly

godly, and much that was in truth worldly, combined together to present

a very respectable show of sabbath-keeping. The hotel shared in the

sabbath quiet, especially in the afternoon, when most people were

resting in their rooms.

About three o'clock Eliza was ready to go to her room on the third story

to dress for the afternoon. This process was that day important, for she

put on a new black silk gown. It was beflounced and befrilled according

to the fashion of the time. When she had arranged it to a nicety in her

own room, she descended to one of the parlours to survey herself in the

pier-glass. No one was there. The six red velvet chairs and the uniform

sofa stood in perfect order round the room. The table, with figured

cloth, had a large black Bible on it as usual. On either side of the

long looking-glass was a window, in which the light of day was somewhat

dulled by coarse lace curtains. Abundance of light there was, however,

for Eliza's purpose. She shut the door, and pushed aside the table which

held the Bible, the better to show herself to herself in the

looking-glass.

Eliza faced herself. She turned and looked at herself over one shoulder;

then she looked over the other shoulder. As she did so, the curving

column of her white neck was a thing a painter might have desired to

look at, had he been able to take his eyes from the changeful sheen on

her glossy red hair. But there was no painter there, and Eliza was

looking at the gown. She walked to the end of the room, looking backward

over her shoulder. She walked up the room toward the mirror, observing

the moving folds of the skirt as she walked. She went aside, out of the

range of the glass, and came into it again to observe the effect of

meeting herself as though by chance, or rather, of meeting a young woman

habited in such a black silk gown, for it was not in herself precisely

that Eliza was at the moment interested. She did not smile at herself,

or meet her own eyes in the glass. She was gravely intent upon looking

as well as she could, not upon estimating how well she looked.

The examination was satisfactory. Perhaps a woman more habituated to

silk gowns and mantua-makers would have found small wrinkles in sleeve

or shoulder; but Eliza was pleased. If the gown was not perfect, it was

as good a one as she was in the habit of seeing, even upon gala

occasions. And she had no intention of keeping her gown for occasions;

her intention was that it should be associated with her in the ordinary

mind of the place. Now that she was fortunate enough to possess silk

(and she was determined this should only be the forerunner of a

succession of such gowns) people should think of her as Miss White, who

wore silk in the afternoons. She settled this as she saw how well the

material became her. Then, with grave care, she arranged a veil round

the black bonnet she wore, and stood putting on new gloves preparatory

to leaving the room. Eliza was not very imaginative; but had she been

disposed to foresee events, much as she might have harassed herself, she

would not have been more likely to hit upon the form to be taken by the

retributive fate she always vaguely feared than are the poor creatures

enslaved by fearful imaginations.

The door opened, and Harkness thrust his handsome head into the room. He

was evidently looking for her. When he saw her he came in hastily,

shutting the door and standing with his back to it, as if he did not

care to enter further.

Eliza had not seen him that day. After what had happened, she rather

dreaded the next interview, as she did not know what he might find to

say; but the instant she saw him, she perceived that it was something

more decisive than he had ever shown sign of before. He looked tired,

and at the same time as if his spirit was upwrought within him and his

will set to some purpose.

"I'm real glad to see you," he said, but not pleasantly. "I've been

looking for you; and it's just as well for you I found you without more

ado."

"I'm just going out," said Eliza; "I can't stay now."

"You'll just stop a bit where you are, and hear what I'm going to say."

"I can't," said she, angrily; but he was at the door, and she made no

movement towards it.

He talked right on. "I'm going away," he said. "I've packed up all that

I possess here in this place, and I'm going to depart by this

afternoon's train. No one much knows of this intention. I take it you

won't interfere, so I don't mind confiding my design to your _kind_ and

_sympathetic_ breast."

The emphasis he laid on the eulogy was evidently intended for bitter

sarcasm. Anger gave her unwonted glibness.

"I'll ask you to be good enough to pay our bill, then. If you're making

off because you can't pay your other debts it's no affair of mine."

He bowed mockingly. "You are real kind. Can't think how much obliged I

am for your tactful reminder; but it don't happen to be my financial

affairs that I came to introdooce to your notice." He stammered a

moment, as if carried rather out of his bearings by his own loquacity.

"It's--it's rather _your_ finances that I wish to enlarge upon."

She opposed herself to him in cold silence that would not betray a gleam

of curiosity.

"You're a mighty fine young lady, upon my word!" he observed, running

his eye visibly over her apparel. "Able to work for yourself, and buy

silk skirts, and owning half a bit of ground that people are beginning

to think will be worth something considerable when they get to mining

there. Oh, you're a fine one--what with your qualities and your

fortune!"

A sudden unbecoming colour came with tell-tale vehemence over her cheek

and brow.

"Your qualities of mind, as I've remarked, are fine; but the qualities

of your heart, my dear, are finer still. I've been making love to you,

with the choicest store of loving arts, for eight long months; and the

first blush I've been enabled to raise on your lovely countenance is

when I tell you you've more money than you looked for! You're a

tender-hearted young lady!"

"The only train I ever heard of on Sunday afternoon goes pretty soon,"

she said; and yet there was now an eager look of curiosity in her eyes

that belied her words.

He took no notice of her warning, but resumed now with mock apology.

"But I'm afraid I'm mistaken in the identity. Sorry to disappoint you,

but the estate I allude to belongs to Miss Cameron, who lived near a

locality called Turrifs Station. Beg pardon, forgot for the moment your

name was White, and that you know nothing about that interesting and

historic spot."

Perhaps because she had played the part of indifference so long, it

seemed easiest to her, even in her present confusion of mind; at any

rate she remained silent.

"Pity you weren't her, isn't it?" He showed all his white teeth. He had

been pale at first, but in talking the fine dark red took its wonted

place in his cheeks. He had tossed back his loose smoke-coloured hair

with a nervous hand. His dark beauty never showed to better advantage as

he stood leaning back on the door. "Pity you aren't her, isn't it?" he

repeated, smilingly.

She had no statuesque pose, but she had assumed a look of insensibility

almost equal to that of stone.

"Come to think of it, even if you were her, you'd find it hard to say so

now; so, either way, I reckon you'll have to do without the tin. 'Twould

be real awkward to say to all your respectable friends that you'd been

sailing under false colours; that 'White' isn't your _bona fide_

cognomen; that you'd deserted a helpless old woman to come away; and as

to _how you left your home_--the sort of _carriage_ you took to, my

dear, and how you got over the waggoner to do the work of a sexton--Oh,

my, fine tale for Chellaston, that! No, my dear young lady, take a

fatherly word of admonition; your best plan is to make yourself easy

without the tin."

He looked at her, even now, with more curiosity than malice in his

smiling face. A power of complete reserve was so foreign to his own

nature that without absolute proof he could not entirely believe it in

her. The words he was speaking might have been the utter nonsense to her

that they would have been to any but the girl who was lost from the

Bates and Cameron clearing for all hint she gave of understanding. He

worked on his supposition, however. He had all the talking to himself.

"You're mighty secret! Now, look at me. I'm no saint, and I've come here

to make a clean breast of that fact. When I was born, Uncle Sam said to

me, 'Cyril P. Harkness, you're a son of mine, and it's your vocation to

worship the God of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Almighty Dollar'; and I

piped up, 'Right you are, uncle.' I was only a baby then." He added

these last words reflectively, as if pondering on the reminiscence, and

gained the object of his foolery--that she spoke.

"If you mean to tell me that you're fond of money, that's no news. I've

had sense to see _that_. If you thought I'd a mine belonging to me

somewhere that accounts for the affection you've been talking of so

much. I _begin_ to _believe_ in it now."

She meant her words to be very cutting, but she had not much mobility of

voice or glance; and moreover, her heart was like lead within her; her

words fell heavily.

"Just so," said he, bowing as if to compliment her discrimination. "You

may believe me, for I'm just explaining to you I'm not a saint, and that

is a sentiment you may almost always take stock in when expressed by

human lips. I was real sick last summer; and when I came to want a

holiday I thought I'd do it cheap, so when I got wind of a walking

party--a set of gentlemen who were surveying--I got them to let me go

along. Camp follower I was, and 'twas first rate fun, especially as I

was on the scent of what they were looking for. So then we came on

asbestos in one part. Don't know what that is, my dear? Never mind as to

its chemical proportions; there's dollars in it. Then we dropped down on

the house of the gentleman that owned about half the hill. One of them

was just dead, and he had a daughter, but she was lost, and as I was

always mighty fond of young ladies, I looked for her. Oh, you may

believe, I looked, till, when she was nowhere, I half thought the man

who said she was lost had been fooling. Well, then, I--" (he stopped and

drawled teasingly) "But _possibly_ I intrude. Do you hanker after

hearing the remainder of this history?"

She had sat down by the centre table with her back to him.

"You can go on," she muttered.

"Thanks for your kind permission. I haven't got much more to tell, for I

don't know to this mortal minute whether I've ever found that young lady

or not; but I have my suspicions. Any way, that day away we went across

the lake, and when the snow drove us down from the hills the day after,

the folks near the railroad were all in a stew about the remains of

Bates's partner, the poppa of the young lady. His remains, having come

there for burial, and not appearing to like the idea, had taken the

liberty of stepping out on the edge of the evening, and hooking it. So

said I, 'What if that young lady was real enterprising! what if she got

the waggoner to put her poppa under the soil of the forest, and rode on

herself, grand as you please, in his burial casket!' (That poor waggoner

drank himself to death of remorse, but that was nothing to her.) The

circumstances were confusing, and the accounts given by different folks

were confusing, and, what's more, 'tisn't easy to believe in a sweet

girl having her poppa buried quite secret; most young ladies is too

delicate. Still, after a bit, the opinion I've mentioned did become my

view of the situation; and I said to myself 'Cyril, good dog; here's

your vocation quite handy. Find the young lady, find her, good fellow!

Ingratiate yourself in her eyes, and you've got, not only an asbestos

mine, but a wife of such smartness and enterprise as rarely falls to the

lot of a rising young man.' I didn't blame her one bit for the part she

had taken, for I'd seen the beast she'd have had to live with. No doubt

her action was the properest she could take. And I thought if I came on

her panting, flying, and offered her my protection, she'd fall down and

adore me. So, to make a long tale short, I stopped a bit in that

locality, hunting for her quite private after every one else had given

up hunting. I heard of a daft old man who'd got about, the Lord only

knows how, and I set the folks firmly believing that he was old Cameron.

Well, _if_ he was, then the girl was lost and dead; but if he

_wasn't_--well, I twigged it she'd got on the railroad, and, by being

real pleasant to all the car men, I found out, quite by the way and

private, how she might have got on, and where any girl had got off, till

by patience and perseverance I got on your track; and I've been eight

months trying to fathom your deepness and win your affections. The more

fool I! For to try to win what hasn't any more existence than the pot at

the rainbow's tail is clear waste of time. Deep you are; but you haven't

got any of the commodity of affection in your breast."

"Why didn't you tell me this before, like an honest man?" she asked;

"and I'd have told you you didn't know as much as you thought you did."

Her voice was a little thick; but it was expressionless.

"I'm not green. If you'd known you were possessed of money, d'you

suppose you'd have stayed here to marry me? Oh no, I meant to get that

little ceremony over first, and _spring the mine_ on you for a wedding

present _after_. The reason I've told you now is that I wouldn't marry

you now, not if you'd ten millions of dollars in cash in your pocket."

"Why not? If I'm the person you take me for, I'm as rich and clever

now." She still sat with her back to him; her voice so impassive that

even interrogation was hardly expressed in words that had the form of a

question.

"Yes, and you'd be richer and cleverer now with me, by a long chalk,

than without me! If you'd me to say who you are, and that I'd known it

all along, and how you'd got here, and to bring up the railroad fellows

(I've got all their names) who noticed you to bear witness, your claim

would look better in the eyes of the law. 'Twould look a deal better in

the eyes of the world, too, to come as Mrs. Cyril P. Harkness, saying

you had been Miss Cameron, than to come on the stage as Miss White,

laying claim to another name; and it would be a long sight more

comfortable to have me to support and cherish you at such a time than

not to have a friend in the world except the folks whose eyes you've

pulled the wool over, and who'll be mighty shocked. Oh, yes; by Jemima!

you'd be richer and cleverer now with me than without me. But I'll tell

you what I've come here to say"--his manner took a tone more serious;

his mocking smile passed away; he seemed to pause to arrest his own

lightness, and put on an unwonted dignity. "I tell you," he repeated

slowly, "what I've come here to say--I do despise a young lady without a

heart. Do you know what occurred last night? As good an old gentleman as

ever lived was brutally felled to the earth and killed; a poor man who

was never worse than a drunkard has become a murderer, and there's a

many good pious ladies in this town who'll go about till death's day

jeered at as fools. Would you like to be marked for a fool? No, you

wouldn't and neither will they; and if you're the young lady I take you

for, you could have hindered all this, _and_ you didn't. _I_ brought the

old man to this place; I am to blame in that, my own self, I am; but I

tell you, by the salvation of my soul, when I stood last night and heard

him pray, and saw those poor ladies with their white garbs all

bedraggled, around him praying, I said to myself, 'Cyril, you've reason

to call on the rocks and hills to cover you,' and I had grace to be

right down sorry. I'm right down ashamed, and so I'm going to pull up

stakes and go back to where I came from; and I've come here now to tell

you that after what I've seen of you in this matter I'd sooner die than

be hitched with you. You've no more heart than my old shoe; as long as

you get on it's all one to you who goes to the devil. You're not only as

sharp as I took you for, but a good deal sharper. Go ahead; you'll get

rich somehow; you'll get grand; but I want you to know that, though I'm

pretty tricky myself, and 'cute enough to have thought of a good thing

and followed it up pretty far, I've got a heart; and I do despise a

person made of stone. I was _real_ fond of you, for you far exceeded my

expectations; but I'm not fond of you now one bit. If you was to go down

on your bended knees and ask me to admire you now, I wouldn't."

She listened to all the sentence he pronounced upon her. When he had

finished she asked a question. "What do you mean about going to law

about the clearin'?"

"Your worthy friend, Mr. Bates, has arrived in this place this very day.

He's located with the Principal, he _is_."

"He isn't here," she replied in angry scorn.

"All right. Just _as you please_."

"He isn't here," she said more sulkily.

"But _he is_."

She ignored his replies. "What do you mean about going to law about the

land?"

"Why, I haven't got much time left,"--he was standing now with his watch

in his hand--"but for the sake of old times I'll tell you, if you don't

see through that. D'you suppose Bates isn't long-headed! He's heard

about Father Cameron being here, and knowing the old man couldn't give

an account of himself, he's come to see him and pretend he's your

father. Of course he's no notion of you being here. He swears right and

left that you went over the hills and perished in the snow; and he's got

up great mourning and lamenting, so I've heard, for your death. Oh,

Jemima! Can't you see through that?"

"Tell me what you mean," she demanded, haughtily. She was standing again

now.

"Why, my dear, if you knew a bit more of the world you'd know that it

meant that he intends to pocket all the money himself. And, what's more,

he's got the best of the situation; for you left him of your own accord,

my dear, and changed your name, and if you should surprise him now by

putting in an appearance and saying you're the lost young lady, what's

to hinder him saying you're _not_ you, and keeping the tin? I don't know

who's to swear to you, myself. The men round Turrifs said you were

growing so fast that between one time and another they wouldn't know

you. Worst, that is, of living in out-of-the-way parts--no one sees you

often enough to know if you're you or if you're not you."

"It is not true," she cried. He had at last brought the flash to her

eyes. She stood before him palpitating with passion. "You are a liar!"

she said, intensely. "Mr. Bates is as honest as"--words failed

her--"as--as honest and as good as _you_ don't even know how to think

of."

He was like a necromancer who, although triumphant at having truly

raised a spirit by his incantations, quails mystified before it.

"Oh well, since you feel so badly about it I'll not say that you mayn't

outwit him if you put in your claim. You needn't give up all for lost if

he does try to face it out."

"Give up what for lost? Do you think I care about this old mine so much?

I tell you, sooner than hear a tricky sharper like you say that Mr.

Bates is as cunning as you are, I'd--I'd--" She did not say more, but

she trembled with passion. "Go!" she concluded. "If you say I'm

unfeeling, you say a thing I suppose is true enough; but you've said

things to me this afternoon that are not true; and if there's a good

honest man in this world, it's Mr. Bates. Sooner than not believe that

I'd--sooner die."

The tears had welled up and overflowed her eyes. Her face was red and

burning.

"Say, Eliza," he said, gently enough. He was more astonished than he

could realise or express, but he was really troubled to see her cry.

"Oh, don't 'Eliza' me!" she cried, angrily. "You said you were going to

go--go--go--I tell you, go! What business is it of yours, I'd like to

know, to mention Mr. Bates to me? You've no business with either him or

me."

"Upon my word! I'll take my gospel oath I've said no more than I do

believe."

"I dare say not. You don't know what an honest man is, so how could you

believe in one?"

"I've a real soft heart; I hate to see you cry, Eliza."

"Well, Mr. Bates hasn't a soft heart at all; he's as unkind as can be;

but he's as much above you, with all your softness, as light is above

boot blacking."

She was not good-looking in her tears. She was not modest in her anger;

all the crude rude elements of her nature broke forth. She wrenched the

door open although with obstinate strength he tried to keep it shut,

desiring stupidly to comfort her. She cast him aside as a rough man

might push a boy. When she was making her way upstairs he heard

smothered sounds of grief and rage escaping from her.

CHAPTER II.

When Eliza had been in her own room for about half an hour, her passion

had subsided. She was not glad of this; in perverseness she would have

recalled the tempest if she could, but she knew not what to call back or

how to call. She knew no more what had disturbed her than in times of

earthquake the sea water knows the cause of its unwonted surging. She

sat angry and miserable; angry with Harkness, not because he had called

her heartless--she did not care in the slightest for his praise or

blame--but because he had been the bearer of ill tidings; and because he

had in some way produced in her the physical and mental distress of

angry passion, a distress felt more when passion is subsiding. She

ranked it as ill tidings that her father's land had risen in value. She

would rather that her worldly wisdom in leaving it had been proved by

subsequent events than disproved, as now, by news which raised such a

golden possibility before her ignorant eyes, that her heart was rent

with pangs of envy and covetousness, while her pride warred at the very

thought of stooping to take back what she had cast away, and all the

disclosure that must ensue. Above all, she counted it ill tidings that

Bates was reported to be in the place. She was as angry with him now as

on the day she had left him--more angry--for now he could vaunt new

prosperity as an additional reason why she had been wrong to go. Why had

he come here to disturb and interrupt? What did the story about Father

Cameron matter to him? She felt like a hunted stag at bay; she only

desired strength and opportunity to trample the hunter.

Partly because she felt more able to deal with others than with the dull

angry misery of her own heart, partly because she was a creature of

custom, disliking to turn from what she had set out to do, she found

herself, after about an hour of solitude, rearranging her street toilet

to walk to Mrs. Rexford's house.

When she had made her way down to the lower flat of the hotel she found

Harkness had spoken the truth in saying he intended to go, for he was

gone. The men in the cool shaded bar-room were talking about it. Mr.

Hutchins mentioned it to her through the door. He sat in his big chair,

his crutches leaning against him.

"Packed up; paid his bill; gone clear off--did you know?"

"Yes, I knew," said Eliza, although she had not known till that moment.

"Said he was so cut up, and that he wouldn't stay to give evidence

against poor Job, or be hauled before the coroner to be cross-questioned

about the old man. He's a sharp 'un; packed up in less time than it

takes most men to turn round--adjustable chair and all."

Eliza had come to the threshold of the bar-room door to hear all he

said. The sunshine of a perfect summer day fell on the verandah just

outside, and light airs came through the outer door and fanned her, but

in here the sweet air was tarnished with smoke from the cigars of one or

two loiterers.

Two men of the village were sitting with their hats on. As they said

"Good-day" to Eliza, they did not rise or take off their hats, not

because they did not feel towards her as a man would who would give this

civility, but because they were not in the habit of expressing their

feelings in that way. Another transient caller was old Dr. Nash, and he,

looking at Eliza, recognised in a dull way something in her appearance

which made him think her a finer woman than he had formerly supposed,

and, pulling off his hat, he made her a stiff bow.

Eliza spoke only to Mr. Hutchins: "I shall be gone about four hours; I

am going to the Rexfords to tea. You'd better look into the dining-room

once or twice when supper's on."

"All right," said he, adding, when the clock had had time to tick once,

"Miss White."

And the reason he affixed her name to his promise was the same that had

compelled Dr. Nash's bow--a sense of her importance growing upon him;

but the hotel-keeper observed, what the old doctor did not, that the

gown was silk.

"Fine woman that, sir," he remarked, when she was gone, to anyone who

might wish to receive the statement.

"Well," said one of the men, "I should just think it."

"She seems," said Dr. Nash, stiffly, "to be a good girl and a clever

one."

"She isn't _just_ now what I'd call a gurl," said the man who had

answered first. "She's young, I know; but now, if you see her walking

about the dining-room, she's more like a _queen_ than a _gurl_."

Without inquiring into the nature of this distinction Dr. Nash got into

his buggy. As he drove down the street under the arching elm trees he

soon passed Eliza on her way to the Rexfords, and again he lifted his

hat. Eliza, with grave propriety, returned the salutation.

The big hawthorn tree at the beginning of Captain Rexford's fence was

thickly bedecked with pale scarlet haws. Eliza opened the gate beside it

and turned up the cart road, walking on its grassy edge, concealed from

the house by ragged lilac trees. She preferred this to-day to the open

path leading to the central door. This road brought her to the end of

the long front verandah. Here she perceived voices from the

sitting-room, and, listening, thought she heard Principal Trenholme

talking. She went on past the gable of the house into the yard, a

sloping straggling bit of ground, enclosed on three sides by the house

and its additions of dairies and stables, and on the fourth side bounded

by the river. For once the place seemed deserted by the children. A

birch, the only tree in the enclosure, cast fluttering shadow on the

closely cropped sod. Sunlight sparkled on the river and on the row of

tin milk pans set out near the kitchen door. To this door Eliza went

slowly, fanning herself with her handkerchief, for the walk had been

warm. She saw Miss Rexford was in the kitchen alone, attending to some

light cookery.

"I heard company in the front room, so I came round here till they were

gone."

"You are not usually shy," said Sophia.

Eliza sat down on a chair by the wall. With the door wide open the yard

seemed a part of the kitchen. It was a pleasant place. The birch tree

flicked its shadow as far as the much-worn wooden doorstep.

"I was very sorry to hear about last night, Miss Sophia," said Eliza,

sincerely, meaning that she was sorry on Winifred's account more

immediately.

"Yes," said Sophia, acknowledging that there was reason for such

sympathy.

"Is that Principal Trenholme talking?" asked Eliza. The talk in the

sitting-room came through the loose door, and a doubt suddenly occurred

to her.

"No; it's his brother," said Sophia.

"The voices are alike."

"Yes; but the two men don't seem to be much alike."

"I didn't know he had a brother."

"Didn't you? He has just come."

Sophia was taking tea-cakes from the oven. Eliza leaned her head against

the wall; she felt warm and oppressed. One of the smaller children

opened the sitting-room door just then and came into the kitchen. The

child wore a very clean pinafore in token of the day. She came and sat

on Eliza's knee. The door was left ajar; instead of stray words and

unintelligible sentences, all the talk of the sitting-room was now the

common property of those in the kitchen.

In beginning to hear a conversation already in full flow, it is a few

moments before the interchange of remarks and interrogations makes sense

to us. Eliza only came to understand what was being talked of when the

visitor said "No, I'm afraid there's no doubt about the poor girl's

death. After there had been two or three snow-storms there was evidently

no use in looking for her any more; but even then, I think it was months

before _he_ gave up hopes of her return. Night after night he used to

hoist a pinewood torch, thinking she might have fallen in with Indians

and be still alive and trying to make her way back. The fact of the

matter was, Mrs. Rexford, Bates _loved_ her, and he simply _could not_

give her up for dead."

The young man had as many emphasised words in his speech as a girl might

have had, yet his talk did not give the impression of easily expressed

feeling.

"Ah, it was very sad."

"Yes, I didn't know I could have minded so much a thing that did not

affect me personally. Then when he had given up hope of finding her

living, he was off, when the spring came, everywhere over the woods,

supposing that if she had perished, her body could be found when the

snow was gone. I couldn't help helping him to search the place for miles

round. It's a fine place in spring, too; but I don't know when one cares

less about spring flowers than when one's half expecting the dead body

of a girl to turn up in every hollow where they grow thickest. I've

beaten down a whole valley of trillium lilies just to be sure she had

not fallen between the rocks they grew on. And if I felt that way, you

may suppose it was bad enough for Bates."

"He seems to have had a feeling heart."

"Oh well, he had brought the girl up. I don't think he cared for

anything in the world but her."

"And Dr. Nash saw Mr. Bates as soon as you got him to your brother's? If

Dr. Nash thinks he'll pull through I should think you must feel

hopeful."

"Yes--well, I left him on the sofa. He's rather bad."

There was a pause, as if Mrs. Rexford might be sighing and shaking her

head over some suffering before described.

Sophia had gone to the milk cellar to get cream for tea. Eliza followed

her out into the yard.

"I had better not stay to tea," said she, "there won't be room."

"Oh yes, there will; I have a headache, so I'm not going into the

dining-room."

"Then I won't stay. I would rather come some night when you are there."

"How handsome your dress looks! You are getting quite a fine lady,

Eliza."

"My dress!" said Eliza, looking down at it. It seemed to her so long

since she thought of it. "Yes," she continued, stroking it, "it looks

very nicely, doesn't it?"

Sophia assented heartily. She liked the girl's choice of clothes; they

seemed to remove her from, and set her far above, the commoner people

who frequented the hotel.

"You're very tired, Miss Sophia, I can see; and it's no wonder after

last night. It's no fun staying to-night, for we all feel dull about

what's happened; I'll go now."

Eliza went quietly down the lane again, in shadow of the lilac hedge,

and let herself out of the wooden gate; but she did not return to the

village. She looked down the road the other way, measuring with her eyes

the distance to the roof of Trenholme's house. She walked in that

direction, and when she came to Captain Rexford's pasture field, she got

through the bars and crossed it to a small wood that lay behind. Long

golden strips of light lay athwart the grass between elongated shades

cast by cows and bushes. The sabbath quiet was everywhere. All the cows

in the pasture came towards her, for it was milking time, and any one

who came suggested to them the luxury of that process. Some followed her

in slow and dubious fashion; some stopped before her on the path. Eliza

did not even look at them, and when she went in among the young fir

trees they left her alone.

It was not a thick wood; the evening sun shone freely between the clumps

of young spruce. In an open glade an elm tree stood, stretching out

branches sensitive to each breath of air, golden in the slant sunlight

above the low dark firs. The roots of this tree were raised and dry.

Eliza sat down on them. She could see between the young trees out to the

side of the college houses and their exit to the road. She could see the

road too: it was this she watched.

CHAPTER III.

Eliza sat still in her rough woodland chamber till the stray sunbeams

had left its floor of moss and played only through the high open windows

in the elm bough roof. She had seen the cows milked, and now heard the

church bells ring. She looked intently through the fissures of the

spruce shrub walls till at length she saw a light carriage drive away

from the college grounds with the clergyman and his brother in it. She

knew now that their house would be left almost empty. After waiting till

the last church-going gig had passed on the road and the bells had

stopped, she went into the college grounds by a back way, and on to the

front of Trenholme's house.

As was common in the place, the front door yielded when the handle was

turned. Eliza had no wish to summon the housekeeper. She stood in the

inner hall and listened, that she might hear what rooms had inmates.

From the kitchen came occasional clinking of cups and plates; the

housekeeper had evidently not swerved from her regular work. With ears

preternaturally acute, Eliza hearkened to the silence in the other rooms

till some slight sound, she could hardly tell of what, led her upstairs

to a certain door. She did not knock; she had no power to stand there

waiting for a response; the primitive manners of the log house in which

she had lived so long were upon her. She entered the room abruptly,

roughly, as she would have entered the log house door.

In a long chair lay the man she sought. He was dressed in common

ill-fitting clothes; he lay as only the very weak lie, head and limbs

visibly resting on the support beneath them.

She crossed her arms and stood there, fierce and defiant. She was

conscious of the dignity of her pose, of her improved appearance and of

her fine clothes; the consciousness formed part of her defiance. But he

did not even see her mood, just as, manlike, he did not see her dress.

All that he did see was that here, in actual life before him, was the

girl he had lost. In his weakness he bestirred himself with a cry of

fond wondering joy--"Sissy!"

"Yes, Mr. Bates, I'm here."

Some power came to him, for he sat erect, awed and reverent before this

sudden delight that his eyes were drinking in. "Are you safe, Sissy?" he

whispered.

"Yes," she replied, scornfully, "I've been quite safe ever since I got

away from you, Mr. Bates. I've taken care of myself, so I'm quite safe

and getting on finely; but I'd get on better if my feet weren't tied in

a sack because of the things you made me do--you _made_ me do it, you

know you did." She challenged his self-conviction with fierce intensity.

"It was you made me go off and leave your aunt before you'd got any one

else to take care of her; it was you who made me take her money because

you'd give me none that was lawfully my own; it was you that made me run

away in a way that wouldn't seem very nice if any one knew, and do

things they wouldn't think very nice, and--and" (she was incoherent in

her passion) "you _made_ me run out in the woods alone, till I could get

a train, and I was so frightened of you coming, and finding me, and

_telling_, that I had to give another name; and _now_, when I'm getting

on in the world, I have to keep hiding all this at every turn because

people wouldn't think it very pretty conduct. They'd think it was queer

and get up a grand talk. So I've told lies and changed my name, and it's

you that made me, Mr. Bates."

He only took in a small part of the meaning of the words she poured upon

him so quickly, but he could no longer be oblivious to her rage. His joy

in seeing her did not subside; he was panting for breath with the

excitement of it, and his eyes gloated upon her; for his delight in her

life and safety was something wholly apart from any thought of himself,

from the pain her renewed anger must now add to the long-accustomed pain

of his own contrition.

"But how," he whispered, wondering, "how did you get over the hills?

How?--"

"Just how and when I could. 'Twasn't much choice that you left me, Mr.

Bates. It signifies very little now how I got here. I _am_ here. You've

come after the old man that's dead, I suppose. You might have saved

yourself the trouble. He isn't father, if _that's_ what you thought."

He did not even hear the last part of her speech. He grasped at the

breath that seemed trying to elude him.

"You went out into the woods alone," he said, pityingly. He was so

accustomed to give her pity for this that it came easily. "You--you mean

over our hills to the back of the--"

"No, I don't, I wasn't such a silly as to go and die in the hills. I got

across the lake, and I'm here now--that's the main thing, and I want to

know why you're here, and what you're going to do."

Her tone was brutal. It was, though he could not know it, the half

hysterical reaction from that mysterious burst of feeling that had made

her defend him so fiercely against the American's evil imputation.

She was not sufficiently accustomed to ill health to have a quick eye

for it; but she began now to see how very ill he looked. The hair upon

his face and head was damp and matted; his face was sunken,

weather-browned, but bloodless in the colouring. His body seemed

struggling for breath without aid from his will, for she saw he was

thinking only of her. His intense preoccupation in her half fascinated,

half discomforted her, the more so because of the feverish lustre of his

eye.

"I'm sorry you're so ill, Mr. Bates," she said, coldly; "you'd better

lie down."

"Never mind about me," he whispered, eagerly, and feebly moved upon the

seat to get a little nearer her. "Never mind about me; but tell me,

Sissy, have you been a good girl since you got off like this? You're

safe and well--have you been good?"

"I took your aunt's money, if you mean that, but I left you my half of

things for it; and anyway, it was you who made me do it."

"Yes, yes," he assented, "'twas my doing; the sin of all you did then

lies at my door. But since then, Sissy?" His look, his whole attitude,

were an eager question, but she looked at him scornfully.

"Of _course_ I've been good. I go to church and say my prayers, and

every one respects me. I worked first in a family, but I didn't let them

call me a servant. Then I got a place in the Grand Hotel. Old Mr.

Hutchins had got lame, so he couldn't see after things, and I could.

I've done it now for six months, and it's a different house. I always do

everything I do well, so we've made money this summer. I'm thinking of

making Mr. Hutchins take me into partnership; he'd rather do it than

lose me. I'm well thought of, Mr. Bates, by everybody, and I'm going to

get rich."

"Rich," he echoed, quietly. He looked now, his mind drawn by hers, at

her fine clothes, and at the luxuriant red hair that was arranged with

artificial display. The painfulness of his breath and his weakness

returned now within his range of feeling.

Without having expected to absorb his mind or knowing that she cared to

do so, she still felt that instant that something was lost to her. The

whole stream of his life, that had been hers since she had entered the

room, was no longer all for her. She pressed on quietly to the business

she had with him, fearing to lose a further chance.

"Look here, Mr. Bates! It's not more than a few hours since I heard you

were here, so I've come to tell you that I'm alive and all right, and

all that I've done that wasn't very nice was your fault; but, look here,

I've something else to say: I don't know why you've come here to see

this old preacher, or who he is, or what you have to do with him; but it

would be cruel and mean of you now, after driving me to do what I did,

to tell the people here about it, and that my name isn't White, you

know. I've very nice friends here, who'd be shocked, and it would do me

harm. I'm not going to accuse you to people of what you've done. I'm

sorry you're ill, and that you've had all the trouble of hunting for me,

and all that; but I've come to ask you now to keep quiet and not say who

I am."

He drew great sighs, as a wounded animal draws its breath, but he was

not noticing the physical pain of breathing. He did not catch at breath

as eagerly as he was trying to catch at this new idea, this new Sissy,

with a character and history so different from what he had supposed. His

was not a mind that took rational account of the differences between

characters, yet he began to realise now that the girl who had made her

own way, as this one had, was not the same as the girl he had imagined

wandering helplessly among pathless hills, and dying feebly there.

She still looked at him as if demanding an answer to her request, looked

at him curiously too, trying to estimate how ill he _was_. He did not

speak, and she, although she did not at all fathom his feeling, knew

instinctively that some influence she had had over him was lessened.

"Of course you can spoil my life if you like, Mr. Bates, but I've come

to ask you not. Someone's told me there's a mine found on our

clearin'--well, when I took your aunt's gold pieces I meant to leave you

the land for them. I'm too proud to go back on that now, _far_ too

proud; you can keep the money if you want to, or you can give me some of

it if you _want_ to. I'd like to be rich better than anything, but I'd

rather be poor as a church mouse, and free to get on my own way, than

have you to say what I ought to do every touch and turn, thinking I'd

only be good and sensible so long as I did what you told me" (there was

derision in her voice). "But now, as I say, you have the chance to make

me miserable if you choose; but I've come to ask you not to, although if

you do, I dare say I can live it down."

He looked at her bewildered. A few moments since and all the joy bells

of his life had been a-chime; they were still ringing, but jangling

confusedly out of tune, and--now she was asking him to conceal the cause

of his joy, that he had found her. He could not understand fully; his

mind would not clear itself.

"I won't do anything to make you miserable, Sissy," he said, faintly.

"You won't tell that you've seen me, or who I am, or anything?" she

insisted, half pleading, half threatening.

He turned his face from her to hide the ghastly faintness that was

coming over him. "I--I oughtn't to have tried to keep you, when I did,"

he said.

"No, you oughtn't to," she assented, quickly.

"And I won't speak of you now, if that's what you want."

"Thank you," she said, wondering what had made him turn his back to her.

"You aren't very ill, are you, Mr. Bates?"

"No--you--I only can't get my breath. You'd better go, perhaps."

"Yes, I think I had," she replied.

And she went.

CHAPTER IV.

There are many difficulties in this world which, if we refuse to submit

to them, will in turn be subdued by us, but a sprained ankle is not one

of them. Robert Trenholme, having climbed a hill after he had twisted

his foot, and having, contrary to all advice, used it to some extent the

next day, was now fairly conquered by the sprain and destined to be held

by this foot for many long days. He explained to his brother who the

lady was whom he had taken up the hill, why he himself had first

happened to be with her, and that he had slipped with one foot in a

roadside ditch, and, thinking to catch her up, had run across a field

and so missed the lane in the darkness. This was told in the meagre,

prosaic way that left no hint of there being more to tell.

"What is she like?" asked Alec, for he had confessed that he had talked

to the lady.

"Like?" repeated Robert, at a loss; "I think she must be like her own

mother, for she is like none of the other Rexfords."

"All the rest of the family are good-looking."

"Yes," said Robert dreamily.

So Alec jumped to the conclusion that Robert did not consider Miss

Rexford good-looking. He did not tell anything more about her or ask

anything more. He saw no reason for insulting Robert by saying he had at

first overheard her conversation, and that it had been continued to him

after she had mistaken one for the other. He wondered over those of her

remarks which he remembered, and his family pride was hurt by them. He

did not conceive that Robert had been much hurt, simply because he

betrayed no sign of injured feeling. Younger members of a family often

long retain a curiously lofty conception of their elders, because in

childhood they have looked upon them as embodiments of age and wisdom.

Alec, in loose fashion of thought, supposed Robert to be too much

occupied by more important affairs to pay heed to a woman's opinion of

him, but he cherished a dream of some day explaining to Miss Rexford

that she was mistaken in his brother's character. His pulse beat quicker

at the thought, because it would involve nearness to her and equality of

conversation. That Robert had any special fancy for the lady never

entered his mind.

Although we may be willing to abuse those who belong to us we always

feel that the same or any censure coming from an outsider is more or

less unjust; and, too, although the faults of near relatives grieve us

more bitterly than the crimes of strangers, yet most of us have an

easy-going way of forgetting all about the offence at the first

opportunity. There is nothing in the world stronger than the quiet force

of the family tie, which, except in case of need, lies usually so

passive that its strength is overlooked by the superficial observer. It

was by virtue of this tie now that the two brothers, although they had

so great a difference, although they were so constituted as to see most

things very differently, found themselves glad to be in each other's

company. Their hearts grew warmer by mere proximity; they talked of old

family incidents, and of the incidents of the present, with equal zest.

The one thing they did not immediately mention was the subject of the

quarrel about which they had not yet come to an agreement.

One thing that fretted Alec considerably during that Sunday and Monday

was that Bates had arrived at Chellaston in such a weak state, and had

had so severe an attack of his malady on the Sunday evening, that it was

impossible to take him to see the body of the old man who went by the

name of Cameron. It was in vain that Bates protested, now more strongly

than ever, that he was certain the man was not Cameron; as he would give

no proof of his certainty further than what had already been discussed

between them, Alec could not but feel that he was unreasonable in

refusing to take any interest in the question of identity. However, he

was not well enough to be troubled, certainly not well enough to be

moved. Alec strode over to Cooper's farm alone, and took a last look at

the old man where he lay in a rough shed, and gave his evidence about

the death before the coroner.

What few belongings the old man had were taken from the Harmon house by

the coroner before Harkness left, but no writing was found upon them. A

description of the body was advertised in the Monday's papers, but no

claim came quickly. Natural law is imperious, seeking to gather earth's

children back to their mother's breast, and when three warm days were

past, all of him that bore earthly image and superscription was given

back to earth in a corner of the village cemetery. An Adventist

minister, who sometimes preached in Chellaston, came to hold such

service as he thought suitable over the grave, and Alec Trenholme was

one of the very few who stood, hat in hand, to see the simple rite.

They were not in the old graveyard by the river, but in a new cemetery

that had been opened on a slope above the village. It was a bare, stony

place; shrubs that had been planted had not grown. In the corner where

they untie it, except little by little, in a lifetime, or in

generations of lives! Alec Trenholme, confronted almost for the first

time with the thought that it is not easy to find the ideal modern life,

even when one is anxious to conform to it, began tugging at all the

strands of difficulty at once, not seeing them very clearly, but still

with no notion but that if he set his strength to it, he could unravel

them all in the half-hour's walk that lay between him and the college.

He had not got from under the arching elms at the thin end of the

village when two young ladies in an open phaeton bowed to him. He was

not absent; his mind worked wholesomely at the same instant with his

senses. He saw and knew that these were the Miss Browns, to whom Robert

had introduced him at the end of the Sunday evening service. He thought

them very pretty; he had seen then that they were very gentle and

respectful to Robert; he saw now from the smile that accompanied the

bow, that he was a person they delighted to honour. They were driving

quickly: they were past in a flash of time; and as he replaced his hat

upon his head, he thought that he really was a very good-looking fellow,

very well proportioned, and straight in the legs. He wondered if his

clothes were just the thing; they had not been worn much, but it was a

year since he had got them in England to bring out, and their style

might be a little out of date! Then he thought with satisfaction that

Robert always dressed very well. Robert was very good-looking too. They

were really a very fine pair of brothers! Their father had been a very

fine--He had got quite a bit further on the road since he met the

carriage, so lightly had he stepped to the tune of these thoughts, so

brightly had the sun shone upon them. Now he thought of that pile of

aprons he had in his portmanteau, and he saw them, not as they were now,

freshly calendered in the tight folds of a year's disuse, but as he had

often seen them, with splashes of blood and grease on them. He fancied

the same stains upon his hands; he remembered the empty shop he had

just passed near the general store, which for nearly a year back he had

coveted as a business stand. He estimated instinctively the difference

in the sort of bow the pretty Brown girls would be likely to give him if

he carried his own purpose through. The day seemed duller. He felt more

sorry for his brother than he had ever felt before. He looked about at

the rough fields, the rude log fences, at the road with its gross

unevennesses and side strips of untrimmed weeds. He looked at it all,

his man's eyes almost wistful as a girl's. Was it as hard in this new

crude condition of things to hew for oneself a new way through the

invisible barriers of the time-honoured judgments of men, as it would be

where road and field had been smoothed by the passing of generations?

He had this contrast between English and Canadian scenery vividly in his

mind, wondering what corresponding social differences, if any, could be

found to make his own particular problem of the hour more easy, and all

the fine speculations he had had when he came down from the cemetery had

resolved themselves into--whether, _after all_, it would be better to go

on being a butcher or not, when he came to the beginning of the Rexford

paling. He noticed how battered and dingy it was. The former owner had

had it painted at one time, but the paint was almost worn off. The front

fencing wanted new pales in many places, and the half acre's space of

grass between the verandah and the road was wholly unkempt. It certainly

did not look like the abode of a family of any pretensions. It formed,

indeed, such a contrast to any house he would have lived in, even had

painting and fencing to be done with his own hand, that he felt a sort

of wrath rising in him at Miss Rexford's father and brother, that they

should suffer her to live in such a place.

He had not come well in front before he observed that the women of the

family were grouped at work on the green under a tree near the far end

of the house. A moment more, and he saw the lady of the midnight walk

coming towards him over the grass. He never doubted that it was she,

although he had not seen her before by daylight. She had purposely

avoided him on the Sunday; he had felt it natural she should do so. Now

when he saw her coming--evidently coming on purpose to waylay and speak

to him, the excitement he felt was quite unaccountable, even to himself;

not that he tried to account for it--he only knew that she was coming,

that his heart seemed to beat against his throat, that she had come and

laid her hand upon the top of the paling, and looked over at him and

said:

"Have they buried him? Did you--have you been there?"

"Yes," said he.

"We have only just heard a rumour that the funeral was taking place. I

thought when I saw you that perhaps you had been there. I am so glad you

went." Her eyes looked upon him with kind approval.

He fancied from her manner that she thought herself older than he--that

she was treating him like a boy. Her face was bright with interest and

had the flush of some slight embarrassment upon it.

He told her what had happened and where the grave was, and stood in the

sweet evening air with quieted manner before her. She did not seem to be

thinking of what he said. "There was something else that I--I rather

wanted to take the first opportunity of saying to you."

All her face now was rosy with embarrassment, and he saw that, although

she went on bravely, she was shy--shy of him! He hardly took in what she

was saying, in the wonder, in the pleasure of it. Then he knew that she

had been saying that she feared she had talked to him while mistaking

him for his brother, that what she had said had doubtless appeared very

wild, very foolish, as he did not know the conversation out of which it

grew; probably he had forgotten or had not paid heed at the time, but if

he should chance to remember, and had not already repeated her words,

would he be kind enough not to do so, and to forget them himself?

This was her request, and he guessed, from the tenor of it, that she did

not know how little he had heard in all or how much she had said to him

and how much to his brother; that she would like to know, but was too

proud to ask or to hear; that, in fact, this proud lady had said words

that she was ashamed of.

"I haven't said a word to Robert about it, and of course I won't now."

It was a very simple thing to say, yet some way he felt a better man in

his own eyes because she had asked him. He did not claim that he had

paid no attention or forgotten, for he felt just now that all her words

were so supremely worthy of deference that he only wished he could

remember more of what she had let fall when her heart was stirred. "Of

course," he said, "I didn't know it had been Robert, or I would have

gone back for him."

He floundered on into the midst of excuses, and her embarrassment had

time to pass away, with it the blush on her face, and he felt as if a

sun had somewhere set.

"Thank you" (she was all sedateness now) "I fear that Principal

Trenholme is suffering very much from his foot and will be kept in for

some time. If you had told me that you had repeated my unjust speeches I

should have asked you to take some apology, to say that I am quite

willing to acknowledge my own--unreasonableness."

He saw that this speech was intended to cover all the ground, and that

he was desired to impart as much of the apology as he believed to be

needed, and no more. He remembered now that he had intended to plead

Robert's cause, but could think of nothing to say except--

"Robert is--Robert really is an awfully good man."

This he said so suddenly and so earnestly looking at her, that she was

betrayed into an unintended answer.

"Is he?" And then in a moment she smiled on him again, and said warmly,

"He certainly is if you say that; a brother knows as no one else can."

She was treating him like a boy again. He did not like it now because

he had felt the sweetness of having her at an advantage. There are some

men who, when they see what they want, stretch out their hands to take

it with no more complexity of thought than a baby has when it reaches

for a toy. At other times Alec Trenholme might consider; just then he

only knew that he wanted to talk longer with this stately girl who was

now retiring. He arrested her steps by making a random dash at the first

question that might detain her.

There was much that, had he known his own mind clearly and how to

express it, he would have liked to say to her. Deep down within him he

was questioning whether it was possible always to live under such

impulse of fealty to Heaven as had befallen him under the exciting

influence of Cameron's expectation, whether the power of such an hour to

sift the good from the evil, the important from the unimportant in life,

could in any wise be retained. But he would have been a wholly different

man from what he was had he thought this concisely, or said it aloud.

All that he did was to express superficial curiosity concerning the

sentiments of others, and to express it inanely enough.

"Do you think," he said, "that all those poor people--my brother's

housekeeper, for instance--do you think they really thought--really

expected--"

"I think--" she said. (She came back to the fence and clasped her hands

upon it in her interest.) "Don't you think, Mr. Trenholme, that a person

who is always seeking the Divine Presence, lives in it and has power to

make other people know that it is near? But then, you see, these others

fancy they must model their seeking upon the poor vagaries of their

teacher. We are certain that the treasure is found, but--we mix up

things so, things are really so mixed, that we suppose we must shape our

ideas upon the earthen vessel that holds it. I don't know whether I have

said what I mean, or if you understand--" she stopped.

She was complaining that people will not distinguish between the

essence of the heaven-sent message and the accident of form in which it

comes. He did not quite understand, because, if the truth must be told,

he had not entirely listened; for although all the spiritual nature that

was in him was stimulated by hers, a more outward sympathy asserted

itself too; he became moved with admiration and liking for her, and

feeling struggled with thought.

"Yes," he said, dreaming of her alone, "if one could always be with

people who are good, it would be easier to do something worth doing."

Notwithstanding her interest in what she was saying, Sophia began now to

see the inclination of his heart for her as one might see a trivial

detail of landscape while looking at some absorbing thing, such as a

race. She saw the homage he inwardly proffered more clearly than he saw

it himself. She had seen the same thing before often enough to know it.

"I think," she continued, "if I had been very ignorant, and had seen a

good deal of this old man, I would have followed him anywhere, because I

would have thought the spiritual force of his life was based on his

opinions, which must therefore be considered true. Isn't that the way we

are apt to argue about any phase of Church or Dissent that has

vitality?"

But the knowledge she had just come by was making its way to a foremost

place in her thought, and her open heart closed gently as a sensitive

plant closes its leaves. As he watched the animation of her face, he saw

the habitual reserve come over it again like a shadow. He felt that she

was withdrawing from him as truly as if she had been again walking away,

although now she stood still where his renewal of talk had stopped her.

He tried again to grasp at the moment of gracious chance, to claim her

interest, but failed.

He went on down the road. He had not guessed the lady had seen his

heart, for he hardly saw it himself; yet he called himself a blundering

fool. He wondered that he had dared to talk with her so long, yet he

wondered more that he had not dared to talk longer. In all this he never

thought of social grades, as he had done in connection with the smiles

of the Miss Browns. Sophia Rexford had struck his fancy more as a

superior being; and to angels, or to the Madonna, we do not seek to

recommend ourselves by position or pedigree.

The strong, clear evening light, tinted with gold, was upon everything.

He felt that if he could but live near the woman he had left, the

problem of living would become simple, and the light of life's best

hours would shine for him always; but he entered into no fine

distinction of ideal friendships.

CHAPTER V.

In the meantime the elder of the brothers Trenholme had not the

satisfaction of meeting with Sophia Rexford, or of going to see the

strange old man laid away in his last resting-place.

Robert Trenholme lay in his house, suffering a good deal of physical

pain, suffering more from restlessness of nerve caused by his former

tense activity, suffering most from the consideration of various things

which were grievous to him.

He had been flouted by the woman he loved. The arrow she had let fly had

pierced his heart and, through that, his understanding. He never told

her, or anyone, how angry he had been at the first stab that wounded,

nor that, when the familiar sound of his brother's voice came to him in

the midst of this anger, he had been dumb rather than claim kindred in

that place with the young man who, by his actions, had already taken up

the same reproach. No, he never told them that it was more in surly rage

than because he had slipped in the ditch that he had let them go on

without him in the darkness; but he knew that this had been the case;

and, although he was aware of no momentous consequences following on

this lapse, he loathed himself for it, asking by what gradual steps he

had descended to be capable of such a moment of childish and churlish

temper. He was a product of modern culture, and had the devil who had

overcome him been merely an unforgiving spirit, or the spirit of

sarcastic wit or of self-satisfied indifference, he might hardly have

noticed that he had fallen from the high estate of Christian manhood,

even though the fiend jumped astride his back and ambled far on him; but

when he found that he had been overcome by a natural impulse of

passionate wrath he was appalled, and was philosopher enough to look for

the cause of such weakness prior to the moment of failure. Was it true,

what Sophia had said, that he had sold his birthright for a little

paltry prosperity? He thought more highly of her discrimination than any

one else would have done, because he loved her. What had she seen in him

to make her use that form of accusation? And if it was true, was there

for him no place of repentance?

Then he remembered the purer air of the dark mountaintop. There he had

seen many from his own little cure of souls who were shaken by the

madman's fervour as _he_ had never been able to move them by precept or

example. There he, too, had seen, with sight borrowed from the eyes of

the enthusiast, the enthusiast's Lord, seen Him the more readily because

there had been times in his life when he had not needed another to show

him the loveliness that exceeds all other loveliness. He was versed in

the chronicle of the days when the power of God wrought wonders by

devoted men, and he asked himself with whom this power had been working

here of late--with him, the priest, or with this wandering fool, out of

whose lips it would seem that praise was ordained. He looked back to

divers hours when he had given himself wholly to the love of God, and to

the long reaches of time between them, in which he had not cast away the

muck-rake, but had trailed it after him with one hand as he walked

forward, looking to the angel and the crown. He seemed to see St. Peter

pointing to the life all which he had professed to devote while he had

kept back part; and St. Peter said, "Whiles it remained, was it not

thine own? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God."

There was for him the choice that is given to every man in this sort of

pain, the choice between dulling his mind to the pain, letting it pass

from him as he holds on his way (and God knows it passes easily), or

clasping it as the higher good. Perhaps this man would not have been

wiser than many other men in his choice had he not looked at the

gathering of his muck-rake and in that found no comfort. Since a woman

had called this prosperity paltry, it seemed less substantial in his own

eyes; but, paltry or worthy, he believed that it was in the power of his

younger brother to reverse that prosperity, and he felt neither brave

enough to face this misfortune nor bad enough to tamper with that

brother's crude ideals for the sake of his own gain. From the length of

his own experience, from the present weariness of his soul, he looked

upon Alec more than ever as a boy to be shielded from the shock of

further disillusion with regard to himself. He had not had Alec's weal a

thorn in his conscience for ten months without coming to feel that, if

merely for the sake of his own comfort, he would not shoulder that

burden again. Now this conception he had of Alec as a weaker man, and of

his ideals as crude and yet needing tender dealing, was possibly a

mistaken one, yet, so curious is our life that, true or false, it was

the thing that at this juncture made him spurn all thought of setting

aside the reproach of his roused sense of loss as morbid or unreal. He

looked to his early realisation of the all-attractiveness of the love of

God, not with the rational view that such phase of religion is ordained

to fade in the heat of life, but with passionate regret that by his own

fault he had turned away from the glory of life. He thought of the

foolish dreamer who had been struck dead in the full impulse of

adoration and longing love, and he would have given reason and life

itself to have such gate of death open now for him.

His spirit did not rest, but tossed constantly, as a fever patient upon

his bed, for rest requires more than the softest of beds; and as even

those whose bodies are stretched on pillows of down may be too weak to

find bodily rest, so the soul that lies, as do all self-sick souls, in

the everlasting arms, too often lacks health to feel the up-bearing.

A clever sailor, whose ship is sinking because of too much freight does

not think long before he throws the treasure overboard; a wise man in

pain makes quick vows of abstinence from the cause of pain. In Trenholme

there was little vestige of that low type of will which we see in

lobsters and in many wilful men, who go on clutching whatever they have

clutched, whether it be useful or useless, till the claw is cut off. He

had not realised that he had fallen from the height of his endeavours

before he began to look about eagerly for something that he might

sacrifice. But here he was met by the difficulty that proves that in the

higher stages of human development honest effort after righteousness is

not one whit easier than are man's first simple efforts to put down the

brute in him. Trenholme could find in himself no offending member that

was not so full of good works toward others that he could hardly destroy

it without defrauding them. He had sought nothing for himself that was

not a legitimate object of desire. The world, the flesh, and the devil

had polished themselves to match all that was best in him, and blended

impartially with it, so that in very truth he did not know where to

condemn. A brave man, when examined, will confess all that he honourably

may, but not more; so Trenholme confessed himself to be worldly, but

against that he was forced to confess that a true son of the world would

have been insensible to the torture he was groaning under. He upbraided

himself for not knowing right from wrong, and yet he knew that it was

only a very superficial mind that imagined that without direct

inspiration from Heaven it could detect its sin and error truly. Crying

for such inspiration, his cry seemed unanswered.

Ah, well, each man must parley as best he may with the Angel who

withstands him in the narrow place where there is no way to turn to the

right hand or the left. We desire at such times to be shown some such

clear portraiture of the ideal to which we must conform in our place and

circumstance as shall cause us no more to mistake good for evil.

Possibly, if such image of all we ourselves ought to be were given to

our gaze, we could not look in its eyes and live. Possibly, if Heaven

granted us the knowledge of all thoughts and deeds that would make up

the ideal self, we should go on our way producing vile imitations of it

and neglecting Heaven, as they do who seek only to imitate the Divine

Example. At any rate, such perfection of self-ideal is not given us,

except with the years that make up the sum of life.

CHAPTER VI.

Robert Trenholme had a lively wit, and it stood him many times in lieu

of chapel walls for within it he could retire at all times and be

hidden. Of all that he experienced within his heart at this time not any

part was visible to the brother who was his idle visitor; or perhaps

only the least part, and that not until the moot point between them was

touched upon.

There came a day, two days after the old preacher had been buried, when

the elder brother called out:

"Come, my lad, I want to speak to you."

Robert was lying on a long couch improvised for him in the corner of his

study. The time was that warm hour of the afternoon when the birds are

quiet and even the flies buzz drowsily. Bees in the piebald petunias

that grew straggling and sweet above the sill of the open window, dozed

long in each sticky chalice. Alec was taking off his boots in the lobby,

and in reply to the condescending invitation he muttered some graceless

words concerning his grandmother, but he came into the room and sat

with his elbows on the table. He had an idea of what might be said, and

felt the awkwardness of it.

"That fellow Bates," he observed, "is devouring your book-case

indiscriminately. He seems to be in the sort of fever that needs

distraction every moment. I asked him what he'd have to read, and he

said the next five on the shelf--he's read the first ten."

"It's not of Bates I wish to speak; I want to know what you've decided

to do. Are you going to stick to your father's trade, or take to some

other?"

Robert held one arm above his head, with his fingers through the leaves

of the book he had been reading. He tried to speak in a casual way, but

they both had a disagreeable consciousness that the occasion was

momentous. Alec's mind assumed the cautious attitude of a schoolboy

whispering "_Cave_". He supposed that the other hoped now to achieve by

gentleness what he had been unable to achieve by storm.

"Of course," he answered, "I won't set up here if you'd rather be quit

of me. I'll go as far as British Columbia, if that's necessary to make

you comfortable."

"By that I understand that in these ten months your mind has not

altered."

"No; but as I say, I won't bother you."

"Have you reconsidered the question, or have you stuck to it because you

said you would?"

"I have reconsidered it."

"You feel quite satisfied that, as far as you are concerned, this is the

right thing to do?"

"Yes."

"Well then, as far as I am concerned, I don't want to drive you to the

other side of the continent. You can take advantage of the opening here

if you want to."

Alec looked down at the things on the table. He felt the embarrassment

of detecting his brother in some private religious exercise; nothing, he

thought, but an excess of self-denial could have brought this about;

yet he was gratified.

"Look here! You'd better not say that--I might take you at your word."

"Consider that settled. You set up shop, and I will take a fraternal

interest in the number of animals you kill, and always tell you with

conscientious care when the beef you supply to me is tough. And in the

meantime, tell me, like a good fellow, why you stick to this thing. When

you flung from me last time you gave me no explanation of what you

thought."

"At least," cried Alec, wrath rising at the memory of that quarrel, "I

gave you a fair hearing, and knew what you thought."

When anger began he looked his brother full in the face, thus noticing

how thin that face was, too thin for a man in the prime of life, and the

eye was too bright. As the brief feeling of annoyance subsided, the

habitual charm of the elder man's smile made him continue to look at

him.

"And yet," continued Robert, "two wrongs do not make a right. That I am

a snob does not excuse you for taking up any line of life short of the

noblest within your reach."

The other again warned himself against hidden danger. "You're such a

confoundedly fascinating fellow, with your smiles and your suppressed

religion, I don't wonder the girls run after you. But you are a

Jesuit--I never called you a snob--you're giving yourself names to fetch

me round to see things your way."

It was an outburst, half of admiring affection, half of angry obstinacy,

and the elder brother received it without resentment, albeit a little

absently. He was thinking that if Alec held out, "the girls" would not

run after him much more. But then he thought that there was one among

them who would not think less, who perhaps might think more of him, for

this sacrifice. He had not made it for her; it might never be his lot to

make any sacrifice for her; yet she perhaps would understand this one

and applaud it. The thought brought a sudden light to his face, and

Alec watched the light and had no clue by which to understand it. He

began, however, defending himself.

"Look here! You suggest I should take the noblest course, as if I had

never thought of that before. I'm not lower in the scale of creation

than you, and I've had the same bringing up. I've never done anything

great, but I've tried not to do the other thing. I felt I should be a

sneak when I left school if I disappointed father for the sake of being

something fine, and I feel I should be a sneak now if I turned--"

"You acted like the dear fellow I always knew you were in the first

instance, but why is it the same now? It's not for his sake, surely,

for, for all you know, from where he is now, the sight of you going on

with that work may not give him pleasure, but pain."

"No; I went into it to please him, but now he's gone that's ended."

"Then it's _not_ the same now. Why do you say you'd feel like a sneak if

you changed? There is, I think, no goddess or patron saint of the trade,

who would be personally offended at your desertion."

"You don't understand at all. I'm sick--just sick, of seeing men trying

to find something grand enough to do, instead of trying to do the first

thing they can grandly."

"I haven't noticed that men are so set on rising."

"No, not always; but when they're not ambitious enough to get something

fine to do, they're not ambitious enough to do what they do well, unless

it's for the sake of money. Look at the fellows that went to school with

us, half of them shopkeepers' sons. How many of them went in with their

fathers? Just those who were mean enough to care for nothing but

money-making, and those who were too dull to do anything else."

"The education they got was good enough to give them a taste for higher

callings."

"Yes"--with a sneer--"and how the masters gloried over such brilliant

examples as yourself, who felt themselves 'called higher,' so to speak!

You had left school by the time I came to it, but I had your shining

tracks pointed out to me all along the way, and old Thompson told me

that Wolsey's father was 'in the same line as my papa,' and he

instructed me about Kirke White's career; and I, greedy little pig that

I was, sucked it all in till I sickened. I've never been able to feed on

any of that food since."

In a moment the other continued, "Well, in spite of the fact that our

own father was too true and simple ever to be anything but a gentleman,

it remains true that the choice of this trade and others on a level with

it--"

"Such as hunting and shooting, or the cooking of meats that ladies are

encouraged to devote themselves to."

"I was saying--the choice of this trade, or of others on a level with

it, be they whatever they are, implies something coarse in the grain of

the average man who chooses it, and has a coarsening effect upon him."

"If the old novels are any true picture of life, there was a time when

every cleric was a place-hunter. Would you have advised good men to keep

out of the church at that time? I'm told there's hardly an honourable

man in United States politics: is that less reason, or more, for honest

fellows to go into public life there?" (Impatience was waxing again. The

words fell after one another in hot haste.) "There's a time coming when

every man will be taught to like to keep his hands clean and read the

poets; and will you preach to them all then that they mustn't be coarse

enough to do necessary work, or do you imagine it will be well done if

they all do an hour a day at it in amateur fashion? You're thoroughly

inconsistent," he cried.

"Do you imagine I'm trying to argue with you, boy?" cried the other,

bitterly. "I could say a thousand things to the point, but I've no

desire to say them. I simply wish to state the thing fairly, to see how

far you have worked through it."

"I've thought it out rather more thoroughly than you, it seems to me,

for at least I'm consistent."

They were both offended; the elder biting his lip over sarcastic words,

the younger flushed with hasty indignation. Then, in a minute, the one

put away his anger, and the other, forgetting the greater part of his,

talked on.

"I'll tell you the sort of thing that's made me feel I should be a sneak

to give it up. Just after I left school I went back to visit old

Thompson, and he and his wife took me to a ball at the Assembly Rooms.

It was quite a swell affair, and there weren't enough men. So old

Thompson edged us up to a grand dame with a row of daughters, and I

heard him in plethoric whisper informing her, as in duty bound, just who

I was, 'but,' added he, as a compensating fact, 'there isn't a finer or

more gentlemanly fellow in the room.' So the old hen turned round and

took me in with one eye, all my features and proportions; but it wasn't

till Thompson told her that father was about to retire, and that I, of

course, was looking to enter a higher walk, that she gave permission to

trot me up. Do you think I went? They were pretty girls she had, and the

music--I'd have given something to dance that night; but if I was the

sort of man she'd let dance with her girls, she needn't have taken

anything else into account; and if I was decent enough for them, it was

because of something else in me other than what I did or didn't do. I

swore then, by all that's sweet--by music and pretty girls and

everything else--that I'd carve carcases for the rest of my days, and if

the ladies didn't want me they might do without me. You know how it was

with father; all the professional men in the place were only too glad to

have a chat with him in the reading-rooms and the hotel. They knew his

worth, but they wouldn't have had him inside their own doors. Well, the

worse for their wives and daughters, say I. They did without him; they

can do without me. The man that will only have me on condition his trade

is not mine can do without me too, and if it's the same in a new

country, then the new country be damned!"

The hot-headed speaker, striding about the room, stopped with the word

that ended this tirade, and gave it out roundly.

"The thing is," said Robert, "can you do without _them_--all these men

and women who won't have you on your own terms? They constitute all the

men and women in the world for you and me, for we don't care for the

other sort. Can you do without them? I couldn't." He said the "I

couldn't" first as if looking back to the time when he had broken loose

from the family tradition; he repeated it more steadfastly, and it

seemed to press pathetically into present and future--"I couldn't." The

book that he had been idly swinging above his pillow was an old missal,

and he lowered it now to shield his face somewhat from his brother's

downward gaze.

"No, you couldn't," repeated Alec soberly. He stood with his hands in

his pockets, looking down half pityingly, perhaps with a touch of

superiority. "You couldn't; but I can, and I'll stand by my colours. I

should be a coward if I didn't."

Robert coloured under his look, under his words, so he turned away and

stood by the window. After a minute Robert spoke.

"You haven't given me the slightest reason for your repeated assertion

that you would be a coward."

"Yes, I have. That's just what I've been saying."

"You have only explained that you think so the more strongly for all

opposition, and that may not be rational. Other men can do this work and

be thankful to get it; you can do higher work." His words were

constrainedly patient, but they only raised clamour.

"I don't know what you profess and call yourself! What should I change

for? To pamper your pride and mine--is that a worthy end? To find

something easier and more agreeable--is that manly, when this has been

put into my hand? How do I know I could do anything better? I know I can

do this well. As for these fine folks you've been talking of, I'll see

they get good food, wherever I am; and that's not as easy as you think,

nor as often done; and there's not one of them that would do all their

grand employments if they weren't catered for; and as for the other men

that would do it" (he was incoherent in his heat), "they do it pretty

badly, some of them, just because they're coarse in the grain; and you

tell me it'll make them coarser; well then, I, who can do it without

getting coarse, will do it, till men and women stop eating butcher's

meat. You'd think it more pious if I put my religion into being a

missionary to the Chinese, or into writing tracts? Well, I don't."

He was enthusiastic; he was perhaps very foolish; but the brother who

was older had learned at least this, that it does not follow that a man

is in the wrong because he can give no wiser reason for his course than

"I take this way because I will take it."

"Disarm yourself, old fellow," he said. "I am not going to try to

dissuade you. I tried that last year, and I didn't succeed; and if I had

promise of success now, I wouldn't try. Life's a fearful thing, just

because, when we shut our eyes to what is right in the morning, at noon

it's not given us to see the difference between black and white, unless

our eyes get washed with the right sort of tears."

Alec leaned his head out of the window; he felt that his brother was

making a muff of himself, and did not like it.

"If you see this thing clearly," Robert continued, "I say, go ahead and

do it; but I want you just to see the whole of it. According to you, I

am on the wrong track; but I have got far along it, and now I have other

people to consider. It seems a pity, when there are only two of us in

the world, that we should have to put half the world between us. We used

to have the name, at least of being attached." He stopped to find the

thread, it was a disconnected speech for him to formulate. He had put

his arm under his head now, and was looking round at his brother. "I

have never misrepresented anything. For the matter of that, the man who

had most to do with putting me in my berth here, knew all that there was

to be known about my father. He didn't publish the matter, for the sake

of the school; and when I had taken the school, I couldn't publish it

either. All the world was free to inquire, but as far as I know, no one

has done so; and I have let the sleeping dog lie."

"I never said you ought to have been more talkative. It's not my

business."

"The position you take makes it appear that I am in a false position.

Give me time to get about again. I ought at least to be more frank with

my personal friends. Wait till I have opportunity to speak myself--that

is all I ask of you. After that do what you will; but I think it only

right to tell you that if you set up shop here, or near here, I should

resign my place in this college."

"I'm not going to stay here. I told you I see that won't work."

"Don't be hasty. As I said, it's hard lines if this must separate us. I

can keep the church. They can't be particular about my status there,

because they can't pay me."

"It's mad to think of such a thing; it would be worse for the college

than for you."

"If I knew it would be the worse for the college it might not be right

to do it" (he spoke as if this had cost him thought), "but there are

plenty who can manage a concern like this, now it is fairly established,

even if they could not have worked it up as I have."

"I'd like to see them get another man like you!"--loudly--"H'n, if they

accepted your resignation they'd find themselves on the wrong side of

the hedge! They wouldn't do it, either; it isn't as if you were not

known now for what you are. They can't be such fools as to think that

where I am, or what I do, can alter you."

"It is not with the more sensible men who are responsible for the

college that the choice would ultimately lie, but with the boys'

parents. If the numbers drop off--"

"Then the parents are the greatest idiots--"

There was a world of wrath in the words, but the principal of the New

College, who felt his position so insecure, laughed.

"Yes, you may fairly count on that. A clever woman, who kept a girls'

school, told me once that if she had to draw up rules for efficient

school-keeping they would begin:--'1st. Drown all the parents!'--My own

experience has led me to think she was not far wrong."

Alec stood looking out of the open window with a thunderous face. For

several reasons, some of which he hardly understood, he did not want to

leave Chellaston; but he had no intention of ruining his brother. It

annoyed him that Robert should seriously propose to retire, and more,

that he should let jokes and laughter fall on the heels of such a

proposal. He did not know that there are hours to some men, coming not

in the heat of party conflict, but in the quiet of daily life, when

martyrdom would be easy, and any sacrifice short of martyrdom is mere

play. And because he did not know this, he did not believe in it, just

as the average man does not. His cogitation, however, was not on such

abstruse matters, nor was it long, but its result was not insignificant.

"Put your money into it," he said, "and fight it out! Put part of my

money into it, if you like, and let us fight it out together."

Perhaps the sentiment that actuated the suggestion, even as concerned

part of his own inheritance, was nothing more than pugilistic; the idea,

however, came to Robert Trenholme as entirely a new one. The proceeds of

his father's successful trade lay temporarily invested, awaiting Alec's

decision, and his own share would probably be ample to tide the college

over any such shock to its income as might be feared from the

circumstances they had been contemplating, and until public confidence

might be laboriously regained. The plan was not one that would have

occurred to his own mind--first, because the suggestions of his mind

were always prudent; secondly, because such a fight was shocking to

that part of his nature which was usually uppermost. It would be far

more agreeable to him to turn away from the averted eyes of correct

taste than to stand brazenly till he was again tolerated. Still, this

very thing he disliked most might be the thing that he was meant to do,

and also there is nothing more contagious than the passion for war.

Alec's bellicose attitude aroused party spirit in him. He knew the power

of money; he knew the power of the prestige he had; he began to realise

that he could do this thing if he chose.

"You are a piece of consummate conceit," he mocked. "Do you imagine that

with a little money, and a very few personal graces, we two can

brow-beat the good judgment of the public?"