"It looks to me as if some sort of a gun had been fired already," said Mr. Wiggins, pointing to the increasing crowd before the hall.

"Something's up," said Emlie, startled at the sight of the gathering hundreds.

"Then there's my place," said the Colonel—the other two thought they heard him sigh—and started up the street.

Emlie turned to Mr. Wiggins.

"It's rough on the Colonel; he's a man of peace if ever there was one, and likes to stand well with one and all. This rough and tumble business of sheriff goes against the grain; his time is up next month; he'll be glad enough to be out of it. I'll step over to the office for the paper, I see they've just come—the men have got them already from the stand—"

Elmer Wiggins caught his arm.

"Look!" he cried under his breath, pointing to the crowd and a man who was mounting the tail of an express wagon that had halted on the outskirts of the throng. "That's one of the quarrymen—he's ring-leader every time—he's going to read 'em something—hark!"

They could hear the man haranguing the ever-increasing crowd; he was waving a newspaper. They could not hear what he was saying, but in the pauses of his speechifying the hoarse murmur of approval grew louder and louder. The cart-tail orator pointed to the headlines; there was a sudden deep silence, so deep that the soft scurrying of a mass of fallen elm leaves in the gutter seemed for a moment to fill all the air. Then the man began to read. They saw the Colonel on the outside of the crowd; saw him suddenly turn and make with all haste for the post-office; saw him reappear reading the paper.

The two hurried across the street to him.

"What's the matter?" Emlie demanded.

The Colonel spoke no word. He held the sheet out to them and with shaking forefinger pointed to the headlines:

BIG EMBEZZLEMENT BY FLAMSTED QUARRIES CO. OFFICIAL

GUILTY MAN A FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE

SEARCH WARRANTS OUT

DETECTIVES ON TRAIL

"New York—Special Despatch: L. Champney Googe, the treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Co.—" etc., etc.

The men looked at one another. There was a moment of sickening silence; not so much as a leaf whirled in the gutter; it was broken by a great cheer from the assembled hundreds of workmen farther up the street, followed by a conglomerate of hootings, cat-calls, yells and falsetto hoorays from the fringe of small boys. The faces of the three men in front of the post-office grew white at their unspoken thought. Each waited for the other.

"His mother—" said Emlie at last.

Elmer Wiggins' lips trembled. "You must tell her, Colonel—she mustn't hear it this way—"

"My God, how can I!" The Colonel's voice broke, but only for a second, then he braced himself to his martyrdom. "You're right; she mustn't hear it from any one but me—telephone up at once, will you, Elmer, that I'm coming up to see her on an important matter?—Emlie, you'll drive me up in your trap—we can get there before the men have a chance to get home—keep a watch on the doings here in the town, Elmer, and telephone me if there's any trouble—there's Romanzo coming now, I suppose he's got word from the office—if you happen to see Father Honore, tell him where I am, he will help—"

He stepped into the trap that had been hitched in front of the drug store, and Emlie took the reins. Elmer Wiggins reached up his hand to the Colonel, who gripped it hard.

"Yes, Elmer," he said in answer to the other's mute question, "this is one of the days when a man, who is a man, may wish he'd never been born—"

They were off, past the surging crowds who were now thronging the entire street, past The Bow, and over the bridge on their way to The Gore.

XI

"Run on ahead, girlies," said Aileen to the twins who were with her for their annual checkerberry picnic, "I'll be down in a few minutes."

They were on the edge of the quarry woods which sheltered the Colonel's outlying sheep pastures and protected from the north wind the two sheepfolds that were used for the autumn and early spring. Dulcie and Doosie, obedient to Aileen's request, raced hand in hand across the short-turfed pastures, balancing their baskets of red berries.

The late afternoon sunshine of the last of October shone clear and warm upon the fading close-cropped herbage that covered the long slopes. The sheep were gathering by flocks at the folds. The collie, busy and important, was at work with 'Lias rounding up the stragglers. Aileen's eyes were blinded to the transient quiet beauty of this scene, for she was alive to but one point in the landscape—the red brick house with granite trimmings far away across the Rothel, and the man leaving the carriage which had just stopped at the front porch. She could not distinguish who it was, and this fact fostered conjecture—Could it be Champney Googe who had come home to help settle the trouble in the sheds?

How she hated him!—yet her heart gave a sudden sick throb of expectation. How she hated herself for her weakness!

"You look tired to death, Aileen," was Mrs. Caukins' greeting a few minutes afterwards, "come in and rest yourself before supper. Luigi was here just now and I've sent Dulcie over with him to Aurora's to get the Colonel; I saw him go in there fifteen minutes ago, and he's no notion of time, not even meal-time, when he's talking business with her. I know it's business, because Mr. Emlie drove up with him; he's waiting for him to come out. Romanzo has just telephoned that he can't get home for supper, but he'll be up in time to see you home."

Mrs. Caukins was diplomatic; she looked upon herself as a committee of one on ways and means to further her son's interest so far as Aileen Armagh was concerned; but that young lady was always ready with a check to her mate.

"Thank you, Mrs. Caukins, but I'll not trouble him; Tave is coming up to drive me home about eight; he knows checkerberry picking isn't easy work."

Mrs. Caukins was looking out of the window and did not reply.

"I declare," she exclaimed, "if there isn't Octavius this very minute driving up in a rush to Aurora's too—and Father Honore's with him!—Why, what—"

Without waiting to finish her thought, she hurried to the door to call out to Dulcie, who was coming back over the bridge towards the house, running as fast as she could:

"What's the matter, Dulcie?"

"Oh, mother—mother—" the child panted, running up the road, "father wants you to come over to Mrs. Googe's right off, as quick as you can—he says not to stop for anything—"

The words were scarcely out of her mouth before Mrs. Caukins, without heeding Aileen, was hurrying down the road. The little girl, wholly out of breath, threw herself down exhausted on the grass before the door. Aileen and Doosie ran out to her.

"What is it, Dulcie—can't you tell me?" said Aileen.

Between quickened breaths the child told what she knew.

"Luigi stopped to speak to Mr. Emlie—and Mr. Emlie said something dreadful for Flamsted—had happened—and Luigi looked all of a sudden so queer and pale,"—she sat up, and in the excitement and importance of imparting such news forgot her over-exertion,—"and Mr. Emlie said father was telling Mrs. Googe—and he was afraid it would kill her—and then father came to the door looking just like Luigi, all queer and pale, and Mr. Emlie says, 'How is she?' and father shook his head and said, 'It's her death blow,' then I squeezed Luigi's hand to make him look at me, and I asked him what it was Mrs. Googe's was sick of, for I must go and tell mother—and he looked at Mr. Emlie and he nodded and said, 'It's town talk already—it's in the papers.' And then Luigi told me that Mr. Champney Googe had been stealing, Aileen!—and if he got caught he'd have to go to prison—then father sent me over home for mother and told me to run, and I've run so—Oh, Aileen!"

It was a frightened cry, and her twin echoed it. While Aileen Armagh was listening with shortened breaths to the little girl, she felt as if she were experiencing the concentrated emotions of a lifetime; as a result, the revulsion of feeling was so powerful that it affected her physically; her young healthy nerves, capable at other times of almost any tension, suddenly played her false. The effect upon her of what she heard was a severe nervous shock. She had never fainted in her life, nor had she known the meaning of an hysterical mood; she neither fainted nor screamed now, but began to struggle horribly for breath, for the shocked heart began beating as it would, sending the blood in irregular spurts through the already over-charged arteries. From time to time she groaned heavily as her struggle continued.

The two children were terrified. Doosie raced distractedly across the pastures to get 'Lias, and Dulcie ran into the house for water. Her little hand was trembling as she held the glass to Aileen's white quivering lips that refused it.

By the time, however, that 'Lias got to the house, the crisis was past; she could smile at the frightened children, and assure 'Lias that she had had simply a short and acute attack of indigestion from eating too many checkerberries over in the woods.

"It serves me right," she said smiling into the woe-begone little faces so near to hers; "I've always heard they are the most indigestible things going—now don't you eat any more, girlies, or you'll have a spasm like mine. I'm all right, 'Lias; go back to your work, I'll just help myself to a cup of hot water from the tea-kettle and then I'll go home with Tave—I see him coming for me—I didn't expect him now."

"But, Aileen, won't you stay to supper?" said the twins at one and the same time; "we always have you to celebrate our checkerberry picnic."

"Dear knows, I've celebrated the checkerberries enough already," she said laughing,—but 'Lias noticed that her lips were still colorless,—"and I think, dearies, that it's no time for us to be celebrating any more to-day when poor Mrs. Googe is in such trouble."

"What's up?" said 'Lias.

The twins' eagerness to impart their knowledge of recent events to 'Lias was such that the sorrow of parting was greatly mitigated; moreover, Aileen left them with a promise to come up again soon.

"I'm ready, Tave," she said as he drew up at the door. 'Lias helped her in.

"Come again soon, Aileen—you've promised," the twins shouted after her.

She turned and waved her hand to them. "I'll come," she called back in answer.

They drove in silence over the Rothel, past the brick house where Emlie's trap was still standing, but now hitched. Octavius Buzzby's face was gray; his features were drawn.

"Did you hear, Aileen?" he said, after they had driven on a while and begun to meet the quarrymen returning from Flamsted, many of whom were talking excitedly and gesticulating freely.

"Yes—Dulcie told me something. I don't know how true it is," she answered quietly.

"It's true," he said grimly, "and it'll kill his mother."

"I don't know about that;" she spoke almost indifferently; "you can stand a good deal when it comes to the point."

Octavius turned almost fiercely upon her.

"What do you know about it?" he demanded. "You're neither wife nor mother, but you might show a little more feeling, being a woman. Do you realize what this thing means to us—to Flamsted—to the family?"

"Tave," she turned her gray eyes full upon him, the pupils were unnaturally enlarged, "I don't suppose I do know what it means to all of you—but it makes me sick to talk about it—please don't—I can't bear it—take me home as quick as you can."

She grew whiter still.

"Ain't you well, Aileen?" he asked in real anxiety, repenting of his hard word to her.

"Not very, Tave; the truth is I ate too many checkerberries and had an attack of indigestion—I shall be all right soon—and they sent over for Mrs. Caukins just at that time, and when Dulcie came back she told me—it's awful—but it's different with you; he belongs to you all here and you've always loved him."

"Loved him!"—Octavius Buzzby's voice shook with suppressed emotion—"I should say loved him; he's been dear to me as my own—I thank God Louis Champney isn't living to go through this disgrace!"

He drew up in the road to let a gang of workmen separate—he had been driving the mare at full speed. Both he and Aileen caught fragments of what they were saying.

"It's damned hard on his mother—"

"They say there's a woman in the case—"

"Generally is with them highflyers—"

"I'll bet he'll make for the old country, if he can get clear he'll—"

"Europe's full of 'em—reg'lar cesspool they say—"

"Any reward offered?"

"The Company'll have to fork over or there'll be the biggest strike in Flamsted that the stone-cutting business has seen yet—"

"The papers don't say what the shortage is—"

"What's Van Ostend's daughter's name, anybody know?—they say he was sweet on her—"

"She's a good haul," a man laughed hoarsely, insultingly, "but she didn't bite, an' lucky for her she didn't."

"You're 'bout right—them high rollers don't want to raise nothing but game cocks—no prison birds, eh?"

The men passed on, twenty or more. Octavius Buzzby, and the one who in the last hour had left her girlhood behind her, drove homewards in silence. Her eyes were lowered; her white cheeks burned again, but with shame at what she was obliged to hear.

XII

The strike was averted; the men were paid in full on the Wednesday following that Saturday the events of which brought for a time Flamsted, its families, and its great industry into the garish light of undesirable publicity. In the sheds and the quarries the routine work went on as usual, but speculation was rife as to the outcome of the search for the missing treasurer. A considerable amount of money was put up by the sporting element among the workmen, that the capture would take place within three weeks. Meanwhile, the daily papers furnished pabulum for the general curiosity and kept the interest as to the outcome on the increase. Some reports had it that Champney Googe was already in Europe; others that he had been seen in one of the Central American capitals. Among those who knew him best, it was feared he was already in hiding in his native State; but beyond their immediate circle no suspicion of this got abroad.

Among the native Flamstedites, who had known and loved Champney from a child, there was at first a feeling of consternation mingled with shame of the disgrace to his native town. They felt that Champney had played false to his two names, and through the honored names of Googe and Champney he had brought disgrace upon all connections, whether by ties of blood or marriage. To him they had looked to be a leader in the new Flamsted that was taking its place in the world's work. For a few days it seemed as if the keystone of the arch of their ambition and pride had fallen and general ruin threatened. Then, after the first week passed without news as to his whereabouts, there was bewilderment, followed on the second Monday by despair deepened by a suspense that was becoming almost unbearable.

It was a matter of surprise to many to find the work in sheds and quarries proceeding with its accustomed regularity; to find that to the new comers in Flamsted the affair was an impersonal one, that Champney Googe held no place among the workmen; that his absconding meant to them simply another one of the "high rollers" fleeing from his deserts. Little by little, during that first week, the truth found its way home to each man and woman personally interested in this erring son of Flamsted's old families, that a man is but one working unit among millions, and that unit counts in a community only when its work is constructive in the communal good.

At a meeting of the bank directors the telling fact was disclosed that all of Mrs. Googe's funds—the purchase money of the quarry lands—had been withdrawn nine months previous; but this, they ascertained later, had been done with her full consent and knowledge.

Romanzo was summoned with the Company's books to the New York office. The Colonel seemed to his friends to have aged ten years in seven days. He wore the look of a man haunted by the premonition of some impending catastrophe. But he confided his trouble to no one, not even to his wife. Aurora Googe's friends suffered with her and for her; they began, at last, to fear for her reason if some definite word should not soon be forthcoming.

The tension in the Champ-au-Haut household became almost intolerable as the days passed without any satisfaction as to the fugitive's whereabouts. After the first shock, and some unpleasant recrimination on the part of Mrs. Champney, this tension showed itself by silently ignoring the recent family event. Mrs. Champney found plausible excuse in the state of her health to see no one. Octavius Buzzby attended to his daily duties with the face of a man who has come through a severe sickness; Hannah complained that "he didn't eat enough to keep a cat alive." His lack of appetite was an accompaniment to sleepless, thought-racked nights.

Aileen Armagh said nothing—what could she say?—but sickened at her own thoughts. She made excuse to be on the street, at the station, in The Gore at the Caukinses', with Joel Quimber and Elmer Wiggins, as well as among the quarrymen's families, whose children she taught in an afternoon singing class, in the hope of hearing some enlightening word; of learning something definite in regard to the probabilities of escape; of getting some inkling of the whole truth. She gathered a little here, a little there; she put two and two together, and from what she heard as a matter of speculation, and from what she knew to be true through Mrs. Caukins via Romanzo in New York, she found that Champney Googe had sacrificed his honor, his mother, his friends, and the good name of his native town for the unlawful love of gain. She was obliged to accept this fact, and its acceptance completed the work of destruction that the revelation of Champney Googe's unfaith, through the declaration of a passion that led to no legitimate consummation in marriage, had wrought in her young buoyant spirit. She was broken beneath the sudden cumulative and overwhelming knowledge of evil; her youth found no abiding-place either for heart or soul. To Father Honore she could not go—not yet!

* * * * *

On the afternoon of Monday week, a telegram came for the Colonel. He opened it in the post office. Octavius coming in at the same time for his first mail noticed at once the change in his face—he looked stricken.

"What is it, Colonel?" he asked anxiously, joining him.

For answer Milton Caukins held out the telegram. It was from the State authorities; its purport that the Colonel was to form a posse and be prepared to aid, to the extent of his powers, the New York detectives who were coming on the early evening train. The fugitive from justice had left New York and been traced to Hallsport.

"I've had a premonition of this—it's the last stroke, Tave—here, in his home—among us—and his mother!—and, in duty bound, I, of all others, must be the man to finish the ugly job—"

Octavius Buzzby's face worked strangely. "It's tough for you, Colonel, but I guess a Maine man knows his whole duty—only, for God's sake, don't ask me!" It was a groan rather than an ejaculation. The two continued to talk in a low tone.

"I shall call for volunteers and then get them sworn in—it means stiff work for to-night. We'll keep this from Aurora, Tave; she mustn't know this."

"Yes, if we can. Are you going to ask any of our own folks to volunteer, Milton?" In times of great stress and sorrow his townspeople called the Colonel by his Christian name.

"No; I'm going to ask some of the men who don't know him well—some of the foreigners; Poggi's one. He'll know some others up in The Gore. And I don't believe, Tave, there's one of our own would volunteer, do you?"

"No, I don't. We can't go that far; it would be like cutting our own throats."

"You're right, Tave—that's the way I feel; but"—he squared his shoulders—"it's got to be done and the sooner it's over the better for us all—but, Tave, I hope to God he'll keep out of our way!"

"Amen," said Octavius Buzzby.

The two stood together in the office a moment longer in gloomy silence, then they went out into the street.

"Well, I must get to work," said the Colonel finally, "the time's scant. I'll telephone my wife first. We can't keep this to ourselves long; everybody, from the quarrymen to the station master, will be keen on the scent."

"I'm glad no reward was offered," said Octavius.

"So am I." The Colonel spoke emphatically. "The roughscuff won't volunteer without that, and I shall be reasonably certain of some good men—God! and I'm saying this of Champney Googe—it makes me sick; who'd have thought it—who'd have thought it—"

He shook his head, and stepped into the telephone booth. Octavius waited for him.

"I've warned Mrs. Caukins," he said when he came out, "and told her how things stand; that I'd try to get Poggi, and that I sha'n't be at home to-night. She says tell Aileen to tell Mrs. Champney she will esteem it a great favor if she will let her come up to-night; she has one of her nervous headaches and doesn't want to be alone with the children and 'Lias. You could take her up, couldn't you?"

"I guess she can come, and I'll take her up 'fore supper; I don't want to be gone after dark," he added with meaning emphasis.

"I understand, Tave; I'm going over to Poggi's now."

The two parted with a hand-clasp that spoke more than any words.

XIII

About four, Octavius drove Aileen up to the Colonel's. He said nothing to her of the coming crucial night, but Aileen had her thoughts. The Colonel's absence from home, but not from town, coupled with yesterday's New York despatch which said that there was no trace of the guilty man in New York, and affirmed on good authority that the statement that he had not left the country was true, convinced her that something unforeseen was expected in the immediate vicinity of Flamsted. But he would never attempt to come here!—She shivered at the thought. Octavius, noticing this movement, remarked that he thought there was going to be a black frost. Aileen maintained that the rising wind and the want of a moon would keep it off.

Although Octavius was inclined to take exception to the feminine statement that the moon, or the want of it, had an effect on frost, nevertheless this apparently innocent remark on Aileen's part recalled to him the fact that the night was moonless—he wondered if the Colonel had thought of this—and he hoped with all his soul that it would prove to be starless as well. "Champney knows the Maine woods—knows 'em from the Bay to the head of Moosehead as well as an Oldtown Indian, yes and beyond." So he comforted himself in thought.

Mrs. Caukins met them with effusion.

"I declare, Aileen, I don't know what I should have done if you couldn't have come up; I'm all of a-tremble now and I've got such a nervous headache from all I've been through, and all I've got to, that I can't see straight out of my eyes.—Won't you stop to supper, Tave?"

"I can't to-night, Elvira, I—"

"I'd no business to ask you, I know," she said, interrupting him; "I might have known you'd want to be on hand for any new developments. I don't know how we're going to live through it up here; you don't feel it so much down in the town—I don't believe I could go through it without Aileen up here with me, for the twins aren't old enough to depend on or to be told everything; they're no company at such times, and of course I sha'n't tell them, they wouldn't sleep a wink; I miss my boys dreadfully—"

"Tell them what? What do you mean by 'to-night'?" Aileen demanded, a sudden sharpness in her voice.

"Why, don't you know?"—She turned to Octavius, "Haven't you told her?"

Her appeal fell on departing and intentionally deaf ears; for Octavius, upon hearing Aileen's sudden and amazed question, abruptly bade them good-night, spoke to the mare and was off at a rapid pace before Mrs. Caukins comprehended that the telling of the latest development was left to her.

She set about it quickly enough, and what with her nervousness, her sympathy for that mother across the Rothel, her anxiety for the Colonel, her fear of the trial to which his powers of endurance were about to be put, and the description of his silent suffering during the last week, she failed to notice that Aileen said nothing. The girl busied herself with setting the table and preparing tea, Mrs. Caukins, meanwhile, rocking comfortably in her chair and easing her heart of its heavy burden by continual drippings of talk after the main flow of her tale was exhausted.

Presently, just after sunset, the twins came rushing in. Evidently they were full of secrets—they were always a close corporation of two—and their inane giggles and breathless suppression of what they were obviously longing to impart to their mother and Aileen, told on Mrs. Caukins' already much worn nerves.

"I wish you wouldn't stay out so long after sundown, children, you worry me to death. I don't say but the quarries are safe enough, but I do say you never can tell who's round after dusk, and growing girls like you belong at home."

She spoke fretfully. The twins exchanged meaning glances that were lost on their mother, who was used to their ways, but not on Aileen.

"Where have you been all this time, Dulcie?" she asked rather indifferently. Her short teaching experience had shown her that the only way to gain children's confidence is not to display too great a curiosity in regard to their comings and goings, their doings and undoings. "Tave and I didn't see you anywhere when we drove up."

The twins looked at each other and screwed their lips into a violently repressive contortion.

"We've been over to the sheepfolds with 'Lias."

"Why, 'Lias has been out in the barn for the last half hour—what were you doing over there, I'd like to know?" Their mother spoke sharply, for untruth she would not tolerate.

"We did stay with 'Lias till he got through, then we played ranchmen and made believe round up the cattle the way the boys wrote us they do." Two of their brothers were in the West trying their fortune on a ranch and incidentally "dovetailing into the home business," as the Colonel defined their united efforts along the line of mutton raising.

"Well, I never!" their mother ejaculated; "I suppose now you'll be making believe you're everything the other boys are going to be."

The little girls giggled and nodded emphatically.

"Well, Aileen," she said as she took her seat at the table, "times have changed since I was a girl, and that isn't so very long ago. Then we used to content ourselves with sewing, and housework, and reading all the books in the Sunday school library, and making our own clothes, and enjoying ourselves as much as anybody nowadays for all I see, what with our picnics and excursions down the Bay and the clam bakes and winter lecture course and the young folks 'Circle' and two or three dances to help out—and now here are my girls that can't be satisfied to sit down and hem good crash towels for their mother, but must turn themselves into boys, and play ranchmen and baseball and hockey on the ice, and Wild West shows with the dogs and the pony—and even riding him a-straddle—and want to go to college just because their two brothers are going, and, for all I know, join a fraternity and have secrets from their own mother and a football team!" She paused long enough to help the twins bountifully.

"Sometimes I think it's their being brought up with so many boys, and then again I'm convinced it's the times, for all girls seem to have caught the male fever. What with divided skirts, and no petticoats, and racing and running and tumbling in basket ball, and rowing races, and entering for prize championships in golf and the dear knows what, it'll be lucky if a mother of the next generation can tell whether she's borned girls or boys by the time her children are ten years old. The land knows it's hard enough for a married woman to try to keep up with one man in a few things, but when it comes to a lot of old maids and unmarried girls trying to catch up all the time with the men in everything, and catch on too, I must say I, for one, draw the line."

Aileen could not help smiling at this diatribe on "the times." The twins laughed outright; they were used to their mother by this time, and patronized her in a loving way.

"We weren't there all the time," Doosie said meaningly, and Dulcie added her little word, which she intended should tantalize her mother and Aileen to the extent that many pertinent questions should be forthcoming, and the news they were burning to impart would, to all appearance, be dragged out of them—a process in which the twins revelled.

"We met Luigi on the road near the bridge."

"What do you suppose Luigi's doing up here at this time, I'd like to know," said Mrs. Caukins, turning to Aileen and ignoring the children.

"He come up on an errand to see some of the quarrymen," piped up both the girls at the same time.

"Oh, is that all?" said their mother indifferently; then, much to the twins' chagrin, she suddenly changed the subject. "I want you to take the glass of wine jell on the second shelf in the pantry over to Mrs. Googe's after you finish your supper—you can leave it with the girl and tell her not to say anything to Mrs. Googe about it, but just put some in a saucer and give it to her with her supper. Maybe it'll tempt her to taste it, poor soul!"

The twins sat up very straight on their chairs. A look of consternation came into their faces.

"We don't want to go," murmured Dulcie.

"Don't want to go!" their mother exclaimed; decided irritation was audible in her voice. "For pity's sake, what is the matter now, that you can't run on an errand for me just over the bridge, and here you've been prowling about in the dusk for the last hour around those lonesome sheepfolds and 'Lias nowheres near—I declare, I could understand my six boys even if they were terrors when they were little. You could always count on their being somewheres anyway, even if 't was on the top of freight cars at The Corners or at the bottom of the pond diving for pebbles that they brought up between their lips and run the risk of choking besides drowning; and they did think the same thoughts for at least twenty-four hours on a stretch, when they were set on having things—but when it come to my having two girls, and I forty at the time, I give it up! They don't know their own minds from one six minutes to the next.—Why don't you want to go?" she demanded, coming at last to the point. Aileen was listening in amused silence.

"'Coz we got scared—awful scared," said Dulcie under her breath.

"Scared most to death," Doosie added solemnly.

Both Mrs. Caukins and Aileen saw at once that the children were in earnest.

"You look scared!" said Mrs. Caukins with withering scorn; "you've eaten a good supper if you were 'scared' as you say.—What scared you?"

The twins looked down into their plates, the generally cleared-up appearance of which seemed fully to warrant their mother's sarcasm.

"Luigi told us not to tell," said Dulcie in a low voice.

"Luigi told you not to tell!" echoed their mother. "I'd like to know what right Luigi Poggi has to tell my children not to tell their mother anything and everything!" She spoke with waxing excitement; every motherly pin-feather was erect.

"He was 'fraid it would scare you," ventured Doosie.

"Scare me! He must have a pretty poor opinion of a woman that can raise six boys of her own and then be 'scared' at what two snips of girls can tell her. You'll tell me now, this very minute, what scared you—this all comes of your being away from the house so far and so late—and I won't have it."

"We saw a bear—"

"A big one—"

"He was crawling on all fours—"

"Back of the sheepfold wall—"

"He scrooched down as if he was nosing for something—"

"Just where the trees are so thick you can't see into the woods—"

"And we jumped over the wall and right down into the sheep, and they made an awful fuss they were so scared too, huddling and rushing round to get out—"

"Then we found the gate—"

"But I heard him—" Dulcie's eyes were very big and bright with remembered terror.

"And then we climbed over the gate—'Lias had locked it—and run home lickety-split and most run into Luigi at the bridge—"

"'Coz we come down the road after we got through the last pasture—"

"Oh, he was so big!" Doosie shuddered as her imagination began to work more vigorously with the recital—"bigger'n a man—"

"What nonsense."

The twins had been telling all this at the same time, and their mother's common sense and downright exclamation brought them to a full stop. They looked crestfallen.

"You needn't tell me there's a bear between here and Moosehead—I know better. Did you tell Luigi all this?" she questioned sharply.

The two nodded affirmatively.

"And he told you not to tell me?"

Another nod.

"Did he say anything more?"

"He said he'd go up and see."

"Hm—m—"

Mrs. Caukins turned a rather white face to Aileen; the two, looking into each other's eyes, read there a common fear.

"Perhaps you'll take the jelly over for me, Aileen; I'll just step to the back door and holler to 'Lias to bring in the collie and the hound—'t isn't always safe to let the dogs out after dark if there should happen to be anything stirring in the quarry woods."

"I'll go," said Aileen. She went into the pantry to get the glass of jelly.

"We'll go with you, we won't mind a bit with you or Luigi," chorussed the twins.

"You don't go one step," said their mother, entering at that moment from the kitchen, and followed by the two dogs; "you'll stay right where you are, and what's more, you'll both go to bed early to make you remember that I mean what I say about your being out so long another time after sundown—no good comes of it," she muttered.

The twins knew by the tone of her voice that there was no further appeal to be made.

"You can wash up the dishes while Aileen's gone; my head is so bad.—Don't be gone too long, Aileen," she said, going to the door with her.

"I sha'n't stay unless I can do something—but I'll stop a little while with Ellen, poor girl; she must be tired of all this excitement, sitting there alone so much as she has this last week."

"Of course, but Aurora won't see you; it's as much as ever I can do to get a look at her, and as to speaking a word of comfort, it's out of the question.—Why!" she exclaimed, looking out into the dusk that was settling into night, "they never light the quarries so early, not with all the arc-lights, I wonder—Oh, Aileen!" she cried, as the meaning of the great illumination in The Gore dawned upon her.

The girl did not answer. She ran down the road to the bridge with every nerve in her strained to its utmost.

XIV

She hurried over to the brick house across the Rothel; rapped at the kitchen door and, upon the girl's opening it, gave the jelly to her with Mrs. Caukins' message. She assured Ellen, who begged her to come in, that she would run over if possible a little later in the evening. A low whine and prolonged snuffing made themselves audible while the two talked together in low tones at the door. They seemed to proceed from the vicinity of the dining-room door.

"Where's Rag?" said Aileen, listening intently to the muffled sounds.

"I shut him up in the dining-room closet when I see you come up the walk; he goes just wild to get with you any chance he can, and Mrs. Googe told me she wanted to keep him round the house nights."

"Then be careful he doesn't get out to-night—supposing you chain him up just for once."

"Oh, I couldn't do that; Mrs. Googe wouldn't let me; but I'll see he doesn't follow you. I do wish you would come in—it's so lonesome," she said again wistfully.

"I can't now, Ellen; but if I can get away after eight, I may run over and sit with you a while. I'm staying with Mrs. Caukins because the Colonel is away to-night."

"So I heard; 'Lias told me just now on his way down to the village. He said he wouldn't be gone long, for the Colonel wasn't to home.—I wonder what they've turned on all the lights for?" she said, craning her neck to look farther up the road.

Aileen made no reply. She cautioned her again to keep Rag at home. A series of muffled but agonized yelps followed her down the walk.

She stood still in the road and looked about her. Everywhere the great quarry arc-lights were sending their searching rays out upon the quarries and their approaches.

"What shall I do—oh, what shall I do!" was her hopeless unuttered cry.

It seemed to Aileen Armagh, standing there in the road at the entrance to the bridge, as if a powerful X-ray were being directed at that moment upon her whole life so far as she remembered it; and not only upon that, but upon her heart and soul—her thoughts, desires, her secret agony; as if the ray, in penetrating her body and soul, were laying bare her secret to the night:—she still loved him.

"Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do!" was the continual inner cry.

Life was showing itself to her in this experience, as seen through the lens of a quickened imagination, in all its hideousness. Never had she experienced such a sense of loneliness. Never had she realized so forcibly that she was without father and mother, without kin in a foreign country, without a true home and abiding-place. Never had it been brought home to her with such keen pain that she was, in truth, a waif in this great world; that the one solid support for her in this world, her affections, had been ruthlessly cut away from under her by the hand of the man she had loved with all the freshness and joy of her young loving heart. He had been all the more to her because she was alone; the day dreams all the brighter because she believed he was the one to realize them for her—and now!

She walked on slowly.

"What shall I do—what shall I do!" was her inward cry, repeated at intervals. She crossed the bridge. All was chaotic in her thoughts. She had supposed, during the last two months, that all her love was turned to hate,—she hoped it was, for it would help her to bear,—that all her feeling for him, whom she knew she ought to despise, was dead. Why, then, if it were dead, she asked herself now, had she spoken so vehemently to Luigi? And Luigi—where was he—what was he doing?

What was it produced that nervous shock when she learned the last truth from Dulcie Caukins? Was it her shame at his dishonor? No—she knew by the light of the X-ray piercing her soul that the thought of his imprisonment meant absence from her; after all that had occurred, she was obliged to confess that she was still longing for his presence. She hated herself for this confession.—Where was he now?

She looked up the road towards the quarry woods—Thank God, those, at least, were dark! Oh, if she but dared to go! dared to penetrate them; to call to him that the hours of his freedom were numbered; to help—someway, somehow! A sudden thought, over-powering in its intimation of possibilities, stopped her short in the road just a little way beyond the Colonel's; but before she could formulate it sufficiently to follow it up with action, before she had time to realize the sensation of returning courage, she was aware of the sound of running feet on the road above her. On a slight rise of ground the figure of a man showed for a moment against the clear early dark of the October night; he was running at full speed.

Could it be—?

She braced herself to the shock—he was rapidly nearing her—a powerful ray from an arc-light shot across his path—fell full upon his hatless head—

"You!—Luigi!" she cried and darted forward to meet him.

He thrust out his arm to brush her aside, never slackening his pace; but she caught at it, and, clasping it with both hands, hung upon it her full weight, letting him drag her on with him a few feet.

"Stop, Luigi Poggi!—Stop, I tell you, or I'll scream for help—stop, I say!"

He was obliged to slacken his speed in order not to hurt her. He tried to shake her off, untwist her hands; she clung to him like a leech. Then he stopped short, panting. She could see the sweat dropping from his forehead; his teeth began to chatter. She still held his arm tightly with both hands.

"Let me go—" he said, catching his breath spasmodically.

"Not till you tell me where you've been—what you've been doing—tell me."

"Doing—" He brought out the word with difficulty.

"Yes, doing, don't you hear?" She shook his arm violently in her anxious terror.

"I don't know—" the words were a long groan.

"Where have you been then?—quick, tell me—"

He began to shake with a hard nervous chill.

"With him—over in the quarry woods—I tried to take him—he fought me—" The chill shook him till he could scarcely stand.

She dropped his arm; drew away from him as if touching were contamination; then her eyes, dilating with a still greater horror, fixed themselves on the bosom of his shirt—there was a stain—

"Have you killed him—" she whispered hoarsely.

The answer came through the clattering teeth:

"I—I don't know—you said—you said you—never wanted to see him again—"

Luigi found himself speaking the last words to the empty air; he was alone, in the middle of the road, in the full glare of an electric light. He was conscious of a desire to escape from it, to escape detection—to rid himself of his over-powering misery in the quietest way possible. He gathered himself together; his limbs steadied; the shivering grew less; he went on down the road at a quick walk. Already the quarrymen were coming out in force to see what might be up. He must avoid them at all hazards.

* * * * *

One thought was the motive power which sent Aileen running up the road towards the pastures, by crossing which she could reach in a few minutes the quarry woods: "I must know if he is dead; if he is not dead, I must try to save him from a living death."

This thought alone sent her speeding over the darkened slopes. She was light of foot, but sometimes she stumbled; she was up and on again—the sheepfold her goal. The quarry woods stood out dark against the clear sky; there seemed to be more light on these uplands than below in The Gore; she saw the sheepfold like a square blot on the pasture slope. She reached it—should she call aloud—call his name? How find him?

She listened intently; the wind had died down; the sheep were huddling and moving restlessly within the fold; this movement seemed unusual. She climbed the rough stone wall; the sheep were massed in one corner, heads to the wall, tails to the bare centre of the fold; they kept crowding closer and more close.

In that bared space of hoof-trampled earth she saw him lying.

She leaped down, the frightened sheep riding one another in their frantic efforts to get away from the invaders of their peace. She knelt by him; lifted his head on her knee; her hands touched his sleeve, she drew back from something warm and wet.

"Champney—O Champney, what has he done to you!" she moaned in hopeless terror; "what shall I do—"

"Is it you—Aileen?—help me up—"

With her aid he raised himself to a sitting posture.

"It must have been the loss of blood—I felt faint suddenly." He spoke clearly. "Can you help me?"

"Yes, oh, yes—only tell me how."

"If you could bind this up—have you anything—"

"Yes, oh, yes—"

He used his left hand entirely; it was the right arm that had received the full blow of some sharp instrument. "Just tear away the shirt—that's right—"

She did as he bade her. She took her handkerchief and bound the arm tightly above the wound, twisting it with one of her shell hairpins. She slipped off her white petticoat, stripped it, and under his directions bandaged the arm firmly.

He spoke to her then as if she were a personality and not an instrument.

"Aileen, it's all up with me if I am found here—if I don't get out of this—tell my mother I was trying to see her—to get some funds, I have nothing. I depended on my knowledge of this country to escape—put them off the track—they're after me now—aren't they?"

"Yes—"

"I thought so; I should have got across to the house if the quarry lights hadn't been turned on so suddenly—I knew they'd got word when I saw that—still, I might have made the run, but that man throttled me—I must go—"

He got on his feet. At that moment they both started violently at the sound of something worrying at the gate; there was a rattle at the bars, a scramble, a frightened bleating among the sheep, a joyous bark—and Rag flung himself first upon Aileen then on Champney.

He caught the dog by the throat, choking him into silence, and handed him to Aileen.

"For God's sake, keep the dog away—don't let him come—keep him quiet, or I'm lost—" he dropped over the wall and disappeared in the woods.

Here and there across the pastures a lantern shot its unsteady rays. The posse had begun their night's work.

The dog struggled frantically to free himself from Aileen's arms; again and again she choked him that he might not bark and betray his master. The terrified sheep bleated loud and long, trampling one another in vain efforts to get through or over the wall.

"Oh, Rag, Rag,—stop, or I must kill you, dear, dear little Rag—oh, I can't choke you—I can't—I can't! Rag, be still, I say—oh—"

Between his desire to free his limbs, to breathe freely, and the instinctive longing to follow his master, the dog's powerful muscles were doing double work.

"Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do—" she groaned in her helplessness. The dog's frantic struggles were proving too much for her strength, for she had to hold him with one hand; the other was on his windpipe. She knew 'Lias would soon be coming home; he could hear the sheep from the road, as she already heard the subdued bay of the hound and the muffled bark of the collie, shut—thanks to Mrs. Caukins' premonition of what might happen—within four walls. She looked about her—a strip of her white skirt lay on the ground—Could she—?

"No, Rag darling—no, I can't, I can't—" she began to cry. Through her tears she saw something sticking up from the hoof-trampled earth near the strip of cotton—a knife—

She was obliged to take her hand from the dog's throat in order to pick it up—there was one joyous bark....

"O Rag, forgive me—forgive!" she cried under her breath, sobbing as if her heart would break.

* * * * *

She picked up the piece of skirt, and fled with the knife in her hand—over the wall, over the pastures, that seemed lighter beneath the rising stars, down the highroad into the glare of an arc-light. She looked at the instrument of death as she ran; it was a banana knife such as Luigi used continually in his shop. She crossed the bridge, dropped the knife over the guard into the rushing Rothel; re-crossed the bridge and, throwing back the wings of the Scotch plaid cape she wore, examined in the full light of the powerful terminal lamp her hands, dress, waist, cuffs.—There was evidence.

She took off her cape, wrapped it over head and shoulders, folded it close over both arms, and went back to the house. She heard carriages coming up the road to The Gore.

Mrs. Caukins, in a quivering state of excitement, called to her from the back porch:

"Come out here, Aileen; 'Lias hasn't got back yet—the sheep are making the most awful noise; something's the matter over there, you may depend—and I can see lights, can you?"

"Yes," she answered unsteadily. "I saw them a few minutes ago. I didn't stay with Ellen, but went up the road a piece, for my head was aching too, and I thought a little air would do me good—and I believe I got frightened seeing the lights—I heard the sheep too—it's dreadful to think what it means."

Mrs. Caukins turned and looked at her sharply; the light from the kitchen shone out on the porch.

"Well, I must say you look as if you'd seen a ghost; you're all of a shiver; you'd better go in and warm you and take a hot water bag up to bed with you; it's going to be a frosty night. I'm going to stay here till 'Lias comes back. I'm thankful the twins are abed and asleep, or I should have three of you on my hands. Just as soon as 'Lias gets back, I'm going into my room to lie down—I can't sleep, but if I stay up on my feet another hour I shall collapse with my nerves and my head; you can do what you've a mind to."

Aileen went into the kitchen. When Mrs. Caukins came in, fifteen minutes later, with the information that she could see by the motion of 'Lias' lantern that he was near the house, she found the girl huddled by the stove; she was still wrapped in her cape. A few minutes afterwards she went up to her room for the night.

Late in the evening there was a rumor about town that Champney Googe had been murdered in the Colonel's sheepfold. Before midnight this was contradicted, and the fact established that 'Lias had found his dog stabbed to death in the fold, and that he said he had seen traces of a terrific struggle. The last news, that came in over the telephone from the quarries, was to the effect that no trace of the fugitive was found in the quarry woods and the posse were now on the county line scouring the hills to the north. The New York detectives, arriving on the evening train, were carried up to join the Flamsted force.

The next day the officers of the law returned, and confirmed the report, already current in the town, that Champney Googe had outwitted them and made his escape. Every one believed he would attempt to cross the Canada border, and the central detective agency laid its lines accordingly.

XV

Since Champney Googe's escape on that October night, two weeks had been added to the sum of the hours that his friends were counting until they should obtain some definite word of his fate. During that time the love of the sensational, which is at the root of much so-called communal interest, was fed by the excitement of the nominal proceedings against Luigi Poggi. On the night of Champney's flight he went to Father Honore and Elmer Wiggins, and confessed his complicity in the affair at the sheepfold. Within ten days, however, the Italian had been exonerated for his attack on the escaped criminal; nor was the slightest blame attached to such action on his part. He had been duly sworn in by the Colonel, and was justified in laying hands on the fugitive, although the wisdom of tackling a man, who was in such desperate straits, of his own accord and alone was questioned. Not once during the sharp cross examination, to which he was subjected by Emlie and the side-judge, was Aileen's name mentioned—nor did he mention it to Father Honore. Her secret was to be kept.

During those two weeks of misery and suspense for all who loved Champney Googe, Octavius Buzzby was making up his mind on a certain subject. Now that it was fully made up, his knock on the library door sounded more like a challenge than a plea for admittance.

"Come in, Octavius."

Mrs. Champney was writing. She pushed aside the pad and, moving her chair, faced him. Octavius noted the uncompromising tone of voice when she bade him enter, and the hard-set lines of her face as she turned inquiringly towards him. For a moment his courage flagged; then the righteousness of his cause triumphed. He closed the door behind him. This was not his custom, and Mrs. Champney looked her surprise.

"Anything unusual, Octavius?"

"I want a talk with you, Mrs. Champney."

"Sit down then." She motioned to a chair; but Octavius shook his head.

"I can say all I've got to say standing; it ain't much, but it's to the point."

Mrs. Champney removed her glasses and swung them leisurely back and forth on their gold chain. "Well, to the point, then."

He felt the challenge implied in her words and accepted it.

"I've served this estate pretty faithful for hard on to thirty-seven years. I've served the Judge, and I've served his son, and now I'm going to work to save the man that's named for that son—"

Mrs. Champney interrupted him sharply, decisively.

"That will do, Octavius. There is no occasion for you to tell me this; I knew from the first you would champion his cause—no matter how bad a one. We'll drop the subject; you must be aware it is not a particularly pleasant one to me."

Octavius winced. Mrs. Champney smiled at the effect of her words; but he ignored her remark.

"I like to see fair play, Mrs. Champney, and I've seen some things here in Champo since the old Judge died that's gone against me. Right's right and wrong's wrong, and I've stood by and kept still when I'd ought to have spoken; perhaps 't would have been better for us all if I had—and I'm including Champney Googe. When his father died—" Mrs. Champney started, leaned forward in her chair, her hands tightly grasping the arms.

"His father—" she caught up her words, pressed her thin lips more closely together, and leaned back again in her chair. Octavius looked at her in amazement.

"Yes," he repeated, "his father, Warren Googe; who else should I mean?"

Mrs. Champney made no reply, and Octavius went on, wetting his lips to facilitate articulation, for his throat was going dry:

"His father made me promise to look out for the child that was a-coming; and another man, Louis Champney, your husband,"—Mrs. Champney sat up rigid, her eyes fixed in a stare upon the speaker's lips,—"told me when the boy come that he'd father him as was fatherless—"

She interrupted him again, a sneering smile on her lips:

"You know as well as I, Octavius Buzzby, what Mr. Champney's will was—too feeble a thing to place dependence on for any length of time; if he said that, he didn't mean it—not as you think he did," she added in a tone that sent a shiver along Octavius' spine. But he did not intend to be "downed," as he said to himself, "not this time by Almeda Champney." He continued undaunted:

"I do know what he meant better'n anybody living, and I know what he was going to do for the boy; and I know, too, Mrs. Champney, who hindered him from having his will to do for the boy; and right's right, and now's your time to make good to his memory and intentions—to make good your husband's will for Champney Googe and save your husband's name from disgrace and more besides. You know—but you never knew I did till now—what Louis Champney promised to do for the boy—and he told me more than once, Mrs. Champney, for he trusted me. He told me he was going to educate the boy and start him well in life, and that he wasn't going to end there; he told me he was going to leave him forty thousand dollars, Mrs. Champney—and he told me this not six weeks before he died; and the interest on forty thousand has equalled the principal by this time,—and you know best why he hasn't had his own—I ain't blind and nobody else here in Flamsted. And now I've come to ask you, if you've got a woman's heart instead of a stone in your bosom, to make over that principal and interest to the Quarry Company and save the boy Louis Champney loved; he told me once what I knew, that his blood flowed in that child's veins—"

"That's a lie—take that back!" she almost shrieked under her breath. She started to her feet, trembling in every limb, her face twitching painfully.

Octavius was appalled at the effect of his words; but he dared not falter now—too much was at stake—although fearful of the effect of any further excitement upon the woman before him. He spoke appeasingly:

"I can't take that back, for it's true, Mrs. Champney. You know as well as I do that far back his mother was a Champney."

"Oh—I forgot." She dropped into her chair and drew a long breath as of exhaustion. "What were you saying?" She passed her hand slowly over her eyes, then put on her glasses. Octavius saw by that one movement that she had regained her usual control. He, too, felt relieved, and spoke more freely:

"I said I want you to make good that eighty thousand dollars—"

"Don't be a fool, Octavius Buzzby,"—she broke in upon him coldly, a world of scornful pity in her voice,—"you mean well, but you're a fool to think that at my time of life I'm going to impoverish myself and my estate for Champney Googe. You've had your pains for nothing. Let him take his punishment like any other man—he's no better, no worse; it's the fault of his bringing up; Aurora has only herself to thank."

Octavius took a step forward. By a powerful effort he restrained himself from shaking his fist in her face. He spoke under his breath:

"You leave Aurora's name out of this, Mrs. Champney, or I'll say things that you'll be sorry to hear." His anger was roused to white heat and he dared not trust himself to say more.

She laughed out loud—the forced, mocking laugh of a miserable old age. "I knew from the first Aurora Googe was at the bottom of this—"

"She doesn't know anything about this, I came of—"

"You keep still till I finish," she commanded him, her faded eyes sending forth something from behind her glasses that resembled blue lightning; "I say she's at the bottom of this as she's been at the bottom of everything else in Flamsted. She'll never have a penny of my money, that was Louis Champney's, to clear either herself or her state's-prison brat! Tell her that for me with my compliments on her son's career.—And as for you, Octavius Buzzby, I'll repeat what you said: I'm not blind and nobody else is in Flamsted, and I know, and everybody here knows, that you've been in love with Aurora Googe ever since my father took her into his home to bring up."

She knew that blow would tell. Octavius started as if he had been struck in the face by the flat of an enemy's hand. He stepped forward quickly and looked her straight in the eyes.

"You she-devil," he said in a low clear voice, turned on his heel and left the room. He closed the door behind him, and felt of the knob to see that he had shut it tight. This revelation of a woman's nature was sickening him; he wanted to make sure that the library door was shut close upon the malodorous charnel house of the passions. He shivered with a nervous chill as he hurried down the hall and went upstairs to his room in the ell.

He sat down on the bed and leaned his head on his hands, pressing his fingers against his throbbing temples. Half an hour passed; still he sat there trying to recover his mental poise; the terrible anger he had felt, combined with her last thrust, had shocked him out of it.

At last he rose; went to his desk; opened a drawer, took out a tin box, unlocked it, and laid the papers and books it contained one by one on the table to inspect them. He selected a few, snapped a rubber about the package and thrust it into the inner breast pocket of his coat. Then he reached for his hat, went downstairs, left word with Ann that he was going to drive down for the mail but that he should not be back before ten, proceeded to the stable, harnessed the mare into a light driving trap and drove away. He took the road to The Gore.

On approaching the house he saw a light in Aurora's bedroom. He drove around to the kitchen door and tied the mare to the hitching-post. His rap was answered by Ellen, a quarryman's daughter whom Mrs. Googe employed for general help; but she spoke behind the closed door:

"Who is it?"

"It's me, Octavius Buzzby."

She drew the bolt and flung open the door. "Oh, it's you, is it, Mr. Buzzby? I've got so nervous these last three weeks, I keep the door bolted most of the time. Have you heard anything?" she asked eagerly, speaking under her breath.

"No," said Octavius shortly; "I want to see Mrs. Googe. Tell her I must see her; it's important."

The girl hesitated. "I don't believe she will—and I hate to ask her—she looks awful, Mr. Buzzby. It scares me just to see her goin' round without saying a word from morning to night, and then walking half the night up in her room. I don't believe she's slept two hours a night since—you know when."

"I guess she'll see me, Ellen; you go and ask her, anyway. I'll stay in the lower hall."

He heard her rap at the bedroom door and deliver the message. There followed the sharp click of a lock, the opening of the door and the sound of Aurora's voice:

"Tell him to come up."

Octavius started upstairs. He had seen her but once in the past three weeks; that was when he went to her on the receipt of the news of Champney's flight; he vowed then he would not go again unless sent for; the sight of the mother's despair, that showed itself in speechless apathy, was too much for him. He could only grasp her hand at that time, press it in both his, and say: "Aurora, if you need me, call me; you know me. We'll help all we can—both of you—"

But there was no response. He tiptoed out of the room as if leaving the presence of the dead.

Now, as he mounted the stairs, he had time to wonder what her attitude would be after these three weeks of suspense. A moment more and he stood in her presence, mute, shocked, heartsick at the change that this month of agony had wrought in her. Her face was ghastly in its pallor; deep yellowish-purple half-circles lay beneath her sunken eyes; every feature, every line of the face was sharpened, and on each cheek bone burned a fever spot of vivid scarlet; her dry eyes also burned with unnatural and fevered brightness, the heavy eyelids keeping up a continuous quivering, painful to see. The hand she held out to him throbbed quick and hard in his grasp.

"Any news, Tave?" Her voice was dull from despair.

He shook his head; the slow tears coursed down his cheeks; he could not help it.

"Sit down, Tave; you said it was important."

He controlled his emotion as best he could. "Aurora, I've been thinking what can be done when he's found—"

"If he ever is! Oh, Tave, Tave—if I could only know something—where he is—if living; I can't sleep thinking—" She wrung her clasped hands and began to walk nervously back and forth in the room.

"Aurora, I feel sure he's living, but when he's found—then's the time to help."

"How?" She turned upon him almost savagely; it looked as if her primitive mother-passion were at bay for her young. "Where's help to come from? I've nothing left."

"But I have." He spoke with confidence and took out the package from his breast pocket. He held it out to her. "See here, Aurora, here's the value of twenty thousand dollars—take it—use it as your own."

She drew away from it.—"Money!" She spoke almost with horror.

"Yes, Aurora, honest money. Take it and see how far 't will go towards saving prosecution for him."

"You mean—," she hesitated; her dry eyes bored into his that dropped before her unwavering gaze, "—you mean you're giving your hard-earned wages to me to help save my boy?"

"Yes, and glad to give them—if you knew how glad, Aurora—"

She covered her face with her hands. Octavius took her by the arm and drew her to a chair.

"Sit down," he said gently; "you're all worn out."

She obeyed him passively, still keeping her hands before her face. But no sooner was she seated than she began to rock uneasily back and forth, moaning to herself, till suddenly the long-dried fount was opened up; the merciful blessing of tears found vent. She shook with uncontrollable sobbing; she wept for the first time since Champney's flight, and the tears eased her brain for the time of its living nightmare.

Octavius waited for her weeping to spend itself. His heart was wrung with pity, but he was thankful for every tear she shed; his gratefulness, however, found a curious inner expression.

"Damn her—damn her—damn her—" he kept saying over and over to himself, and the mere repetition seemed to ease him of his over-powering surcharge of pity. But it was Almeda Champney he had in mind, and, after all, his unuttered inner curses were only a prayer for help, read backwards.

At last, Aurora Googe lifted her face from her hands and looked at Octavius Buzzby. He reddened and rose to go.

"Tave, wait a little while; don't go yet."

He sat down.

"I thought—I felt all was lost—no one cared—I was alone—there was no help. You have shown me that I have been wrong—all wrong—such friends—such a friend as you—" Her lips quivered; the tears welled from the red and swollen lids. "I can't take the money, Tave, I can't—don't look so—only on one condition. I've been coming to a decision the last two days. I'm going straight to Almeda, Tave, and ask her, beg her, if I have to, on my bended knees to save my boy—she has more than enough—you know, Tave, what Champney should have had—"

Octavius nodded emphatically and found his voice.

"Don't I know? You may bet your life I know more'n I've ever told, Aurora. Don't I know how Louis Champney said to me: 'Tave, I shall see the boy through; forty thousand of mine is to be his'; and that was six weeks before he died; and don't I know, too, how I didn't get a glimpse of Louis Champney again till two weeks before his death, and then he was unconscious and didn't know me or any one else?"

Octavius paused for breath. Aurora Googe rose and went to the closet.

"I must go now, Tave; take me with you." She took out a cloak and burnous.

"I hate to say it, Aurora, but I'm afraid it won't do no good; she's a tough cuss when it comes to money—"

"But she must; he's her own flesh and blood and she's cheated him out of what is rightfully his. It's been my awful pride that kept me from going sooner—and—oh, Tave, Tave,—I tried to make my boy promise never to ask her for money! I've been hoping all along she would offer—"

"Offer! Almeda Champney offer to help any one with her money that was Louis Champney's!"

"But she has enough of her own, Tave; the money that was my boy's grandfather's."

"You don't know her, Aurora, not yet, after all you've suffered from her. If you'd seen her and lived with her as I have, year out and year in, you'd know her love of money has eat into her soul and gangrened it. 'T ain't no use to go, I tell you, Aurora." He put out his hand to detain her, for she had thrown on her cloak and was winding the burnous about her head.

"Tave, I'm going; don't say another word against it; and you must take me down. She isn't the only one who has loved money till it blinded them to duty—I can't throw stones—and after all she's a woman; I am going to ask her to help with the money that is rightfully my boy's—and if she gives it, I will take your twenty thousand to make up the amount." She pressed the package into his hand.

"But what if she doesn't?"

"Then I'll ask Father Honore to do what he proposed to do last week: go to Mr. Van Ostend and ask him for the money—there's nothing left but that." She drew her breath hard and led the way from the room, hurriedly, as if there were not a moment to lose. Octavius followed her, protesting:

"Try Mr. Van Ostend first, Aurora; don't go to Mrs. Champney now."

"Now is the only time. If I hadn't asked my own relation, Mr. Van Ostend would have every reason to say, 'Why didn't you try in your own family first?'"

"But, Aurora, I'm afraid to have you."

"Afraid! I, of Almeda Champney?"

She stopped short on the stairs to look back at him. There was a trace of the old-time haughtiness in her bearing. Octavius welcomed it, for he was realizing that he could not move her from her decision, and as for the message from Almeda Champney, he knew he never could deliver it—he had no courage.

"You needn't sit up for me, Ellen," she said to the surprised girl as they went out; "it may be late before I get home; bolt the back door, I'll take the key to the front."

He helped her into the trap, and in silence they drove down to The Bow.

XVI

Aurora Googe spoke for the first time when Octavius left her at the door of Champ-au-Haut.

"Tave, don't leave me; I want you to be near, somewhere in the hall, if she is in the library. I want a witness to what I must say and—I trust you. But don't come into the room no matter what is said."

"I won't, Aurora, and I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm just going to drive to the stable and send the boy down for the mail, and I'll be right back. There's Aileen."

The girl answered the knock, and on recognizing who it was caught her breath sharply. She had not seen Mrs. Googe during the past month of misery and shame and excitement, and previous to that she had avoided Champney Googe's mother on account of the humiliation her love for the son had suffered at that son's hands—a humiliation which struck at the roots of all that was truest and purest in that womanhood, which was drying up the clear-welling spring of her buoyant temperament, her young enjoyment in life and living and all that life offers of best to youth—offers once only.

She started back at the sight of those dark eyes glowing with an unnatural fire, at the haggard face, its pallor accentuated by the white burnous. One thought had time to flash into consciousness before the woman standing on the threshold could speak: here was suffering to which her own was as a candle light to furnace flame.

"I've come to see Mrs. Champney, Aileen; is she in the library?"

"Yes,"—the girl's lips trembled,—"shall I tell her you are here?"

"No." She threw aside her cloak as if in great haste; Aileen took it and laid it on a chair. Mrs. Googe went swiftly to the library door and rapped. Aileen heard the "Come in," and the exclamation that followed: "So you've come at last, have you!"

She knew that tone of voice and what it portended. She put her fingers in her ears to shut out further sound of it, and ran down the hall to the back passageway, closed the door behind her and stood there trembling from nervousness.—Had Mrs. Googe obtained some inkling that she had a message to deliver from that son?—a message she neither could nor would deliver? Did Champney Googe's mother know that she had seen that son in the quarry woods? Mrs. Googe's friends had told her the truth of the affair at the sheepfold, when it was found that her unanswered suspicions were liable to unsettle her reason.—Could she know of that message? Could any one?

The mere presence in the house of this suffering woman set Aileen's every nerve tingling with sickening despair. She determined to wait there in the dimly lighted back hall until Octavius should make his appearance, be it soon or late; he always came through here on his way to the ell.

Aurora Googe looked neither to right nor left on entering the room. She went straight to the library table, on the opposite side of which Mrs. Champney was still sitting where Octavius had left her nearly two hours before. She stemmed both hands on it as if finding the support necessary. Fixing her eyes, already beginning to glaze with the increasing fever, upon her sister-in-law, she spoke, but with apparent effort:

"Yes, I've come, at last, Almeda—I've come to ask help for my boy—"

Mrs. Champney interrupted her; she was trembling visibly, even Aurora Googe saw that.

"I suppose this is Octavius Buzzby's doings. When I gave him that message it was final—final, do you hear?"

She raised her voice almost an octave in the intense excitement she was evidently trying to combat. The sound penetrated to Aileen, shut in the back hall, and again she thrust her fingers into her ears. At that moment Octavius entered from the outer door.

"What are you doing here, Aileen?" For the first time in his life he spoke roughly to her.

She turned upon him her white scared face. "What is she doing?" she managed to say through chattering teeth.

Octavius repented him, that under the strain of the situation he had spoken to her as he had. "Go to bed, Aileen," he said firmly, but gently; "this ain't no place for you now."

She needed but that word; she was half way up the stairs before he had finished. He heard her shut herself into the room. He hung up his coat, noiselessly opened the door into the main hall, closed it softly behind him and took his stand half way to the library door. He saw nothing, but he heard all.

For a moment there was silence in the room; then Aurora spoke in a dull strained voice:

"I don't know what you mean—I haven't had any message, and—and"—she swallowed hard—"nothing is final—nothing—not yet—that's why I've come. You must help me, Almeda—help me to save Champney; there is no one else in our family I can call upon or who can do it—and there is a chance—"

"What chance?"

"The chance to save him from—from imprisonment—from a living death—"

"Has he been taken?"

"Taken!"—she swayed back from the table, clutching convulsively the edge to preserve her balance—"don't—don't, Almeda; it will kill me. I am afraid for him—afraid—don't you understand?—Help me—let me have the money, the amount that will save my son—free him—"

She swayed back towards the table and leaned heavily upon it, as fearing to lose her hold lest she should sink to her knees. Mrs. Champney was recovering in a measure from the first excitement consequent upon the shock of seeing the woman she hated standing so suddenly in her presence. She spoke with cutting sarcasm:

"What amount, may I inquire, do you deem necessary for the present to insure prospective freedom for your son?"

"You know well enough, Almeda; I must have eighty thousand at least."

Mrs. Champney laughed aloud—the same mocking laugh of a miserable old age that had raised Octavius Buzzby's anger to a white heat of rage. Hearing it again, the man of Maine, without fully realizing what he was doing, turned back his cuffs. He could scarce restrain himself sufficiently to keep his promise to Aurora.

"Eighty thousand?—hm—m; between you and Octavius Buzzby there would be precious little left either at Champ-au-Haut or of it." She turned in her chair in order to look squarely up into the face of the woman on the opposite side of the table. "And you expect me to impoverish myself for the sake of Champney Googe?"

"It wouldn't impoverish you—you have your father's property and more too; he is of your own blood—why not?"

"Why not?" she repeated and laughed out again in her scorn; "why should I, answer me that?"

"He is your brother, Warren Googe's son—don't make me say any more, Almeda Champney; you know that nothing but this, nothing on earth—could have brought me here to ask anything of you!"

There was a ring of the old-time haughty independence in her voice; Octavius rejoiced to hear it. "She's getting a grip on herself," he said to himself; "I hope she'll give her one 'fore she gets through with her."

"Why didn't my brother save his money for him then—if he's his son?" she demanded sharply, but breathing short as she spoke the last words in a tone that conveyed the venom of intense hatred.

"Almeda, don't; you know well enough 'why'; don't keep me in such suspense—I can't bear it; only tell me if you will help."

She seemed to gather herself together; she swept round the table; came close to the woman in the armchair; bent to her; the dark burning eyes fixed the faded blue ones. "Tell me quick, I say,—I can bear no more."

"Aurora Googe, I sent word to you by Octavius Buzzby that I would not help your state's-prison bird—fledged from your nest, not mine,—"

She did not finish, for the woman she was torturing suddenly laid a hot hand hard and close, for the space of a few seconds, over those malevolent lips. Mrs. Champney drew back, turned in her chair and reached for the bell.

Aurora removed her hand.

"Stop there, you've said enough, Almeda Champney!" she commanded her. She pointed to the portrait over the fireplace. "By the love he bore my son—by the love we two women bore him—help—"

Mrs. Champney rose suddenly by great effort from her chair. The two women stood facing each other.

"Go—go!" she cried out shrilly, hoarsely; her face was distorted with passion, her hands were clenched and trembling violently, "leave my sight—leave my house—you—you ask me, by the love we bore Louis Champney, to save from his just deserts Louis Champney's bastard!"

Her voice rose to a shriek; she shook her fist in Aurora's face, then sank into her chair and, seizing the bell, rang it furiously.

Octavius darted forward, but stopped short when he heard Aurora's voice—low, dull, as if a sickening horror had quenched forever its life:

"You have thought that all these years?—O God!—Louis—Louis, what more—"

She fell before Octavius could reach her. Aileen and Ann, hearing the bell, came running through the hall into the room.

"Help me up stairs, Aileen,"—the old woman was in command as usual,—"give me my cane, Ann; don't stand there staring like two fools."

Aileen made a sign to Octavius to call Hannah; the two women helped the mistress of Champ-au-Haut up to her room.

Mrs. Googe seemed not to have lost consciousness, for as Hannah bent over her she noticed that her eyelids quivered.

"She's all wore out, poor dear, that's what's the matter," said Hannah, raising her to a sitting position; she passed her hand tenderly over the dark hair.

Aileen came running down stairs bringing salts and cologne. Hannah bathed her forehead and chafed her wrists.

In a few minutes the white lips quivered, the eyes opened; she made an effort to rise. Octavius helped her to her feet; but for Aileen's arm around her she would have fallen again.

"Take me home, Tave." She spoke in a weak voice.

"I will, Aurora," he answered promptly, soothingly, although his hands trembled as he led her to a sofa; "I'll just hitch up the pair in the carryall and Hannah'll ride up with us, won't you, Hannah?"

"To be sure, to be sure. Don't you grieve yourself to death, Mis' Googe," she said tenderly.

"Don't wait to harness into the carryall, Tave—take me now—in the trap—take me away from here. I don't need you, Hannah. I didn't know I was so weak—the air will make me feel better; give me my cloak, Aileen."

The girl wrapped her in it, adjusted the burnous, that had fallen from her head, and went with her to the door. Aurora turned and looked at her. The girl's heart was nigh to bursting. Impulsively she threw her arms around the woman's neck and whispered: "If you need me, do send for me—I'll come."

But Aurora Googe went forth from Champ-au-Haut without a word either to the girl, to Hannah, or to Octavius Buzzby.

* * * * *

For the first two miles they drove in silence. The night was clear but cold, the ground frozen hard; a northwest wind roared in the pines along the highroad and bent the bare treetops on the mountain side. From time to time Octavius heard the woman beside him sigh heavily as from physical exhaustion. When, at last, he felt that she was shivering, he spoke:

"Are you cold, Aurora? I've got something extra under the seat."

"No, I'm not cold; I feel burning up."

He turned to look at her face in the glare of an electric light they were passing. It was true; the rigor was that of increasing fever; her cheeks were scarlet.

"I wish you'd have let me telephone for the doctor; I don't feel right not to leave you in his hands to-night, and Ellen hasn't got any head on her."

"No—no; I don't need him; he couldn't do me any good—nobody can.—Tave, did you hear her, what she said?" She leaned towards him to whisper her question as if she feared the dark might have ears.

"Yes, I heard her—damn her! I can't help it, Aurora."

"And you don't believe it—you know it isn't true?"

Octavius drew rein for a moment; lifted his cap and passed the back of his hand across his forehead to wipe off the sweat that stood in beads on it. He turned to the woman beside him; her dark eyes were devouring his face in the effort, or so it seemed, to anticipate his answer.

"Aurora, I've known you" (how he longed to say "loved you," but those were not words for him to speak to Aurora Googe after thirty years of silence) "ever since you was sixteen and old Mr. Googe took you, an orphan girl, into his home; and I knew Louis Champney from the time he was the same age till he died. What I've seen, I've seen; and what I know, I know. Louis Champney loved you better'n he loved his life, and I know you loved him; but if the Almighty himself should swear it's true what Almeda Googe said, I wouldn't believe him—I wouldn't!"

The terrible nervous strain from which the woman was suffering lessened under the influence of his speech. She leaned nearer.

"It was not true," she whispered again; "I know you'll believe me."

Her voice sounded weaker than before, and Octavius grew alarmed lest she have another of what Hannah termed a "sinking spell" then and there. He drew rein suddenly, and so tightly that the mare bounded forward and pulled at a forced pace up the hill to The Gore.

"And she thought that all these years—and I never knew. That's why she hates my boy and won't help—oh, how could she!"

She shivered again. Octavius urged the mare to greater exertion. If only he could get the stricken woman home before she had another turn.

"How could she?" he repeated with scathing emphasis; "just as any she-devil can set brooding on an evil thought for years till she's hatched out a devil's dozen of filthy lies." He drew the reins a little too tightly in his righteous wrath, and the mare reared suddenly. "What the dev—whoa, there Kitty, what you about?"

He calmed the resentful beast, and they neared the house in The Gore at a quick trot.

"You don't think she has ever spoken to any one before—not so, do you, Tave? not to Louis ever?—"

"No, I don't, Aurora. Louis Champney wouldn't have stood that—I know him well enough for that; but she might have hinted at a something, and it's my belief she did. But don't you fret, Aurora; she'll never speak again—I'd take my oath on that—and if I dared, I'd say I wish Almighty God would strike her dumb for saying what she has."

They had reached the house. She lifted her face to the light burning in her bedroom.

"Oh, my boy—my boy—" she moaned beneath her breath. Octavius helped her out, and holding the reins in one hand, with the other supported her to the steps; her knees gave beneath her.—"Oh, where is he to-night—what shall I do!—Think for me, Tave, act for me, or I shall go mad—"

Octavius leaned to the carriage and threw the reins around the whipstock.

"Aurora," he grasped her firmly by the arm, "give me the key."

She handed it to him; he opened the door; led her in; called loudly for Ellen; and when the frightened girl came hurrying down from her room, he bade her see to Mrs. Googe while he went for the doctor.

XVII

"The trouble is she has borne up too long."

The doctor was talking to Father Honore while untying the horse from the hitching-post at the kitchen porch.

"She has stood it longer than I thought she could; but without the necessary sleep even her strong constitution and splendid physique can't supply sufficient nerve force to withstand such a strain—it's fearful. Something had to give somewhere. Practically she hasn't slept for over three weeks, and, what's more, she won't sleep till—she knows one way or the other. I can't give her opiates, for the strain has weakened her heart—I mean functionally." He stepped into the carriage. "You haven't heard anything since yesterday morning, have you?"

"No; but I'm inclined to think that now he has put them off the track and got them over the border, he will make for New York again. It's my belief he will try to get out of the country by that door instead of by way of Canada."

"I never thought of that." He gathered up the reins, and, leaning forward from the hood, looked earnestly into the priest's eyes. "Make her talk if you can—it's her only salvation. She hasn't opened her lips to me, and till she speaks out—you understand—I can do nothing. The fever is only the result of the nerve-strain."

"I wish it were in my power to help her. I may as well tell you now—but I'd like it to remain between ourselves, of course I've told the Colonel—that I determined last night to go down to New York and see if I can accomplish anything. I shall have two private detectives there to work with me. You know the city agency has its men out there already?"

"No, I didn't. I thought all the force was centred here in this State and on the Canada line. It strikes me that if she could know you were going—and for what—she might speak. You might try that, and let me know the result."

"I will."

The doctor drove off. Father Honore stood for a few minutes on the back porch; he was thinking concentratedly:—How best could he approach the stricken mother and acquaint her with his decision to search for her son?

He was roused by the sound of a gentle voice speaking in French:

"Good-morning, Father Honore; how is Mrs. Googe? I have just heard of her illness."

It was Sister Ste. Croix from the sisterhood home in The Gore.

The crisp morning air tinged with a slight color her wrinkled and furrowed cheeks; her eyelids, also, were horribly wrinkled, as could be plainly seen when they drooped heavily over the dark blue eyes. Yet Sister Ste. Croix was still in middle life.

"There is every cause for great anxiety, I grieve to say. The doctor has just gone."

"Who is with her, do you know?"

"Mrs. Caukins, so Ellen says."

"Do you think she would object to having me nurse her for a while? She has been so lovely to me ever since I came here, and in one way and another we have been much together. I have tried again and again to see her during these dreadful weeks, but she has steadily refused to see me or any of us—just shut herself out from her friends."

"I wish she would have you about her; it would do her good; and surely Mrs. Caukins can't leave her household cares to stay with her long, nor can she be running back and forth to attend to her. I am going to make the attempt to see her, and if I succeed I will tell her that you are ready to come at any minute—and only waiting to come to her."

"Do; and won't you tell Ellen I will come down and see her this afternoon? Poor girl, she has been so terrified with the events of these last weeks that I have feared she would not stay. If I'm here, I feel sure she would remain."

"If Mrs. Googe will not heed your request, I do hope you will make it your mission work to induce Ellen to stay."

"Indeed, I will; I thought she might stay the more willingly if I were with her."

"I'm sure of it," Father Honore said heartily.

"Are you going in now?"

"Yes."

"Well, please tell Ellen that if Mrs. Googe wants me, she is to come up at once to tell me. Good morning."

She walked rapidly down the road beside the house. Father Honore turned to look after her. How many, many lives there were like that!—unselfish, sacrificing, loving, helpful, yet unknown, unthought of. He watched the slight figure, the shoulders bowed already a little, but the step still firm and light, till it passed from sight. Then he entered the kitchen and encountered Mrs. Caukins.

"I never was so glad to see any living soul as I am you, Father Honore," was her greeting; she looked up from the lemon she was squeezing; "I don't dare to leave her till she gets a regular nurse. It's enough to break your heart to see her lying there staring straight before her and not saying a word—not even to the doctor. I told the Colonel when he was here a little while ago that I couldn't stand it much longer; it's getting on my nerves—if she'd only say something, I don't care what!"

She paused in concocting the lemonade to wipe her eyes on a corner of her apron.

"Mrs. Caukins, I wish you would say to Mrs. Googe that I am here and would like to speak with her before I leave town this afternoon. You might say I expect to be away for a few days and it is necessary that I should see her now."

"You don't mean to say you're going to leave us right in the lurch, 'fore we know anything about Champney!—Why, what will the Colonel do without you? You've been his right hand man. He's all broken up; that one night's work nearly killed him, and he hasn't seemed himself since—"

Father Honore interrupted this flow of ejaculatory torrent.

"I've spoken to the Colonel about my going, Mrs. Caukins. He agrees with me that no harm can come of my leaving here for a few days just at this time."

"I'll tell her, Father Honore; I'm going up this minute with the lemonade; but it's ten to one she won't see you; she wouldn't see the rector last week—oh, dear me!" She groaned and left the room.

She was back again in a few minutes, her eyes wide with excitement.

"She says you can come up, Father Honore, and you'd better go up quick before she gets a chance to change her mind."

He went without a word. When Mrs. Caukins heard him on the stair and caught the sound of his rap on the door, she turned to Ellen and spoke emphatically, but with trembling lips:

"I don't believe the archangel Gabriel himself could look at you more comforting than Father Honore does; if he can't help her, the Lord himself can't, and I don't mean that for blasphemy either. Poor soul—poor soul"—she wiped the tears that were rolling down her cheeks,—"here I am the mother of eight children and never had to lose a night's sleep on account of their not doing right, and here's Aurora with her one and can't sleep nor eat for the shame and trouble he's brought on her and all of us—for I'm a Googe. Life seems sometimes to get topsy-turvy, and I for one can't make head nor tail of it. The Colonel's always talking about Nature's 'levelling up,' but I don't see any 'levelling'; seems to me as if she was turning everything up on edge pretty generally.—Give me that rice I saw in the pantry, Ellen; I'm going to make her a little broth; I've got a nice foreshoulder piece at home, and it will be just the thing."

Ellen, rejoicing in such talkative companionship, after the three weeks of dreadful silence in the house, did her bidding, at the same time taking occasion to ask some questions on her own part, among them one which set Mrs. Caukins speculating for a week: "Who do you suppose killed Rag?"

Aurora was in bed, but propped to a sitting position by pillows. When Father Honore entered she started forward.

"Have you heard anything?" Her voice was weak from physical exhaustion.

"No, Mrs. Googe—"

She sank back on the pillows; he drew a chair to the bedside.

"—But I have decided to go down to New York and search for myself. I have a feeling he is there, not in Maine or Canada; and I know that city from Washington Heights to the Battery."

"You think he'll be found?" She could scarcely articulate the words; some terror had her by the throat; her eyes showed deadly fear.

"Yes, I think he will."

"But she won't do anything—I—I went to her—"

"Don't exert yourself too much, Mrs. Googe, but if you can tell me whom you mean, to whom you have applied, it might help me to act understandingly."

"To his aunt—I went last night."

"Mrs. Champney?"

She closed her eyes and made a motion of assent.

"And she will do nothing?"

"No."

"I fail to understand this. Surely she might give of her abundance to save one who is of her own blood. Would it do any good, do you think, for me to see her? I'll gladly go."

She shook her head. "You don't understand."

He waited in silence for some further word; for her to open her eyes at least. But none was forthcoming; the eyes remained closed. After a while he said gently:

"Perhaps I might understand, if you felt willing to tell me, if the effort is not too great."

She opened her eyes and fixed them apathetically on the strong helpful face.

"I wonder if you could understand—I don't know—you're not a woman—"

"No, but I am human, Mrs. Googe; and human sympathy is a great enlightener."

"The weight here—and here!" She raised one hand to her head, the other she laid over her heart. "If I could get rid of that for one hour—I should be strong again—to live—to endure."

Father Honore was silent. He knew the long pent stream of grief and misery must flow in its own channel when once it should burst its bounds.

"My son must never know—you will give me your word?"

"I give you my word, Mrs. Googe."

She leaned forward from her pillows, looked anxiously at the door, which was open into the hall, then whispered:

"She said—my son was Louis Champney's—bastard;—you don't believe it, do you?"

For the space of a second Father Honore shrank within himself. He could not tell at that moment whether he had here to do with an overwrought brain, with a mind obsessed, or with an awful fact. But he answered without hesitation and out of his inmost conviction:

"No, I do not believe it, Mrs. Googe."

"I thought you wouldn't—Octavius didn't." She sighed profoundly as if relieved from pain. "That's why she hates me—why she will not help."

"In that case I will go to Mr. Van Ostend. I asked to see you that I might tell you this."

"Will you—oh, will you?" She sighed again—a sigh of great physical relief, for she placed her hand again over her heart, pressing it hard.

"That helps here," she said, passing her other hand over her forehead; "perhaps I can tell you now, before you go—perhaps it will help more."

Her voice grew stronger with every full breath she was now able to draw. Gradually a look of comprehension replaced the apathetic stare. She looked squarely at the priest for the first time since his entrance. Father Honore could but wonder if the thought behind that look would find adequate expression.

"You haven't said 'God' to me once since that—that night. Don't speak to me about Him now, will you? He's too far away—it doesn't mean anything to me."

"Mrs. Googe, there comes a time in most lives when God seems so far away that we can find Him only through the Human;—perhaps such a time has come in your life."

"I don't know; I never thought much about that. But—my god was human, oh, for so many years!—I loved Louis Champney."

Again there was a long inhalation and exhalation. It seemed as if each admission, which she forced herself to make, loosened more and more the tension of the long-racked nerves; as a result the muscles of the throat relaxed, the articulation grew distinct, the voice stronger.

"—And he loved me—better than life itself. I was so young when it began—only sixteen. My husband's father took me into his home then to bring up; I was an orphan. And Louis Champney loved me then and always—but Almeda Googe, my husband's sister, loved him too—in her way. Her own father could do nothing with her awful will—it crushed everybody that came in contact with it—that opposed it; it crushed me—and in the end, Louis."

She took a little of the lemonade to moisten her lips and went on:

"She was twelve years older than he. She took him when he was in college; worked on him, lied to him about me; told him I loved her brother; worked backwards, forwards, underhanded—any way to influence him against me and get her hold upon him. He went to Europe; she followed; wrote lying letters to her brother—said she was engaged to be married to Louis before her return; told Louis I was going to marry her brother, Warren Googe—in the end she had her way, and always has had it, and will have it. I married Warren Googe; she was forty when she married Louis at twenty-eight."

She paused, straightened herself. Something like animation came into her face.

"It does me good to speak—at last. I've never spoken in all these years—and I can tell you. My child was born seven months after my husband's death. Louis Champney came to see me then—up here, in this room; it was the first time we had dared to see each other alone—but the baby lay beside me; that kept us. He said but little; but he took up the child and looked at him; then he turned to me. 'This should have been our son, Aurora,' he said, and I—oh, what will you think of me!" She dropped her head into her hands.

"I knew in my heart that during all those months I was carrying Warren Googe's child, I had only one thought: 'Oh, if it were only Louis' and mine!' And because I was a widow, I felt free to dwell upon that one thought night and day. Louis' face was always before me. I came in thought to look upon him as the true father of my boy—not that other for whom I had had no love. And I took great comfort in that thought—and—and—my boy is the living image of Louis Champney."