"Pray, tell it, Mrs. Meredith," Baird put in; "the mere mention of it has appealed to my emotions. Perhaps Senator Harburton and Mr. Lewis will be moved also, and that will be two votes to the good—perhaps more."

"The charm of it is that it is a story without a plot," Mrs. Meredith said. "There is nothing in it but youth and love and innocence and beauty. It is Romeo and Juliet without the tragedy. Romeo appeared on a moonlight night in a garden, and Juliet stood upon a balcony among roses—and their young souls cried out to each other. It is all so young and innocent—they only want to spend their lives together, like flowers growing side by side. They want nothing but each other."

"And the claim," added the Senator.

"They cannot have each other if the claim fails. They will have to starve to death in each other's arms like the 'Babes in the Wood'; I am sure the robins will come and cover them with leaves."

"But the big uncle," her father asked.

"Poor fellow," Mrs. Meredith said. "Judge Rutherford is finest when he enlarges on him. He says, over and over again, as if it were a kind of argument, 'Tom, now—Tom, he wants those two young ones to be happy. He says nature fixed it all for them, so that they could be happy—and he doesn't want to see it spoiled. He says love ain't treated fair, as a rule, and he wants to see it given a show—a real show.'"

At least one pair of deeply interested listener's eyes were fixed upon her. They were the Reverend John Baird's.

"It might be a beautiful thing to see," he said. "One does not see it. There seems a fate against it. The wrong people meet, or the right ones do not until it is too late."

"I should like to see it myself," said the host, "but I am afraid that the argument—as an argument—would not support a claim on the Government."

"I am going to see the claimants and hear all the arguments they can bring forward," was Mrs. Meredith's conclusion. "I want to see Romeo and Juliet together."

"May I go with you?" asked Baird.

Latimer had not come in when he returned to their lodgings. He also had been out to spend the evening. But it was not many minutes before Baird heard his latch-key and the opening of the front door. He came upstairs rather slowly.

"You are either ill," Baird said, when he entered, "or you have met with some shock."

"Yes; it was a shock," was the answer. "I have been dragged back into the black pit of twenty years ago."

"Twenty years?" said Baird.

"I have seen the man who—was with us in the hillside cabin, through that night she died. He passed me in the street."

Baird stood still and looked at him without speaking. What was there to be said?

"He is such a noticeable looking fellow," Latimer went on, "that I felt sure I could find out who he was. In the mountains they called him 'Big Tom D'Willerby.' His real name is De Willoughby, and he has been here for some months in pursuit of a claim, which is a great deal talked about."

"The great De Willoughby claim?" said Baird. "They talked of it to-night at dinner."

Latimer tapped the table nervously with the fingers of an unsteady hand.

"He may be living within a hundred yards of us—within a hundred yards," he said. "We may cross each other's path at any moment. I can at least know—since fate has brought us together again—I should never have sought him out—but one can know whether—whether it lived or died."

"He has with him," said Baird, "a girl of nineteen who is his adopted daughter. I heard it to-night. She is said to be a lovely girl who is in love with a lovely boy who is De Willoughby's nephew. She is happy."

"She is happy," murmured Latimer, biting his livid lips. He could not bring himself back to the hour he was living in. He could only see again the bare little room—he could hear the cries of terrified anguish. "It seems strange," he murmured, "that Margery's child should be happy."



CHAPTER XXXIII

It was not difficult to discover the abiding place of the De Willoughby claimants. The time had come when there were few who did not know who occupied the upper floor of Miss Burford's house near the Circle. Miss Burford herself had gradually become rather proud of her boarders, and, as the interest in the case increased, felt herself becoming a prominent person.

"If the claim goes through, the De Willoughby family will be very wealthy," she said, genteelly. "They will return to their Southern home, no doubt, and restore it to its fawmah magnificence. Mr. Rupert De Willoughby will be lawd of the mannah."

She spent many hours—which she felt to be very aristocratic—in listening to Uncle Matt's stories of the "old De Willoughby place," the rice-fields in "South Ca'llina," and the "thousands of acres of gol' mines" in the mountains. There was a rich consolation in mere conversation on the subject of glories which had once had veritable substance, and whose magnitude might absolutely increase if fortune was kind. But it was not through inquiry that Latimer discovered the whereabouts of the man who shared his secret. In two days' time they met face to face on the steps of the Capitol.

Latimer was going down them; big Tom was coming up. The latter was lost in thought on his affairs, and was not looking at such of his fellow-men as passed him. Suddenly he found himself one or two steps below someone who held out a hand and spoke in a low voice.

"De Willoughby!" the stranger exclaimed, and Tom lifted his eyes and looked straight into those of the man he had seen last nineteen years before in the cabin at Blair's Hollow.

"Do you know me again?" the man asked. "It's a good many years since we met, and I am not as easy to recognise as you."

"Yes, I know you," answered big Tom, grasping the outstretched hand kindly. "I saw you a few days ago and knew you."

"I did not see you," said Latimer. "And you did not speak to me?"

"No," answered Tom, slowly; "I thought it over while I walked behind you, and I made up my mind that it might do you no good—and to hold back would do none of us any harm."

"None of us?" questioned Latimer.

Big Tom put a hand on his shoulder.

"Since you spoke to me of your own free will," he said, "let's go and have a talk. There are plenty of quiet corners in this place."

There were seats which were secluded enough, though people passed and repassed within sight of them. People often chose such spots to sit and talk together. One saw pairs of lovers, pairs of politicians, couples of sightseers.

They found such a seat and sat down. Latimer could not well control the expression his face wore.

"None of us?" he said again.

Tom still kept a friendly hand on his shoulder.

"She is a beautiful young woman, though she will always seem more or less of a child to me," he said. "I have kept her safe and I've made her happy. That was what I meant to do. I don't believe she has had a sad hour in her life. What I'm sick of is seeing people unhappy. I've kept unhappiness from her. We've loved each other—that's what we've done. She's known nothing but having people about who were fond of her. They were a simple, ignorant lot of mountain hoosiers, but, Lord! they loved her and she loved them. She's enjoyed the spring, and she's enjoyed the summer, and she's enjoyed the autumn and the winter. The rainy days haven't made her feel dull, and the cold ones haven't made her shiver. That's the way she has grown up—just like a pretty fawn or a forest tree. Now her young mate has come, and the pair of them fell deep in love at sight. They met at the right time and they were the right pair. It was all so natural that she didn't know she was in love at first. She only knew she was happier every day. I knew what was the matter, and it made me happy just to look on. Good lord! how they love each other—those children. How they look at each other every minute without knowing they are doing it; and how they smile when their eyes meet—without knowing why. I know why. It's because they are in paradise—and God knows if it's to be done I'm going to keep them there."

"My God!" broke from Latimer. "What a heart you have, man!" He turned his face to look at him almost as if in reverent awe. "Margery's child! Margery's child!" he repeated to himself. "Is she like her mother?" he asked.

"I never saw her mother—when she was happy," Tom answered. "She is taller than her mother and has eyes like a summer morning sky. It's a wonderful face. I sometimes think she must be like—the other."

"I want to see her," said Latimer. "She need know nothing about me. I want to see her. May I?"

"Yes. We are staying here to push our claim, and we are living near Dupont Circle, and doing it as cheaply as we can. We haven't a cent to spare, but that hasn't hurt us so far. If we win our claim we shall be bloated bondholders; if we lose it, we shall have to tramp back to the mountains and build a log hut, and live on nuts and berries until we can raise a crop. The two young ones will set up a nest of their own and live like Adam and Eve—and I swear they won't mind it. They'd be happy rich, but they'll be happy poor. When would you like to come and see her?"

"May I come to-morrow?" asked Latimer. "And may I bring a friend with me? He is the human being who is nearest to me on earth. He is the only living soul who knows—what we know. He is the Reverend John Baird."

"What!" said Tom. "The man who is setting the world on fire with his lectures—the 'Repentance' man?"

"Yes."

"She'll like to see him. No one better. We shall all like to see him. We have heard a great deal of him."

They did not part for half an hour. When they did Latimer knew a great deal of the past. He knew the story of the child's up-growing, with the sun rising from behind one mountain and setting behind another; he seemed to know the people who had loved and been familiar with her throughout her childish and girlish years; he knew of the fanciful name given her in infancy, and of the more fanciful one her primitive friends and playmates had adopted. He knew the story of Rupert, and guessed vaguely at the far past in which Delia Vanuxem had lived and died.

"Thank God I saw you that day!" he said. "Thank God I went to you that night!" And they grasped hands again and went their separate ways.

* * * * *

Latimer went home and told Baird of the meeting and of the appointment for the following day.

"I felt that you would like to see the man," he said. "He is the finest, simple being in the world. Soul and body are on a like scale."

"You were right in thinking I should like to see him," answered Baird. "I have thought of him often." He regarded his friend with some anxiety.

"To meet her face to face will be a strange thing," he added. "Do you think you can hide what you must feel? It will not be easy—even for me."

"It will not be easy for either of us—if she looks at us with Margery's eyes. You will know them. Margery was happy, too, when the picture you have seen was made."

That—to see her stand before them in her youth and beauty, all unknowing—would be a strange thing, was the thought in the mind of each as they walked through the streets together, the next evening. The flare of an occasional street-lamp falling on Latimer's face revealed all its story to his companion, though it might not have so revealed itself to another. Baird himself was wondering how they should each bear themselves throughout the meeting. She would be so wholly unconscious—this girl who had always been happy and knew nothing of the past. To her they would be but a middle-aged popular lecturer and his unattractive-looking friend—while each to himself was a man concealing from her a secret. They must eliminate it from their looks, their voices, their air. They must be frank and courteous and conventional. Baird turned it all over in his mind. When they reached the house the second-story windows were lighted as if to welcome them. Matt opened the door for them, attired in his best and bowing low. To receive such guests he felt to be an important social event, which seemed to increase the chances of the claim and point to a future when distinguished visitors would throng to a much more imposing front door. He announced, with an air of state, that his master and young mistress were "receivin'," and took ceremonious charge of the callers. He had brushed his threadbare coat and polished each brass button singly until it shone. An African imagination aided him to feel the dignity of hospitality.

The sound of a girl's voice reached them as they went upstairs. They glanced at each other involuntarily, and Latimer's breath was sharply drawn. It was not the best preparation for calmness.

A glowing small fire was burning in the stove, and, plain and bare as the room was, it was filled with the effect of brightness. Two beautiful young people were laughing together over a book, and both rose and turned eager faces towards the door. Big Tom rose, too, and, advancing to meet the visitors, brought the girl with him.

She was built on long and supple lines, and had happy eyes and lovely bloom. The happy eyes were Margery's, though they were brown instead of harebell blue, and looked out from a face which was not quite Margery's, though its smile was hers. Latimer asked himself if it was possible that his manner wore the aspect of ordinary calm as he stood before her.

Sheba wondered at the coldness of his hand as she took it. She was not attracted by his anxious face, and it must be confessed that his personality produced on her the effect it frequently produced on those meeting him for the first time. It was not he who was the great man, but she felt timid before him when he spoke to her.

No one was shy of Baird. He produced his inevitable effect also. In a few minutes he had become the centre of the small company. He had made friends with Rupert, and launched Tom in conversation. Sheba was listening to him with a brightness of look charming to behold.

They sat about the table and talked, and he led them all back to the mountains which had been seeming so far away. He wanted to hear of the atmosphere, the life, the people; and yet, as they answered his queries and related anecdotes, he was learning from each one something bearing on the story of the claim. When Tom spoke of Barnesville and Judge Rutherford, or Rupert of Delisleville and Matt, their conversation was guided in such manner that business details of the claim were part of what was said. It was Tom who realised this first and spoke of it.

"We are talking of our own business as if it was the one subject on earth," he said. "That's the worst of people with a claim. I've seen a good many of them since I've been in Washington—and we are all alike."

"I have been asking questions because the subject interests me, too," said Baird. "More people than yourselves discuss it. It formed a chief topic of conversation when I dined with Senator Milner, two nights ago."

"Milner!" said Tom. "He was the man who had not time to hear me in the morning."

"His daughter, Mrs. Meredith, was inquiring about you. She wanted to hear the story. I shall tell it to her."

"Ah!" exclaimed Tom; "if you tell it, it will have a chance."

"Perhaps," Baird laughed. "I may be able to help you. A man who is used to audiences might be of some practical value."

He met Sheba's eyes by accident. A warm light leaped into them.

"They care a great deal more than they will admit to me," she said to him, when chance left them together a few minutes later, as Tom and Rupert were showing Latimer some books. "They are afraid of making me unhappy by letting me know how serious it will be if everything is lost. They care too much for me—but I care for them, and if I could do anything—or go to anyone——"

He looked into her eyes through a curious moment of silence.

"It was not all jest," he said after it, "what I said just now. I am a man who has words, and words sometimes are of use. I am going to give you my words—for what they are worth."

"We shall feel very rich," she answered, and her simple directness might have been addressed to a friend of years' standing. It was a great charm, this sweet acceptance of any kindness. "But I thought you were going away in a few days?"

"Yes. But I shall come back, and I shall try to set the ball rolling before I go."

She glanced at Latimer across the room.

"Mr. Latimer—" she hesitated; "do you think he does not mind that—that the claim means so much for us? I was afraid. He looked at me so seriously——"

"He looked at you a great deal," interposed Baird, quickly. "He could not help it. I am glad to have this opportunity to tell you—something. You are very like—very like—someone he loved deeply—someone who died years ago. You must forgive him. It was almost a shock to him to come face to face with you."

"Ah!" softly. "Someone who died years ago!" She lifted Margery's eyes and let them rest upon Baird's face. "It must be very strange—it must be almost awful—to find yourself near a person very like someone you have loved—who died years ago."

"Yes," he answered. "Yes—awful. That is the word."

When the two men walked home together through the streets, the same thought was expressed again, and it was Latimer who expressed it.

"And when she looked at me," he said, "I almost cried out to her, 'Margery, Margery!' The cry leaped up from the depths of me. I don't know how I stopped it. Margery was smaller and more childlike—her eyes are darker, her face is her own, not Margery's—but she looks at one as Margery did. It is the simple clearness of her look, the sweet belief, which does not know life holds a creature who could betray it."

"Yes, yes," broke from Baird. The exclamation seemed involuntary.

"Yet there was one who could betray it," Latimer said.

"You cannot forget," said Baird. "No wonder."

Latimer shook his head.

"The passing of years," he said, "almost inevitably wipes out or dims all things; but sometimes—not often, thank Fate—there comes a phase of suffering in some man or woman's life which will not go. I once knew a woman—she was the kind of woman people envy, and whose life seems brilliant and full; it was full of the things most people want, but the things she wanted were not for her, and there was a black wound in her soul. She had had a child who had come near to healing her, and suddenly he was torn out of her being by death. She said afterwards that she knew she had been mad for months after it happened, though no one suspected her. In the years that followed she dared not allow herself to speak or think of that time of death. 'I must not let myself—I must not.' She said this to me, and shuddered, clenching her hands when she spoke. 'Never, never, never, will it be better. If a thousand years had passed it would always be the same. One thought or word of it drags me back—and plunges me deep into the old, awful woe. Old—it is not old—it never can be old. It is as if it had happened yesterday—as if it were happening to-day.' I know this is not often so. But it is so with me when a thing drags Margery back to me—drags me back to Margery. To-night, Baird; think what it is to-night!"

He put a shaking hand on Baird's hand, hurrying him by the unconscious rapidity of his own pace.

"Think what it is to-night," he repeated. "She seems part of my being. I cannot free myself. I can see her as she was when she last looked at me, as her child looked at me to-night—with joyful bright eyes and lips. It was one day when I went to see her at Boston. She was doing a little picture, and it had been praised at the studio. She was so happy—so happy. That was the last time."

"Don't, don't," cried Baird; "you must not call it back."

"I am not calling it back. It comes, it comes! You must let me go on. You can't stop me. That was the last time. The next time I saw her she had changed. I scarcely knew how—it was so little. The brightness was blurred. Then—then comes all the rest. Her growing illness—the anxiousness—the long days—the girl at the mills—the talk of those women—the first ghastly, damnable fear—the nights—the lying awake!" His breath came short and fast. He could not stop himself, it was plain. His words tumbled over each other as if he were a man telling a story in delirium.

"I can see her," he said. "I can see her—as I went into her room. I can see her shaking hands and lips and childish, terrified eyes. I can feel her convulsive little fingers clutching my feet, and her face—her face—lying upon them when she fell down."

"I cannot bear it," cried Baird; "I cannot bear it." He had uttered the same cry once before. He had received the same answer.

"She bore it," said Latimer, fiercely. "That last night—in the cabin on the hillside—her cries—they were not human—no, they did not sound human——"

He was checked. It was Baird's hand which clutched his arm now—it seemed as if for support. The man was swaying a little, and in the light of a street-lamp near them he looked up in a ghastly appeal.

"Latimer," he said. "Don't go on; you see I can't bear it. I am not so strong as I was—before I began this work. I have lost my nerve. You bring it before me as it is brought before yourself. I am living the thing. I can't bear it."

Latimer came back from the past. He made an effort to understand and control himself.

"Yes," he said, quite dull; "that was what the woman I spoke of told me—that she lived the thing again. It is not sane to let one's self go back. I beg your pardon, Baird."



CHAPTER XXXIV

"It's a curious job, that De Willoughby claim," was said in a committee-room of the House, one day. "It's beginning to attract attention because it has such an innocent air. The sharp ones say that may be the worst feature of it, because ingenuousness is more dangerous than anything else if a job is thoroughly rotten. The claimants are the most straightforward pair the place has ever seen—a big, humourous, well-mannered country man, and a boy of twenty-three. Rutherford, of Hamlin County, who is a monument of simplicity in himself, is heart and soul in the thing—and Farquhar feels convinced by it. Farquhar is one of the men who are not mixed up with jobs. Milner himself is beginning to give the matter a glance now and then, though he has not committed himself; and now the Reverend John Baird, the hero of the platform, is taking it up."

Baird had proved his incidental offer of aid to have been by no means an idle one. He had been obliged to absent himself from Washington for a period, but he had returned when his lecture tour had ended, and had shown himself able in a new way. He was the kind of man whose conversation people wish to hear. He chose the right people and talked to them about the De Willoughby claim. He was interesting and picturesque in connection with it, and lent the topic attractions. Tom had been shrewdly right in saying that his talk of it would give it a chance.

He went often to the house near the Circle. Latimer did not go with him, and had himself explained his reasons to big Tom.

"I have seen her," he said. "It is better that I should not see her often. She is too much like her mother."

But Baird seemed to become by degrees one of the household. Gradually—and it did not take long—Tom and he were familiar friends. They had long talks together, they walked side by side through the streets, they went in company to see the men it was necessary to hold interviews with. Their acquaintance became an intimacy which established itself with curious naturalness. It was as if they had been men of the same blood, who, having spent their lives apart, on meeting, found pleasure in the discovery of their relationship. The truth was that for the first time in his life big Tom enjoyed a friendship with a man who was educated and, in a measure, of the world into which he himself had been born. Baird's world had been that of New England, his own, the world of the South; but they could comprehend each other's parallels and precedents, and argue from somewhat similar planes. In the Delisleville days Tom had formed no intimacies, and had been a sort of Colossus set apart; in the mountains of North Carolina he had consorted with the primitive and uneducated in good-humoured, even grateful, friendliness; but he had mentally lived like a hermit. To have talked to Jabe Doty or Nath Hayes on any other subjects than those of crops and mountain politics or sermons would have been to bewilder them hopelessly. To find himself in mental contact with a man who had lived and thought through all the years during which he himself had vegetated at the Cross-roads, was a wonderful thing to him. He realised that he had long ago given up expecting anything approaching such companionship, and that to indulge in it was to live in a new world. Baird's voice, his choice of words, his readiness and tact, the very carriage of his fine, silvering head, produced on him the effect of belonging to a new species of human being.

"You are all the things I have been missing for half a lifetime," he said. "I didn't know what it was I was making up my mind to going without—but it was such men as you."

On his own part, Baird felt he had made a rich discovery also. The large humour and sweetness, the straightforward unworldliness which was still level-headed and observing, the broad kindliness and belief in humanity which were so far from unintelligent or injudicious, were more attractive to him than any collected characteristics he had met before. They seemed to meet some strained needs in him. To leave his own rooms, and find his way to the house whose atmosphere was of such curious, homely brightness, to be greeted by Sheba's welcoming eyes, to sit and chat with Tom in the twilight or to saunter out with him with an arm through his, were things he soon began to look forward to. He began also to realise that this life of home and the affections was a thing he had lived without. During his brief and wholly unemotional married life he had known nothing like it. His years of widowerhood had been presided over by Mrs. Stornaway, who had assumed the supervision of his child as a duty. Annie had been a properly behaved, rather uninteresting and unresponsive little person. She had neat features and a realisation of the importance of respectability and the proprieties which was a credit to Willowfield and her training. She was never gay or inconsequent or young. She had gone to school, she had had her frocks lengthened and been introduced at tea-parties, exactly as had been planned for her. She never committed a breach of discretion and she never formed in any degree an element of special interest. She greatly respected her father's position as a successful man, and left it to be vaguely due to the approbation of Willowfield.

Big Tom De Willoughby, in two wooden rooms behind a cross-roads store, in a small frame house kept in order by a negro woman, and in the genteel poverty of Miss Burford's second floor, had surrounded himself with the comforts and pleasures of the affections. It was not possible to enter the place without feeling their warmth, and Baird found himself nourished by it. He saw that Rupert, too, was nourished by it. His young good looks and manhood were developing under its influence day by day. He seemed to grow taller and stronger. Baird had made friends with him, too, and was with them the night he came in to announce that at last he had got work to do.

"It is to sell things from behind a counter," he said, and he went to Sheba and lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it before them all. "We know a better man who has done it."

"You know a bigger man who has done it," said Tom. "He did it because he was cut out for a failure. You are doing it because you are cut out for a success. It will be a good story for the reporters when the claim goes through, my boy."

Baird perceived at once that it was a good story, even at this particular period—a story which might be likely to arouse curiosity and interest at a time when the awakening of such emotions was of the greatest value. He told it at the house of a magnate of the Supreme Court, the next night. He had a varied and useful audience of important politicians and their wives and daughters, the latter specially fitted to act as mediums of transmission to other audiences. He told the anecdote well. It was a good picture, that of the room on Miss Burford's upper floor, the large claimant smiling like a benign Jove, and the handsome youngster bending his head to kiss the girlish hand as if he were doing homage to a queen.

"I think his feeling was that his failure to get a better thing was a kind of indignity done her," Baird explained. "He comes of a race of men who have worshipped women and beauty in a romantic, troubadour fashion; only the higher professions, and those treated in a patrician, amateur style, were possible to them as work. And yet, as he said, a better man than himself had done this same thing. What moves one is that he has gone out to find work as if he had been born a bricklayer. He tells me they are reaching the end of all they depend on."

"I'll tell you what it is," said Senator Milner to his daughter, a few days afterwards; "this is going to be a feminine claim. There was a time when I swore I wouldn't touch it, but I foresee what is going to happen. I'm going to give in, and the other opposers are going to give in, and in the end the Government will give in. And it will be principally because a force of wives and daughters has marshalled itself to march to the rescue. No one ever realises what a power the American woman is, and how much she is equal to accomplishing. If she took as much interest in politics as English women do, she would elect every president and control every party. We are a good-natured lot, and we are fond of our womenkind and believe in them much more than other nations do. They're pretty clever and straight, you know, as well as being attractive, and we can't help realising that they are often worth listening to. So we listen, and when they drive a truth home we are willing to believe in it. If the feminine halves of the two Houses decide that the De Willoughby claim is all right, they'll prove it to us, and there you are."

"I believe we can prove it to you," answered Mrs. Meredith. "I went to see the people, and you could prove anything straightforward by merely showing them to the Houses in session. They could not conceal a disingenuous thought among them—the delightful giant, the boy with the eyelashes, the radiant girl, and the old black man put together."

In the meantime Judge Rutherford did his honest best. He had been too sanguine not to do it with some ruefulness after the first few months. During the passage of these few months many of his ingenuous ideals had been overthrown. It had been borne in upon him that honest virtue was not so powerful a factor as he had believed. The obstacles continually arising in his pathway were not such as honest virtue could remove. The facts that the claim was "as straight as a string," and that big Tom De Willoughby was the best fellow in Hamlin were bewilderingly ineffective. When prospects seemed to shine they might be suddenly overshadowed by the fact that a man whose influence was needed, required it to use for himself in other quarters; when all promised well some apparently unexplainable obstacle brought things to a standstill.

"Now you see it and now you don't," said Tom, resignedly. "That's the position. This sort of thing might go on for twenty years."

He was not aware that he spoke prophetically; yet claims resting on as solid a basis as his own passed through the same dragging processes for thirty years before they were finally settled. But such did not possess the elements of unprofessional picturesqueness this particular one presented told to its upholders and opposers.

Uncle Matt himself was to be counted among these elements. He had made himself as familiar and popular a figure in the public places of the Capital as he had been in Delisleville. He made friends in the market-house and on the steps of the Capitol and the Treasury and the Pension Office; he hung about official buildings and obtained odd jobs of work, his grey wool, his polished air of respectfulness, his readiness and amiability attracted attention and pleased those who came in contact with him. People talked to him and asked him friendly questions, and when they did so the reason for his presence in Washington and the importance of the matter which had brought his young master to the seat of government were fully explained.

"I belongs to de gen'elmen dat's here tendin' to de De Willoughby claim, sah," he would say. "Co'se, sah, you've heern 'bout it up to de Capitol. I'se yere waitin' on Marse Rupert De Willoughby, but co'se he don' live yere—till ye gets his claim through—like he do in de ole family mansh'n at Delisleville—an' my time hangs heavy on my han's, cos I got so much ledger—so I comes out like dish yer—an' takes a odd job now an' agen."

It was not long before he was known as the De Willoughby claimant, and loiterers were fond of drawing him out on the subject of the "gol' mines." He gathered a large amount of information on the subjects of claims and the rapid methods of working them. He used to come to Tom sometimes, hot and excited with his struggles to comprehend detail. "What all dish yer 'bout Marse Rupert's granpa'n' bein' destructively disloyal? Dar warn't no disloyal 'bout it. Ef dar was a fault to be foun' with the old Judge it was dat he was mos' too loyal. He couldn' hol' in, an' he qu'ol with mos' ev'y gen'elman he talk to. He pass shots with one or two he had a disagreement with. He pass shots with 'em. How's de Guv'ment gwine call a gen'elman 'destructively disloyal' when he ready any minit to pass shots with his bes' fren's, ef dey don' 'gree with his pol'tics—an' his pol'tics is on de side er Marse Ab'am Lincoln an' de Yankees?"

The phrase "constructively disloyal" rankled in his soul. He argued about it upon every possible occasion, and felt that if the accusation could be disproved the De Willoughby case would be triumphantly concluded, which was in a large measure true.

"I steddies 'bout dat thing day an' night," he said to Sheba. "Seems like dar oughter be someone to tes'ify. Ef I had de money to travel back to Delisleville, I'd go an' try to hunt someone up."

He was seated upon the steps of a Government building one afternoon, discussing his favourite subject with some of his coloured friends. He had been unusually eloquent, and had worked himself up to a peroration, when he suddenly ceased speaking and stared straight across the street to the opposite side of the pavement, in such absorption that he forgot to close his mouth.

He was gazing at an elderly gentleman with a hook nose and the dashing hat of the broad brim, which was regarded as being almost as much an insignia of the South as the bonnie blue flag itself.

Uncle Matt got up and shuffled across the street. He had become unconsciously apish with excitement. His old black face worked and his hands twitched.

He was so far out of breath when he reached the stranger's side that he could scarcely make himself heard, as, pulling his hat off, he cried, agitatedly:

"Doctah! Doctah Atkinson, sah! Doctah Williams Atkinson!"

The stranger did not hear him distinctly, and waved him off, evidently taking him for a beggar.

"I've nothing for you, uncle," he said, with condescending good-nature.

Uncle Matt found some of his breath, though not enough to steady his voice. But his strenuousness was almost passionate. "Doctah Williams Atkinson," he said, "I ain't beggin', Doctah Atkinson, sah; on'y axin' if I might speak a few words to you, sah!" His shrewd insistance on the name was effective.

The elderly gentleman turned and looked at him in surprised questioning.

"How do you know me?" he said. "This is the first time I have been in Washington—and I've not been here an hour."

"I knowed you, Doctah Atkinson, sah, in Delisleville, Delisle County. Ev'ybody knowed you, Doctah! I was dar endurin' er de war. I was dar de time you—you an' Judge De Willoughby passed shots 'bout dat Confed'ate flag."

"What do you want?" said Dr. Atkinson, somewhat unsmilingly. These were days when stories of the Confederate flag were generally avoided. Northerners called it the rebel flag.

Matt had had the discretion to avoid this mistake. He was wild with anxious excitement. Suddenly here had appeared a man who could give all the evidence desired, if he would do so. He had left Delisleville immediately on the close of the war and had not been heard of. He might, like so many, be passing on to some unknown point, and remain in the city only between trains. There was no time to find any better qualified person than himself to attend to this matter. It must be attended to upon the spot and at this moment. Uncle Matt knew all the incongruities of the situation. No one could have known them better. But a sort of hysteric courage grew out of his desperation.

"Doctah Williams Atkinson, sah!" he said. "May I take de liberty of walking jes' behin' you an' axin' you a question. I mustn't keep you standin'. I beg you to 'scuse me, sah. I kin talk an' walk at de same time."

Dr. Williams Atkinson was an amenable person, and Matt's imploring old darky countenance was not without its pathos. He was so evidently racked by his emotions.

"What is it all about?" he enquired.

Matt stood uncovered and spoke fast. The hand holding his hat was shaking, as also was his voice.

"I'm nothin' but a ole niggah man, Doctah Atkinson, sah," he said. "It ain't for myself I'se intrudin' on ye; it's cos dar wasn't time to go fer Marse De Willoughby that could talk it like it oughter be. I jes' had to push my ole niggah self in, fear you'd be gone an' we'd nevah set eyes on you agin."

"Walk along by me," said the Doctor. "What about the De Willoughbys; I thought they were all dead."

"All but Marse Thomas and Marse Rupert. Dey's yere 'tendin' to de claim. Has you done heern 'bout de claim, Doctah Atkinson?"

"No," the Doctor answered. "I have been in too far out West."

Whereupon Matt plunged into the story of the "gol' mines," and the difficulties which had presented themselves in the pathway of the claimant, and the necessity for the production of testimony which would disprove the charge of disloyalty. The detail was not very clear, but it had the effect of carrying Dr. Williams Atkinson back to certain good old days in Delisleville, before his beloved South had been laid low and he had been driven far afield to live among strangers, an alien. For that reason he found himself moved by the recital and listened to it to its end.

"But what has this to do with me?" he asked. "What do you want of me?"

"When I seed you, sah," Uncle Matt explained, "it all come back to me in a minnit, how you an' de Judge pass shots 'bout dat flag; how you axed him to a dinner-party, an' dar was a Confed'ate officer dar—an' a Confed'ate flag hung up over de table, an' de Judge when he seed it he 'fused p'int blank to set down to de table, an' it ended in you goin' out in de gyardin' an' changin' shots."

"Yes, damn it all," cried Dr. Atkinson, but melted the next moment. "The poor old fellow is dead," he said, "an' he died in disgrace and without friends."

"Yes," Uncle Matt protested, eagerly; "without a single friend, an' all 'lone 'ceptin' of Marse Rupert—all 'lone. An' it was 'cos he was so strong for de Union—an' now de Guv'ment won't let his fambly have his money 'cos dey's tryin' to prove him destructively disloyal—when he changed shots with his bes' friend 'cos he wouldn't set under de Confed'ate flag."

A grim smile wakened in Dr. Atkinson's face.

"What!" he said; "do you want me to explain to the Government that the old scamp would have blown my brains out if he could?"

"Doctah Atkinson, sah," said Uncle Matt, with shrewd gravity, "things is diff'rent dese days, an' de Guv'ment don't call dem gen'elmen scamps as was called dat in de Souf."

He looked up under the broad brim of his companion's hat with impassioned appealing.

"I jes' 'member one thing, sah," he said; "dat you was a Southern gen'elman, and when a enemy's dead a Southern gen'elman don't cherish no harm agin him, an' you straight from Delisleville, an' you deed an' heerd it all, an' de Guv'ment ken see plain enough you's no carpet-bag jobber, an' ef a gen'elman like you tes'ify, an' say you was enemies—an' you did pass shots count er dat flag, how's dey gwine talk any more about dis destructive disloyal business? How dey gwine ter do it?"

"And I am to be the means of enriching his family—the family of an obstinate old fool, who abused me like a pickpocket and spoiled a dress-coat for me when dress-coats were scarce."

"He's dead, Doctah Williams Atkinson, sah, he's dead," said Matt. "It was mighty lonesome the way he died, too, in dat big house, dat was stripped by de soldiers, an' ev'ybody dead belonging to him—Miss De Willoughby, an' de young ladies, an' Marse Romaine, an' Marse De Courcy—no one lef but dat boy. It was mighty lonesome, sah."

"Yes, that's so," said Dr. Atkinson, reflectively. After a few moments' silence, he added, "Whom do you want me to tell this to? It may be very little use, but it may serve as evidence."

Uncle Matt stopped upon the pavement.

"Would you let me 'scort you to Senator Milner, sah?" he said, in absolute terror at his own daring. "Would you 'low me to 'tend you to Senator Grove? I knows what a favior I'se axin'. I knows it doun to de groun'. I scarcely dars't to ax it, but if I loses you, sah, Marse Thomas De Willoughby an' Marse Rupert may lose de claim. Ef I lose you, sah, seems mos' like I gwine to lose my mind."

* * * * *

There were a thousand chances to one that Senator Milner might not be where Uncle Matt hoped to find him; there were ten thousand chances to one that he might be absorbingly engaged; there were uncountable chances against them obtaining an interview with either man, and yet it so happened they had the curious good luck to come upon Senator Milner absolutely without searching for him. It was rather he who came upon them at one of the entrances of the Capitol itself, before which stood his daughter's carriage. Mrs. Meredith had spent the morning in the Senate, being interested in the subject under debate. She was going to take her father home to lunch, and as she was about to enter her carriage her glance fell upon the approaching figures of Uncle Matt and his companion.

"Father," she said, "there is the faithful retainer of the De Willoughby claimants, and there is not a shadow of a doubt that he is in search of you. I am convinced that he wishes to present that tall Southerner under the big hat."

In a moment's space Uncle Matt was before them. The deprecatory respect implied by his genuflections could scarcely be computed.

"Senator Milner, sah," he said, "Doctah Williams Atkinson of Delisleville has had de kindness to say he do me de favior to come yeah, sah, to tes'ify, sah——"

The large hat was removed by its owner with a fine sweep. "The old fellow thinks I can do his people a service, Senator," explained Dr. Atkinson. "He is the servant of the De Willoughby claimants, and it seems there has been some question of Judge De Willoughby's loyalty. During the war, sir, he was called disloyal by his neighbours, and was a much hated man."

Uncle Matt's lips were trembling. He broke forth, forgetting the careful training of his youth.

"Dar wasn't a gen'elman in de county," he cried, "dar wasn't a gen'elman in de State, mo' hated an' 'spised an' mo' looked down on."

The lean Southerner nodded acquiescently. "That's true," he said. "It's quite true. He was a copperhead and a firebrand. We detested him. He insulted me at my own table by refusing to sit down under the Southern flag, and the matter ended with pistols."

"This is interesting, by Jove," said the Senator, and he looked from Uncle Matt to his capture. "I should like to hear more of it."

"Will you confer a pleasure on me by coming home to lunch with us?" said Mrs. Meredith, who had begun to look radiant. "I am interested in the De Willoughby claim; I would give a great deal to see my father entirely convinced. He has been on the verge of conviction for some time. I want him to hear the story with all the details. I beg you will let us take you home with us, Dr. Atkinson."

"Madame," replied Dr. Williams Atkinson, with an eighteenth century obeisance, "Judge De Willoughby and I lived in open feud, but I am becoming interested in the De Willoughby claim also. I accept your invitation with pleasure." And they drove away together.



CHAPTER XXXV

"There is a man who seems to have begun to haunt my pathway," Baird said to Tom; "or perhaps it is Latimer's pathway, for it is when Latimer is with me that I meet him. He is small and sharp-featured and unwholesome."

"It sounds like Stamps," laughed big Tom.

He related the story of Stamps and his herds. The herds had not gained the congressional ear as Mr. Stamps had hoped. He had described their value and the gravity of his loss to everyone who would listen to his eloquence, but the result had been painfully discouraging. His boarding-house had become a cheaper one week by week, and his blue jeans had grown shabbier. He had fallen into the habit of hanging about the entrances of public buildings and the street corners in the hope of finding hearers and sympathisers. His sharp little face had become haggard and more weasel-like than before. Baird recognised big Tom's description of him at once.

"Yes, it must be Stamps," he said. "What is the meaning of his interest in us? Does he think we can provide evidence to prove the value of the herds? What are you thinking of, De Willoughby?"

In fact, there had suddenly recurred to Tom's mind a recollection of Sheba's fifth birthday and the visit Mr. Stamps had made him. With something of a shock he recalled the shrewd meekness of his voice as he made his exit.

"It begins with a 'L,' Tom; it begins with a 'L.'"

The need of money was merely the natural expression of Mr. Stamps's nature. He had needed money when he was born, and had laid infant schemes to secure cents from his relatives and their neighbours before he was four years old. But he had never needed it as he did now. The claim for governmental restitution of the value of the daily increasing herds had become the centre of his being. His belief in their existence and destruction was in these days profound; his belief that he should finally be remunerated in the name and by the hand of national justice was the breath of life to him. He had at last found a claim agent whose characteristics were similar to his own, and, so long as he was able to supply small sums with regularity, this gentleman was willing to encourage him and direct him to fresh effort. Mr. Abner Linthicum, of Vermont, had enjoyed several successes in connection with two or three singular claims which he had "put through" with the aid of genius combined with a peculiar order of executive ability. They had not been large claims, but he had "put them through" when other agents had declined to touch them. In fact, each one had been a claim which had been fought shy of, and one whose final settlement had been commented upon with open derision or raised eyebrows.

"Yours is the kind of claim I like to take up," he had said to his client in their first interview; "but it's the kind that's got to be engineered carefully, and money is needed to grease the wheels. But it'll pay to grease them."

It had needed money. Stamps had no large sums to give, but he could be bled by drops. He had changed his cheap boarding-place for a cheaper one, that he might be able to save a few dollars a week; he had left the cheaper one for one cheaper still for the same reason, and had at last camped in a bare room over a store, and lived on shreds of food costing a few cents a day, that he might still grease the wheels. Abner Linthicum was hard upon him, and was not in the least touched by seeing his meagre little face grow sharper and his garments hang looser upon his small frame.

"You'll fat on the herds," he would say, with practical jocularity, and Mr. Stamps grinned feebly, his thin lips stretching themselves over hungry teeth.

The little man burned with the fever of his chase. He sat in his bare room on the edge of his mattress—having neither bedstead nor chairs nor tables—and his fingers clutched each other as he worked out plans and invented arguments likely to be convincing to an ungrateful Government. He used to grow hot and cold over them.

"Ef Tom 'd hev gone in with me an' helped me to work out that thar thing about Sheby, we mought hev made suthin' as would hev carried me through this," he said to himself more than once. He owed Tom a bitter grudge in a mild way. His bitterness was the bitterness of a little rat baulked of cheese.

He had kept safely what he had found in the deserted cabin, but, as the years passed, he lost something of the hopes he had at first cherished. When he had seen Sheba growing into a tall beauty he had calculated that her market value was increasing. A handsome young woman who might marry well, might be willing to pay something to keep a secret quiet—if any practical person knew the secret and it was unpleasant. Well-to-do husbands did not want to hear their wives talked about. When Rupert De Willoughby had arrived, Mr. Stamps had had a moment of discouragement.

"He's gwine to fall in love with her," he said, "but he'd oughter bin wealthier. Ef the De Willoughbys was what they'd usedter be he'd be the very feller as 'ud pay for things to be kept quiet. The De Willoughbys was allers proud an' 'ristycratic, an' mighty high-falutin' 'bout their women folk."

When the subject of the De Willoughby claim was broached he fell into feverish excitement. The De Willoughbys had a chance in a hundred of becoming richer than they had ever been. He took his treasure from its hiding-place—sat turning it over, gnawing his finger-nails and breathing fast. But treasure though he counted it, he gained no clue from it but the one he had spoken of to Tom when he had cast his farewell remark to him as he closed the door.

"Ef there'd hev been more," he said. "A name ain't much when there ain't nothin' to tack on to it. It was curi's enough, but it'd hev to be follered up an' found out. Ef he was only what he 'lowed to be—'tain't nothin' to hide that a man's wife dies an' leaves a child. I don't b'lieve thar wasn't nothin' to hide—but it'd hev to be proved—an' proved plain. It's mighty aggravatin'."

One night, seeing a crowd pouring into a hall where a lecture was to be delivered, he had lingered about the entrance until the carriage containing the lecturer drove up. Here was something to be had for nothing, at all events—he could have a look at the man who was making such a name for himself. There must be something in a man who could demand so much a night for talking to people. He managed to get a place well to the front of the loitering crowd on the pavement.

The carriage-door was opened and a man got out.

"That ain't him," said a bystander. "That's Latimer. He's always with him."

The lecturer descended immediately after his companion, but Stamps, who was pushing past a man who had got in front of him, was displaying this eagerness, not that he might see the hero of the hour, but that he might look squarely at the friend who had slightly turned his face.

"Gosh!" ejaculated the little hoosier, a minute later. "I'd most swear to him."

He was exasperatedly conscious that he could not quite have sworn to him. The man he had seen nineteen years before had been dressed in clumsily made homespun; he had worn his black hair long and his beard had been unshaven. Nineteen years were nineteen years, and the garb and bearing of civilisation would make a baffling change in any man previously seen attired in homespun, and carrying himself as an unsociable hoosier.

"But I'd most sw'ar to him—most." Stamps went through the streets muttering, "I'd most swar!"

It was but a few days later that Latimer saw him standing on a street corner staring at him as he himself approached. It was his curious intentness which attracted Latimer. He did not recognise his face. He had not seen him more than once in the days so long gone by, and had then cast a mere abstracted glance at him. He did not know him again—though his garments vaguely recalled months when he had only seen men clothed in jeans of blue, or copperas brown. He saw him again the next day, and again the next, and after that he seemed to chance upon him so often that he could not help observing and reflecting upon the eager scrutiny in his wrinkled countenance.

"Do you see that man?" he remarked to Baird. "I come upon him everywhere. Do you know him?"

"No. I thought it possible you did—or that he recognised one of us—or wanted to ask some question."

After his conversation with big Tom De Willoughby, Latimer heard from Baird the story of the herds and their indefatigable claimant.

"He comes from the Cross-roads?" said Latimer. "I don't remember his face."

"Do you think," said Baird, rather slowly, "that he thinks he remembers yours?"

A week passed before Latimer encountered him again. On this occasion he was alone. Baird had gone South to Delisleville in the interests of the claim. He had unexpectedly heard rumours of some valuable evidence which might be gathered in a special quarter at this particular moment, and had set out upon the journey at a few hours' notice.

Stamps had passed two days and nights in torment. He had learned from Mr. Linthicum that his claim had reached one of the critical points all claims must pass. More money was needed to grease the wheels that they might carry it past the crisis safely. Stamps had been starving himself for days and had gone without fire for weeks, but the wheels had refused to budge for the sum he managed to produce. He was weak, and so feverish with anxiety and hunger that his lips were cracked and his tongue dry to rasping.

"It's all I kin scrape, Linthicum," he said to that gentleman. "I kin get a few dollars more if Minty kin sell her crop o' corn an' send me the money—but this is every cent I kin give ye now. Won't it do nothin'?"

"No, it won't," answered the claim agent, with a final sort of shrug. "We're dealing with a business that's got to be handled well or it'll all end in smoke. I can't work on the driblets you've been bringing me—and, what's more, I should be a fool to try."

"But ye wouldn't give it up!" cried Stamps, in a panic. "Ye couldn't throw me over, Linthicum!"

"There's no throwing over about it," Linthicum said. "I shall have to give the thing up if I can't keep it going. Money's got to be used over a claim like this. I have had to ask men for a thousand dollars at a time—and the thing they were working was easier to be done than this is."

"A thousand dollars!" cried Stamps. He grew livid and a lump worked in his throat, as if he was going to cry. "A thousand dollars 'ud buy me and sell me twice over, Mr. Linthicum."

"I'm not asking you for a thousand dollars yet," said Linthicum. "I may have to ask you for five hundred before long—but I'm not doing it now."

"Five hundred!" gasped Stamps, and he sat down in a heap and dropped his damp forehead on his hands.

That night, as Latimer entered the house of an acquaintance with whom he was going to spend the evening, he caught sight of the, by this time, familiar figure on the opposite side of the street.

The night was cold and damp, and rain was falling when the door closed behind him. He heard it descending steadily throughout the evening, and more than once the continuance of the downpour was commented upon by some member of the company. When the guests separated for the night and Latimer turned into the street again, he had scarcely walked five yards before hearing a cough; he cast a glance over his shoulder and saw the small man in blue jeans. The jeans were wet and water was dropping from the brim of the old felt hat. The idea which at once possessed his mind was that for some mysterious reason best known to himself the wearer had been waiting for and was following him. What was it for? He turned about suddenly and faced the person who seemed so unduly interested in his actions.

"Do you want to speak to me?" he demanded.

This movement, being abrupt, rather upset Mr. Stamps's calculations. He came to a standstill, looking surprised and nervous.

"Thar ain't no harm done," he said. "I aimed to find out whar ye lived."

"Have you been waiting for me to come out of the house?" asked Latimer, feeling some curiosity.

Stamps admitted that he had, the admission being somewhat reluctant, as if he felt it might commit him to something. Having so far betrayed himself, however, he drew something nearer, with a suggestion of stealthiness.

"Ye're mighty like a man I once knowed," he said. "Yer powerful like him. I never seed two men more liker each other."

"Where did he live when you knew him?" Latimer enquired, the wretched, dank little figure suddenly assuming the haunting air of something his eye must have rested on before.

"I seen him in North Ca'llina. He did not live thar—in the way other folks did. He was jest stayin'. I won't keep ye standin' in the rain," insinuatingly. "I'll jest walk along by ye."

Latimer walked on. This dragged him back again, as other things had done once or twice. He did not speak, but strode on almost too rapidly for Stamps's short legs. The short legs began to trot, and their owner to continue his explanations rather breathlessly.

"He warn't livin' thar same as other folks," he said. "Thar was suthin' curi's about him. Nobody knowed nothin' about him, an' nobody knew nothin' about his wife. Now I come to think of it, nobody ever knowed his name—but me."

"Did he tell it to you?" said Latimer, rigidly.

"No," with something verging on a chuckle, discreetly strangled at its birth. "Neither him nor his wife was tellin' things just then. They was layin' mighty low. She died when her child was borned, an' he lit out right away an' ain't never been heern tell of since."

Latimer said nothing. The rain began to fall more heavily, and Mr. Stamps trotted on.

"'Lowin' for store clothes an' agein'," he continued, "I never seen two fellers favour each other as you two do. An' his name bein' the same as yourn, makes it curi'ser still."

"You are getting very wet," was Latimer's sole comment.

"I got wet to the skin long afore you come out that house where ye was," said Mr. Stamps; "but I 'low to find out whar ye live."

"I live about a quarter of a mile from here," said Latimer. "The brick house with the bay windows, opposite the square. Number 89."

"I'd rather see ye in," replied Stamps, cautiously.

"I might go into a house I do not live in," returned Latimer.

"Ye won't. It's too late. Ain't ye gwine to say nothin', Mr. Latimer?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Sheby's good-lookin' gal," Stamps said. "Tom's done well by her. Ef they get their claim through they'll be powerful rich. Young D'Willerby he's mightily in love with her—an' he wouldn't want no talk."

"There is the house I live in at present," said Latimer, pointing with his umbrella. "We shall be there directly."

"Ministers don't want no talk neither," proceeded Stamps. "Ef a minister had made a slip an' tried hard to hide it an' then hed it proved on him he wouldn't like it—an' his church members wouldn't like it—an' his high class friends. There'd be a heap er trouble."

"Number 89," said Latimer. "You see I was speaking the truth. This is the gate; I am going in."

His tone and method were so unsatisfactory and unmoved that—remembering Abner Linthicum—Stamps became desperate. He clutched Latimer's arm and held it.

"It'd be worth money fur him to git safe hold of them letters. Thar was two on 'em. I didn't let on to Tom. I wasn't gwine to let on to him till I found out he'd go in with me. Them as knowed the man they was writ by 'ud be able to see a heap in 'em. They'd give him away. Ye'd better get hold of 'em. They're worth five hundred. They're yourn—ye wrote 'em yourself. Ye ain't jest like him—ye're him—I'll sw'ar to ye!"

Latimer suddenly saw his mother's mild New England countenance, with its faded blue eyes. He remembered the hours he had spent telling her the details of the sunny days in Italy, where Margery had lain smiling in the sunset. He looked down the long wet street, the lamps gleaming on its shining surface. He thought of Baird, who would not return until the day on which he was to deliver a farewell lecture before leaving Washington. He recalled his promptness of resource and readiness for action. If Baird were but in the room above in which the light burned he would tell him! His mind seemed to vault over all else at this instant—to realise the thing which it had not reached at the first shock. He turned on Stamps.

"You say there were letters?" he exclaimed, forgetting his previous unresponsiveness.

"Two. Not long 'uns, an' wrote keerful—without no name. But they say a heap. They was wrote when he had to leave her."

Latimer's heart seemed physically to turn over in his side. He had never known she had had a line of handwriting in her possession. This must be some scrap of paper, some last, last words she clung to with such anguish of desperation that she could not tear herself from them, and so had died leaving them in their secret hiding-place. The thought was a shock. The effort it cost him to regain his self-control was gigantic. But he recovered his outward calm.

"You had better go home and change your clothing," he said, as coldly as he had spoken before. "You are not a young man or a strong one, and you may kill yourself. You are making a mistake about me; but if you will give me your address I will see you again."

"I thort ye would—mebbe," said Stamps. "I thort mebbe ye would. They're worth it."

And he scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper with a stump of a pencil—producing both rapidly from his pocket—and thrusting it into Latimer's hand, trotted away contentedly down the long wet street.



CHAPTER XXXVI

As he entered his rooms, Latimer glanced round at Baird's empty chair and wished he had found him sitting in it. He walked over to it and sat down himself—simply because it was Baird's chair and suggested his presence. Latimer knew how he would have turned to look at him as he came in, and that he would at once have known by instinct that the old abyss had been re-opened.

"If he were here," he thought, "he would tell me what to do."

But he knew what he was going to do. He must buy the little hoosier's silence if it was to be bought. He should see the letters. Through all those months she had hidden them. He could imagine with what terror. She could not bear to destroy them, and yet he knew there must have been weeks she did not dare to go near their hiding-place. They must have been concealed in some cranny of the cabin. How she must have shuddered with dread when he had accidentally approached the spot where they lay concealed. He recalled now that several times he had been wakened from his sleep in the middle of the night by hearing her moving about her room and sobbing. She had perhaps crept out of her bed in the darkness to find these scraps of paper, to hold them in her hands, to crush them against her heart, to cover them with piteous kisses, salt with scalding tears.

On one such night he had risen, and, going to the closed door, had spoken to her through it, asking her if she was ill.

"No, no, Lucien," she had cried out, "but—but I am so lonely—so lonely."

She had told him the next day that the sound of the wind soughing in the pines had kept her from sleep, and she had got up because she could not bear to be still and listen.

He had known well what she meant by her desolate little answer to him. She had been a beloved thing always. As a child her playmates had loved her, as a school-girl she had won the hearts of companions and teachers alike. Nature had endowed her with the brightness and sweetness which win affection. The smile in her eyes wakened an answer even in the look of passing strangers. Suddenly all had changed. She was hidden in the darkness, crushed and shamed, an outcast and a pariah—a thing only to be kept out of sight. Sometimes, after she had been sitting lost in thought, Latimer had seen her look up bewildered, glance at her little, deformed body, and sit white and trembling.

"Everything is different," she panted out once. "It is as if all the world was black. It is—because—because I am black!"

Latimer had made no effort to wring from her the name she had prayed to be allowed to hide; yet he had often wondered that in some hysteric moment it had not escaped her—that mere helpless anguish did not betray her into uttering some word or phrase which might have served as a clue. But this she had never done, and between them there had been built a stone wall of silence. Yet, in spite of it, he had known that her young heart was broken with love for this nameless traitor—a love which would not die. He had seen it in the woe of her eyes, in the childlike longing of her look when she sat and gazed out over the wild beauty of the land, thinking she was unobserved. In his own soul there had been black, bitter hate, but in hers only loneliness and pain.

There came back to him—and he sprang up and ground his teeth, pacing the floor as he remembered it—a night when she had wandered out alone in the starlight, and at last he had followed her and found her—though she did not know he was near—standing where the roof of pine-trees made a darkness, and as he stood within four feet of her he had heard her cry to the desolate stillness:

"If I could see you once! If I could see you once—if I could touch you—if I could hear you speak—just once—just once!"

And she had wailed it low—but as a starving child might cry for bread. And he had turned and gone away, sick of soul, leaving her.

He had told this to Baird, and had seen the muscles of his face twitch and his eyes suddenly fill with tears. He had left his seat and crossed the room to conceal his emotion, and Latimer had known that he did not speak because he could not.

The letters were written with caution, Stamps had said, and the mention of names had been avoided in them; and, though he ground his teeth again as he thought of this, he realised that the knowledge brought by a name would be of no value to him. Long ago he had said to big Tom in the cabin on the hillside: "If ever we meet face to face knowing each other, I swear I will not spare him." Spare him? Spare him what? What vengeance could he work which would wipe out one hour of that past woe? None. He had grown sick to death in dwelling with the memories he could not bury. He had been born cursed by the temperament which cannot outlive. There are such. And it was the temperament to which vengeance brings no relief. No; if they two met face to face, what words could be said—what deeds could be done? His forehead and hands grew damp with cold sweat as he confronted the despair of it.

"Better that I should not know his name," he cried. "Better that we should never meet. Pray God that he is dead; pray God the earth does not hold him."

The man who had followed him had plainly but one purpose, which was the obtaining of money. He looked as if he needed it directly. He would go to him and pay him what he asked and get the papers. They must be in no other hands than his own. When he had them, Baird and himself would destroy them together, and that would be the end.

He encountered no difficulties when he went in search of the address Stamps had given him. The room he had directed him to was over a small store on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue. When he entered it he saw at once that the man whose circumstances reduced him to living in it must be one whose need of money was great indeed. It was entirely unfurnished, except for a mattress lying on the floor, and Stamps was stretched upon it, coughing and feverish.

"Come in," he said. "I knowed ye'd be here purty soon. Thar ain't no chair to ax ye to set down in."

"I do not want to sit," said Latimer. "You are ill. You caught cold last night."

"I s'pose I did, durn it," answered Stamps. "I got drenched to the skin, an' I hadn't nothin' dry to put on when I got home. But I'd seen ye—an' told ye what I'd 'lowed to tell ye."

"Where are the papers you spoke of?" Latimer asked.

Stamps's feverish lips stretched themselves in an agreeable smile.

"They ain't yere," he answered; "an' they won't be yere till I've got the pay fur 'em. Ef thar was names in 'em they'd cost ye a heap more than five hundred dollars—an' they'd cost ye more anyhow ef I hadn't a use for that five hundred jest this particular time."

"Where are they?" enquired Latimer. He meant to waste no words.

"They're in North Ca'lliny," answered the little mountaineer, cheerfully. "An' I've got a woman thar es'll send 'em when I want 'em."

"She may send them when you wish."

Stamps fell into a paroxysm of coughing, clutching his side.

"Will ye give five hundred?" he panted when it was over.

"Yes."

"Ye want 'em pretty bad, do ye?" said Stamps, looking at him with a curiosity not untinged with dubiousness. He was sharp enough to realise that, upon the whole, his case was not a strong one.

"I don't want them for the reason you think I want them for," Latimer replied; his voice was cold and hard, and his manner unpromisingly free from emotion or eagerness. "I want them for a reason of my own. As for your pretence of recognising me as a man you have seen before, go out into the street corners and say what you choose. My friends know how and where my life has been spent, and you are shrewd enough to know how far your word will stand against mine. If you need the money now, you had better produce what you have to sell."

"I could get ye mightily talked about," said Stamps, restlessly.

"Try it," answered Latimer, and turned as if to walk out of the room. He knew what he was dealing with, and saw the fevered cupidity and fear in the little, shifting eyes.

Stamps struggled up into a sitting posture on his mattress and broke forth into coughs again.

"Come back yere," he cried between gasps; "ye needn't ter go."

Latimer paused where he stood and waited until the fit of coughing was over; and Stamps threw himself back exhausted. His shifty eyes burned uncannily, his physical and mental fever were too much for him. Linthicum had just left him before Latimer arrived, and upon the production of five hundred dollars rested the fate of the claim for the herds.

"Ef ye'll bring the money—cash down—next Saturday," he said, "I'll give ye the papers. I'll hev 'em yere by then. When ye've got 'em," with the agreeable grin again, "ye kin go to yer friend's far'well lecture easy in ye mind. Ye wouldn't be likely to go to many of 'em ef he knowed what I could tell him. He's powerful thick with Tom D'Willerby and Sheby. They think a heap of him. Tom must hev guessed what I've guessed, but he don't want no talk on accounts o' Sheby. Tom knows which side his bread's buttered—he ain't nigh as big a fool as he looks."

Latimer stood still.

"Next Saturday?" was his sole response. "In the meantime, I should advise you to send for the doctor."

He left him coughing and catching at his side.



CHAPTER XXXVII

During this week Judge Rutherford's every hour was filled with action and excitement. He had not a friend or acquaintance in either House whom he did not seek out and labour with. He was to be seen in the lobby, in the corridors, in committee-rooms, arguing and explaining, with sheafs of papers in his hands and bundles of documents bulging out of his pockets. He walked down the avenue holding the arm of his latest capture, his trustworthy countenance heated by his interest and anxiety, his hat thrust on the back of his head. "There's got to be justice done," he would protest. "You see, justice has got to be done. There's no other way out of it. And I'd swear there ain't a man among you who doesn't own up that it is justice, now all this evidence has been brought together. The country couldn't be responsible for throwing the thing over—even till another session. Everything's in black and white and sworn to and proved—and the papers Baird has sent in clinch the whole thing. Now just look here—" And he would repeat his story and refer to his documents, until even the indifferent succumbed through exhaustion, if not conviction.

He appeared at Dupont Circle two or three times a day, always fevered with delighted hope, always with some anecdote to relate which prognosticated ultimate triumph. If he could not find anyone else to talk to he seized upon Miss Burford or Uncle Matt and poured forth his news to them. He wrote exultant letters to Jenny, the contents of which, being given to Barnesville, travelled at once to Talbot's Cross-roads and wakened it to exhilarated joyfulness, drawing crowds to the Post-office and perceptibly increasing the traffic on the roads from the mountains to that centre of civilised social intercourse.

"Tom's a-gwine to win his claim," it was said. "Judge Rutherford's walkin' it right through for him. Tom'll be way ahead of the richest man in Hamlin. Sheby'll be a hairest. Lordy! what a sight it'll be to see 'em come back. Wonder whar they'll build!"

In Washington it had begun to be admitted even by the reluctant that the fortunes of the De Willoughby claim seemed to have taken a turn. Members of substantial position discussed it among themselves. It was a large claim, and therefore a serious one, but it had finally presented itself upon an apparently solid foundation.

"And it is the member from the mountain districts, and the old negro, and the popular minister who will have carried it through if it passes," said Senator Milner to his daughter. "It is a monumental thing at this crisis of affairs—a huge, unpopular claim on a resenting government carried through by persons impelled solely by the most purely primitive and disinterested of motives. An ingenuous county politician, fresh from his native wilds, works for it through sheer prehistoric affection and neighbourliness; an old black man—out of a story-book—forges a powerful link of evidence for mere faithful love's sake; a man who is a minister of the gospel, a gentleman and above reproach, gives to its service all his interest, solely because he cherishes an affectionate admiration for the claimants. Nobody has laboured with any desire for return. Nobody has bargained for anything. Nobody would accept anything if it was offered to them. The whole affair has been Arcadian."

"Will it be decided for the De Willoughbys—will it?" said Mrs. Meredith.

"Yes," answered the Senator; "I think it will. And I confess I shall not advance any objections."

Meeting big Tom on the avenue, Ezra Stamps stopped him.

"Tom," he wheezed, hoarsely, "I heern tell you was likely ter git yer claim through."

"There are times when you can hear that about almost any claim," answered Tom. "What I'm waiting for is to hear that I've got it through."

Stamps gnawed his finger-nails restlessly.

"Ye're lucky," he said; "ye allus was lucky."

"How about the herds?" said Tom.

Stamps gave him an agonised look.

"Hev ye ever said anything agen me, Tom—to any man with inflooence? Hev ye, now? 'Twouldn't be neighbourly of ye if ye hed—an' we both come from the Cross-roads—an' I allus give ye my custom. Ye won't never go agen me, will ye, Tom?"

"I've never been asked any questions about you," Tom said. "Look here, you had better go to some hospital and ask to be taken in. What are you walking about the street for in that fix? You can scarcely breathe."

"I'm a-gwine to walk about until Saturday," answered Stamps, with a grin. "I'm lookin' arter my own claim—an' Abner Linthicum. Arter Saturday I'll lie up for a spell."

"You'd better do it before Saturday," Tom remarked as he left him.

Stamps stood and watched him walk away, and then turned into a drug-store and bought a cheap bottle of cough mixture. He was passing through the early stages of pneumonia, and was almost too weak to walk, but he had gone from place to place that morning like a machine. Linthicum had driven him. So long as he was employed in badgering other men he was not hanging about the agent's office. Linthicum was not anxious that he should be seen there too frequently. After the payment of the five hundred dollars there would be no more to be wrung from him, and he could be dropped. He could be told that it was useless to push the claim further. Until the five hundred was secured, however, he must be kept busy. Consequently, he went from one man to the other until he could walk no more. Then he crawled back to his room and sent a note to Latimer.

"I cayn't git the papers tel Saturday afternoon. Ef ye bring the money about seven ye ken hev them. 'Tain't no use comin' no earlier."

Latimer found the communication when he returned to his rooms in the evening. He had been out on business connected with Baird's final lecture. It was to be a special event, and was delivered in response to a general request. A building of larger dimensions than the hall previously used had been engaged. The demand for seats had been continuously increasing. The newspaper and social discussion of the prospects of the De Willoughby claim had added to the interest in Baird. This brilliant and popular man, this charming and gifted fellow, had felt such a generous desire to assist the claimants that he had gone South in the interest of their fortunes. He had been detained in Delisleville and could barely return in time to appear before his audience.

The enthusiasm and eagerness were immense. Every man who had not heard him felt he must hear him now; everyone who had heard him was moved by the wish to be of his audience again. Latimer had been besieged on all sides, and, after a hard day, had come home fagged and worn. But he was not worn only by business interviews, newspaper people, and applicants for seats which could not be obtained. He was worn by his thoughts of the past days, by his lack of Baird's presence and his desire for his return. His influence was always a controlling and supporting one. Latimer felt less morbid and more sane when they were together.

This same night Senator Milner and Judge Rutherford called in company at the house near the Circle. When Uncle Matt opened the door for them Judge Rutherford seized his hand and shook it vigorously. The Judge was in the mood to shake hands with everybody.

"Uncle Matt," he said, "we're going to get it through, and in a week's time you'll be a rich man's servant."

Matt fled back to Miss Burford trembling with joy and excitement.

"Do ye think we is gwine t'rough, ma'am?" he said. "D'ye think we is? Seems like we was the Isrilites a-crossin' the Red Sea, an' the fust of us is jest steppin' on de sho'. Lordy, Miss Burford, ma'am, I don't know how I'se gwine to stan' dat great day when we is th'ough, shore enuff. Wash'n'ton city ain't gwine be big enuff to hol' me."

"It will be a great day, Uncle Matthew," replied Miss Burford, with elated decorum of manner. "The De Willoughby mansion restored to its former elegance. Mr. Thomas De Willoughby the possessor of wealth, and the two young people—" She bridled a little, gently, and touched her eyes with her handkerchief with a slight cough.

"When Marse De Courcy an' Miss Delia Vanuxem was married, dar was people from fo' counties at de infar," said Matt. "De fust woman what I was married to, she done de cookin'."

Senator Milner was shaking hands with big Tom upstairs. He regarded him with interest, remembering the morning he had evaded an interview with him. The little room was interesting; the two beautiful young people suggested the atmosphere of a fairy story.

"You are on the verge of huge good fortune, I think, Mr. De Willoughby," he said. "I felt that I should like to come with Rutherford to tell you that all is going very well with your claim. Members favour it whose expression of opinion is an enormous weight in the balance. Judge Rutherford is going to speak for you—and so am I."

Judge Rutherford shook Tom's hand rather more vigorously than he had shaken Matt's. "I wish to the Lord I was an orator, Tom," he said. "If I can't make them listen to me this time I believe I shall blow my brains out. But, what with Williams, Atkinson, and Baird, we've got things that are pretty convincing, and somehow I swear the claim has begun to be popular."

When the two men had gone the little room was for a few moments very still. Each person in it was under the influence of curiously strong emotion. Anxious waiting cannot find itself upon the brink of great fortune and remain unmoved. Some papers with calculations worked out in them lay upon the table, and big Tom sat looking at them silently. Sheba stood a few feet away from him, her cheeks flushed, light breaths coming quickly through her parted lips. Rupert looked at her as youth and love must look at love and youth.

"Uncle Tom," he said, at last, "are you thinking of what we shall do if we find ourselves millionaires?"

"No," answered Tom.

His eyes rested on the boy in thoughtful questioning.

"No; I'll own I'm not thinking of that."

"Neither am I," said Rupert. He drew nearer to Sheba. "It would be a strange thing to waken and find ourselves owners of a fortune," he said. "We may waken to find it so—in a few days. But there is always a chance that things may fail one. I was thinking of what we should do if—we lose everything."

Sheba put out her slim hand. She smiled with trembling lips.

"We have been across the mountain," she said. "We came together—and we will go back together. Will you go back with us, Rupert?"

He took her in his strong young arms and kissed her, while Tom looked on.

"That is what I was thinking," he cried; "that it does not matter whether we win the claim or lose it. The house is gone and the store is gone, but we can add a room to the cabin in Blair's Hollow—we can do it ourselves—and I will learn to plough."

He dropped on one knee like a young knight and kissed her little, warm, soft palm.

"If I can take care of you and Uncle Tom, Sheba," he said, "will you marry me?"

"Yes, I will marry you," she answered. "We three can be happy together—and there will always be the spring and the summer and the winter."

"May she marry me, Uncle Tom," Rupert asked, "even though we begin life like Adam and Eve?"

"She shall marry you the day we go back to the mountains," said Tom. "I always thought Adam and Eve would have had a pretty fair show—if they had not left the Garden of Eden behind them when they began the world for themselves. You won't have left it behind you. You'll find it in the immediate vicinity of Talbot's Cross-roads."



CHAPTER XXXVIII

The facts in detail which the Reverend John Baird had journeyed to Delisle County in the hope of being able to gather, he had been successful in gaining practical possession of. Having personal charm, grace in stating a case, and many resources both of ability and manner, he had the power to attract even the prejudiced, and finally to win their interest and sympathies. He had seen and conversed with people who could have been reached in no ordinary way, and having met them had been capable of managing even their prejudices and bitterness of spirit. The result had been the accumulation of useful and convincing evidence in favour of the De Willoughbys, though he had in more than one instance gained it from persons who had been firm in their intention to give no evidence at all. This evidence had been forwarded to Washington as it had been collected, and when Baird returned to the Capital it was with the knowledge that his efforts had more than probably put the final touches to the work which would gain the day for the claimants.