As he stood at the window the room grew cold. The hearth fire had died down. He knew that the furnace needed attention, but he dared not quit his post and his argument. He became sure that the maid would not return that night. He knew that Aaron was sitting with his human obstinacy behind the obstinate brute, somewhere on the road. He knew that James and Clemency might at any moment drive in, and he might rush out too late to prevent murder and the kidnapping of the girl. He knew what the man was there for. And he knew the one way to thwart him, but it was so horrible a way that it needed all this argument, all this delay and nearing of danger, before he adopted it.

The increasing cold of the room seemed to act as a sort of physical goad toward action. "By God, it is right!" he muttered. Then he looked at the dog crouching still with that wiry intentness before the door. The dog came of a good breed of fighters. He was in himself both weapon and wielder of weapon. He was a concentrated force. His white body was knotted with nerves and muscles. The chances were good if—Gordon pictured it to himself—and again the horror and doubt were over him. He himself had acquired a certain stiffness and lassitude from years, and long drives in one position. He would stand no chance unarmed against a bullet. But the dog—that was another matter. The dog would make a spring like the spring of death itself, and that white leap of attack might easily cause the aim to go wrong. It would be like aiming at lightning. He knew how the dog would gather himself together, all ready for that terrible leap, the second he opened the door. He knew that he might be able to open the door for the leap without attracting the man's attention, faced as he was the other way, if he could keep the dog quiet. He knew how it would be. He could see that tall dark figure rolled on the drive, struggling as one struggles with death, for breath, under the vise-like grip on his throat. Gordon knew that the dog's unerring spring would be for the throat; that was the instinct of his race, a noble race in its way, to seize vice and danger by the throat, and attack the very threshold of life.

Gordon returned to the window. It seemed to him again that he heard a horse's trot. He felt sure that it was not the trot of the gray, who had a slight lameness. He knew the trot of the gray. He became sure that James and Clemency would the next moment enter the drive. He set his mouth hard, crept toward the dog, and patted him. As he patted him he felt the rage-crest rise higher on his back. Gordon bade him be quiet, and slipped his leash from the staple. Then he took it from the collar. He listened again. It seemed to him that his ears could not deceive him. It seemed to him that James and Clemency were coming. He was almost delirious. He fancied he heard their voices and the girl's laugh ring out. Holding the dog firmly by the collar, he rose and very carefully and noiselessly slipped the bolt of the door back. Then he waited a second. Then as slowly and carefully, still holding the dog by the collar, and whispering commands to hush his growls, he turned the door knob.



Then the thing was done. He flung the door open. He saw the man in the drive, standing with his face toward the road. He had heard nothing. Then he loosened his grasp of the straining dog's collar, and there was a white flash of avenging brute force upon the man. Gordon saw only one leap of the dog before the man was down. A futile pistol shot rang out. Then came the snarl and growl of a fighting dog fastened upon his prey.



CHAPTER IX

When Clemency and James returned from their drive, they saw a glimmer of light between the house and stable. "Aaron is out there with a lantern," whispered Clemency. She sat up straight, leaned into her corner of the buggy, and adjusted her hat and straightened her hair with the pretty young girl motions of secrecy and modesty.

James peered ahead into the darkness through which the lantern moved like a will-o'-the-wisp. "Your uncle is here, too," he said. Then he drew rein with a sudden, "Halloo, what is wrong?" Aaron came forward, leaving the lantern on the ground. It lit weirdly Dr. Gordon, who was kneeling on the ground beside a dark mass, which looked horribly suggestive. Then James saw another dark mass to the right, the balky mare and a buggy.

"Doctor Gordon says you had better hitch to this post here," said Aaron in a sort of hoarse whisper, "and then come to him. He says he needs help, and Miss Clemency, he says, must go around the house and in the front door, and be careful not to let the dog out, but go upstairs, and if her mother is awake, tell her it ain't anything for her to fret about, and Doctor Gordon will be in very soon."

"Oh, Aaron, what is the matter?" said Clemency, in a frightened whisper, as James sprang out of the buggy.

"It ain't nothin'," replied Aaron doggedly. "Jest a man fell coming to the office. Reckon he had a jag on. Doctor says he may have broke a rib. He's doctorin' him. You jest run round the house, and in the front door, Miss Clemency, and don't let out the dog, an' see to your ma."

James assisted Clemency out, and she fled, with a wild glance over her shoulder at the lantern-lit group in front of the office door. While Aaron tied the horse to the post James ran to Doctor Gordon. When he drew nearer the sight became sanguinary in its details, and he could hear from the office the raging growls and howls of the dog. He also heard him leap against the door, as if he would break it down. Gordon had a pail of water and a basin beside him, and he was applying water vigorously to the throat of the prostrate figure. The water in the basin gleamed, in the lantern light, blood red. "Just empty this basin and fill it up from the pail," ordered Gordon in a husky voice, and again he squeezed the reddened cloth over the throat, which James now discerned was badly torn. The man lay doubled up upon himself as limp as a rag.

"No, I don't think so," replied Gordon, as if in answer to an unspoken question, as James, having complied with his request, drew near with the basin of fresh water.

"Was it the dog?" asked James in a low voice.

"Yes, the fool came round to the office door, and—" Gordon stopped with a miserable sigh which was almost a groan, and dipped the cloth in the basin.

"How did you get him off?" asked James.

"I had the whip, and Aaron came in just then with that damned mare. She had balked. I don't think it is the jugular. It can't be. Damn it, how he bleeds! Run into the office, Elliot, and get the absorbent cotton and the brandy. I've got to stop this somehow. Oh, my God!"

James suddenly recognized the man on the ground, and gave an exclamation which Gordon did not seem to notice. "For God's sake, don't let that dog out!" he cried. "Don't risk the office door. Go around the house, the front way! Be quick!"

James obeyed. He rushed around the house, and opened the front door. Immediately Clemency was clinging to him in the dim vestibule. "Mother is asleep. I think Uncle Tom must have given her some medicine to make her sleep. Oh, what is the matter? Who is that man out there, and what ails him, and what ails the dog? I started to go in the office, but he leapt against the door, so I didn't. I was afraid he might get out and run upstairs and wake mother. Oh, what is it all about?"

"Nothing for you to worry about, dear," replied James. "Now you must be a good little girl, and let me go. Your uncle is in a hurry for some things in the office." He put away her clinging arms gently, and hurried on toward the office, but the girl followed him. "If I don't stand ready to shut the door behind you, that dog will be out," she said. All at once a conviction as to something seized her, and she cried out in terror and horror, "Oh, I know it is that man out there, and Jack wants to get at him. I know."

"It is nothing for you to worry about, dear."

"I know. Is he going to die? Is he hurt much?"

"No, your uncle doesn't think so. Don't hinder me, dear."

"No, I won't. I will stand ready and bang the door together after you before Jack can get out. Oh, it is that man!" Clemency was half-hysterical, but she stood her ground. When James opened the office door cautiously and slipped through the opening, she pushed it together with surprising strength. "Don't get bitten yourself," she called out anxiously.

For a moment James thought that he might be bitten, for the dog was so frenzied that he was almost past the point of recognizing his friends. He made a powerful leap upon James, the crest upon his back as rigid as steel, but James snatched at his collar, threw him, and spoke, and the well-trained animal succumbed before his voice. "Charge!" thundered the young man, and the dog obeyed, although still bristling and growling. James hurriedly caught up his leash and fastened him to the staple, then he opened the inner office door, and spoke quickly and reassuringly to Clemency, who was huddled behind it shaking with fear. "He is all right. I have fastened him," he said. "Don't worry. Now I must go and help your uncle."

"He didn't bite you?"

"Oh, no, he knew me the minute I spoke. Sit down here by the fire and don't be frightened; that's a good little girl."

With that James was out by the other door and in the drive beside Gordon, who was still assiduously applying water to the red throat of the prostrate man. "It is beginning to slack up a little," he said hoarsely. "Here, give me the cotton, and see if you can't get a drop of brandy between his teeth. They are clinched, but just now he moved a little. He may be able to swallow. Aaron, put the team into the wagon, and get a mattress and some blankets from the storeroom. Hurry, he may come to himself any minute, and he must not stay here any longer than necessary." Gordon was working fiercely as he spoke, and James took the cork from the brandy flask, and attempted to force a little between the man's clinched teeth. Aaron hurried into the stable and lit another lantern, and went about executing his orders. James, kneeling over the prostrate man, attempting to minister to him, saw the face fully in the glare of the lantern. The unconscious face did not look as evil as he remembered it. He even had a doubt if it were the face of the man who had that evening stood at his horse's head, and so terrified Clemency. Then he became convinced that it was the same. There could be no mistaking the features, which were unusually regular and handsome, but with a strange peculiarity of lines. It seemed to James that, even while the man was unconscious, all his features presented slightly upturned lines as of bitter derision, intersected with downward lines of melancholy. All these lines were very delicate, but they served to give expression. He looked like a man who had suffered and made others suffer for his sufferings, with a cruel enjoyment at the spectacle. It was a strange face, but not an evil one. However, after James had succeeded in forcing a few drops of brandy, which were met with convulsive swallowing, between the man's teeth, he moved again, and his eyes opened, and immediately the evil shone out of the face like a malignant flame in a lamp. Knowledge of, and delight in, evil gleamed out of the sudden brightness of the man's great eyes. Then the evil seemed to leap to rage, as a spark leaps to flame. He tried to raise himself, and cursed in a choking voice. He seemed awake most fully to consciousness, and to know exactly what had happened. The dog in the office sent forth a perfect volley of barks. The man had been obliged to sink back, but his right hand fumbled feebly for his pocket.

"It is not there," Gordon said coolly.

"Shoot him, you—or—" croaked the man in his voice of unnatural rage.

"Time enough for that," said Gordon. He spoke coolly, but James saw him shaking as if with the ague. He was deadly white, and his whole face looked drawn and withered. Aaron came leading the team harnessed to the wagon out of the stable. He had brought down the mattress and blankets, as the doctor had directed, and the three men after the rude bed had been made in the wagon lifted the man thereon. He seemed to be conscious, but his muttering was so weak as to be almost inaudible, save for occasional words.

After he was in the wagon Gordon, turning to James, said: "You had better go in the house and stay with the women. Aaron will go with me. I shall take this man to the hotel, to Georgie K.'s."

A perfect volley of mumbled remonstrances came from the prostrate figure in the wagon. Gordon seemed to understand him. "No, I shall not take you there," he said, "but to the hotel. You will be better cared for. I know the proprietor."

He got in beside the man, and seated himself on the floor of the wagon. Aaron mounted to the driver's seat.

"Tell Clemency and her mother not to worry if they are awake," Gordon called to James as the horses started.

James said yes and went into the house. He entered through the office door, and directly Clemency was in his arms, all trembling and half-weeping. "Oh, what has happened? Has Uncle Tom taken him away?" she quavered.

"Hush, dear, you will wake your mother. Yes, he has taken him away."

"What was the matter, tell me."

"He was unconscious. He had fallen."

"He came to. I heard him speak. Were any bones broken?"

"No, I think not. You must go to bed; it it very late, dear."

Clemency had put fresh wood on the hearth, and the little place was all a-waver and a-flicker with firelight. Grotesque shadows danced over the walls and ceiling, and sprawled uncertainly on the floor. Clemency looked up in James's face, and her own had a shocked whiteness and horror, in spite of the tenderness in his. "Tell—" she began.

"What, dear?"

"Was it—that man?"

James hesitated.

"Tell me," Clemency said imperiously.

"Yes, I think it was."

Clemency glanced as if instinctively at the dog, lying asleep in a white coil on the hearth. "What was the matter with him?" she asked in a hardly audible voice.

"He had fallen, dear, and was unconscious."

"Nothing—" Clemency glanced again at the dog, and did not complete her question.

"He had recovered consciousness," James said hastily.

"Then he is not going to die." It was impossible to say what kind of relief was in the girl's voice, but relief there was.

"I see no reason why he should. I don't think your uncle thought he would die."

"Where have they taken him?"

"To the hotel. Now, Clemency dear, you must put all this out of your mind and go to bed."

Clemency obeyed like a child. She kissed James, took a candle, and went upstairs.

James went into his own room, but he did not undress or go to bed. Instead, he sat at the window facing the street and stared into the darkness, watching for Doctor Gordon's return. He sat there for nearly two hours, then he heard wheels, and saw the dark mass of the team and wagon lumber into sight. He ran through the house, and was in the drive with a lantern when the team entered. "Have you been waiting for us, Elliot?" called Doctor Gordon's tired voice.

"Yes, I thought I would."

"I stayed until I was sure he was comfortable," said Gordon. He clambered over the wheel of the wagon like an old man. When he was in the office with James, and the lamp was lit, he sank into a chair, and looked at the younger man with an expression almost of despair.

"He is not going to die of it?" asked James hesitatingly.

"No," cried Gordon, "he shall not!" He looked up with sudden, fierce resolution and alertness. "Why should he die?" he demanded. "He is far from being old or feeble. His vitals are not touched. Why on earth should you think he would die?"

"I see no reason," James replied hastily, "only—"

"Only what, for God's sake?"

"I thought you looked discouraged."

"Well, I am, and tired of the world, but this man is going to live. See here, boy, suppose you see if there is any hot water in the kitchen, and we'll have something to drink, then we will go to bed, and God grant we don't have a night call."

After Gordon had drank his face lightened somewhat, still he looked years older than he had done at dinner time, with that awful aging of the soul, which sometimes comes in an instant. When finally he went upstairs James noticed how feebly he moved. It was on his tongue's end to offer to assist him, but he did not dare.

The next morning, before James was up, he heard the rapid trot of a horse on the drive, and wondered if Doctor Gordon had had a call so early. When the breakfast-bell rang only Clemency was at the table. The maid had returned in season to get breakfast, and was waiting with a severely interrogative face.

She had noticed blood on the frozen surface of the drive and had stood surveying it before she entered. She had asked Clemency if anything had happened, and the girl had told her that a man had fallen near the office door on the preceding evening and been injured, and Doctor Gordon had taken him home.

"What's the man's name?" Emma had inquired sharply.

"I don't know," said Clemency, and indeed she did not know, but there was something secretive in her manner. Emma set her mouth hard and tossed her head. Curiosity was almost a lust with her. She was always enraged when it was excited and not gratified.

When James entered, she glanced severely at him and then at Clemency, as she passed the muffins. She suspected something between them, and she was baffled there.

"Has Doctor Gordon gone out?" James asked.

"Yes, he went right out as soon as he got up. Just had a cup of coffee; wouldn't wait for breakfast," replied Emma in a nipping tone.

Neither Clemency nor James made any comment. Both knew where he had gone, and Emma, seeing that they both knew, grew more hostile than ever. Her manner of serving the beefsteak was fairly warlike.

After breakfast Aaron told James of some parting instructions which Gordon had left with him. He had the team harnessed, and was to take James to visit certain patients.

James went off on a long drive across the country, calling on his way at the scattered houses of the patients. He did not return until noon, just before the luncheon-bell rang. Entering by the office door he found Gordon sitting before the hearth-fire, smoking, and staring gloomily at the leaping flames. He looked up when James entered, said good morning in an abstracted fashion, and asked some questions about the patients whom he had visited. James hesitated about inquiring for the man who had been injured the night before, but finally he did so. The dog had sprung up to greet him, and between his pats on the white head and commands of "Down, sir, down!" he asked as casually as he could if Gordon had seen his patient who had fallen in the drive the night before, and how he was. Gordon turned upon James a face of such fierce misery that the younger man fairly recoiled. "He isn't going to die?" he cried.

"No, he is not going to die. He shall not die!" Gordon replied with passionate emphasis. Then he added, in response to James's wondering, half-frightened look, "I have been there all the morning. I have just come home. I have left everything for him. I don't dare get a nurse. I am afraid. He may talk a good deal. Georgie K. is with him now. I can trust him, but I can't trust a nurse. I am going back after luncheon, and you may go with me. I would like you to see him."

"Does he seem to be very ill?" James asked timidly.

"Not from the—the—wound," replied Gordon, "but I am afraid of something else."

"What?"

"Erysipelas. I am afraid of that setting in. In fact, I am not altogether sure that it has not. He is an erysipelas subject. He has told me of two severe attacks which he has had. When he fell he got an abrasion of the cheek. That looks worse than the—the—wound. I should like you to see him. You have seen erysipelas cases, of course, in your hospital practice."

"Oh, yes."

"There is the bell for luncheon. We will go directly afterward."

James wondered within himself at the feverish haste with which Gordon swallowed his luncheon, frequently looking at his watch. He was actually showing more anxiety over this man who had hounded him, of whom he had lived in dread, than James had seen him show over any patient since he had been with him. It seemed to him inconsistent. Mrs. Ewing did not come down to luncheon; Clemency said that she was not feeling as well as usual but Gordon did not seem much disturbed even by that. He gave Clemency some powders, with instructions how to administer them to the sick woman before he left, but he did not show concern, and did not go upstairs to see her. Clemency herself looked pale and anxious.

She found a chance to whisper to James before he went. "Is that man very much hurt?" she said close to his ear.

"Hush, dear. I am afraid so."

"Uncle Tom seems terribly worried. I have never seen him so worried even over mother, and he doesn't seem worried about her now. Oh, James, she is suffering frightfully, I know." Clemency gave a little sob. Then Gordon's voice was heard calling imperiously, "Elliot, come along!" James kissed the poor little face tenderly, and whispered that she must not worry, that probably the powders would relieve her mother, and then that she herself had better lie down and try to get a little sleep, and hurried out.

Gordon was seated in the buggy, waiting for him. "I don't want to lose any time," he said brusquely as James got in beside him. "Even a few minutes sometimes work awful changes in a case like this. If he is no worse I will leave you with him, and make a call on Mrs. Wells. I haven't seen her to-day, and yesterday it looked like pneumonia, then there is that child with diphtheria at the Atwaters'. I ought to go there myself, but if he is worse you will have to go, and to a few others, and I must stay with him."

Gordon drove furiously. Heads appeared at windows; people on the street turned faces of wonder and alarm after him. It was soon noised about Alton that there had been a terrible accident, that somebody was at the point of death, but of that Gordon and James knew nothing.

When they arrived at the hotel, Gordon, after he had tied his horse, took his medicine-case, and, followed by James, entered, and went directly upstairs to a large room at the back of the hotel. This room was somewhat isolated in position, having a corridor on one side and linen closets on another, it being a corner apartment with two outer walls. Gordon opened the door softly and entered with James behind him. The bed stood between the two west windows. It was a northwest room. The afternoon sun had not yet reached it. It was furnished after the usual fashion of country hotel bedrooms. It was clean and sparse, and the furniture had the air of having a past, of having witnessed almost everything which occurs to humanity. It seemed battered and stained, though not with wear, but with humanity. The old-fashioned black walnut bedstead in which the sick man lay seemed to have a thousand voices of experiences. A great piece was broken off one corner of the footboard. The wound in the wood looked sinister. Directly opposite the bed stood the black walnut bureau, with its swung glass. The glass was cracked diagonally, and reflected the bed and its occupant with an air of experience. Gordon went directly to his patient. Beside him sat Georgie K. He looked at the two doctors and shook his head gravely. His great blond face was unshaven and paled with watching. Nobody spoke a word. All three looked at the man in the bed, who lay either asleep, or feigning sleep, or in a stupor. Gordon felt for his pulse softly, with keen eyes upon his face. This face was unspeakably ghastly. The throat was swathed in bandages. There was one tiny spot of red on the white of the linen. The man's eyes were rolled upward. Around an abrasion on the cheek, which glistened oily with some unguent which had been applied to it, was a circle of painful red clearly defined from the pallor of the rest of the cheek.

Gordon spoke. "How do you feel?" he asked of the man, who evidently heard and understood, but did not reply. He simply made a little motion of facial muscles, of shoulders, of his whole body under the bed-clothes, which indicated rage and impatience.

"Does that place on your cheek burn?" asked Gordon.

Again there was no answer, this time not even any motion.

"Have you any pain?" asked Gordon. The man lay motionless. "Is there any one in the parlor?" Gordon asked abruptly of Georgie K.

"No, Doc. You can go right in there."

Gordon beckoned to James, and the two went downstairs, and entered the room of the wax flowers and the stuffed canary.

"It looks like erysipelas," Gordon said with no preface.

James nodded.

"All I have done so far, in the absence of any positive proof of the truth of that diagnosis, is to apply what you will think an old woman's remedy, but I have known it to give good results in light cases, and I did not like to resort to the more strenuous methods until I was sure of my ground, for fear of complications. I applied a little mutton tallow, and that was all, but the inflammation has increased since I saw him. It now looks to me like a clearly defined case of erysipelas."

"It does to me," said James.

"So far—the—wound in the throat seems to be doing well," said Gordon gloomily. Then he looked at the younger physician with an odd, helpless expression. "His life must be saved," said he. "Which do you prefer of the two methods of treating the disease—that is, of the two primary ones? Of course, there are methods innumerable. I may have grown rusty in my country practice. Do you prefer the leaches, the nitrate of silver, the low diet, or the reverse?"

"I think I prefer the reverse."

"Well, you may be right," said Gordon, "and yet you have to consider that this is a man in full vigor," he added, "that presumably he has considerable reserve strength upon which to draw. Still if you prefer the other treatment—"

"I have seen very good results from it," said James. He was becoming more and more astonished at the older man's helpless, almost appealing, manner toward himself. "What is the man's name?" he asked.

"I don't know what name he has given here," Gordon replied evasively. "I will tell you later on what his name is."

Suddenly the parlor door was flung open, and a woman appeared. She was middle-aged, very large, clad in black raiment, which had an effect of sliding and slipping from her when she moved. She kept clutching at the buttons of her coat, which did not quite meet over her full front. She brought together the ends of a black fur boa, she reached constantly for the back of her skirts, and gave them a firm tug which relaxed the next moment. Her decent black bonnet was askew, her large face was flushed. She had been a strapping, handsome country girl once; now she was almost indecent in her involuntary exuberance of coarse femininity.

"How do you do, Mrs. Slocum?" Doctor Gordon said politely.

James rose, Gordon introduced him. Mrs. Slocum did not bow, she jerked her great chin upward, then she spoke with really alarming ferocity. "Where has my boarder went? That's what I want to know. That's what I have come here for, not for no bowin's and scrapin's. Where has my boarder went?"

A keen look came into Gordon's face. "I don't know who your boarder is, Mrs. Slocum," he said.



CHAPTER X

Mrs. Slocum looked at the doctor with a wide gape of surprise.

"Thought you knew," said she. "His name is Meserve, Mr. Edward Meserve, and if he has come and went, and not told where, he was good pay, and if he was took sick whilst he was to my house, I could have asked twice as much as I did before. I'd like to know what right you had to take my boarder to the hotel. He was my boarder. He wan't your boarder. I want him fetched right back. That's what I have came for."

"Mrs. Slocum," said Gordon in a hard voice, "Mr. Meserve is too sick to be moved, and his disease may be contagious. You might lose all your other boarders, and whether he recovers or not, you would be obliged to fumigate your house, and have his room repapered and plastered."

"He's got money enough to pay for it," Mrs. Slocum said doggedly.

"How do you know?"

"You think he ain't?"

Gordon looked imperturbable.

"He always paid me regular, and he ain't been to meals or to home nights two-thirds of the time."

Gordon said nothing.

"You mean if my other boarders went, and the room had to be done over, he ain't got money enough to make it good?"

Gordon said nothing. The woman fidgeted. "Well," said she, "if there's any doubt of it, mebbe he is better off here." Suddenly she gave a suspicious glance at Gordon. "Say," said she, "the room here will have to be done over. Who's goin' to pay for that?"

"The room is isolated," replied Gordon briefly.

The woman stared. She evidently did not know the meaning of the word.

"Well," said she at last, "if the room is insulted, it will have to be done over. Who's going to pay for that?"

"I am."

"Well, I don't see why you couldn't pay me for that as well as Mr. Evans."

"Don't you?"

"No."

"Well, I do. Now, Mrs. Slocum, I really have no more time to waste. Mr. Meserve is a very sick man, and I have to go to him. I came down here to consult with my assistant, and you have hindered us. Good-day!"

But the woman still stood her ground. "I'm goin' to see him," she said. "He's my boarder."

"You will do so at your own risk, and also, if your call should prove injurious to him, at a risk of being indicted for manslaughter, besides possibly catching the disease."

"You say it's ketching?"

"I said it might be. We have not yet entirely formed our diagnosis."

The woman stared yet again. Then she turned about with a switch which disclosed fringy black petticoats and white stockings. "Well, form your noses all you want to," said she. "You have took away my boarder, an' if he gits well, and it ain't ketchin', I'll have the law on ye."

Gordon drew a deep breath when the door closed behind her. "It seems sometimes to me as if comedy were the haircloth shirt of tragedy," he said grimly. "Well, Elliot, we will go upstairs and begin the fight. I am going to fight to the death. I shall remain here to-night. You will have to look after my other patients when you leave here. I am sorry to put so much upon you."

"Oh, that's all right," said James, following Gordon upstairs. But as he spoke he wondered more and more that this man, after what he had known of him, should be of more importance to Gordon than all others.

Even during the short time they had been downstairs the angry red around the abrasion on the cheek had widened, and widened toward the head. Gordon opened his medicine-case and took out a bottle and hairbrush and commenced work. Directly the entire cheek was blackened with the application of iron. Georgie K. had brought glasses, and medicine had been forced into the patient's mouth. "Now go and have some eggnog mixed, Georgie K.," said Gordon, "and bring it here yourself, if you will. I hate to trouble you."

"That's all right, Doc," said Georgie K., and went.

James remained only a short time, since he had the other calls to make. He returned quite late to find that dinner had been kept waiting for him, and Clemency in her pretty red gown was watching. Mrs. Ewing had not come down all day. "Mother says she is easier," Clemency observed, "only she thinks it better to keep perfectly still." Clemency said very little about the man at the hotel. She seemed to dread the very mention of him. She and James spent a long evening together, and she was entirely charming. James began to put behind him all the mystery and dark hints of evil. Clemency, although fond, was as elusive as a butterfly. She had feminine wiles to her finger tips, but she was quite innocent of the fact that they were wiles. It took the whole evening for the young man to secure a kiss or two, and have her upon his knee for the space of about five minutes. She nestled closely to him with a little sigh of happiness for a very little while, then she slipped away, and stood looking at him like an elf. "I am not going to do that much," said she.

"Why not, darling?"

"Because I am not. It is silly. I love you, but I will not be silly. I want only what will last. The love will last, but the silliness won't. We are going to be married, but I shall not want to sit on your knee all the time, and what is more, you will not want me to. Suppose we should live to be very old. Who ever saw a very old woman sitting on her very old husband's knee? The love will last, but that will not. We will not have so very much of that which will not last."

For all that, James caught Clemency and kissed her until her soft face was crimson, but he said to himself, when he was in his own room, that never was a girl so wise, and how much more he wanted to hold her upon his knee—as if he had not already held her there—and yet she was not coquettish. She was simply earnest, with an odd, wise, childlike earnestness.

Early the next morning James went to the hotel, and found Gordon haggard and intense, sitting beside his patient, who was evidently worse. The terrible red fire of Saint Anthony had mounted higher, and settled lower. "It has attacked his throat now," Gordon said in a whisper. "I expect every minute it will reach his brain. When it does, nobody but you and I must be with him, not even Georgie K. He is getting some rest. He was up half the night, bless him! But when it reaches the brain two will be needed here, and the two must be you and I. Take this list, and make the calls as quickly as you can, and come back here." James, with a last glance at the black and swollen face of the man, who now seemed to be in a state of coma, obeyed. He hurried through his list, and returned. He found no apparent change in the patient, and tried to persuade Gordon to take a little rest, but the elder man was obdurate. "No" he said, "here I stay. I have had a bit to eat and drink. You go down yourself and get something, then come back. The crisis may arrive any second. Then I shall need you."

The fire had outstripped the blackness on the man's cheek toward the temple. One eye was closed.

When James returned after a hurried lunch, he heard a loud, terrible voice in the room. Outside the door a maid stood with a horrified face listening. James grasped her roughly by the shoulder. "Get out of this," he ordered. "If I find you or any one else here listening, you'll be sorry for it."

The maid gasped out an excuse and fled. James tried the door, but it was locked. "Is that you, Elliot?" called Gordon above the other awful voice.

"Yes."

The door was unlocked, and James sprang into the room, but he was hardly quick enough, for the man was almost out of bed, when the two doctors forced him back with all their strength. Then he sat up and raved, and such raving! James felt his very blood cold within him. Revelations as of a devil were in those ravings. Once in a while James opened the door cautiously to be sure that no one was listening. The raving man reiterated names as of a multitude. Gordon's was among them, and many names of women, one especially—Catherine. He repeated that name more frequently than the others, but the others were legion. There was something indescribably horrible in hearing this repetition of names of unknown people, accompanied with statements beyond belief regarding them and the raving man. Gordon's face was ghastly, and so was the younger doctor's. "Look and see if any one is listening, for God's sake," Gordon gasped, after one terrific outburst, and James looked, but Georgie K. was keeping watch that nobody approached the door.

James never knew how long he was in that room with Gordon listening to those frenzied ravings, and striving with him to keep the man from injuring himself. The daylight waned, James lighted a lamp. Then a mighty creaking was heard outside, and Georgie K., himself bearing a great supper tray, knocked at the door. "It's me, and I brought you something," he shouted, and then they heard his retreating footsteps. Much delicacy was there in Georgie K., and much affection for Doctor Gordon.

James brought in the tray, and now and then he and Gordon took advantage of a slight lull to take a bite, but neither had any desire for food. It was only the instinctive sense that they must keep up their strength in order that nobody else should hear what they were hearing, that forced them to eat and drink. Well into the evening the ravings stopped suddenly, the man fell back upon his pillow, and lay still. James thought at first that all was over, but presently stertorous breathing began.

"Now get Georgie K. up," Gordon said hoarsely. "There is no further need for us to be alone, and there will be directions to be given."

James went out and found Georgie K. sitting up in his bar-room.

"Doctor Gordon wants you," he said.

"How is he?" asked Georgie K., following James.

"Dying."

Georgie K. made an indescribable sound in his throat as the two men ascended the stair.

The man was a long time dying. It seemed to James as if that awful struggle of the soul for release from the body would never cease. He knew, or thought he knew, that there was no suffering to the dying man, but, after all, the sounds as of suffering seemed almost to prove it. Gordon whispered for a while to Georgie K., as if the dying man might be disturbed by audible speech. Then Georgie K. tiptoed out in his creaking boots, and James knew that some arrangements were to be perfected for the last services to the dead. Gordon stood over the bed, with his own face as ghastly as that of its occupant. James dared not speak to him.

It was midnight when the dreadful breathing ceased, and there was silence. Georgie K. had returned. The three living men looked at one another with ghastly understanding of what had happened, then they hastily arranged some matters. The dead man was decently composed and dressed, his throat swathed anew in linen handkerchiefs, and another handkerchief laid over the discolored face, which had in death a strange peace, as if relieved of an uneasy and wearing tenant. Before Georgie K. went out, the village undertaker had been summoned, and had been waiting for some time in the parlor with a young assistant. They mounted the stairs bearing some appurtenances of their trade. Gordon addressed the undertaker briefly, giving some directions, then he motioned to James, and they passed out. Georgie K. remained in the room. He prevented the undertaker from removing the linen swathe on the dead man's throat. "Doc says it's catching," he said, and the undertaker drew back quickly.

When Gordon and James were in the buggy on the way home, Gordon all at once gave a great sigh, like that of a swimmer who yields to the force of the current, or the fighter who sinks before his opponent. "I'm about done, too," he said. "Here, take the lines, Elliot."

James took the reins and looked anxiously at his companion's face, a pale blue in the moonlight. "You are not ill?" he said.

"No, only done up. For God's sake let me rest, and don't talk till we get home!" James drove on. Gordon's head sank upon his breast, and he began to breathe regularly. He did not wake until James roused him when they reached home.

* * * * *

The next morning before breakfast James was awakened by a loud voice in the office, the high-pitched one of a woman. He recalled how exhausted Doctor Gordon had been the night before, and rose and dressed quickly. When he entered the office Gordon was sitting huddled up in his old armchair before the fire, while bolt upright beside him sat Mrs. Slocum, discoursing in loud and angry tones, which Gordon seemed scarcely to heed. When James entered she turned upon him. "Now I'll see if I can git anythin' out of you," she said. "He" (pointing to Gordon) "don't act as if he was half-alive. I'm goin' to have my rights if I have to go to law to git 'em. Doctor Gordon took away my boarder. And if I'd had him sick and die to my house, I could have got extra. Now what I want is jest this, an' I'm goin' to hev it, too! Doctor Gordon said Mr. Meserve didn't have money. I don't know nothin' about that. I ain't went through his pockets, but his trunk is to my house, and there's awful nice men's clothes into it, and I mean to hev 'em. That ain't nothin' more'n fair. That's what I hev came here for, jest as soon as I heard the poor man had passed away. I left my daughter to git the breakfast for the boarders, and I hev came here to see about that trunk, and hisn's clothes."

James laughed. "But, Mrs. Slocum," he said, "what on earth do you want with men's clothes? You can't wear them."

To his intense surprise the great face of the woman suddenly reddened like that of a young girl, but the next moment she gave her head a defiant toss, and stared boldly at him. "What if I can't?" said she. "There's other men as can wear 'em, and they'll jest fit Bill Todd. He's been boardin' with me five year, and if he wants to git married and save his board bill, it's his business and mine and nobody else's."

James turned to Gordon, who seemed prostrated before this feminine onslaught. "Do you object to this woman's having the trunk?" he asked.

Gordon made an effort and roused himself. "She can have it after I have examined it for papers," he said.

"There ain't a scrap of writin' in the trunk," Mrs. Slocum vociferated. "Me an' my boarder hev looked. There ain't no writin' an' no jewelry, an' no money. He used to carry his money with him, and he had a bank book in his pocket, and a long, red book he used to git money out of the bank. I've seen 'em. Doctor Gordon said he didn't have no money. He did hev money. Once he left the long, red book on his bureau, and I looked in it, and the leaves that are as good as money wan't a quarter torn out. I know he had money, an' I've been cheated out of it. But all I ask is that trunk."

"For God's sake take the trunk and clear out," shouted Gordon with unexpected violence, "but if there is a scrap of written paper in that trunk, and you keep it, you'll be sorry."

"There ain't," said the woman with evident truthfulness. She rose and clutched at the back of her skirt, and tugged at her boa and coat. "Thank you, Doctor Gordon," said she. "When is the funeral goin' to be?"

"Tell her to-morrow at two o'clock at the hotel, and tell her to leave," said Gordon, and his voice was suddenly apathetic again.

When the woman had gone Gordon turned to James. "How comedy will prick through tragedy," he said.

"Yes," James answered vaguely. He looked anxiously at Gordon, whose eyes had at once a desperate and an utterly wearied appearance. "I will make all the arrangements for the funeral, if you wish, Doctor Gordon," he said. "I know the undertaker, and I can manage it as well as you. You look used up."

"I am pretty nearly," muttered Gordon. Then he gave an almost affectionate glance at James. "Do you think you can manage it?" he said.

James smiled. "It is a new thing to me, but I have no doubt I can," he replied.

"You cannot imagine what a weight you would take off my shoulders. Don't spare money. See to it that everything is good and as it should be. The bills are to be sent to me."

Gordon answered an unspoken question of James. "Yes," he said, "he had money, a considerable fortune, and he has no heirs—at least, I am as sure as I need be that he has none. In his pockets were two bank books, small check books, and a security register book. I have done them up in a parcel. See to it that they are buried with him."

"But," said James.

"Oh, yes, I know. Sooner or later there will be advertisements in the papers, and that sort of thing, but that will pass. God knows I would not touch his money with the devil's pitchfork, nor allow anybody whom I loved to touch it. Let him be buried under the name by which he was known here. It is not the name, needless to say, on the bank books. While living under other than his rightful name, he must have gone to New York in person to supply himself with cash. There was some two hundred dollars in bank notes in his wallet. That is with the other things. Let the whole be buried with him, and see to it that Drake does not discover it. You had better take the parcel now. Open the right drawer of the table, and you will find it in the corner. Then, after breakfast, you had better see Drake at once. I will attend to the patients to-day."

"You are not able."

"Able is a word which I have eliminated from my vocabulary as applied to myself."

The funeral, which was held the next afternoon in the parlor of the hotel, was at once a ghastly and a grotesque function. The two doctors, the undertaker and his assistant, Georgie K. and the bar-tender, and Mrs. Slocum with a female friend, and a man, evidently the boarder to whom she had referred, were the only persons present. The boarder wore a hat which had belonged to the dead man. It was many sizes too large for his grayish blond, foolish little head, and, when he put it on, it nearly obscured his eyes. Mrs. Slocum sniffed audibly through the service, which was short, being conducted by the old Presbyterian clergyman of Alton. He hardly spoke above a whisper of "the stranger who had passed from our midst into the beyond." His concluding prayer was quite inaudible. Mrs. Slocum had brought a bouquet of cheerful pink geraniums from her window plants, which on the top of the closed black casket made an odd spot of color and life in the dim room. Among the blossoms were some rose-geranium leaves, whose fragrance seemed to mantle everything like smoke. While the clergyman conducted the inaudible services loud voices were heard in the bar-room, and the yelp of a dog. On one side of the house was the hush of death, on the other the din of life. James wondered what the clergyman found to say: all that he had distinguished was the expression, "The stranger within our midst."

It all seemed horribly farcical to him. The dead man in his casket had no personality for him; the sniffs of Mrs. Slocum, her boarder with the hat, assumed, in his eyes, the character of a "Punch and Judy" show. But along with that feeling came the realization of a most terrible pathos. He felt a sort of pity for the dead man, whose very personality had become nothing to him, and the pity was the greater because of that. It became a pity for the very scheme of things, for man in the abstract, born perhaps, through no fault of his own, to sin and misery, both miserable and causing misery throughout his life, and then to end in the grave, and vanish from the sight and minds of other men. He felt that it would not be so sad if it were sadder, if Mrs. Slocum's sniffs had come from her heart, and not from her sentimentality. He felt that a funeral where love is not is the most mournful function on earth. Then, too, he felt a great anxiety for Doctor Gordon, who sat shrugged up in his gray overcoat, with his gray grizzle of beard meeting the collar, and his forehead heavily corrugated over pent and gloomy eyes.

He was heartily glad when the service was over, when the casket had been lowered into the grave, when the village hearse had turned off into a street, the horse going at a sharp trot, and he and Doctor Gordon were left alone. He drove. Gordon sat hunched into a corner of the buggy, as he had sat in the corner of the hotel parlor. James hesitated about saying anything, but finally he spoke, he felt foolishly enough, although he meant the words to be comforting. "You did all you could to save his life," he said.

Gordon made no reply.

When they reached the house, Clemency's head disappeared from the window, where she had evidently been watching. She met them at the office door, with an odd, shocked, inquiring expression on her little face. James kissed her furtively, while Gordon's back was turned, as he divested himself of his gray coat.

"Dinner is nearly ready," Clemency said in an agitated voice.

"How is she?" asked Gordon, then before she had time to reply, he added almost roughly, "What on earth are you fretting about?"

"I am not fretting," Clemency answered in a weak little voice.

"There is nothing in all this for you to concern yourself with. Put it out of your head!"

"Yes, Uncle Tom."

"How is she?"

"She has been asleep all the afternoon."

"She has not had another attack?"

"No, Uncle Tom."

Then the dinner-bell rang.

To James's surprise, but everything surprised him now, Gordon seemed to recover his spirits. He ate heartily. He laughed and joked. After dinner he went upstairs to see Mrs. Ewing, and when he came down insisted that James should accompany him to the hotel for a game of euchre. James would have preferred remaining with Clemency, whose eyes were wistful, but Gordon hurried him away. They remained until nearly midnight in the parlor, where the funeral had taken place a short time before, playing euchre, telling stories, and drinking apple-jack. James noticed that the hotel man often cast an anxious and puzzled glance at Gordon. He began to fancy that what seemed mirth and jollity was the mere bravado of misery and a ghastly mask of real enjoyment. He was glad when Gordon made the move to leave. Georgie K. stood in the door watching the two men untie the horse and get into the buggy. "Take care of yourself, Doc," he hallooed, and there was real affection and concern in his voice.

Gordon drove now, and the mare, being on her homeward road, made good time. James helped Gordon unharness, as Aaron had gone to bed. His deep snores sounded through the stable from his room above. "It's a pity to wake up anything," Gordon said. "Guess well put the mare up ourselves." Now his voice was bitter again. Gordon had the key of the office door, and after locking the stable the two men entered. Gordon threw some wood on the fire. The lamp with its dangling prisms was burning. "Sit down a minute," Gordon said, "'I have something to tell you. I may as well get it off my mind now. It has got to come sometime."

James sat down and lit a cigar. He felt himself in a nervous tension. Gordon filled his pipe and lit it, then he began to speak in an odd, monotonous voice, as though he were reciting.

"That man's name was James Mendon. He was an Englishman. When I first began practice it was in the West. That man had a ranch near the little town where I lived with my sister Alice. Alice was a beautiful girl. We had lost our parents, and she kept house for me. The man was as handsome as a devil, and he had the devil's own way with women. God only knows what a good girl like my sister saw in him. He had a bad name, even out in that rough country. Horrible tales were circulated about his cruelty to animals for one thing. His cowboys deserted him and told stories. His very dog turned on him, and bit him. God knows how he was torturing the animal. I saw the scar on his hand when he lay on his death-bed. Well, however it was, my sister loved him and married him, and he treated her like a fiend. She died, and it was a merciful release. He deserted her three months before her death. Sold out all he had, and left her without a cent. She came back to me, and three months later Clemency was born."

Gordon paused and looked at James. "Yes," he said, "that man was Clemency's father."

He waited, but only for a second. The young man spoke, and his clear young voice rang out like a trumpet. "I never loved Clemency as I love her now," he said.



CHAPTER XI

Gordon smiled at James. "God bless you, boy!" he said.

"What possible difference do you think that could make?" demanded James hotly. "Could that poor little girl help it?"

"Of course she could not, but some men might object, and with reason, to marrying a girl who came of such stock on her father's side."

"I am not one of those men."

"No, I don't think you are, but it is only my duty to put the case plainly before you. That man who was buried this afternoon was simply unspeakable. He was a monstrosity of perverted morality. I cannot even bring myself to tell you what I know of him. I cannot even bring myself to give you the least hint of what my poor young sister, Clemency's mother, suffered in her brief life with him. You may fear heredity—"

"Heredity, nothing! Don't I know Clemency?"

"I myself really think that you have nothing whatever to fear. Clemency is her mother's living and breathing image as far as looks go, and as far as I can judge in the innermost workings of her mind. I have not seen in her the slightest taint from her evil father, though God knows I have watched for it with horror as the years have passed. After she was born I smuggled her away by night, and gave out word that the child had died at the same time with the mother. There was a private funeral, and the casket was closed. I had hard work to carry it through successfully, for I was young in those days, and broken-hearted at losing my sister, but carry it through I did, and no one knew except a nurse. I trusted her, I was obliged to do so, and I fear that she has betrayed me. I established a practice in another town in another State, and there I met Clara. She has told me that she informed you of the fact that she was my wife, but not of our reasons for concealing it. Just before we were married I became practically certain that Clemency's father had gained in some way information that led him to suspect, if not to be absolutely certain, that his child had not died with his wife. I had a widowed sister, Mrs. Ewing, who lived in Iowa with her only daughter just about Clemency's age. Just before our marriage she decided to remove to England to live with some relatives of her deceased husband. They had considerable property, and she had very little. I begged her to go secretly, or rather to hint that she was going East to live with me, which she did. Nobody in the little Iowa village, so far as I knew, was aware of the fact that my sister and daughter had gone to England, and not East to live with me. Clara and I were married privately in an obscure little Western hamlet, and came East at once. We have lived in various localities, being driven from one to another by the danger of Clemency's father ascertaining the truth; and my wife has always been known as Mrs. Ewing, and Clemency as her daughter. It has been a life of constant watchfulness and deception, and I have been bound hand and foot. Even had Clemency's father not been so exceedingly careful that it would have been difficult to reach him by legal methods, there was the poor child to be considered, and the ignominy which would come upon her at the exposure of her father. I have done what I could. I am naturally a man who hates deception, and wishes above all things to lead a life with its windows open and shades up, but I have been forced into the very reverse. My life has been as closely shuttered and curtained as my house. I have been obliged to force my own wife to live after the same fashion. Now the cause for this secrecy is removed, but as far as she is concerned, the truth must still be concealed for Clemency's sake. It must not be known that that dead man was her father, and the very instant we let go one thread of the mystery the whole fabric will unravel. Poor Clara can never be acknowledged openly as my wife, the best and most patient wife a man ever had, and under a heavier sentence of death this moment than the utmost ingenuity of man could contrive." Gordon groaned, and let his head sink upon his hands.

"She told me some time ago that she was ill," James said pityingly.

"Ill? She has been upon the executioner's block for years. It is not illness; that is too tame a word for it. It is torture, prolonged as only the evil forces of Nature herself can prolong it."

Gordon rose and shook himself angrily. "I am keeping her now almost constantly under morphine," he said. "She has suffered more lately. The attacks have been more frequent. There has never been the slightest possibility of a surgical operation. From the very first it was utterly hopeless, and if it had been the dog there, I should have put a bullet through his head and considered myself a friend." Gordon gazed with miserable reflection at the dog. "I am glad that the direct cause of that man's death was not what it might have been," he said.

He shook himself again as a dog shakes off water. He laughed a miserable laugh. "Well," he said, "Clemency is free now. She can go her ways as she will. You see she resembled her mother so closely that I had to guard her from even the sight of her father. He would have known the truth at once. Clemency is free, but I have paid an awful price for her freedom and for your life. If I had not done what you doubtless know I did that night, you would have been shot, and it would have been a struggle between myself and her father, with the very good chance of my being killed, and Clara and the girl left defenseless. His revolver carried six deaths in it. It would all have depended upon the quickness of the dog, and I should have left too much hanging upon that."

"I don't see what else you could do," James said in a low voice. He was pale himself. He did not blame Gordon. He felt that he himself, in Gordon's place, would have done as he had done, and yet he felt as if faced close to a horror of murder and death, and he knew from the look upon the other man's countenance that it was the same with him.

"I saw no other way," Gordon said in a broken voice, "but—but I don't know whether I am a murderer or an executioner, and I never shall know. God help me! Well," he added with a sigh, "what is done, is done. Let us go to bed."

James said when they parted at his room door that he hoped Mrs. Ewing would have a comfortable night.

"Yes, she will," replied Gordon quietly. Then he gave the young man's hand a warm clasp. "God bless you!" he whispered. "If this had turned you against the child, it would have driven me madder than I am now. I love her as if she were my own. You and your loyalty are all I have to hold to."

"You can hold to that to the end," James returned with warmth, and he looked at Gordon as he might have looked at his own father.

Late as it was, he wrote that night to his own father and mother, telling them of his engagement to Clemency. There now can be no possible need for secrecy with regard to it. James, in spite of his vague sense of horror, felt an exhilaration at the thought that now all could be above board, that the shutters could be flung open. He felt as if an incubus had rolled from his mental consciousness. Clemency herself experienced something of the same feeling. She appeared at the breakfast-table the next morning with her hat. "Uncle says I may go with you on your rounds," she said to James. She beamed, and yet there was a troubled and puzzled expression on her pretty face. When she and James had started, and were moving swiftly along the country road, she said suddenly, "Will you tell me something?"

James hesitated.

"Will you?" she repeated.

"I can't promise, dear," he said.

"Why not?" she asked pettishly.

"Because it might be something which I ought not to tell you."

"You ought to tell me everything if—if—" she hesitated, and blushed.

"If what?" asked James tenderly.

She nestled up to him. "If you—feel toward me as you say you do."

"If. Oh, Clemency!"

"Then you ought to tell me. No, you needn't kiss me. I want you to tell me something. I don't want to be kissed."

"Well, what is that you want to know, dear?"

"Will you promise to tell me?"

"No, dear, I can't promise, but I will tell you if I am able without doing you harm."

"Who was that man who was buried yesterday, who had been hunting me so long, and frightening me and Uncle Tom, and why have I been compelled to stay housed as if I were a prisoner so much of my life?"

"Because you were in danger, dear, from the man."

"You are answering me in a circle." Clemency sat upright and looked at James, and the blue fire in her eyes glowed. "Who was the man?" she asked peremptorily.

"I can't tell you, dear."

"But you know."

"Yes."

"Why can't you tell me then?"

"Because it is not best."

Clemency shrugged her shoulders. "Why did he hunt me so?"

"I can't tell you, dear."

"But you know."

"I am not sure."

"But you think you know."

"Yes."

"Then tell me."

"I can't, dear."

"When will you tell me?"

"Never!"

Clemency looked at him, and again she blushed. "You will tell me after—we are—married. You will have to tell me everything then," she whispered.

James shook his head.

"Won't you then?"

"No, dear, I shall never tell you while I live."

Clemency made a sudden grasp at the reins. "Then I will never marry you," she said. "I will never marry you, if you keep things from me."

"I will never keep things from you that you ought to know, dear."

"I ought to know this!"

James remained silent. Clemency had brought the horse to a full stop. "Won't you ever tell me?" she asked.

"No, never! dear."

"Then let me get out. This is Annie Lipton's street. I am going to see her. I have not seen her for a long time. I will walk home. It is safe enough now. You can tell me that much?"

"Yes, it is, but Clemency, dear."

"I am not Clemency, dear. I am not going to marry you. You say you wrote your father and mother last night that we were going to get married. Well, you can just write again and tell them we are not. No, you need not try to stop me. I will get out. Good-by! I shall not be home to luncheon. I shall stay with Annie. I like her very much better than I like you."

With that Clemency had slipped out of the buggy and hurried up a street without looking back. James drove on. He felt disturbed, but not seriously so. It was impossible to take Clemency's anger as a real thing. It was so whimsical and childish. He had counted upon his long morning with her, but he went on with a little smile on his face.

He was half inclined to think, so slightly did he estimate Clemency's anger, that she would not keep her word, and would be home for luncheon. But when he returned she was not there, and she had not come when the bell rang.

"Why, where is Clemency?" Gordon said, when they entered the dining-room.

"She insisted upon stopping to see her friend Miss Lipton," said James. "She said that she might not be home to lunch." Emma gave one of her sharp, baffled glances at him, then, having served the two men, she tossed her head and went out. Nobody knew how much she wished to listen at the kitchen door, but she was above such a course.

"Clemency and I had a bit of a tiff," James explained to Gordon. "She seemed vexed because I would not tell her what you told me last night. She is curious to know more about—that man."

"She must not know," Gordon said quickly. "Never mind if she does seem a little vexed. She will get over it. I know Clemency. She is like her mother. The power of sustained indignation against one she loves is not in the child, and she must not know. It would be a dreadful thing for her to know. I myself cannot have it. It is enough of a horror as it is, but to have that child look at me, and think—" Gordon broke off abruptly.

"She will never know through me," James said, "and I think with you that her resentment will not last."

"She will be home this afternoon," said Gordon, "and the walk will do her good."

But the two returned from their afternoon calls, and still Clemency had not returned. Emma met them at the door. "Mrs. Ewing says she is worried about Miss Clemency," she said. Gordon ran upstairs. When he came down he joined James in the office. "I have pacified Clara," he said, "but suppose you jump into the buggy, Aaron has not unharnessed yet, and drive over to Annie Lipton's for her. It is growing colder, and Clemency has not been outdoors much lately, and she has rather a delicate throat. It is time now that she was home."

James smiled. "Suppose she will not come with me?" he suggested.

"Nonsense," said Gordon. "She will be only too glad if you meet her half-way. She will come. Tell her I said that she must."

"All right," replied James.

He went out, got into the buggy, and drove along rapidly. He had the team, and the horses were still quite fresh, as they had not been long distances that day. There was a vague fear in the young man's mind, although he tried to dispel it by the force of argument. "What has the girl to fear now?" his reason kept dinning in his ears, but, in spite of himself, something else, which seemed to him unreason, made him anxious. When he reached Annie Lipton's home, a fine old house, overhung with a delicate tracery of withered vines, he saw Annie's pretty head at a front window. She opened the door before he had time to ring the bell, and she looked with alarmed questioning at him.

"I have come for Miss Ewing, her uncle—" James began, but Annie interrupted him, her face paling perceptibly. "Clemency," she said; "why, she left here directly after lunch. She said she must go. She felt anxious about her mother, and did not want to leave her any longer. Hasn't she come home yet?"

"No," said James.

"And you didn't meet her? You must have met her."

"No."

The two stood staring at each other. A delicate old face peeped out of the door at the right of the halls. It was like Annie's, only dimmed by age, and shaded by two leaf-like folds of gray hair as smooth as silver. "Oh, mother, Clemency has not got home!" Annie cried. "Dr. Elliot, this is my mother. Mother, Clemency has not got home. What do you think has happened?"

The lady came out in the hall. She had a quiet serenity of manner, but her soft eyes looked anxious. "Could she have stopped anywhere, dear?" she said.

"You know, mother, there is not a single house between here and her own where Clemency ever stops," said Annie. She was trembling all over.

James made a movement to go. "What are you going to do?" cried Annie.

"Stop at every house between here and Doctor Gordon's, and ask if the people have seen her," replied James.

Then he ran back to the buggy, and heard as he went a little nervous call from Annie, "Oh, let us know if—"

"I will let you know when I find her, Miss Lipton," he called back as he gathered up the lines. He kept his word. He did stop at every house, and at every one all knowledge of the girl was disclaimed. There were not many houses, the road being a lonely one. He was met mostly by women who seemed at once to share his anxiety. One woman especially asked very carefully for a description of Clemency, and he gave a minute one. "You say her mother is ill, too," said the woman. She was elderly, but still pretty. She had kept her tints of youth as some withered flowers do, and there seemed still to cling to her the atmosphere of youth, as fragrance clings to dry rose leaves. She was dressed in rather a superior fashion to most of the countrywomen, in soft lavender cashmere which fitted her slight, tall figure admirably. James had a glimpse behind her of a pretty interior: a room with windows full of blooming plants, of easy-chairs and many cushioned sofas, beside book-cases. The woman looked, so he thought, like one who had some private anxiety of her own. She kept peering up and down the road, as they talked, as though she, too, were on the watch for some one. She promised James to keep a lookout for the missing girl. "Poor little thing," she murmured. There was something in her face as she said that, a slight phase of amusement, which caused James to stare keenly at her, but it had passed, and her whole face denoted the utmost candor and concern.

When James reached home he had a forlorn hope that he should find Clemency there; that from a spirit of mischief she had taken some cross track over the fields to elude him. But when Aaron met him in the drive, and he saw the man's frightened stare, he knew that she had not come. It was unnecessary to ask, but ask he did. "She has not come?"

"No, Doctor Elliot," replied Aaron. He did not even chew. He tied the horses, and followed James into the office, with his jaws stiff. Gordon stood up when James entered, and looked past him for Clemency. "She was not there?" he almost shouted.

"She left the Liptons at two o'clock, and I have stopped at every house on my way, and no one has seen her."

"Oh, my God!" said Gordon, with a dazed look at James.

"What do you think?" asked James.

"I don't know what to think. I am utterly at a loss now. I supposed she was entirely safe. There are almost no tramps at this season, and in broad daylight. At two, you said? It is almost six. I don't know what to do. What will come next? I must tell Clara something before I do anything else."

Gordon rushed out of the office, and they heard his heavy tread on the stairs. Aaron stared at James, and still he did not chew.

"It's almost dark," he said with a low drawl.

"Yes."

"We've got to take lanterns, and hunt along the road and fields."

"Yes, we have."

The dog, which had been asleep, got up, and came over to James, and laid his white head on his knee. "We can take him," Aaron said. "Sometimes dogs have more sense than us."

"That is so," said James. He felt himself in an agony of helplessness. He simply did not know what to do. He had sunk into a chair and his head fairly rung. It seemed to him incredible that the girl had disappeared a second time. A queer sense of unreality made him feel faint.

Gordon reentered the room. "I have told Clara that you have come back, and that Clemency is to stay all night with Annie Lipton," he said. Then he, too, stood staring helplessly. Emma had come into the room, and now she spoke angrily to the three dazed men. "Git the lanterns lit, for goodness' sake," said she, "and hunt and do something. I'm goin' to git her supper, and I'll keep her pacified." Emma gave a jerk with a sharp elbow toward Mrs. Ewing's room. "For goodness' sake, if you don't know yet where she has went, why don't you do somethin'?" she demanded. The men went before her sharp command like dust before her broom. "Keep as still as you can," ordered Emma as they went out. "She mustn't, git to worryin' before she comes home."



For the next two hours Gordon, James, and Aaron searched. They walked, each going his separate way into the fields and woods on the road, having agreed upon a signal when the girl should be found. The signal was to be a pistol shot. James went first to the wood, where he had found Clemency on her former disappearance. He searched in every shadow, throwing the gleam of his lantern into little dark nests of last year's ferns, and hollows where last year's leaves had swirled together to die, but no Clemency. At last, wearied and heart-sick, he came out on the road. The moon was just up, a full moon, and the road lay stretched before him like a silver ribbon covered with the hoar-frost. He gazed down it hopelessly, and saw a little dark figure running toward him. He was incredulous, but he called, "Clemency!"

A glad little cry answered him. He himself ran forward, and the girl was in his arms, sobbing and trembling as if her heart would break.

"What has happened? What has happened, darling?" James cried in an agony. "Are you hurt? What has happened?"

"Something very strange has happened, but I am not hurt," sobbed Clemency. James remembered the signal. "Wait a second, dear," he said; "your uncle and Aaron are searching, and I promised to fire the pistol if I found you." James fired his pistol in the air six times. Then he returned to Clemency, who was leaning against a tree. "How I wish we had driven here!" James said tenderly.

"I can walk, if you help me," Clemency sobbed, leaning against him. "Oh, I am so sorry I acted so this morning. I got punished for it. I haven't been hurt, nobody has been anything but kind to me, but I have been dreadfully frightened."

Gordon and Aaron came running up. "Where have you been, Clemency?" Gordon demanded in a harsh voice. "Another time you must do as you are told. You are too old to behave like a child, and put us all in such a fright."

Clemency left James, and ran to her uncle, and clung to him sobbing hysterically. "Oh, Uncle Tom, don't scold me," she whimpered.

"Are you hurt? What has happened?"

"I am not hurt a bit," sobbed Clemency.

Gordon put his arm around her. "Well," he said, "as long as you are safe keep your story until we get home. Elliot, take her other arm. She is almost too used up to walk. Now stop crying, Clemency."

When they were home, in the office, Clemency told her story, which was a strange one. She had been on her way home from Annie Lipton's, and had reached a certain house, when the door opened and a woman stood there calling her. She described the woman and the house, and James gave a start. "That must be the same woman whom I saw," he exclaimed.

"She was a woman I had never seen," said Clemency. "I think she had only lived there a very short time."

Gordon nodded gloomily. "I know who she is, I fear," he said. "Strange that I did not suspect."

"She looked very kind and pleasant," said Clemency, "and I thought she wanted something and there was no harm, but when I reached her the first thing I knew she had hold of me, and her hands were like iron clamps. She put one over my mouth, and held me with the other, and pulled me into the house and locked the door. Then she made me go into a little dark room in the middle of the house and she locked me in. She told me if I screamed nobody would hear me, but she did speak kindly. She was very kind. Once she even kissed me, although I did not want her to. She brought a lamp in, and made me lie down on a couch in the room and drink a glass of wine. She told me not to be afraid, nobody would hurt me. She seemed to me to be always listening, and every now and then she went out, but she always locked the door behind her. When she came back she would look terribly worried. About half an hour ago she went out, and when she came back brought a tray with tea and bread and cold chicken for me. I told her I would starve before I ate anything while she kept me there. She did not seem to pay much attention, she looked so dreadfully worried. She sat down and looked at me. Finally, she said, as if she were afraid to hear her own voice, 'Has any accident happened near here lately that you have heard of?' I told her about the man that fell down in our drive and died of erysipelas. I did not tell her anything else. All at once she almost fell in a faint. Then she stood up, and she looked as if she were dead. She told me to stay where I was just fifteen minutes, then I might go, but I must not stir before. Then she kissed me again, and her lips were like ice. She went out, and I knew the door was not locked, but I was afraid to stir. I could hear her running about. Then I heard the outer door slam, and I looked at my watch, and it was fifteen minutes. Then I ran out and up the road as fast as I could. Just before I saw Doctor Elliot the New York train passed. I heard it. I think she was hurrying to catch that."

Gordon nodded.

"Oh, Uncle Tom, who was she, and why did she lock me up?" asked Clemency.

"Clemency," said Gordon, in a sterner voice than Clemency had ever heard him use toward her, "never speak, never think, of that woman or that man again. Now go out and eat your dinner."



CHAPTER XII

Clemency was so worn out that Doctor Gordon insisted upon her going to bed directly after dinner, and he and James had a solitary evening in the office, with the exception of Gordon's frequent absence in his wife's room. Each time when he returned he looked more gloomy. "I have increased the morphine almost as much as I dare," he said, coming into the office about ten. He sat down and lit his pipe. James laid down the evening paper which he had been reading. "Is she asleep now?" he asked.

"Yes. By the way, Elliot, have you guessed who that woman was who kidnapped Clemency?"

James hesitated. "I don't fairly know whether I am right, but I have guessed," he replied.

"Who?"

"The nurse."

"You are right. It was the nurse. That man had won her over, and set her up housekeeping in Westover. He had been staying at the hotel there before he came here. He was her lover, of course, although he was too circumspect not to guard the secret. She has been living in that house for the last three months under the name of Mrs. Wood, a widow. The former occupants went away last summer, Aaron has been telling me. He said that once he himself saw the man enter the house, and he had seen the woman on the street. She had made herself quite popular in Westover. It was no part of that man's policy to keep his vice behind locked doors. Locks themselves are the best witness against evil. She attended the Dutch Reformed Church regularly. She was present at all the church suppers, and everybody has called on her in Westover. Now I think she has fled, half-crazed with grief over the death of her lover, and afraid of some sort of exposure. Unless I miss my guess, there will be a furor around here shortly over her disappearance. She was not a bad woman as I remember her, and she was attractive, with a kindly disposition. But he had his way always with women, and I suppose she thought she was doing him a service by kidnapping poor little Clemency. I am sorry for her. I hope she did not go away penniless, but she has her nursing to fall back upon. She was a good nurse. That makes me think. I must see if Mrs. Blair cannot come here to-morrow. Clara must have somebody beside Clemency and Emma. I should prefer a trained nurse, and this woman is simply the self-taught village sort, but Clara prefers her. She shrinks at the very mention of a trained nurse. Of course, it is unreasonable, but the poor soul has always had an awful dread of hospitals and a possible operation, and I believe that in some way she thinks a trained nurse one of a dreadful trinity. She must be humored, of course. The result cannot be changed."

"You have no hope, then?" James said in a low voice.

"I have had no more from the outset than if she had been already dead," said Gordon.

James said nothing. An enormous pity for the other man was within him. He thought of Clemency, and he seemed to undergo the same pangs. He felt such a terrible understanding of the other's suffering that it passed the bounds of sympathy. It became almost experience. His young face took on the same expression of dull misery as Gordon's. Presently Gordon glanced at him, and spoke with a ring of gratitude and affection in his tired voice.

"You are a good fellow, Elliot," he said, "and you are the one ray of comfort I have. I am glad that I have you to leave poor little Clemency with."

James looked at him with sudden alarm. "You are not ill?" he said.

"No, but there is an end to everybody's rope, and sometimes I think I am about at the end of mine. I don't know. Anyway, it is a comfort to me to think that Clemency has you in case anything should happen to me."

"She has me as long as I live," James said fervently. Red overspread his young face, his eyes glistened. Again the great pity and understanding with regard to the other man came over him, and a feeling for Clemency which he had never before had: a feeling greater than love itself, the very angel of love, divinest pity and protection, for all womanhood, which was exemplified for himself in this one girl. His heart ached, as if it were Clemency's upstairs, lying miserably asleep under the influence of the drug, which alone could protect her from indescribable pain. His mind projected itself into the future, and realized the possibility of such suffering for her, and for himself. The honey-sting of pain, which love has, stung him sharply.

Gordon seemed to divine his thoughts. "God grant that you may never have to undergo what I am undergoing, boy," he said. Then he added, "It was in poor Clara's blood, her mother before her died the same way. Clemency comes, on her mother's side at least, of a healthy race, morally and physically, although the nervous system is oversensitive. If my poor sister had been happy, she would have been alive to-day. And as far as I know of the other side, there was perfect physical health, although he had that abnormal lack of moral sense that led one to dream of possession. Did you notice how much less evil he looked when he was dead, even with that frightfully disfigured face?"

"Yes."

"There are strange things in this world," said Gordon with gloomy reflection, "or else simple things which we are strange not to believe. Sometimes I think people will have to take to the Bible again in that literal sense in which so many are now inclined to disregard it. Well, Elliot, I honestly feel that you have nothing to fear in taking poor little Clemency. I should tell you if I thought otherwise. She will make you happy, and I can think of no reason to warn you concerning any possible lapses, in either her physical or her moral health, and I have had her in my charge since she first drew the breath of life. Come, my son, it is late, and we have a great deal to do to-morrow. This awful business has made me neglect patients. I have to see Clara again, and get what rest I can." Gordon looked older and wearier than James had ever seen him, as he bade him good-night, old and weary as he had often seen him look. A sudden alarm for Gordon himself came over him. He wondered, after he had entered, his room, if he were not strained past endurance. He recalled his own father's healthy, ruddy face, and Gordon was no older.

He lay awake a while thinking anxiously of Gordon, then his own happy future blazoned itself before him, and he dreamed awake, and dreamed asleep, of himself and Clemency, in that future, whose golden vistas had no end, so far as his young eyes could see. The sense of relief from anxiety over the girl was so intense that it was in itself a delight. Clemency herself felt it. The next morning at breakfast she looked radiant. Gordon had assured her the sick woman had rested quietly, and told her that Mrs. Blair was coming.

"To-day I can go where I choose," Clemency exclaimed gayly.

"Not until afternoon," replied Gordon, then he relented at her look of disappointment, and suggested that she go with Elliot to make his calls, while he went with Aaron and the team. It was a beautiful morning; spring seemed to have arrived. Everywhere was the plash of running water, now and then came distant flutings of birds. "I know that was a bluebird," Clemency said happily. "I feel sure mother will get well now. It seems wicked to be glad that the man is dead, especially on such a morning, but I wonder if it is, when he would have spoiled the morning."