"Johannah, don't you hear the bell?"

"Yes, Miss," said Johannah, coming into the room and depositing a gown on which she had been working, on the back of a chair. "It's that postman," she said, as she fastened her needle to the bosom of her dress. "And such a one as he is, thinking that people must fly when he so much as touches the bell, and going off a writing of 'no answer to bell,' and me with my hand on the very door-knob."

"I notice that always happens when I'm out, Johannah; he's ringing again."

It was Therese's letter, and as Melicent turned it about and looked critically at the neatly written address, it was not without a hope that the reading of it might furnish her a moment's diversion. She did not faint. The letter did not "fall from her nerveless clasp." She rather held it very steadily. But she grew a shade paler and looked long into the fire. When she had read it three times she folded it slowly and carefully and locked it away in her desk.

"Johannah."

"Yes, Miss."

"Put that gown away; I shan't need it."

"Yes, Miss; and all the beautiful passmantry that you bought?"

"It makes no difference, I shan't use it. What's become of that black camel's-hair that Mrs. Gauche spoiled so last winter?"

"It's laid away, Miss, the same in the cedar chest as the day it came home from her hands and no more fit, that I'd be a shame meself and no claims to a dress-maker. And there's many a lady that she never would have seen a cent, let alone making herself pay for the spiling of it."

"Well, well, Johannah, never mind. Get it out, we'll see what can be done with it. I've had some painful news, and I shall wear mourning for a long, long time."

"Oh, Miss, it's not Mr. David! nor yet one of those sweet relations in Utica? leastways not I hope that beautiful Miss Gertrude, with such hair as I never see for the goldness of it and not dyed, except me cousin that's a nun, that her mother actually cried when it was cut off?"

"No, Johannah; only a very dear friend."

There were a few social engagements to be cancelled; and regrets to be sent out, which she attended to immediately. Then she turned again to look long into the fire. That crime for which she had scorned him, was wiped out now by expiation. For a long time—how long she could not yet determine—she would wrap herself in garb of mourning and move about in sorrowing—giving evasive answer to the curious who questioned her. Now might she live again through those summer months with Gregoire—those golden afternoons in the pine woods—whose aroma even now came back to her. She might look again into his loving brown eyes; feel beneath her touch the softness of his curls. She recalled a day when he had said, "Neva to see you—my God!" and how he had trembled. She recalled—strangely enough and for the first time—that one kiss, and a little tremor brought the hot color to her cheek.

Was she in love with Gregoire now that he was dead? Perhaps. At all events, for the next month, Melicent would not be bored.



XIV

A Step Too Far.

Who of us has not known the presence of Misery? Perhaps as those fortunate ones whom he has but touched as he passed them by. It may be that we see but a promise of him as we look into the prophetic faces of children; into the eyes of those we love, and the awfulness of life's possibilities presses into our souls. Do we fly him? hearing him gain upon us panting close at our heels, till we turn from the desperation of uncertainty to grapple with him? In close scuffle we may vanquish him. Fleeing, we may elude him. But what if he creep into the sanctuary of our lives, with his subtle omnipresence, that we do not see in all its horror till we are disarmed; thrusting the burden of his companionship upon us to the end! However we turn he is there. However we shrink he is there. However we come or go, or sleep or wake he is before us. Till the keen sense grows dull with apathy at looking on him, and he becomes like the familiar presence of sin.

Into such callousness had Hosmer fallen. He had ceased to bruise his soul in restless endeavor of resistance. When the awful presence bore too closely upon him, he would close his eyes and brave himself to endurance. Yet Fate might have dealt him worse things.

But a man's misery is after all his own, to make of it what he will or what he can. And shall we be fools, wanting to lighten it with our platitudes?

My friend, your trouble I know weighs. That you should be driven by earthly needs to drag the pinioned spirit of your days through rut and mire. But think of the millions who are doing the like. Or is it your boy, that part of your own self and that other dearer self, who is walking in evil ways? Why, I know a man whose son was hanged the other day; hanged on the gibbet; think of it. If you be quivering while the surgeon cuts away that right arm, remember the poor devil in the hospital yesterday who had both his sawed off.

Oh, have done, with your mutilated men and your sons on gibbets! What are they to me? My hurt is greater than all, because it is my own. If it be only that day after day I must look with warm entreaty into eyes that are cold. Let it be but that peculiar trick of feature which I have come to hate, seen each morning across the breakfast table. That recurrent pin-prick: it hurts. The blow that lays the heart in twain: it kills. Let be mine which will; it is the one that counts.

If Misery kill a man, that ends it. But Misery seldom deals so summarily with his victims. And while they are spared to earth, we find them usually sustaining life after the accepted fashion.

Hosmer was seated at table, having finished his breakfast. He had also finished glancing over the contents of a small memorandum book, which he replaced in his pocket. He then looked at his wife sitting opposite him, but turned rather hastily to gaze with a certain entreaty into the big kind eyes of the great shaggy dog who stood—the shameless beggar—at his side.

"I knew there was something wrong," he said abruptly, with his eyes still fixed on the dog, and his fingers thrust into the animal's matted wool, "Where's the mail this morning?"

"I don't know if that stupid boy's gone for it or not. I told him. You can't depend on any one in a place like this."

Fanny had scarcely touched the breakfast before her, and now pushed aside her cup still half filled with coffee.

"Why, how's that? Sampson seems to do the right thing."

"Yes, Sampson; but he ain't here. That boy of Minervy's been doing his work all morning."

Minervy's boy was even now making his appearance, carrying a good sized bundle of papers and letters, with which he walked boldly up to Hosmer, plainly impressed with the importance of this new role.

"Well, colonel; so you've taken Sampson's place?" Hosmer observed, receiving the mail from the boy's little black paws.

"My name's Major, suh. Maje; dats my name. I ain't tuck Sampson's place: no, suh."

"Oh, he's having a day off—" Hosmer went on, smiling quizzingly at the dapper little darkey, and handing him a red apple from the dish of fruit standing in the center of the table. Maje received it with a very unmilitary bob of acknowledgment.

"He yonda home 'cross de riva, suh. He ben too late fu' kotch de flat's mornin' An' he holla an' holla. He know dey warn't gwine cross dat flat 'gin jis' fu' Sampson."

Hosmer had commenced to open his letters. Fanny with her elbows on the table, asked the boy—with a certain uneasiness in her voice—"Ain't he coming at all to-day? Don't he know all the work he's got to do? His mother ought to make him."

"Don't reckon. Dat away Sampson: he git mad he stay mad," with which assurance Maje vanished through the rear door, towards the region of the kitchen, to seek more substantial condiments than the apple which he still clutched firmly.

One of the letters was for Fanny, which her husband handed her. When he had finished reading his own, he seemed disposed to linger, for he took from the fruit dish the mate to the red apple he had given Maje, and commenced to peel it with his clasp knife.

"What has our friend Belle Worthington to say for herself?" he inquired good humoredly. "How does she get on with those Creoles down there?"

"You know as well as I do, Belle Worthington ain't going to mix with Creoles. She can't talk French if she wanted to. She says Muddy-Graw don't begin to compare with the Veiled Prophets. It's just what I thought—with their 'Muddy-Graw,' " Fanny added, contemptuously.

"Coming from such high authority, we'll consider that verdict a final clincher," Hosmer laughed a little provokingly.

Fanny was looking again through the several sheets of Belle Worthington's letter. "She says if I'll agree to go back with her, she'll pass this way again."

"Well, why don't you? A little change wouldn't hurt."

" 'Tain't because I want to stay here, Lord knows. A God-forsaken place like this. I guess you'd be glad enough," she added, with voice shaking a little at her own boldness.

He closed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and looked at his wife, completely puzzled.

The power of speech had come to her, for she went on, in an unnatural tone, however, and fumbling nervously with the dishes before her. "I'm fool enough about some things, but I ain't quite such a fool as that."

"What are you talking about, Fanny?"

"That woman wouldn't ask anything better than for me to go to St. Louis."

Hosmer was utterly amazed. He leaned his arms on the table, clasping his hands together and looked at his wife.

"That woman? Belle Worthington? What do you mean, any way?"

"I don't mean Belle Worthington," she said excitedly, with two deep red spots in her cheeks. "I'm talking about Mrs. Laferm."

He thrust his hand into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. No amazement now, but very pale, and with terrible concentration of glance.

"Well, then, don't talk about Mrs. Lafirme," he said very slowly, not taking his eyes from her face.

"I will talk about her, too. She ain't worth talking about," she blurted incoherently. "It's time for somebody to talk about a woman passing herself off for a saint, and trying to take other women's husbands—"

"Shut up!" cried Hosmer maddened with sudden fury, and rising violently from his chair.

"I won't shut up," Fanny cried excitedly back at him; rising also. "And what's more I won't stay here and have you making love under my very eyes to a woman that's no better than she ought to be."

She meant to say more, but Hosmer grasped her arm with such a grasp, that had it been her throat she would never have spoken more. The other hand went to his pocket, with fingers clutching the clasp knife there.

"By heaven—I'll—kill you!" every word weighted with murder, panted close in her terrified face. What she would have uttered died upon her pale lips, when her frightened eyes beheld the usually calm face of her husband distorted by a passion of which she had not dreamed.

"David," she faltered, "let go my arm."

Her voice broke the spell that held him, and brought him again to his senses. His fingers slowly relaxed their tense hold. A sigh that was something between a moan and a gasp came with his deliverance and shook him. All the horror now was in his own face as he seized his hat and hurried speechless away.

Fanny remained for a little while dazed. Hers was not the fine nature that would stay cruelly stunned after such a scene. Her immediate terror being past, the strongest resultant emotion was one of self-satisfaction at having spoken out her mind.

But there was a stronger feeling yet, moving and possessing her; crowding out every other. A pressing want that only Sampson's coming would relieve, and which bade fair to drive her to any extremity if it were not appeased.



XV

A Fateful Solution.

Hosmer passed the day with a great pain at his heart. His hasty and violent passion of the morning had added another weight for his spirit to drag about, and which he could not cast off. No feeling of resentment remained with him; only wonder at his wife's misshapen knowledge and keen self-rebuke of his own momentary forgetfulness. Even knowing Fanny as he did, he could not rid himself of the haunting dread of having wounded her nature cruelly. He felt much as a man who in a moment of anger inflicts an irreparable hurt upon some small, weak, irresponsible creature, and must bear regret for his madness. The only reparation that lay within his power—true, one that seemed inadequate—was an open and manly apology and confession of wrong. He would feel better when it was made. He would perhaps find relief in discovering that the wound he had inflicted was not so deep—so dangerous as he feared.

With such end in view he came home early in the afternoon. His wife was not there. The house was deserted. Even the servants had disappeared. It took but a moment for him to search the various rooms and find them one after the other, unoccupied. He went out on the porch and looked around. The raw air chilled him. The wind was blowing violently, bringing dashes of rain along with it from massed clouds that hung leaden between sky and earth. Could she have gone over to the house? It was unlikely, for he knew her to have avoided Mrs. Lafirme of late, with a persistence that had puzzled him to seek its cause, which had only fully revealed itself in the morning Yet, where else could she be? An undefined terror was laying hold of him. His sensitive nature, in exaggerating its own heartlessness, was blindly overestimating the delicacy of hers. To what may he not have driven her? What hitherto untouched chord may he not have started into painful quivering? Was it for him to gauge the endurance of a woman's spirit? Fanny was not now the wife whom he hated; his own act of the morning had changed her into the human being, the weak creature whom he had wronged.

In quitting the house she must have gone unprepared for the inclement weather, for there hung her heavy wrap in its accustomed place, with her umbrella beside it. He seized both and buttoning his own great coat about him, hurried away and over to Mrs. Lafirme's. He found that lady in the sitting-room.

"Isn't Fanny here?" he asked abruptly, with no word of greeting.

"No," she answered looking up at him, and seeing the evident uneasiness in his face. "Isn't she at home? Is anything wrong?"

"Oh, everything is wrong," he returned desperately, "But the immediate wrong is that she has disappeared—I must find her."

Therese arose at once and called to Betsy who was occupied on the front veranda.

"Yas, um," the girl answered to her mistress' enquiry. "I seed ma'am Hosma goin' to'ads de riva good hour 'go. She mus' crost w'en Nathan tuck dat load ova. I yain't seed 'er comin' back yit."

Hosmer left the house hastily, hardly reassured by Betsy's information. Therese's glance—speculating and uneasy—followed his hurrying figure till it disappeared from sight.

The crossing was an affair of extreme difficulty, and which Nathan was reluctant to undertake until he should have gathered a "load" that would justify him in making it. In his estimation, Hosmer did not meet such requirement, even taken in company with the solitary individual who had been sitting on his horse with Egyptian patience for long unheeded moments, the rain beating down upon his back, while he waited the ferryman's pleasure. But Nathan's determination was not proof against the substantial inducements which Hosmer held out to him; and soon they were launched, all hands assisting in the toilsome passage.

The water, in rising to an unaccustomed height, had taken on an added and tremendous swiftness. The red turbid stream was eddying and bulging and hurrying with terrific swiftness between its shallow banks, striking with an immensity of power against the projection of land on which stood Marie Louise's cabin, and rebounding in great circling waves that spread and lost themselves in the seething turmoil. The cable used in crossing the unwieldly flat had long been submerged and the posts which held it wrenched from their fastenings. The three men, each with his long heavy oar in hand began to pull up stream, using a force that brought the swelling veins like iron tracings upon their foreheads where the sweat had gathered as if the day were midsummer. They made their toilsome way by slow inches, that finally landed them breathless and exhausted on the opposite side.

What could have been the inducement to call Fanny out on such a day and such a venture? The answer came only too readily from Hosmer's reproaching conscience. And now, where to seek her? There was nothing to guide him; to indicate the course she might have taken. The rain was falling heavily and in gusts and through it he looked about at the small cabins standing dreary in their dismantled fields. Marie Louise's was the nearest at hand and towards it he directed his steps.

The big good-natured negress had seen his approach from the window, for she opened the door to him before he had time to knock, and entering he saw Fanny seated before the fire holding a pair of very wet smoking feet to dry. His first sensation was one of relief at finding her safe and housed. His next, one of uncertainty as to the kind and degree of resentment which he felt confident must now show itself. But this last was soon dispelled, for turning, she greeted him with a laugh. He would have rather a blow. That laugh said so many things—too many things. True, it removed the dread which had been haunting him all day, but it shattered what seemed to have been now his last illusion regarding this woman. That unsounded chord which he feared he had touched was after all but one in harmony with the rest of her common nature. He saw too at a glance that her dominant passion had been leading and now controlled her. And by one of those rapid trains of thought in which odd and detached fancies, facts, impressions and observations form themselves into an orderly sequence leading to a final conviction—all was made plain to him that before had puzzled him. She need not have told him her reason for crossing the river, he knew it. He dismissed at once the attitude with which he had thought to approach her. Here was no forgiveness to be asked of dulled senses. No bending in expiation of faults committed. He was here as master.

"Fanny, what does this mean?" he asked in cold anger; with no heat now, no passion.

"Yaas, me tell madame, she goin' fur ketch cole si she don' mine out. Dat not fur play dat kine wedder, no. Teck chair, M'sieur; dry you'se'f leet beet. Me mek you one cup coffee."

Hosmer declined the good Marie Louise's kind proffer of coffee, but he seated himself and waited for Fanny to speak.

"You know if you want a thing done in this place, you've got to do it yourself. I've heard you say it myself, time and time again about those people at the mill," she said.

"Could it have been so urgent as to call you out on a day like this, and with such a perilous crossing? Couldn't you have found some one else to come for you?"

"Who? I'd like to know. Just tell me who? It's nothing to you if we're without servants, but I'm not going to stand it. I ain't going to let Sampson act like that without knowing what he means," said Fanny sharply.

"Dat Sampson, he one leet dev'," proffered Marie Louise, with laudable design of shifting blame upon the easy shoulders of Sampson, in event of the domestic jar which she anticipated. "No use try do nuttin' 'id Sampson, M'sieur."

"I had to know something, one way or the other," Fanny said in a tone which carried apology, rather by courtesy than by what she considered due.

Hosmer walked to the window where he looked out upon the dreary, desolate scene, little calculated to cheer him. The river was just below; and from this window he could gaze down upon the rushing current as it swept around the bend further up and came striking against this projection with a force all its own. The rain was falling still; steadily, blindingly, with wild clatter against the shingled roof so close above their heads. It coursed in little swift rivulets down the furrows of the almost perpendicular banks. It mingled in a demon dance with the dull, red water. There was something inviting to Hosmer in the scene. He wanted to be outside there making a part of it. He wanted to feel that rain and wind beating upon him. Within, it was stifling, maddening; with his wife's presence there, charging the room with an atmosphere of hate that was possessing him and beginning to course through his veins as it had never done before.

"Do you want to go home?" he asked bluntly, turning half around.

"You must be crazy," she replied, with a slow, upward glance out the window, then down at her feet that were still poised on the low stool that Marie Louise had placed for her.

"You'd better come." He could not have said what moved him, unless it were recklessness and defiance.

"I guess you're dreaming, or something, David. You go on home if you want. Nobody asked you to come after me any way. I'm able to take care of myself, I guess. Ain't you going to take the umbrella?" she added, seeing him start for the door empty handed.

"Oh, it doesn't matter about the rain," he answered without a look back as he went out and slammed the door after him.

"M'sieur look lak he not please," said Marie Louise, with plain regret at the turn of affairs. "You see he no lak you go out in dat kine wedder, me know dat."

"Oh, bother," was Fanny's careless reply. "This suits me well enough; I don't care how long it lasts."

She was in Marie Louise's big rocker, balancing comfortably back and forth with a swing that had become automatic. She felt "good," as she would have termed it herself; her visit to Sampson's hut having not been without results tending to that condition. The warmth of the room was very agreeable in contrast to the bleakness of out-doors. She felt free and moved to exercise a looseness of tongue with the amiable old negress which was not common with her. The occurrences of the morning were gradually withdrawing themselves into a distant perspective that left her in the attitude of a spectator rather than that of an actor. And she laughed and talked with Marie Louise, and rocked, and rocked herself on into drowsiness.

Hosmer had no intention of returning home without his wife. He only wanted to be out under the sky; he wanted to breathe, to use his muscles again. He would go and help cross the flat if need be; an occupation that promised him relief in physical effort. He joined Nathan, whom he found standing under a big live-oak, disputing with an old colored woman who wanted to cross to get back to her family before supper time.

"You didn' have no call to come ova in de fus' place," he was saying to her, "you womens is alluz runnin' back'ards and for'ards like skeard rabbit in de co'n fiel'."

"I don' stan' no sich talk is dat f'om you. Ef you kiant tin' to yo' business o' totin' folks w'en dey wants, you betta quit. You done cheat Mose out o' de job, anyways; we all knows dat."

"Mine out, woman, you gwine git hu't. Jis' le'me see Mose han'le dat 'ar flat onct: Jis' le'me. He lan' you down to de Mouf 'fo' you knows it."

"Let me tell you, Nathan," said Hosmer, looking at his watch, "say you wait a quarter of an hour and if no one else comes, we'll cross Aunt Agnes anyway."

"Dat 'nudda t'ing ef you wants to go back, suh."

Aunt Agnes was grumbling now at Hosmer's proposal that promised to keep her another quarter of an hour from her expectant family, when a big lumbering creaking wagon drove up, with its load of baled cotton all covered with tarpaulins.

"Dah!" exclaimed Nathan at sight of the wagon, "ef I'd 'a listened to yo' jawin'—what?"

"Ef you'd listen to me, you'd 'tin' to yo' business betta 'an you does," replied Aunt Agnes, raising a very battered umbrella over her grotesquely apparelled figure, as she stepped from under the shelter of the tree to take her place in the flat.

But she still met with obstacles, for the wagon must needs go first. When it had rolled heavily into place with much loud and needless swearing on the part of the driver who, being a white man, considered Hosmer's presence no hindrance, they let go the chain, and once again pulled out. The crossing was even more difficult now, owing to the extra weight of the wagon.

"I guess you earn your money, Nathan," said Hosmer bending and quivering with the efforts he put forth.

"Yas, suh, I does; an' dis job's wuf mo' 'an I gits fu' it."

"All de same you done lef' off wurking crap sence you start it," mumbled Aunt Agnes.

"You gwine git hu't, woman; I done tole you dat; don' wan' listen," returned Nathan with halting breath.

"Who gwine hu't me?"

Whether from tardy gallantry or from pre-occupation with his arduous work, Nathan offered no reply to this challenge, and his silence left Aunt Agnes in possession of the field.

They were in full mid-stream. Hosmer and the teamster were in the fore end of the boat; Nathan in the rear, and Aunt Agnes standing in the center between the wagon and the protecting railing, against which she leaned her clasped hands that still upheld the semblance of umbrella.

The ill-mated horses stood motionless, letting fall their dejected heads with apathetic droop. The rain was dripping from their glistening coats, and making a great patter as it fell upon the tarpaulins covering the cotton bales.

Suddenly came an exclamation: "Gret God!" from Aunt Agnes, so genuine in its amazement and dismay, that the three men with one accord looked quickly up at her, then at the point on which her terrified gaze was fixed. Almost on the instant of the woman's cry, was heard a shrill, piercing, feminine scream.

What they saw was the section of land on which stood Marie Louise's cabin, undermined—broken away from the main body and gradually gliding into the water. It must have sunk with a first abrupt wrench, for the brick chimney was shaken from its foundation, the smoke issuing in dense clouds from its shattered sides, the house toppling and the roof caving. For a moment Hosmer lost his senses. He could but look, as if at some awful apparition that must soon pass from sight and leave him again in possession of his reason. The leaning house was half submerged when Fanny appeared at the door, like a figure in a dream; seeming a natural part of the awfulness of it. He only gazed on. The two negroes uttered loud lamentations.

"Pull with the current!" cried the teamster, first to regain his presence of mind. It had needed but this, to awaken Hosmer to the situation.

"Leave off," he cried at Nathan, who was wringing his hands. "Take hold that oar or I'll throw you overboard." The trembling ashen negro obeyed on the instant.

"Hold fast—for God's sake—hold fast!" he shouted to Fanny, who was clinging with swaying figure to the door post. Of Marie Louise there was no sign.

The caved bank now remained fixed; but Hosmer knew that at any instant it was liable to disappear before his riveted gaze.

How heavy the flat was! And the horses had caught the contagion of terror and were plunging madly.

"Whip those horses and their load into the river," called Hosmer, "we've got to lighten at any price."

"Them horses an' cotton's worth money," interposed the alarmed teamster.

"Force them into the river, I say; I'll pay you twice their value."

"You 'low to pay fur the cotton, too?"

"Into the river with them or I'll brain you!" he cried, maddened at the weight and delay that were holding them back.

The frightened animals seemed to ask nothing more than to plunge into the troubled water; dragging their load with them.

They were speeding rapidly towards the scene of catastrophe; but to Hosmer they crawled—the moments were hours. "Hold on! hold fast!" he called again and again to his wife. But even as he cried out, the detached section of earth swayed, lurched to one side—plunged to the other, and the whole mass was submerged—leaving the water above it in wild agitation.

A cry of horror went up from the spectators—all but Hosmer. He cast aside his oar—threw off his coat and hat; worked an instant without avail at his wet clinging boots, and with a leap was in the water, swimming towards the spot where the cabin had gone down. The current bore him on without much effort of his own. The flat was close up with him; but he could think of it no longer as a means of rescue. Detached pieces of timber from the ruined house were beginning to rise to the surface. Then something floating softly on the water: a woman's dress, but too far for him to reach it.

When Fanny appeared again, Hosmer was close beside her. His left arm was quickly thrown about her. She was insensible, and he remembered that it was best so, for had she been in possession of her reason, she might have struggled and impeded his movements. He held her fast—close to him and turned to regain the shore. Another horrified shriek went up from the occupants of the flat-boat not far away, and Hosmer knew no more—for a great plunging beam struck him full upon the forehead.

When consciousness came back to him, he found that he lay extended in the flat, which was fastened to the shore. The confused sound of many voices mingled with a ringing din that filled his ears. A warm stream was trickling down over his cheek. Another body lay beside him. Now they were lifting him. Therese's face was somewhere—very near, he saw it dimly and that it was white—and he fell again into insensibility.



XVI

To Him Who Waits.

The air was filled with the spring and all its promises. Full with the sound of it, the smell of it, the deliciousness of it. Such sweet air; soft and strong, like the touch of a brave woman's hand. The air of an early March day in New Orleans. It was folly to shut it out from nook or cranny. Worse than folly the lady thought who was making futile endeavors to open the car window near which she sat. Her face had grown pink with the effort. She had bit firmly into her red nether lip, making it all the redder; and then sat down from the unaccomplished feat to look ruefully at the smirched finger tips of her Parisian gloves. This flavor of Paris was well about her; in the folds of her graceful wrap that set to her fine shoulders. It was plainly a part of the little black velvet toque that rested on her blonde hair. Even the umbrella and one small valise which she had just laid on the seat opposite her, had Paris written plain upon them.

These were impressions which the little grey-garbed conventional figure, some seats removed, had been noting since the striking lady had entered the car. Points likely to have escaped a man, who—unless a minutely observant one,—would only have seen that she was handsome and worthy of an admiration that he might easily fancy rising to devotion.

Beside herself and the little grey-garbed figure was an interesting family group at the far end of the car. A husband, but doubly a father, surrounded and sat upon by a small band of offspring. A wife—presumably a mother—absorbed with the view of the outside world and the elaborate gold chain that hung around her neck.

The presence of a large valise, an overcoat, a cane and an umbrella disposed on another seat, bespoke a further occupant, likely to be at present in the smoking car.

The train pushed out from the depot. The porter finally made tardy haste to the assistance of the lady who had been attempting to open the window, and when the fresh morning air came blowing in upon her Therese leaned back in her seat with a sigh of content.

There was a full day's journey before her. She would not reach Place-du-Bois before dark, but she did not shrink from those hours that were to be passed alone. She rather welcomed the quiet of them after a visit to New Orleans full of pleasant disturbances. She was eager to be home again. She loved Place-du-Bois with a love that was real; that had grown deep since it was the one place in the world which she could connect with the presence of David Hosmer. She had often wondered—indeed was wondering now—if the memory of those happenings to which he belonged would ever grow strange and far away to her. It was a trick of memory with which she indulged herself on occasion, this one of retrospection. Beginning with that June day when she had sat in the hall and watched the course of a white sunshade over the tops of the bending corn.

Such idle thoughts they were with their mingling of bitter and sweet—leading nowhere. But she clung to them and held to them as if to a refuge which she might again and again return to.

The picture of that one terrible day of Fanny's death, stood out in sharp prominent lines; a touch of the old agony always coming back as she remembered how she had believed Hosmer dead too—lying so pale and bleeding before her. Then the parting which had held not so much of sorrow as of awe and bewilderment in it: when sick, wounded and broken he had gone away at once with the dead body of his wife; when the two had clasped hands without words that dared be uttered.

But that was a year ago. And Therese thought many things might come about in a year. Anyhow, might not such length of time be hoped to rub the edge off a pain that was not by its nature lasting?

That time of acute trouble seemed to have thrown Hosmer back upon his old diffidence. The letter he wrote her after a painful illness which prostrated him on his arrival in St. Louis, was stiff and formal, as men's letters are apt to be, though it had breathed an untold story of loyalty which she had felt at the time, and still cherished. Other letters—a few—had gone back and forth between them, till Hosmer had gone away to the sea-shore with Melicent, to recuperate, and June coming, Therese had sailed from New Orleans for Paris, whither she had passed six months.

Things had not gone well at Place-du-Bois during her absence, the impecunious old kinsman whom she had left in charge, having a decided preference for hunting the Gros-Bec and catching trout in the lake to supervising the methods of a troublesome body of blacks. So Therese had had much to engage her thoughts from the morbid channel into which those of a more idle woman might have drifted.

She went occasionally enough to the mill. There at least she was always sure to hear Hosmer's name—and what a charm the sound of it had for her. And what a delight it was to her eyes when she caught sight of an envelope lying somewhere on desk or table of the office, addressed in his handwriting. That was a weakness which she could not pardon herself; but which staid with her, seeing that the same trifling cause never failed to awaken the same unmeasured delight. She had even trumped up an excuse one day for carrying off one of Hosmer's business letters—indeed of the dryest in substance, and which, when half-way home, she had torn into the smallest bits and scattered to the winds, so overcome was she by a sense of her own absurdity.

Therese had undergone the ordeal of having her ticket scrutinized, commented upon and properly punched by the suave conductor. The little conventional figure had given over the contemplation of Parisian styles and betaken herself to the absorbing pages of a novel which she read through smoked glasses. The husband and father had peeled and distributed his second outlay of bananas amongst his family. It was at this moment that Therese, looking towards the door, saw Hosmer enter the car.

She must have felt his presence somewhere near; his being there and coming towards her was so much a part of her thoughts. She held out her hand to him and made place beside her, as if he had left her but a half hour before. All the astonishment was his. But he pressed her hand and took the seat she offered him.

"You knew I was on the train?" he asked.

"Oh, no, how should I?"

Then naturally followed question and answer.

Yes, he was going to Place-du-Bois.

No, the mill did not require his presence; it had been very well managed during his absence.

Yes, she had been to New Orleans. Had had a very agreeable visit. Beautiful weather for city dwellers. But such dryness. So disastrous to the planters.

Yes—quite likely there would be rain next month: there usually was in April. But indeed there was need of more than April showers for that stiff land—that strip along the bayou, if he remembered? Oh, he remembered quite well, but for all that he did not know what she was talking about. She did not know herself. Then they grew silent; not from any feeling of the absurdity of such speech between them, for each had but listened to the other's voice. They became silently absorbed by the consciousness of each other's nearness. She was looking at his hand that rested on his knee, and thinking it fuller than she remembered it before. She was aware of some change in him which she had not the opportunity to define; but this firmness and fullness of the hand was part of it. She looked up into his face then, to find the same change there, together with a new content. But what she noted beside was the dull scar on his forehead, coming out like a red letter when his eyes looked into her own. The sight of it was like a hurt. She had forgotten it might be there, telling its story of pain through the rest of his life.

"Therese," Hosmer said finally, "won't you look at me?"

She was looking from the window. She did not turn her head, but her hand went out and met his that was on the seat close beside her. He held it firmly; but soon with an impatient movement drew down the loose wristlet of her glove and clasped his fingers around her warm wrist.

"Therese," he said again; but more unsteadily, "look at me."

"Not here," she answered him, "not now, I mean." And presently she drew her hand away from him and held it for a moment pressed firmly over her eyes. Then she looked at him with brave loving glance.

"It's been so long," she said, with the suspicion of a sigh.

"Too long," he returned, "I couldn't have borne it but for you—the thought of you always present with me; helping me to take myself out of the past. That was why I waited—till I could come to you free. Have you an idea, I wonder, how you have been a promise, and can be the fulfillment of every good that life may give to a man?"

"No, I don't know," she said a little hopelessly, taking his hand again, "I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure before. It commenced, you remember—oh, you know when it must have begun. But do you think, David, that it's right we should find our happiness out of that past of pain and sin and trouble?"

"Therese," said Hosmer firmly, "the truth in its entirety isn't given to man to know—such knowledge, no doubt, would be beyond human endurance. But we make a step towards it, when we learn that there is rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and morality—when we learn to know the living spirit from the dead letter. I have not cared to stop in this struggle of life to question. You, perhaps, wouldn't dare to alone. Together, dear one, we will work it out. Be sure there is a way—we may not find it in the end, but we will at least have tried."



XVII

Conclusion.

One month after their meeting on the train, Hosmer and Therese had gone together to Centerville where they had been made one, as the saying goes, by the good Pere Antoine; and without more ado, had driven back to Place-du-Bois: Mr. and Mrs. Hosmer. The event had caused more than the proverbial nine days' talk. Indeed, now, two months after, it was still the absorbing theme that occupied the dwellers of the parish: and such it promised to remain till supplanted by something of sufficient dignity and importance to usurp its place.

But of the opinions, favorable and other, that were being exchanged regarding them and their marriage, Hosmer and Therese heard little and would have cared less, so absorbed were they in the overmastering happiness that was holding them in thralldom. They could not yet bring themselves to look at it calmly—this happiness. Even the intoxication of it seemed a thing that promised to hold. Through love they had sought each other, and now the fulfillment of that love had brought more than tenfold its promise to both. It was a royal love; a generous love and a rich one in its revelation. It was a magician that had touched life for them and changed it into a glory. In giving them to each other, it was moving them to the fullness of their own capabilities. Much to do in two little months; but what cannot love do?

"Could it give a woman more than this?" Therese was saying softly to herself. Her hands were clasped as in prayer and pressed together against her bosom. Her head bowed and her lips touching the intertwined fingers. She spoke of her own emotion; of a certain sweet turmoil that was stirring within her, as she stood out in the soft June twilight waiting for her husband to come. Waiting to hear the new ring in his voice that was like a song of joy. Waiting to see that new strength and courage in his face, of whose significance she lost nothing. To see the new light that had come in his eyes with happiness. All gifts which love had given her.

"Well, at last," she said, going to the top of the steps to meet him when he came. Her welcome was in her eyes.

"At last," he echoed, with a sigh of relief; pressing her hand which she held out to him and raising it to his lips.

He did not let it go, but passed it through his arm, and together they turned to walk up and down the veranda.

"You didn't expect me at noon, did you?" he asked, looking down at her.

"No; you said you'd be likely not to come; but I hoped for you all the same. I thought you'd manage it some way."

"No," he answered her, laughing, "my efforts failed. I used even strategy. Held out the temptation of your delightful Creole dishes and all that. Nothing was of any avail. They were all business and I had to be all business too, the whole day long. It was horribly stupid."

She pressed his arm significantly.

"And do you think they will put all that money into the mill, David? Into the business?"

"No doubt of it, dear. But they're shrewd fellows: didn't commit themselves in any way. Yet I could see they were impressed. We rode for hours through the woods this morning and they didn't leave a stick of timber unscrutinized. We were out on the lake, too, and they were like ferrets into every cranny of the mill."

"But won't that give you more to do?"

"No, it will give me less: division of labor, don't you see? It will give me more time to be with you."

"And to help with the plantation," his wife suggested.

"No, no, Madame Therese," he laughed, "I'll not rob you of your occupation. I'll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling."

"Oh, that's absurd, David. Do you know you're getting to talk such nonsense since we're married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent."

"Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her," he said, feeling in his breast pocket. "The size and substance of it have actually weighted my pocket the whole day."

"Melicent talking weighty things? That's something new," said Therese interested.

"Is Melicent ever anything else than new?" he enquired.

They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda, where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister's letter—with Therese still holding his arm and sitting very close to him.

"Well," he said, glancing over the first few pages—his wife following—"she's given up her charming little flat and her quaint little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc., etc. But here comes the gist of the matter," he said, reading from the letter—" 'I know you won't object to the trip, David, I have my heart so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts.

" 'If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I'd feel confident of your consent. You'd be perfectly fascinated with her. She's one of those highly gifted women who knows everything. She's very much interested in me. Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism (she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society. She says it's impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as it is—which should be every one's aim—without studying certain fundamental truths and things.' "

"Oh," breathed Therese, overawed.

"But wait—but listen," said Hosmer, " 'Natural History and all that—and we're going to take that magnificent trip through the West—the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is especially interesting and we're to carry those delicious little tin boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn't handsome; rather the contrary; but so serene and collected—so intensely bitter—his mother tells me he's a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels all her mother's specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there's so much to be learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear glasses during the trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves—that they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I'm trying a pair, and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they don't hold on very well, especially when I laugh.

" 'Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort's the other day, but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Therese. She said: "I tell you what, my dear—" called me my dear at the highest pitch, and that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to examine a lace handkerchief. "That Mrs. Lafirme's a trump," she said—"too good for most any man. Hope you won't take offense, but I must say, your brother David's a perfect stick—it's what I always said." Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?'

"Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor," said Hosmer amused and folding the letter. "That's about all there is, except a piece of scandal concerning people you don't know; that wouldn't interest you."

"But it would interest me," Therese insisted, with a little wifely resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that excluded her.

"Then you shall hear it," he said, turning to the letter again. "Let's see—'conceive—shocking impertinence—' oh, here it is.

" 'Don't know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou Dawson was a perfidious creature—and Bert Rodney! You never did like him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his manners—you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he wasn't; for he was right there following them around in their perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But poor, poor Mrs. Rodney!

" 'Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Therese as many kisses as she will stand for me.

Melicent.' "

This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Therese asked with a little puzzled air: "What do you suppose is going to become of Melicent, anyway, David?"

"I don't know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer."

"Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there's a streak of perversity in you after all."

"Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that 'suppa's gittin' cole.' "

"Aunt B'lindy 'low suppa on de table gittin' cole," said Mandy, retreating at once from the fire of their merriment.

Therese arose and held her two hands out to her husband.

He took them but did not rise; only leaned further back on the scat and looked up at her.

"Oh, supper's a bore; don't you think so?" he asked.

"No, I don't," she replied. "I'm hungry, and so are you. Come, David."

"But look, Therese, just when the moon has climbed over the top of that live-oak? We can't go now. And then Melicent's request; we must think about that."

"Oh, surely not, David," she said, drawing back.

"Then let me tell you something," and he drew her head down and whispered something in her pink ear that he just brushed with his lips. It made Therese laugh and turn very rosy in the moonlight.

Can that be Hosmer? Is this Therese? Fie, fie. It is time we were leaving them.

THE END