Down into the committee-room, where several deacons and the young rector were seated discussing some question pertaining to the well- being of the church, the music penetrated too, causing the business which had brought them together, to be suspended temporarily.

"It is a sin to talk while music like that can be heard," remarked one man. "You have found a genius in this new organist, Rector."

The young man nodded silently, his eyes half closed with an expression of somewhat sensuous enjoyment of the throbbing chords which vibrated in perfect unison with the beating of his strong pulses.

"Where does she come from?" asked the deacon, as a pause in the music occurred.

"Her father was an earnest and prominent member of the little church down-town of which I had charge during several years," replied the young man. "Miss Irving was scarcely more than a child when she volunteered her services as organist. The position brought her no remuneration, and at that time she did not need it. Young as she was, the girl was one of the most active workers among the poor, and I often met her in my visits to the sick and unfortunate. She had been a musical prodigy from the cradle, and Mr Irving had given her every advantage to study and perfect her art.

"I was naturally much interested in her. Mr Irving's long illness left his wife and daughter without means of support, at his death, and when I was called to take charge of St Blank's, I at once realised the benefit to the family as well as to my church could I secure the young lady the position here as organist. I am glad that my congregation seem so well satisfied with my choice."

Again the organ pealed forth, this time in that passionate music originally written for the Garden Scene in Faust, and which the church has boldly taken and arranged as a quartette to the words, "Come unto me."

It may be that to some who listen, it is the divine spirit which makes its appeal through those stirring strains; but to the rector of St Blank's, at least on that morning, it was human heart, calling unto human heart. Mr Stuart and the deacons sat silently drinking in the music. At length the rector rose. "I think perhaps we had better drop the matter under discussion for to-day," he said. "We can meet here Monday evening at five o'clock if agreeable to you all, and finish the details. There are other and more important affairs waiting for me now."

The deacons departed, and the young rector sank back in his chair, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of the sounds which flooded not only the room, but his brain, heart and soul.

"Queer," he said to himself as the door closed behind the human pillars of his church. "Queer, but I felt as if the presence of those men was an intrusion upon something belonging personally to me. I wonder why I am so peculiarly affected by this girl's music? It arouses my brain to action, it awakens ambition and gives me courage and hope, and yet—" He paused before allowing his feeling to shape itself into thoughts. Then closing his eyes and clasping his hands behind his head while the music surged about him, he lay back in his easy-chair as a bather might lie back and float upon the water, and his unfinished sentence took shape thus: "And yet stronger than all other feelings which her music arouses in me, is the desire to possess the musician for my very own for ever; ah, well! the Roman Catholics are wise in not allowing their priests and their nuns to listen to all even so-called sacred music."

It was perhaps ten minutes later that Joy Irving became conscious that she was not alone in the organ loft. She had neither heard nor seen his entrance, but she felt the presence of her rector, and turned to find him silently watching her. She played her phrase to the end, before she greeted him with other than a smile. Then she apologised, saying: "Even one's rector must wait for a musical phrase to reach its period. Angels may interrupt the rendition of a great work, but not man. That were sacrilege. You see, I was really praying, when you entered, though my heart spoke through my fingers instead of my lips."

"You need not apologise," the young man answered. "One who receives your smile would be ungrateful indeed if he asked for more. That alone would render the darkest spot radiant with light and welcome to me."

The girl's pink cheek flushed crimson, like a rose bathed in the sunset colours of the sky.

"I did not think you were a man to coin pretty speeches," she said.

"Your estimate of me was a wise one. You read human nature correctly. But come and walk in the park with me. You will overtax yourself if you practise any longer. The sunlight and the air are vying with each other to-day to see which can be the most intoxicating. Come and enjoy their sparring match with me; I want to talk to you about one of my unfortunate parishioners. It is a peculiarly pathetic case. I think you can help and advise me in the matter."

It was a superb morning in early October. New York was like a beautiful woman arrayed in her fresh autumn costume, disporting herself before admiring eyes.

Absorbed in each other's society, their pulses beating high with youth, love and health; the young couple walked through the crowded avenues of the great city, as happily and as naturally as Adam and Eve might have walked in the Garden of Eden the morning after Creation.

Both were city born and city bred, yet both were as unfashionable and untrammelled by custom as two children of the plains.

In the very heart of the greatest metropolis in America, there are people who live and retain all the primitive simplicity of village life and thought. Mr Irving had been one of these. Coming to New York from an interior village when a young man, he had, through simple and quiet tastes and religious convictions, kept himself wholly free from the social life of the city in which he lived. After his marriage his entire happiness lay in his home, and Joy was reared by parents who made her world. Mrs Irving sympathised fully with her husband in his distaste for society, and her delicate health rendered her almost a recluse from the world.

A few pleasant acquaintances, no intimates, music, books, and a large share of her time given to charitable work, composed the life of Joy Irving.

She had never been in a fashionable assemblage; she had never attended a theatre, as Mr Irving did not approve of them.

Extremely fond of outdoor life, she walked, unattended, wherever her mood led her. As she had no acquaintances among society people, she knew nothing and cared less for the rules which govern the promenading habits of young women in New York. Her sweet face and graceful figure were well known among the poorer quarters of the city, and it was through her work in such places that Arthur Stuart's attention had first been called to her.

As for him, he was filled with that high, but not always wise, disdain for society and its customs, which we so often find in town- bred young men of intellectual pursuits. He was clean-minded, independent, sure of his own purposes, and wholly indifferent to the opinions of inferiors regarding his habits.

He loved the park, and he asked Joy to walk with him there, as freely as he would have asked her to sit with him in a conservatory. It was a great delight to the young girl to go.

"It seems such a pity that the women of New York get so little benefit from this beautiful park," she said as they strolled along through the winding paths together. "The wealthy people enjoy it in a way from their carriages, and the poor people no doubt derive new life from their Sunday promenades here. But there are thousands like myself who are almost wholly debarred from its pleasures. I have always wanted to walk here, but once I came and a rude man in a carriage spoke to me. Mother told me never to come alone again. It seems strange to me that men who are so proud of their strength, and who should be the natural protectors of woman, can belittle themselves by annoying or frightening her when alone. I am sure that same man would never think of speaking to me now that I am with you. How cowardly he seems when you think of it! Yet I am told there are many like him, though that was my only experience of the kind."

"Yes, there are many like him," the rector answered. "But you must remember how short a time man has been evolving from a lower animal condition to his present state, and how much higher he is to-day than he was a hundred years ago even, when occasional drunkenness was considered an attribute of a gentleman. Now it is a vice of which he is ashamed."

"Then you believe in evolution?" Joy asked with a note of surprise in her voice.

"Yes, I surely do; nor does the belief conflict with my religious faith. I believe in many things I could not preach from my pulpit. My congregation is not ready for broad truths. I am like an eclectic physician—I suit my treatment to my patient—I administer the old school or the new school medicaments as the case demands."

"It seems to me there can be but one school in spiritual matters," Joy said gravely—"the right one. And I think one should preach and teach what he believes to be true and right, no matter what his congregation demands. Oh, forgive me. I am very rude to speak like that to you!" And she blushed and paled with fright at her boldness.

They were seated on a rustic bench now, under the shadow of a great tree.

The rector smiled, his eyes fixed with pleased satisfaction on the girl's beautiful face, with its changing colour and expression. He felt he could well afford to be criticised or rebuked by her, if the result was so gratifying to his sight. The young rector of St Blank's lived very much more in his senses than in his ideals.

"Perhaps you are right," he said. "I sometimes wish I had greater courage of my convictions. I think I could have, were you to stimulate me with such words often. But my mother is so afraid that I will wander from the old dogmas, that I am constantly checking myself. However, in regard to the case I mentioned to you—it is a delicate subject, but you are not like ordinary young women, and you and I have stood beside so many sick-beds and death-beds together that we can speak as man to man, or woman to woman, with no false modesty to bar our speech.

"A very sad case has come to my knowledge of late. Miss Adams, a woman who for some years has been a devout member of St Blank's Church, has several times mentioned her niece to me, a young girl who was away at boarding school. A few months ago the young girl graduated and came to live with this aunt. I remember her as a bright, buoyant and very intelligent girl. I have not seen her now during two months; and last week I asked Miss Adams what had become of her niece. Then the poor woman broke into sobs and told me the sad state of affairs. It seems that the girl Marah is her daughter. The poor mother had believed she could guard the truth from her child, and had educated her as her niece, and was now prepared to enjoy her companionship, when some mischief-making gossip dug up the old scandal and imparted the facts to Marah.

"The girl came to Miss Adams and demanded the truth, and the mother confessed. Then the daughter settled into a profound melancholy, from which nothing seemed to rouse her. She will not go out, remains in the house, and broods constantly over her disgrace.

"It occurred to me that if Marah Adams could be brought out of herself and interested in some work, or study, it would be the salvation of her reason. Her mother told me she is an accomplished musician, but that she refuses to touch her piano now. I thought you might take her as an understudy on the organ, and by your influence and association lead her out of herself. You could make her acquaintance through approaching the mother who is a milliner, on business, and your tact would do the rest. In all my large and wealthy congregation I know of no other woman to whom I could appeal for aid in this delicate matter, so I am sure you will pardon me. In fact, I fear were the matter to be known in the congregation at all, it would lead to renewed pain and added hurts for both Miss Adams and her daughter. You know women can be so cruel to each other in subtle ways, and I have seen almost death-blows dealt in church aisles by one church member to another."

"Oh, that is a terrible reflection on Christians," cried Joy, who, a born Christ-woman, believed that all professed church members must feel the same divine spirit of sympathy and charity which burned in her own sweet soul.

"No, it is a simple truth—an unfortunate fact," the young man replied. "I preach sermons at such members of my church, but they seldom take them home. They think I mean somebody else. These are the people who follow the letter and not the spirit of the church. But one such member as you, recompenses me for a score of the others. I felt I must come to you with the Marah Adams affair."

Joy was still thinking of the reflection the rector had cast upon his congregation. It hurt her, and she protested.

"Oh, surely," she said, "you cannot mean that I am the only one of the professed Christians in your church who would show mercy and sympathy to poor Miss Adams. Surely few, very few, would forget Christ's words to Mary Magdalene, 'Go and sin no more,' or fail to forgive as He forgave. She has led such a good life all these years."

The rector smiled sadly.

"You judge others by your own true heart," he said. "But I know the world as it is. Yes, the members of my church would forgive Miss Adams for her sin—and cut her dead. They would daily crucify her and her innocent child by their cold scorn or utter ignoring of them. They would not allow their daughters to associate with this blameless girl, because of her mother's misstep.

"It is the same in and out of the churches. Twenty people will repeat Christ's words to a repentant sinner, but nineteen of that twenty interpolate a few words of their own, through tone, gesture or manner, until 'Go and sin no more' sounds to the poor unfortunate more like 'Go just as far away from me and mine as you can get—and sin no more!' Only one in that score puts Christ's merciful and tender meaning into the phrase and tries by sympathetic association to make it possible for the sinner to sin no more. I felt you were that one, and so I appealed to you in this matter about Marah Adams."

Joy's eyes were full of tears. "You must know more of human nature than I do," she said, "but I hate terribly to think you are right in this estimate of the people of your congregation. I will go and see what I can do for this girl to-morrow. Poor child, poor mother, to pass through a second Gethsemane for her sin. I think any girl or boy whose home life is shadowed, is to be pitied. I have always had such a happy home, and such dear parents, the world would seem insupportable, I am sure, were I to face it without that background. Dear papa's death was a great blow, and mother's ill health has been a sorrow, but we have always been so happy and harmonious, and that, I think, is worth more than a fortune to a child. Poor, poor Marah— unable to respect her mother, what a terrible thing it all is!"

"Yes, it is a sad affair. I cannot help thinking it would have been a pardonable lie if Miss Adams had denied the truth when the girl confronted her with the story. It is the one situation in life where a lie is excusable, I think. It would have saved this poor girl no end of sorrow, and it could not have added much to the mother's burden. I think lying must have originated with an erring woman."

Joy looked at her rector with startled eyes. "A lie is never excusable," she said, "and I do not believe it ever saves sorrow. But I see you do not mean what you say, you only feel very sorry for the girl; and you surely do not forget that the lie originated with Satan, who told a falsehood to Eve."



CHAPTER X



Ever since early girlhood Joy Irving had formed a habit of jotting down in black and white her own ideas regarding any book, painting, concert, conversation or sermon, which interested her, and epitomising the train of thought to which they led.

The evening after her walk and talk with the rector of St Blank's, she took out her note-book, which bore a date four years old under its title "My Impressions," and read over the last page of entries. They had evidently been written at the close of some Sabbath day and ran as follows:-

Many a kneeling woman is more occupied with how her skirts hang than how her prayers ascend. I am inclined to think we all ought to wear a uniform to church if we would really worship there. God must grow weary looking down on so many new bonnets.

I wore a smart hat to church to-day, and I found myself criticising every other woman's bonnet during service, so that I failed in some of my responses.

If we could all be compelled by some mysterious power to THINK ALOUD on Sunday, what a veritable holy day we would make of it! Though we are taught from childhood that God hears our thoughts, the best of us would be afraid to have our nearest friends know them.

I sometimes think it is a presumption on the part of any man to rise in the pulpit and undertake to tell me about a Creator with whom I feel every whit as well acquainted as he. I suppose such thoughts are wicked, however, and should be suppressed.

It is a curious fact, that the most aggressively sensitive persons are at heart the most conceited.

I wish people smiled more in church aisles. In fact, I think we all laugh at one another too much and smile at one another too seldom.

After the devil had made all the trouble for woman he could with the fig leaf, he introduced the French heel.

It is well to see the ridiculous side of things, but not of people.

Most of us would rather be popular than right.

To these impressions Joy added the following:-

It is not the interior of one's house, but the interior of one's mind which makes home.

It seems to me that to be, is to love. I can conceive of no state of existence which is not permeated with this feeling toward something, somebody or the illimitable "nothing" which is mother to everything.

I wish we had more religion in the world and fewer churches.

People who believe in no God, invariably exalt themselves into His position, and worship with the very idolatry they decry in others.

Music is the echo of the rhythm of God's respirations.

Poetry is the effort of the divine part of man to formulate a worthy language in which to converse with angels.

Painting and sculpture seem to me the most presumptuous of the arts. They are an effort of man to outdo God in creation. He never made a perfect form or face—the artist alone makes them.

I am sure I do not play the organ as well at St Blank's as I played it in the little church where I gave my services and was unknown. People are praising me too much here, and this mars all spontaneity.

The very first hour of positive success is often the last hour of great achievement. So soon as we are conscious of the admiring and expectant gaze of men, we cease to commune with God. It is when we are unknown to or neglected by mortals, that we reach up to the Infinite and are inspired.

I have seen Marah Adams to-day, and I felt strangely drawn to her. Her face would express all goodness if it were not so unhappy. Unhappiness is a species of evil, since it is a discourtesy to God to be unhappy.

I am going to do all I can for the girl to bring her into a better frame of mind. No blame can be attached to her, and yet now that I am face to face with the situation, and realise how the world regards such a person, I myself find it a little hard to think of braving public opinion and identifying myself with her. But I am going to overcome such feelings, as they are cowardly and unworthy of me, and purely the result of education. I am amazed, too, to discover this weakness in myself.

How sympathetic dear mamma is! I told her about Marah, and she wept bitterly, and has carried her eyes full of tears ever since. I must be careful and tell her nothing sad while she is in such a weak state physically.

I told mamma what the rector said about lying. She coincided with him that Mrs Adams would have been justified in denying the truth if she had realised how her daughter was to be affected by this knowledge. A woman's past belongs only to herself and her God, she says, unless she wishes to make a confidant. But I cannot agree with her or the rector. I would want the truth from my parents, however much it hurt. Many sins which men regard as serious only obstruct the bridge between our souls and truth. A lie burns the bridge.

I hope I am not uncharitable, yet I cannot conceive of committing an act through love of any man, which would lower me in his esteem, once committed. Yet of course I have had little experience in life, with men, or with temptation. But it seems to me I could not continue to love a man who did not seek to lead me higher. The moment he stood before me and asked me to descend, I should realise he was to be pitied—not adored.

I told mother this, and she said I was too young and inexperienced to form decided opinions on such subjects, and she warned me that I must not become uncharitable. She wept bitterly as she thought of my becoming narrow or bigoted in my ideas, dear, tender-hearted mamma.

Death should be called the Great Revealer instead of the Great Destroyer.

Some people think the way into heaven is through embroidered altar cloths.

The soul that has any conception of its own possibilities does not fear solitude.

A girl told me to-day that a rude man annoyed her by staring at her in a public conveyance. It never occurred to her that it takes four eyes to make a stare annoying.

Astronomers know more about the character of the stars than the average American mother knows about the temperament of her daughters.

To some women the most terrible thought connected with death is the dates in the obituary notice.

As a rule, when a woman opens the door of an artistic career with one hand, she shuts the door on domestic happiness with the other.



CHAPTER XI



The rector of St Blank's Church dined at the Cheney table or drove in the Cheney establishment every week, beside which there were always one or two confidential chats with the feminine Cheneys in the parsonage on matters pertaining to the welfare of the church, and occasionally to the welfare of humanity.

That Alice Cheney had conceived a sudden and consuming passion for the handsome and brilliant rector of St Blank's, both her mother and the Baroness knew, and both were doing all in their power to further the girl's hopes.

While Alice resembled her mother in appearance and disposition, propensities and impulses occasionally exhibited themselves which spoke of paternal inheritance. She had her father's strongly emotional nature, with her mother's stubbornness; and Preston Cheney's romantic tendencies were repeated in his daughter, without his reasoning powers. Added to her father's lack of self-control in any strife with his passions, Alice possessed her mother's hysterical nerves. In fact, the unfortunate child inherited the weaknesses and faults of both parents, without any of their redeeming virtues.

The passion which had sprung to life in her breast for the young rector, was as strong and unreasoning as the infatuation which her father had once experienced for Berene Dumont; but instead of struggling against the feeling as her father had at least attempted to do, she dwelt upon it with all the mulish persistency which her mother exhibited in small matters, and luxuriated in romantic dreams of the future.

Mabel was wholly unable to comprehend the depth or violence of her daughter's feelings, but she realised the fact that Alice had set her mind on winning Arthur Stuart for a husband, and she quite approved of the idea, and saw no reason why it should not succeed. She herself had won Preston Cheney away from all rivals for his favour, and Alice ought to be able to do the same with Arthur, after all the money which had been expended upon her wardrobe. Senator Cheney's daughter and Judge Lawrence's granddaughter, surely was a prize for any man to win as a wife.

The Baroness, however, reviewed the situation with more concern of mind. She realised that Alice was destitute of beauty and charm, and that Arthur Emerson Stuart (it would have been considered a case of high treason to speak of the rector of St Blank's without using his three names) was independent in the matter of fortune, and so dowered with nature's best gifts that he could have almost any woman for the asking whom he should desire. But the Baroness believed much in propinquity; and she brought the rector and Alice together as often as possible, and coached the girl in coquettish arts when alone with her, and credited her with witticisms and bon-mots which she had never uttered, when talking of her to the young rector.

"If only I could give Alice the benefit of my past career," the Baroness would say to herself at times. "I know so well how to manage men; but what use is my knowledge to me now that I am old? Alice is young, and even without beauty she could do so much, if she only understood the art of masculine seduction. But then it is a gift, not an acquired art, and Alice was not born with the gift."

While Mabel and Alice had been centring their thoughts and attentions on the rector, the Baroness had not forgotten the rector's mother. She knew the very strong affection which existed between the two, and she had discovered that the leading desire of the young man's heart was to make his mother happy. With her wide knowledge of human nature, she had not been long in discerning the fact that it was not because of his own religious convictions that the rector had chosen his calling, but to carry out the lifelong wishes of his beloved mother.

Therefore she reasoned wisely that Arthur would be greatly influenced by his mother in his choice of a wife; and the Baroness brought all her vast battery of fascination to bear on Mrs Stuart, and succeeded in making that lady her devoted friend.

The widow of Judge Lawrence was still an imposing and impressive figure wherever she went. Though no longer a woman who appealed to the desires of men, she exhaled that peculiar mental aroma which hangs ever about a woman who has dealt deeply and widely in affairs of the heart. It is to the spiritual senses what musk is to the physical; and while it may often repulse, it sometimes attracts, and never fails to be noticed. About the Baroness's mouth were hard lines, and the expression of her eyes was not kind or tender; yet she was everywhere conceded to be a universally handsome and attractive woman. Quiet and tasteful in her dressing, she did not accentuate the ravages of time by any mistaken frivolities of toilet, as so many faded coquettes have done, but wisely suited her vestments to her appearance, as the withering branch clothes itself in russet leaves, when the fresh sap ceases to course through its veins. New York City is a vast sepulchre of "past careers," and the adventurous life of the Baroness was quietly buried there with that of many another woman. In the mad whirl of life there is small danger that any of these skeletons will rise to view, unless the woman permits herself to strive for eminence either socially or in the world of art.

While the Cheneys were known to be wealthy, and the Senator had achieved political position, there was nothing in their situation to challenge the jealousy of their associates. They moved in one of the many circles of cultured and agreeable people, which, despite the mandate of a M'Allister, formed a varied and delightful society in the metropolis; they entertained in an unostentatious manner, and there was nothing in their personality to incite envy or jealousy. Therefore the career of the Baroness had not been unearthed. That the widow of Judge Lawrence, the stepmother of Mrs Cheney, was known as "The Baroness" caused some questions, to be sure, but the simple answer that she had been the widow of a French baron in early life served to allay curiosity, while it rendered the lady herself an object of greater interest to the majority of people.

Mrs Stuart, the rector's mother, was one of those who were most impressed by this incident in the life of Mrs Lawrence. "Family pride" was her greatest weakness, and she dearly loved a title. She thought Mrs Lawrence a typical "Baroness," and though she knew the title had only been obtained through marriage, it still rendered its possessor peculiarly interesting in her eyes.

In her prime, the Baroness had been equally successful in cajoling women and men. Though her day for ruling men was now over, she still possessed the power to fascinate women when she chose to exert herself. She did exert herself with Mrs Stuart, and succeeded admirably in her design.

And one day Mrs Stuart confided her secret anxiety to the ear of the Baroness; and that secret caused the cheek of the listener to grow pale and the look of an animal at bay to come into her eyes.

"There is just one thing that gives me a constant pain at my heart," Mrs Stuart had said. "You have never been a mother, yet I think your sympathetic nature causes you to understand much which you have not experienced, and knowing as you do the great pride I feel in my son's career, and the ambition I have for him to rise to the very highest pinnacle of success and usefulness, I am sure you will comprehend my anxiety when I see him exhibiting an undue interest in a girl who is in every way his inferior, and wholly unsuited to fill the position his wife should occupy."

The Baroness listened with a cold, sinking sensation at her heart

"I am sure your son would never make a choice which was not agreeable to you," she ventured.

"He might not marry anyone I objected to," Mrs Stuart replied, "but I dread to think his heart may be already gone from his keeping. Young men are so susceptible to a pretty face and figure, and I confess that Joy Irving has both. She is a good girl, too, and a fine musician; but she has no family, and her alliance with my son would be a great drawback to his career. Her father was a grocer, I believe, or something of that sort; quite a common man, who married a third-class actress, Joy's mother. Mr Irving was in very comfortable circumstances at one time, but a stroke of paralysis rendered him helpless some four years ago. He died last year and left his widow and child in straitened circumstances. Mrs Irving is an invalid now, and Joy supports her with her music. Mr Irving and Joy were members of Arthur Emerson's former church (Mrs Stuart always spoke of her son in that manner), and that is how my son became interested in the daughter—an interest I supposed to be purely that of a rector in his parishioner, until of late, when I began to fear it took root in deeper soil. But I am sure, dear Baroness, you can understand my anxiety."

And then the Baroness, with drawn lips and anguished eyes, took both of Mrs Stuart's hands in hers, and cried out:

"Your pain, dear madam, is second to mine. I have no child, to be sure, but as few mothers love I love Alice Cheney, my dear husband's granddaughter. My very life is bound up in her, and she—God help us, she loves your son with her whole soul. If he marries another it will kill her or drive her insane."

The two women fell weeping into each other's arms.



CHAPTER XII



Preston Cheney conceived such a strong, earnest liking for the young clergyman whom he met under his own roof during one of his visits home, that he fell into the habit of attending church for the first time in his life.

Mabel and Alice were deeply gratified with this intimacy between the two men, which brought the rector to the house far oftener than they could have tastefully done without the co-operation of the husband and father. Besides, it looked well to have the head of the household represented in the church. To the Baroness, also, there was added satisfaction in attending divine service, now that Preston Cheney sat in the pew. All hope of winning the love she had so longed to possess, died many years before; and she had been cruel and unkind in numerous ways to the object of her hopeless passion, yet like the smell of dead rose leaves long shut in a drawer, there clung about this man the faint, suggestive fragrance of a perished dream.

She knew that he did not love his wife, and that he was disappointed in his daughter; and she did not at least have to suffer the pain of seeing him lavish the affection she had missed, on others.

Mr Cheney had been called away from home on business the day before the new organist took her place in St Blank's Church. Nearly a month had passed when he again occupied his pew.

Before the organist had finished her introduction, he turned to Alice, saying:

"There has been a change here in the choir, since I went away, and for the better. That is a very unusual musician. Do you know who it is?"

"Some lady, I believe; I do not remember her name," Alice answered indifferently. Like her mother, Alice never enjoyed hearing anyone praised. It mattered little who it was, or how entirely out of her own line the achievements or accomplishments on which the praise was bestowed, she still felt that petty resentment of small creatures who believe that praise to others detracts from their own value.

A fortune had been expended on Alice's musical education, yet she could do no more than rattle through some mediocre composition, with neither taste nor skill.

The money which has been wasted in trying to teach music to unmusical people would pay our national debt twice over, and leave a competency for every orphan in the land.

When the organist had finished her second selection, Mr Cheney addressed the same question to his wife which he had addressed to Alice.

"Who is the new organist?" he queried. Mabel only shook her head and placed her finger on her lip as a signal for silence during service.

The third time it was the Baroness, sitting just beyond Mabel, to whom Mr Cheney spoke. "That's a very remarkable musician, very remarkable," he said. "Do you know anything about her?"

"Yes, wait until we get home, and I will tell you all about her," the Baroness replied.

When the service was over, Mr Cheney did not pass out at once, as was his custom. Instead he walked toward the pulpit, after requesting his family to wait a moment.

The rector saw him and came down into the aisle to speak to him.

"I want to congratulate you on the new organist," Mr Cheney said, "and I want to meet her. Alice tells me it is a lady. She must have devoted a lifetime to hard study to become such a marvellous mistress of that difficult instrument."

Arthur Stuart smiled. "Wait a moment," he said, "and I will send for her. I would like you to meet her, and like her to meet your wife and family. She has few, if any, acquaintances in my congregation."

Mr Cheney went down the aisle, and joined the three ladies who were waiting for him in the pew. All were smiling, for all three believed that he had been asking the rector to accompany them home to dinner. His first word dispelled the illusion.

"Wait here a moment," he said. "Mr Stuart is going to bring the organist to meet us. I want to know the woman who can move me so deeply by her music."

Over the faces of his three listeners there fell a cloud. Mabel looked annoyed, Alice sulky, and a flush of the old jealous fury darkened the brow of the Baroness. But all were smiling deceitfully when Joy Irving approached.

Her radiant young beauty, and the expressions of admiration with which Preston Cheney greeted her as a woman and an artist, filled life with gall and wormwood for the three feminine listeners.

"What! this beautiful young miss, scarcely out of short frocks, is not the musician who gave us that wonderful harmony of sounds. My child, how did you learn to play like that in the brief life you have passed on earth? Surely you must have been taught by the angels before you came."

A deep blush of pleasure at the words which, though so extravagant, Joy felt to be sincere, increased her beauty as she looked up into Preston Cheney's admiring eyes.

And as he held her hands in both of his and gazed down upon her it seemed to the Baroness she could strike them dead at her feet and rejoice in the act.

Beside this radiant vision of loveliness and genius, Alice looked plainer and more meagre than ever before. She was like a wayside weed beside an American Beauty rose.

"I hope you and Alice will become good friends," Mr Cheney said warmly. "We should like to see you at the house any time you can make it convenient to come, would we not Mabel?"

Mrs Cheney gave a formal assent to her husband's words as they turned away, leaving Joy with the rector. And a scene in one of life's strangest dramas had been enacted, unknown to them all.

"I would like you to be very friendly with that girl, Alice," Mr Cheney repeated as they seated themselves in the carriage. "She has a rare face, a rare face, and she is highly gifted. She reminds me of someone I have known, yet I can't think who it is. What do you know about her, Baroness?"

The Baroness gave an expressive shrug. "Since you admire her so much," she said, "I rather hesitate telling you. But the girl is of common origin—a grocer's daughter, and her mother quite an inferior person. I hardly think it a suitable companionship for Alice."

"I am sure I don't care to know her," chimed in Alice. "I thought her quite bold and forward in her manner."

"Decidedly so! She seemed to hang on to your father's hand as if she would never let go," added Mabel, in her most acid tone. "I must say, I should have been horrified to see you act in such a familiar manner toward any stranger." A quick colour shot into Preston Cheney's cheek and a spark into his eye.

"The girl was perfectly modest in her deportment to me," he said. "She is a lady through and through, however humble her birth may be. But I ought to have known better than to ask my wife and daughter to like anyone whom I chanced to admire. I learned long ago how futile such an idea was."

"Oh, well, I don't see why you need get so angry over a perfect stranger whom you never laid eyes on until to-day," pouted Alice. "I am sure she's nothing to any of us that we need quarrel over her."

"A man never gets so old that he is not likely to make a fool of himself over a pretty face," supplemented Mabel, "and there is no fool like an old fool."

The uncomfortable drive home came to an end at this juncture, and Preston Cheney retired to his own room, with the disagreeable words of his wife and daughter ringing in his ears, and the beautiful face of the young organist floating before his eyes.

"I wish she were my daughter," he said to himself; "what a comfort and delight a girl like that would be to me!"

And while these thoughts filled the man's heart the Baroness paced her room with all the jealous passions of her still ungoverned nature roused into new life and violence at the remembrance of Joy Irving's fresh young beauty and Preston Cheney's admiring looks and words.

"I could throttle her," she cried, "I could throttle her. Oh, why is she sent across my life at every turn? Why should the only two men in the world who interest me to-day, be so infatuated over that girl? But if I cannot remove so humble an obstacle as she from my pathway, I shall feel that my day of power is indeed over, and that I do not believe to be true."



CHAPTER XIII



Two weeks later the organ loft of St Blank's Church was occupied by a stranger. For a few hours the Baroness felt a wild hope in her heart that Miss Irving had been sent away.

But inquiry elicited the information that the young musician had merely employed a substitute because her mother was lying seriously ill at home.

It was then that the Baroness put into execution a desire she had to make the personal acquaintance of Joy Irving.

The desire had sprung into life with the knowledge of the rector's interest in the girl. No one knew better than the Baroness how to sow the seeds of doubt, distrust and discord between two people whom she wished to alienate. Many a sweetheart, many a wife, had she separated from lover and husband, scarcely leaving a sign by which the trouble could be traced to her, so adroit and subtle were her methods.

She felt that she could insert an invisible wedge between these two hearts, which would eventually separate them, if only she might make the acquaintance of Miss Irving. And now chance had opened the way for her.

She made her resolve known to the rector.

"I am deeply interested in the young organist whom I had the pleasure of meeting some weeks ago," she said, and she noted with a sinking heart the light which flashed into the man's face at the mere mention of the girl. "I understand her mother is seriously ill, and I think I will go around and call. Perhaps I can be of use. I understand Mrs Irving is not a churchwoman, and she may be in real need, as the family is in straitened circumstances. May I mention your name when I call, in order that Miss Irving may not think I intrude?"

"Why, certainly," the rector replied with warmth. "Indeed, I will give you a card of introduction. That will open the way for you, and at the same time I know you will use your delicate tact to avoid wounding Miss Irving's pride in any way. She is very sensitive about their straitened circumstances; you may have heard that they were quite well-to-do until the stroke of paralysis rendered her father helpless. All their means were exhausted in efforts to restore his health, and in the employment of nurses and physicians. I think they have found life a difficult problem since his death, as Mrs Irving has been under medical care constantly, and the whole burden falls on Miss Joy's young shoulders, and she is but twenty-one."

"Just the age of Alice," mused the Baroness. "How differently people's lives are ordered in this world! But then we must have the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, and we must have the delicate human flowers. Our Alice is one of the latter, a frail blossom to look upon, but she is one of the kind which will bloom out in great splendour under the sunshine of love and happiness. Very few people realise what wonderful reserve force that delicate child possesses. And such a tender heart! She was determined to come with me when she heard of Miss Irving's trouble, but I thought it unwise to take her until I had seen the place. She is so sensitive to her surroundings, and it might be too painful for her. I am for ever holding her back from overtaxing herself for others. No one dreams of the amount of good that girl does in a secret, quiet way; and at the same time she assumes an indifferent air and talks as if she were quite heartless, just to hinder people from suspecting her charitable work. She is such a strange, complicated character."

Armed with her card of introduction, the Baroness set forth on her "errand of mercy." She had not mentioned Miss Irving's name to Mabel or Alice. The secret of the rector's interest in the girl was locked in her own breast. She knew that Mabel was wholly incapable of coping with such a situation, and she dreaded the effect of the news on Alice, who was absorbed in her love dream. The girl had never been denied a wish in her life, and no thought came to her that she could be thwarted in this, her most cherished hope of all.

The Baroness was determined to use every gun in her battery of defence before she allowed Mabel or Alice to know that defence was needed.

The rector's card admitted her to the parlour of a small flat. The portieres of an adjoining room were thrown open presently, and a vision of radiant beauty entered the room.

The Baroness could not explain it, but as the girl emerged from the curtains, a strange, confused memory of something and somebody she had known in the past came over her. But when the girl spoke, a more inexplicable sensation took possession of the listener, for her voice was the feminine of Preston Cheney's masculine tones, and then as she looked at the girl again the haunting memories of the first glance were explained, for she was very like Preston Cheney as the Baroness remembered him when he came to the Palace to engage rooms more than a score of years ago. "What a strange thing these resemblances are!" she thought. "This girl is more like Senator Cheney, far more like him, than Alice is. Ah, if Alice only had her face and form!"

Miss Irving gave a slight start, and took a step back as her eyes fell upon the Baroness. The rector's card had read, "Introducing Mrs Sylvester Lawrence." She had known this lad by sight ever since her first Sunday as organist at St Blank's, and for some unaccountable reason she had conceived a most intense dislike for her. Joy was drawn toward humanity in general, as naturally as the sunlight falls on the earth's foliage. Her heart radiated love and sympathy toward the whole world. But when she did feel a sentiment of distrust or repulsion she had learned to respect it.

Our guardian angels sometimes send these feelings as danger signals to our souls.

It therefore required a strong effort of her will to go forward and extend a hand in greeting to the lady whom her rector and friend had introduced.

"I must beg pardon for this intrusion," the Baroness said with her sweetest smile; "but our rector urged me to come and so I felt emboldened to carry out the wish I have long entertained to make your acquaintance. Your wonderful music inspires all who hear you to know you personally; the service lacked half its charm on Sunday because you were absent. When I learnt that your absence was occasioned by your mother's illness, I asked the rector if he thought a call from me would be an intrusion, and he assured me to the contrary. I used to be considered an excellent nurse; I am very strong, and full of vitality, and if you would permit me to sit by your mother some Sunday when you are needed at church, I should be most happy to do so. I should like to make the acquaintance of your mother, and compliment her on the happiness of possessing such a gifted and dutiful daughter."

Like all who sat for any time under the spell of the second Mrs Lawrence, Joy felt the charm of her voice, words and manner, and it began to seem as if she had been very unreasonable in entertaining unfounded prejudices.

That the rector had introduced her was alone proof of her worthiness; and the gracious offer of the distinguished-looking lady to watch by the bedside of a stranger was certainly evidence of her good heart. The frost disappeared from her smile, and she warmed toward the Baroness. The call lengthened into a visit, and as the Baroness finally rose to go, Joy said:

"I will take you in and introduce you to mamma now. I think it will do her good to meet you," and the Baroness followed the graceful girl through a narrow hall, and into a room which had evidently been intended for a dining-room, but which, owing to its size and its windows opening to the south, had been utilised as a sick chamber.

The invalid lay with her face turned away from the door. But by the movement of the delicate hand on the counterpane, Joy knew that her mother was awake.

"Mamma, I have brought a lady, a friend of Dr Stuart's, to see you," Joy said gently. The invalid turned her head upon the pillow, and the Baroness looked upon the face of—Berene Dumont.

"Berene!"

"Madam!"

The two spoke simultaneously, and the invalid had started upright in bed.

"Mamma, what is the matter? Oh, please lie down, or you will bring on another haemorrhage," cried the startled girl; but her mother lifted her hand.

"Joy," she said in a firm, clear voice, "this lady is an old acquaintance of mine. Please go out, dear, and shut the door. I wish to see her alone."

Joy passed out with drooping head and a sinking heart. As the door closed behind her the Baroness spoke.

"So that is Preston Cheney's daughter," she said. "I always had my suspicions of the cause which led you to leave my house so suddenly. Does the girl know who her father is? And does Senator Cheney know of her existence, may I ask?"

A crimson flush suffused the invalid's face. Then a flame of fire shot into the dark eyes, and a small red spot only glowed on either pale cheek.

"I do not know by what right you ask these questions, Baroness Brown," she answered slowly; and her listener cringed under the old appellation which recalled the miserable days when she had kept a lodging-house—days she had almost forgotten during the last decade of life.

"But I can assure you, madam," continued the speaker, "that my daughter knows no father save the good man, my husband, who is dead. I have never by word or line made my existence known to anyone I ever knew since I left Beryngford. I do not know why you should come here to insult me, madam; I have never harmed you or yours, and you have no proof of the accusation you just made, save your own evil suspicions."

The Baroness gave an unpleasant laugh.

"It is an easy matter for me to find proof of my suspicions if I choose to take the trouble," she said. "There are detectives enough to hunt up your trail, and I have money enough to pay them for their trouble. But Joy is the living evidence of the assertion. She is the image of Preston Cheney, as he was twenty-three years ago. I am ready, however, to let the matter drop on one condition; and that condition is, that you extract a promise from your daughter that she will not encourage the attentions of Arthur Emerson Stuart, the rector of St Blank's; that she will never under any circumstances be his wife."

The red spots faded to a sickly yellow in the invalid's cheeks. "Why should you ask this of me?" she cried. "Why should you wish to destroy the happiness of my child's life? She loves Arthur Stuart, and I know that he loves her! It is the one thought which resigns me to death; the thought that I may leave her the beloved wife of this good man."

The Baroness leaned lower over the pillow of the invalid as she answered: "I will tell you why I ask this sacrifice of you."

"Perhaps you do not know that I married Judge Lawrence after the death of his first wife. Perhaps you do not know that Preston Cheney's legitimate daughter is as precious to me as his illegitimate child is to you. Alice is only six months younger than Joy; she is frail, delicate, sensitive. A severe disappointment would kill her. She, too, loves Arthur Stuart. If your daughter will let him alone, he will marry Alice. Surely the illegitimate child should give way to the legitimate.

"If you are selfish in this matter, I shall be obliged to tell your daughter the true story of her life, and let her be the judge of what is right and what is wrong. I fancy she might have a finer perception of duty than you have—she is so much like her father."

The tortured invalid fell back panting on her pillow. She put out her hands with a distracted, imploring gesture.

"Leave me to think," she gasped. "I never knew that Preston Cheney had a daughter; I did not know he lived here. My life has been so quiet, so secluded these many years. Leave me to think. I will give you my answer in a few days; I will write you after I reflect and pray."

The Baroness passed out, and Joy, hastening into the room, found her mother in a wild paroxysm of tears. Late that night Mrs Irving called for writing materials; and for many hours she sat propped up in bed writing rapidly.

When she had completed her task she called Joy to her side.

"Darling," she said, placing a sealed manuscript in her hands, "I want you to keep this seal unbroken so long as you are happy. I know in spite of your deep sorrow at my death, which must come ere long, you will find much happiness in life. You came smiling into existence, and no common sorrow can deprive you of the joy which is your birthright. But there are numerous people in the world who may strive to wound you after I am gone. If slanderous tales or cruel reports reach your ears, and render you unhappy, break this seal, and read the story I have written here. There are some things which will deeply pain you, I know. Do not force yourself to read them until a necessity arises. I leave you this manuscript as I might leave you a weapon for self-defence. Use it only when you are in need of that defence."

The next morning Mrs Irving was weakened by another and most serious haemorrhage of the lungs. Her physician was grave, and urged the daughter to be prepared for the worst.

"I fear your mother's life is a matter of days only," he said.



CHAPTER XIV



The Baroness went directly from the home which she had entered only to blight, and sent her card marked "urgent" to Mrs Stuart.

"I have come to tell you an unpleasant story," she said—"a painful and revolting story, the early chapters of which were written years ago, but the sequel has only just been made known to me. It concerns you and yours vitally; it also concerns me and mine. I am sure, when you have heard the story to the end, you will say that truth is stranger than fiction, indeed: and you will more than ever realise the necessity of preventing your son from marrying Joy Irving—a child who was born before her mother ever met Mr Irving; and whose mother, I daresay, was no more the actual wife of Mr Irving in the name of law and decency than she had been the wife of his many predecessors."

Startled and horrified at this beginning of the story, Mrs Stuart was in a state of excited indignation at the end. The Baroness had magnified facts and distorted truths until she represented Berene Dumont as a monster of depravity; a vicious being who had been for a short time the recipient of the Baroness's mistaken charity, and who had repaid kindness by base ingratitude, and immorality. The man implicated in the scandal which she claimed was the cause of Berene's flight was not named in this recital.

Indeed the Baroness claimed that he was more sinned against than sinning, and that it was a case of mesmeric influence, or evil eye, on the part of the depraved woman.

Mrs Lawrence took pains to avoid any reference to Beryngford also; speaking of these occurrences having taken place while she spent a summer in a distant interior town, where, "after the death of the Baron, she had rented a villa, feeling that she wanted to retire from the world."

"My heart is always running away with my head," she remarked, "and I thought this poor creature, who was shunned and neglected by all, worth saving. I tried to befriend her, and hoped to waken the better nature which every woman possesses, I think, but she was too far gone in iniquity.

"You cannot imagine, my dear Mrs Stuart, what a shock it was to me on entering that sickroom to-day, my heart full of kindly sympathy, to encounter in the invalid the ungrateful recipient of my past favours; and to realise that her daughter was no other than the shameful offspring of her immoral past. In spite of the girl's beauty, there is an expression about her face which I never liked; and I fully understand now why I did not like it. Of course, Mrs Stuart, this story is told to you in strict confidence. I would not for the world have dear Mrs Cheney know of it, nor would I pollute sweet Alice with such a tale. Indeed, Alice would not understand it if she were told, for she is as ignorant and innocent as a child in arms of such matters. We have kept her absolutely unspotted from the world. But I knew it was my duty to tell you the whole shameful story. If worst comes to worst, you will be obliged to tell your son perhaps, and if he doubts the story send him to me for its verification."

Worst came to the worst before twenty-four hours had passed. The rector received word that Mrs Irving was rapidly failing, and went to act the part of spiritual counsellor to the invalid, and sympathetic friend to the suffering girl.

When he returned his mother watched his face with eager, anxious eyes. He looked haggard and ill, as if he had passed through a severe ordeal. He could talk of nothing but the beautiful and brave girl, who was about to lose her one worshipped companion, and who ere many hours passed would stand utterly alone in the world.

"I never saw you so affected before by the troubles and sorrows of your parishioners," Mrs Stuart said. "I wonder, Arthur, why you take the sorrows of this family so keenly to heart."

The young rector looked his mother full in the face with calm, sad eyes. Then he said slowly:

"I suppose, mother, it is because I love Joy Irving with all my heart. You must have suspected this for some time. I know that you have, and that the thought has pained you. You have had other and more ambitious aims for me. Earnest Christian and good woman that you are, you have a worldly and conventional vein in your nature, which makes you reverence position, wealth and family to a marked degree. You would, I know, like to see me unite myself with some royal family, were that possible; failing in that, you would choose the daughter of some great and aristocratic house to be my bride. Ah, well, dear mother, you will, I know, concede that marriage without love is unholy. I am not able to force myself to love some great lady, even supposing I could win her if I did love her."

"But you might keep yourself from forming a foolish and unworthy attachment," Mrs Stuart interrupted. "With your will-power, your brain, your reasoning faculties, I see no necessity for your allowing a pretty face to run away with your heart. Nothing could be more unsuitable, more shocking, more dreadful, than to have you make that girl your wife, Arthur."

Mrs Stuart's voice rose as she spoke, from a quiet reasoning tone to a high, excited wail. She had not meant to say so much. She had intended merely to appeal to her son's affection for her, without making any unpleasant disclosures regarding Joy's mother; she thought merely to win a promise from him that he would not compromise himself at present with the girl, through an excess of sympathy. But already she had said enough to arouse the young man into a defender of the girl he loved.

"I think your language quite too strong, mother," he said, with a reproving tone in his voice. "Miss Irving is good, gifted, amiable, beautiful, beside being young and full of health. I am sure there could be nothing shocking or dreadful in any man's uniting his destiny with such a being, in case he was fortunate enough to win her. The fact that she is poor, and not of illustrious lineage, is but a very worldly consideration. Mr Irving was a most intelligent and excellent man, even if he was a grocer. The American idea of aristocracy is grotesquely absurd at the best. A man may spend his time and strength in buying and selling things wherewith to clothe the body, and, if he succeeds, his children are admitted to the intimacy of princes; but no success can open that door to the children of a man who trades in food, wherewith to sustain the body. We can none of us afford to put on airs here in America, with butchers and Dutch peasant traders only three or four generations back of our 'best families.' As for me, mother, remember my loved father was a broker. That would damn him in the eyes of some people, you know, cultured gentleman as he was."

Mrs Stuart sat very still, breathing hard and trying to gain control of herself for some moments after her son ceased speaking. He, too, had said more than he intended, and he was sorry that he had hurt his mother's feelings as he saw her evident agitation. But as he rose to go forward and beg her pardon, she spoke.

"The person of whom we were speaking has nothing whatever to do with Mr Irving," she said. "Joy Irving was born before her mother was married. Mrs Irving has a most infamous past, and I would rather see you dead than the husband of her child. You certainly would not want your children to inherit the propensities of such a grandmother? And remember the curse descends to the third and fourth generations. If you doubt my words, go to the Baroness. She knows the whole story, but has revealed it to no one but me."

Mrs Stuart left the room, closing the door behind her as she went. She did not want to be obliged to go over the details of the story which she had heard; she had made her statement, one which she knew must startle and horrify her son, with his high ideals of womanly purity, and she left him to review the situation in silence. It was several hours before the rector left his room.

When he did, he went, not to the Baroness, but directly to Mrs Irving. They were alone for more than an hour. When he emerged from the room, his face was as white as death, and he did not look at Joy as she accompanied him to the door.

Two days later Mrs Irving died.



CHAPTER XV



The congregation of St Blank's Church was rendered sad and solicitous by learning that its rector was on the eve of nervous prostration, and that his physician had ordered a change of air. He went away in company with his mother for a vacation of three months. The day after his departure Joy Irving received a letter from him which read as follows:-

"My Dear Miss Irving,—You may not in your deep grief have given me a thought. If such a thought has been granted one so unworthy, it must have taken the form of surprise that your rector and friend has made no call of condolence since death entered your household. I want to write one little word to you, asking you to be lenient in your judgment of me. I am ill in body and mind. I feel that I am on the eve of some distressing malady. I am not able to reason clearly, or to judge what is right and what is wrong. I am as one tossed between the laws of God and the laws made by men, and bruised in heart and in soul. I dare not see you or speak to you while I am in this state of mind. I fear for what I may say or do. I have not slept since I last saw you. I must go away and gain strength and equilibrium. When I return I shall hope to be master of myself. Until then, adieu. "ARTHUR EMERSON STUART."

These wild and incoherent phrases stirred the young girl's heart with intense pain and anxiety. She had known for almost a year that she loved the young rector; she had believed that he cared for her, and without allowing herself to form any definite thoughts of the future, she had lived in a blissful consciousness of loving and being loved, which is to the fulfilment of a love dream, like inhaling the perfume of a rose, compared to the gathered flower and its attending thorns.

The young clergyman's absence at the time of her greatest need had caused her both wonder and pain. His letter but increased both sentiments without explaining the cause.

It increased, too, her love for him, for whenever over-anxiety is aroused for one dear to us, our love is augmented.

She felt that the young man was in some great trouble, unknown to her, and she longed to be able to comfort him. Into the maiden's tender and ardent affection stole the wifely wish to console and the motherly impulse to protect her dear one from pain, which are strong elements in every real woman's love.

Mrs Irving had died without writing one word to the Baroness; and that personage was in a state of constant excitement until she heard of the rector's plans for rest and travel. Mrs Stuart informed her of the conversation which had taken place between herself and her son; and of his evident distress of mind, which had reacted on his body and made it necessary for him to give up mental work for a season.

"I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude, dear Baroness," Mrs Stuart had said. "Sad as this condition of things is, imagine how much worse it would be, had my son, through an excess of sympathy for that girl at this time, compromised himself with her before we learned the terrible truth regarding her birth. I feel sure my son will regain his health after a few months' absence, and that he will not jeopardise my happiness and his future by any further thoughts of this unfortunate girl, who in the meantime may not be here when we return."

The Baroness made a mental resolve that the girl should not be there.

While the rector's illness and proposed absence was sufficient evidence that he had resolved upon sacrificing his love for Joy on the altar of duty to his mother and his calling, yet the Baroness felt that danger lurked in the air while Miss Irving occupied her present position. No sooner had Mrs Stuart and her son left the city, than the Baroness sent an anonymous letter to the young organist. It read:

"I do not know whether your mother imparted the secret of her past life to you before she died, but as that secret is known to several people, it seems cruelly unjust that you are kept in ignorance of it. You are not Mr Irving's child. You were born before your mother married. While it is not your fault, only your misfortune, it would be wise for you to go where the facts are not so well known as in the congregation of St Blank's. There are people in that congregation who consider you guilty of a wilful deception in wearing the name you do, and of an affront to good taste in accepting the position you occupy. Many people talk of leaving the church on your account. Your gifts as a musician would win you a position elsewhere, and as I learn that your mother's life was insured for a considerable sum, I am sure you are able to seek new fields where you can bide your disgrace.

"A WELL-WISHER."

Quivering with pain and terror, the young girl cast the letter into the fire, thinking that it was the work of one of those half-crazed beings whose mania takes the form of anonymous letters to unoffending people. Only recently such a person had been brought into the courts for this offence. It occurred to her also that it might be the work of someone who wished to obtain her position as organist of St Blank's. Musicians, she knew, were said to be the most jealous of all people, and while she had never suffered from them before, it might be that her time had now come to experience the misfortunes of her profession.

Tender-hearted and kindly in feeling to all humanity, she felt a sickening sense of sorrow and fear at the thought that there existed such a secret enemy for her anywhere in the world.

She went out upon the street, and for the first time in her life she experienced a sense of suspicion and distrust toward the people she met; for the first time in her life, she realised that the world was not all kind and ready to give her back the honest friendship and the sweet good-will which filled her heart for all her kind. Strive as she would, she could not cast off the depression caused by this vile letter. It was her first experience of this cowardly and despicable phase of human malice, and she felt wounded in soul as by a poisoned arrow shot in the dark. And then, suddenly, there came to her the memory of her mother's words—"If unhappiness ever comes to you, read this letter."

Surely this was the time she needed to read that letter. That it contained some secret of her mother's life she felt sure, and she was equally sure that it contained nothing that would cause her to blush for that beloved mother.

"Whatever the manuscript may have to reveal to me," she said, "it is time that I should know." She took the package from the hiding place, and broke the seal. Slowly she read it to the end, as if anxious to make no error in understanding every phase of the long story it related. Beginning with the marriage of her mother to the French professor, Berene gave a detailed account of her own sad and troubled life, and the shadow which the father's appetite for drugs cast over her whole youth. "They say," she wrote, "that there is no personal devil in existence. I think this is true; he has taken the form of drugs and spirituous liquors, and so his work of devastation goes on." Then followed the story of the sacrilegious marriage to save her father from suicide, of her early widowhood; and the proffer of the Baroness to give her a home. Of her life of servitude there, her yearning for an education, and her meeting with "Apollo," as she designated Preston Cheney. "For truly he was like the glory of the rising day to me, the first to give me hope, courage and unselfish aid. I loved him, I worshipped him. He loved me, but he strove to crush and kill this love because he had worked out an ambitious career for himself. To extricate himself from many difficulties and embarrassments, and to further his ambitious dreams, he betrothed himself to the daughter of a rich and powerful man. He made no profession of love, and she asked none. She was incapable of giving or inspiring that holy passion. She only asked to be married.

"I only asked to be loved. Knowing nothing of the terrible conflict in his breast, knowing nothing of his new-made ties, I was wounded to the soul by his speaking unkindly to me—words he forced himself to speak to hide his real feelings. And then it was that a strange fate caused him to find me fainting, suffering, and praying for death. The love in both hearts could no longer be restrained. Augmented by its long control, sharpened by the agony we had both suffered, overwhelmed by the surprise of the meeting, we lost reason and prudence. Everything was forgotten save our love. When it was too late I foresaw the anguish and sorrow I must bring into this man's life. I fear it was this thought rather than repentance for sin which troubled me. Well may you ask why I did not think of all this before instead of after the error was committed. Why did not Eve realise the consequences of the fall until she had eaten of the apple? Only afterward did I learn of the unholy ties which my lover had formed that very day—ties which he swore to me should be broken ere another day passed, to render him free to make me his wife in the eyes of men, as I already was in the sight of God.

"Yet a strange and sudden resolve came to me as I listened to him. Far beyond the thought of my own ruin, rose the consciousness of the ruin I should bring upon his life by allowing him to carry out his design. To be his wife, his helpmate, chosen from the whole world as one he deemed most worthy and most able to cheer and aid him in life's battle—that seemed heaven to me; but to know that by one rash, impetuous act of folly, I had placed him in a position where he felt that honour compelled him to marry me—why, this thought was more bitter than death. I knew that he loved me; yet I knew, too, that by a union with me under the circumstances he would antagonise those who were now his best and most influential friends, and that his entire career would be ruined. I resolved to go away; to disappear from his life and leave no trace. If his love was as sincere as mine, he would find me; and time would show him some wiser way for breaking his new-made fetters than the rash and sudden method he now contemplated. He had forgotten to protect me with his love, but I could not forget to protect him. In every true woman's love there is the maternal element which renders sacrifice natural.

"Fate hastened and furthered my plans for departure. Made aware that the Baroness was suspicious of my fault, and learning that my lover was suddenly called to the bedside of his fiancee, I made my escape from the town and left no trace behind. I went to that vast haystack of lost needles—New York, and effaced Berene Dumont in Mrs Lamont. The money left from my father's belongings I resolved to use in cultivating my voice. I advertised for embroidery and fine sewing also, and as I was an expert with the needle, I was able to support myself and lay aside a little sum each week. I trimmed hats at a small price, and added to my income in various manners, owing to my French taste and my deft fingers.

"I was desolate, sad, lonely, but not despairing. What woman can despair when she knows herself loved? To me that consciousness was a far greater source of happiness than would have been the knowledge that I was an empress, or the wife of a millionaire, envied by the whole world. I believed my lover would find me in time, that we should be reunited. I believed this until I saw the announcement of his marriage in the press, and read that he and his bride had sailed for an extended foreign tour; but with this stunning news, there came to me the strange, sweet, startling consciousness that you, my darling child, were coming to console me.

"I know that under the circumstances I ought to have been borne down to the earth with a guilty shame; I ought to have considered you as a punishment for my sin—and walked in the valley of humiliation and despair.

"But I did not. I lived in a state of mental exaltation; every thought was a prayer, every emotion was linked with religious fervour. I was no longer alone or friendless, for I had you. I sang as I had never sung, and one theatrical manager, who happened to call upon my teacher during my lesson hour, offered me a position at a good salary at once if I would accept.

"I could not accept, of course, knowing what the coming months were to bring to me, but I took his card and promised to write him when I was ready to take a position. You came into life in the depressing atmosphere of a city hospital, my dear child, yet even there I was not depressed, and your face wore a smile of joy the first time I gazed upon it. So I named you Joy—and well have you worn the name. My first sorrow was in being obliged to leave you; for I had to leave you with those human angels, the sweet sisters of charity, while I went forth to make a home for you. My voice, as is sometimes the case, was richer, stronger and of greater compass after I had passed through maternity. I accepted a position with a travelling theatrical company, where I was to sing a solo in one act. My success was not phenomenal, but it WAS success nevertheless. I followed this life for three years, seeing you only at intervals. Then the consciousness came to me that without long and profound study I could never achieve more than a third-rate success in my profession.

"I had dreamed of becoming a great singer; but I learned that a voice alone does not make a great singer. I needed years of study, and this would necessitate the expenditure of large sums of money. I had grown heart-sick and disgusted with the annoyances and vulgarity I was subjected to in my position. When you were four years old a good man offered me a good home as his wife. It was the first honest love I had encountered, while scores of men had made a pretence of loving me during these years.

"I was hungering for a home where I could claim you and have the joy of your daily companionship instead of brief glimpses of you at the intervals of months. My voice, never properly trained, was beginning to break. I resolved to put Mr Irving to a test; I would tell him the true story of your birth, and if he still wished me to be his wife, I would marry him.

"I carried out my resolve, and we were married the day after he had heard my story. I lived a peaceful and even happy life with Mr Irving. He was devoted to you, and never by look, word or act, seemed to remember my past. I, too, at times almost forgot it, so strange a thing is the human heart under the influence of time. Imagine, then, the shock of remembrance and the tidal wave of memories which swept over me when in the lady you brought to call upon me I recognised—the Baroness.

"It is because she threatened to tell you that you were not born in wedlock that I leave this manuscript for you. It is but a few weeks since you told me the story of Marah Adams, and assured me that you thought her mother did right in confessing the truth to her daughter. Little did you dream with what painful interest I listened to your views on that subject. Little did I dream that I should so soon be called upon to act upon them.

"But the time is now come, and I want no strange hand to deal you a blow in the dark; if any part of the story comes to you, I want you to know the whole truth. You will wonder why I have not told you the name of your father. It is strange, but from the hour I knew of his marriage, and of your dawning life, I have felt a jealous fear lest he should ever take you from me; even after I am gone, I would not have him know of your existence and be unable to claim you openly. Any acquaintance between you could only result in sorrow.

"I have never blamed him for my past weakness, however I have blamed him for his unholy marriage. Our fault was mutual. I was no ignorant child; while young in years, I had sufficient knowledge of human nature to protect myself had I used my will-power and my reason. Like many another woman, I used neither; unlike the majority, I did not repent my sin or its consequences. I have ever believed you to be a more divinely born being than any children who may have resulted from my lover's unholy marriage. I die strong in the belief. God bless you, my dear child, and farewell."

Joy sat silent and pale like one in a trance for a long time after she had finished reading. Then she said aloud, "So I am another like Marah Adams; it was this knowledge which caused the rector to write me that strange letter. It was this knowledge which sent him away without coming to say one word of adieu. The woman who sent me the message, sent it to him also. Well, I can be as brave as my mother was. I, too, can disappear."

She arose and began silently and rapidly to make preparations for a journey. She felt a nervous haste to get away from something—from all things. Everything stable in the world seemed to have slipped from her hold in the last few days. Home, mother, love, and now hope and pride were gone too. She worked for more than two hours without giving vent to even a sigh. Then suddenly she buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud: "Oh, mother, mother, you were not ashamed, but I am ashamed for you! Why was I ever born? God forgive me for the sinful thought, but I wish you had lied to me in place of telling me the truth."



CHAPTER XVI



Just as Mrs Irving had written her story for her daughter to read, she told it, in the main, to the rector a few days before her death.

Only once before had the tale passed her lips; then her listener was Horace Irving; and his only comment was to take her in his arms and place the kiss of betrothal on her lips. Never again was the painful subject referred to between them. So imbued had Berene Dumont become with her belief in the legitimacy of her child, and in her own purity, that she felt but little surprise at the calm manner in which Mr Irving received her story, and now when the rector of St Blank's Church was her listener, she expected the same broad judgment to be given her. But it was the calmness of a great and all-forgiving love which actuated Mr Irving, and overcame all other feelings.

Wholly unconventional in nature, caring nothing and knowing little of the extreme ideas of orthodox society on these subjects, the girl Berene and the woman Mrs Irving had lived a life so wholly secluded from the world at large, so absolutely devoid of intimate friendships, so absorbed in her own ideals, that she was incapable of understanding the conventional opinion regarding a woman with a history like hers.

In all those years she had never once felt a sensation of shame. Mr Irving had requested her to rear Joy in the belief that she was his child. As the matter could in no way concern anyone else, Mrs Irving's lips had remained sealed on the subject; but not with any idea of concealing a disgrace. She could not associate disgrace with her love for Preston Cheney. She believed herself to be his spiritual widow, as it were. His mortal clay and legal name only belonged to his wife.

Mr Irving had met Berene on a railroad train, and had conceived one of those sudden and intense passions with which a woman with a past often inspires an innocent and unworldly young man. He was sincerely and truly religious by nature, and as spotless as a maiden in mind and body.

When he had dreamed of a wife, it was always of some shy, innocent girl whom he should woo almost from her mother's arms; some gentle, pious maid, carefully reared, who would help him to establish the Christian household of his imagination. He had thought that love would first come to him as admiring respect, then tender friendship, then love for some such maiden; instead it had swooped down upon him in the form of an intense passion for an absolute stranger—a woman travelling with a theatrical company. He was like a sleeper who awakens suddenly and finds a scorching midday sun beating upon his eyes. A wrecked freight train upon the track detained for several hours the car in which they travelled. The passengers waived ceremony and conversed to pass the time, and Mr Irving learnt Berene's name, occupation and destination. He followed her for a week, and at the end of that time asked her hand in marriage.

Even after he had heard the story of her life, he was not deterred from his resolve to make her his wife. All the Christian charity of his nature, all its chivalry was aroused, and he believed he was plucking a brand from the burning. He never repented his act. He lived wholly for his wife and child, and for the good he could do with them as his faithful allies. He drew more and more away from all the allurements of the world, and strove to rear Joy in what he believed to be a purely Christian life, and to make his wife forget, if possible, that she had ever known a sorrow. All of sincere gratitude, tenderness, and gentle affection possible for her to feel, Berene bestowed upon her husband during his life, and gave to his memory after he was gone.

Joy had been excessively fond of Mr Irving, and it was the dread of causing her a deep sorrow in the knowledge that she was not his child, and the fear that Preston Cheney would in any way interfere with her possession of Joy, which had distressed the mother during the visit of the Baroness, rather than unwillingness to have her sin revealed to her daughter. Added to this, the intrusion of the Baroness into this long hidden and sacred experience seemed a sacrilege from which she shrank with horror. But she now told the tale to Arthur Stuart frankly and fearlessly.

He had asked her to confide to him whatever secret existed regarding Joy's birth.

"There is a rumour afloat," he said, "that Joy is not Mr Irving's child. I love your daughter, Mrs Irving, and I feel it is my right to know all the circumstances of her life. I believe the story which was told my mother to be the invention of some enemy who is jealous of Joy's beauty and talents, and I would like to be in a position to silence these slanders."

So Mrs Irving told the story to the end; and having told it, she felt relieved and happy in the thought that it was imparted to the only two people whom it could concern in the future.

No disturbing fear came to her that the rector would hesitate to make Joy his wife. To Berene Dumont, love was the law. If love existed between two souls she could not understand why any convention of society should stand in the way of its fulfilment.

Arthur Stuart in his role of spiritual confessor and consoler had never before encountered such a phase of human nature. He had listened to many a tale of sin and folly from women's lips, but always had the sinner bemoaned her sin, and bitterly repented her weakness. Here instead was what the world would consider a fallen woman, who on her deathbed regarded her weakness as her strength, her shame as her glory, and who seemed to expect him to take the same view of the matter. When he attempted to urge her to repent, the words stuck in his throat. He left the deathbed of the unfortunate sinner without having expressed one of the conflicting emotions which filled his heart. But he left it with such a weight on his soul, such distress on his mind that death seemed to him the only way of escape from a life of torment.

His love for Joy Irving was not killed by the story he had heard. But it had received a terrible shock, and the thought of making her his wife with the probability that the Baroness would spread the scandal broadcast, and that his marriage would break his mother's heart, tortured him. Added to this were his theories on heredity, and the fear that there might, nay, must be, some dangerous tendency hidden in the daughter of a mother who had so erred, and who in dying showed no comprehension of the enormity of her sin. Had Mrs Irving bewailed her fall, and represented herself as the victim of a wily villain, the rector would not have felt so great a fear of the daughter's inheritance. A frail, repentant woman he could pity and forgive, but it seemed to him that Mrs Irving was utterly lacking in moral nature. She was spiritually blind. The thought tortured him. To leave Joy at this time without calling to see her seemed base and cowardly; yet he dared not trust himself in her presence. So he sent her the strangely worded letter, and went away hoping to be shown the path of duty before he returned.

At the end of three months he came home stronger in body and mind. He had resolved to compromise with fate; to continue his calls upon Joy Irving; to be her friend and rector only, until by the passage of time, and the changes which occur so rapidly in every society, the scandal in regard to her birth had been forgotten. And until by patience and tenderness, he won his mother's consent to the union. He felt that all this must come about as he desired, if he did not aggravate his mother's feeling or defy public opinion by too precipitate methods.

He could not wholly give up all thoughts of Joy Irving. She had grown to be a part of his hopes and dreams of the future, as she was a part of the reality of his present. But she was very young; he could afford to wait, and while he waited to study the girl's character, and if he saw any budding shoot which bespoke the maternal tree, to prune and train it to his own liking. For the sake of his unborn children he felt it his duty to carefully study any woman he thought to make his wife.

But when he reached home, the surprising intelligence awaited him that Miss Irving had left the metropolis. A brief note to the church authorities, resigning her position, and saying that she was about to leave the city, was all that anyone knew of her.

The rector instituted a quiet search, but only succeeded in learning that she had conducted her preparations for departure with the greatest secrecy, and that to no one had she imparted her plans.

Whenever a young woman shrouds her actions in the garments of secrecy, she invites suspicion. The people who love to suspect their fellow-beings of wrong-doing were not absent on this occasion.

The rector was hurt and wounded by all this, and while he resented the intimation from another that Miss Irving's conduct had been peculiar and mysterious, he felt it to be so in his own heart.

"Is it her mother's tendency to adventure developing in her?" he asked himself.

Yet he wrote her a letter, directing it to her at the old number, thinking she would at least leave her address with the post-office for the forwarding of mail. The letter was returned to him from that cemetery of many a dear hope, the dead-letter office. A personal in a leading paper failed to elicit a reply. And then one day six months after the disappearance of Joy Irving, the young rector was called to the Cheney household to offer spiritual consolation to Miss Alice, who believed herself to be dying. She had been in a decline ever since the rector went away for his health.

Since his return she had seen him but seldom, rarely save in the pulpit, and for the last six weeks she had been too ill to attend divine service.

It was Preston Cheney himself, at home upon one of his periodical visits, who sent for the rector, and gravely met him at the door when he arrived, and escorted him into his study.

"I am very anxious about my daughter," he said. "She has been a nervous child always, and over-sensitive. I returned yesterday after an absence of some three months in California, to find Alice in bed, wasted to a shadow, and constantly weeping. I cannot win her confidence—she has never confided to me. Perhaps it is my fault; perhaps I have not been at home enough to make her realise that the relationship of father and daughter is a sacred one. This morning when I was urging her to tell me what grieved her, she remarked that there was but one person to whom she could communicate this sorrow— her rector. So, my dear Dr Stuart, I have sent for you. I will conduct you to my child, and I leave her in your hands. Whatever comfort and consolation you can offer, I know will be given. I hope she will not bind you to secrecy; I hope you may be able to tell me what troubles her, and advise me how to help her."

It was more than an hour before the rector returned to the library where Preston Cheney awaited him. When the senator heard his approaching step, he looked up, and was startled to see the pallor on the young man's face. "You have something sad, something terrible to tell me!" he cried. "What is it?"

The rector walked across the room several times, breathing deeply, and with anguish written on his countenance. Then he took Senator Cheney's hand and wrung it. "I have an embarrassing announcement to make to you," he said. "It is something so surprising, so unexpected, that I am completely unnerved."

"You alarm me, more and more," the senator answered. "What can be the secret which my frail child has imparted to you that should so distress you? Speak; it is my right to know."

The rector took another turn about the room, and then came and stood facing Senator Cheney.

"Your daughter has conceived a strange passion for me," he said in a low voice. "It is this which has caused her illness, and which she says will cause her death, if I cannot return it."

"And you?" asked his listener after a moment's silence.

"I? Why, I have never thought of your daughter in any such manner," the young man replied. "I have never dreamed of loving her, or winning her love."

"Then do not marry her," Preston Cheney said quietly. "Marriage without love is unholy. Even to save life it is unpardonable."

The rector was silent, and walked the room with nervous steps. "I must go home and think it all out," he said after a time. "Perhaps Miss Cheney will find her grief less, now that she has imparted it to me. I am alarmed at her condition, and I shall hope for an early report from you regarding her."

The report was made twelve hours later. Miss Cheney was delirious, and calling constantly for the rector. Her physician feared the worst.

The rector came, and his presence at once soothed the girl's delirium.

"History repeats itself," said Preston Cheney meditatively to himself. "Alice is drawing this man into the net by her alarming physical condition, as Mabel riveted the chains about me when her mother died.

"But Alice really loves the rector, I think, and she is capable of a much stronger passion than her mother ever felt; and the rector loves no other woman at least, and so this marriage, if it takes place, will not be so wholly wicked and unholy as mine was."

The marriage did take place three months later. Alice Cheney was not the wife whom Mrs Stuart would have chosen for her son, yet she urged him to this step, glad to place a barrier for all time between him and Joy Irving, whose possible return at any day she constantly feared, and whose power over her son's heart she knew was undiminished.

Alice Cheney's family was of the best on both sides; there were wealth, station, and honour; and a step-grandmamma who could be referred to on occasions as "The Baroness." And there was no skeleton to be hidden or excused.

And Arthur Stuart, believing that Alice Cheney's life and reason depended upon his making her his wife, resolved to end the bitter struggle with his own heart and with fate, and do what seemed to be his duty, toward the girl and toward his mother. When the wedding took place, the saddest face at the ceremony, save that of the groom, was the face of the bride's father. But the bride was radiant, and Mabel and the Baroness walked in clouds.



CHAPTER XVII



Alice did not rally in health or spirits after her marriage, as her family, friends and physician had anticipated. She remained nervous, ailing and despondent.

"Should maternity come to her, she would doubtless be very much improved in health afterward," the doctor said, and Mabel, remembering how true a similar prediction proved in her case, despite her rebellion against it, was not sorry when she knew that Alice was to become a mother, scarcely a year after her marriage.

But Alice grew more and more despondent as the months passed by; and after the birth of her son, the young mother developed dementia of the most hopeless kind. The best specialists in two worlds were employed to bring her out of the state of settled melancholy into which she had fallen, but all to no avail. At the end of two years, her case was pronounced hopeless. Fortunately the child died at the age of six weeks, so the seed of insanity which in the first Mrs Lawrence was simply a case of "nerves," growing into the plant hysteria in Mabel, and yielding the deadly fruit of insanity in Alice, was allowed by a kind providence to become extinct in the fourth generation.

This disaster to his only child caused a complete breaking down of spirit and health in Preston Cheney.

Like some great, strongly coupled car, which loses its grip and goes plunging down an incline to destruction, Preston Cheney's will-power lost its hold on life, and he went down to the valley of death with frightful speed.

During the months which preceded his death, Senator Cheney's only pleasure seemed to be in the companionship of his son-in-law. The strong attachment between the two men ripened with every day's association. One day the rector was sitting by the invalid's couch, reading aloud, when Preston Cheney laid his hand on the young man's arm and said: "Close your book and let me tell you a true story which is stranger than fiction. It is the story of an ambitious man and all the disasters which his realised ambition brought into the lives of others. It is a story whose details are known to but two beings on earth, if indeed the other being still exists on earth. I have long wanted to tell you this story—indeed, I wanted to tell it to you before you made Alice your wife, yet the fear that I would be wrecking the life and reason of my child kept me silent. No doubt if I had told you, and you had been influenced by my experience against a loveless marriage, I should to-day be blaming myself for her condition, which I see plainly now is but the culmination of three generations of hysterical women. But I want to tell you the story and urge you to use it as a warning in your position of counsellor and friend of ambitious young men.

"No matter what else a man may do for position, don't let him marry a woman he does not love, especially if he crucifies a vital passion for another, in order to do this." Then Preston Cheney told the story of his life to his son-in-law; and as the tale proceeded, a strange interest which increased until it became violent excitement, took possession of the rector's brain and heart. The story was so familiar—so very familiar; and at length, when the name of BERENE DUMONT escaped the speaker's lips, Arthur Stuart clutched his hands and clenched his teeth to keep silent until the end of the story came.