"About Wythe? Why, I thought she and Wythe were particularly devoted."

If he were sparring for time, there was no hint of it in his manner. It

really looked, the housekeeper told herself grimly, as if he had not

seen the thing that was directly before his eyes until she had pointed

it out to him.

"They were," she answered tartly, "at one time."

"Well, what is the trouble now? A lovers' quarrel?"

It was a guiding principle with Mrs. Timberlake that when her conscience

drove her she never looked at her road; and true to this intemperate

practice, she plunged now straight ahead. "The trouble is that Alan has

been making a fool of himself over Angelica." It was the first time that

she had implied the faintest criticism of his wife, and as soon as she

had uttered the words, her courage evaporated, and she relapsed into her

attitude of caustic reticence. Even her figure, in its rusty black,

looked shrunken and huddled.

"So that is it!" His voice was careless and indifferent. "You mean he

has been flattered because she has let him read his plays to her?"

"He hasn't known when to stop. If something isn't done, he will go on

reading them for ever."

"Well, if Angelica enjoys them?"

"But it makes Mary very unhappy. Can't you see that she is breaking her

heart over it?"

"Angelica doesn't know." He might have been stating a fact about one of

the belligerent nations.

"Oh, of course." She grasped at the impersonal note, but it escaped her.

"If she only knew, she could so easily stop it."

"So you think if someone were to mention it?"

"That is why I came to you. I thought you might manage to drop a word

that would let Angelica see how much it is hurting Mary. She wouldn't

want to hurt Mary just for the sake of a little amusement. The plays

can't be so very important, or they would be on the stage, wouldn't

they?"

"Could you tell her, do you think?" It was the first time he had ever

attempted to evade a disagreeable duty, and the question surprised her.

"Angelica wouldn't listen to a word I said. She'd just think I'd made it

up, and I reckon it does look like a tempest in a teapot."

He met this gravely. "Well, it is natural that she shouldn't take a

thing like that seriously."

"Yes, it's natural." She conceded the point ungrudgingly. "I believe

Angelica would die before she would do anything really wrong."

If he accepted this in silence, it was not because the tribute to

Angelica's character appeared to him to constitute an unanswerable

argument. During the weeks when he had been groping his way to firmer

ground, he had passed beyond the mental boundaries in which Angelica and

her standards wore any longer the aspect of truth. He knew them to be

not only artificial, but false; and Mrs. Timberlake's praise was

scarcely more than a hollow echo from the world that he had left. That

Angelica, who would lie and cheat for an advantage, could be held,

through mere coldness of nature, to be above "doing anything really

wrong," was a fallacy which had once deluded his heart, but failed now

to convince his intelligence. Once he had believed in the sacred myth of

her virtue; now, brought close against the deeper realities, he saw

that her virtue was only a negation, and that true goodness must be,

above all things, an affirmation of spirit.

"I'll see what I can do," he said, and wondered why the words had not

worn threadbare.

"You mean you'll speak to Angelica?" Her relief rasped his nerves.

"Yes, I'll speak to Angelica."

"Don't you think it would be better to talk first to Mary?"

Before replying, he thought over this carefully. "Perhaps it would be

better. Will you tell her that I'd like to see her immediately?"

She nodded and went out quickly, and it seemed to him that the door had

barely closed before it opened again, and Mary came in with a brave step

and a manner of unnatural alertness and buoyancy.

"David, do you really think we are going to have war?" It was an awkward

evasion, but she had not learned either to evade or equivocate

gracefully.

"I think we are about to break off diplomatic relations----"

"And that means war, doesn't it?"

"Who knows?" He made a gesture of impatience. "You are trying to climb

up on the knees of the gods."

"I want to go," she replied breathlessly, "whether we have war or not, I

want to go to France. Will you help me?"

"Of course I will help you."

"I mean will you give me money?"

"I will give you anything I've got. It isn't so much as it used to be."

"It will be enough for me. I want to go at once--next week--to-morrow."

He looked at her attentively, his grave, lucid eyes ranging thoughtfully

over her strong, plain face, which had grown pale and haggard, over her

boyish figure, which had grown thin and wasted.

"Mary," he said suddenly, "what is the trouble? Is it an honest desire

for service or is it--the open door?"

For a minute she looked at him with frightened eyes; then breaking down

utterly, she buried her face in her hands and turned from him. "Oh,

David, I must get away! I cannot live unless I get away!"

"From Briarlay?"

"From Briarlay, but most of all--oh, most of all," she brought this out

with passion, "from Alan!"

"Then you no longer care for him?"

Instead of answering his question, she dashed the tears from her eyes,

and threw back her head with a gesture that reminded him of the old

boyish Mary. "Will you let me go, David?"

"Not until you have told me the truth."

"But what is the truth?" She cried out, with sudden anger. "Do you

suppose I am the kind of woman to talk of a man's being 'taken away,' as

if he were a loaf of bread to be handed from one woman to another? If he

had ever been what I believed him, do you imagine that any one could

have 'taken' him? Is there any man on earth who could have taken me from

Alan?"

"What has made the trouble, Mary?" He put the question very slowly, as

if he were weighing every word that he uttered.

She flung the pretense aside as bravely as she had dashed the tears

from her eyes. "Of course I have known all along that she was only

flirting--that she was only playing the game----"

"Then you think that the young fool has been taking Angelica too

seriously?"

At this her anger flashed out again. "Seriously enough to make me break

my engagement!"

"All because he likes to read his plays to her?"

"All because he imagines her to be misunderstood and unhappy and

ill-treated. Oh, David, will you never wake up? How much longer are you

going to walk about the world in your sleep? No one has said a breath

against Angelica--no one ever will--she isn't that kind. But unless you

wish Alan to be ruined, you must send him away."

"Isn't she the one to send him away?"

"Then go to her. Go to her now, and tell her that she must do it

to-day."

"Yes, I will tell her that." Even while he spoke the words which would

have once wrung his heart, he was visited by that strange flashing sense

of unreality, of the insignificance and transitoriness of Angelica's

existence. Like Mrs. Timberlake's antiquated standards of virtue, she

belonged to a world which might vanish while he watched it and leave him

still surrounded by the substantial structure of life.

"Then tell her now. I hear her in the hall," said Mary brusquely, as she

turned away.

"It is not likely that she will come in here," he answered, but the

words were scarcely spoken before Angelica's silvery tones floated to

them.

"David, may I come in? I have news for you." An instant later, as Mary

went out, with her air of arrogant sincerity, a triumphant figure in

grey velvet passed her in the doorway.

"I saw Robert and Cousin Charles a moment ago, and they told me that we

had really broken off relations with Germany----"

She had not meant to linger over the news, but while she was speaking,

he crossed the room and closed the door gently behind her.

"Don't you think now we have done all that is necessary?" she demanded

triumphantly. "Cousin Charles says we have vindicated our honour at

last."

Blackburn smiled slightly. The sense of unreality, which had been vague

and fugitive a moment before, rolled over and enveloped him. "It is

rather like refusing to bow to a man who has murdered one's wife."

A frown clouded her face. "Oh, I know all you men are hoping for war,

even Alan, and you would think an artist would see things differently."

"Do you think Alan is hoping for it?"

"Aren't you every one except Cousin Charles? Robert told me just now

that Virginia is beginning to boil over. He believes the country will

force the President's hand. Oh, I wonder if the world will ever be sane

and safe again?"

He was watching her so closely that he appeared to be drinking in the

sound of her voice and the sight of her loveliness; yet never for an

instant did he lose the feeling that she was as ephemeral as a tinted

cloud or a perfume.

"Angelica," he said abruptly, "Mary has just told me that she has broken

her engagement to Alan."

Tiny sparks leaped to her eyes. "Well, I suppose they wouldn't have been

happy together----"

"Do you know why she did it?"

"Do I know why?" She looked at him inquiringly. "How could I know? She

has not told me."

"Has Alan said anything to you about it?"

"Why, yes, he told me that she had broken it."

"And did he tell you why?"

She was becoming irritated by the cross examination. "No, why should he

tell me? It is their affair, isn't it? Now, if that is all, I must go.

Alan has brought the first act of a new play, and he wants my opinion."

The finishing thrust was like her, for she could be bold enough when she

was sure of her weapons. Even now, though he knew her selfishness, it

was incredible to him that she should be capable of destroying Mary's

happiness when she could gain nothing by doing it. Of course if there

were some advantage----

"Alan can wait," he said bluntly. "Angelica, can't you see that this has

gone too far, this nonsense of Alan's?"

"This nonsense?" She raised her eyebrows. "Do you call his plays

nonsense?"

"I call his plays humbug. What must stop is his folly about you. When

Mary goes, you must send him away."

Her smile was like the sharp edge of a knife. "So it is Alan now? It was

poor Roane only yesterday."

"It is poor Roane to-day as much as it ever was. But Alan must stop

coming here."

"And why, if I may ask?"

"You cannot have understood, or you would have stopped it."

"I should have stopped what?"

He met her squarely. "Alan's infatuation--for he is infatuated, isn't

he?"

"Do you mean with me?" Her indignant surprise almost convinced him of

her ignorance. "Who has told you that?"

She was holding a muff of silver fox, and she gazed down at it, stroking

the fur gently, while she waited for him to answer. He noticed that her

long slender fingers--she had the hand as well as the figure of one of

Botticelli's Graces--were perfectly steady.

"That was the reason that Mary broke her engagement," he responded.

"Did she tell you that?"

"Yes, she told me. She said she knew that you had not meant it--that

Alan had lost his head----"

Her voice broke in suddenly with a gasp of outraged amazement. "And you

ask me to send Alan away because you are jealous? You ask me

this--after--after----" Her attitude of indignant virtue was so

impressive that, for a moment, he found himself wondering if he had

wronged her--if he had actually misunderstood and neglected her?

"You must see for yourself, Angelica, that this cannot go on."

"You dare to turn on me like this!" She cried out so clearly that he

started and looked at the door in apprehension. "You dare to accuse me

of ruining Mary's happiness--after all I have suffered--after all I have

stood from you----"

As her voice rose in its piercing sweetness, it occurred to him for the

first time that she might wish to be overheard, that she might be making

this scene less for his personal benefit than for its effect upon an

invisible audience. It was the only time he had ever known her to

sacrifice her inherent fastidiousness, and descend to vulgar methods of

warfare, and he was keen enough to infer that the prize must be

tremendous to compensate for so evident a humiliation.

"I accuse you of nothing," he said, lowering his tone in the effort to

reduce hers to a conversational level. "For your own sake, I ask you to

be careful."

But he had unchained the lightning, and it flashed out to destroy him.

"You dare to say this to me--you who refused to send Miss Meade away

though I begged you to----"

"To send Miss Meade away?" The attack was so unexpected that he wavered

before it. "What has Miss Meade to do with it?"

"You refused to send her away. You positively refused when I asked you."

"Yes, I refused. But Miss Meade is Letty's nurse. What has she to do

with Mary and Alan?"

"Oh, are you still trying to deceive me?" For an instant he thought she

was going to burst into tears. "You knew you were spending too much time

in the nursery--that you went when Cousin Matty was not there--Alan

heard you admit it--you knew that I wanted to stop it, and you

refused--you insisted----"

But his anger had overpowered him now, and he caught her arm roughly in

a passionate desire to silence the hideous sound of her words, to thrust

back the horror that she was spreading on the air--out into the world

and the daylight.

"Stop, Angelica, or----"

Suddenly, without warning, she shrieked aloud, a shriek that seemed to

his ears to pierce, not only the ceiling, but the very roof of the

house. As he stood there, still helplessly holding her arm, which had

grown limp in his grasp, he became aware that the door opened quickly

and Alan came into the room.

"I heard a cry--I thought----"

Angelica's eyes were closed, but at the sound of Alan's voice, she

raised her lids and looked at him with a frightened and pleading gaze.

"I cried out. I am sorry," she said meekly. Without glancing at

Blackburn, she straightened herself, and walked, with short, wavering

steps, out of the room.

For a minute the two men faced each other in silence; then Alan made an

impetuous gesture of indignation and followed Angelica.

CHAPTER V

THE CHOICE

"Looks as if we were going to war, Blackburn." It was the beginning of

April, and Robert Colfax had stopped on the steps of his club.

"It has looked that way for the last thirty-two months."

"Well, beware the anger--or isn't it the fury?--of the patient man. It

has to come at last. We've been growling too long not to spring--and my

only regret is that, as long as we're going to war, we didn't go soon

enough to get into the fight. I'd like to have had a chance at potting a

German. Every man in town is feeling like that to-day."

"You think it will be over before we get an army to France?"

"I haven't a doubt of it. It will be nothing more than a paper war to a

finish."

A good many Virginians were thinking that way. Blackburn was not sure

that he hadn't thought that way himself for the last two or three

months. Everywhere he heard regrets that it was too late to have a share

in the actual whipping of Germany--that we were only going to fight a

decorous and inglorious war on paper. Suddenly, in a night, as it were,

the war spirit in Virginia had flared out. There was not the emotional

blaze--the flaming heat--older men said--of the Confederacy; but there

was an ever-burning, insistent determination to destroy the roots of

this evil black flower of Prussian autocracy. There was no hatred of

Austria--little even of Turkey. The Prussian spirit was the foe of

America and of the world; and it was against the Prussian spirit that

the militant soul of Virginia was springing to arms. Men who had talked

peace a few months before--who had commended the nation that was "too

proud to fight," who had voted for the President because of the slogan

"he kept us out of war"--had now swung round dramatically with the

_volte-face_ of the Government. The President had at last committed

himself to a war policy, and all over the world Americans were awaiting

the great word from Congress. In an hour personal interests had

dissolved into an impersonal passion of service. In an hour opposing

currents of thought had flowed into a single dominant purpose, and the

President, who had once stood for a party, stood now for America.

For, in a broader vision, the spirit of Virginia was the spirit of all

America. There were many, it is true, who had not, in the current

phrase, begun to realize what war would mean to them; there were many

who still doubted, or were indifferent, because the battle had not been

fought at their doorstep; but as a whole the country stood determined,

quiet, armed in righteousness, and waited for the great word from

Congress.

And over the whole country, from North to South, from East to West, the

one question never asked was, "What will America get out of it when it

is over?"

"By Jove, if we do get into any actual fighting, I mean to go," said

Robert, "I am not yet thirty."

Blackburn looked at him enviously. "It's rotten on us middle-aged

fellows. Isn't there a hole of some sort a man of forty-three can stop

up?"

"Of course they've come to more than that in England."

"We may come to it here if the war keeps up--but that isn't likely."

"No, that isn't likely unless Congress dies talking. Why, for God's

sake, can't we strangle the pacifists for once? Nobody would grieve for

them."

"Oh, if liberty isn't for fools, it isn't liberty. I suppose the supreme

test of our civilization, is that we let people go on talking when we

don't agree with them."

It was, in reality, only a few days that Congress was taking to define

and emphasize the President's policy, but these days were interminable

to a nation that waited. Talk was ruining the country, people said.

Thirty-two months of talking were enough even for an American Congress.

It was as much as a man's reputation was worth to vote against the war;

it was more than it was worth to give his reasons for so voting. There

was tension everywhere, yet there was a strange muffled quiet--the quiet

before the storm.

"We are too late for the fun," said Robert. "Germany will back down as

soon as she sees we are in earnest." This was what every one was saying,

and Blackburn heard it again when he left Colfax and went into the club.

"The pity is we shan't have time to get a man over to France. It's all

up to the navy."

"The British navy, you mean? Where'd we be now but for the British

navy?"

"Well, thank God, the note writing is over!"

There was determination enough; but the older men were right--there was

none of the flame and ardour of secession days. The war was realized

vaguely as a principle rather than as a fact. It was the difference

between fighting for abstract justice and knocking down a man in hot

blood because he has affronted one's wife. The will to strike was all

there, only one did not see red when one delivered the blow. Righteous

indignation, not personal rage, was in the mind of America.

"We aren't mad yet," remarked an old Confederate soldier to Blackburn.

"Just wait till they get us as mad as we were at Manassas, and we'll

show the Germans!"

"You mean wait until they drop bombs on New York instead of London?"

"Good Lord, no. Just wait until our boys have seen, not read, about the

things they are doing."

So there were a few who expected an American army to reach France before

the end of the war.

"Never mind about taxes. We must whip the Huns, and we can afford to pay

the bills!"

For here as elsewhere the one question never asked was, "What are we

going to get out of it?"

Prosperity was after all a secondary interest. Underneath was the

permanent idealism of the American mind.

When Blackburn reached Briarlay, he found Letty and Caroline walking

under the budding trees in the lane, and stopping his car, he got out

and strolled slowly back with them to the house. The shimmer and

fragrance of spring was in the air, and on the ground crowds of golden

crocuses were unfolding.

"Father, will you go to war if Uncle Roane does?" asked Letty, as she

slipped her hand into Blackburn's and looked up, with her thoughtful

child's eyes, into his face. "Uncle Roane says he is going to whip the

Germans for me."

"I'll go, if they'll take me, Letty. Your Uncle Roane is ten years

younger than I am." At the moment the war appeared to him, as it had

appeared to Mary, as the open door--the way of escape from an

intolerable situation; but he put this idea resolutely out of his mind.

There was a moral cowardice in using impersonal issues as an excuse for

the evasion of personal responsibility.

"But you could fight better than he could, father."

"I am inclined to agree with you. Perhaps the Government will think that

way soon."

"Alan is going, too. Mother begged him not to, but he said he just had

to go. Mammy Riah says the feeling is in his bones, and he can't help

it. When a feeling gets into your bones you have to do what it tells

you."

"It looks as if Mammy Riah knew something about it."

"But if you go and Alan goes and Uncle Roane goes, what will become of

mother?"

"You will have to take care of her, Letty, you and Miss Meade."

Caroline, who had been walking in silence on the other side of the road,

turned her head at the words. She was wearing a blue serge suit and a

close-fitting hat of blue straw, and her eyes were as fresh and

spring-like as the April sky.

"There is no doubt about war, is there?" she asked.

"It may come at any hour. Whether it will mean an American army in

France or not, no one can say; but we shall have to furnish munitions,

if not men, as fast as we can turn them out."

"Mr. Peyton said this morning it would be impossible to send men because

we hadn't the ships."

Blackburn laughed. "Then, if necessary, we will do the impossible." It

was the voice of America. Everywhere at that hour men were saying, "We

will do the impossible."

"I should like to go," said Caroline. "I should like above all things to

go."

They had stopped in the road, and still holding Letty's hand, he looked

over her head at Caroline's face. "Miss Meade, will you make me a

promise?"

Clear and radiant and earnest, her eyes held his gaze.

"Unconditionally?"

"No, the conditions I leave to you. Will you promise?"

"I will promise." She had not lowered her eyes, and he had not looked

away from her. Her face was pale, and in the fading sunlight he could

see the little blue veins on her temples and the look of stern sweetness

that sorrow had chiselled about her mouth. More than ever it seemed to

him the face of a strong and fervent spirit rather than the face of a

woman. So elusive was her beauty that he could say of no single feature,

except her eyes, "Her charm lies here--or here----" yet the impression

she gave him was one of magical loveliness. There was, he thought, a

touch of the divine in her smile, as if her look drew its radiance from

an inexhaustible source.

"Will you promise me," he said, "that whatever happens, as long as it is

possible, you will stay with Letty?"

She waited a moment before she answered him, and he knew from her face

that his words had touched the depths of her heart. "I promise you that

for Letty's sake I will do the impossible," she answered.

She gave him her hand, and he clasped it over the head of the child. It

was one of those rare moments of perfect understanding and sympathy--of

a mental harmony beside which all emotional rapture appears trivial and

commonplace. He was aware of no appeal to his senses--life had taught

him the futility of all purely physical charm--and the hand that touched

Caroline's was as gentle and as firm as it had been when it rested on

Letty's head. Here was a woman who had met life and conquered it, who

could be trusted, he felt, to fight to the death to keep her spirit

inviolate.

"Only one thing will take me away from Letty," she said. "If we send an

army and the country calls me."

"That one thing is the only thing?"

"The only thing unless," she laughed as if she were suggesting an

incredible event, "unless you or Mrs. Blackburn should send me away!"

To her surprise the ridiculous jest confused him. "Take care of Letty,"

he responded quickly; and then, as they reached the porch, he dropped

the child's hand, and went up the steps and into the house.

In the library, by one of the windows which looked out on the terrace

and the sunset, Colonel Ashburton was reading the afternoon paper, and

as Blackburn entered, he rose and came over to the fireplace.

"I was a little ahead of you, so I made myself at home, as you see," he

observed, with his manner of antiquated formality. In the dim light his

hair made a silvery halo above his blanched features, and it occurred to

Blackburn that he had never seen him look quite so distinguished and

detached from his age.

"If I'd known you were coming, I should have arranged to get here

earlier."

"I didn't know it myself until it was too late to telephone you at the

works." There was an unnatural constraint in his voice, and from the

moment of his entrance, Blackburn had surmised that the Colonel's visit

was not a casual one. The war news might have brought him; but it was

not likely that he would have found the war news either disconcerting or

embarrassing.

"The news is good, isn't it?" inquired Blackburn, a little stiffly,

because he could think of nothing else to say.

"First rate. There isn't a doubt but we'll whip the Germans before

autumn. It wasn't about the war, however, that I came."

"There is something else then?"

Before he replied Colonel Ashburton looked up gravely at the portrait of

Blackburn's mother which hung over the mantelpiece. "Very like her, very

like her," he remarked. "She was a few years older than I--but I'm

getting on now--I'm getting on. That's the worst of being born between

great issues. I was too young for the last war--just managed to be in

one big battle before Lee surrendered--and I'm too old for this one. A

peace Colonel doesn't amount to much, does he?" Then he looked sharply

at Blackburn. "David," he asked in a curiously inanimate voice, "have

you heard the things people are saying about you?"

"I have heard nothing except what has been said to my face."

"Then I may assume that the worst is still to be told you?"

"You may safely assume that, I think."

Again the Colonel's eyes were lifted to the portrait of Blackburn's

mother. "There must be an answer to a thing like this, David," he said

slowly. "There must be something that you can say."

"Tell me what is said."

Shaking the silvery hair from his forehead, the older man still gazed

upward, as if he were interrogating the portrait--as if he were seeking

guidance from the imperishable youth of the painted figure. Serene and

soft as black pansies, the eyes of the picture looked down on him from a

face that reminded him of a white roseleaf.

"It is said"--he hesitated as if the words hurt him--"that your wife

accuses you of cruelty. I don't know how the stories started, but I have

waited until they reached a point where I felt that they must be

stopped--or answered. For the sake of your future--of your work--you

must say something, David."

While he listened Blackburn had walked slowly to the window, gazing out

on the afterglow, where some soft clouds, like clusters of lilacs, hung

low above the dark brown edge of the horizon. For a moment, after the

voice ceased, he still stood there in silence. Then wheeling abruptly,

he came back to the hearth where the Colonel was waiting.

"Is that all?" he asked.

The Colonel made a gesture of despair. "It is rumoured that your wife is

about to leave you."

Blackburn looked at him intently. "If it is only a rumour----"

"But a man's reputation may be destroyed by a rumour."

"Is there anything else?"

As he spoke it was evident to the other that his thoughts were not on

his words.

"I am your oldest friend. I was the friend of your mother--I believe in

your vision--in your power of leadership. For the sake of the ideas we

both try to serve, I have come to you--hating--dreading my task----"

He stopped, his voice quivering as if from an emotion that defied his

control, and in the silence that followed, Blackburn said quietly, "I

thank you."

"It is said--how this started no one knows, and I suppose it does not

matter--that your wife called in the doctor to treat a bruise on her

arm, and that she admitted to him that it came from a blow. Daisy Colfax

was present, and it appears that she told the story, without malice, but

indiscreetly, I gathered----"

As he paused there were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and his

lip trembled slightly. It had been a difficult task, but, thank God, he

told himself, he had been able to see it through. To his surprise,

Blackburn's face had not changed. It still wore the look of immobility

which seemed to the other to express nothing--and everything.

"You must let me make some answer to these charges, David. The time has

come when you must speak."

For a moment longer Blackburn was silent. Then he said slowly, "What

good will it do?"

"But the lie, unless it is given back, will destroy not only you, but

your cause. It will be used by your enemies. It will injure

irretrievably the work you are trying to do. In the end it will drive

you out of public life in Virginia."

"If you only knew how differently I am coming to think of these things,"

said Blackburn presently, and he added after a pause, "If I cannot bear

misunderstanding, how could I bear defeat?--for work like mine must lead

to temporary defeat----"

"Not defeat like this--not defeat that leaves your name tarnished."

For the first time Blackburn's face showed emotion. "And you think that

a public quarrel would clear it?" he asked bitterly.

"But surely, without that, there could be a denial----"

"There can be no other denial. There is but one way to meet a lie, and

that way I cannot take."

"Then things must go on, as they are, to the--end?"

"I cannot stop them by talking. If it rests with me, they must go on."

"At the cost of your career? Of your power for usefulness? Of your

obligations to your country?"

Turning his head, Blackburn looked away from him to the window, which

had been left open. From the outside there floated suddenly the faint,

provocative scent of spring--of nature which was renewing itself in the

earth and the trees. "A career isn't as big a thing at forty-three as it

is at twenty," he answered, with a touch of irony. "My power for

usefulness must stand on its merits alone, and my chief obligation to my

country, as I see it, is to preserve the integrity of my honour. We hear

a great deal to-day about the personal not counting any longer; yet the

fact remains that the one enduring corner-stone of the State is the

personal rectitude of its citizens. You cannot build upon any other

foundation, and build soundly. I may be wrong--I often am--but I must do

what I believe to be right, let the consequences be what they will."

Now that he had left the emotional issue behind him, the immobility had

passed from his manner, and his thoughts were beginning to come with the

abundance and richness that the Colonel associated with his public

speeches. Already he had put the question of his marriage aside, as a

fact which had been accepted and dismissed from his mind.

"In these last few years--or months rather--I have begun to see things

differently," he resumed, with an animation and intensity that

contrasted strangely with his former constraint and dumbness. "I can't

explain how it is, but this war has knocked a big hole in reality. We

can look deeper into things than any generation before us, and the

deeper we look, the more we become aware of the outer darkness in which

we have been groping. I am groping now, I confess it, but I am groping

for light."

"It will leave a changed world when it is over," assented the Colonel,

and he spoke the platitude with an accent of relief, as if he had just

turned away from a sight that distressed him. "More changed, I believe,

for us older ones than for the young who have done the actual fighting.

I should like to write a book about that--the effect of the war on the

minds of the non-combatants. The fighters have been too busy to think,

and it is thought, after all, not action, that leaves the more permanent

record. Life will spring again over the battle-fields, but the ideas

born of the war will control the future destinies of mankind."

"I am beginning to see," pursued Blackburn, as if he had not heard him,

"that there is something far bigger than the beliefs we were working

for. Because we had got beyond the sections to the country, you and I,

we thought we were emancipated from the bondage of prejudice. The chief

end of the citizen appeared to us to be the glory of the nation, but I

see now--I am just beginning to see--that there is a greater spirit than

the spirit of nationality. You can't live through a world war, even with

an ocean between--and distance, by the way, may give us all the better

perspective, and enable Americans to take a wider view than is possible

to those who are directly in the path of the hurricane--you can't live

through a world war, and continue to think in terms of geographical

boundaries. To think about it at all, one must think in universal

relations."

He hesitated an instant, and then went on more rapidly, "After all, we

cannot beat Germany by armies alone, we must beat her by thought. For

two generations she has thought wrong, and it is only by thinking

right--by forcing her to think right--that we can conquer her. The

victory belongs to the nation that engraves its ideas indelibly upon the

civilization of the future."

Leaning back in the shadows, Colonel Ashburton gazed at him with a

perplexed and questioning look. Was it possible that he had never

understood him--that he did not understand him to-day? He had come to

speak of an open scandal, of a name that might be irretrievably

tarnished--and Blackburn had turned it aside by talking about universal

relations!

CHAPTER VI

ANGELICA'S TRIUMPH

Caroline wrote a few nights later:

DEAREST MOTHER:

So it has come at last, and we really and truly are at war. There is not

so much excitement as you would have thought--I suppose because we have

waited so long--but everybody has hung out flags--and Letty and I have

just helped Peter put a big beautiful one over Briarlay. Mrs. Blackburn

is working so hard over the Red Cross that we have barely seen her for

days, and Mary has already gone to New York on her way to France. She is

going to work there with one of the war charities, and I think it will

be the best thing on earth for her, for any one can see that she has

been very unhappy. Mr. Wythe wants to go into the army, but for some

reason he has hesitated about volunteering. I think Mrs. Blackburn

opposes it very strongly, and this is keeping him back. There is a new

feeling in the air, though. The world is rushing on--somewhere--somewhere,

and we are rushing with it.

For days I have wanted to write you about a curious thing, but I have

waited hoping that I might have been mistaken about it. You remember how

very sweet Mrs. Blackburn was to me when I first came here. Well, for

the last month she has changed utterly in her manner. I cannot think of

any way in which I could have offended her--though I have racked my

brain over it--but she appears to avoid me whenever it is possible, and

on the occasions when we are obliged to meet, she does not speak to me

unless it is necessary. Of course there are things I am obliged to ask

her about Letty; but this is usually done through the servants, and

Mrs. Blackburn never comes into the nursery. Sometimes she sends for

Letty to come to her, but Mammy Riah always takes her and brings her

back again. I asked Mrs. Timberlake if she thought I could have done

anything Mrs. Blackburn did not like, and if I had better go to her and

demand an explanation. That seems to me the only sensible and

straightforward way, but Mrs. Timberlake does not think it would do any

good. She is as much mystified about it as I am, and so is Mammy Riah.

Nobody understands, and the whole thing has worried me more than I can

ever tell you. If it wasn't for Letty, and a promise I made to Mr.

Blackburn not to leave her, I should be tempted to give up the place at

the end of the week. It is cowardly to let one's self be vanquished by

things like that, especially at a time when the whole world needs every

particle of courage that human beings can create; but it is just like

fighting an intangible enemy, and not knowing at what moment one may be

saying or doing the wrong thing. Not a word has been spoken to me that

was rude or unkind, yet the very air I breathe is full of something that

keeps me apprehensive and anxious all the time. When I am with Mr.

Blackburn or Mrs. Timberlake, I tell myself that it is all just my

imagination, and that I am getting too nervous to be a good nurse; and

then, when I pass Mrs. Blackburn in the hall and she pretends not to see

me, the distrust and suspicion come back again. I hate to worry you

about this--for a long time I wouldn't mention it in my letters--but I

feel to-night that I cannot go on without telling you about it.

Last night after dinner--when Mrs. Blackburn is at home Mrs. Timberlake

and I dine in the breakfast-room--I went to look for Letty, and found

that she had slipped into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Blackburn and Mr.

Wythe were engaged in their perpetual reading. The child is very fond of

Mr. Wythe--he has a charming way with her--and when I went in, she was

asking him if he were really going to war? Before answering her he

looked for a long time at Mrs. Blackburn, and then as Letty repeated her

question, he said, "Don't you think I ought to go, Letty?"

"What is the war about, Alan?" asked the child, and he replied, "They

call it a war for democracy." Then, of course, Letty inquired

immediately, "What is democracy?" At this Alan burst out laughing,

"You've got me there, Socrates," he retorted, "Go inquire of your

father." "But father says it is a war to end war," Letty replied, and

her next question was, "But if you want to fight, why do you want to end

war?" She is the keenest thing for her years you can imagine. I had to

explain it all to her when I got her upstairs.

Well, what I started to tell you was that all the time Mrs. Blackburn

said nothing, but kept looking from Alan to the child, with that wistful

and plaintive expression which makes her the very image of a grieving

Madonna. She never spoke a word, but I could tell all the time that she

was trying to gain something, that she was using every bit of her charm

and her pathos for some purpose I could not discover. In a little while

she took Letty from Alan and gave her over to me, and as we went out, I

heard Alan say to her, "I would give anything on earth to keep you from

being hurt any more." Of course I shouldn't repeat this to any one else,

but he must have known that I couldn't help hearing it.

Mr. Blackburn has been very kind to me, and I know that he would do

anything for Letty's happiness. He is so impersonal that I sometimes

feel that he knows ideas, but not men and women. It is hard for him to

break through the wall he has built round himself, but after you once

discover what he really is, you are obliged to admit that he is fine and

absolutely to be trusted. In a way he is different from any one I have

ever known--more sincere and genuine. I can't make what I mean very

clear, but you will understand.

For the last week I have scarcely seen him for a minute--I suppose he is

absorbed in war matters--but before that he used to come in and have

tea with Letty, and we had some long interesting talks. The child is

devoted to him, and you know she loves above all things to set her

little table in the nursery, and give tea and bread and butter to

whoever happens to come in. Mrs. Colfax used to drop in very often, and

so did Mary when she was here; but Mrs. Blackburn always promises to

come, and then is too busy, or forgets all about it, and I have to make

excuses for her to Letty. I feel sorry for Letty because she is lonely,

and has no child companions, and I do everything I can to make her

friendly with grown people, and to put a little wholesome pleasure into

her life. A delicate child is really a very serious problem in many ways

besides physical ones. Letty has not naturally a cheerful disposition,

though she flies off at times into a perfect gale of high spirits. For

the last week I can see that she has missed her father, and she is

continually asking me where he is.

Now I must tell you something I have not mentioned to any one except

Mrs. Timberlake, and I spoke of it to her only because she asked me a

direct question. Something very unfortunate occurred here last winter,

and Mrs. Timberlake told me yesterday that everybody in Richmond has

been talking about it. As long as it is known so generally--and it

appears that young Mrs. Colfax was the one to let it out--there can't be

any harm in my writing frankly to you. I haven't the faintest idea how

it all started, but one morning--it must have been two months ago--Mrs.

Blackburn showed young Mrs. Colfax a bruise on her arm, and she either

told her or let her think that it had come from a blow. Of course Mrs.

Colfax inferred that Mr. Blackburn had struck his wife, and, without

waiting a minute, she rushed straight out and repeated this to everybody

she met. She is so amazingly indiscreet, without meaning the least harm

in the world, that you might as well print a thing in the newspaper as

tell it to her. No one knows how much she made up and how much Mrs.

Blackburn actually told her; but the town has been fairly ringing, Mrs.

Timberlake says, with the scandal. People even say that he has been so

cruel to her that the servants heard her cry out in his study one

afternoon, and that Alan Wythe, who was waiting in the drawing-room, ran

in and interfered.

It is all a dreadful lie, of course--you know this without my telling

you--but Mrs. Timberlake and I cannot understand what began it, or why

Mrs. Blackburn deliberately allowed Daisy Colfax to repeat such a

falsehood. Colonel Ashburton told Mrs. Timberlake that the stories had

already done incalculable harm to Mr. Blackburn's reputation, and that

his political enemies were beginning to use them. You will understand

better than any one else how much this distresses me, not only because I

have grown to like and admire Mr. Blackburn, but for Letty's sake also.

As the child grows up this disagreement between her parents will make

such a difference in her life.

I cannot tell you how I long to be back at The Cedars, now that spring

is there and all the lilacs will so soon be in bloom. When I shut my

eyes I can see you and the girls in the "chamber," and I can almost hear

you talking about the war. I am not quite sure that I approve of Maud's

becoming a nurse. It is a hard life, and all her beauty will be wasted

in the drudgery. Diana's idea of going to France with the Y. M. C. A.

sounds much better, but most of all I like Margaret's plan of canning

vegetables next summer for the market. If she can manage to get an extra

man to help Jonas with the garden--how would Nathan's son Abraham do?--I

believe she will make a great success of it. I am so glad that you are

planting large crops this year. The question of labour is serious, I

know, but letting out so much of the land "on shares" has never seemed

to turn out very well.

It must be almost eleven o'clock, and I have written on and on without

thinking. Late as it is, I am obliged to run out to Peter's cottage by

the stable and give his wife, Mandy, a hypodermic at eleven o'clock. She

was taken very ill this morning, and if she isn't better to-morrow the

doctor will take her to the hospital. I promised him I would see her the

last thing to-night, and telephone him if she is any worse. She is so

weak that we are giving her all the stimulants that we can. I sometimes

wish that I could stop being a trained nurse for a time, and just break

loose and be natural. I'd like to run out bareheaded in a storm, or have

hysterics, or swear like Uncle George.

Dearest love,

CAROLINE.

* * * * *

When Caroline reached the cottage, she found Mandy in a paroxysm of

pain, and after giving the medicine, she waited until the woman had

fallen asleep. It was late when she went back to the house, and as she

crossed the garden on her way to the terrace, where she had left one of

the French windows open, she lingered for a minute to breathe in the

delicious roving scents of the spring night. Something sweet and soft

and wild in the April air awoke in her the restlessness which the spring

always brought; and she found herself wishing again that she could cast

aside the professional training of the last eight or nine years, and

become the girl she had been at The Cedars before love had broken her

heart. "I am just as young as I was then--only I am so much wiser," she

thought, "and it is wisdom--it is knowing life that has caged me and

made me a prisoner. I am not an actor, I am only a spectator now, and

yet I believe that I could break away again if the desire came--if life

really called me. Perhaps, it's the spring that makes me restless--I

could never, even at The Cedars, smell budding things without wanting to

wander--but to-night there is a kind of wildness in everything. I am

tired of being caged. I want to be free to follow--follow--whatever is

calling me. I wonder why the pipes of Pan always begin again in the

spring?" Enchantingly fair and soft, beneath a silver mist that floated

like a breath of dawn from the river, the garden melted into the fields

and the fields into the quivering edge of the horizon. In the air there

was a faint whispering of gauzy wings, and, now and then, as the breeze

stirred the veil of the landscape, little pools of greenish light

flickered like glow worms in the hollows.

"I hate to go in, but I suppose I must," thought Caroline, as she went

up the steps. "Fortunately Roane is off after his commission, so they

can't accuse me of coming out to meet him."

For the first time she noticed that the lights were out in the house,

and when she tried the window she had left open, she found that

someone--probably Patrick--had fastened it. "I ought to have told them I

was going out," she thought. "I suppose the servants are all in bed, and

if I go to the front and ring, I shall waken everybody." Then, as she

passed along the terrace, she saw that the light still glimmered beneath

the curtains of the library, where Blackburn was working late, and

stopping before the window, she knocked twice on the panes.

At her second knock, she heard a chair pushed back inside and rapid

steps cross the floor. An instant later the window was unbolted, and she

saw Blackburn standing there against the lighted interior, with a look

of surprise and inquiry, which she discerned even though his face was in

shadow. He did not speak, and she said hurriedly as she entered,

"I hated to disturb you, but they had locked me out."

"You have been out?" It was the question he had put to her on her first

night in the house.

"Peter's wife has been ill, and I promised the doctor to give her a

hypodermic at eleven o'clock. It must be midnight now. They kept me some

time at the cottage."

He glanced at the clock. "Yes, it is after twelve. We are working you

overtime."

She had crossed the room quickly on her way to the door, when he called

her name, and she stopped and turned to look at him.

"Miss Meade, I have wanted to ask you something about Letty when she was

not with us."

"I know," she responded, with ready sympathy. "It isn't easy to talk

before her without letting her catch on."

"You feel that she is better?"

"Much better. She has improved every day in the last month or two."

"You think now that she may get well in time? There seems to you a

chance that she may grow up well and normal?"

"With care I think there is every hope that she will. The doctor is

greatly encouraged about her. In this age no physical malady, especially

in a child, is regarded as hopeless, and I believe, if we keep up the

treatment she is having, she may outgrow the spinal weakness that has

always seemed to us so serious."

For a moment he was silent. "Whatever improvement there may be is due to

you," he said presently, in a voice that was vibrant with feeling. "I

cannot put my gratitude into words, but you have made me your debtor for

life."

"I have done my best," she replied gravely, "and it has made me happy to

do it."

"I recognize that. The beauty of it has been that I recognized that from

the beginning. You have given yourself utterly and ungrudgingly to save

my child. Before you came she was misunderstood always, she was

melancholy and brooding and self-centred, and you have put the only

brightness in her life that has ever been there. All the time she

becomes more like other children, more cheerful and natural."

"I felt from the first that she needed companionship and diversion. She

won my heart immediately, for she is a very lovable child, and if I have

done anything over and above my task, it has been because I loved

Letty."

His look softened indescribably, but all he said was, "If I go away, I

shall feel that I am leaving her in the best possible care."

"You expect to go away?"

"I have offered my services, and the Government may call on me. I hope

there is some work that I can do."

"Everyone feels that way, I think. I feel that way myself, but as long

as I can, I shall stay with Letty. It is so hard sometimes to recognize

one's real duty. If the call comes, I suppose I shall have to go to

France, but I shan't go just because I want to, as long as the child

needs me as much as she does now. Mother says the duty that never stays

at home is seldom to be trusted."

"I know you will do right," he answered gravely. "I cannot imagine that

you could ever waver in that. For myself the obligation seems now

imperative, yet I have asked myself again and again if my reasons for

wishing to go are as----"

He broke off in amazement, and glanced, with a startled gesture, at the

door, for it was opening very slowly, and, as the crack widened, there

appeared the lovely disarranged head of Angelica. She was wearing a

kimono of sky-blue silk, which she had thrown on hastily over her

nightgown, and beneath the embroidered folds, Caroline caught a glimpse

of bare feet in blue slippers. In the hall beyond there was the staring

face of the maid, and at the foot of the stairs, the figure of Mammy

Riah emerged, like a menacing spirit, out of the shadow.

"I heard Mammy Riah asking for Miss Meade. She was not in her room,"

began Angelica in her clear, colourless voice. "We were anxious about

her--but I did not know--I did not dream----" She drew her breath

sharply, and then added in a louder and firmer tone, "Miss Meade, I must

ask you to leave the house in the morning."

In an instant a cold breath blowing over Caroline seemed to turn her

living figure into a snow image. Her face was as white as the band of

her cap, but her eyes blazed like blue flames, and her voice, when it

issued from her frozen lips, was stronger and steadier than Angelica's.

"I cannot leave too soon for my comfort," she answered haughtily. "Mr.

Blackburn, if you will order the car, I shall be ready in an hour----"

Though she saw scarlet as she spoke, she would have swept by Angelica

with the pride and the outraged dignity of an insulted empress.

"You shall not go," said Blackburn, and she saw him put out his arm, as

if he would keep the two women apart.

"I would not stay," replied Caroline, looking not at him, but straight

into Angelica's eyes. "I would not stay if she went on her knees to me.

I will not stay even for Letty----"

"Do you know what you have done?" demanded Blackburn, in a quivering

voice, of his wife. "Do you know that you are ruining your child's

future--your child's chance----" Then, as if words were futile to convey

his meaning, he stopped, and looked at her as a man looks at the thing

that has destroyed him.

"For Letty's sake I shut my eyes as long as I could," said Angelica, and

of the three, she appeared the only one who spoke in sorrow and regret,

not in anger. "After to-night I can deceive myself no longer. I can

deceive the servants no longer----"

Her kimono was embroidered in a lavish design of cranes and

water-lilies; and while Caroline gazed at it, she felt that the vivid

splashes of yellow and blue and purple were emblazoned indelibly on her

memory. Years afterwards--to the very end of her life--the sight of a

piece of Japanese embroidery was followed by an icy sickness of the

heart, and a vision of Angelica's amber head against the background of

the dimly lighted hall and the curious faces of the maid and Mammy Riah.

"You shall not----" said Blackburn, and his face was like the face of a

man who has died in a moment of horror. "You shall not dare do this

thing----"

He was still keeping Caroline back with his outstretched hand, and while

she looked at him, she forgot her own anger in a rush of pity for the

humiliation which showed in every quiver of his features, in every line

of his figure. It was a torture, she knew, which would leave its mark

on him for ever.

"You shall not dare----" he repeated, as if the words he sought would

not come to him.

Beneath his gaze Angelica paled slowly. Her greatest victories had

always been achieved through her dumbness; and the instinct which had

guided her infallibly in the past did not fail her in this moment, which

must have appeared to her as the decisive hour of her destiny. There was

but one way in which she could triumph, and this way she chose, not

deliberately, but in obedience to some deep design which had its source

in the secret motive-power of her nature. The colour of her skin faded

to ivory, her long, slender limbs trembled and wavered, and the pathos

of her look was intensified into the image of tragedy.

"I tried so hard not to see----" she began, and the next instant she

gave a little gasping sob and dropped, like a broken flower, at his

feet.

For a second Caroline looked down on her in silence. Then, without

stooping, without speaking, she drew her skirt aside, and went out of

the room and up the stairs. Her scorn was the scorn of the strong who is

defeated for the weak who is victorious.

CHAPTER VII

COURAGE

When she reached her room, Caroline took off her cap and uniform and

laid them smoothly away in her trunk. Then she began packing with

deliberate care, while her thoughts whirled as wildly as autumn leaves

in a storm. Outwardly her training still controlled her; but beneath her

quiet gestures, her calm and orderly movements, she felt that the veneer

of civilization had been stripped from the primitive woman. It was as if

she had lived years in the few minutes since she had left Angelica

lying, lovely and unconscious, on the floor of the library.

She was taking her clothes out of the closet when there was a low knock

at her door, and Mammy Riah peered inquiringly into the room.

"Marse David tole me ter come," she said. "Is you gwine away, honey?"

Before she replied, Caroline crossed the floor and closed the door of

the nursery. "I am going home on the earliest train in the morning. Will

you be sure to order the car?"

The old woman came in and took the clothes out of Caroline's hands. "You

set right down, en wait twell I git thoo wid dis yer packin'. Marse

David, he tole me ter look atter you de same ez I look atter Letty, en

I'se gwine ter do whut he tells me."

She looked a thousand years old as she stood there beside the shaded

electric light on the bureau; but her dark and wrinkled face contained

infinite understanding and compassion. At the moment, in the midst of

Caroline's terrible loneliness, Mammy Riah appeared almost beautiful.

"I have to move about, mammy, I can't sit still. You were there. You saw

it all."

"I seed hit comin' befo' den, honey, I seed hit comin'."

"But you knew I'd gone out to see Mandy? You knew she was suffering?"

"Yas'm, I knows all dat, but I knows a heap mo'n dat, too."

"You saw Mrs. Blackburn? You heard?----"

"I 'uz right dar all de time. I 'uz right dar at de foot er de steers."

"Do you know why? Can you imagine why she should have done it?"

Mammy Riah wrinkled her brow, which was the colour and texture of

stained parchment. "I'se moughty ole, and I'se moughty sharp, chile, but

I cyarn' see thoo a fog. I ain' sayin' nuttin' agin Miss Angy, caze she

wuz oner de Fitzhugh chillun, ef'n a wi'te nuss did riz 'er. Naw'm, I

ain' sayin' nuttin 't'all agin 'er--but my eyes dey is done got so po'

dat I cyarn' mek out whar she's a-gwine en whut she's a-fishin' fur."

"I suppose she was trying to make me leave. But why couldn't she have

come out and said so?"

"Go 'way f'om yer, chile! Ain't you knowed Miss Angy better'n dat? She

is jes' erbleeged ter be meally-mouthed en two-faced, caze she wuz brung

up dat ar way. All de chillun dat w'ite nuss riz wuz sorter puny en

pigeon-breasted inside en out, en Miss Angy she wuz jes' like de res'

un um. She ain' never come right spang out en axed fur whut she gits, en

she ain' never gwine ter do hit. Naw'm, dat she ain't. She is a-gwine

ter look put upon, en meek ez Moses, en jes like butter wouldn't melt in

'er mouf, ef'n hit kills 'er. I'se done knowed 'er all 'er lifetime, en

I ain' never seed 'er breck loose, nairy oncet. Ole Miss use'n ter say

w'en she wuz live, dat Miss Angy's temper wuz so slow en poky, she'd git

ter woner sometimes ef'n she reely hed a speck er one."

"That must be why everybody thinks her a martyr," said Caroline sternly.

"Even to-night she didn't lose her temper. You saw her faint away at my

feet?"

A shiver shook her figure, as the vision of the scene rushed before her;

and bending down, with a dress still in her arms, the old woman patted

and soothed her as if she had been a child.

"Dar now, dar now," she murmured softly. Then, raising her head, with

sudden suspicion, she said in a sharp whisper, "Dat warn' no sho' nuff

faintin'. She wuz jes' ez peart ez she could be w'en she flopped down

dar on de flo'."

"I didn't touch her. I wouldn't have touched her if she had been dying!"

declared Caroline passionately.

Mammy Riah chuckled. "You is git ter be a reel spit-fire, honey."

"I'm not a spit-fire, but I'm so angry that I see red."

"Cose you is, cose you is, but dat ain' no way ter git erlong in dis

worl', perticular wid men folks. You ain' never seed Miss Angy git ez

mad ez fire wid nobody, is you? Dar now! I low you ain' never seed hit.

You ain' never seed 'er git all in a swivet 'bout nuttin? Ain't she

al'ays jes' ez sof ez silk, no matter whut happen? Dat's de bes' way

ter git erlong, honey, you lissen ter me. De mo' open en above boa'd you

is, de mo' you is gwine ter see de thing you is atter begin ter shy away

f'om you. Dar's Miss Matty Timberlake now! Ain't she de sort dat ain'

got no sof' soap about 'er, en don't she look jes egzactly ez ef'n de

buzzards hed picked 'er? Naw'm, you teck en watch Miss Angy, en she's

gwine ter sho' you sump'n. She ain' never let on ter nobody, she ain't.

Dar ain' nobody gwine ter know whut she's a-fishin' fur twell she's done

cotched hit." There was an exasperated pride in her manner, as if she

respected, even while she condemned, the success of Angelica's method.

"Yas, Lawd! I'se knowed all de Fitzhughs f'om way back, en I ain' knowed

nairy one un um dat could beat Miss Angy w'en hit comes ter gettin' whut

she wants--in perticular ef'n hit belongst ter somebody else. I'se seed

'er wid 'er pa, en I'se seed 'er wid Marse David, en dey warn' no mo'

den chillun by de time she got thoo wid um. Is you ever seed a man, no

matter how big he think hisself, dat warn' ready ter flop right down ez'

weak ez water, ez soon as she set 'er een on 'im? I'se watched 'er wid

Marse David way back yonder, befo' he begunst his cotin', en w'en I see

'er sidle up ter 'im, lookin ez sweet ez honey, en pertendin' dat she

ain' made up 'er min' yit wedder she is mos' pleased wid 'im er feared

un 'im, den I knows hit wuz all up wid 'im, ef'n he warn't ez sharp ez a

needle. Do you reckon she 'ould ever hev cotched Marse David ef'n he'd a

knowed whut 't'wuz she wuz atter? Naw'm, dat she 'ouldn't, caze men

folks dey ain' made dat ar way. Deys erbleeged ter be doin' whut dey

think you don't want 'um ter do, jes' like chillun, er dey cyarn' git

enny spice outer doin' hit. Dat's de reason de 'ooman dey mos' often

breecks dere necks tryin' ter git is de v'ey las' one dat deys gwinter

want ter keep atter deys got 'er. A she fox is a long sight better in de

bushes den she is in de kennel; but men folks dey ain' never gwine ter

fin' dat out twell she's done bitten um."

While she rambled on, she had been busily folding the clothes and

packing them into the trunk, and pausing now in her work, she peered

into Caroline's face. "You look jes' egzactly ez ef'n you'd seed a

ha'nt, honey," she said. "Git in de baid, en try ter go right straight

ter sleep, w'ile I git thoo dis yer packin' in a jiffy."

Aching in every nerve, Caroline undressed and threw herself into bed.

The hardest day of nursing had never left her like this--had never

exhausted her so utterly in body and mind. She felt as if she had been

beaten with rocks; and beneath the sore, bruised feeling of her limbs

there was the old half-forgotten quiver of humiliation, which brought

back to her the vision of that autumn morning at The Cedars--of the deep

blue of the sky, the shivering leaves of the aspens, and the long

straight road drifting through light and shadow into other roads that

led on somewhere--somewhere. Could she never forget? Was she for ever

chained to an inescapable memory?

"Is you 'bleeged ter go?" inquired the old woman, stopping again in her

packing.

"Yes, I'm obliged to go. I wouldn't stay now if they went down on their

knees to me."

"You ain't mad wid Marse David, is you?"

"No, I'm not angry with Mr. Blackburn. He has been very kind to me, and

I am sorry to leave Letty." For the first time the thought of the child

occurred to her. Incredible as it seemed she had actually forgotten her

charge.

"She sutney is gwine ter miss you."

"I think she will, poor little Letty. I wonder what they will make of

her?"

Closing her eyes wearily, she turned her face to the wall, and lay

thinking of the future. "I will not be beaten," she resolved

passionately. "I will not let them hurt me." Some old words she had said

long ago at The Cedars came back to her, and she repeated them over and

over, "People cannot hurt you unless you let them. They cannot hurt you

unless you submit--unless you deliver your soul into their hands--and I

will never submit. Life is mine as much as theirs. The battle is mine,

and I will fight it." She remembered her first night at Briarlay, when

she had watched the light from the house streaming out into the

darkness, and had felt that strange forewarning of the nerves, that

exhilarating sense of approaching destiny, that spring-like revival of

her thoughts and emotions. How wonderful Mrs. Blackburn had appeared

then! How ardently she might have loved her! For an instant the veiled

figure of her imagination floated before her, and she was tormented by

the pang that follows not death, but disillusionment. "I never harmed

her. I would have died for her in the beginning. Why should she have

done it?"

Opening her eyes she stared up at the wall beside her bed, where Mammy

Riah's shadow hovered like some grotesque bird of prey.

"Did you order the car, Mammy Riah?"

"Yas'm, I tole John jes' like you axed me. Now, I'se done got de las'

one er dese things packed, en I'se gwine ter let you git some sleep."

She put out the light while she spoke, and then went out softly, leaving

the room in darkness.

"_Why should she have done it? Why should she have done it?_" asked

Caroline over and over, until the words became a refrain that beat

slowly, with a rhythmic rise and fall, in her thoughts: "_Why should she

have done it?_ I thought her so good and beautiful. I would have worked

my fingers to the bone for her if she had only been kind to me. _Why

should she have done it?_ I should always have taken her part against

Mr. Blackburn, against Mrs. Timberlake, against Mammy Riah. It would

have been so easy for her to have kept my love and admiration. It would

have cost her nothing. _Why should she have done it?_ There is nothing

she can gain by this, and it isn't like her to do a cruel thing unless

there is something she can gain. She likes people to admire her and

believe in her. That is why she has taken so much trouble to appear

right before the world, and to make Mr. Blackburn appear wrong.

Admiration is the breath of life to her, and--and--oh, why _should she

have done it_? I must go to sleep. I must put it out of my mind. If I

don't put it out of my mind, I shall go mad before morning. I ought to

be glad to leave Briarlay. I ought to want to go, but I do not. I do not

want to go. I feel as if I were tearing my heart to pieces. I cannot

bear the thought of never seeing the place again--of never seeing Letty

again. _Why should she have done it?_----"

In the morning, when she was putting on her hat, Mrs. Timberlake came in

with a breakfast tray in her hands.

"Sit down, and try to eat something, Caroline. I thought you would

rather have a cup of coffee up here."

Caroline shook her head. "I couldn't touch a morsel in this house. I

feel as if it would choke me."

"But you will be sick before you get home. Just drink a swallow or two."

Taking the cup from her, Caroline began drinking it so hurriedly that

the hot coffee burned her lips. "Yes, you are right," she said

presently. "I cannot fight unless I keep up my strength, and I will

fight to the bitter end. I will not let her hurt me. I am poor and

unknown, and I work for my living, but the world is mine as much as

hers, and I will not give in. I will not let life conquer me."

"You aren't blaming David, are you, dear?"

"Oh, no, I am not blaming Mr. Blackburn. He couldn't have helped it."

Her heart gave a single throb while she spoke; and it seemed to her

that, in the midst of the anguish and humiliation, something within her

soul, which had been frozen for years, thawed suddenly and grew warm

again. It was just as if a statue had come to life, as if what had been

marble yesterday had been blown upon by a breath of the divine, and

changed into flesh. For eight years she had been dead, and now, in an

instant, she was born anew, and had entered afresh into her lost

heritage of joy and pain.

Mrs. Timberlake, gazing at her through dulled eyes, was struck by the

intensity of feeling that glowed in her pale face and in the burning

blue of her eyes. "I didn't know she could look like that," thought the

housekeeper. "I didn't know she had so much heart." Aloud she said

quietly, "David and I are going to the train with you. That is why I put

on my bonnet."

"Is Mr. Blackburn obliged to go with us?" Caroline's voice was almost

toneless, but there was a look of wonder and awe in her face, as of one

who is standing on the edge of some undiscovered country, of some virgin

wilderness. The light that fell on her was the light of that celestial

hemisphere where Mrs. Timberlake had never walked.

"He wishes to go," answered the older woman, and she added with an

after-thought, "It will look better."

"As if it mattered how things look? I'd rather not see him again, but,

after all, it makes no difference."

"It wasn't his fault, Caroline."

"No, it wasn't his fault. He has always been good to me."

"If anything, it has been harder on him than on you. It is only a few

hours of your life, but it is the whole of his. She has spoiled his life

from the first, and now she has ruined his career forever. Even before

this, Colonel Ashburton told me that all that talk last winter had

destroyed David's future. He said he might have achieved almost anything

if he had had half a chance, but that he regarded him now merely as a

brilliant failure. Angelica went to work deliberately to ruin him."

"But why?" demanded Caroline passionately. "What was there she could

gain by it?"

Mrs. Timberlake blinked at the sunlight. "For the first time in my

life," she confessed, "I don't know what she is up to. I can't, to save

my life, see what she has got in her mind."

"She can't be doing it just to pose as an ill-treated wife? The world is

on her side already. There isn't a person outside of this house who

doesn't look upon her as a saint and martyr."

"I know there isn't. That is what puzzles me. I declare, if it didn't

sound so far-fetched, I'd be almost tempted to believe that she was

trying to get that young fool for good."

"Mr. Wythe? But what would she do with him? She is married already, and

you know perfectly well that she wouldn't do anything that the world

calls really wrong."

"She'd be burned at the stake first. Well, I give it up. I've raked my

brain trying to find some reason at the bottom of it, but it isn't any

use, and I've had to give it up in the end. Then, last night after David

told me about that scene downstairs--he waked me up to tell me--it

suddenly crossed my mind just like that--" she snapped her

fingers--"that perhaps she's sharper than we've ever given her credit

for being. I don't say it's the truth, because I don't know any more

than a babe unborn whether it is or not; but the idea did cross my mind

that maybe she felt if she could prove David really cruel and faithless

to her--if she could make up a case so strong that people's sympathy

would support her no matter what she did--then she might manage to get

what she wanted without having to give up anything in return. You know

Angelica could never bear to give up anything. She has got closets and

closets filled with old clothes, which she'd never think of wearing, but

just couldn't bear to give away----"

"You mean----?" The blackness of the abyss struck Caroline speechless.

"I don't wonder that you can't take it in. I couldn't at first. It seems

so unlike anything that could ever happen in Virginia."

"It would be so--" Caroline hesitated for a word--"so incredibly

common."

"Of course you feel that way about it, and so would Angelica's mother. I

reckon she would turn in her grave at the bare thought of her daughter's

even thinking of a divorce."

"You mean she would sacrifice me like this? She would not only ruin her

husband, she would try to destroy me, though I've never harmed her?"

"That hasn't got anything in the world to do with it. She isn't thinking

of you, and she isn't thinking of Alan. She is thinking about what she

wants. It is surprising how badly you can want a thing even when you

have neither feeling nor imagination. Angelica isn't any more in love

with that young ass than I am; but she wants him just as much as if she

were over head and ears in love. There is one thing, however, you may

count on--she is going to get him if she can, and she is going to

persuade herself and everybody else, except you and David and me, that

she is doing her duty when she goes after her inclinations. I don't

reckon there was ever anybody stronger on the idea of duty than

Angelica," she concluded in a tone of acrid admiration.

"Of course, she will always stand right before the world," assented

Caroline, "I know that."

"Well, it takes some sense to manage it, you must admit?"

"I wish I'd never come here. I wish I'd never seen Briarlay," cried

Caroline, in an outburst of anger. "There is the car at the door. We'd

better go."

"Won't you tell Letty good-bye?"

For the first time tears rushed to Caroline's eyes. "No, I'd rather

not. Give her my love after I'm gone."

In the hall Blackburn was waiting for them, and Caroline's first

thought, as she glanced at him, was that he had aged ten years since the

evening before. A rush of pity for him, not for herself, choked her to

silence while she put her hand into his, which felt as cold as ice when

she touched it. In that moment she forgot the wrong that she had

suffered, she forgot her wounded pride, her anguish and humiliation, and

remembered only that he had been hurt far more deeply.

"I hope you slept," he said awkwardly, and she answered, "Very little.

Is the car waiting?"

Then, as he turned to go down the steps, she brushed quickly past him,

and entered the car after Mrs. Timberlake. She felt that her heart was

breaking, and she could think of no words to utter. There were trivial

things, she knew, that might be said, casual sounds that might relieve

the strain of the silence; but she could not remember what they were,

and where her thoughts had whirled so wildly all night long, there was

now only a terrible vacancy, round which sinister fears moved but into

which nothing entered. A strange oppressive dumbness, a paralysis of the

will, seized her. If her life had depended on it, she felt that she

should have been powerless to put two words together with an

intelligible meaning.

Blackburn got into the car, and a moment later they started round the

circular drive, and turned into the lane.

"Did John put in the bag?" inquired Mrs. Timberlake nervously.

"Yes, it is in front." As he replied, Blackburn turned slightly, and the

sunshine falling aslant the boughs of the maples, illumined his face for

an instant before the car sped on into the shadows. In that minute it

seemed to Caroline that she could never forget the misery in his eyes,

or the look of grimness and determination the night had graven about his

mouth. Every line in his forehead, every thread of grey in his dark

hair, would remain in her memory for ever. "He looked so much younger

when I came here," she thought. "These last months have cost him his

youth and his happiness."

"I am so glad you have a good day for your trip," said Mrs. Timberlake,

and almost to her surprise Caroline heard her own voice replying

distinctly, "Yes, it is a beautiful day."

"Will you telegraph your mother from the station?"

"She wouldn't get it. There is no telephone, and we send only once a day

for the mail."

"Then she won't be expecting you?"

"No, she won't be expecting me."

At this Blackburn turned. "What can we do, Miss Meade, to help you?"

Again she seemed to herself to answer with her lips before she had

selected the words, "Nothing, thank you. There is absolutely nothing

that you can do." The soft wind had loosened a lock of hair under her

veil, and putting up her hand, she pushed it back into place.

Rain had fallen in the night, and the morning was fresh and fine, with a

sky of cloudless turquoise blue. The young green leaves by the roadside

shone with a sparkling lustre, while every object in the landscape

appeared to quiver and glisten in the spring sunlight.

"I shall never see it again--I shall never see it again." Suddenly,

without warning, Caroline's thoughts came flocking back as riotously as

they had done through the long, sleepless night. The external world at

which she looked became a part of the intense inner world of her mind;

and the mental vacancy was crowded in an instant with a vivid multitude

of figures. Every thought, every sensation, every image of the

imagination and of memory, seemed to glitter with a wonderful light and

freshness, as the objects in the landscape glittered when the April

sunshine streamed over them.

"Yes, I am leaving it forever. I shall never see it again, but why

should I care so much? Why does it make me so unhappy, as if it were

tearing the heart out of my breast? Life is always that--leaving things

forever, and giving up what you would rather keep. I have left places I

cared for before, and yet I have never felt like this, not even when I

came away for the first time from The Cedars. Every minute I am going

farther and farther away. We are in the city now; flags are shining,

too, in the sun. I have never seen so many flags--as if flags alone

meant war! War! Why, I had almost forgotten the war! And yet it is the

most tremendous thing that has ever been on the earth, and nothing else

really matters--neither Briarlay, nor Mrs. Blackburn, nor my life, nor

Mr. Blackburn's, nor anything that happened last night. It was all so

little--as little as the thing Mrs. Blackburn is trying to get, the

thing she calls happiness. It is as little as the thing I have lost--as

little as my aching heart----"

"Do you know," said Mrs. Timberlake, "I had not realized that we were at

war--but look at the flags!" Her lustreless eyes were lifted, with a

kind of ecstasy, in the sunlight, and then as no one answered, she added

softly, "It makes one stop and think."

"I must try to remember the war," Caroline was telling herself. "If I

remember the war, perhaps I shall forget the ache in my heart. The

larger pain will obliterate the smaller. If I can only forget

myself----" But, in spite of the effort of will, she could not feel the

war as keenly as she felt the parting from something which seemed more

vital to her than her life. "We are at war," she thought, and

immediately, "I shall never see it again--I shall never see it again."

The car stopped at the station, and a minute afterwards she followed

Mrs. Timberlake across the pavement and through the door, which

Blackburn held open. As she entered, he said quickly, "I will get your

ticket and meet you at the gate."

"Has John got the bag?" asked Mrs. Timberlake, glancing back.

"Yes, he is coming." Caroline was looking after Blackburn, and while she

did so, she was conscious of a wish that she had spoken to him in the

car while she still had the opportunity. "I might at least have been

kinder," she thought regretfully, "I might have shown him that I

realized it was not his fault--that he was not to blame for anything

from the beginning----" A tall countryman, carrying a basket of

vegetables, knocked against her, and when she turned to look back again,

Blackburn had disappeared. "It is too late now. I shall never see him

again."

The station was crowded; there was a confused rumble of sounds,

punctuated by the shrill cries of a baby, in a blue crocheted hood, that

was struggling to escape from the arms of a nervous-looking mother. In

front of Mrs. Timberlake, who peered straight ahead at the gate, there

was a heavy man, with a grey beard, and beside him a small anxious-eyed

woman, who listened, with distracted attention, to the emphatic

sentences he was uttering. "Why doesn't he stop talking and let us go

on," thought Caroline. "What difference does it make if the whole world

is going to ruin?" Even now, if she could only go faster, there might be

time for a few words with Blackburn before the train started. If only

she might tell him that she was not ungrateful--that she understood, and

would be his friend always. A hundred things that she wanted to say

flashed through her mind, and these things appeared so urgent that she

wondered how she could have forgotten them on the long drive from

Briarlay. "I must tell him. It is the only chance I shall ever have,"

she kept saying over and over; but when at last she heard his voice, and

saw him awaiting them in the crowd, she could recall none of the words

that had rushed to her lips the moment before. "It is the only chance I

shall ever have," she repeated, though the phrase meant nothing to her

any longer.

"I tell you it's the farmers that pay for everything, and they are going

to pay for the war," declared the grey-bearded man, in a harsh,

polemical voice, and the anxious-eyed woman threw a frightened glance

over her shoulder, as if the remark had been treasonable. Mrs.

Timberlake had already passed through the gate, and was walking, with a

hurried, nervous air, down the long platform. As she followed at

Blackburn's side, it seemed to Caroline that she should feel like this

if she were going to execution instead of back to The Cedars. She longed

with all her heart to utter the regret that pervaded her thoughts, to

speak some profound and memorable words that would separate this moment

from every other moment that would come in the future--yet she went on

in silence toward the waiting train, where the passengers were already

crowding into the cars.

At the step Mrs. Timberlake kissed her, and then drew back, wiping her

reddened lids.

"Good-bye, my dear, I shall write to you."

"Good-bye. I can never forget how kind you have been to me."

Raising her eyes, she saw Blackburn looking down on her, and with an

effort to be casual and cheerful, she held out her hand, while a voice

from somewhere within her brain kept repeating, "You must say something

now that he will remember. It is the last chance you will ever have in

your life."

"Good-bye." Her eyes were smiling.

"Your chair is sixteen. Good-bye."

It was over; she was on the platform, and the passengers were pushing

her into the car. She had lost her last chance, and she had lost it

smiling. "It doesn't matter," she whispered. "I am glad to be going

home--and life cannot hurt you unless you let it."

The smile was still on her lips, but the eyes with which she sought out

her chair were wet with tears.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CEDARS

No one met her at the little country station, and leaving her bag for

old Jonas, she started out alone to walk the two miles to The Cedars.

Straight ahead the long, empty road trailed beneath the fresh young

foliage of the woods, the little curled red velvet leaves of the oaks

shining through the sea-green mist of the hickories and beeches; and she

felt that within her soul there was only a continuation of this long,

straight emptiness that led on to nothing. Overhead flocks of small

fleecy clouds, as white as swans-down, drifted across the changeable

April sky, while the breeze, passing through the thick woods, stirred

the delicate flower-like shadows on the moist ground. "Spring is so

sad," she thought. "I never understood before how much sadder spring is

than autumn." This sadness of budding things, of renewing life, of

fugitive scents and ephemeral colours, had become poignantly real. "It

makes me want something different--something I have never had; and that

is the sharpest desire on earth--the desire for a happiness that hasn't

a name." A minute afterwards she concluded resolutely, "That is

weakness, and I will not be weak. One must either conquer or be

conquered by life--and I will not be conquered. Anybody can be

miserable, but it takes courage to be happy. It takes courage and

determination and intelligence to get the best out of whatever happens,

and the only way to begin is to begin by getting the best out of

yourself. Now I might have been hurt, but I am not because I won't let

myself be. I might be unhappy, but I am not because my life is my own,

and I can make of it anything that I choose." Then suddenly she heard an

inner voice saying from a great distance, "It is my last chance. I shall

never see him again." With the words her memory was illuminated by a

flame; and in the burning light she saw clearly the meaning of

everything that had happened--of her sorrow, her dumbness, her longing

to speak some splendid and memorable word at the last. It was not to

Briarlay, it was not even to Letty, that her thoughts had clung at the

moment of parting. She had wanted David Blackburn to remember because it

was the separation from him, she knew now, that would make her unhappy.

Unconsciously, before she had suspected the truth, he had become an

inseparable part of her world; unconsciously she had let the very roots

of her life entwine themselves about the thought of him.

Standing there in the deserted road, beneath the changeable blue of the

sky, she turned to fight this secret and pitiless enemy. "I will not let

it conquer me. I will conquer, as I have conquered worse things than

this. I believed myself dead because I had once been disappointed. I

believed myself secure because I had once been stabbed to the heart.

This is the punishment for my pride--this humiliation and bitterness and

longing from which I shall never be free." An unyielding cord stretched

from her heart back to Briarlay, drawing stronger and tighter with every

step of the distance. It would always be there. The pain would not

lessen with time. The flame of memory would grow brighter, not paler,

with the days, months, and years.

The April wind, soft, provocative, sweet-scented, blew in her face as

she looked back; and down the long road, between the rose and green of

the woods, an unbroken chain of memories stretched toward her. She saw

Blackburn as he had appeared on that first night at Briarlay, standing

in the door of his library when she came in from the terrace; she saw

him in Letty's room at midnight, sitting beside the night lamp on the

candle-stand, with the book, which he did not read, open before him; she

saw him in the day nursery, his face enkindled with tenderness; she saw

him in the midst of the snowy landscape, when there had been rage in his

look at the half-drunken Roane; and she saw him, most clearly of all, as

he looked facing, on that last night, the hour that would leave its mark

on him for ever. It was as if this chain of memories, beginning in the

vague sunshine and shadow of the distance, grew more distinct, more

vivid, as it approached, until at last the images of her mind gathered,

like actual presences, in the road before her. She could not escape

them, she knew. They were as inevitable as regret, and would follow her

through the bitter years ahead, as they had followed her through the

hours since she had left him. She must stand her ground, and fight for

peace as valiantly as she had ever fought in the past.

"I cannot escape it," she said, as she turned to go on, "I must accept

it and use it because that is the only way. Mine is only one among

millions of aching hearts, and all this pain must leave the world either

better or worse than it was--all this pain will be used on the side

either of light or of darkness. Even sorrow may stand in the end for

the world's happiness, just as the tragedy of this war may make a

greater peace in the future. If I can only keep this thought, I shall

conquer--war may bring peace, and pain may bring joy--in the end."

Beyond the white gate, the old aspens glimmered silver green in the

sunlight, and, half-hidden in a dusky cloud of cedars, she saw the red

chimneys and the dormer-windows of the house. Home at last! And home was

good however she came to it. With a smile she drew out the bar, and

after replacing it, went on with an energetic and resolute step.

The door was open, and looking through the hall, she saw her mother

crossing the back porch, with a yellow bowl of freshly churned butter in

her hands.

Mrs Meade had grown older in the last six months, and she limped

slightly from rheumatism; but her expression of sprightly cheerfulness

had not changed, and her full pink face was still pretty. There was

something strangely touching in the sight of her active figure, which

was beginning at last to stoop, and in her brisk, springy step, which

appeared to ignore, without disguising, the limp in her walk. Never, it

seemed to Caroline, had she seen her so closely--with so penetrating a

flash of understanding and insight. Bare and hard as life had been, she

had cast light, not shadow, around her; she had stood always on the side

of the world's happiness.

"Mother, dear, I've come home to see you!" cried Caroline gaily.

The old lady turned with a cry. "Why, Caroline, what on earth?" she

exclaimed, and carefully set down the bowl she was carrying.

The next instant Caroline was in her arms, laughing and crying

together.

"Oh, mother, I wanted to see you, so I came home!"

"Is anything wrong, dear?"

"Nothing that cannot be made right. Nothing in the world that cannot be

made right."

Drawing her out on the porch, Mrs. Meade gazed earnestly into her face.

"You are a little pale. Have you been ill, Caroline?"

"I never had much colour, you know, but I am perfectly well."

"And happy, darling?" The dear features, on which time was beginning to

trace tender lines of anxiety, beamed on her daughter, with the

invincible optimism that life had granted in place of bodily ease. As

the wind stirred the silvery hair, Caroline noticed that it had grown a

little thinner, though it was still as fine and light as spun flax. For

the first time she realized that her mother possessed the beauty which

is permanent and indestructible--the beauty of a fervent and dominant

soul. Age could soften, but it could not destroy, the charm that was

independent of physical change.

Caroline smiled brightly. "Happy to be with you, precious mother."

"Maud is in the hospital, you know, and Diana is in New York getting

ready to sail. Only Margaret is left with me, and she hasn't been a bit

well this winter. She is working hard over her garden."

"Yes, you wrote me. While I am here, I will help her. I want to work

very hard."

"Can you stay long now? It will be such a comfort to have you. Home

never seems just right when one of you is away, and now there will be

three. You knew old Docia was sick, didn't you? We have had to put her

daughter Perzelia in the kitchen, and she is only a field hand. The

cooking isn't very good, but you won't mind. I always make the coffee

and the batter bread."

"You know I shan't mind, but I must go back to work in a week or two.

Somebody must keep the dear old roof mended."

Mrs. Meade laughed, and the sound was like music. "It has been leaking

all winter." Then she added, while the laugh died on her lips, "Have you

left Briarlay for good?"

"Yes, for good. I shall never go back."

"But you seemed so happy there?"

"I shall be still happier somewhere else--for I am going to be happy,

mother, wherever I am." Though she smiled as she answered, her eyes left

her mother's face, and sought the road, where the long procession of the

aspens shivered like gray-green ghosts in the wind.

"I am so glad, dear, but there hasn't been anything to hurt you, has

there? I hope Mr. Blackburn hasn't been disagreeable."

"Oh, no, he has been very kind. I cannot begin to tell you how kind he

has been." Her voice trembled for an instant, and then went on brightly,

"And so has Mrs. Timberlake. At first I didn't like her. I thought she

was what Docia calls 'ficy,' but afterwards, as I wrote you so often,

she turned out to be very nice and human. First impressions aren't

always reliable. If they were life would be easier, and there wouldn't

be so many disappointments--but do you know the most valuable lesson

I've learned this winter? Well, it is not to trust my first

impression--of a cat. The next time old Jonas brings me a lot of kittens

and asks me what I think of them, I'm going to answer, 'I can't tell,

Jonas, until I discover their hidden qualities.' It's the hidden

qualities that make or mar life, and yet we accept or reject people

because of something on the surface--something that doesn't really

matter at all."

She was gay enough; her voice was steady; her laugh sounded natural; the

upward sweep of the black brows was as charming as ever; and the old

sunny glance was searching the distance. There was nothing that Mrs.

Meade could point to and say "this is different"; yet the change was

there, and the mother felt, with the infallible instinct of love, that

the daughter who had come home to her was not the Caroline who had left

The Cedars six months ago. "She is keeping something from me," thought

Mrs. Meade. "For the first time in her life she is keeping something

from me."

"Now I must take off my hat and go to work," said Caroline, eagerly, and

she added under her breath, "It will rest me to work."