"Don't think about it, anyway!" James said.

"I try not to."

"You must not!"

"I know why Uncle Tom did not want me to go out alone this morning," Clemency said, with one of her quick wise looks, cocking her head like a bird.

"Why?"

"He wanted to make sure that that woman has really gone."

"Clemency, you must not mention that man or woman to me again," said James.

"I am not married to you yet," Clemency said, pouting.

"That makes no difference, you must promise."

"Well, then, I will. I am so happy this morning, that I will promise anything."

James looked about to be sure nobody was in sight before he kissed the little radiant face.

"I won't speak of them again, but I am right," Clemency said with a little toss and blush, and it proved that she was.

At luncheon Doctor Gordon told Clemency that she could go wherever she liked. She gave a little glance at James, and said gayly, "All right, Uncle Tom."

That afternoon Gordon and James made some calls in company, driving far into the hills. They had hardly started before Gordon said abruptly, "Well, the woman is gone, and there is a wild excitement in Westover over her disappearance. I believe they are about to drag the pond. A man who knew her well by sight declares that she boarded that New York train, but the people will not give up the theory that she has been murdered for her jewelry. By the way, I think I need not worry over her immediate necessities. It seems that she had worn a quantity of very valuable jewels. Of course her going without any baggage except a suit-case, and leaving behind the greater part of her wardrobe, does look singular. But it seems that the house was rented furnished, and I fancy she lived always in light marching orders, and probably carried the most valuable of her possessions upon her person and in her suit-case. Well, I am thankful she has decamped."

"You don't fear her returning?" asked James with some anxiety.

"No, I have no fear of that. She is probably broken-hearted over the death of that man. She is not of the sort to kidnap on her own account. It was only for him. Clemency has nothing more to fear."

"I am thankful."

"You can well believe that I am, when I tell you that this afternoon I am absolutely sure, for the first time in years, that the girl is safe to come and go as she pleases. I have had hideous uncertainty as well as hideous certainty to cope with. Now it is down to the hideous certainty. That is bad enough, but fate on an open field is less unmanning than fate in ambush. I have long known to a nicety the fate in the field." Gordon hesitated a second, then he said abruptly, with his face turned from his companion, in a rough voice, "Clara can't last many days."

James made an exclamation.

"She has gone down hill rapidly during the last two days," said Gordon. "I have been increasing the morphine. It can't last long." Gordon ended the sentence with a hoarse sob.

"I can't say anything," James faltered after a second, "but you know—"

"Yes, I know," Gordon said. "You are as sorry as any one can be who is not, so to speak, the hero, or rather the coward, of the tragedy. Yes, I know. I'm obliged to you, Elliot, but all of us have to face death, whether it is our own or the death of another dearer than ourselves, alone. A soul is a horribly lonely thing in the worst places of life."

"Have you told Clemency?"

"No, I have put it off until the last minute. What good can it do? She knows that Clara is very ill, but she does not know, she has never known, the character of the illness. Sometimes I have a curious feeling that instinct has asserted itself, and that Clemency, fond as she is of my wife, has not exactly the affection which she would have had for her own mother."

"I don't think she knows any difference at all," James said. "I think the poor little girl will about break her heart."

"I did not mean to underestimate Clemency's affection," said Gordon, "but what I say is true. The girl herself will never know it, and, you may not believe it, but she will not suffer as she would suffer if Clara were her own mother. These ties of the blood are queer things, nothing can quite take their place. If Clemency had died first Clara would have been indignant at the suggestion, but she herself would not have mourned as she would mourn for her own daughter. I must touch up the horses a bit. I want to get home. I may not be able to go out again to-night. Last night I was up until dawn with Clara." Gordon touched the horses with a slight flicker of the whip. He held the lines taut as they sprang forward. His face was set ahead. James glancing at him had a realization of the awful loneliness of the other man by his side. He seemed to comprehend the vastness of the isolation of a grief which concerns one, and one only, more than any other. Gordon had the expression of a wanderer upon a desert or a frozen waste. Illimitable distances of solitude seemed reflected in his gloomy eyes.

James did not attempt to talk to him. It seemed like mockery, this effort to approach with sympathy this set-apart man, who was unapproachable.

That night Gordon's wife was much worse. Gordon came down to James's room about two o'clock. James had been awake for some time listening to the sounds of suffering overhead, and he had lit his lamp and dressed, thinking that he might be needed. Gordon stood in the doorway almost reeling. He made an effort before he spoke.

"Come into my office, will you?" he said.

James at once followed him. Going through the hall the sounds of agony became more distinct. When they entered the office Gordon fairly slammed the door, then he turned to Elliot with a savage expression. "Hear that," he said, as if he were accusing the other man. "Hear that, I say! The last hypodermic has not taken effect yet, and her heart is weak. If I give her more—"

He stopped, staring at James, his face worked like a child's. Then suddenly an almost idiotic expression came over it, the utter numbness of grief. Then it passed away. Again he looked intelligently into the young man's eyes. "If I don't give her more," he gasped out, "if I don't, this may last hours. If I do—"

The two men stood staring at each other. James thought of Clemency. "Has Clemency been in to see her?" he asked.

"Yes, she heard, and came in. I sent her out. She is in her own room now; Emma is with her." Suddenly Gordon gave a look of despairing appeal at James. "I—wish you would go up and see Clara," he whispered.

James knew what he meant. He hesitated.

"Go, and send Mrs. Blair down here," said Gordon. "Tell her I want to see her."

"Well," said James slowly.

The two men did not look at each other again. Gordon sank into his chair. James went out of the room and upstairs. He knocked on the door of the sick-room, and Mrs. Blair, the village nurse, answered his knock. She was a large woman in a voluminous wrapper. Her face had a settled expression of gravity, almost of sternness. She looked at James. The screams from the writhing mass of agony in the bed did not appear to be moving her, whereas she in reality was herself screwed to such a pitch of mental torture of pity that she was scarcely able to move. She was rigid.

"Doctor Gordon sent me," whispered James. "He wished me to see her. He asked me to say to you that he would like to see you for a minute in the office."

The woman did not move for a second. Then she whispered close to James's ear, "It is on the bureau."

James nodded. They passed each other. James entered the room and closed the door. A lamp was burning on a table with a screen before it. The bed was in shadow. The screams never ceased. They were not human. James could not realize that the beautiful woman whom he had known was making such sounds. They sounded like the shrieks of an animal. All the soul seemed gone from them.

James approached the bed. There was a roll of dark eyes at him. Then a voice ghastly beyond description, like the snarl of a hungry beast, came from between the straight white lips. "More, more! Give me more! Be quick!"

James hesitated.

"Quick, quick!" demanded the voice.

James crossed the room to the dresser. The sick woman now interspersed her screams with the word "quick!"

James filled a hypodermic syringe from a glass on the bureau and approached the bed again. He bared a shuddering arm and inserted the instrument quickly. "Now try and be quiet," he said. "You will go to sleep."

Then he went out of the room. The screams had ceased. As James approached the stair another door opened, and Clemency in a wrapper looked out. She was very pale, her eyes were distended with fear, and her mouth was trembling. "How is she?" she whispered.

"Better, dear. Go back in your room and lie down. We are doing all we can."

When James entered the office Gordon and Mrs. Blair turned with one accord, and fixed horribly searching eyes upon his face. He sat down beside the table, and mechanically lit a cigar.

"How did she seem?" Gordon asked almost inaudibly.

"Better."

"Was she quiet?"

"Yes."

Gordon gave a long sigh. His face was deadly white. He leaned back in his chair, and both James and the nurse sprang. They thought he had fainted. While James felt his pulse Mrs. Blair got some brandy. Gordon swallowed the brandy, and raised his head.

"It is nothing," he said in a harsh voice. "You had better go back to her, Mrs. Blair."

A look of strange dread came over the woman's grave face.

"I will be there directly," said Gordon.

Mrs. Blair went out. She left the door ajar. The house was so still that one could seem to hear the silence. There was something terrible about it after the turmoil of sound. Then the silence was broken. A scream more terrible than ever pierced it like a sword. Another came. Gordon sprang up and faced James. The young man's eyes fell before the look of fierce questioning in Gordon's.

"I could not," he gasped. "Oh, Doctor Gordon, I could not! Instead of that I used water. I thought perhaps her mind being convinced that it was morphine, she might—"

"Mind!" shouted Gordon. "Mind, how much do you suppose the poor, tortured thing has to bring to bear upon this? I tell you she is being eaten alive. There is no other word for it. Gnawed, and worried, and eaten alive." Gordon ran out of the room.

James closed the door. The dog, who had been asleep beside the fire, started up, came over to James, laid his white head on his knee and whimpered, with an appealing look in his brown eyes, which were turned toward the young man's face. Almost immediately Mrs. Blair entered the room. She was very pale. "Doctor Gordon sent me down for the brandy," she said abruptly. She went to the table on which the brandy flask stood, but she seemed in no hurry to take it.

"How is she?" asked James.

"I think she is a little quieter." The nurse stood staring at the fire for a second longer. Then she took the brandy flask and went out with a soft, but jarring, tread.

Doctor Gordon must have passed her on the stairs, for he returned almost directly after she had left, and stood with his back to James, fussing over some bottles on the shelves opposite the fireplace. He stood there for some five minutes. James glancing over his shoulder saw that he was trembling in a strange rigid fashion, but he seemed intent upon the bottles. The house was very still again. Gordon at last seemed to have finished whatever he was doing with the bottles. He left them and sat down in his chair. The dog left James and went to him, but Gordon pushed him away roughly. Then Gordon spoke to James without turning his face in his direction. "I wish you would go upstairs," he said hoarsely. "Mrs. Blair is alone, and I—I am about done too."

James obeyed without a word. When he reached the head of the stairs he felt a sudden draught of cold wind. Mrs. Blair came out of the sick-room, closing the door behind her. Her face looked as stern as fate itself. James knew what had happened the moment he saw her.

James began to speak stammeringly, but she stopped him. "Call Doctor Gordon," she said shortly. "She is dead."



CHAPTER XIII

About two weeks after the death of Doctor Gordon's wife James went to the post office before beginning his round of calls. Lately nearly all the practice had devolved upon him. Gordon seemed sunken in a gloomy apathy, from which he could rouse himself only for the most urgent necessities. Once aroused he was fully himself, but for the most part he sat in his office smoking or seemingly half-asleep. Once in a while a very sick patient acted upon him as a momentary stimulus, but Alton was unusually healthy just then. After an open and, for the most part, snowless winter, which had occasioned much sickness, the spring brought frost and light falls of snow, which seemed to give new life to people in spite of unseasonableness. James had had little difficulty in attending to most of the practice, although he was necessarily away from home the greater part of the time. However, he often took Clemency with him, and she would sit well wrapped up in the buggy reading a book while he made calls. Then there were the long drives over solitary roads, which, though rough, causing the wheels to jolt heavily in deep ridges of frozen soil, or sink into the red mud almost to the hubs, as the case might be, seemed like roads of Paradise to the young man. Although he himself grieved for Gordon's wife, and Gordon himself filled him with covert anxiety, yet he was young and the girl was young, and they were both released from a miserable sense of insecurity and mystery, which had irritated and saddened them; their thoughts now turned toward their own springtime, as naturally and innocently as flowers bloom. There was grief, and the shadow of trouble, but of past trouble; their eyes looked upon life and love and joy instead of death, as helplessly as a flower looks toward the sun. They were happy, although half-ashamed of their happiness; but, after all, perhaps, being happy after bereavement and trouble means simply that the soul has turned to God for consolation.

James's face was beaming with his joyful thoughts as he drew up before the village store, got out of the buggy, and tied the horse. When he entered he said "good morning!" in a sort of general fashion. There were many men lounging about. The morning mail had been distributed, and although Alton people got very few letters, still there was a wide interest in the post office, a little boxed-off space in a corner of the store. The store-keeper, Henry Graves, was the postmaster. He felt the importance of his position. When he sorted and distributed the mail from the limp leather bag, he realized himself as an official of a great republic. He loved to proudly ignore, and not even seem to see, the interested and gaping faces watching the boxes. Doctor Gordon's box was an object of especial interest. Indeed, that was the only one to be depended upon to contain something when the two mails per day arrived. Gordon, moreover, took the only New York paper which reached the little hamlet. Alton had no paper of its own. The nearest was printed in Stanbridge. One man, the Presbyterian minister, subscribed to the Stanbridge paper, and paid for it in farm produce. He had a little farm, and tilled the soil when he was not saving souls. The Stanbridge paper had arrived the night before, and the minister had been good enough to impart some of its contents to the curious throng in the store. He was accustomed to do so. Likewise Gordon, when he was not too hurried, would open his New York paper, and read the most startling "headers" to a wide-eyed audience. This morning the paper was in the box as usual, with a number of letters. The men pressed in a suggestive way around James, as he took the parcel from the postmaster. There were no lock-boxes. James hesitated a moment. He had not much time, but he was good-natured, and the eager hunger in the men's eyes appealed to him. There was something pathetic about this outreaching for intelligence of their kind, and its progress or otherwise, among these plodding folk, who had so to count their pence that a newspaper was an unheard-of luxury to them.

James opened the paper and glanced over the headlines on the first page. Now, had he looked, he might have seen something sinister and malicious in the curious eyes, but he was so dazed by the very first thing he saw as to be for the moment oblivious to anything else. On the right of the first page was the headline: "Strange dual life of a prominent physician in Alton, New Jersey. Doctor Thomas B. Gordon has lived with his wife for years, and called her his widowed sister, Mrs. Clara Ewing. Upon her death, a few days since, he revealed the secret. Will give no reasons for this strange conduct, simply states that he was justified, even compelled, by circumstances." Then followed a caricature portrait of Gordon, a photograph of the house, one of the village church, and the cemetery and Gordon's wife's grave, with various surmises and comments, enough to fill the column. James paled as he read. He had not known of Gordon's action in telling that the dead woman was his wife. He looked around in a bewildered fashion, and met the hungry eyes. One small, mean face of a small man peered around his shoulder gloatingly. "Some news this mornin'?" he observed, with a smack of the lips, as if he tasted sweets.

Then James arose to the occasion. He faced them all and smiled coolly. "Yes," he replied; "you mean about Doctor Gordon?"

There was a murmur of assent.

James read the article from beginning to end. "I suppose it is news to you," he said, when he had finished. He looked at them all with a superior air. He looked older and more manly than when he had first come in their midst. He was older and more manly, and he was superior. The men recognized it, not sullenly nor defiantly, but with the unquestioning attitude of the New Jerseyman when he is really below the scale in birth and education. Still their faces all expressed malicious cunning and cruel curiosity, which they hesitated to put into words. They knew that Elliot was to marry Gordon's niece; they were overawed by both men, but they were afraid of Gordon.

Still Jim Goodman found courage of his meanness and smallness and spoke. "It seems a strange thing," he said, "that Doctor Gordon should hev came and went here for years, and all of us thinkin' his wife were his sister when she were not."

"Well, what of it?" asked James.

The men stared at one another.

"What of it?" repeated James. "I don't suppose there is anything criminal in a man's calling his wife by his sister's name. Doctor Gordon has a sister named Ewing."

Again the men stared at one another, and Jim Goodman was the only one who had the miserable courage to speak. "S'pose him an' her were married," he said, in a thin voice like the squeal of a fox.

"Which of you wants to be knocked down can make a statement to the contrary," thundered James. "Is that what you make of it?"

Goodman shuffled from one foot to the other. Men nudged shoulders, Goodman spoke. "Nobody never knows what is true or ain't true in them newspapers," he observed, and there was a note of alarm in his voice.

"I did not read a thing in the whole column which even implied such a thing as you intimated," James said hotly. "Don't put it off on the newspapers!"

Then another man spoke, a farmer, tall, dry, lank, and impervious. He was a man about whom were ill-reports. His wife had died some years before, and he had a housekeeper, a florid, blonde creature, dressed with dingy showiness, of whom people spoke with covert laughs. "All we want to know is why Doctor Gordon has never said that her was his wife, and not his sister," he said in a defiant nasal voice.

The malignant Jim Goodman saw his chance. He jumped upon it like a spider. "That's so," he said. "Why didn't he say she was his housekeeper?" There was a shout of coarse laughter. The farmer gave a hateful look at Goodman and puffed at a rank pipe.

James was furious, but he saw the necessity of a statement of some kind, and his wits leaped to action. "Well," he said, "suppose there was a question of money."

The crowd pressed closer and gaped.

"Money!" said Goodman.

"Yes, money," pursued James recklessly. "Did you never hear of people being opposed to marriages, rich people I mean, and threatening to disinherit a woman if she married the man they did not pick out for her?"

"Was that it?" asked Goodman.

"I am not saying that it was or was not. I am not going to discuss Doctor Gordon's secrets with you. It's none of your business, and none of my business. All I am saying is this, suppose there had been a girl years ago with a very rich bachelor brother. Suppose the brother had been jilted by a girl, and hated the whole lot of women like poison, and had no idea of getting married himself, and his sister would be his only heiress, and he had set his foot down that she should not marry Doc—the man she had set her heart upon. Suppose he went to—well, the South Sea Islands, for the rest of his life, to get out of sight and sound of women like the one who had jilted him, told his sister before he went that if she married the man she wanted he would make a will and leave his money away from her, build an hospital or a library or something, suppose she hit upon the plan of marrying the man she wanted, and keeping it quiet."

"Was that it?"

"Didn't I tell you that I would not say whether it was or not? I only say suppose that was the case. Doctor Gordon has a married sister by the name of Ewing living in foreign parts. You can see for yourself how easy it might have been."

"What about the girl?" asked Goodman in a dry voice.

James flushed angrily. "That is nobody's business," said he. "She is Doctor Gordon's niece."

Goodman was unabashed. "How does it happen her name is Ewing?" he asked.

"Couldn't it possibly have happened that two sisters of Doctor Gordon's married two brothers?" James cried. He elbowed his way out. When he was in the buggy driving home, he began to realize how the fairy tale which he had related in the store would not in the least impose upon Clemency, how she would almost inevitably hear of the statements in the papers. He wondered more and more that Gordon should have divulged a secret which he had kept so fiercely for so long.

When he reached home he went at once into the office, and gave Gordon his mail and the New York paper. Gordon glanced at it, then at James. "Have you seen this?" he asked.

James nodded.

"I suppose you think me most inconsistent," said Gordon gloomily, "but the truth is I kept the secret while Clara was alive, though I found I could not, oh, God, I could not after she was dead and gone! I had not realized what that would mean: to never acknowledge her as my wife, dead or alive. I found that when it came to the death certificate, and the notice in the paper, and the erection of a stone to her memory, that I could not keep up the deception, no matter what the consequence. My God, Elliot, I cannot commit sacrilege against the dead! Dead, she must have her due. I anticipated this. There was something last night in the Stanbridge Record, and yesterday, while you were out three reporters from New York came. I told them that I had done what I had for good and sufficient reasons, which were not dishonorable to myself or to others, and beyond that I would say nothing. I suppose the poor fellows had to tax their imaginations to fill their columns. I don't know what the result will be with regard to Clemency, but I could not help it." There was something painfully appealing in Gordon's look and manner. He seemed so broken that James was alarmed. He said everything that he was able to say to soothe him, commended the course which he had taken, and told him what he had said at the store, without repeating the insinuations which had led him to fabricate such a tale. Gordon smiled bitterly. "All your fellowmen want of you is food for their animal appetites or their mental," he said. "They must have meat and drink for their stomachs, as well as for their curiosity and malice. I have lived here all these years, and labored for them for mighty poor recompense, and sometimes for none at all, and I'll warrant that to-day I am more in their minds than I have ever been before, because they have found out my secret, which has been the torture of my life. I wonder if Clemency has heard anything about it."

"I will go and see," replied James.

The minute he saw Clemency, who was in the parlor, he knew that she knew. By her side on the floor was the Stanbridge Record. She looked at James and pointed to it without a word. Her face was white as death. James took up the paper. That merely announced the fact of Mrs. Gordon's death, dwelt upon her many beautiful qualities of mind and body, her great suffering, and stated briefly the astonishment with which the news was received that she was Doctor Gordon's wife, and not his sister, as people had been led to suppose. "Little Annie Codman just brought it over," said Clemency. "She said her mother sent it. It is just like her mother. Mr. Codman never would have done such a thing."

Mr. Codman was the minister.

James, for a second, did not know what to say. He thought of the absurd story which he had told, or rather suggested, at the store, and realized that such a fabrication would not answer here.

Immediately Clemency fired a point-blank question at him. "Who am I?" she asked.

"You are Doctor Gordon's niece, dear."

"But—she was not my mother."

"No, dear."

"Who am I?"

"You are the daughter of Doctor Gordon's youngest sister, who died when you were born."

Clemency sat reflecting, her forehead knit, a keen look in her blue eyes. "I knew my father was dead," she said after a little. "Uncle Tom has always told me that he passed away three months before I was born, but—" She raised a puzzled, shocked, grieved face to James. "What is my name?" she asked. "My real name?"

James hesitated. Then his mind reverted to the tale which he had told at the store. He could see no other way out of the difficulty. "Did you never hear of two brothers marrying two sisters, dear?" he asked.

Clemency gazed at him with a puzzled, almost suspicious, look. "I knew I had an aunt and cousin in England named Ewing," she said, "but I always supposed that my English aunt was not my real aunt, only my aunt by marriage, that she had married my father's brother."

"Your English aunt is your uncle's own sister," said James.

"I see: my own mother and my aunt were sisters, and they married brothers," Clemency said slowly.

"That is unusual, but not unprecedented," said James. He had never been involved in such a web of fabrication. He felt his cheeks burning. He was sure that he looked guilty, but Clemency did not seem to notice it. She was reflecting, still with that puzzled knitting of her forehead and that introspective look in her blue eyes. "I wonder if I look in the least like my own mother?" she said in a curious voice, as of one who feels her way.

"Once your uncle said to me that you were your own mother's very image," replied James eagerly. He was glad to have the chance to say anything truthful.

Clemency's face lightened. She spoke with that fatuous innocence and romance of young girls, and often of older women, to whom romance and sentiment are in the place of reason. "Then I know who that man was," she announced in a delighted voice. "You and Uncle Tom thought I would never know, but I do know. I have found out my own self."

"Who was he, dear?"

"Oh, I don't know who he was really, and I don't know who that woman was. She does mix up things a good deal, but this much I do know—why Uncle Tom passed off my aunt for my mother, and why we were always hiding from that man. He was in love with my mother, and he was in love with me, because I am so much like her. Now, tell me honest, dear, didn't Uncle Tom ever tell you that that man was in love with my mother before I was born?"

"Yes, dear," James answered, fairly bewildered over the fashion in which truth was lending itself to the need of falsehood.

Clemency nodded her head triumphantly. "There, I told you I knew," said she. "Poor man, it was dreadful of him to pursue me so, and make us all so unhappy, and of course I never could have married him, even if it had not been for you. I do think he looked like a wicked man, and of course I never could have endured the thought of marrying a man who had been in love with my mother, even if he had been ever so good. But I can't help being sorry for him; he must have loved my mother so much, and he must have wasted his whole life; and then to die among strangers so suddenly, poor man."

James felt a sort of pleasure at hearing the girl express, all unknowingly, sympathy for her dead father. The tears actually stood in her eyes. "The queerest thing to me is that woman," she added musingly, after a minute. Then again her face lightened. "Why, I do believe she was his sister," she cried, "and that was the reason she wanted to get me, and the reason why she was so dreadfully upset when she heard he was dead, poor thing. Well, of course, I can't help feeling glad that I am not in danger any more; but I am sorry for that poor man, even if he wasn't good." A tear rolled visibly down Clemency's cheeks. Then she got out her handkerchief and sobbed violently. "Oh, I haven't realized," she moaned, "I haven't realized until this minute, how terrible it is that she wasn't my mother."

"She was as good as a mother to you, dear."

"Yes, I know, but she wasn't, and it hurts me worse now she is gone than it would have done when she was alive. I don't seem to have anything."

"You have me."

Then Clemency ran to him, and he held her on his knee and comforted her, then tore himself away to make his morning round of calls. Clemency followed him to the door, and kissed her hand to him as he drove away. James had good reason to remember it, for it was the last loving salutation from her for many a day.

When he returned at noon the girl's manner was unaccountably changed toward him. She only spoke to him directly when addressed, and then in monosyllables. She never looked at him. She sat at the table at luncheon and poured the chocolate, and there was almost absolute silence. Emma waited jerkily as usual. James fancied once, when he met her eyes, that there was an expression of covert triumph on her face. Emma had never liked him. He had been conscious of the fact, but it had not disturbed him. He had no more thought of this middle-aged, harsh-featured New Jersey farmer's daughter than he had of one of the dining-chairs. Gordon sat humped upon himself, as he sat nowadays, a marked stoop of age was becoming visible in his broad shoulders, and he ate perfunctorily without a word. James, after a number of futile attempts to talk to Clemency, subsided himself into bewildered silence, and ate with very little appetite. There were chops and potatoes and peas, and apple-pie, for luncheon. When it came to the pie Emma served Clemency and Doctor Gordon, and deliberately omitted James. Nobody seemed to notice it, although James felt sure that the omission was intentional. He felt himself inwardly amused at the antagonism which could take such a form, and went without his pie uncomplainingly, while Gordon and Clemency ate theirs. The dog at this juncture came slinking into the room and close to James, who gave him a lump of sugar from the bowl which happened to stand near him. At once Emma took the bowl and moved it to another part of the table out of his reach. James felt a strong inclination to laugh.

The dog sat up and begged for more sugar, and James, when they all left the table, coolly took a handful of sugar from the bowl and carried it into the office, the dog leaping at his side. Emma slammed the dining-room door behind him. Clemency, without a look at him, immediately ran upstairs to her own room. Gordon and James sat down in the office as usual for a smoke until James should start upon his afternoon rounds. Gordon asked him a few questions about the patients whom he had seen that morning, but in a listless, abstracted fashion, then he spoke of those whom James would see that afternoon. "You had better take the team," he said.

"Clemency is going with me," James said.

Gordon looked at him with faint surprise. "I think you must be mistaken," he said. "Clemency came to me just before luncheon and asked if I had any objections to her spending a few days with Annie Lipton. I told her we could get on perfectly well without her, and Aaron is going to drive her over. She will have to take a suit-case. I knew you had to go in another direction, and could not take her. I thought the change would do her good. Didn't she say anything to you about it?"

"I think it will do her good. She needs a little change," James replied evasively. As he spoke Aaron came out of the stable leading the bay mare harnessed to a buggy.

"She is going right away," said Gordon, looking a little puzzled. He had hardly finished speaking before Clemency's voice was heard in the hall. It rang rather hard, but quite clearly. "Good-by," she called out.

"Good-by," responded Gordon and James together. Gordon looked at James, astonished that he did not go out to assist Clemency into the buggy, and bid her good-by. He seemed about to question him, then he took another puff at his pipe, and his face settled into its wonted expression of gloomy retrospection. Boy's and girl's love affairs seemed as motes in a beam of sunlight to him at this juncture.

James started to go, the horses were stamping uneasily in the drive, and he had a long round of calls to make that afternoon.

Gordon removed his pipe. "I am putting a good deal on you, Elliot," he said with a kind of hard sadness.

"That's all right," James replied cheerfully, "I am strong. I can stand it if the patients can. I fancied old Mrs. Steen was rather disgusted to see me this morning. I heard her say something about sendin' a boy to her daughter, and when I went into the bedroom, she glared at me, and said, 'You?'" James laughed.

"Her case is not at all desperate," Gordon said gloomily. "She is merely on the downward road of life. Nothing ails her except that. You can supply the few inadequate crutches of tonics as well as any one. There is not one desperately sick patient on the whole list now, that I know of, although I must confess that that Willoughby girl rather puzzles me. She breaks every diagnosis all to pieces."

"Hysteria," said James.

"Oh, yes, I know hysteria is a good way to account for our own lack of insight," said Gordon, "and it may be that girls are queer subjects. Sometimes I wonder if they know what they know. Lilian Willoughby does not."

Gordon, to James's intense surprise, flared into a burst of anger. "Yes, she does know," he declared. "Down in her inner consciousness I believe she does, poor little overstrung, oversensitive girl, half-fed, as to her body, on coarse food which she cannot assimilate, starved emotionally. If a girl like that has to exist anyway, why cannot she be born under different circumstances? That girl as daughter of a New Jersey farmer is an anomaly. If she mates at all it must be with another New Jersey farmer, then she dies after bringing a few degenerates into the world. Providence does things like that, and the doctors are supposed to right things. That girl has had symptoms of about every known disease, and my diagnosis has failed to prove the existence of one of them. Yet there are the symptoms. Call it hysteria, or what you will. I call it an injustice on the part of the Higher Power. I suppose that is blasphemy, but I am forced to it. Can that girl help the longings for her rights, her longings which are abnormally acute because of her over-fine nervous system? Those longings, situated as she is, can never be satisfied in any way except for her own harm. Meantime she eats her own heart, since she has nothing else, and heart-eating produces all kinds of symptoms. I am absolutely powerless in such a case, though sometimes I make a diagnosis which I think may be correct, sometimes I think there is some organic trouble which I can mitigate. But always I fall back upon the miserable truth which I am convinced underlies her whole existence. She is a creature born into a life which does not and never will afford her the proper food for her physical and spiritual needs. Oh, the horror in this world, and what am I to set myself to right it? Shut the door."

"The horses are uneasy," James said.

"Never mind, shut the door. Clemency is away, and Emma out in the kitchen. I must speak to somebody, or I shall go mad."

James shut the door and turned to Gordon, who sat rigid in his chair, his hands clutching the arms. "Do you think I did right?" he groaned. "You know what I did. Was it right?"

"If you mean about your wife," James said, "I think you did entirely right."

"But you could not," Gordon returned bitterly. "It was too much for you to attempt, and yet she was nothing to you as she was to me, and the sin would not have been so terrible."

"I had not the courage," James replied simply.

"You did not think it right. You did not wish to burden your soul with such a responsibility. I was wrong to try to shift it upon you, wrong and cowardly, but she was bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; it was a double crime for me, murder and suicide. It was not because you had not the courage: you have faced surgical operations and dissecting. You dared not commit what you were not sure was not a crime. There is no use in your hedging, Elliot. I know the truth."

"Still I think you did right," James said stubbornly. "She had to die anyway. Death was upon her. You simply hastened it."

Gordon looked at James, and his eyes seemed to fairly blaze with somber fire; for a moment the young man thought his reason was unhinged. "But what am I? Who is any man to take whip or spur to the decrees of the Almighty, to hasten them?"

"She was suffering—" James began.

"What of that? Who can say, though she had led the life of a saint on earth, so far as any one could see, what subtle sins of life itself her pains were counteracting? Who can tell but I have deprived her of untold joys which would have compensated a thousand times for those pains by shortening them?"

"Doctor Gordon, you are morbid," James said, looking at him uneasily.

"How do you know I am morbid? Then that other—Mendon. Who is to say that I was right even about that? It is probable I saved your life, and possibly my own, as well as Clemency from misery. But who can say that death would not have been better for both you and me than life, and even misery for Clemency had that man lived? God had allowed him life upon the earth. I may have shortened that life. He was a monster of wickedness, but who can say that he was not a weapon of God, and that I have not done incalculable mischief by depriving him of that weapon? There is only one consolation which I have with regard to him; unless my diagnosis was entirely at fault, he would have had that attack of erysipelas anyway. I hardly think I deceive myself with regard to that, and there is a very probable chance that the attack would have been fatal. He had nearly lost his life twice before with the same disease. That I know, and I do not think that unless the poison was already in his blood, it would have developed so rapidly from that slight bruise. So far as the simple wound from the dog went, he was in no danger whatever. I have that consolation in his case, in not being absolutely certain that I caused his death; I am not even absolutely sure that I hastened it by any appreciable time. He might have been attacked that very night with the disease. Still there is, and always will be, the slight doubt."

"I don't think you ought to brood over that, Doctor Gordon," James said soothingly. He went close to the older man and laid a hand upon his shoulder. Gordon looked up at him, and his face was convulsed. He spoke with solemn and tragic emphasis. "It is not for mortal man to interfere with the ways of God, and he does so at his own peril," he said.



CHAPTER XIV

The confidence which Gordon had reposed in James seemed for a time to have given him a measure of relief. While he never for an instant appeared like his old self, while the games of euchre at Georgie K.'s were not resumed, nor the boyish enjoyment of things, which James now recognized to have been simply feverish attempts to live through the horrible ordeal of his life and keep his sanity, while he had now settled down into a state of austere gloom, yet he begun again to attend to his practice and to take interest in it. Clemency remained away for a week. Then Gordon brought her home. She was at the dinner-table that night when James returned rather late from a call on a far-off patient. She simply said, "Good evening! Doctor Elliot," as if he had been the merest acquaintance, and went on to serve his soup. James gave her a bewildered, half-grieved, half-angered look, which she seemed not to notice. Immediately after dinner she went to her own room. James, smoking with Gordon in the office, heard her go upstairs. Gordon nodded at James through the cloud of smoke.

"She has taken a notion, my son," he said. "She told me on the way home that she wished to break the engagement with you. She would give no reason. She wished me to tell you. I don't take her seriously. She cares as much for you as ever. Girls are queer cattle. She has some utterly unimaginable idea in her head, which will run itself out. If I were you I would pay no attention to it. Simply take her at her word, and let her alone for a little while, and she herself will urge you for a reconciliation. I know the child. She simply cannot remain at odds for any length of time with any one whom she loves, and she does love you; but she is freakish, and at times inclined to strain at her bit. Perhaps Annie Lipton has been putting ideas into her head against marriage in general. She may have frightened her, and they may have sworn celibacy together in the watches of the night. Girls hatch more mischief when they ought to be asleep. They are queer cattle."

"The trouble began before Clemency went away," James said soberly. He was quite pale.

"Trouble? What trouble?"

"I don't know. All I know is, that the very day when Clemency went away she seemed changed to me. You remember how she called out good-by, and I did not go out to help her off as I should naturally have done."

"Yes, I do remember that, and I did wonder at your not going."

"I did not go because I was quite sure that she did not wish it. She had been very curt with me, and had shown me unmistakably that my attentions were not welcome."

"And you don't know why? There had been no quarrel?"

"Not the slightest. I have not the faintest idea what the trouble is or was, and why she wishes to break the engagement. All I know is that as suddenly as a weather vane turns from west to north, she turned, and seemed to have no more use for me."

"Queer," Gordon said reflectively. He eyed James keenly. "You absolutely know of no reason?"

"I absolutely know of none. Clemency is the very first girl about whom I have ever thought in this way. There is nothing in my whole life, past or present, which I could not spread before her like an open book, so far as any fear lest it should turn her against me."

"I questioned her," Gordon said, "and she absolutely refused to give me any reason for breaking her engagement. She simply repeated over and over, 'I have changed my mind, Uncle Tom.' I asked her if she had seen anybody else."

James flushed hotly. "What did she say to that?"

"She said, 'Whom could I have seen, Uncle Tom? You yourself know how many men I have seen here, and you know I never see men at Annie's.' There is no one else. You may be sure of that, and also sure that she still cares for you. I know that from her whole manner. She has simply taken one of those unaccountable freaks which the best of girls will take. Just let her alone, and the whole will right itself. She may have got a sudden scare at the idea of marriage itself, for all I know. I still cling to the idea that Annie Lipton has been putting ideas into her head, in spite of what you say of her coldness before she went there. She may have started herself in the path, but Annie helped her further on."

"Of course I must leave here," James said gloomily.

Gordon started. "Leave here?"

"Yes, of course. Clemency will naturally not wish to have me a member of the household in the existing state of things."

"Clemency will wish it. Of course you are going to stay, Elliot."

"I don't feel as if I could, Doctor Gordon."

"Nonsense!"

"It will naturally not be very pleasant for me," James said, coloring.

"Why not?" asked Gordon irritably. "You are not a love-sick girl."

"No, I am not," James returned with spirit. "I know I am jilted, but I mean to take, and I think I am taking it, like a man. If Clemency does not want me, I am sure I do not want her to have me. And I can stand seeing her daily under the altered condition of things. I am no milk-sop. Generally speaking, living under a roof when you are an object of aversion to a member of the household, is not exactly pleasant."

"You are not an object of aversion."

"I might as well be."

Gordon looked at the young man pitifully. "For God's sake, then don't leave me, Elliot," he said.

James stared at him. There was so much emotion in his face.

"What do you think my life would be without you?" said Gordon. "Aside from your assistance, which I cannot do without, you are my only solace, especially since Clemency is in this mood. Stay for my sake, if it is unpleasant, Elliot."

"Well, I will stay, if you feel so about it, doctor," James replied.

"Clemency is treating you shamefully," Gordon said.

"A girl has a right to her own mind in such a matter, if she has in anything."

"The worst of it is, it is not her mind. I tell you I know that."

"I am not so sure."

"Wait and see! You underestimate yourself, boy."

James laughed sadly. Then there was a knock on the office door and Georgie K. appeared. He looked shyly at Gordon. He had a bottle under his arm. "I have brought over a little apple-jack; thought it might do you good," he stammered, his great face suffused like a girl's.

Gordon looked affectionately at him. "Thank you, Georgie K.," he said. "Sit down and we will have a game. I'll get the hot water and glasses. Emma is out."

"I'll get them," James said eagerly. He went out to the kitchen, but Emma was not out. She was sitting sewing in a gingham apron.

"What do you want?" she demanded severely.

James explained meekly.

"Well, go back to the office, and I'll fetch the things," Emma said in a hostile tone. James obeyed. Presently Emma appeared bearing a tray with the hot water and two glasses, Gordon did not notice the omission of a third glass, until she had gone out. "Why, she only brought two glasses," he said.

James felt absurdly unequal to facing Emma again. "I don't think I'll take anything to-night," he said.

"Nonsense!" returned Gordon. He went to the door and shouted for Emma with no response. "She can't have gone upstairs so quickly," he said. But when after another shout he got no response, he went himself into the dining-room, and got a tumbler from the sideboard. "She must have gone upstairs at once," he remarked when he returned. "The kitchen is dark."

Georgie K. did not remain very late. He seemed nervously solicitous with regard to Doctor Gordon. When he left he shook hands with him, and bade him take good care of himself.

"I love that man," Gordon said, when the door had closed behind him.

When James entered his room that night he found fresh proof of Emma's inexplicable hostility. The room was in total darkness. He lit matches and searched for lamp or candles, to find none. He fumbled his way out into the kitchen, and got a little lamp, which gave but a dim light, and read, as was his habit, after he had gone to bed, with exceeding difficulty. He also was subjected to a most absurd annoyance from the presence of some gritty particles in the bed. After he extinguished his lamp he could not go to sleep because of them, and lit his lamp again, and tore the sheet off and shook it. The gritty particles seemed to him to be crumbs of very hard and dry bread. He made the bed up again after his clumsy masculine fashion. James had not much manual dexterity, and rested very uncomfortably, from a pronounced inclination of the coverings to slide off his feet, and over one side of the bed.

The next morning Emma did not bring hot water for his shaving. She usually set a pitcher outside his door, but this morning there was none. He was obliged to go out to the kitchen and prefer a request for some. "I have jest filled up the coffee-pot and the tea-kettle, and I guess the water ain't very hot," Emma said in a malicious tone, as she filled a pitcher for him.

The water was not very hot. James had a severe experience shaving, and his annoyances were not over then. There was no napkin beside his plate at breakfast. He did not like to apply to Clemency, whose cold good morning had served to establish a higher barrier between them, and who sat behind the coffee urn with a forlorn but none the less severe look. He also did not like to apply to Gordon for fear of offending her. It was about as bad to ask Emma, but he finally did, in a low tone.

Emma apparently did not hear. He was forced to repeat his request for a napkin loudly. Gordon looked up. "Emma, why do you not set the table properly?" he asked, in a severe tone.

Emma tossed her head and muttered. She brought a napkin, and laid it beside James's plate with an impetus as if it had been a lump of lead. Presently James discovered that he had only one spoon, but he made that do duty for his cereal and coffee, and said nothing. He was aware of Emma's eyes of covert, malicious enjoyment upon him, as he surreptitiously licked off the oatmeal, and put the spoon in his coffee. He began to wonder what he could do, if this state of things was to continue. It all seemed so absurd, the grievances were so exceedingly petty. He could not imagine what had so turned Emma against him. He was even more at a loss where she was concerned than in Clemency's case. A girl engaged might find some foolish reason, which seemed enormous to her, to turn the cold shoulder to him, but it was inconceivable that Emma should. He had always treated her politely, even with a certain deference, knowing, as he did, that she was an old and faithful servant, and as the daughter of a farmer being, in her own estimation at least, of a highly superior station to that of servants in general. He could not imagine why Emma was subjecting him to these ridiculous persecutions, before which he was almost helpless. She had heretofore treated him loftily, as was her wont with everybody, except Gordon and Clemency, but certainly she had neglected none of her duties with regard to him. Miserable as James was concerning Clemency, he could not but feel that if he were to be subjected to these incomprehensible annoyances from Emma, life in the house would be almost impossible. He could bear sorrow like a man, but to bear pinpricks beside was almost too much to ask. That noon, when he returned from his rounds, he realized that there was to be no cessation. Clemency was not at the lunch-table. Gordon said she had a headache and was lying down. Emma in passing James his cup of tea, contrived to spill it over him. He was not scalded, but his shirt-front and collar were stained, thereby necessitating a change, and he was in a hurry to be gone directly after lunch.

Gordon roused himself, however. "Be more careful another time, Emma," he said sharply.

Emma tossed her head. "Doctor Elliot moved jest as I was coming with the cup," she said in a thin, waspish voice.

"He did no such thing," Gordon said harshly, "and if he had, it was your business to be careful. Get Doctor Elliot another cup of tea."

Emma obeyed with a jerk. She set the cup and saucer down beside James's plate as hard as she dared, and James at the first sip found that the tea was salted. However, he said nothing. Gordon after his outburst had resumed his former state of apathy, and was eating and drinking like a machine, whose works were rusty and almost run down. He could not trouble him with such an absurdity. Then, too, he was too vexed to please the girl so much. He forced himself to drink the tea without a grimace, knowing that Emma's eyes were upon him. But the climax was almost reached. That night when on his return he wished to change his collar before dinner, he found every one with the buttonholes torn. It was skilfully done, so skilfully that no one could have declared positively that it had not been done accidentally in the laundry. James would not appear at the dinner-table in a soiled collar, and was forced to hurry out to the village store and purchase new ones. These, with the exception of the one he put on, he locked in his trunk. He was late for dinner, and the soup was quite cold. When Doctor Gordon complained irritably, Emma replied with one of her characteristic tosses of the head that she couldn't help it, Doctor Elliot was late. James said nothing. He swallowed his luke-warm soup in silence. He began to wonder what he could do. He did not wish to complain to Doctor Gordon, especially as the result might be the dismissal of Emma, and he felt that he could say nothing to Clemency about it. Clemency appeared at the dinner-table, but she looked pale and forlorn, and said good evening to James without lifting her eyes. When her uncle asked if her head was better, she said, "Yes, thank you," in a spiritless tone. She ate almost nothing. After dinner, James had a call to make, and, on his return, entered by the office door. He found Gordon fast asleep in his chair, with the dog at his feet. The dog started up at sight of James, but he motioned him down, and went softly out into the hall. There was a light there, but none in the parlor. James heard distinctly a little sob from the parlor. He hesitated a moment, then he entered the room. It was suffused with moonlight. All the pale objects stood out like ghosts. Clemency by the window, in a little white wool house-gown, looked, ghostly.

James went straight across to her, pulled up a chair beside her, seated himself, and pulled one of her little hands away from her face almost roughly, and held it firmly in spite of her weak attempt to remove it. "Now, Clemency," he said in a determined voice, "this has gone quite far enough. You told your uncle that you wished to break your engagement to me. I have no wish to coerce you. If you really do not want to marry me, why, I must make the best of it, but I have a right to know the reason why, and I will know it."

Clemency was silent, except for her sobs.

"Tell me," said James.

"Don't," whispered Clemency.

"Tell me."

Then Clemency let her other hand, which contained a moist little ball of handkerchief, fall. She turned full upon him her tearful, swollen face. "If you want to know what you know already," said she, in a hard voice, "here it is. She wasn't my mother, but I loved her like one, and you killed her."



CHAPTER XV

James sat as if turned to stone. All in a second he realized what it must be. He let Clemency's hand go, and leaned back in his chair. "What do you mean, Clemency?" he asked finally, but he realized how senseless the question was. He knew perfectly well what she meant, and he knew perfectly well that he was utterly helpless before her accusation.

"You know," said Clemency, still in her unnatural hard voice. "You killed her."

"How?"

"You know. You gave her more morphine, and her heart was weak. Emma overheard Uncle Tom say so, and that more morphine was dangerous. She might have been alive to-day if it had not been for you."

James sat staring at the girl. She went on pitilessly. "You did not see Emma that last time you came upstairs," she said, "but she saw you. She was standing in the door of her room, and she had no light. She saw you and Mrs. Blair going away from her room, and she heard Mrs. Blair tell you she was dead. You killed her. I want nothing whatever to do with a murderer."

James remembered that draught of cold air. It must have come from the open door of Emma's room at the end of the hall. He understood that Emma could not have seen him coming upstairs, but that she had seen him with Mrs. Blair at the door of the sick-room, and had jumped at her conclusion.

"Emma knew when you went upstairs first," said Clemency. "You left her door a little ajar. Emma saw you giving her a hypodermic. And then when that did not kill her you gave her another. Uncle Tom did not know. He must never know, for it would kill him, but you did kill her."

James was silent for a moment. He realized the impossibility of clearing himself from the accusation unless he told the whole truth and implicated Doctor Gordon. Finally he said, miserably enough, "You don't know how horribly she was suffering, dear. You don't know what torments she would have had to suffer."

He knew when he said that that he incriminated himself. Clemency retorted immediately, "You don't know. I have heard Uncle Tom say that nobody can ever know. She might have gotten well. Anyway, you killed her." With that Clemency sprang up and ran out of the room, and James heard her sob.

As for himself, he remained where he was for a long time. He never knew how long. He felt numb. He realized himself to be in a gulf of misunderstanding, from which he could not be extricated, even for the sake of Clemency. It seemed to him again that he must go away, but he remembered Gordon's pitiful plea to him to remain. Finally he went into his room, to find that Emma, in her absurd malice, had left only the coverlid on the bed. She had stripped it of the sheets and blankets. He lay down with his clothes on and passed a sleepless night.

The next morning at the breakfast-table he looked haggard and pale. He could eat nothing. Doctor Gordon looked at him keenly.

"What is the matter, Elliot?" he asked.

Clemency gave a quick glance at him, and her face worked.

"Nothing," replied James.

"You look downright ill."

"I am not ill."

Clemency rose abruptly and left the table.

"What is the matter, Clemency? Where are you going?" Gordon called out.

"I have finished my breakfast," the girl replied in a stifled voice.

Gordon insisted on making some calls that morning, and relieving James. "You are worn out, my son," he said in a voice of real affection, and clapped him on the shoulder. He sent James on a short round in spite of his objections, and the consequence was that James reached home half an hour before luncheon.

It was a beautiful morning. Spring seemed to have come with a winged leap. A faint down of green shaded the elms, and there was a pink cloud of peach bloom in the distance. The cherry trees were swollen almost to blossom, and the apple trees had pale radiances in the glance of the sun. The grass was quite green, and here and there were dandelions. Clemency was out in the yard, working in a little flower-garden, as James drove in. She had on a black dress, and her fair head was uncovered. She pretended not to see James, but he had hardly entered the office before she came in. Her face was all suffused with pink. She looked at him tenderly and angrily.

"Are you ill?" she said, in an indignant voice which had, in spite of herself, soft cadences.

"No, Clemency."

"Then why do you look so?" she demanded.

James turned at that. "Clemency, you accuse me of cruelty," he said, "but you yourself are cruel. You do not realize that you cannot tell a man he is a murderer, and throw him over when he loves you, and yet have him utterly unmoved by it."

Suddenly Clemency was in his arms. "I love you, I love you," she sobbed. "Don't be unhappy, don't look so. It breaks my heart. I love you, I do love you, dear. I can't marry you, but I love you!"

"If you love me, you can marry me."

Clemency shrank away, then she clung to him again. "No," she said, "I can't get over the thought of it. I can't help it, but I do love you. We will go on just the same as ever, only we will not get married. You know we were not going to get married just yet anyway. I love you. We will go on just the same. Only don't look the way you did this morning at breakfast."

"How did I look?"

"As if your heart were broken."

"So it is, dear."

"No, it is not. I love you, I tell you. What is the need of bothering about marriage anyway? I am perfectly happy being engaged. Annie says she is never going to get married. Let the marriage alone. Only you won't look so any more, will you, dear?"



CHAPTER XVI

After this James encountered a strange state of things: the semblance of happiness, which almost deceived him as to its reality.

Clemency was as loving as she had ever been. Gordon congratulated James upon the reconciliation. "I knew the child could never hold out, and it was Annie Lipton," he said. James admitted that Annie Lipton might have been the straw which turned the balance. He knew that Clemency had not told Gordon of her conviction that he had given the final dose of morphine to her aunt. Everything now went on as before. Clemency suddenly became awake to Emma's petty persecutions of James, and they ceased. James one day could not help overhearing a conversation between the two. He was in the stable, and the kitchen windows were open. He heard only a few words. "You don't mean to say you are goin' to hev him?" said Emma in her strident voice.

"No, I am not," returned Clemency's sweet, decided one.

"What be you goin' with him again for then?"

James knew how the girl blushed at that, but she answered with spirit. "That is entirely my own affair, Emma," she said, "and as long as Doctor Elliot remains under this roof, and pays for it, too, he must be treated decently. You don't pass him things, you don't fill his lamp. Now you must treat him exactly as you did before, or I shall tell Uncle Tom."

"You won't tell him why?" said Emma, and there was alarm in her voice, for she adored Gordon.

"Did you ever know me to go from one to another in such a way?" asked Clemency. "You know if I told Uncle Tom, he would not put up with it a minute. He thinks the world of Doctor Elliot."

"It's awful queer how men folks can be imposed on," said Emma.

"That has nothing to do with it," Clemency said. "You must treat Doctor Elliot respectfully, Emma."

"I'm jest as good as he be," said Emma resentfully.

"Well, what if you are? He's as good as you, isn't he? And he treats you civilly. He always has."

"I'm a good deal better than he be," Emma went on irascibly. "I wouldn't have gone and went, and—"

"Hush!" ordered Clemency in a frightened voice. "Emma, you must do as I say."

James drove out of the yard and heard no more, but after that he had no fault to find with Emma, so far as her service was concerned. It is true that she gave him malignant glances, but she made him comfortable, albeit unwillingly. It was fortunate for him that she did so, or he would have found his position almost unbearable. Doctor Gordon relaxed again into his state of apathetic gloom. His strength also seemed to wane. Almost the whole practice devolved upon James. Gordon seemed less and less interested even in extreme cases. Georgie K. also lost his power over him. Now and then of an evening he came, but Gordon, save to offer him a cigar, took scarcely any notice of him. One evening Georgie K. made a motion to James behind Gordon's back when he took leave, and James made an excuse to follow him out. In the drive Georgie K. took James by the arm, and the young man felt him tremble. "What ails him?" asked Georgie K.

"I hardly know," James replied in a whisper.

"I know," said Georgie K. By the light from the office window James could see that the man was actually weeping. His great ruddy face was streaming with tears. "Don't I know?" he sobbed.

James remembered the stuffed canary and the wax flowers, and the story Gordon had told him of Georgie K.'s grief over his wife's death.

"I dare say you are right," he returned.

"He's breakin' his heart, that's what he's doin'," said Georgie K. "Can't you get him to go away for a change or somethin'?"

"I have tried."

"He'll die of it," Georgie K. said with a great gulp as he went out of the yard.

When James reentered the office Gordon looked up at him. "That poor old fellow called you out to talk about me," he said quietly. "I know I'm going downhill."

"For heaven's sake, can't you go up, doctor?"

"No, I am done for. I could get over losing her, but I can't get over what—you know what."

"But her death was inevitable, and greater agony was inevitable."

Gordon turned upon him fiercely. "When you have been as long in this cursed profession as I have," he said, "you will realize that nothing is inevitable. She might have recovered for all I know. That woman, at Turner Hill, who I thought was dying six months ago, being up and around again, is an instance. I tell you mortal man has no right to thrust his hand between the Almighty and fate. You know nothing, and I know nothing."

"I do know."

"You don't know, and you don't even know that you don't know. There is no use talking about this any longer. When I am gone you must marry Clemency, and keep on with my practice."

James considered when he was in his own room that the event of his succeeding to the practice might not be so very remote, but as to his marrying Clemency he doubted. He dared not hint of the matter to Gordon, for he knew it would disturb him, but Clemency, as the days went on, became more and more variable. At times she was loving, at times it was quite evident that she shrank from him with a sort of involuntary horror. James began to wonder if they ever could marry. He was fully resolved not to clear himself at the expense of Doctor Gordon; in fact, such a course never occurred to him. He had a very simple straightforwardness in matters of honor, and this seemed to him a matter of honor. No question with regard to it arose in his mind. Obviously it was better that he should bear the brunt than Gordon, but he did ask himself if it would ever be possible for Clemency to dissociate him from the thought of the tragedy entirely, and if she could not, would it be possible for her to be happy as his wife? That very day Clemency had avoided him, and once when he had approached she had visibly shrunk and paled. Evidently the child could not help it. She looked miserably unhappy. She had grown thin lately, and had lost almost entirely her sense of fun, which had always been so ready.

James went to sleep, wondering how she would treat him the next day. He never knew, for the girl shifted like a weather-cock, driven hither and yon by her love and terror like two winds. The next day, however, solved the problem in an entirely unexpected fashion. James, that morning after breakfast, during which Clemency had sat pale and stern behind the coffee-urn, and scarcely had noticed him, set off on a round of calls. Doctor Gordon, to his surprise, announced his intention of making some calls himself; he said that he would take the team, and James must drive the balky mare, as the bay was to be taken to the blacksmith's. Gordon that morning looked worse than usual, although he evinced such unwonted energy. He trembled like a very old man. He ate scarcely anything, and his mouth was set hard with a desperate expression. James wished to urge him to remain at home, but he did not dare. Gordon, when he left the breakfast-table, proposed that James should take Clemency with him, but the girl replied curtly that she was too busy. Gordon started on his long circuit, and James set off to make the rounds of Alton and Westover. The mare seemed in a very favorable mood that morning. She did not balk, and went at a good pace. It was not until James was on his homeward road that the trouble began. Then the mare planted her four feet at angles, in her favorite fashion, and became as immovable as a horse of bronze. James touched her with the whip. He was in no patient mood that morning. Finally he lashed her. He might as well have lashed a stone, for all the effect his blows had. Then he got out and tried coaxing. She did not seem to even see him. Her great eyes had a curious introspective expression. Then he got again into the buggy and sat still. A sense of obstinacy as great as the animal's came over him. "Stand there and be d——d!" he said.

"Go without your dinner if you want to." He leaned back in a corner of the buggy, and began reflecting.

His reflections were at once angry and gloomy. He was, he told himself, tired of the situation. He began to wonder if he ought not, for the sake of self-respect, to leave Alton and Clemency. He wondered if a man ought to submit to be so treated, and yet he recognized Clemency's own view of the situation, and a great wave of love and pity for the poor child swept over him. The mare had halted in a part of the road where there were no houses, and flowering alders filled the air with their faint sweetness. Under that sweetness, like the bass in a harmony, he could smell the pines in the woods on either hand. He also heard their voices, like the waves of the sea. It was a very warm day, one of those days in which Spring makes leaps toward Summer. James felt uncomfortably heated, for the buggy was in the full glare of sunlight. All his solace came from the fact that he himself, sitting there so quietly, was outwitting the mare by showing as great obstinacy as her own. He knew that she inwardly fretted at not arousing irritation. That a tickle, even a lash of the whip, would delight her. He sat still, leaning his head back. He was almost asleep when he heard a rumble of heavy wheels, and looking ahead languidly perceived a wagon laden with household goods of some spring-flitters approaching. He sat still and watched the great wagon drawn by two lean, white horses, and piled high with the poor household belongings—miserable wooden chairs and feather beds, and a child's cradle rocking imminently on the top. A lank Jerseyman was driving. By his side on the high seat was his stout wife holding a baby. The weak wail of the child filled the air. James looked to make sure that there was room for the team to pass. He thought there was, and sat idly watching them. The woman looked at him, made some remark to the man, and then both grinned weakly, recognizing the situation. The man on the team drove carefully, but a stone on the outer side caused his team to swerve a trifle. The wheels hit the wheels of the buggy, and the cradle tilted swiftly on to the back of the balky mare, and she bolted. In all her experience of a long, balky life, a cradle as a means of breaking her spirit had not been encountered. James had not time to clutch the lines which had fallen to the floor of the buggy before he was thrown out. He felt the buggy tilting to its fall, he heard a crashing sound and a fierce kicking, and then he knew no more.

When he came to himself he was on the lounge in Doctor Gordon's office. Emma was just disappearing with a pitcher in the direction of the kitchen, and he felt something cool on his forehead. He smelled aromatic salts, and heard a piteous little voice, like the bleat of a wounded lamb, in his ears, and kisses on his cheeks, and a soft hand rubbing his own. "Oh, darling," the little voice was saying, "oh, darling, are you much hurt? Are you? Please speak to me. It is Clemency. Oh, he is dead! He is dead!" Then came wild sobs, and Emma rushed into the room, and he heard her say, "Here, put this ice on his head, quick!"

James was still so faint that he could only gasp weakly. And he could open his eyes to nothing but darkness and a marvellous spinning and whir as of shadows in a wind.

"He's comin' to," said Emma. Her voice sounded as if she felt moved. "Don't take on so, Miss Clemency," she said; "he ain't dead."

Again James felt the soft kisses and tears on his face, and again came the poor little voice, "Oh, darling, please listen, please don't do so. I will marry you. I will. I know you did just right. I read one of Uncle Tom's books this morning, and I found out what awful suffering she might have had hours longer. You did right. I will marry you. I will never think of it again. Please don't look so. Are you dreadfully hurt? Oh, when they came bringing you in I thought you were killed! There is a great bruise on your head. Does it hurt much? You do feel better, don't you? Oh, Emma, if Uncle Tom would only come. Can't you hear me, dear? I will marry you. I take it all back. I will marry you! I will marry you whenever you wish. Oh, please look at me! Please speak to me! Oh, Emma, there is Uncle Tom. I am so glad."

And then poor, little Clemency, all unstrung and frightened, sank into an unconscious little heap on the floor as Gordon entered. "What the devil?" he cried out. "I saw the buggy smashed on the road, and that mare went down the Ford Hill road like a whirlwind. What, Elliot, are you hurt, boy? Clemency, Emma, what has happened?"

All the time Gordon was talking he was examining James, who was now able to speak feebly. "The mare was frightened and threw me," he gasped. "I was stunned. I am all right now. See to Clemency!"

But Clemency was already staggering weakly to her feet.

"Oh, Uncle Tom, he isn't killed, is he?" she sobbed.

"Killed, no," said Gordon, "but he will be if you don't stop crying and making a goose of yourself, Clemency."

"We put ice on his head," sobbed Clemency. "He isn't—"

"Of course he isn't. He was only stunned. That is only a flesh wound."

"I tried to git some brandy down him, but I couldn't," said Emma.

"Give it to me," said Gordon. He poured out some brandy in a spoon, and James swallowed it. "He will be all right now," Gordon said. "You won't be such a beauty that the women will run after you for a few days, Elliot, but you're all right."

"I feel all right," James said.

"It is nothing more than a little boy with a bump on his forehead," said Gordon to Clemency. "Now, child, stop crying, and go and bathe your eyes. Emma, is luncheon ready?"

When both women had gone Gordon, who had been applying some ointment to James's forehead, said in a low voice, broken by emotion, "You are all right, Elliot, but—you did have a close call."

"I suppose I did," James said, laughing feebly.

He essayed to rise, but Gordon held him down. "No, keep still," he said. "You must not stir to-day. I will have your luncheon brought in. Clemency will be only too happy to wait on you, hand and foot."

"Poor little girl, I must have given her an awful fright," said James.

"Well, you are not exactly the looking object to do anything else," said Gordon laughing.

"Where is there a glass?"

"Where you won't have it. You won't be scarred. It is simply a temporary eclipse of your beauty, and Clemency will love you all the more for it. You need not worry. Talk about the vanity of women. I thought you were above it, Elliot. Now lie still. If you get up you will be giddy."

James lay still, smiling. He felt very happy, and his love for Clemency seemed like a glow of pure radiance in his heart. He lay on the office lounge all the afternoon. He fell asleep with Clemency sitting beside holding his hand. Gordon had gone out to finish the calls. It was six o'clock before he drove into the yard. James had just awakened and lay feeling a great peace and content. Clemency was smiling down at his discolored face, as if it were the face of an angel. The windows were open, and the distant lowing of cattle, waiting at homeward bars, the monotone of frogs, and the songs of circling swallows came in. James felt as if he saw in a celestial vision the whole world and life, and that it was all blessed and good, that even the pain and sorrow blossomed in the end into ineffable flowers of pure delight.

But when Doctor Gordon entered this vision was clouded, for Gordon's face had reassumed its old expression of settled melancholy and despair. He inquired how James found himself with an apathetic air, and then sat down and mechanically filled his pipe. After it was filled he seemed to forget to light it, so deep was his painful reverie. He sat with it in hand, staring straight ahead. Then a strange thing happened. The office door opened and Mrs. Blair, the nurse, entered. She was dressed in black, she carried a black travelling bag, and she wore a black bonnet, with a high black tuft on the top by way of trimming. Mrs. Blair was very tall, and this black tuft, when she entered the door, barely grazed the lintel.

Gordon rose and said good evening, and regarded her in a bewildered fashion, as did James and Clemency.

Mrs. Blair spoke with no preface. "I am going to leave Alton," she said in her severe voice, "and I want to tell you something first, and to say good-by." She looked at Gordon, then at the others, one after another, then at Gordon again. "I did not think at first that it would be necessary for me to say what I am going to," she continued, "but I overheard some things that were said that night, and I have been thinking—and then I heard the other day (I don't know how true it is) that Clemency and Doctor Elliot had had a falling out, and I didn't know but—I didn't quite know what anybody thought, and I wanted you all to know the truth. I didn't want any mistakes made to cause unhappiness." She hesitated, her eyes upon Doctor Gordon grew more intense. "Maybe you think you gave her that dose of morphine that killed her," she said steadily, "but you didn't. Doctor Elliot gave her water, and you gave her mostly water. I had diluted the morphine, and you didn't know it. I had made up my mind that she was going to have the morphine, but I had made up my mind that nobody but me should have the responsibility of it. I'm all alone in the world, and my conscience upheld me, and I felt I'd rather take the blame, if there was to be any. I made up my mind to wait till a certain time and then give it to her, and I did. I am the one who gave her the morphine that killed her. I am going to leave Alton for good. My trunk is down at the station. I came to tell you that I gave her the morphine, and if I did wrong in helping God to shorten her sufferings, I am the one to be punished, and I stand ready to bear the punishment."

Gordon looked at her. He did not speak, but it was with his face as if a mask of dreadful misery had dropped from it.

"Good-by!" said Mrs. Blair. She went out of the door, and the black tuft on her bonnet barely grazed the lintel.

THE END



OTHER WORKS BY MARY E. WILKINS-FREEMAN

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THE END