"I don't want to be cured," protested James, "and I have told you it is a love like worship, it is not—"

Mrs. Ewing interrupted him. "The worship of a young man is not to be trusted," she said. "I cannot have you made to suffer. I will tell you, but, remember, if you betray me you will do awful harm. Neither the doctor nor Clemency even must know that I tell you. The doctor knows, of course, the secret; Clemency does not know, and must never know. It would be the undoing of all of us, the terrible undoing, if this were to get out, but I will tell you. You are a good boy, and you shall be spared needless pain. Listen." She leaned forward and whispered close to his ear. James started back, and stared at her as white as death. Mrs. Ewing smiled. "It hurts a little, I know," she said, "but better this now than worse later. You are foolish to feel so about me; you were at a disadvantage in coming here. It is only right that you should know. Now never speak to me again about this. Think of me as your friend, and your friend who is in very great suffering and pain, and have sympathy for me, if you can, but not so much sympathy that you too will suffer. I want sympathy, but not agony like poor Tom's. That makes it harder for me."

"Does she know?" asked James, half-gasping.

"You mean does Clemency know I am ill?"

"Yes."

"She knows I am ill. She does not know how terrible it is. You must help me to keep it from her. I almost never give way when she is present. I knew she was taking a nap this afternoon, and the pain was so awful. It is better now. I think I will go to my room and lie down for a while." Mrs. Ewing rose, and extended her hand to James. "I have forgotten already what you told me," she said.

"I can never forget!"

"You must, or you must go away from here."

"I can never forget, but it shall be a thing of the past," said James.

"That is right," Mrs. Ewing said with a maternal air. "It will only take a little effort. You will see."

She went out of the room with a flounce of red draperies, and left James. He sat down beside a window and stared out blankly. The thought came to him, how many avowals of love and deathless devotion such a woman must have listened to. Her manner of receiving his made him think that there had been many. "It is quite proper," he thought to himself. "A woman like that is born to be worshiped." Then he thought of what she had told him, and a sort of rage filled his heart. He recognized the fact that she had been right in her estimation of the worship of a young man. He is always trying to turn his idol into clay.

The door opened and Clemency entered, but he did not notice it. She came and sat down in front of him, and looked angrily at him, then for the first time he saw her. He rose. "I beg your pardon, I did not hear you come in," he said.

"Sit down again," said Clemency pettishly. "Don't be silly. I am used to having young men not see anybody but my mother when she comes into a room, and it is quite right, too. I don't think there ever was a woman so beautiful as she, do you?"

"No, I don't," replied James.

Clemency eyed him keenly. Then she blushed at the surmise which came to her, and James also blushed at the knowledge of the surmise. "You can't be much older than I am. I am twenty-three," said Clemency after a while. Then the red suffused her very throat.

"I am twenty-three, too," said James. Then he added bluntly, for he began to be angry, "A man can think a woman the most beautiful he ever saw without—"

"Oh, I didn't think you were such a fool," said Clemency; then she added, in a meek and shamed voice, "I should have been awfully disgusted with you if you had not thought my mother the most beautiful woman you ever saw, and I am used to men not seeing me. I don't want them to. I think I feel something as Annie Lipton does about men. She says she feels as if she wanted to kill every man who looks at her as if he loved her. I think I should, too."

"Miss Lipton has a great many admirers," remarked James by way of changing the subject.

"Oh, yes, every young man for miles around, ever since she was grown up. She doesn't like any of them." Clemency looked at James with sudden concern. "I am going to tell you something," she said, "even if it is rather betraying confidence. I think I ought to. Annie told me she had taken a great dislike to you, from the very first moment she saw you, so it would be no use—"

"I am sorry," replied James stiffly, "but as I had no particular feeling for her, except admiration of her beauty, it makes no especial difference."

"I thought, of course, you would fall in love with her," said Clemency. Then she added, with most inexplicable inverted jealousy, "You must have very poor taste, or you would. You are the first one."

"Some one has to be first," James said, laughing.

"I don't know but I was horrid to tell you what I did," said Clemency, looking at him doubtfully.

"I don't thing it as horrid for a girl to assume that every man is in love with her friend as it would be if she assumed something else," said James. He knew that his speech was ungallant; but it seemed to him that this girl fairly challenged him to rudeness. But she looked at him innocently.

"Oh, no, I never should think that," said she. "Being with two women so very beautiful as my mother and Annie so much makes me quite sure that nobody is thinking of me. It is only sometimes that I feel a little like a piece of furniture, only chairs can't walk into rooms." She ended with a girlish laugh. Then her face suddenly sobered. "Doctor Elliot, I want you to tell me something," said she. "Uncle Tom wouldn't if I asked him, and I don't dare ask him anyway. Do you think mother is very well?"

James hesitated. "You ought to tell me," Clemency said imperatively.

"I have thought sometimes that she did not look quite well," said James.

"What do you think the matter is?"

"It may be indigestion."

"Do you think it is?"

"I don't know. Doctor Gordon has told me nothing, and Mrs. Ewing has told me nothing."

"I thought doctors could tell from a person's looks."

"Not always."

"Doctors aren't much good anyhow," said Clemency. "I don't care if you are one, and Uncle Tom is one. I notice people die just the same. So you think it is indigestion? Well, it may be. Mother doesn't have much appetite."

"Yes, I have noticed that," said James.

"Then there is something else I want to ask you," said Clemency. "I have a right to know if you know. What does Uncle Tom make me stay in the house so for?"

"I don't know," replied James, looking honestly at her.

"Don't you, honest? Hasn't he told you?"

"No."

"Of course, I know the first of it came from my meeting that man the day you came here, but it does seem such utter nonsense that I have to stay housed this way. I never met a man that frightened me before, and it is not likely that I shall again. It does not stand to reason that that man is hanging around here waiting to intercept me again. It is nonsense, but Uncle Tom won't let me stir out. He has even ordered me to keep away from the windows, and be sure that the curtains are drawn at night. I don't know what the matter is. I can't say a word about it to mother, she is so nervous. I have to pretend that I like to stay in the house, and some days I really think I am going mad for fresh air. Uncle Tom won't even let me go driving with him. So you don't know anything about it?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Well, I can't stand it much longer," said Clemency with an obstinate look. "As for the pain in my side, that's an awful lie; I haven't the ghost of a pain. I can't stand it much longer. Here's Uncle Tom. You are not going to tell him I said anything about it?"

"Of course, I am not," answered James. He began to feel that he was entangled in a web of secrecy, and his feeling of irritation increased. He would have gotten out of it and spent Christmas at his own home, but Doctor Gordon had an unusual number of patients suffering from grippe, and pneumonia was almost epidemic, and he felt that he should not leave. It was the second week of the new year when James, returning from a call at a near-by patient, whither he had walked, found Mrs. Ewing in the greatest distress. It was ten o'clock at night, and she was pacing the living-room. Immediately when he entered she ran to him. "Oh," she gasped, "Clemency, Clemency!"

"Why, what is it?" asked James. Clemency had not been at the dinner-table, but he had supposed her sulking, as she had been doing of late, and that she had taken advantage of Doctor Gordon's absence at a distant patient's to remain away from the table.

"She begged so hard to go out, and said the pain was quite well," gasped Mrs. Ewing, "that I said she might go and see Annie, and here it is ten o'clock at night, and Tom has gone to Grover's Corner, and may not be home until morning, and Aaron is with him, and I had no one to send. I thought I would not say anything to you. I thought every minute she would come in, and Emma has walked half a mile looking for her, and I am horribly worried."

"I will go directly and look for her," said James. "I will put the bay in the light buggy, and drive to Westover. Don't worry. I'll bring her back in half an hour."

"The bay is so lame she can't travel, I heard Tom say this morning," said Mrs. Ewing.

"Then I'll take the gray."

"She balks, you know."

James laughed. "Oh, I'll risk the balking," he said.

He hurried out to the stable and put the gray in the buggy. It was a very short time before James was on the road, and the gray went as well as could be desired, but just before she reached Westover she stopped short, and James might as well have tried to move a mountain as that animal with her legs planted at four angles of relentless obstinacy.



CHAPTER V

James had considerable experience with, horses. He knew at once that it was probably a hopeless undertaking to change the mare's mind, or rather her obstinacy. However, he tried the usual methods, touching with the whip, getting out and attempting to lead, but they were all, as he had supposed from the first, in vain. A terrible sense of being up against fate itself seized him: an animal's will unreasoning, unrelenting, bears, in fact, the aspect of fate itself. It is at once sensate and insensate. James thought of Clemency, and decided to waste no more time.

The gray mare was near enough to a tree to tie her, and he tied her and set out on foot. It was a very dark night, cloudy and chilly and threatening snow. He walked on, as it were, through softly enveloping shadows, which seemed to his excited fancy to be coming forward to meet him. He began to be very much alarmed. He had wasted most of his young sentiment upon Clemency's mother, but, after all, he suddenly discovered that he had a feeling for the girl herself. He thought that it was only the natural anxiety of any man of honor for the safety of a helpless young girl out alone at night, and beset by possible dangers, but he realized himself in a panic. His plan was of course to go directly to Annie Lipton's home, some two miles farther on, then it occurred to him that Clemency must inevitably have left there. If she were lying dead or injured on the road, how in the world was he to see? He felt in his pocket for matches, and found just one. He lit that and peered around. While it burned he saw nothing except the frozen road with its desolate borders of woods and brush, a fit scene for countless tragedies. When the match burned out he thought of something else. Supposing that Clemency were lying half-dead anywhere near the road, how was she to know that a friend was near? Immediately he began to whistle. Whistling was a trick of his, and he had a remarkably sweet, clear pipe. He knew that Clemency, if she were to hear his whistle, would know who was near. He whistled "Way down upon the Suwanee River" through, then he began on the "Flower Song" from Faust, walking all the time quite rapidly but with alert ears. He was half through the "Flower Song" when he stopped short. He thought he heard something. He listened, and did hear quite distinctly an exceedingly soft little voice, which might have been the voice of shadows—"Is that you?"

"Clemency," he cried out, and rushed toward the wood, and directly the girl was clinging to him. She was panting with sobs, but she kept her voice down to a whisper. "Speak low, speak low," she said in his ear. "I don't know where he is. Oh, speak low." She clung to him with almost a spasmodic grip of her slender arms. "If you had been ten minutes longer I think I should have died," she whispered. "Don't make a sound. I don't know where he is."

"Was it—" began James. He felt himself trembling at the thought of what the girl might be going to reveal to him.

"Yes, that same dreadful man. Uncle Tom was right. I stayed too long at Annie's. It was almost dark when I left there. She persuaded me to stay to dinner. They had turkey. I was about half a mile below here when he, the man, came out of the woods, just as he did before. I heard him, and I knew. I did not look around. I ran, and I heard his footsteps behind me. The darkness seemed to shut down all at once. I knew he could catch me, and remembered what I had heard about wild animals when they were hunted. I had gone a little past here, running just as softly as I could, when I turned right into the woods, and ran back. Then I lay right down in the underbrush and kept still. I heard him run past. Then I heard him come back. He came into the woods. I expected every minute he would step on me, but I kept still. Finally I heard him go away, but I have not dared to stir since! I made up my mind I would keep still until I heard a team pass. It did seem to me one must pass, and one would have at any other time, but it has been hours I have been lying there. Then I heard your whistle. I was almost afraid to speak then. Don't speak above a whisper now. Did you come on foot?"

"I had the gray mare, and she balked about half a mile from here. You are sure you are not hurt?"

"No, only I am trying hard not to faint. Let us walk on very fast, but step softly, and don't talk."

James put his arm around the girl and half carried her. She continued to draw short, panting breaths, which she tried to subdue. They reached the place where the gray mare loomed faintly out of the gloom with the dark mass of the buggy behind her.

"Let us get in," whispered Clemency. "Quick!"

"I am afraid she won't budge."

"Yes, she will for me. She has a tender mouth, that is why she balks. You must have pulled too hard on the lines. Sometimes I have made her go when even Uncle Tom couldn't."

Clemency ran around to the gray's head and patted her, and James untied her. Then the girl got into the buggy and took the reins, and James followed. He was almost jostled out, the mare started with such impetus. They made the distance home almost on a run.

"Oh, I am so glad," panted Clemency. "You see I can seem to feel her mouth when I hold the lines, and she knows. Was poor mother worried?"

"A little."

"I know she was almost crazy."

"She will be all right when she sees you safe," said James.

"Is Uncle Tom home yet? No, of course I know he isn't, or he would have come instead of you. Oh, dear, I know he will scold me. I shall have to tell him, but I mustn't tell mother about the man. What shall I tell her? It is dreadful to have to lie, but sometimes one would rather run the risk of fire and brimstone for one's self than have anybody else hurt. If I tell mother she will have one of her dreadful nervous attacks. I can't tell her. What shall I tell her, Doctor Elliot?"

"I think the simplest thing will be to say that Miss Lipton persuaded you to stay to supper, and so you were late, and I overtook you," said James.

"Mother will never believe that I stayed so long as that," said Clemency. "I shall have to lie more than that. I don't know exactly what to say. I could have Charlie Horton come in to play whist, and be taking me home in his buggy. He always drives, and you could meet me on the road."

"Yes, you could do that."

"It is a very complicated lie," said Clemency, "but I don't know that a complicated lie is any worse than a simple one. I think I shall have to lie the complicated one. You need not say anything, you know. You can take the mare to the stable, and I will run in and get the lie all told before you come. You won't lie, will you?"

James could not help laughing. "No, I don't see any need of it," he replied.

"It is rather awful for you to have to live with people who have to lie so," remarked Clemency, "but I don't see how it can be helped. If you had seen my mother in one of her nervous attacks once, you would never want to see her again. There is only one thing, I do feel very weak still, and I am afraid I shall look pale. Hold the lines a minute. Don't pull on them at all. Let them lie on your knees."

"What are you doing?" asked James when he had complied.

"Doing? I am pinching my cheeks almost black and blue, so mother won't notice. I don't talk scared now, do I?"

"Not very."

"Well, I think I can manage that. I think I can manage my voice. I am all over being faint. Oh, I will tell you what I will do. You haven't got your medicine-case with you, have you?"

"No, I started so hurriedly."

"Well, I will go in the office way. I know where Uncle Tom keeps brandy, and I will be so chilled that I'll have to take a little before mother sees me. That will make me all right. I wouldn't take it for myself, but I will for her."

"And you are chilled, all right," said James.

"Yes, I think I am," said Clemency. "I did not think of it, but I guess it was cold there in the woods keeping still so long." Indeed, the girl was shaking from head to foot, both with cold and nervous terror. "It was awful," she said in a little whisper.

James felt the girl shaking from head to foot. Suddenly a great tenderness for the poor, little hunted thing came over him. He put his arm around her. "Poor little soul," he said. "It must have been terrible for you lying out there in the cold and dark and not knowing—"

Clemency shrank into his embrace as a hurt child might have done. "It was perfectly terrible," she said, with a little sob. "I didn't know but he might come back any minute and find me."

"It is all over now," James said soothingly.

"Yes, for the time," Clemency replied with a little note of despair in her voice, "but there is something about it all that I don't understand. Only think how long I have had to stay in the house, and he must have been on the watch. I don't know when it is ever going to end."

"I think that I will end it to-morrow," said James with fierce resolution.

"You? How?"

"I am going to put a stop to this. If an innocent girl can't step out of the house for weeks at a time without being hounded this way, it is high time something was done. I am going to get a posse of men and scour the country for the scoundrel."

"Oh, will you do that?"

"Yes, I will. It is high time somebody did something."

"You saw him. You know just how he looks?"

"I could tell him from a thousand."

Clemency drew a long breath. "Well," she said doubtfully, "if you can, but—"

"But what?"

"Nothing, only somehow I doubt if Uncle Tom will think it advisable. There must be some mystery about all this or Uncle Tom himself would have done that very thing at first. I don't understand it. But I don't believe Uncle Tom will consent to your hunting for the man. I think for some reason he wants it kept secret." Suddenly, Clemency gave a passionate little outcry. "Oh, how I do hate secrets!" she said. "How I have always hated them! I want everything right out, and here I seem to be in a perfect snarl of secrets! I wonder how long I shall have to stay in the house."

"Perhaps you are wrong, and your uncle will take measures now this has happened for the second time," said James.

"No, he won't," replied the girl hopelessly. "I am almost sure that he will not."

Clemency was right. After she had made her entry and told her little lie successfully, and explained that she had taken some brandy because she was chilled, and Mrs. Ewing had gently scolded her for staying so late, and kissed and embraced her, and gotten back her own composure, Doctor Gordon arrived, and James, who had waited for him in the study, told him the story in whispers. "Now I think you had better let me get a posse of men and scour the country to-morrow," he concluded. "It seems to me that this thing has gone far enough."

Doctor Gordon sat huddled up before him in an arm-chair. He had not even taken off his overcoat, which was white with snow. The storm had begun. "It will be easy to track him on account of the snow," added James.

"Tracking is not necessary," replied Gordon, with his haggard face fixed upon James. "I know exactly where the man is, and have known from the first."

"Then—" began James.

"You don't know what you are talking about," Gordon said gloomily. "I would have that fiend arrested to-morrow. I would have him hung from the nearest tree if I had my way, but I can do absolutely nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No, I can do nothing, except what I have been doing, so far in vain, it seems, to try to tire him out. I traded too much on his impatience, it seemed. I did not think he would have held out so long."

"You mean you will have to keep that poor little thing shut up the way you have been doing?"

"I see no other way. God knows I have tried to think of another, day and night."

"I don't see why you or I could not take her out sometimes when we visit patients anyway," said James in a bewildered fashion.

"You don't understand," replied Doctor Gordon irritably. "The main point is: the girl must not be even seen by that man. That is the trouble. Driving, she might be perfectly safe; in fact, in one way she is safe anyhow. She is not in any danger of bodily harm, as you may think, but I don't want her seen."

"Why not let me take her out sometimes of an evening then?" said James, more and more mystified. "If she wore a veil, and went out driving in the evening, I can't see how anybody could get a glimpse of her."

"You don't understand that we have to deal with a very devil incarnate," said Doctor Gordon wearily. "He will be on the watch for just that very manoeuvre. However, perhaps we may be able to manage that; I will see."

"She will be ill if she remains in the house so closely," said James, "especially a girl like her, who has been accustomed to lead such an outdoor life. In fact, I don't think she does look very well now. It is telling on her."

"Yes, I think it is," agreed Doctor Gordon gloomily, "but again, I say, I see no other way out of it. However, perhaps you or I can take her out sometimes of an evening. I suppose it had better be you, on some accounts. I will see. Well, I will take off my coat and get something to eat. I suppose Clara and Clemency have gone to bed."

"They went hours ago," replied James. It was, in fact, two in the morning. James followed the doctor, haggard and weary, into the kitchen, where, according to custom at such times, some dinner had been left to keep warm on the range. "I'll sit down here," said Doctor Gordon. "It is warmer than in the dining-room, and I am chilled through. If you don't mind, Elliot, I wish you would get me a bottle of apple-jack from the dining-room. I must have something to hearten me up, or I shall go by the board, and I don't know what will become of her—of them."

James sat and waited while the doctor ate and drank. When he had finished he looked a little less haggard. He stretched himself before the warm glow from the range and laughed. "Now I feel my fighting blood is up again," he said. "After all, if there is anything in the Good Book, the wicked shall not always triumph, and I may win out. I shall do my best anyhow. But I confess you took the wind out of me with what you told me when I came in. I am glad Clara does not know. Poor little Clemency having to pave her way with lies, but it would kill Clara. Oh, God, it does seem as if I had enough before. Take my advice, young man, and try to think more of yourself than anybody else in the world. Don't let your heart go out to anybody. Just as sure as you do, the door of the worst torture-chamber in creation swings open. The minute you become vulnerable through love, you haven't a strong place in your whole armor."

"What a doctrine!" observed James.

"I know it, but I have taken a fancy to you, boy; and hang it if I want you to suffer as I have to."

"But a man would not be a man at all if he did not think enough of somebody to suffer," said James, and now he was thinking of poor little Clemency, and how she had nestled up to him for protection.

"Maybe," said Doctor Gordon gloomily, "but sometimes I wonder whether it pays in the long run to be what you call a man. Sometimes I wish that I were a rock or a tree. I do to-night."

"You will feel better after you have had a little sleep," James said, as the two men rose.

Suddenly one of Doctor Gordon's inexplicable changes of mood came over him. He laughed. "If it were not so late we would go down to Georgie K.'s," said he. "I never felt more awake. Well, I guess it's too late. You must be dead tired yourself. I have not thanked you at all for your rescue of the girl. She would have been down with a serious illness if you had not gone, for she would have lain in that place being snowed over until somebody came."

"She was mighty clever to do what she did," said James.

"Yes, she is clever," returned Doctor Gordon. "She is a good girl, and it stings me to the very heart that she has to suffer such persecution. Well, 'all's well that ends well.' Did it ever occur to you that God made up to mankind for the horrors of creation, by stating that there would be an end to it some day? Good God, if this terrible world had to roll on to all eternity!" Doctor Gordon laughed again his unnatural laugh. "Fancy if you were awakened to-night by the last trump," he said. "How small everything would seem. Hang it, though, if I wouldn't try to have a hand at that man's finish before the angel of the Lord got his flaming sword at work."

James looked at him with terror.

"Don't mind me, boy," said Gordon. "I don't mean to blaspheme; but Job is not in it with me just now. You cannot imagine what I had to contend with before this melodramatic villain appeared on the stage. Sometimes I think this is the finish," Gordon's mouth contracted. He looked savage. James continued to stare at him. Gordon laid his hand on James's shoulder. "Thank the Lord for one thing," he said almost tenderly, "that he sent you here. Between us we will take care of poor little Clemency anyhow. Now go to bed, and go to sleep."

James obeyed as to the one, but he could not as to the other. He became, as the hours wore on, so nervous that he was half-inclined to take a sleeping powder. The room seemed full of flashes of lightning. He heard sounds which made him cold with horror. He was highly strung nervously, and was really in a state bordering upon hysteria. The mystery which surrounded him was the main cause. He was never himself before an unknown quantity. He had too much imagination. He made all sorts of surmises as to the stranger who was haunting Clemency. Starting with two known quantities, he might have accomplished something, but here he had only one: Clemency herself. He had a good head for algebra, but a man cannot work out a problem easily with only one known quantity. He began to wonder if the poor girl herself were sleeping. He realized a sort of protective tenderness for her, and indignation on her behalf. It did not occur to him as being love. Still the image of her wonderful mother dominated him. But his mind dwelt upon the girl. He thought of a piazza whose roof opened as he knew upon Clemency's room. He wondered if a man like that would stick at anything. Then he recalled what Doctor Gordon had said about Clemency's not being in any bodily danger, and again he speculated. The room began to grow pale with the late winter dawn. Familiar objects began to gain clearness of outline. There were two windows in James's room. They gave upon the piazza. Suddenly James made a leap from his bed. He sprang to one of the windows. Flattened against it was the face of the man. But the face was so destitute of consciousness of him, that James doubted if he saw rightly. The wide eyes seemed to gaze upon him without seeing him, the mouth smiled as if at something within. The next moment James was sure that the face was not there. He drew on his trousers, thrust his feet into his shoes, and was out of his room and the house, and on the piazza. It was still snowing, but the dawn was overcoming the storm. The whole world was lit with dead white pallor like the face of a corpse. James rushed the length of the piazza. He looked at the walk leading to it. He thought he could distinguish footprints. He looked on the piazza, but the wind, being on the other side of the house, there was not enough snow there to make footprints visible. The snow on the walk was drifted. He looked at it closely, and made sure of deep marks. He stood for a moment undecided what to do. He disliked to arouse Doctor Gordon. He was afraid of awakening Mrs. Ewing, if he ventured into the upper part of the house. Then he thought of the man Aaron who slept in a room over the stable. He reentered the house, locked the front door, went softly into the doctor's study, and out of the door which was near the stable. Then he made a hard snowball, and threw it at Aaron's window. The window opened directly, and Aaron's head appeared. James could see, even in the dim light, and presumably just awakened from sleep, the rotary motion of his jaws. He was probably not chewing anything, simply moving his mouth from force of habit. "Hullo!" said Aaron, "that you Doctor Gordon?"

"No, it is I," replied James. "Put on something as quick as you can, and come down here. Something is wrong."

Aaron's head disappeared. In an incredibly short space of time the stable door was unlocked and slid cautiously back, and Aaron stood there, huddled into his clothes. "What's up?" he asked.

"I don't know. Have you got a lantern in the stable?"

"Yep."

"Light it quick, then, and come along with me."

Aaron obeyed. "Anybody sick," he asked, coming alongside with the flashing lantern. He threw a cloth over it so as to prevent the rays shining into the house windows. "I don't want to frighten her," he said, and James knew that he meant Mrs. Ewing. "She's awful nervous," said Aaron. Then he said again, "What's up?"

"I saw a man's face looking into one of my windows," replied James.

Aaron gave a low whistle. "Somebody wanted the doc?" he inquired.

"No," replied James shortly, "it was not."

"Must have been."

"No, it was not."

"Must have been," repeated Aaron, chewing.

"I tell you it was not. I knew—" James stopped. He suddenly wondered how much he ought to tell the man, how much Doctor Gordon had told him.

Aaron chewed imperturbably, but a sly look came into his face. "I have eyes, and they see, and ears, and they hear," he said, after an odd Scriptural fashion, "but don't you tell me nothin', Doctor Elliot. Either I take what I get from the fountain-head, or I makes my own conclusions that I can't help. Don't you tell me nothin'. S'pose we look an' see ef there's footprints that show anythin'."

Aaron flashed the lantern, all the time carefully shading it from the house windows, over the walk which led to the front door and the piazza. James followed him. "Well," said Aaron, "there's been somebody here, but, with snow like this, it might have been a monkey or a rhinoceros or an alligator. You can't make nothin' of them tracks. But they do go out to the road, and turn toward Stanbridge."

"Suppose we—" began James. He was about to suggest following the prints, when he remembered Doctor Gordon's injunction to the contrary.

However, Aaron anticipated him. "Might as well leave the devil alone," said he. "It might have been the old one himself, for all we can tell by them tracks. You had better go back to bed, Doctor Elliot. You ain't got much on. It ain't near breakfast time yet. Better go back to bed."

And James thought such a course the wiser one himself. He went back to bed, but not to sleep. He kept his eyes fixed upon the windows. He was prepared at any instant, should the man reappear, to spring out. He felt almost murderous. "It has come to a pretty pass," he thought, "if that scoundrel, whoever he may be, is lurking around the house at night."

The daylight came slowly on account of the storm. When it did come, it was an opaque white daylight. James began to smell coffee and frying ham. He rose and dressed himself, and looked out of the window. It was like looking into a blurred mirror. He began to wonder if he could have been mistaken, if possibly that face had been simply a vision which had come from his overwrought brain. He wondered if he should tell Doctor Gordon, if it might not disturb him unnecessarily. He wondered if he should have enforced secrecy upon Aaron. He was still undecided when the Japanese gong sounded, and he went out to breakfast. Clemency was looking worn and ill. Somehow the sight of her piteous little face decided James. He thought how easily an athletic man could climb up one of those piazza posts, which was, moreover, encircled by a strong old vine which might almost serve as ladder. He made up his mind to tell Doctor Gordon, and he did tell him when they were out upon their rounds, tilting and sliding along the drifted country roads in an old sleigh. "I don't think I can be mistaken," he said when he had finished.

Doctor Gordon looked at him intently. "You are sure," he said. "You are a nervous subject for a man, and you had not slept, and you had this man very much on your mind, and there must have been some snow on the window which could produce an illusion. Be very sure, because this is serious."

James thought again of Clemency's little white face. "Yes," he said, "I am sure."

"You have no doubt at all?"

"None. The man had his face staring into the room. He did not seem to see me, but looked past me at the bed."

"He might easily have thought that room, being on the ground floor and accessible to night-calls, was mine," said Doctor Gordon, as if to himself.

"I thought how easily he could have climbed up one of the piazza posts to her room," said James.

The Doctor started. "Yes, that is so," he said. "He might have had two motives. That is so."

The next call was at a patient's who had a slight attack of grippe. Doctor Gordon left James there, saying that he would make another call and be back for him directly. James noticed how he urged the horses out of the drive at almost a run. He was back soon, and James having made up his prescription, went out and got into the sleigh. Doctor Gordon looked at him gloomily. "He is no longer where he has been staying," he said, and his face settled into a stern melancholy. That evening, although the storm continued, he suggested a visit to Georgie K.'s; and at supper time he insisted upon Clemency's occupying another room that night. "The wind is on your side of the house," he said, "and I am afraid you will take more cold." Clemency stared and pouted, then said, "All right, Uncle Tom!"



CHAPTER VI

Even the apple-jack and euchre at Georgie K.'s were not sufficient to entirely establish Doctor Gordon in his devil-may-care mood. Georgie K. kept looking at him with solicitation, which had something tender about it. "Don't you feel well, Doc?" he asked.

"Never felt better in my life," returned Gordon quickly. "To-night I am feeling particularly good, because I really think I have evolved an utterly new theory of death and disease which ought to make me famous, if I ever get a chance to write a book about it."

Georgie K. stared at him inquiringly.

"I don't know that you will understand, old man," said Gordon, "but here it is. It is simple in one way. Nobody will deny that we come of the earth; well, we are sick and die of the earth. We grow old and weary and drop into our graves, because of the tremendous, though unconscious and involuntary, wear upon nerves and muscles and emotion which is required to keep us here at all. Gravitation kills us all in the end, just as surely as if we fell off a precipice. Gravitation is the destroyer, and gravitation is earth-force. The same monster which produces us devours us. That's so. I hope I shall get a chance to write that book. Clubs are trumps; pass."

"Sure you are well, Doc?" inquired Georgie K., again scowling anxiously.

"Never felt better, didn't I just say so? You are a regular old hen, Georgie K. You cluck at a fellow like a setting hen at one chicken."

Still Doctor Gordon's gloomy face, although he tried to be jocular, did not relax. Going home late that night, or rather early next morning, he laid his hand heavily on James's shoulder.

"Boy, I am about at the finish!" he groaned out.

"Now, see here, Doctor Gordon, can't I be of some assistance if you were to tell me?" asked James. He passed his hand under the older man's arm, and helped him through a snowdrift as if he had been his father. A great compassion filled his heart.

But Gordon only groaned out a great sigh. "No," he said. "Secrecy is the one shield I have. I don't say weapon, but shield. In these latter days we try to content ourselves with shields; and secrecy is the strongest shield on earth. If I were going to commit a crime, I should never even intimate the slightest motive for it to any man living. I should trust no man living to help me through with it."

James felt a vague horror steal over him. He tried to speak lightly to cover it. "I trust there is no question of crime?" he said, laughing.

"Not the slightest," replied Gordon. "I have no intention to use a weapon, but my shield I must stick to. Thank the Lord, you were awake last night, and to-night Clemency is in another room. By the way, I have bought a dog."

"A dog?"

"Yes, a bull terrier, well trained, but he has a voice like a whole pack of hounds. Clemency likes dogs. I will venture that no one comes near the house after this without waking him up."

"You will keep him tied though."

"Yes, unless I get driven too far," replied Gordon grimly.

"Does Mrs. Ewing like dogs?"

"She is as fond of them as Clemency."

When, the next day, the dog arrived James was assured of the fact that both Clemency and Mrs. Ewing did like dogs. They seemed more pleased than he had ever seen them, and the dog responded readily to their advances. He was a splendid specimen of his breed, very large, without a spot on his white coat, and with beautiful eyes. Doctor Gordon had a staple fixed in the vestibule, and the dog was leashed to it at night. "I can't have my patients driven away," he said with a laugh.

That evening Doctor Gordon had a call, and he took Aaron with him. That left James alone with Clemency, as Mrs. Ewing retired almost immediately after Doctor Gordon left.

After the jingle of the sleigh-bells had died away Clemency laid down her work and looked at James. The new dog was lying at her feet. "Uncle Tom bought this dog on account of him," she said. As she spoke, she gave an odd significant gesture over her shoulder as if the man were there, and a look of horror came over her face. Immediately the dog growled, and sprang up, raced to the door, and let forth a volley of howls and barks. "He knows," said Clemency. "Isn't it queer? That dog knows there is something wrong just by the way I spoke and looked."

James himself was not quite so sure. He glanced at the closed shutters. Then he went himself to the door to be sure that it was bolted as usual, and through into the study. Everything was fast, but the dog continued to race wildly back and forth from door to windows, barking wildly, with a slender crest of hair erect on his glossy white back. Emma, the maid, came in from the kitchen, and met James and Clemency in the hall. She looked white, and was trembling. "I know there was somebody about the house," she said.

James hesitated. He thought of a possible patient. Still there had been no ring at the office door. He considered a moment. Then he sent Clemency, the maid, and the dog back into the parlor, and before he opened the outer door of the office he locked the other which communicated with the rest of the house, and put the key in his pocket. Then he threw open the outer door and called, "Anybody there?"

Utter silence answered him. He looked into a black wall of night. It was not snowing, but the clouds were low and thick, and no stars were visible. He called again in a shout, "Hullo there! Who is it?" and obtained no response. Then he closed the door, fastened it, and returned to the living-room. "I guess you were right," he said to Clemency.

"Yes, I think so," said Clemency. She spoke to Emma. "Jack acted so because of something I said to Doctor Elliot," she added. "He thought something was wrong. He is very intelligent." The dog was again lying at her feet.

But Emma shook her head obstinately. She was the middle-aged daughter of a New Jersey farmer, and had lived with the family ever since they had resided in Alton. She had a harsh face, although rather good-looking, "I have been used to dogs all my life," said she, "and I never knowed a dog to act like that unless there was somebody about the house."

"Well, I have done all I could," said James. "I called out the office door, and nobody answered. It could not have been a patient."

"There was somebody about the house," repeated Emma. "Well, I must go and mix up the bread."

When she was gone, Clemency looked palely at James. "Oh," she said, "do you think it could have been that man?"

"No," replied James firmly; "it must have been your gesture. That is a very intelligent dog, and dogs have imagination. He imagined something wrong."

"I hope it was that," said Clemency faintly. "It seems to me I should die if I thought that terrible man were hanging about the house. It is bad enough never to be able to go out of doors."

"Doctor Gordon says I may take you out driving some evening," said James consolingly.

Clemency looked at him with a brightening face. "Did he?"

"Yes."

Then to James's utter surprise Clemency broke down, and began to cry. "Oh," she wailed, "I don't know as I want to go. I am afraid all the time. If we were out driving, and he came up to the horse's head, what could we do?"

"He would get a cut across the face that he would remember," James returned fiercely.

"But he would see me."

"It would be dark."

"He might have a lantern."

"You can wear a thick veil."

Clemency sobbed harder than ever. "Oh, no," she wailed, "I don't want to go so, in the dark, with a thick veil over my face, thinking every minute he may come. Oh, no, I don't want to go."

"You poor little soul," said James, and there was something in his voice which he himself had never heard before. Clemency glanced up at him quickly, and he saw as plainly as if he had been looking in a glass himself in her blue eyes. Instantly emotions of which he had dreamed, but never experienced, leaped up in his heart like flame. He knew that he loved Clemency. What he had felt for her mother had been passionless worship, giving all, and asking nothing. This was love which asked as well as gave. "Clemency," he began, and his voice was hoarse with emotion. She turned her head away, the tears were still on her cheeks, but they were very red, and her cheeks were dimpling involuntarily.

"Well?" she whispered.

"Do you care anything about—me?"

Clemency nodded, still keeping her face averted.

"That means—"

Clemency said nothing.

"That means you love me," James whispered.

Clemency nodded again. Then she turned her head slowly, and gave him a narrow blue glance, and smiled like a shy child.

"I was afraid—" she began.

"Afraid of what, dear?" James put his arm about the girl, and the ashe-blonde head dropped on his shoulder.

"Afraid you—didn't."

"Afraid I didn't care?"

Clemency nodded against his breast.

"I think I must have cared all the time, only at first, when I saw your mother—"

Clemency raised her head immediately and gave it an indignant toss. "There," said she. "I knew it. Very well, if you would rather be my stepfather, you can, only I think you would be a pretty one, no older, to speak of, than I am, and I know my mother wouldn't have you anyway. The idea of your thinking that my mother would get married again anyway, and especially to you," Clemency said witheringly. She sat up straight and looked at James. "I wish your father were a widower, then I would marry him the minute he asked me," said she, "and see how you would like it. I guess you would have a step-mother who would make you walk chalk." Clemency tossed her head again. Then she gave a queer little whimsical glance at James, and both of them burst out laughing, and she was in his arms again, and he was kissing her. "There, that is enough," said she presently. "I once wore out a doll I had kissing her. She was wax, and it was warm weather, and I actually did wear that doll out. The color all came off her cheeks, and she got soft."

"You are not a doll, darling," said James fervently, and he would have kissed her again, but she pushed him away. "No," said she, "I know the color won't come off my cheeks, but I might get soft like that doll. One can never tell. You must stop now. I want to talk to you. It is all right about my mother."

"It was only because I never saw such a woman in all my life before," said James. "I never thought of marrying."

"You would have had to take it out in thinking," said Clemency, "but it is all right. I think myself that my mother is the most wonderful woman that ever lived. I think the old Greek goddesses must have looked just like her. I don't wonder you felt so about her. I don't know as I should have thought much of you if you hadn't. Why, everybody falls down and worships her. Of course I know that I am nothing compared to her. I should be angry if you really thought so."

"I don't think so in one way," James said honestly. "I don't think you are as beautiful as your mother, but I love you, Clemency."

"Well, that will do for me," said Clemency. "No, you need not kiss me again. I think myself I shall make you a better wife than a stepdaughter. You need not think for one minute that I would have minded you as I do Uncle Tom."

"But you will have to when we are married," said James.

Clemency blushed and quivered. "Well, maybe I will," she whispered. "I suppose I shall be just enough of a fool to stay in the house, if you order me, the way I do when Uncle Tom does."

"You shall stay in the house for no man alive when I have you in charge," said James. "Clemency—"

"What?"

"I will take you out now, if you say so. I can protect you."

"I know you can," Clemency said, "but I guess we had better not. You see Uncle Tom doesn't know yet, and he will be coming home, and—"

"I am going to tell him just as soon as he does," declared James.

"I wonder if you had better not wait," Clemency said thoughtfully.

"Wait? Why?"

"Nothing, only poor Uncle Tom is frightfully worried about something now. He worries about that dreadful man, and I am afraid he worries about mother. I don't know exactly what he worries about; but I don't want him worried about anything else."

"I can't see for the life of me why he should worry about this," said James with a piqued air. He was, in fact, considering quite naively that he was not a bad match, taking into consideration his prospects, and Clemency evidently needed all the protection she could get.

Clemency understood directly what his tone implied. "Oh, goodness," said she, "of course, as far as you are concerned, Uncle Tom will be pleased. Why shouldn't he? and so will mother. Here you are young and handsome, and well educated, and good, what more could anybody want for a girl, unless they were on the lookout for a ducal coronet or something of that sort? It isn't that, only there is something queer, there must be something queer, about that man, and I don't know how much this might complicate it. I don't know but Uncle Tom might have more occasion to worry."

"I don't see why," said James mystified, "but I'll wait a few days if you say so, only I hate to have anything underhanded, you know. How about your mother?"

"Please wait and tell her when you tell Uncle Tom," pleaded Clemency. All the time she was completely deceiving the young man. What she was really afraid of was that James himself might run into danger from this mysterious persecutor of hers if the fact of her betrothal became known. "I shall not mind staying in the house at all now," she added. An expression came over her face which James did not understand, which no man would have understood. Clemency was wonderfully skilled at needle-work, and she had plenty of material in the house. She was reflecting innocently how she could begin at once upon some dainty little frills for her trousseau. A delight, purely feminine, filled her fair little face.

"All the same," said James, "I am going to take you out before long. You must have some fresh air."

"I don't mind," said Clemency, then she broke off suddenly. She ran to the farther end of the room, sat down, and snatched a book from the table and opened it in the middle, "It is Uncle Tom," she remarked.

James laughed, crossed the room swiftly, kissed her, then went into the office to greet Doctor Gordon. Doctor Gordon stood by the office fire taking off his overcoat. He looked gloomier than usual. "Who is in there?" he asked, pointing to the living-room wall.

"Your niece," answered James. He felt himself color, but the other man did not notice it.

"Mrs. Ewing has gone to bed?"

"Yes, went directly after you left."

Doctor Gordon's face grew darker. He had tossed his coat over a chair, and stood staring absently at the table with its prismatic lights.

"I know where he is," he said presently in a whisper.

"You mean?"

"Yes," said Doctor Gordon impatiently. "You know whom I mean. I saw him go in—well, no matter where."

"I suspect that he has been hanging about here," said James.

"What makes you think so?"

"The dog barked and acted queer."

"Dogs always did hate him," said Doctor Gordon, with a queer expression. Then he gave himself a shake. Here he said: "Let's have something hot and a smoke." He called to Emma to bring some hot water and sugar and lemons and glasses. Then he produced a bottle from a cabinet in the office, and himself brewed a sort of punch, the like of which James had never tasted before.

"That's my own recipe," said Doctor Gordon, laughing. "Nobody knows what it is, not even Georgie K. But—" he hesitated a little, then he added laughing, "I have left it in my will for Georgie K. I made my will some little time ago."

James felt it incumbent upon himself to say something about Doctor Gordon being still a young man comparatively, and healthy. To his sanguine young mind a will seemed ominous.

"Well, I have not reached the allotted span," Gordon replied, "but healthier men than I have come to their end sooner than they expected, and I wanted to make sure of some things. I wanted especially to make sure that Clemency—Mrs. Ewing has relatives in the West, and—"

James felt somewhat bewildered. He could not quite see what Gordon meant, but he took another sip of the golden, fragrant compound before him, and again remarked upon its excellence.

"That makes me think," said Gordon, evidently glad himself to turn the conversation. "A sip of this will do poor little Clemency good. You say she is in the parlor."

"Yes."

Gordon opened the door and called Clemency, who came with a little reluctance. The girl was afraid of her uncle's eyes. She sidled into the office like a child who had done something wrong. She took her little glass of punch, and never looked at James or her uncle. James, too, did not look at her. He smoked, and almost turned his back upon her. Doctor Gordon looked from one to the other, and his face changed. Clemency slipped out as soon as she could, saying that she was tired. Then Gordon turned abruptly upon James. "There is something between you two, Clemency and you," he said in a brusque voice.

James colored and hesitated.

"Out with it," said Gordon peremptorily.

"Clemency wished—" began James.

"Wished you to keep it secret, of course. Well, she told me herself, poor little soul, the moment she came into the room."

James sat still. He did not know what to do. Finally he said in a stammering voice that he hoped there would be no objection.

"No objection certainly on my part or Mrs. Ewing, if Clemency has taken a fancy to you," replied Doctor Gordon. "But—" he hesitated a moment. "It is only fair to tell you that you yourself may later on entertain some very reasonable objection," Gordon said grimly.

"It is impossible," James cried eagerly. "I have known her only a few weeks, but I feel as if it were a lifetime. Nothing can change me. And as for money, if you mean anything of that kind, I don't care if she hasn't a cent. I have my profession, and my father is well-to-do. Then, besides, I have a little that an aunt, my mother's sister, left me. I can support Clemency."

"It is not that," Gordon said. "Clemency has—at least I think I can secure it to her—a little fortune of her own, and she will have something besides. I was not thinking of money at all."

"Then there can be nothing," James said positively. His sense of embarrassment had passed. He beamed at the older man.

"There can be something else. There is something else," Gordon said gloomily. "I don't know but I ought to tell you, but, the truth is, you know my theory with regard to secrecy. I don't doubt but you can hold your tongue, yet the whole affair is so dangerous, that I dare not, I cannot, tell you yet. I can only say this, that there does exist some obstacle to your marriage with my niece, and your engagement must be regarded by myself in a tentative light. If the time ever comes when you know all, and wish to withdraw, you can do so in my opinion with perfect honor. In the meantime you had better say nothing to any one outside. You had better not even tell Mrs. Ewing. I hope Clemency herself will not. Perhaps when she has had a few hours in which to collect herself, her face will not be quite so tell-tale."

"Nothing whatever can change me," said James, with almost anger.

Gordon shook his head. "I begin to think I may have done you a wrong having you come here at all," he said. "I suppose I ought to have thought of the possibility, but I have had so much on my mind."

"You have done me the greatest good I ever had done me in my whole life," James said fervently.

Gordon rose and shook the young man's hand. "As far as Clemency and I and Mrs. Ewing are concerned," he said, "nothing could have been better. Well, we will hope for the best, my boy." He clapped James on the shoulder and smiled, and James went to his room feeling dizzy with happiness and mystery, and a trifle so with the doctor's punch.



CHAPTER VII

The next morning James was awakened by loud voices coming from the vicinity of the stable. He had not slept very well, and now at dawn felt drowsy, but the voices would not let him sleep. He rose, dressed, and went out in the stable-yard. There he found Doctor Gordon, Aaron, and a strange man, small, and red-haired, and thin-faced, with shifty eyes, holding by the bridle a fine black horse.

"Don't want to buy a horse with a bridle on," Doctor Gordon was saying as James appeared.

"Do you think I'm the man to bear insults?" inquired the little red-haired man with fierceness.

"Insult nothing. It is business," said Gordon.

"That's so," Aaron said, chewing and eyeing the black horse and the red-haired man thoughtfully.

"Well," said the little red-haired man with an air at once of injured innocence and ferocity, "if you want to know why I object to selling this horse without a bridle, come here, and I'll show you." Gordon and Aaron and James approached. The red-haired man slipped the bridle, and underneath it appeared a small sore. "There, that's the reason, and I'll tell you the truth," said the man defiantly. "Here I am trying to sell this darned critter; paid a cool hundred for him, and everybody says jest as you do, won't buy him with the bridle on. Then I takes off the bridle, and they sees this little bile, and there's an end to it. I suppose it's the same with you. Well, good day, gentlemen. You're losin' a darned good trade, but it ain't my fault. Here's an animal I paid a cool hundred for, and I'm offering him for ninety. I'm ten dollars out, besides my time."

"Let me see that sore again," said Gordon. He slipped the bridle and examined the place carefully. Then he looked hard at the horse, which stood with great docility, although he held his head proudly. He was a fine beast, glossy black in color, and had a magnificent tail.

"Make it eighty-five," said Gordon.

"Couldn't think of it."

"I don't know as I want the horse anyway," said Gordon.

"I'll call it eighty-seven and a half," said the little red-haired man.

Gordon stood still for a moment. Then he pulled out his wallet. "Eighty-six and call it square," he said.

"All right," said the red-haired man. "It's a-givin' of him away, but I'm so darned tired of trampin' the country with him, that I'll call it eighty-six, and it's the biggest bargain you ever got in your life in the way of horse flesh. I wouldn't let him go at that figure, but my wife's sick, and I want to get home."

The red-haired man carefully counted over the roll of bank-notes which Doctor Gordon gave him, although it seemed to James that he used some haste. He also thought that he was evidently anxious to be gone. He refused Gordon's offer of breakfast, saying that he had already had some at the hotel. Then he was gone, walking with uncommon speed for such a small man. Aaron, James, and Doctor Gordon stood contemplating the new purchase. James patted him. "He looks like a fine animal," he remarked. Aaron shifted his quid, and said with emphasis, "Want me to hitch up and bring that little red-haired cuss back?"

"Why, what for?" asked Doctor Gordon. "I guess I have made a good trade, Aaron."

"You mark my words, there's somethin' out," said Aaron dogmatically.

"I guess you're wrong this time," said Doctor Gordon, laughing. "Come, Elliot, it is time for breakfast, and we have to drive to Wardville afterward for that fever case."

James followed Gordon into the dining-room. Clemency said good morning almost rudely, then she hid her face behind the coffee-urn. Gordon glanced at her and smiled tenderly, but the girl did not see it. James never looked her way at all. She turned the coffee with apparent concentration. She did not dare look at either of the two men. She had never felt so disturbedly happy and so shy. She had not slept all night, she was so agitated with happiness, but this morning she showed no traces of sleeplessness. There was an unwonted color on her little fair face, and her blue eyes were like jewels under her drooping lids.

They were nearly through breakfast when the door which led into the kitchen was abruptly thrown open, and Aaron stood there. In his hand he flourished dramatically a great streaming mass of black. "Told you so," he observed with a certain triumph. The others stared at him.

"What on earth is that?" asked Gordon.

"That new horse's tail; it comes off," replied Aaron with brevity. Then he chewed.

"Comes off?"

Aaron nodded, still chewing.

Gordon rose from the table saying something under his breath.

"That ain't all," said Aaron, still with an air of sly triumph.

"What else, for Heaven's sake?" cried Gordon.

"Well, he cribs," replied Aaron laconically. Then he chewed.

"That was why he didn't want to take the bridle off?"

Aaron nodded.

Gordon stood staring for a second, then he burst into a peal of laughter. "Bless me if I ever got so regularly done," said he. "Say, Aaron, that was a smart chap. He has talent, he has."

"Aren't you going to try to find him?" asked James.

"Well, we'll keep a lookout on the way to Wardville," said Gordon; "and, Aaron, you may as well put the chestnut in the old buggy and drive Stanbridge way, and see if you can get sight of him."

"He's had a half-hour's start," said Aaron. "You might track a fox, but you can't him."

"I guess you are about right," said Gordon, "but we'll do all we can. However, I think I'll try to get even with Sam Tucker. It's a good chance. I'll drive the new horse to Wardville. Aaron, you just tie that tail on again, and fasten it up so as to keep it out of the mud."

Aaron grinned. "Goin' to get even for that white horse?"

"I'm going to try it."

Gordon was all interest. James regarded him as he had done so many times before with wonder. That such a man should have such powers of assimilation astounded him. He was actually as amused and interested in being done, as he called it, and in trying in his turn to wipe off some old score, as any countryman. He seemed, to the young man, to have little burrows like some desperate animal, into which he could dive, and be completely away from his enemies, and even from himself, when he chose.

He hurriedly drank the remainder of his coffee, and was in his office getting his medicine-case ready. James lingered, in the hopes of getting a word and a kiss from Clemency. But the child, the moment her uncle went out, fled. It was odd. She wanted to stay and have a minute with James alone more than she had ever wanted anything, but it was for just that very reason that she ran away.

James felt hurt. At that time, the mind of a girl, and its shy workings, were entirely beyond his comprehension. He saw no earthly reason why Clemency should have avoided him. He followed Gordon with rather a downcast face into the office, and begun assisting him with his medicines. Gordon himself was too full of interest in the horse trade to remark anything. At times he chuckled to himself. Now and then he would burst out anew in a great peal of laughter. "Hang it all! I don't like to be done any better than any other man, but that little red-haired scamp was clever and no mistake," he said, "showing me that little sore. I believe he had sandpapered the poor beast on purpose. He took me in as neatly as I ever saw anything done in my life. Well, Elliot, you wait and see me get even with Sam Tucker. I have been waiting my chance. About two years ago he worked me, and not half as cleverly as this either. He made me feel that I was a fool. The red-haired one needed the devil himself to get round him, and see through his little game. Sam Tucker sold me, or rather traded with me a veritable fiend of a horse for an old mare. The mare was old, but she had a lot of go in her, and was sound, and the other, well, Sam had bought him for a song, because nobody would drive him, and he had killed two men. He was a white horse with as wicked an eye as you ever saw, and ears always cocked for mischief, like the arch fiend's horns. Well, Sam, he made some kind of a dye, and he actually dyed that animal a beautiful chestnut, and traded him for my old mare. I even paid a little to boot. Well, next morning I sent Aaron down to the store in a soaking rain, and the horse bolted at a white rock beside the road, and the buggy was knocked into kindling wood. Aaron wasn't hurt. He always comes out right side up. But when he came leading that snorting, dancing beast home, the chestnut dye was pretty well off, and I knew him in a minute. Well, he was shot, and I was my old mare and some money out. I wasn't going to have men's lives on my conscience. But this is another matter. Now I've got my chance to get even, and I'm going to get my old mare back."

Presently the two men were out on the road driving the black horse. He went well enough, and seemed afraid of nothing. "There's not much the matter with this animal except the tail and the cribbing, I guess," said the doctor. "As for the tail, that is simply a question of ornament and taste. The cribbing is more serious, of course, but I guess Sam Tucker won't be in any danger of his life." They had not gone far before the doctor drew up before a farmhouse on the left. A man with a serious face, thin and wiry, was coming around the house with a wheelbarrowful of potatoes. "Hullo, Sam!" called Doctor Gordon. The man left his barrow and came alongside. James could see that he had a keen eye upon the horse. "Fine morning," said the doctor.

Sam Tucker gave a grunt by way of assent. He was niggardly with speech.

"Have you got any more of those Baldwin apples to sell?" asked Doctor Gordon, to James's intense surprise.

Sam Tucker looked reflectively at the doctor for a full minute, then gave utterance to a monosyllable. "Bar'l."

"So you've got a barrel to sell," said Gordon.

Sam nodded.

"Well, I'll send my man over for them. They are mighty fine apples, and Emma said yesterday that we were about out. I suppose they are the same price."

Sam nodded.

"Seems as if you might take off a little, it is so late, and you might have them spoiling on your hands," said Gordon, and James began to wonder if they had come to drive a sharp bargain on apples instead of horses.

Sam shook his head emphatically. "Same," he said.

"Well, I suppose I've got to pay it if you ask it," said Gordon. "I can't buy any such apples elsewhere. You've got it your way. I'll send the money over by Aaron." Doctor Gordon gathered up the reins, but Sam Tucker seemed to experience a sudden convulsion all over his lank body. "Horse," he said.

Doctor Gordon drove on a yard, but Sam, running alongside, he stopped. "Yes," he said placidly, "horse. What do you think of him?"

Sam said nothing. He looked at the horse.

"He's the biggest bargain I ever got," said Gordon. "I am going to hang on to him. Once in a while there is an honest deal in horses. I am not bringing up anything, Sam. I believe in letting bygones be bygones, although you did risk my life and my man's. But this time I am all right." Gordon gathered up the reins again, and again Sam Tucker stopped him. James barely saw the man's mouth move. He could not hear that he said anything, but a peculiar glow of eager greed lit up his long face, and Gordon seemed to understand him perfectly. "You can take your oath not," he said brusquely. "What do you take me for? You have stuck me once, and now you think you are going to do it again. You can bet your life you are not." Again he gathered up the reins. Sam Tucker's face gleamed like a coal. James saw for the first time in its entirety the trading instinct rampant. Again Gordon seemed to understand what had apparently not been spoken. "No, Sam Tucker," he declared almost brutally, "I will not trade back for that old mare you cheated me out of, not if you were to give me your whole farm to boot. I know that old mare. I wasn't the only one that got stuck. She's got the heaves. I know her. No, sir, you don't do me again. I've got a good horse this time, and I mean to hang on to him."

Again Gordon attempted to drive on, and once more Sam stopped him. James felt at last fairly dizzy, when he heard the farmer almost beg Gordon to trade horses, offer him twenty-five dollars to boot, and the apples. He sat in the buggy watching while the mare was led out of the stable, the black horse was taken out of the traces, and the bridle was left on without a remonstrance on Sam's part, and exchanged for a much newer one, while twenty-five dollars in dirty bank-notes were carefully counted out by Sam, and then Gordon jumped into the buggy and drove off. He was quivering with suppressed mirth. "The biter is bitten this time," he said as soon as he was out of hearing of Sam Tucker. Then he made an exclamation of dismay.

"What's the matter?" asked James.

"Well, I have left my whip. I must risk it and go back. I paid a lot for that whip."

Gordon turned and drove back at a sharp trot. When they came alongside the farm fence James saw the whip lying on the ground, and jumped out to get it. He was back in the buggy, and they were just proceeding on their way, when there was a shout, and Sam Tucker came rushing around the house, and held the horse's tail as Aaron had done in the morning. "Comes off," he gasped.

"Of course," said the doctor coolly. "I didn't say it didn't. It's for convenience in muddy weather."

"Cribs," gasped Sam Tucker.

"Yes, a little," said Gordon. "Keep him away from hitching-posts. You didn't say you wanted a horse to hitch. He never cribs when he's driven. Good-day, Sam."

Gordon and James were off again. Gordon was doubled up with merriment, in which James joined. "I'm glad to get behind old Fanny once more," said Gordon. "She's worth two of that other animal! Clemency will be glad to see her again. She felt badly when I traded her. In fact, I wouldn't have done it if I had known how much the child cared for the mare. She used to drive her a lot and pet her. I think it will be perfectly safe for you to take Clemency out driving when there isn't a moon. Fanny is pretty fast when she is touched with the whip, and, though she's gentle, she hasn't much use for strangers. I don't think she would stand a stranger at her head. I think you may go out to-night, if you like. Poor Clemency needs the air. We'll use the team this afternoon, and Fanny will be fresh by evening."

James colored. He remembered how Clemency had avoided him that morning. "Perchance she won't care to go," he said.

"Of course, she will," said Gordon. "She will go, and I want her to, but you must always bear in mind what I told you last night, and—" he hesitated. "Don't do your utmost to make the poor little thing think you are the moon and sun and stars in case you should change your mind," he finished.

"I shall never change my mind," James said hotly.

"You will be justified if you do," Gordon said gravely. "Perhaps you will not. But you are old enough, and ought to have self-command enough to keep your head, and shield the poor child against possible contingencies. You have not known each other very long. It is not possible that she would die of it now, nor you. If you can only keep your head, and meander along the path of love instead of plunging into bottomless depths, it will be better for both of you. I know what I am talking about. I am old enough to be your father. Go slow, for God's sake, if you care about the girl."

"She is the whole world to me," said James.

"Then, go slow! It will be better for her if you are not the whole world to her, until you know what a day may bring forth."

"I don't care what a day brings forth."

"You are tempting the gods?" said Gordon. "Elliot, you don't know what you are talking about. I am not treating you fairly not to tell you the whole story, but I don't see my way clear. You must bear in mind what I say. I did not think of any such complication when you came here. I was a fool not to. I know what young people are, and Clemency is a darling, and you have your good points. The amount of it is, if I don't get stuck by Sam Tucker in a horse trade, Fate sticks me in something bigger. I don't see the inevitable, I suppose, because I am so close to it that it is like facing the wall of a precipice all the time. We have to stop here. The woman's daughter is coming down with a fever, which will not kill her, and she will have it to brag of all her life. She will date all earthly events from this fever. Whoa, Fanny!"

That evening James and Clemency went for a drive. It was a clear night, but dark, save for the stars. Clemency had a thick veil over her face, which seemed entirely unnecessary. Directly as they started, she made a little involuntary nestling motion toward the young man at her side. It was as innocent as the nestling of a baby. James put his arm around her. He thought with indignation of Doctor Gordon's warning, as if anything in the world could cause him to change his mind about this dear child who loved him. "You darling!" he whispered. "So you have not thought better of it."

"What do you mean?" Clemency whispered back.

"Why, dear, you have fairly run away from me all day long."

"I was afraid," Clemency whispered, then she put her head against his shoulder, and laughed a delicious little laugh. "I never was in love before, and I don't know how to act," said she.

"Put up your veil," said James.

"Why?"

"I want a kiss."

Clemency put up her veil obediently and kissed him like a child. Then there was a sudden flash of light from a lantern, and a dark form was at the mare's head. But she was true to her master's opinion of her. She gave a savage duck at the man and started violently, so that James was forced to release Clemency and devote his entire attention to driving. Clemency shrank close to him, shivering like one in a chill. "He saw me," she gasped. "It was that same man, and this time he saw me."



CHAPTER VIII

James and Clemency had hardly started upon their drive before there was a ring at the office door, and Doctor Gordon, who was alone there, answered it. He was confronted by a man who lived half-way between Alton and the next village on the north. He had walked some three miles to get some medicine for his wife, who was suffering from rheumatism. He was pathetically insistent upon the fact that his wife did not require a call from the doctor, only some medicine. "Now, see here, Joe," said Gordon, "if I really thought your wife needed a call, I would go, and it should not cost you a cent more than the medicine, but I am dog tired, and not feeling any too well myself, and if her symptoms are just as you say, I think I can send her something which will fix her up all right."

"She is just the way she was last year," said the man. He did not look unlike Gordon, although he was poorly clad, and was a genuine son of the New Jersey soil. His poor clothes, even his skin, had a clayey hue, as if he had been really cast from the mother earth. It was frozen outside, but a reddish crust from the last thaw was on his hulking boots. He spoke with a drawl, which was nasal, and yet had something sweet in it. "I would have came this afternoon, but I was afraid you might have went out," he remarked.

"Yes, I was out," replied Gordon, who was filling out a prescription. The man stooped and patted the bull terrier, which had not evinced the slightest emotion at his entrance.

"Mighty fine dog," said the man.

"Yes, he is a pretty good sort," replied Gordon.

"Shouldn't like to meet him if I had came up to your house an' no one round, and he had took a dislike to me."

"I should not myself," said Gordon. "But he does not dislike you."

"Dogs know me pooty well," said the man. "They ain't no particler likin' for me. Don't want to run and jump an' wag, but they know I mean well, and they mostly let me alone."

"Yes, I guess that's so," said Gordon. "Jack would have barked if he had not known you were all right, Joe."

"Queer how much they know," said the man reflectively, and a dazed look overspread his dingy face with its cloud of beard. If once he became launched upon a current of reflection, he lost his mental bearings instantly and drifted.

"Well, they do know," said Gordon. "Now listen, Joe! You see this bottle. You give your wife a spoonful of the medicine in a glass of water every three hours. Mind, you make it a whole tumbler full of water."

"Yes, sir," replied the man.

"Of course, you need not wake her up if she gets to sleep," said the doctor, "but every three hours when she is awake."

"Yes, sir." The man began fumbling in his pocket, but Gordon stopped him. "No," he said, "put up your pocketbook, Joe. I don't want any money. I get this medicine at wholesale, and it don't cost much."

"I come prepared to pay," said the man. He straightened his shoulders and flushed.

"Oh, well," said Doctor Gordon, "wait. If you need more medicine, or it seems necessary that I should drive over to see your wife, you can do a little work on my garden in the spring, or you can let me have a bushel of your new potatoes when they are grown next summer, or some apples, and we'll call it square. Wait; I don't want any money for that bottle of medicine to-night anyhow. Did you walk over, Joe?"

Joe said that he had walked over. "Aaron might just as well drive you home as not," said Gordon. "The sooner your wife has that medicine the better. How is the baby getting along?"

"First-rate. I'd just as soon walk, doctor."

For answer Gordon opened the door and called Aaron, and told him to hitch up and take the man home.

"Doctor Elliot has gone with the bay," said Aaron. "The teams are about played out, and there's nothin' except the gray."

"Take her then."

"She looked when I fed her jest now as if she was half a mind to balk at takin' her feed," Aaron remarked doubtfully.

"Nonsense! Give her a loose rein, and she'll be all right."

Aaron went out grumbling.

Gordon offered the man a cigar, which he accepted as if it had been a diamond. "I'll save it up for next Sunday, when I've got a little time to sense it," he said. "I know what your cigars be."

Gordon forced another upon him, and the man looked as pleased as a child.

Presently a shout was heard, and Gordon opened the office door.

"Here's Aaron with the buggy," he said.

He stood in the doorway watching, but the gray, instead of balking, went out of the yard with an angry plunge. Gordon shook his head.

"Confound him, he's pulling too hard on the lines," he muttered. Then he closed and locked the office door, and went into the living-room to find it deserted. Gordon called up the stairs. "Have you gone to bed, Clara?" His voice was at once tenderly solicitous and angry.

Mrs. Ewing answered him from above, and in her tone was something propitiating. "Yes, Tom, dear," she called.

Gordon hesitated a moment. His face took on its expression of utmost misery. "Is—the pain very bad?" he called then, and called as if he were in actual fear.

"No, dear," the woman's patient, beseeching voice answered, "not very bad."

"Not very?"

"No, only I felt a little twinge, and thought I had better go to bed. I am quite comfortable now. I think I shall go to sleep. I am sorry to leave you alone all the evening, Tom."

"That's right," called Gordon. His voice rang harsh, in spite of his effort to control it. He threw his arm over his eyes, and fairly groped his way back to his office, stifling his sobs. When he was in his office he flung himself into a chair, and bent his head over his hands on the table, and his whole frame shook. "Oh, my God!" he muttered. "Oh, my God!" He did not weep, but he gasped like a child whom his mother has commanded not to weep. Terrible emotion fairly convulsed him. He struggled with it as with a visible foe. At last he sat up and filled his pipe. The dog had crept close to him, and was nestling against him and whimpering. Gordon patted his head. The dog licked his hand.

The simple, ignorant sympathy of this poor speechless thing nearly unnerved the man again, but he continued to smoke. He looked at the dog, whose honest brown eyes were fixed upon him with an almost uncanny understanding, and reflected how the woman upstairs, who was passing out of his life, had become in a few days so associated with the animal, that after she was gone he could never see him without a pang. He looked about the office, with whose belongings she was less associated than with anything in the house, and it seemed to him that everything even there would have for him, after she had passed, a terrible sting of reminiscence. It seemed to him, as he looked about, as if she were already gone. He was, in fact, suffering as keenly in anticipation as he would in reality. The horror, the worst horror of life, of being left alive with the dead and the associations of the dead was already upon him. Some people are comforted by such associations, others they rend. Gordon was one whom they would rend, whom they did rend. He made up his mind, as he sat there, that he would have to go away from Alton, and enter new scenes for the healing of his spirit, and yet he knew that he should not go: that at the last his courage would assert itself.

He sat smoking, the dog's head on his knee. There was not a sound to be heard in the house. Emma, the maid, had gone away to visit a sick sister. She might not be back that night. So there was absolute silence, even in the kitchen. Suddenly the dog lifted his head and listened to something which Gordon could not himself hear. He watched the dog curiously. The dog gave a low growl of fear and rage, and made for the office door. He began scratching at the threshold, and emitted a perfect volley of barks. It did not sound like one dog, but a whole pack. Gordon, with an impulse which he could not understand, quickly put out the prism-fringed lamp which hung over his table. Then he sprang to the dog, and had the dog by the collar. "Be still, Jack," he said in a low voice, and the dog obeyed instantly, although he was quivering under his hand. Gordon could feel the muscles run like angry serpents under the smooth white hair, he felt the crest of rage along his back. But the animal was so well trained that he barked no more. He only growled very softly, as if to himself, and quivered.

Gordon ordered him to charge in a whisper, and the dog stretched himself at his feet, although it was like the crouch of a live wire. Then Gordon rose and went softly to a window beside the door. The office had very heavy red curtains. It was impossible, since they were closely drawn, that a ray of light from within should have been visible outside. Gordon had reasoned it out quickly when he extinguished the lamp. Whoever was without would have had no possible means of knowing that anything except the dog was in the office, but the light once out, Gordon could peep around the curtain and ascertain, without being himself seen, what or who was about. He had a premonition of what he should see, and he saw it. The stable door was almost directly opposite that of the office. Between the two doors there was a driveway. On this driveway the only pale thing to be seen in the darkness was the tall, black figure of a man standing perfectly still, as if watching. His attitude was unmistakable. The long lines of him, upreared from the pale streak of the driveway, were as plainly to be read as a sign-post. They signified watchfulness. His back was toward the office. He stood face toward the curve of the drive toward the road, where any one entering would first be seen. Gordon, peeping around his curtain, knew the dark figure as he would have known his own shadow. In one sense it had been for years his shadow, and that added to the horror of it. The man behind the curtain watched, the man in the drive watched; and the dog, crouched at the threshold of the door, watched with what sublimated sense God alone knew, which enabled him to know as much as his master, and now and then came the low growl. Gordon began to formulate a theory in his mind. He remembered suddenly the man whom Aaron had driven home. He realized that the watching man might easily have mistaken him for Gordon himself, going away with his man to make a call upon some patient. He suspected, with an intensity which became a certainty, that the man knew that Clemency and Elliot were out and would presently return, and that it was for them he was watching. All the time he thought of the sick woman upstairs, and was glad that her room faced on the other side of the house. He was in agony lest she should be disturbed.

Doctor Gordon was usually a man of resources, but now he did not know what to do. The dark figure on the park-drive made now and then a precautionary motion of his right arm as he watched, which was significant. Gordon knew that he was holding a revolver in readiness. In the event of Aaron returning alone he would probably be puzzled, and Gordon thought that he might slip away. In the event of James and Clemency returning first, Gordon thought that he knew conclusively what he purposed—a bullet for James, and then away with the girl, unless he was hindered.

Gordon let the curtain slip back into place, and with a warning gesture to the dog, who was ready for action, he tiptoed across the room to the table, in a drawer of which he kept his own revolver. He opened the drawer softly, and rummaged with careful hands. No revolver was there. He made sure. He even opened other drawers and rummaged, but the weapon was certainly missing. He stood undecided for a moment. Then he went softly out of the room, bidding in a whisper the dog to follow. He crept upstairs and paused at a closed chamber door. Then he opened it very carefully. Mrs. Ewing at once spoke. "Is that you, dear?" she said.

"Yes, I wanted to tell you not to be frightened, dear, if you should hear a shot or the dog bark."

There was a rustling in the dark room. Mrs. Ewing was evidently sitting up in bed. "Oh, Tom, what is it?" she whispered.

Gordon forced a laugh. "Nothing at all," he replied, "except there's a fox or something out in the yard, and Jack is wild. I may get a shot at him. Do you know where my revolver is?"

"Why, where you always keep it, dear, in the table drawer in the office."

"I don't seem to see it. I guess I will take your little pistol."

"Oh, Tom, I am sorry, but I know that won't go off. Clemency tried it the other day. You remember that time Emma dropped it. I think something or other got bent. You know it was a delicate little thing."

"Oh, well," said Gordon carelessly, "I dare say I can find my revolver."

"I don't see who could have taken it away." said Mrs. Ewing. "I am sorry about my pistol, because you gave it to me too, dear."

"I'll get another for you," said Gordon, "Those little dainty, lady-like, pearl-mounted weapons don't stand much."

"I am feeling very comfortable, dear," Mrs. Ewing said in her anxious, sweet voice. "You will be careful, won't you, with your revolver, with that dog jumping about?"

"Yes, dear. I dare say I shall not use the revolver anyway, but don't be frightened if you should hear a little commotion."

"No, Tom."

"Go to sleep."

"Yes, I think I can. I do feel rather sleepy."

Gordon closed the door carefully and retraced his steps to the office, the dog at his heels. He slipped the curtain again and looked out. The man still stood watching in the driveway. Gordon had never been at such a loss as to his best course of action. He was absolutely courageous, but here he was unarmed, and he could have no reasonable doubt that if he should go out, he would be immediately shot. In such a case, what of the woman upstairs? And, moreover, what of James and Clemency? He thought of any available weapon, but there was nothing except his own stick. That was stout, it was true, but could he be quick enough with it? His mad impulse to rush out unarmed except with that paltry thing could hardly be restrained, but he had to think of other lives beside his own.

He began to think that the only solution of the matter was the return of Aaron alone. The watching man would immediately realize that he had made some mistake, that he, Gordon, was in the house, or had been left at the home of a patient. He could have no possible reason for molesting the man. He would probably slip aside into a shadow, then make his way back to the road. In such a case Gordon determined that he and Aaron would follow him to make sure that no harm came to James and Clemency. So Gordon stood motionless waiting, in absolute silence, except for the frequently recurring mutter of fear and rage of the dog. As time went on he became more and more uneasy. It seemed to him finally that Aaron should have been back long before. He moved stealthily across the room, and consulted his watch by the low light of the hearth fire. Aaron had been gone an hour. He should have returned, for the mare was a good roadster when she did not balk. Gordon shook his head. He began to be almost sure that the mare had balked. He returned to the window. His every nerve was on the alert. The moment that James and Clemency should drive into the yard, he made ready to spring, but the horrible fear lest it should be entirely unavailing haunted him. If only Aaron would come. Then the man would slip into cover of the shadows, and steal out into the road, and Gordon would jump into the buggy, and he and Aaron would follow him. He knew the man well enough to be sure that he would never venture an attack upon James and Clemency with witnesses. If only Aaron would come! Gordon became surer that the mare had balked. He vowed within himself that she should be shot the next day if she had. Every moment he thought he heard the sound of wheels and horse's hoofs. His nervous tension became something terrible. Once he thought of stealing through the house, and out by the front door, and walking to meet James and Clemency so as to warn them. But that would leave the helpless woman upstairs alone. He dared not do that.

He thought then of going to the front of the house, and watching there, and endeavoring to intercept James and Clemency before they turned into the driveway. But he felt that he could not for one second relax his watch upon the watching man, and he had no guarantee whatever that, at the first sound of wheels, the man himself would not make for the front of the house. Then he thought, as always, of not disturbing the sick woman whose room faced the road. It seemed to him that his only course was to remain where he was and wait for the return of Aaron before James and Clemency. He knew now that the horse must have balked. His only hope was that James and Clemency, since it was such a fine night, and time is so short for lovers, might take such a long drive that even the balky mare might relent. Always he heard at intervals the trot of a horse, which only existed in his imagination. He began to wonder if he should know when Aaron, or Clemency and James, actually did drive into the yard, if he should be quick enough. Suddenly he thought of the dog: that he would follow him, and of what might happen. The dog's chain-leash was on the table. He stole across, got it, fastened it to the animal's collar, and made the end secure to a staple which he had had fixed in the wall for that purpose. As yet no intention of injury to the man except in self-defense was in his mind. If actually attacked, he must defend himself, of course, but he wished more than anything to drive the intruder away with no collision. That was what he hoped for. The time went on, and the strain upon the doctor's nerves was nearly driving him mad. Sometimes the mare balked for hours. He began to hope that Aaron would leave her, and return home on foot. That would settle the matter. But he remembered a strange trait of obstinacy in Aaron. He remembered how he had once actually sat all night in the buggy while the mare balked. The man balked as well as the horse. "The damned fool," he muttered to himself in an agony. The dog growled in response. Then it was that first the thought came to Gordon of what might be done to save them all. He stood aghast with the horror of it. He was essentially a man of peace himself, unless driven to the wall. He was a good fighter at bay, but there was in his heart, along with strength, utter good-will and gentleness toward all his kind. He only wished to go his way in peace, and for those whom he loved to go in peace, but that had been denied him. He began considering the nature of the man whose dark figure remained motionless on the driveway. He knew him from the first. It sounded sensational, his recapitulation of his knowledge, but it was entirely true. It was that awful truth, which is past human belief, which no man dares put into fiction. That man out there had been from his birth a distinct power for evil upon the face of the earth. He had menaced all creation, so far as one personality may menace it. He was a force of ill, a moral and spiritual monster, and the more dangerous, because of a subtlety and resource which had kept him immune from the law. He outstripped the law, whose blood-hounds had no scent keen enough for him. He had broken the law, but always in such a way that there was not, and never could be, any proof. There had not been even suspicion. There had been knowledge on Gordon's part, and Mrs. Swing's, but knowledge without proof is more helpless than suspicion with it. The man was unassailable, free to go his way, working evil.

Again Gordon thought he heard the nearing trot of a horse, and again the dog growled. Gordon was not quite sure that time that a horse had not passed the house. He told himself in despair that he could not be sure of knowing when James and Clemency came, and again the awful thought seized him, and again he reflected upon the man outside. Suppose, instead of wearing the semblance of humanity, he had worn the semblance of a beast, then his course would have been clear enough. Suppose it were a hungry wolf watching out there, instead of a man, and this man was worse than any wolf. He was like the weir-wolf of the old Scandinavian legend. He had all the cowardly cruelty of a wolf, he was a means of evil, but he had the trained brain of a man.

Gordon thought he heard footsteps, and the man made a very slight motion. Gordon thought joyfully that Aaron had left the balky mare, and had returned, but it was not so. He had heard nothing except the pulsations of the blood in his own overwrought brain.

He wondered if he were really going mad, although all the time his mind was steadily at work upon the awful problem which had been forced upon it. Should any power for evil be allowed to exist upon the earth if mortal man had strength to stamp it out? Suppose that was a poisonous snake out there, and not a man. What was out there was worse than any snake. Gordon reasoned as the first man in Eden may have reasoned; and he did not know whether his reasoning were right or wrong. Meantime, the danger increased every moment. Of one thing he was perfectly sure: he had no personal motive for what he might or might not do. He had reached that pass when he was himself, as far as he himself was concerned, beyond hate of that man outside. It was a principle for which he argued. Should a monster, something abnormal in strength and subtlety and wickedness, something which menaced all the good in the world, be allowed to exist? Gordon argued that it should not. He was driven to it by years of fruitless struggling against this monstrous creation in the shape of man. He had seen such suffering because of him; his whole life had been so turned and twisted this way and that way because of him, that he himself had in the end become abnormal, and mentally askew, with the system of things. He was conscious of it himself. He had been naturally a good, simple, broad-visioned man, full of charity, with almost no subtlety. He had been forced to lead a life which strained and diverted all these good traits. Where he would have been open, he had been secret. Where he would have had no suspicion of any one, his first sight now seemed to be for ulterior motives. He weighed and measured where he naturally would have scattered broadcast. He had been obliged to compress his broad vision into a narrow window of detection. He was not the man he had been. Where he had gazed out of wide doors and windows at life, he now gazed through keyholes, and despised himself for so doing. In order to evade the trouble which had fallen to his lot, he took refuge in another personality. Thomas Gordon was a man whom a happy and untroubled life would have kept from all worldly blemish. Now the gold was tarnished, and he himself always saw the tarnish, as one sees a blur before the eye. Twenty years before, if any one had told him that he would at any period of his life become capable of standing and arguing with himself as to the right or wrong of what was now in his mind, he would have been incredulous. He had in reality become another man. Circumstances had evolved him, during the course of twenty years, into something different, as persistent winds evolve a pliant tree into another than its typical shape. Gordon had lost his type.