"Why, Louis!" she spoke as if in a dream, "I am going to have the sleigh this afternoon."

"That is unfortunate, coz," said Louis lightly, "as probably we are going in different directions."

"I am going to the Park," stammered Evadne, "with little Hans and Gretchen."

"Exactly, and I to the Club grounds. Diametrically opposite, you see."

"But Uncle Lawrence promised me. He said no one wanted the sleigh this afternoon."

"The Judge should not allow himself to jump at such hasty conclusions before hearing the decision of the Foreman of the Jury. It is an unwise procedure for his Lordship."

"But poor little Hans will be so disappointed! He has been looking forward to it for weeks."

"Disappointed! My dear coz, the placid Teutonic mind is impervious to anything so unphilosophical. It will teach him the truth of the adage that 'there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,' and in the future he will not be so foolish as to look forward to anything."

Evadne's lips quivered. "You are cruel," she said, "to shut out the sunlight from a poor little crippled child!"

"My dear coz, I give you my word of honor, I am sorry. But there is nothing to make a fuss about. Any other day will suit your little beggar just as well. I promised some of the fellows to drive them out and a Hildreth cannot break his word, you know."

"You have made me break mine," said Evadne sadly, as she passed him to go upstairs.

"Ah, you are a woman," said Louis coolly, "that alters everything."

Did it alter everything? Evadne was pacing her floor with flashing eyes. "Was there one rule of honor for Louis, another for herself? No! no! no! How perfectly hateful he is!" and she stamped her foot with sudden passion. "I despise him!"

Suddenly she fell on her knees beside the lounge and cowered among its cushions, while the eyes of the Christ, reproachfully tender, seemed to pierce her very soul. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you,—that ye may be the children of your Father in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

His sorrowful tones seemed to crush her into the earth. Was this her Christ-likeness? And she had let Marion say she was better than them all! What if she or Louis were to see her now? He would say again, as he had said before, "There is not much of the 'meek and lowly' in evidence at present." "And he would be right," she cried remorsefully. "Oh, Jesus Christ, is this the way I am following thee!"

"You do right to feel annoyed," argued self. "It hurts you to disappoint Gretchen and Hans."

"It is your own pride that is hurt," answered her inexorable conscience. "You wanted to pose as a Lady Bountiful. It is humiliating to let these poor people see that you are of no consequence in your uncle's house. Christ kept no carriage. It is not what you do but what you are, that proves your kinship with the Lord."

It was a very humble Evadne who, late in the afternoon, walked slowly towards the German quarter. "I am very sorry," she said quietly, when she had reached the spotless rooms where Gretchen made a home for her crippled brother, "my cousin had made arrangements to use the sleigh this afternoon, so we could not have our drive. I am very sorry."

And they put their own disappointment out of sight, these kindly German folk, and tried to make her think they cared as little as if they were used to driving every day.

"Did you notice, Gretchen," said Hans, after Evadne had left them, "how sweet our Fraulein was this afternoon? But her eyes looked as if she had been crying. Do you suppose she had?"

"I think, Hans," said Gretchen slowly, "our Fraulein is learning to dwell where God wipes all the tears away."

"Are your eyes no better, Frau Himmel?" Evadne was saying as she shook hands with another friend who was patiently learning the bitter truth that she would never be able to see her beloved Fatherland again. "Are the doctors quite sure that nothing can be done?"

"Quite sure, Fraulein Hildreth," answered the woman with a smile, "but there is one glorious hope they can't take from me."

"A hope, Frau Himmel, when you are blind! What can it be?"

"This, dear Fraulein," and the look on the patient face was beautiful to see. "'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off.'"

And Evadne, walking homeward, repeated the words which she had read that morning with but a dim perception of their meaning. 'If limitation is power that shall be, if calamities, opposition and weights are wings and means—we are reconciled.'



CHAPTER XXIII.

"Uncle Lawrence, with your permission, I am going to study to be a nurse."

Judge Hildreth started. So light had been the footsteps and so deeply had he been absorbed in thought, he had not heard his niece enter the library and cross the room until she stood before his desk. Very fair was the picture which his eyes rested upon. What made his brows contract as if something hurt him in the sight?

Evadne Hildreth was in all the sweetness of her young womanhood. She was not beautiful, not even pretty, Isabelle said, but there was a strange fascination about her earnest face, and the wonderful grey eyes possessed a charm that was all their own. She had graduated with honors. Now she stood upon the threshold of the unknown, holding her life in her hands.

Louis was traveling in Europe. Isabelle and Marion were at a fashionable French Conservatory, for the perfecting of their Parisian accent. Evadne was alone. She had chosen to have it so. She wanted to follow up a special course in physiology which was her favorite study.

"A nurse, Evadne! My dear, you are beside yourself. 'Much learning hath made you mad.'"

"'I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and soberness.' I feel called to do this thing."

"Who has called you, pray? We do not deal in supernaturalisms in this prosaic century."

The lovely eyes glowed. "Jesus Christ." What an exultant ring there was in her voice, and how tenderly she lingered over the name!

"Jesus Christ!" Judge Hildreth repeated the words in an awestruck tone. Did she see him cower in his chair? It must have been an optical illusion. The storm outside was making the house shiver and the lights dance.

"You must consult your aunt," he said in a changed voice. She noticed with a pang how old and careworn he looked.

"Kate," he called, as just then he heard his wife's step in the hall, "come here."

"What do you wish, Lawrence?" and there was a soft frou frou of silken draperies as Mrs. Hildreth's dress swept over the carpet.

"Evadne wishes to become a nurse."

"Are you crazy?" There was a steely glitter in Mrs. Hildreth's eyes, and her tone fell cold and measured through the room.

"She says not," said the Judge with a feeble smile.

"Why should you think so, Aunt Kate?" asked Evadne gently. "Look how the world honors Florence Nightingale, and think how many splendid women have followed her example."

"To earn your own living by the labor of your hands. A Hildreth!"

"All the people who amount to anything in the world have to work, Aunt Kate. There is nothing degrading in it."

"Just try it and you will soon find out your mistake. If you do this thing you will be ostracized by the world. People make a great talk about the dignity of labor, but a girl who works has no footing in polite society."

Evadne's sweet laugh fell softly through the silence. "I don't believe I have any time for society, Aunt Kate. Life seems too real to be frittered away over afternoon teas."

"Are you mad, Lawrence, to let her take this step? Think of the Hildreth honor!"

Again Judge Hildreth laughed—that strange, feeble laugh. "Evadne is of age, Kate; she must do as she thinks right. As to the rest—I think the less we say about the Hildreth honor now the better for us all."

He was alone. Mrs. Hildreth had swept away in a storm of wrath. Evadne had followed her, leaving a soft kiss upon his brow. He lifted his hand to the place her lips had touched—he felt as if he had been stung—but there was no outward wound.

The Hildreth honor! The letters in the drawer at his side seemed to confront him with scorn blazing from every page. He put forth his hand with a sudden determination. He would crush their impertinent obtrusiveness under his heel; then, when their damaging evidence was buried in the dust of oblivion, he would be safe and fret! Evadne knew her father had left her something. He would make special mention of it in his will—a Trust fund—enough to yield her maintenance and the paltry pin money which was all the allowance he had ever seen his way clear to make his brother's child. It was not his fault, he argued—he had meant to do right—but gilt-edged securities were as waste, paper in the unprecedented monetary depression which was sweeping stronger men than himself to the verge of ruin. He could not foresee such a crisis. Even the Solons of Wall Street had not anticipated it. It was not his fault. He had meant to make all right in a few years. What was that they said was paved with good intentions? He could not remember. He seemed to have strange fits of forgetfulness lately. He must see that everything was put in proper shape in the event of his death. People died suddenly sometimes. One never knew.

It would be safer to make re-investments. Yes, that was a good thought. He wondered it had never occurred to him before. His wisest plan was to have all moneys and securities in his own name. It would make it so much easier for the executors. It was not fair to burden any one with a business so involved as his was now. Of course he would make a mental note of just how much belonged to his brother. It would not be safe to put it in black and white—executors had such an unpleasant habit of going over one's private papers—but he would be sure to remember, and, if he ever got out of this bog, as he expected to do of course shortly, he would give Evadne back her own. It would leave him badly crippled for funds, but one must expect to make sacrifices for the sake of principle. Then, when these letters were destroyed, they would have no clue—he frowned. What an unfortunate word for him to use! A clue wag suggestive of criminality. What possible connection could there be between Judge Hildreth and that?

He fitted the key in the lock and turned it, then his hand fell by his side. No, no, he had not come to that—yet. He had always held that tampering with the mails evinced the blackest turpitude. He was an honorable gentleman. He started. What was that? A long, low, blood-curdling laugh, as if a dozen mocking fiends stood at his elbow,—or was it just the shrieking of the wind among the gables? It was a wild night. The rain dashed against the window panes in sheets of vengeful fury, and the howling of the storm made him shudder as he thought of the ships at sea. Now and then a loose slate fell from an adjoining roof and was shivered into atoms upon the pavement, while the wind swept along the street and lashed the branches of the trees into a panic of helpless, quivering rage. Could any poor beggars be without a shelter on such a night as this? How did such people live?

He caught himself dozing. He felt strangely drowsy. He straightened himself resolutely in his chair and drew a package of stock certificates from one of the secret drawers of the desk. He would see about selling the stock and making re-investments to-morrow.

It must be done,—to save the Hildreth honor.



CHAPTER XXIV.

Once more the Hildreth household was united, if such a thing as union could be possible, among so many diverse elements.

Isabelle's chill hauteur had increased with the years and a peevish discontent was carving indelible lines upon her face which was rapidly losing its delicate contour and bloom. Marion's pink and white beauty was at its zenith, and the social attentions she was beginning to receive only served to render her elder sister more than ever irritable and envious. Louis was his old nonchalant self, careless and listless, with an ever deepening expression of ennui which was pitiful in one so young. His European travels had not improved him, in Evadne's opinion.

She saw but little of her cousins. They passed their days in pleasure, she in work; but Marion, in her rare moments of reflection, as she thought of the strangely peaceful face of the young nurse, wondered sadly whether Evadne had not chosen the better part after all.

"Oh, Louis!" she cried one morning, and her voice was full of pain, "how you are wasting this beautiful life that God has given you!"

Louis stretched himself lazily in his arm-chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "Thanks for your high opinion, coz. Of what special crime do I stand accused before the bar of your judgment?"

"Oh, it is nothing special, but you are just frittering away the days that might be filled with such noble work, and you have nothing to show for them but—smoke!" She swept her hand through the filmy cloud which Louis just then blew into the air, with a gesture of disdain. "Now you will think I am preaching, but indeed, indeed I am not, only, it hurts me so!"

Louis laughed and threw away his cigar. "No, I will not charge you with belonging to the cloth, but I confess I should like you better if you had not entrenched yourself behind such a high wall of prejudice against all the good things of this life. You are too narrow, Evadne."

Evadne folded her hands together as if she were holding a strange, sweet comfort against her heart. "The Jews said the same about Jesus Christ," she said, "why should the servant be judged more kindly than her Lord?"

"But there is no harm in these things, Evadne."

"There is no good in them. Life is so real, Louis!"

"Well, I own I am a light weight in the race. But I assure you such people are needed to balance matters. If every one was in such deadly earnest as you, Evadne, the old world would go to pieces."

"But, Louis, it is dreadful to have no purpose in life!"

"The Judge has enough of that for us both," said Louis carelessly. "Why should I choke my brains with musty law when his are charged to repletion?"

"Think how it would please Uncle Lawrence!" urged Evadne.

"True," said Louis gravely, "but that is an argument which will bear future consideration."

"Oh, Louis," and Evadne's voice was choked with tears, "the time may come when you would give the whole world to be able to please your father!"

"But, Evadne," said Louis gently, "a man must have freedom of choice in his vocation. My father chose the law for his profession, why should he rebel if I choose dilettanteism?"

"Because it is no profession at all. I am sure he would not mind what you did, if it were only real work."



"Oh, pshaw! Always work, Evadne. I tell you I prefer to play. Miss Angel told me at the General's ball last night that she liked a man who took his glass and smoked and did all the rest of the naughty things."

"She is an angel of darkness, luring you on to ruin."

Louis shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly. If so, she is disguised as an angel of light. She sings divinely."

"So did the Sirens."

Louis laughed. "She has promised to go for a sail with me to-morrow. Better come along, coz, and keep us off the rocks."

Evadne was silent.

"I like such a girl as that," he continued. "She has common sense and makes a fellow feel comfortable. These moral altitudes of yours are all very fine in theory, but the atmosphere is too rare for me."

"It is no real kindness to make you satisfied with your lowest. I want you to rise to your best. Oh, Louis, won't you let Christ make your life grand? It would be such a happiness to me!" She laid her hand upon his shoulder. Louis caught it in his and drew her round in front of his chair.

"Do you really mean that, little coz? Upon my word, it is the strongest inducement you could offer me. I feel half inclined to try, just for your sake, only you see it would involve such a tremendous expenditure of moral force!" and he lighted a fresh cigar.

* * * * *

"I do wish you would not ride such wild horses, Louis," said Mrs. Hildreth, as she stood beside her son in the front doorway, looking disapprovingly as she spoke at the horse who was champing his bit viciously on the sidewalk below. "It keeps me in a perfect fever of anxiety all the time."

"Whoa, Polyphemus! Stand still, sir! Pompey, have you tightened that girth up to its last hole? Better do it then. Don't mind his kicking. It doesn't hurt him. It's just his way.

"My dear lady mother, if you knew what a pleasure it is to find something untamable where everything is so confoundedly slow you would not wonder at my fondness for the brute. As to your anxiety, that is ridiculous. A Hildreth has too much sense to be conquered by a horse and make a spectacle of himself into the bargain. Au revoir. Better take a dose of lavender to calm your nerves," and Louis waved his hand to her with careless grace, as he gathered up the reins.

His mother looked after him with a sigh. "He is so fearless! What a splendid cavalry officer he would make! He makes me think of the regiment that went to the war from Marlborough." Her eye fell casually upon Pompey who was shutting the carriage gates. "What a waste of precious lives it was to be sure, just to free a lot of cowardly negroes!"

It was late in the afternoon when Pompey went up town on an errand for Judge Hildreth. The street was full of men and horses hurrying to and fro but Pompey paid them but little attention. He was busy with his Lord.

Hark! What was that? The sound of a horse's hoofs ringing with a sharp, metallic clatter upon the paved street while children screamed and men turned white faces towards the sound and hurriedly sought the sidewalk.

On they came, the horse and his rider. Louis pale as death, Polyphemus mad with sudden fear and his own ungovernable temper. The bit was between his teeth, his iron-shod feet were thrown out in vengeful fury.

Pompey sprang forward.

"You can't stop him!" shouted the men. "It would be certain death!" But just beyond the street took a sharp turn to the right and a deep chasm, where extensive excavations for a sewer were being made, yawned hungrily.

The horse plunged and reared. Pompey had caught hold of the reins and was clinging to them with all his might.

* * * * *

Mrs. Hildreth leaned over her son in an agony of fear. Louis was her idol. He opened his eyes wearily. His cheeks were as white as the pillow.

"Oh, Louis!" she wailed, "I knew that wretched horse would bring you to your death!"

"I am not dead yet," he said, with a shadow of his old mocking smile, "although I have succeeded in making a fool of myself. How is Pompey?"

"Pompey!" ejaculated his mother. "I never thought of any one but you."

* * * * *

Evadne stood in Dyce's little room, beside the bed with its gay patchwork cover. The iron-shod hoofs had done their cruel work only too well!

"Pompey," she said wistfully, "dear Pompey, is the pain terrible to bear?"

The faithful eyes looked up at her, the brave lips tried to smile. "De Lord Jesus is a powerful help in de time of trubble, Miss 'Vadney; I'se leanin' on his arm."

Evadne repeated, as well as she could for tears. "'Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.'"

And Pompey answered with joyous assurance,—"'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'"

"The Jedge hez been here," said Dyce with mournful pride. "He say he'll never find any one like Pompey. He say it wuz de braves' ting he ever knowed any one to do. He jest cry like a chile, de Jedge did; he say he never 'spect to find sech a faithful frien' again."

"De Jedge is powerful kind, Missy. He say he'll look out fer Dyce ez long ez he live," the husband's voice broke,

"I don't care nuthin' 'bout dat!" and Dyce turned away with a choking sob; "but I'se proud to hev him see what kind of a man you is."

The night drew on. No sound was to be heard in the little cottage except the ticking of the wheezy clock, as Dyce kept her solitary vigil by the side of the man she loved. She knelt beside his pillow, and, for her sake, Pompey made haste to die. As the shadows of the night were fleeing before the heralds of the dawn, she saw the gray shadow which no earthly light has power to chase away fall swiftly over his face.

He opened his eyes and spoke in a rapturous whisper. "Dyce! Dyce! I see de Lord!"

The morning broke. Dyce still knelt on with her face buried in the pillow; the asthmatic clock still kept on its tireless race; but Pompey's happy spirit had forever swept beyond the bounds of time.

* * * * *

The humble funeral was over. The Hildreth carriage, behind whose curtained windows sat Dyce and Evadne, had followed close after the hearse. The Judge had walked behind.

"So uncalled for!" Mrs. Hildreth said in an annoyed tone when, she heard of it. Your father never will learn to have a proper regard for les convenances."

"Uncalled for!" ejaculated Louis. "I'll venture to say the Judge will never have a chance to follow such a brave man again."

"He sent his carriage. That was all that was necessary."

"Doubtless Dyce finds that superlative honor a perfect panacea for her grief," said Louis sarcastically. "It is eminently fitting that Brutus and Caesar should have walked as chief mourners for they have lost the truest friend they ever had."



CHAPTER XXV.

"I'm afraid poor Evadne will be worn out with such constant attendance upon Louis," said Marion some weeks after Pompey's death. "I don't see how she stands it."

"It is hardly worth her while to undertake nursing," said Isabelle coldly, "if she cannot stand such a trifle as this."

"Why, Isabelle, just think of the strain night after night! You wouldn't like it, I know. I want Mamma to get a paid nurse, but Louis won't have any one near him but Evadne."

"Of course I could not stand being broken of my rest," rejoined Isabelle, "it is hard enough for me to get any under the most favorable circumstances, but probably Evadne sleeps like a log in the daytime. It is the least return she can make for having disgraced the family, to be of some use in it now."

Marion laughed incredulously. "I should never think of associating Evadne's name with disgrace," she said. "What do you mean, Isabelle?"

"Mamma says this nursing fad of hers upset Papa completely. He said the Hildreth honor had better not be mentioned any more."

"Well, I don't know. It seems to me she is of a good deal more value to him now than the Hildreth honor. Dr. Russe says she is one of the best nurses he ever saw. That is a high compliment, for he is dreadfully particular. It is my opinion, Isabelle, that Louis is a good deal worse than we think him to be. Don't mention it to Mamma, for she is so nervous, but I heard Dr. Russo talking to Papa in the hall this morning, something about an inherited tendency and a derangement of the nervous system. I could not understand—he spoke so low—but Papa looked dreadfully worried after he had gone.

"Don't you think Papa looks very badly, Isabelle? And he seems so absent, as if he had something on his mind. I noticed it long before this happened."

Isabelle laughed carelessly. "What a girl you are, Marion! You are always imagining things about people. For my part I have too many worries of my own."

Upstairs Evadne was saying wistfully, "Don't you think your life should be very precious, Louis, now that two people have died?"

"Two people, Evadne? I know there was good old Pompey,—the thought of that haunts me night and day,—but who else do you mean?"

"Jesus Christ."

"Oh!"

"Do you never think about him, Louis?"

"My dear coz, I find it wiser not to think. Every other man you meet holds a different creed, and each one thinks his is the right one. Why should I set myself up as knowing better than other people? The only way is to have a sort of nebulous faith. God will not expect too much of us, if we do the best we can."

"A 'nebulous faith' will not save you, Louis," Evadne answered sadly. "God expects us to believe his word when he tells us that he has opened a way for us into the Holiest by the blood of his Son."

"That atonement theory is an uncanny doctrine."

"It is the only way by which sinners can be made 'at one' with an absolutely holy God. Jesus said 'And I if I be lifted up ... will draw all men unto me.' His humanitarianism did not win the hearts of the multitude. The very men he had fed and healed hounded him on to his cross."

"It is not philosophical."

"I read this morning that 'the moving energy in the world's history to-day is not a philosophy, but a cross.'"

"The God of the present is humanitarianism."

"Humanitarianism is not Christ. Paul says—'Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor ... but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.' The love which he means is the Christ power, for no mere human love could reach the altitude of the 13th of 1st Corinthians. Real religion is not a creed, but a Christ. It seems to me the most important questions we have to answer are, what we think of Christ and what we are going to do with him.

"When Peter gave his answer—'Thou art the Christ,—the Anointed One,—the Son of the living God,—' Christ said, 'On this rock—the faith of thine—I will build my church.' Humanitarianism, pure and simple, seems to me but an attempt to imitate Christ. It is beautiful as far as it goes, but it is not my idea of following him."

"What is, Evadne?"

"When Jesus told his disciples to follow, he meant them to be with him. I do not think we can ever hope to be like Christ unless we believe him to be God and walk with him every day. If we have the spirit of Jesus in our hearts, we shall be model humanitarians, for we shall love our neighbor as ourselves."

Louis caught her hand in his. "Begin by loving me!" he cried suddenly. "I love you, dear! These long days of watching have taught me that, although I began to suspect it some time ago. It is no use saying anything," he went on hurriedly, as Evadne began to protest, "you must be my wife, for I cannot live without you!"

He drew a handsome ring, of quaint and curious workmanship which he had bought in Venice, from his finger, and before Evadne could recover from her astonishment, had thrust it upon hers. "See, you are mine, darling. Now let us seal the compact with a kiss."

"Louis, you are dreaming! This can never be!" She struggled to free her hand but he held her fingers in a grasp of steel.

"It shall be, my sweet little Puritan! Do you suppose I will ever give you up now? I tell you I love you, Evadne! Love you as I never thought I should ever love a woman. Why, you can twist me around your finger. I am like water in your hands."

"Louis, please listen!" implored Evadne, with a white, strained face. "This is utterly impossible, for—I do not love you."

"I will teach you, dear," said Louis cheerfully. "I know I have been a brute, but I will show you how gentle I can be."

"Louis!" cried Evadne desperately, "you must let me go! I will never do this thing!"

She pulled vainly at the ring as she spoke. Louis' grasp never relaxed. When he spoke she was frightened at the recklessness of his tone.

"Take that ring off your finger and I go straight to the devil! You say you want to win my soul. Here is your chance. You can make of me what you will. I own there is something in your Christianity. I can't help sneering when I see Isabelle and Marion playing at it, but I have never sneered at you. Now, take your choice. Shall the devil have his own?"

His voice was quiet but she could see he was laboring under intense excitement. Evadne was in despair. What should she do? Only that morning Dr. Russe had said to her,—

"It is not the injury he sustained in the fall that worries me. He will get over that. But the shock to the nervous system has been tremendous. Humor him in everything and avoid the least excitement, as you value his life."

She leaned over him and said gently,—"Dear Louis, you are not strong enough to talk any more to-day. I will wear the ring a little while to please you, but remember, this other thing you want can never be."

He looked up at her, his face pallid with exhaustion, "Promise me," he said faintly, "that the ring shall stay on your finger until I take it off."

And Evadne promised.



CHAPTER XXVI.

Three years had slipped away and Evadne still wore her cousin's ring. A great tenderness was growing up in her heart toward him. She yearned over him as only those can understand who know what it is to carry the burden of souls upon their hearts by night and day but no thought of love ever crossed her mind. To Evadne Hildreth, love was a wonderfully sacred thing. The ring fretted her and she longed to be freed from its presence, but Louis held her to her promise. If he only waited long enough, he persuaded himself, his patience would be rewarded. Some day this shy, sweet bird would nestle against his heart. In the meantime he would keep the ungenerous advantage which his illness had given him. He forgot that it needs more to tame a bird than merely putting it in a cage!

Isabelle had been intensely curious but her questions had elicited no satisfaction from her brother, and Evadne had answered simply, "Louis took a fancy to put it on my finger: I am wearing it to please him, that is all:" and even Isabelle found her cousin's sweet dignity an effectual bar against her morbid inquisitiveness.

They had seen comparatively little of each other. Evadne was constantly busy, either at private or hospital nursing, and very short were the furloughs which she spent under her uncle's roof. Louis had spent the first winter after his illness with his mother in the South of France, now he was in Florida, but he wrote regularly, and Evadne answered—when she could. Sweet, pleading letters which he read over and over and honestly tried to be better: but it was only for her sake; he knew no higher motive—yet.

It was a perfect day. Down by the river an alligator was sunning himself, and the resinous breath of the pine trees swept its aromatic fragrance over Louis as he lay at full length in a hammock with his hands behind his head. He had thrown the magazine he had been reading on the ground and it lay open at the article on Heredity which he had just finished. His desultory thoughts were roaming idly over the subject, when one, more far reaching than the rest, made him start lip with a sudden shock of unwelcome surprise.

"By Jove! Can it be that I am a victim of it too? It looks confoundedly like it, although even my sweet little Puritan has not felt it a sin against her conscience to keep me in the dark."

He thrust his fingers with an impatient gesture through his hair. "Now I come to think of it, the case grows deucedly clear. The South of France one winter and Florida this! Simple nervous prostration would seem to the uninitiated better fought in the exhilirating ozone of Colorado, or—the North Pole—than in this languorous atmosphere. 'An inherited tendency.' Is this the pleasant little legacy which my respected ancestor has bequeathed to his only grandson? It skipped the Judge, but it caught poor Uncle Lenox, and now it has nabbed me! What a fool I have been not to surmise what this confounded pain meant between my shoulders! Grandfather Hildreth kept himself alive with nostrums until he was seventy, but he was an invalid all his life. He ought to be cursed for his contemptible selfishness in bringing so much suffering upon the race! There's none of the taint about Evadne, bless her! Russe told me the Hospital examiners said they had never passed such a perfect specimen of health."

He stopped suddenly and bit his lips in pain. Would he not follow his grandfather's example—if he had the chance?

"What in the world is the meaning of all this?"

Louis had arrived by an earlier train than he was expected and only his mother was at home to greet him. The hall was in confusion, workmen's tools lay about and ladders stood against the walls. Mrs. Hildreth laughed lightly, as she laid her hand within her son's arm.

"Oh, they are only getting ready for the floral decorations," she said, "we give a reception to-morrow in honor of your return. How well you are looking, Louis. I am so delighted to have you at home."

"Thanks, lady mother. I do not need to ask how you have survived my absence. How is Evadne,—and the Judge and the girls?"

His mother laughed again as she drew him on the sofa beside her. She seemed in wonderfully good humor. "Rather a comprehensive question," she said. "Sit down and we will have a comfortable talk before the others get home. Your father looks wretchedly but he says there is nothing the matter. I suppose it is just overwork and the usual money strain. Isabelle too is not as well as I should like her to be. Suffers from nervousness a great deal, and depression. There is a new physician here now, a Doctor Randolph, who we think is going to help her, although he is very young; but she took a dislike to Doctor Russe because he belongs to the old school. And now I have a surprise for you. Marion is engaged!"

"Engaged! Why, you never hinted at it in your letters!"

"It has all been very sudden. I wrote you there was a young New Yorker very attentive to her."

"Yes, but that is an old story. There were two fellows 'very attentive' when I went away. How long since the present devotion culminated?"

"Just a week ago to-night: and they are so devoted!"

"A second Romeo and Juliet, eh?"—Louis' laugh had a bitter ring,—"By the way, what is his name?"

"Simpson Kennard."

"Brother Simp! Rich, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, very. In fact he is eligible in every way."

"I see," yawned Louis, "Possessed of all the cardinal virtues. It is a good thing his wealth is not all in his pockets, for they are apt to spring a leak. But Evadne—how is she?"

"Oh, she is always well, you know," said his mother carelessly. "There they come now."

"These Indian famines are a terrible business," said Judge Hildreth as they lingered over their dessert that evening. It was pleasant to have Louis and Evadne back again. He too was glad to see his son so well. "I don't see what the end is going to be."

"People say that about every calamity, Papa," said Isabelle, "but the world goes on just the same."

"Of course it does, Isabelle," said her brother. "You see we can't waste time over a few dying millions when we have to give a reception for instance."

"But that is a necessity, Louis," said Mrs. Hildreth, "we must pay our debts to society, you know."

"I am sure I don't see where I could economize," sighed Marion. "That lecturer last night was splendid and I would like to have given him thousands but I hadn't a dollar in my purse. I never have. I spent my last cent for chocolates yesterday."

Evadne smiled and sighed but said nothing. The lecturer the night before had felt his soul strangely stirred at the sight of her glowing face, and the plate when it passed her seat had borne a shining gold piece, but perhaps she had not as many temptations as Marion and Isabelle.

"I would have willingly filled you up a check with the cost of the floral decorations, Marion," said her father with a twinkle in his eye. "They would have purchased a good many bags of corn."

"But that is ridiculous!" said Isabelle. "What would a reception be without flowers, I should like to know? As it is, I expect it will be a poor affair compared to the Van Nuys' last week. We never seem to be able to do anything in proper style. You would better put your new Worth gown, on the collection plate, Marion, and appear in a morning dress to-morrow night. Louis would be the first one to be scandalized if you did!"

"Well but, Isabelle, I had to have something now. I have worn my other dresses so many times, I am perfectly ashamed."

"Of course, sis," said Louis gravely, "it was a most imperative expenditure. It is a strange coincidence that you should have chosen that particular make though. It has always been a fancy of mine that the Levite was robed in a Worth gown when he passed by on the other side."

"The sufferings must be awful," said Evadne, anxious to relieve Marion's embarrassment. "I saw in the paper to-day that——"

Mrs. Hildreth lifted her hands in mock alarm. "Pray spare us any recital of horrors, Evadne! I never want to hear about any of these dreadful things. What is the use, when one cannot help in any way?"

"You forget, Mamma," said Isabelle with a laugh, "that Evadne revels in horrors. What would be torture to our quivering nerves, to her atrophied sensibilities is merely an occurrence of every day."

Louis gave a sudden start in his chair, but on the instant Evadne laid her hand upon his arm, and its light touch soothed his anger as it had been wont to soothe his pain.

Evadne Hildreth was climbing the heights of victory. She had learned to cover her wounds with a smile.



CHAPTER XXVII.

"Who is that calf, Evadne, standing by the piano?" Louis put the question to his cousin the next evening, as he sought a few moments' respite from his duties as host at her side.

"That is Mr. Simpson Kennard."

Louis surveyed the fashionably dressed, weak-faced, sandy-haired young man from head to foot. "He will never get above his collar!" he said in a tone of infinite scorn.

Evadne laughed. "You must confess it is high enough to limit the aspirations of an ordinary mortal."

Marion fluttered up to them, her cheeks aglow with excitement. "Louis, where are you? I want to introduce you to Simpsey. He has just arrived."

Evadne looked after her as she led her brother away. "Poor little soul. What a butterfly it is! Fancy having a husband whom one could call Simpsey!"

She started. Her knight of the gate was standing before her with outstretched hand. A great light was in his face. "Do you remember?" he asked, and Evadne's eyes glowed deep with pleasure, as she laid her hand in his. They would never be properly introduced, these two, "'Life is a beautiful possibility,'" she said, "I am proving it so every day,—but, oh, the awful suffering in the world! I cannot understand,—"

And John Randolph answered with his strong, sweet faith. "God understands, we do not need to."

They were standing in an alcove partially screened by a tall palm from the crowd which surged up and down through the rooms. He took from his pocket a morocco case, and, opening it, held it towards her. What made the color flush her cheeks while her eyes fell beneath his gaze? She only saw a little square of lawn and lace, but the name traced across one corner was 'Evadne'!

"Did you leave nothing behind you at Hollywood that day?" he asked gently.

"My handkerchief!" she cried. "I missed it before we reached Marlborough. I must have left it at the gate." But Evadne had left more behind her than she knew.

"I will keep it still," he said, "with your permission. Will you give it to me?"

"Oh, Doctor Randolph!" Isabelle's voice fell shrill upon Evadne's silence, "they are calling for you in the other room to decide a knotty question—something about microbes. I told them I was sure you would know. Will you come?"

John Randolph put the case quickly in his pocket and smiled as he turned away. He thought he had read consent in her lovely eyes.

After the reception was over Evadne knelt by her window until the stars faded one by one from the sky. Then she turned away with a happy sigh. When he came to get his answer, she would know.

* * * * *

"Give that to me!" Isabella spoke imperiously to the servant, who was passing through the hall with a note in her hand. From where she stood she had recognized the clear handwriting of the prescriptions which the new doctor wrote. Her demon of curiosity overcame her. The tempter was very near.

The girl held the note towards her. "It is for Miss Evadne," she said. "Miss E. Hildreth, you see."

Isabelle gave a careless laugh. "Did you not know I had an E in my name also? Evelyn Isabelle. I know the writing. The note is meant for me."

So the truth and the lie mingled! When John Randolph called that evening he was ushered into the presence of Isabelle.

"I am so sorry about Evadne!" she exclaimed, before he had time to speak. "She had an engagement with my brother. He monopolizes her whenever he is at home." She laughed affectedly. "Oh, I cannot tell you when it is coming off, but she has worn his ring for years. They will not give us any satisfaction—deep as the sea, you know. It seems so strange to me, but then I am so transparent. She is a clever girl, but very peculiar. Does not seem to have much natural feeling, you know, but I suppose I am not fitted to judge, I am so emotional!"

John Randolph bit his lip hard. It startled him to find how sharp a pain could be.

* * * * *

Day after day Evadne waited but her knight never asked for his answer. She began to meet him professionally, for his reputation was steadily increasing, but he made no attempt to resume the conversation which had been so rudely interrupted. He treated her with a delicate chivalry always—that was John Randolph's way—and once she had caught such a strange, wistful expression on his face as he looked at her and then at a patient's arm which she was deftly bandaging. She was puzzled. What could it all mean? Well, God understood.

The surgical ward in the new Hospital at Marlborough was filled to its utmost capacity and Evadne found her work no sinecure. The force of nurses was inadequate to the demand. Often she would be called from her rest to minister to the critical cases which were her special care, and she would go down to the ward saying softly, "The Master is come and calleth for thee," and bending tenderly over the sufferers, would behold as in a vision the face of Christ.

"My dear Miss Hildreth!" the superintendent exclaimed one day, "how is it that you make the patients love you so?"

Evadne laughed merrily. "If they do," she said, "it must be because of my love for them." And the Superintendent answered in a hushed voice, "Why, that is the Gospel!"

They called her 'Sister,' these rough men. She liked it so. She felt herself a sister to the world.

It was evening and the lights were turned low in the surgical ward. Evadne was making her round before going to her room for a sorely needed rest. John Randolph, who had come to pay a second visit to an interesting case in one of the medical wards, stood in the shadow of the doorway and watched her hungrily. Each one wanted to say something and Evadne listened patiently. To her the mission of a nurse meant something higher than gruel and bandages. She never forgot as she ministered to the body that she was dealing with a soul.

John Randolph, standing with folded arms in the doorway, heard her low, sweet laugh, as she strove to brighten up a lachrymose patient; and caught at intervals the name of Jesus, as she reminded one and another of the Friend whose sympathy is strong enough to bear all the weight of human pain, and once he thought he heard the sweet note of a prayer. He started forward. Evadne was bending over a man who had been badly crippled in a saw mill. His left arm was gone and all the fingers from his right hand. With the morbidness of those who delight in concentrating attention upon their own sufferings, he had pulled off the loosened bandage with his teeth and held up the stump for inspection, and Evadne had laid her cool, soft hands on either side of the unsightly mass of red and angry flesh and was holding them there while she talked!

"She gives herself!" cried John Randolph with a great throb of longing. "It is what Jesus did, in Galilee."

A wave of passion broke over him. It was not true, this story. It could not be! How could her nature, sweet as light, ever be attuned to that of her cynical cousin? She was coming nearer, nearer. He would stay and meet her. He thought he had read his answer in her eyes. Now he would have it from her lips as well.

But then, there was the ring! Isabelle had been right. It was no lady's ornament, and he had seen the initials L. H. graven in the heart of the stone as their hands had met one day in dressing a wound. Evadne Hildreth was not one to wear a man's ring lightly and John Randolph bent his head and groaned.

"Sister, Sister, won't you sing before you go?"

"Oh, yes, Sister, give us just one song!"

The men raised themselves on their elbows in pleading entreaty, and Evadne stood in all her sweet unconsciousness before him and began to do their will. Soft and clear the music fell about him. The air was 'The last Rose of Summer' but the words were 'Jesus, Lover of my soul.' When the song was ended, John Randolph, hushed and comforted, walked noiselessly down the stairway and out into the quiet street.

Evadne had sung her message, while she folded its leaves of healing down over her own sore heart, and human love had paled before the exquisite beauty of the love of God!



CHAPTER XXVIII.

"John Randolph!"

"Rege!"

The two men stood facing each other with hands held in a vice-like grasp, all unconscious of what was going on around them in the street.

"Where did you come from?"

"Where have you been?"

John laughed. "In and around Marlborough all the time, except when I went to New York for my degree."

"And never let us hear a word from you all these years!"

"You forget, Rege, your father forbade me to hold any communication with Hollywood."

Reginald's face grew grave. "Poor father. Well he's done with it all now."

"You don't mean that he is dead, Rege?"

"Yes—and little Nan."

"Oh!" The exclamation was sharp with pain.

"I think she fretted for you, John. She just seemed to pine away. Every day we missed her about the same time, and they always found her in the same place, down by the green road. Then scarlet fever came. She never spoke of getting well—didn't seem to want to. The night she died she put her arms around mother's neck and whispered. 'Tell Don me'll be waitin' at the gate.' That was all."

John wrung Reginald's hand and turned away. Reginald looked after him with misty eyes. "I used to tell mother it would break his heart. I never saw any one so wrapped up in a child!"

"And your father, Rege?" John was calm again.

"Had a fit of apoplexy soon after. I think Nan was the only thing in the world he cared for. It had never struck him that she could die. We sold Hollywood and went abroad. Mother's health broke down—she was never very strong, you know. We spent one year in Italy and one in France, but the shock had been too great. She lies in a lovely spot beside the sea."

"Not your mother too, Rege!"

Reginald's voice broke. "Yes, they are all gone. It was a great deal to happen in a few years. I am a wealthy man, John, but I am all alone in the world, except for Elise. Well," he added more lightly, "I have learned not to rebel at the inevitable. It is only what we have to expect."

"Elise!" echoed John wonderingly, after the first shock of grief was over.

"My wife," said Reginald proudly. "You must come home at once and let me show you the sweetest woman in the world."

"Not just yet, Rege I must pay a visit to Mrs. O'Flannigan, then there is the hospital, and the dispensary, and I promised to concoct a bed for a poor fellow in the last stages of heart trouble. But I will come to-night."

"Always helping somewhere, John. What a grand fellow you are!"

"We are in the world to help the world, else what were the use of living?"

"I can't do anything," said Reginald, "with this clog." He looked contemptuously at his ebony crutch as he spoke.

John laid his hand upon his arm. "Rege," he said in his old, tender way. "I think this very 'clog' as you call it, is a preparation to help those who are passing through the baptism of pain."

* * * * *

Mrs. Reginald Hawthorne welcomed her husband's friend with a winning charm. She was very pretty, very graceful and very young. Reginald idolized her. John saw that as he looked around the sumptuous home whose every fitting was a tribute to her taste. They had just finished unpacking the things they had brought from Europe.

"Strangely enough," said Reginald with a laugh, "I told Elise this morning that now I was going to start out in search of you!"

He had developed wonderfully. John saw that too. Travel and trial had brought out the good that was in him—but not the best.

The evening passed pleasantly. Mrs. Hawthorne played beautifully, and Reginald had kept ears and eyes open and talked well.

"How about the other life, Rege?" asked John when they had a few moments alone. "This one seems very fair."

"All a humbug, John. You Christians are chasing a will o' the wisp, a jack o' lantern. You remember my fad for mathematics? I have followed it up, and I find your theory a 'reductio ad absurdum.' I must have everything demonstrable and clear. This is neither."

"Yet it was a great mathematician who said, 'Omit eternity in your estimate of area and your solution is wrong.'"

Reginald shook his head. "I have nothing to do with this faith business. I go as far as I see, no further."

"God calls our wisdom foolishness, Rege. Jesus Christ put a tremendous premium upon the faith of a little child."

"Things must be tangible for me to believe in them. Reason is king with me."

"Without faith in your fellow man—and your wife—you would have a poor time of it, Rege; why should you refuse to have faith in your God? Is your will tangible, and can you demonstrate the mysterious forces of nature? You know you can't, Rege, you have to take them on trust; and if you had seen what I have, you would know that poor human reason is a pitiful thing! But I won't argue with you. Some day you will understand."

Reginald Hawthorne went back into the room where his wife was sitting. "Elise, darling, you have seen one of the grandest men in the world to-night. The only trouble is that on one subject he is a crank."

"Oh, Reginald, do you mean it! I thought he was splendid. And what a wonderful face he has!"

Reginald started. "Hah! Am I to be jealous of my old friend? But I might have known," he added sadly, "no one could care long for such a wreck as I!"

The girl wife put her arms around his neck and kissed him softly, "You foolish boy!" she whispered, "you know I shall never love any one but you!"

And Reginald Hawthorne counted himself a perfectly happy man.



CHAPTER XXIX.

Judge Hildreth sat in his library, alone. He had left home immediately after dinner, ostensibly to catch the evening train for New York, and had sent the carriage back from the station to take his family to the Choral Festival which was the event of the year in Marlborough, and then returning in a hired conveyance, had let himself into his house like a thief. When we sacrifice principle upon the altar of expediency, truth and honor, like twin victims, stand bound at its foot. He wanted to be undisturbed, to have time to think, and God granted his wish, until his reeling brain prayed for oblivion!

No sound broke the stillness. With the exception of the servants in a distant part of the house, he was absolutely alone.

He drew out his will from a secret drawer of his desk and looked it over with a ghastly smile. "To my dear niece, Evadne, the sum of thirty thousand dollars, held by me in trust from her father." Then came a long list of charities. It read well. People could not say he had left all to his family and forgotten the Lord. If his executors should find a difficulty in realizing one quarter of the values so speciously set forth, they could only say that dividends had shrunk and investments proved unreliable. It was not his fault. He had meant well. Besides, he had no thought of dying for years. There was plenty of time for skillful financing. Other men had done the same and prospered. Why should not he?

But the letters must be destroyed. He had come to a decision at last. It was an imperative necessity. His hesitancy had been only the foolish scruples of an over sensitive conscience. The tremendous pressure of the age made things permissible. He was "torn by the tooth of circumstance" and "necessity knows no law." So he entrenched himself behind a breastwork of sophisms. Long familiarity with the suggestions of evil had bred a contempt for the good!

He stretched out his hand towards the drawer. There should be no more weak delay. If a thing were to be done, 'twere well it were done quickly.

The horror of a great fear fell upon him. Again his hand had fallen, and this time he was powerless to lift it up!

The hours passed and he sat helpless, bound in that awful chain of frozen horror. In vain he struggled in a wild rage for freedom. No muscle stirred. Where was his boasted will power now? Hand and foot, faithful, uncomplaining slaves for so many years, had rebelled at last!

His brain seemed on fire and the flashing thoughts blinded him with their glare. The letters rose from their sepulchre and, clothed in the majesty of a dead man's faith, looked at him with an awful reproach, until his very soul bowed in the dust with shame. His will still lay upon the desk, open at the paragraph "to my dear niece, Evadne," and the words "in trust," like red hot irons, branded him a felon in the sight of God and men!

He remembered having once read a quotation from a great writer,—"When God says, 'You must not lie and you do lie, it is not possible for Deity to sweep his law aside and say—'No matter.'" Did God make no allowances for the nineteenth century?

The others returned from the Festival, and Louis passed the door whistling. He had had a rare evening of pleasure with Evadne. Towards its close, under cover of the rolling harmonies, he had leaned over and whispered "I love you, dear!" and Evadne had held out her hand to him with the low pleading cry, "Oh, Louis, if you really do, then set me free!" but he had only smiled and taken the hand, on which his ring was gleaming, into his, and settled his arm more securely upon the back of her chair; and John Randolph, sitting opposite with Dick and Miss Diana, had watched the little scene and drawn his own conclusions with a sigh.

The night drew on. The electric lights which it was Judge Hildreth's fancy to have ablaze in every room downstairs until the central current was shut off, still gleamed steadily upon the rigid figure before the desk, with the white, drawn face and the awful look of horror in its staring eyes. In an agony he tried to call, but no sound escaped the lips, set in a sphinx-like silence.

He must shake off this strange lethargy. It was not possible for him to die—he had not time. To-morrow was the meeting of the Panhattan directors—they were relying upon him to work through the second call on stock—and two of his notes fell due, if he did not retire them his credit would be lost at the bank; and there was the banquet to the English capitalists, with whom he was negotiating a mining deal; and he must arrange with his broker to float some more shares of the "Silverwing"—and manipulate, manipulate, manipulate—

An agonized, voiceless cry went up to heaven. "Oh, God, let me have to-morrow!"

In the morning a servant found him, when she came to clean the room, and fled screaming from the presence of the silent figure with the awful entreaty in its staring eyes.

Louis hurried downstairs to learn the cause of the commotion, followed by Mrs. Hildreth, swept for once off her pedestal of stately calm.

Shivering with horror the family gathered in the beautiful room which had been so suddenly turned into a death chamber, the servants weeping boisterously, Isabella and her mother in violent hysterics, and Marion clinging with wide, frightened eyes to Louis, who found himself thrust into a man's place of responsibility and did not know what to do!

He sent one servant to the Hospital for Evadne—instinctively he turned in his thought to her,—another for the Doctor; while with one arm around Marion, he tried to sooth his mother and Isabelle.

And in the midst of all the wild commotion his father sat, unmoved and silent, his agonized face lifted in an attitude of supplication, his lifeless hands lying heavily upon the now worthless papers, since for him there would be no to-morrow!

* * * * *

The stately obsequies were ended. The paid quartette had sung their sweetest, while Doctor Jerome, standing beside the frozen face in the massive coffin, had delivered an eloquent eulogium, and Mrs. Hildreth, clad in her costly robes of mourning, had been led to her carriage by her son. Everything had been conducted in a manner befitting the Hildreth honor.

* * * * *

"Evadne!" Louis turned a white, scared face towards his cousin, who stood beside him as he sat at his father's desk. Upstairs Mrs. Hildreth and Isabelle were in solemn consultation with a dressmaker. In the drawing-room Marion was being consoled by Simpson Kennard.

"Well, Louis?" She laid her hand on his shoulder gently. She was very sorry for him.

"There is some awful mistake. Poor Father seems to have counted on funds which we can find no trace of. The estate is not worth an eighth of what he valued it at. There is barely enough to keep you, mother and Isabelle, alive!" He laid his head down on the desk while great tears fell through his fingers. The shameful mystery of it was intolerable.

"But, Louis, have you looked everywhere? There must be some explanation—"

Louis shook his head. "Everywhere, but in this drawer. I opened it but there is nothing but musty old letters. I haven't time to go into them now. Oh, little coz, I don't dare to look you in the face. All the money that was left you by your father is gone!"

"Don't tell Aunt Kate and the girls, Louis, There is no need that they should ever know. I have my profession and I am strong. Uncle Lawrence never meant to do anything except what was right, I know."

Louis looked up at her and there was a strange reverence in his cynical face. He was in the presence of a Christliness which he had never dreamed of. "I am not worthy to touch the hem of your garment," he said humbly. But he did not offer to release her from her promise. He had not learned to be generous—yet.

Evadne's dream was ended and rude was the awaking. The idea of helping her fellows had grown to be a passion with her and very fair had been the castle in the air of which she was the Princess. A home, not rich or stately but full of a delightful homeiness which should soothe and cheer those who, walking through the world amid a storm of tears, call earth a wilderness, while their desolate hearts echo the mournful question,—"Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow." She, too, had been lonely,—she could understand, and by the sweet influence of human love and sympathy lift their thought above the earthly shadows up to the love of God.

She had not dreamed of doing things on a grand scale. Evadne Hildreth was wise enough to know that comfort cannot be dealt out in wholesale packages,—she never forgot that Jesus of Nazareth helped the people one by one.

She had never questioned the terms of her father's will—if there was a will. She had supposed when she became of age there would be some change, but her uncle had made no reference to the subject and she had not liked to ask. He was always kind—he would do what was best. Some day she would be free to carry out this beautiful dream of hers. She could afford to wait. Now there was nothing to wait for any more!

How strange it seemed, when the need was so great and she longed to help much! Well, she was only a little child,—she could trust her Father. God understood.

That was what he had said, this strong, true friend of hers, that night he asked the question which he had never asked again. How gentle he was!—but it was the gentleness of strength—and how every one depended on him! She, herself, had learned to expect the helpful words which he always gave her when they met. Friendship was a beautiful thing!



CHAPTER XXX.

John Randolph came up behind Evadne one morning as she was dressing the burns of a little lad who had been severely injured at a fire. She did not hear his step—she was telling a bright story to the little sufferer, to make him forget his pain, and the boy was laughing loudly. His face was very grave, but his eyes lightened as they always did when they rested upon her face.

"Mrs. Reginald Hawthorne is very ill. Can you, will you come?"

And Evadne answered with a simple "Yes." They needed so few words, these two.

"I tell you I will not die!" The piercing cry rang through the handsome room and fell like molten lead upon the heart of the man who with strained, haggard face was sitting by the bedside. "You have not told me the truth, Reginald! There is a God. I feel it! You have always laughed and called me young and foolish, but I know better than you do, now. You said if our lives were governed by reason, we would meet death like a philosopher, and I do not know how to die! You used to laugh and say the whole thing was child's play and there was nothing to fear, and I believed you,—I thought you were so wise, but it was easy to believe you then with your arms folded close about me and the sunlight streaming through the windows and the shouts of the children outside, but now you cannot go with me and I am afraid to go alone." The eyes, wild and despairing, burned fiercely in the pallid cheeks. "Do you hear, Reginald? I am afraid, I tell you; horribly afraid! You used to say you would lay down your life to save me. Why do you not help me now?

"What makes you look so strangely, if it is all nonsense, Reginald? why do you shut out all the sunshine and why is the house so still? You told me once you were going to die with a laugh on your lips. I am dying, Reginald, why don't you help your wife to die as you mean to do? A——h!"

Her voice died away in a low wail of terror and the delicate blue veins in her temples throbbed with feverish excitement. Reginald Hawthorne had crouched down in his chair and buried his face in his hands. The pitiful cry began again.

"To die, when life is so sweet! To be shut up in a coffin and buried in a cold, dark grave! You don't love me, Reginald. If you did, you would die too—with a laugh on your lips you know—then I should have that to cheer me, and we should be together, and I should not be afraid. But now you look so strangely, Reginald. Don't you care for me any more? Can you let them take me away from this beautiful world and stay in it all by yourself?

"I suppose you will give me a splendid funeral—you are so generous you know—but I will not care whether the prison is pine or mahogany if I am to be shut up in it all alone! And you will have a long procession, with plumes and flowers and show, but you will leave me in the dreary cemetery and you will come back to our home, where we have been so happy together—so happy, just you and I—but you see you are a philosopher and I do not know how to die!

"And some day you will forget me—men do such things they say—and another woman will be your wife and I will be all alone!"

"Sister!" The abject man in the chair held out his hands in an agony of entreaty, "Come here and help us—if you can!" and Evadne came swiftly into the room, and, sitting down on the side of the bed, gathered the pitiful little figure to her heart.

"It is not death but life," she said gently. "This body is not you. The home of the soul is more beautiful than, any earthly home can ever be. It is those who are left behind dear, who mourn, not those who go."

Elise Hawthorne laid her head on Evadne's shoulder like a tired child. "But I am afraid," she whispered. "If this is true, and God is holy, I am not fit, you know."

"Your Father loves you dear, for he sent his Son to die. The thief on the cross was a sinner, yet Christ took him to Paradise. The fitness must come from Jesus. His blood washes whiter than snow."

"But I have done nothing to earn it. I have lived for myself alone."

"We never can earn a gift, dear. God gives in a royal way. He says to you only 'Believe I have given you life through my Son.'" Evadne had taken the tiny Bible which she always carried from her pocket and was turning its pages rapidly. "Here it is. Will you raise the blind, Mr. Hawthorne, that your wife may see for herself? 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,'—the best he had!—'that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,' you see there is no death for those who trust in him. And then 'He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.' It does not mean that we may have it after years of toil. The Israelites, stung by the serpents, had no time to reason or plan to live better, for they were dying, but they could turn their eyes to the brazen serpent which God had ordered to be lifted up in the midst of tho camp for an antidote to the poison. So Christ has been 'lifted up' upon the cross for us. He died instead of you. Why should you die forever when he has paid your ransom and set you free?"

"But I cannot touch him,—I cannot be sure it is true."

"The Israelites could not touch the brazen serpent. They simply looked, and lived. There is just one condition for us to-day and it is 'Believe.' Cannot you take your Heavenly Father at his word as you would your husband? Cannot you treat God the same?"

Mrs. Hawthorne looked wonderingly at her nurse. "Treat him the same as I do my husband!" she exclaimed. "Why, with Reginald, I believe every word he says."

"And I with God," said Evadne reverently.

"What charm have you wrought?" asked John Randolph in a whisper, as they stood together that evening beside a quiet sleeper. "This is the first natural sleep she has had. I believe it will prove her salvation."

Evadne looked up at him, and over her face a light was breaking, "I have led her to Jesus, the Mighty to save."

* * * * *

The Hawthornes were going to Europe. The young wife's convalescence had been tedious and it was a very frail little figure which clung to Evadne the evening before they started. They had pleaded with her to go with them. "Give up this toilsome work which is overtaxing your strength," Reginald had said, as they sat together one evening in the twilight, "and make your home with us. You have grown to be our sister in the truest sense of the word and we have learned to lean upon you, Elise and I. We can never hope to repay you," he continued huskily, "but it would be such a pleasure to have you with us for good."

Evadne looked at the pleading eyes with which Elise Hawthorne seconded her husband's wish and her lips trembled. "How rich God is making me in friends!" she said. "I shall never forget that this thing has been in your hearts, but I must be about my Father's business."

And then John Randolph had come to make one of his pleasant, informal visits and they had sat together in a beautiful fellowship, talking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom.

"Doctor Randolph," Elise asked suddenly, "what is your conception of prayer? Evadne says it means to her communion and companionship with Jesus. She says it is 'the practice of the presence of God.'"

John Randolph's face grew luminous. "To me it means a great stillness," he said. "Did you ever think of the silences of God? 'Be still, and know that I am God,' 'Stand still, and see his salvation.'"

"But are we not to ask for what we want?" asked Mrs. Hawthorne wonderingly.

"Oh, yes, but we learn to ask so little for ourselves when we love our Father's will. The trouble is, we, want to do the talking. God would have us listen while he speaks."

"Then what does it mean to worship God?" she asked. "We cannot always be in church."

John Randolph smiled. "We do not need to be. If our hearts are all on fire with the love of God, we worship him continually."

When he rose to go he turned towards Evadne. "How goes life with you now, dear friend?"

The grey eyes, full of a clear shining, were lifted to his, "I am absolutely satisfied with Jesus Christ."

Marion was married and living in New York. Louis had taken a small house, where he lived with his mother and Isabelle. He spent his days in the monotonous routine of a hank, and to his pleasure-loving nature the drudgery seemed intolerable, but he said little. Evadne never complained!

One day he went to see her at the Hospital and she was frightened at the pallor of his face. She led him to the superintendent's reception room—there they would be undisturbed. He staggered blindly as he entered the room and then sank heavily on a sofa near the door. He looked like an old man.

"Louis!" she cried in alarm, "what is the matter?"

He took a letter from his pocket and held it toward her. It bore her own name, and the writing was her father's!

"Can you ever forgive?" Then he buried his face in his arms and groaned aloud. The awful disgrace and shame of it seemed more than he could bear.

Interminable seemed the hours after Louis had left her, walking slowly, with that strange, grey shadow upon his face, and stooping as if some unseen burden were crushing him to the earth. She dared not let herself think. She must wait until she was alone. At last she was free to go to her room.

Down on her knees she read the passionate farewell words, which made her heart thrill, so full of tender advice and loving thought for her comfort. Through streaming tears she looked at the closely written pages of instructions, so minute that she could not err—and he had disliked writing so much! This was the weary task which had tried him so! And all these years she had never known. She had been robbed of her birthright!

Fierce and long the battle raged. When it was ended God heard his child cry softly, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

She had forgiven!



CHAPTER XXXI.

Mrs. Simpson Kennard was sitting in her pretty morning room with her baby on her knee. She looked across the room at her sister who was paying her a visit. "I wish you had a little child to love, Isabelle. It makes life so different. I am just wrapped up in Florimel."

"For pity's sake, Marion," cried Isabelle peevishly, "don't you grow to be one of those tiresome women who think the whole world is interested in a baby's tooth! I certainly do not echo your wish. I think children are a nuisance."

Marion caught up her baby in dismay. "Why, Isabelle, just think how much they do for us! They broaden our sympathies—I read that only the other day, and——"

"Broaden your fiddlesticks!" said Isabelle contemptuously. "Easy for you to talk when you have everything you want! If you had to live in that poky little house in Marlborough, I guess you would not find anything very broadening about them!

"It is perfectly preposterous to think of our being reduced to such a style of living!" she continued, as Mrs. Kennard strove to soothe her baby's injured feelings with kisses. "Just fancy, only one servant! I never thought a Hildreth would fall so low."

"But you and Mamma are comfortable, Isabelle. It is not as if you were forced to do anything."

"Do anything!" echoed Isabelle. "Are you going crazy?"

"Well, see how hard Evadne has to work? and she is a Hildreth as well as you."

"Evadne!" said Isabelle sarcastically, "with her nerves of steel and spine of adamant! Evadne will never kill herself with work. She is too much taken up with her wealthy private patients. You should have seen her driving round with the Hawthornes in their elegant carriage And I reduced to dependence upon the electric cars! I don't see how she manages to worm her way into people's confidence as she seems to do. I couldn't, but then I have such a horror of being forward."

"'All doors are open to those who smile.' I believe that is the reason, Isabelle."

"Stuff and nonsense!" was Miss Hildreth's inelegant reply.

"She is a dear girl, Isabelle. Why will you persist in disliking her so?"

"Oh, pray spare me any panegyrics!" said Isabelle carelessly. "It is bad enough to have Louis blazing up like a volcano if one has the temerity to mention her ladyship's name."

"How is Louis?" asked Mrs. Kennard, finding she was treading on dangerous ground.

"Oh, the same as usual. He looks like a ghost, and is about as cheerful as a cemetery. He spends his holidays going over musty old letters in papa's desk. I'm sure I don't see what fun he finds in it. It is so selfish in him, when he might be giving mamma and me some pleasure—but Louis never did think of anyone but himself. One day I found him stretched across the desk and it gave me such a fright! You know what a state my nerves are in. I thought he was in a fit or something,—he just looked like death, and he didn't seem to hear me when I called. He had a large envelope addressed to papa in his hand and there was another under his arm that didn't look as if it had ever been opened, but I couldn't see the address. I ran for mamma, but before we got back he was gone and the letters with him. Whatever it was, it has had an awful effect upon him, though he won't give us any satisfaction, you know how provoking he is. It is my belief he is going into decline, and I have such a horror of contagious diseases!

"If Evadne is so anxious to work, why doesn't she come and help mamma and me? It is the least she could do after all we have done for her, but as mamma says, 'It is just a specimen of the ingratitude there is in the world.'"

* * * * *

The months rolled by and Evadne sat one afternoon in the superintendent's reception room reading a letter which the postman had just delivered. It bore the Vernon postmark.

She had seen but little of Mrs. Everidge through the years which followed her graduation. She had been constantly busy and her aunt's hands had been full, for her husband's health had failed utterly and he demanded continual care. Now her long, beautiful ministry was over, for Horace Everidge, serenely selfish to the last, had fallen into the slumber which knows no earthly waking, and Aunt Marthe was free.

"I do not know what it means," she wrote, "but something tells me I shall not be long in Vernon. I am just waiting to see what work the King has for me to do."

Evadne pressed the letter to her lips. "Dear Aunt Marthe! If the majority had had your 'tribulum' they would think they had earned the right to play!"

She looked up. John Randolph was standing before her with a package in his hands.

"I have been commissioned by the Hawthornes to give this into your own possession," he said with a smile.

She opened it wonderingly. Bonds and certificates of stock bearing her name. What did it mean? John Randolph had drawn a chair opposite her and was watching her face closely.

"You cannot think what long consultations we have held on the subject of what you would like," he said, "you seemed to have no wishes of your own. At last a happy thought struck Reginald, and he sent me a power of attorney to make the transfer of these bonds and stocks to you. It is a Trust Fund to be used to help souls. We all thought that would please you best of all. You are a rich woman, Miss Hildreth."

A great wave of joy swept over her bewildered face. "So God has sent me the fulfilment of my dream!" she said softly. And John Randolph understood.

That evening she wrote to Mrs. Everidge.

"Dear Aunt Marthe,—The King's work is waiting for you in Marlborough. The work that we used to long for—the joy of lifting the shadows from the hearts of the heavy laden—God has given to you and me!"

* * * * *

"Why should you not come to 'The Willows'?"

John Randolph put the question one afternoon, as they were enjoying Miss Diana's hospitality in the fragrant porch. Evadne had just finished a merry recital of their woes.

"We have looked at houses until we are fairly distracted, Aunt Marthe and I. One had a cellar kitchen, and I am not going to have my good Dyce buried in a cellar kitchen; and one had no bathroom, and another was all stairs; and they are all nothing but brick and mortar with a scrap of sky between. I want trees and water and fields. The poor souls have enough of masonry in their daily lives."

"I believe it is decreed that you should come here," he continued, after the first exclamations of surprise were over. "It is just the work our lady delights in, and she cannot be left alone. Dick goes to College next month and I must live in town. The house is beautiful for situation, and a threefold cord of love and faith cannot easily be broken."

He looked round upon them, this man who found his joy in helping others, and waited for their answer.

"It would be beautiful, beautiful!" cried Evadne, "if Miss Chillingworth were willing. But the house is not large enough, Doctor Randolph, we shall need three or four guest chambers, you know."

"Nothing easier than to build an addition," said John, with the quiet reserve of power which always made his patients believe in the impossible.

Evadne laid her hand upon Miss Chillingworth's—"Dear Miss Diana," she said gently, "you do not say 'No' to us; do you think you could ever find it in your heart to say 'Yes'? I know it must seem a terrible innovation, but we could never have imagined anything half so delightful, Aunt Marthe and I. The atmosphere—outdoors and in—is perfection!"

Miss Diana looked at the sparkling face and then at Mrs. Everidge with her gentle smile. "I find myself very glad," she said, "since I have to lose my boys, but do you think we had better make any definite plans, dear, until we have talked it over with the Lord?"

And John Randolph said to Evadne with eyes that were suspiciously bright; "It is impossible for anyone to get very far from the Kingdom, when they live with our Lady Di."

The talk had wandered then to different subjects, and John Randolph listened to the soft play of Evadne's fancy and watched the light in her wonderful eyes. Her nature, so long repressed in an uncongenial environment, in this new soil of love and sympathy was blossoming richly and he found her very fair. He had rarely seen her resting. Now the shapely hands were folded together in a beautiful stillness—and then the breeze had waved aside a flower, and a sunbeam, darting through the trellis, fell upon the stone in her ring and made it sparkle with a baleful fire!

"Poor Louis!" Isabelle had said, the last time he had been called to prescribe for her frequently recurring attacks of indisposition, "he will have to wait for promotion now before he can think of marriage. It is very hard for him."

So again the truth and the lie had mingled.



CHAPTER XXXII.

Very sweet grew the life at 'The Willows' and Mrs. Everidge and Evadne and Miss Diana found their hands full of happy work.

Unavella still reigned supreme in her kitchen. "'Tain't a great sight harder to cook for a dozen than six," she had remarked sententiously, when the plan was unfolded to her, "it's only a matter uv quantity, the quality's jest the same. Ef Miss Di-an's a'goin ter start in ter be a she Atlas an' carry the world on her shoulders, she'll find I'm warranted ter wash an' not shrink in the rinsin'. I'm not a'goin ter be left behind, without I hev changed my name."

Dyce kept the rooms in spotless order and waited upon the guests.

"Dear friend," said Evadne one morning, as she watched her putting loving touches to the dining table, "you take as much trouble as if you expected Jesus Christ to be here!"

"So I does, Miss 'Vadney," she answered simply, "I never feels comfortable 'cept when dere's a place fer de Lord," and Evadne answered, "Dear Dyce, you make me feel ashamed!"

Many and varied were the guests who partook of their hospitality. The famine which no material wealth can alleviate is not confined to the dwellings of the poor. Hearts starve beneath coverings of velvet and loneliness often rides in a carriage. Many were the patients whom the world counted "well to do" that John Randolph sent to Evadne to be comforted. There was nothing to make them suspect that the keen intuition of the young physician had read their secret. 'The Willows' was simply a charming retreat where he sent them to try his favorite tonics of sunlight and oxygen; they never dreamed they were to be the recipients of favors which would not be rendered in the bill.

It was a beautiful fellowship in which they were banded together, for the Hawthornes had returned and were learning to find their pleasure in doing their Father's will. Dick True was in the brotherhood also, and never came home for his vacations without bringing with him "some fellow who needed a taste of love," and the overgrown boys would glory in their strength as they lifted Miss Diana from the carriage after a delightful drive, and learn a strange gentleness as they were unconsciously trained in the little deeds of chivalry which bespeak a true man.

Soon after Evadne's dream had materialized John Randolph had sent her a dainty little equipage to help on the work.

"You are too kind!" she cried, as she thanked him, "too generous!"

"Can we be that?" he asked, "when we are giving to a King? It is a theory of mine that a drive in the country with the right companion is better than exordiums. These poor souls have never learned to see 'sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and God in everything.' You must give me the pleasure of a little share in your beautiful work, my friend."

"A little share!" echoed Evadne. "Is it possible that you do not know, Doctor Randolph, how much of it belongs to you!"

The beauty of the life was that the guests were taken into the heart of the living and felt themselves a part of the home. They never preached, these wise, tender women, but the beautiful incidental teachings sank deep into hearts that would have been closed fast against sermons. There was no stereotyped effort to do them good, they simply lived as Christ did, and the world-tired souls looked on and marveled, and rejoiced in the sunlight of the present and the afterglow which made the memory of their visit a delight.

"'Do not leave the sky out of your landscape,'" said Aunt Marthe in her cheery way, as Mrs. Dolours was wailing over her troubles. That was all—for the time,—Mrs. Everidge believed in homeopathy—but it set her hearer thinking, and thought found expression in questioning, until she was led to the feet of the great Teacher and learned to roll her burden of trouble upon him who came to bear the burdens of the world.

"'We are not to be anxious about living but about living well,'" said Miss Diana to a young man who prided himself upon being a philosopher "that is a maxim of Plato's but we can only carry it out by the help of the Lord, my boy." And he listened to Evadne's merry laugh as she pelted Hans with cherries while Gretchen dreamed of the Fatherland under the trees by the brook, and wondered whether after all the men who had made it their aim to stifle every natural inclination, had learned the true secret of living as well as these happy souls who laid their cares down at the feet of their Father, and gave their lives into Christ's keeping day by day.

"You just seem to live in the present," wealthy Mrs. Greyson said with a sigh, as she folded her jeweled fingers over her rich brocade, "I don't see how you do it! Life is one long presentiment with me. I am filled with such horrible forebodings. I tell Doctor Randolph, it is a sort of moral nightmare."

"Some of your griefs you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of pain you endured, From evils that never arrived!"

Evadne quoted the words from a book of old French poems she had found in the library. Then she asked gently, "Why should you worry about the future, dear Mrs. Greyson, when it is such a waste of time? Don't you believe our Father loves his children?

"A waste of time." That was a new way of looking at it! Mrs. Greyson had always prided herself upon being thrifty, and, if God loved, would he let any real harm happen? She knew she would shield her children. How blind she had been!

"Ah, but you have never known sorrow!" and Mrs. Morner drew her sable draperies around her with a sigh. "Just look at your face! Not a shadow upon it and hardly a wrinkle. You are one of the favored ones with whom life has been all sunshine."

Mrs. Everidge laughed brightly. She had never pined to pose as a martyr before the world.

"God has been wondrous kind to me," she said, "but there is a cure for all sorrow, dear friend, in his love. The great Physician is the only one who has a medicament for that disease. It is not forgetfulness, you know—he does not deal in narcotics—but he lays his pierced hand upon our bleeding hearts and stills their pain. Our memory is as fresh as ever, but it is memory with the sting taken out."

"Ah, but you cannot understand—how should you? You have always had everything you wanted, and you have never lost anything or longed for what has been denied you!" and a toilworn woman, whose life seemed one long battle with disappointment, looked enviously at Miss Diana, over whose peaceful face life's twilight was falling in tender colors.

"Not quite everything I wanted, dear," said Miss Diana softly, "but I have come to know that God himself is sufficient for all our needs."

"Our dear Miss Diana has learned that 'we must sit in the sunshine if we would reflect the rainbow,'" said Aunt Marthe in her low tones. "It is a good rule, 'for every look we take at self, to take ten looks at Jesus.' She lives in the light of his smile."

Then through the open window they heard Evadne singing,

"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness, his rest."

And the weary soul folded its tired wings, all wounded with vain beatings against the prison bars of circumstance, and was hushed into a great stillness against the heart of its Father.

* * * * *

John Randolph sought Evadne in the familiar porch which had grown to be to him the sweetest spot on earth.

"You are always busy," he said with a smile, as he lifted the garment she was making for the little waif who was to have her first taste of heaven at 'The Willows.' Satan has no chance to find an occupation for you."

"But, oh, Doctor Randolph, what a drop in the bucket all our doing seems, when we think of the need of the world!"

"Yet without the drops the bucket would be empty, dear friend. God never expects the impossible from us, you know. I think Christ's highest commendation will always be, 'She hath done what she could.' It is when we neglect the doing that he is wounded."

After a pause he spoke again. "With your permission I am going to send you a new patient." There was no trace of the struggle through which he had passed. This brave soul had learned to do the right and leave the rest with God.

Evadne laughed. "Still they come! Is it man, woman or child. Doctor Randolph?"

"Your cousin Louis." His voice was very still.

"Poor Louis! Is it more serious then? He has been looking wretchedly for months."

John Randolph examined her face critically. Could she call him "poor Louis" if she loved?

"His present trouble is nervous strain, aggravated by the unaccustomed confinement, and some mental excitement under which he is laboring. He must have a long rest, with a complete change of environment. If anyone can lift the cloud which seems to be hanging over him, I think it is you."

Evadne shook her head sadly. "The only one who can help Louis is Jesus Christ," she said.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

Louis Hildreth lay upon a couch in the cool library the morning after his arrival at 'The Willows.' Evadne had been shocked at the change in him since she had seen him last. His eyes were sunken, while underneath purple shadows fell upon his pallid cheeks. He touched Evadne's hand as she sat beside him. It was his hand!

"What a splendid fellow Randolph is!" he exclaimed suddenly. "He is making himself felt in Marlborough, I tell you. Strange, how some men forge their way to the front, while the rest of us just float down the stream of mediocrity. No wonder we are not missed, when we drop out of the babbling conglomerate of humanity into silence," he added bitterly. "Who would miss a single pair of fins from amidst a shoal of herring!"