Channing had taken her hand, which turned and clung to his with its usual nestling gesture. Now he put his arm around her, drawing her to him in the shadow of some trees. But close as they stood, he had an odd feeling that for the moment, the girl was far away from him.

"What are you thinking of? Tired, sweetheart?"

She leaned back against him, nodding. "Awfully. What a day! But wasn't it worth it, just to see those people listening to Philip? Do you know," she said, "I believe old Reverend Flip is going to be a bishop one of these days."

"Really?" he murmured, kissing her. It seemed an unlikely moment for the discussion of the clergyman, admirable as the fellow was.

But Jacqueline had no sense of the fitness of things. She said between one kiss and another, "Philip's so awfully good, you know."

Channing released her, "I daresay," he remarked with some dryness. "Being good is his profession, of course."



CHAPTER XXVII

It was a sore and weary author who at length, having postponed the inevitable as long as possible, crept into the bunk where his host and the two sons slept audibly, with Benoix beside them. The latter stirred a little, and greeted the newcomer.

"That you, Channing? This is the real thing in democracy, at last!" he murmured drowsily, and slept again as soundly as the others.

But Channing, though every aching muscle cried aloud for oblivion, could not sleep. He tossed and turned, listened to the heavy breathing of the men beside him, listened to lighter sounds from the far end of the cabin where Jacqueline was also tasting true democracy in company with the two mountain women. He had lingered outside the door until the three women came in from the lean-to where they had prepared for the night, Jacqueline a tall sprite between her squat, thick-bodied companions, a heavy rope of bronze hair over each shoulder, small feet showing bare and white beneath the severe robe of gray flannel which was the nearest approach to a negligee known to Mrs. Kildare's daughters. The atmosphere of Storm did not lend itself to the art of the negligee.

Moonlight shone full upon her, and Channing, watching with quickened heart-beat, saw her lips move as she gave a quick, shy glance toward the bunk where he was supposed to be already sleeping.

"She's telling me good night, the darling!" he thought, quite correctly, and blew her an unseen kiss.

There were times of late when the author almost forgot to analyze his own sensations. The Overmind that observed and registered for future reference had grown a trifle careless. Occasionally Channing felt, and acted, quite like an ordinary young man in love.

Now he lay quite still, that he might hear that low breathing across the room, trying to distinguish Jacqueline's from the rest. He had taken the precaution to open both doors of the cabin wide, after his hosts were safely asleep, letting in the moonlight and a little breeze that smelled keenly of pine woods. Now and then a faint bird-note broke the hush, or the mournful quaver of a screech-owl. The situation was not without picturesque piquancy for a collector of impressions.

Beside him, Benoix and the other man slept with the abandon of tired animals, and the sound of their sleeping somewhat disturbed the poetry of the night. On the whole, however, he preferred them sleeping to waking. He sent his thoughts, on tiptoe, as it were, across the room. How exquisite she was, with her slim bare feet, and the hint of a chaste little ruffle showing at throat and wrist! Those drowsy, dewy eyes—the fluttering pulse in her soft throat—her clinging lips, which kissed as unconsciously as a child's until suddenly they were edged with fire....

Channing's thoughts became so insistent that perhaps they wakened her. There was a slight stirring in the bunk across the room, a slender gray shape appeared on the edge of it, feeling about on the floor for shoes. Still barefoot, with shoes in her hand, Jacqueline crept to the door.

Channing, all his fatigues forgotten, very carefully extricated himself from among the slumberers and followed. He congratulated himself upon the fact that his preparations for the night had been extremely sketchy, had in fact consisted merely in removing his coat and riding-boots. Once safe outside the cabin, he pulled on the boots, smoothed his hair with his fingers, knotted the handkerchief more becomingly about his throat, and went in pursuit of Jacqueline.

He had not far to go. She was sitting on the top rail of the nearest fence, her back toward him, framed in the center of the setting moon. She turned as he came upon her with a startled gasp:

"O-oh! You, Mr. Channing!"

One of the sweetest things about the girl to Channing was the queer little tender respect with which she always treated him. Even in their most intimate moments, he was still the great man, the superior order of being. She could not possibly have called him "Percival." Though he chided her for this attitude of respect, it did not displease him.

"I could not sleep in there," she explained, rather breathlessly, "so I came out to see the last of the moon. Of course I must go in again at once."

"Must you? Why, I wonder? I couldn't sleep either. Let's stay where we are!"

She asked, blushing: "But would that be quite proper?"

This first hint of conventionality in the girl surprised and rather touched him. He saw that she was quite painfully aware of the prim little wrapper, the unbound hair, the bare feet thrust into her shoes.

"Why, you little gray nun! Outdoors is quite as 'proper' as indoors—rather more so, in fact. It's the onlooker that makes things proper or improper, and here there are no onlookers.—This is all too wonderful to waste in sleeping!"

It was wonderful. The girl drew a breath of keen, cold ozone into her lungs.

"Isn't it queer," she said with a chuckle, "that mountains smell so sweet and mountaineers—don't? Ugh! fancy living in that stuffy cabin! All very well to sleep there once or twice for a lark, but to live there—!" She rubbed her bare ankles together unhappily. "Mr. Channing, do you suppose they were mosquitoes—?"

"Ssh!" he said. "I hold with the ancient belief that 'nothing exists until it is named.' There'll be several more nights of those bunks, you know.—If you find log-cabins open to suspicion, you ought to try the picturesque thatched-roof cots of Mother England! These mountaineers cling to the old traditions."

They laughed together, her slight barrier of shyness gone down in the intimacy of sharing a common peril.

"But were you ever so close to the moon, before?" she asked dreamily. "It is right face to face with us now. I believe we could step off into it."

"As if it were a great golden door, opening into—who knows where?—Suppose we try, Jacqueline? If we follow this ravine at our feet, it will lead us to the edge of the mountain, and so to the threshold of the moon, without a doubt. Only we must hurry if we are to get there before the door closes."

She shook her head. "Too late! Long before we reached the end of the ravine the moon would be gone, and then it would be dark as a pocket."

"Pooh! Who's afraid of the dark?" scoffed the city dweller in his ignorance.

"It wouldn't be safe," she said seriously. "We'd never be able to find our way back in the dark. Of course, if we had a lantern—" She dimpled up at him suddenly. "Do you know, there is a lantern hanging just inside the cabin door. I saw it."

Channing tiptoed back and secured the lantern, his heart thumping rather hard, not entirely for fear of discovery. They had come at last to the moment that had been in both their minds since the start of the journey, beneath all their gaiety and laughter—that final desired solitude of the heights.

They descended into the shallow ravine—a mere fissure it was in the surface of the mountain—crossing as they went an almost perpendicular cornfield of which Jacqueline made mental note as a landmark. They spoke in whispers, as if fearing to disturb the immemorial silence of the hills. Here and there a bird woke at their passing, and called a sleepy note of warning to its mate. Leaves rustled to the touch of the wind that is never still in high places. Near at hand sounded a sudden eerie cry, and Jacqueline drew close to Channing with a shudder.

"Suppose we meet a wildcat, or a bear, or something? What would we do?"

"Run," he said laconically; but he put a protective arm about her, which was perhaps what Jacqueline needed. It is usually in the presence of Man that Woman allows herself the luxury of timidity.

Soon they ceased to talk at all. He held her very close as they walked, and sometimes they stood for long moments without moving, embraced. No talk of Philip or other extraneous matters came between their kisses now. The young trees with which the ravine was filled hedged them in close and secret, a friendly guard; and Channing wished to abandon the expedition to the moon, being well content where he was. But Jacqueline, impelled by some blind instinct, urged him on toward the open, where a rim of gold, growing less and ever less, still showed between the interlacing branches.

Underbrush impeded them, tore at her skirts and her bare ankles, till Channing picked her up in his arms and carried her; not easily, for he was little taller than herself, but very willingly. So with his warm and fragrant burden, he emerged upon the edge of the mountain. At their feet was a sheer drop of many hundred feet into a canyon, where a stream whispered, with the reflection of tumbled stars in its bosom. All about lay a wide prospect of lesser hills, covered with a mantle of soft and feathery verdure that stirred very lightly, as if the mountains were breathing in sleep. As they gazed, the rim of the moon sank slowly, slowly, till there was nothing left but starlight.

Jacqueline murmured, "Isn't it lucky we brought the lantern? Let's light it now." Her voice was rather tremulous.

"Why, sweetest?" He seated himself in the fragrant pine-needles, and drew her down beside him. "Look, little girl, how high we are above earth; out of men's knowledge, all the world asleep. We might be gods on high Olympus. 'You and I alone in Heaven dancing'"—he finished softly that most beautiful passage out of "Marpessa."

But the Overmind chose that moment to return to duty. It suggested to Channing that he sounded a trifle histrionic, a trifle as though low music were about to be played by the orchestra. He caught himself murmuring inwardly, "What a setting! What a perfect setting!"

"For what?" inquired the Overmind, not at all in disapproval but with a sort of impersonal interest.

Just then the gifted Mr. Channing would have traded temperaments with the dullest lout that ever lost his head over a woman.

His self-consciousness reacted upon Jacqueline. All her earlier shyness returned. She drew the prim little wrapper down over her ankles, and sat quite stiffly erect, submitting to his embrace, but no longer returning it.

"I think we'd better be going back now," she said. "Suppose Philip were to wake up and miss us?"

Channing had an odd and perfectly irrelevant thought of that bulge in the clergyman's hip-pocket.

"Bother Philip! You'd suppose the man was a sort of watch-dog. I believe you're afraid of me to-night," he teased, turning her face to his.

Her lips trembled as he kissed them. "It is so dark," she whispered.

"Little goose! Why should the darkness make a difference to you and me?"

"I don't know—but it does." Suddenly she pushed him away, and jumped to her feet. "Give me the matches, Mr. Channing. I want to light the lantern and go back."

He obeyed with a shrug, wondering just where and how he had blundered. A sense of artistic incompleteness mingled with a keen personal sense of chagrin. Did the girl care less for him than he had thought? Or was it merely the instinct of self-preservation that had warned her?

Now that the blood ran more coolly in his veins, he blushed to realize that the instinct had been right.

They went back into the ravine, which, as Jacqueline had prophesied, had become as dark as a pocket. Without the lantern they could not have seen a foot ahead of them, and even with the lantern their way was not easy. They stumbled along, still hand-in-hand and silent; but it was no longer the delicious, thrilling silence of the earlier adventure. The glamour of it seemed to have departed with the moon.

Jacqueline, stiff with an embarrassment she did not understand (she thought it the fault of the negligee and the stockingless feet) was eager to get back to the shelter of the crowded cabin. Channing was by this time as eager as herself, having discovered that riding-boots are not the most comfortable equipment for mountain tramping.

"There's our cornfield, at last!" said the girl, and both heaved sighs of relief.

They climbed laboriously toward the outline of corn stalks against the starlit sky, with a darker outline looming behind; but as they came into better sight of the cabin, she gave a cry of dismay.

"It's all lighted. Oh, Mr. Channing! They've missed us!"

"Damn!" said the author.

At that moment voices reached them: loud, drunken voices, mingled with laughter, and a snatch of song.

"Why—why!" muttered Channing, blankly. "That can't be our cabin!"

Nor was it. They had trusted to the wrong landmark.

They turned and hurried down into the ravine again. But Channing stumbled, and the sound reached the quick ears of the mountaineers above. There was a shout, in a voice suddenly sobered.

"Who's down thar?"

It was followed by the sharp ping of a bullet.

"Good gad, but they're shooting!" gasped Channing.

"They certainly are," said the girl, with a giggle. "It must be a still or something, and they think we're revenue officers!"

"Wh-what shall we do?"

"Run," she quoted him, laughing, and seizing his hand suited the action to the word. She seemed perfectly unafraid. "They won't get our range in the dark. Isn't this exciting?"

But the bullets followed them, too close for comfort.

"It's the lantern!" exclaimed Channing, and was about to drop it when the girl seized it out of his hand.

"Here—don't do that! We'd be wandering about in this ravine all night without it."

She looked at her companion in sheer surprise. It was her first experience of the type of man who loses his head in the presence of danger. Her voice became all at once quite motherly and kind.

"It's all right. You go ahead and I'll carry the lantern. They're probably too drunk to follow us," she reassured him.

Channing, to the after mortification of his entire life, obeyed without demur.

"It's all right," she repeated. "But go as fast as you can."

Shots were flying thick and fast about the lantern she held at arm's length. More than one grazed her closely.

"You great cowards up there!" she cried out in sudden anger. "Do you know you're shooting at a girl?"

There was a sudden silence. Then the shouts began again with a new note. "A gal, be ye? Boys, hit's a female down thar. Come on up, gal! Let's see what ye look like."

But the shots ceased, and the shouts came no nearer.

"Just as I thought—they 're too drunk to follow us," she said triumphantly. "Better get out of this neighborhood, though. Hurry on, Mr. Channing!"

"I'm afraid I can't," he said faintly. "You go without me."

She turned the light of the lantern full upon him, and saw that he was holding to a tree, swaying where he stood. There was a dark stain on his breeches, just above the knee, which spread even as she looked.

Without a word, she turned and began to run up the hillside again.

"Where are you going?" he cried.

"To get help. You are hurt."

"Those drunken brutes? Never!"

"They'll help us. I'm a woman."

"All the more reason—" he conquered his growing weakness, and put what force he could into his voice. "Jacqueline, I forbid you to go! Come here!"

She obeyed, wringing her hands. "But I don't know what to do for you!" she quavered.

"Listen! I must walk as far as I can, and when I'm done, you leave me, and run ahead for help. We can't be far from our own cabin now."

Channing had resumed his manhood, and it did not occur to the girl to argue with him. He was not a coward. He had merely been startled momentarily out of his self-control, unaccustomed as he was to physical danger. She realized this thankfully. The literary life does not prepare a man for the emergency of finding himself a target for bullets out of the dark.

Arm-in-arm they stumbled along the ravine. Soon he was obliged to lay an arm across her sturdy young shoulders, leaning upon her more heavily with each step. She felt the effort of his every motion, was aware of the labored breath with which he fought back his weakness. Still he struggled on. If she had loved him before, she adored him now.

"Oughtn't I to bandage it, or something?"

"No," he gasped. "It's not an artery, I think. Must get on. Almost done."

She was terrified. All the tenderness she had denied him that night rose in her, an overwhelming flood. As he faltered she urged him forward with crooning words, with caresses. "Just a little farther, that's my brave dear! We're almost there. It can't be far now, darling, beloved, my precious!"

He grew too faint to understand her words, but her will toward the last carried him on, step by step, she staring desperately at the skyline, looking for the cornfield that was to be her landmark.—Could they have passed it? Surely they had not come so long a way as this?

Suddenly the thought occurred to her that in starting back they might have entered the wrong ravine. There must be many such shallow fissures on the mountain-side. She heard near at hand the trickling of a spring, and stopped aghast. They had passed no spring on the way out. She was too thoroughly country-bred not to have taken note of running water instinctively, as animals do.

"Lost!" she whispered to herself; lost in wild country, between midnight and dawn, with a wounded man on her hands and—no stockings on! The choking giggle she gave was more than half hysteria.

Then, without a word, Channing pitched forward on his face.

That steadied her. In a moment she had brought water in her cupped hands from that providential spring, had found his pocket-knife, ripped up his trousers-leg, and bandaged the wound as coolly as Jemima herself might have done it, though the sight of the blood nauseated her. She bathed his face with a wet handkerchief, but his eyelids merely fluttered once and were still again. In a panic she lifted his head to her bosom, trying to warm his cheeks; kissed him on the lips again and again, violently, begging him to wake and speak to her. It is a pity that the collector of impressions was unable to appreciate these manoeuvers.

"What shall I do? What shall I do?" she moaned.

He had bade her leave him and run for help—but did she dare? Even as she considered it, there was a rustling in the underbrush, and startlingly near at hand sounded the eerie cry that had frightened her earlier in the night. It did not frighten her now, oddly enough. She regretted the pistol she had left in the cabin. Her hand tightened on the pocket-knife, however, and she placed herself between Channing and the direction of the sound.

"Go away! Get out of this! Scat!" she said firmly, flourishing her lantern.

For a tense moment she waited; but the cry was not repeated. It had put out of the question, however, any thought of leaving Channing there defenseless. There were wild-cats in these mountains, she knew, rattlesnakes, too, possibly bears; and even the foxes that barked far away at intervals were not to be trusted with an unconscious human smelling of fresh blood.

There seemed nothing better to do than shout for help, on the chance of somebody hearing her in this wild and desolate place. Through the ravine rang the golden voice that might one day enthrall the world, pitched to fill a wider auditorium than it had ever filled before. From side to side it rolled and echoed in musical cadences: "Help! Come! Somebody please hear me! Help!"

Birds awoke with startled twittering, and various creatures of the underbrush, which had been attracted to the light of the lantern, fled away in terror. She sent her voice in the direction of the cabin they had mistaken for their own. Drunk or not, there were men there, and she needed them.

But after some time, an answer came from the other side of the ravine, a little way beyond. A bobbing light appeared on the edge, and a faint halloa reached her.

"What's wrong down there?"

Jacqueline shouted: "Man hurt! Bleeding! Awfully!"

The lantern bobbed rapidly downward. Presently a man came into sight, stoop-shouldered and spectacled, and roughly dressed. He knelt beside Channing and examined him.

"Nothing broken. Just loss of blood. That's not a bad bandage. It will last till we get him up the hill. No need to cry, young lady," he added; for at the first sound of that pleasant, crisp, gentleman's voice, Jacqueline had broken into sobs. She knew that her immediate troubles were over.



CHAPTER XXVIII

The newcomer asked no questions, then or afterwards, but busied himself with a little satchel he carried. "Drink this, please," he said to Jacqueline in a moment.

It was aromatic ammonia, and she spluttered over it and stopped crying. Then he forced some between Channing's lips; and presently the wounded man's eyes opened, to Jacqueline's almost sick relief.

"There! Now you will do nicely, though you will not feel like climbing my hill, perhaps," the stranger said to him. He eyed Jacqueline speculatively. "Are you a muscular young lady? I think so."

"Yes, indeed!" She doubled up her arm boyishly to exhibit the swelling biceps.

He nodded. "Excellent. Then we must make him a ladies' chair, you and I. Fortunately he is not a large man."

Channing, however, was heavier than he looked. He was only conscious enough to keep his arms over their shoulders, otherwise unable to help them at all. They made slow progress. Frequently they had to put him down and rest, more for the stranger's sake than for Jacqueline's.

"I fear my biceps are less creditable than yours," he smiled once, panting a little. "Or it is the breath, perhaps. One grows older, unfortunately."

As he spoke he coughed slightly, and Jacqueline looked with quick understanding at his thin face. She had heard such a cough before. The White Plague was one of the enemies which Mrs. Kildare fought untiringly and unceasingly in her domain.

"I am afraid this effort is not good for you," she murmured.

He shrugged deprecatingly, as if to say, "What does it matter?"

The gesture was oddly familiar to Jacqueline. She had seen Philip Benoix shrug in just that way. Indeed, there were other things about this man that seemed oddly familiar. She looked at him, puzzled. The lantern showed him dressed in coarse jeans, unkempt, unshaven. Yet his clear, well-modulated, slightly accented speech proved him no genuine mountaineer. Perhaps the cough accounted for his presence in the mountains.—But his appearance of familiarity?

Suddenly Jacqueline placed him. It was the man she had seen outside the window of the meeting-house, listening so absorbedly to Philip's sermon.

"You're the school-teacher, aren't you?" she asked.

"At your service," he replied with a slight, courteous formality that again reminded her of Philip.

"I saw you at church to-night, and wondered why you did not come in."

"I am not a Christian," he explained.

"Oh, but that doesn't matter! That is just why Philip—Mr. Benoix, I mean—has come up here. To make Christians."

The other smiled faintly. "The few Christians of my acquaintance have been born, and not made.—Now, shall we start again?"

They came at last to the first of two small cabins, whose door the man kicked open. They deposited their now unconscious burden upon a bed, one of several that stood in a neat, white row, each with curtains about it.

"Why, it's a regular dormitory! Is yours a boarding-school?"

He shook his head. "My hospital extension. It is easier to take care of sick scholars here than at their homes, and I have often sick scholars. None at present, however. We have room here for several patients, as you see, and soon I hope to be able to build another house for women. Obstetrical cases," he explained, rather absently. While he spoke he was removing Channing's bandage. "Hum! The shot has fortunately missed the patella, but it must come out." He rose and began to build a fire in a small cook-stove at one end of the room. "When I have sterilized these instruments, young lady, we shall have a try for that bullet."

Jacqueline paled. "You mean you are going to—to cut him? Are you sure you know how?"

He smiled at her, "Quite sure. We mountain teachers have opportunity to learn many things."

"Including cooking," she said, with a wan attempt at raillery, remembering Brother Bates' gossip.

"Including cooking," he admitted gravely. "Wait until this coffee has boiled, and you shall see that I know one branch, at least, of my profession thoroughly."

He brought her a steaming cup in a moment, which she drained gratefully. "It's heavenly! May I have some more? Where did you learn to cook—from books?"

"From necessity. When I first came to the mountains, it seemed safer to cook than to be cooked for."

The girl was paying little attention. She watched Channing fearfully. He was still unconscious, livid; but the school-teacher appeared to feel no alarm. He went deftly and quite unhurried about his preparations, getting out a hypodermic syringe, a bottle of chloroform, placing certain instruments in the oven, others in boiling water.

Jacqueline shivered; but she went on with the conversation gallantly, striving to face the situation as her mother or Jemima would have faced it.

"I know one other man who can cook, but he's a minister, and they're always different, somehow. He learned in the mountains, too, by the way, because there was nobody but himself and his father to take care of his sick mother. He learned all sorts of things to help her ... how to sew on buttons, and mend clothes, and sweep—He can even darn stockings! And he's not a bit ashamed of it."

"I should think," murmured the other, "that he might be even proud of it. You find him unmanly, perhaps?"

"Unmanly! Philip?" The tone of her voice answered him. "Why, he's the manliest man I know!"

The teacher said nothing further; but she got the impression that he was listening, waiting for her to go on.

"Do you know," she said, "I feel as if I knew you, as if I might have known you all my life. Have I never seen you before?"

"I think not," he replied, in a low voice.—Who can tell how much is seen by little eyes newly opened upon the world? Perhaps vision is clearer then than afterwards, when speech and sound and crowding thoughts come to obscure it.

"Have you always lived in these mountains?"

He answered with a slight hesitation. "I came here seventeen years ago."

"And do you never go down to the lowlands?"

"No."

"Then I can't have known you before," she said disappointedly, "because I am only seventeen myself."

A shrewder observer—Jemima for instance—might have noted his hesitancy, might have realized that coming to a place does not imply remaining there continuously.

But Jacqueline was not shrewd. She took people literally, and understood just what they intended her to understand. The art of prevarication was unknown to her; though, as has been seen, she could lie upon occasion, with a large and primitive simplicity.

"Now then," said the teacher briskly. "If you are ready, young lady, we shall go after that bullet."

She shrank away, quivering, all her fine pretense at composure shattered. "O-oh, but you don't expect me to help you? I can't, I never can help with things like that! I'm not like mother and Jemmy. I couldn't bear it. He might groan! I can't stand it when they groan!"

The other frowned. "You are not a coward, I think, afraid of a little blood?"

"It's not the blood—though I don't like that a bit. It's the pain. It's when they groan. Please, please!—It's horrible enough when you don't care for them, but when you do—"

His face softened wonderfully. "Ah!—Yes. It is worse when you care, my dear; but all the more reason for helping. Come, I have no one else. You shall keep me from hurting him by holding this little cone over his face—see, how simple. He will certainly groan, and you will certainly bear it. Come, then!"

Jacqueline, sick and shivering, stuck to her post. "If Jemmy could only see me now!" was the thought with which she stiffened herself. She tried not to listen to the moaning voice—"They're killing me! Take it away. Oh, don't hurt me any more—"

"You said it wouldn't hurt him!" she muttered once, fiercely.

"And it does not—only his imagination. He has a vivid imagination, this chap."

"Of course he has!" She scented disrespect, and was quick to resent it. "He's a very famous author,—Mr. Percival Channing."

"So?" But the school-teacher did not appear to be greatly impressed. "A healthy-looking author, at least, which is in his favor. This should not give him any trouble.—Aha! Now we have it."

He held up the bullet for her to see.

"Now then," he added in a moment, "you shall go into my little guest-room there while I watch over our patient, and sleep like the heroine you are for many hours."

Jacqueline demurred indignantly. "Leave him? Indeed I won't! It's my place to nurse him, not yours. Go to sleep yourself!"

He did not venture to drive Woman out of her natural sphere.

"As you like. Just rest on one of these cots, then, while I attend to some further matters. I shall rouse you when I am ready to leave."

"You won't go far?"

"Oh, no. I shall be within call."

Jacqueline stretched herself luxuriously. The cot was very comfortable. "I shan't go to sleep, of course," she said....

Once during the night she stirred suddenly. "Philip will be worried," she murmured.

A quiet voice answered beside her, "No, I shall send word to him."

She lifted her heavy lids. "Oh, is that you, Phil?" she muttered contentedly, and dozed off again....

It was not such an odd mistake. The school-teacher, sitting there beside her, had taken off his spectacles, and the eyes she met when hers opened, were eyes she had known and trusted all her life; gleaming, kindly, quizzical eyes, astonishingly blue by contrast with a dark face.

He tried not to cough for fear of disturbing her. Until dawn and afterwards he sat there between the two beds, sometimes rising quietly to minister to Channing's needs, but for the most part gazing at the sleeping girl, hungrily, wistfully, often through a mist of tears; searching for resemblances, and finding them.

"Her child!" he whispered to himself. "Her little girl, the babe that was on her breast!—So like, and yet unlike. A hint of pliancy here, of weakness perhaps, that is not Kate. Wilfulness with Kate, never weakness—And already a woman, already come to the time of sacrifice. Her little girl!—"

He leaned over Channing, studying intently and anxiously the nervous, sensuous, intelligent face in its betraying relaxation of slumber. He shook his head presently, as if in doubt.

"But she will not see; perhaps she will never see. Yes, she is Kate's own child!" He sighed, and shrugged.

"At least there is Philip on guard," he said to himself, finally. "My sturdy, pious young Atlas, with the world so heavy on his shoulders!—"

The smile on the teacher's lips was mocking and sad, and very tender.



CHAPTER XXIX

It was broad daylight when Jacqueline was awakened by some one calling her by name, and shaking her none too gently.

"Come, come, Jacqueline, you must wake up, please! I have no time to waste."

She rubbed her eyes, yawning. "Let me alone, Phil! I'm half dead with sleep.—Heavens, where am I? Why are you so cross? Oh, Phil," she gasped, memory returning in a flood. "How is he? Is he conscious yet?"

"Who, Channing? Extremely conscious, I should say, and very much ashamed of himself. He is making an excellent breakfast in the next room."

His stern voice caused her to hang her head. "I suppose you're dreadfully mad at us, Reverend! Were you anxious?"

"Fortunately I didn't miss you till the school-teacher's messenger woke us with the news that you and Channing had been found lost in the woods somewhere. I've brought your clothes. It is a wonder you did not take pneumonia, wandering about half-dressed!"

She winced, and put out a wheedling hand, "My wrapper is just as warm as a dress, and—and it looks almost like one. See! it's—it's quite long, too, Phil!—I don't think he even noticed that my stockings weren't on."

"No?" He looked at her searchingly, and his face softened. The gaze that met his was deprecating and embarrassed, but frank as a child's.

"Still," she admitted, "it was a dreadful thing to do."

"It was a very silly thing to do, and as it turned out, very dangerous. These mountaineers are a wild lot, especially with a little moonshine in them. You might very well have been shot, instead of Channing."

"I wish I had been—oh, I wish I had been!" Her lip quivered. "You're so cross to me," she wailed, "and I've been through such a lot!"

He relented. "I don't mean to be cross, little girl. But you must see that I can't take the responsibility of such a madcap any longer. You will have to go back to civilization."

Her face fell. "Oh, Phil! You don't mean that you are going to give up the missionary expedition because of what I've done?"

"I do not," he said crisply. "I came to accomplish certain things up here, and I shan't leave till they are done. But I shall have to manage without my choir. You are going back to Storm, you and Mr. Channing."

"When must we go?" she asked meekly.

"To-day. At once."

"Oh, but Philip, we can't! Mr. Channing couldn't be moved so soon. His poor leg—"

"I'm afraid he will have to risk that valuable member for the good of the common cause. He is going to need much attention, that is plain, and we can't impose on this school-teacher."

"Oh, he won't mind!" interposed Jacqueline, eagerly. "He's as good as a doctor, and a perfect dear."

"'Dear' or not, he is a busy man, and we have no claim on his time. Channing himself wants to go down to the neighborhood of genuine doctors, I fancy. He seems to be alarmed for fear of blood-poison developing." Despite himself, Philip's lip curled a little.

"I don't believe you're one bit sorry for Mr. Channing!"

"Now that you mention it," murmured Philip, "I don't believe I am. It serves him damned right!" He turned on his heel and left the room.

But later when she came out to him, dressed and abjectly penitent, he spoke more gently. "Jacky dear, I've got to interfere once more in something that is perhaps not my business. How do matters stand between you and our author friend? Has he decided yet whether he wants to marry you?"

The hot blood rushed into her cheeks. "Why—why, I don't know," she stammered, "He never—Philip Benoix, that certainly is not your business! The idea!"

"Whatever is your mother's business I make mine," he said quietly. "Jacqueline, since you have tied my hands, I want you to promise me one thing. As soon as you get back, I want you to tell your mother everything about this affair with Channing."

Her head went up angrily. "I'll promise no such thing! What has mother to do with it? When Mr. Channing is ready," she said very stiffly, "I daresay he will speak to my mother himself, without any prompting from you."

It was her turn to walk away, outraged dignity in every motion.

Philip looked after her ruefully. "Of course she won't tell Kate, and I can't, and it would never occur to that dear woman to watch one of her own daughters.—I do wish," he muttered, "that Jemima were at home!"

It was an odd fact that many people who usually took young Jemima Kildare's existence very much for granted had a way of wishing for her suddenly when any emergency arose.

Jacqueline's dignity did not carry her far. She came back in a moment to ask humbly, "How am I ever to get Mr. Channing down to the railroad? He can't ride, and wheels are out of the question on that rough trail. Philip, really, he'll have to stay here till the wound is healed. It won't be any trouble for the teacher. I'll look after him myself."

"I think not," said Philip, grimly. "You will be safe at Storm by nightfall."

"You don't seem to realize that he is terribly wounded!"

"By no means 'terribly.' The school-teacher—who seems to be a capable person as well as a 'dear'—has made a very good job of removing the bullet, and there's no temperature. Believe me, your imaginative friend will manage to survive this affair. Everything is settled. Brother Bates will stay and see the school-teacher, and arrange with him about the mule-litter for Channing. He will go down with you himself, and see you safely into the train. Sorry I can't, but I'm expected on the other side of the mountain this morning for a 'buryin,' and as the deceased has been awaiting the occasion for several months—underground, I trust,—I don't like to postpone it any longer."

"Won't you even wait till we start?" she asked forlornly.

"I can't. Sorry not to see that school-teacher, too. He has gone off somewhere on an errand, the old woman in charge here says. Doesn't know when he will be back. I must be off."

"Aren't you going to say good-by to Mr. Channing?"

"I have already said good-by, and other things, to Mr. Channing," said Philip, grimly. "Au revoir, little girl."

He rode up the trail at a lope, passing as he went a group of laurel bushes, behind which, had he looked more closely, he might have detected the crouching figure of a man, who watched him wistfully out of sight. The teacher's errand had not taken him far.

When Philip stopped at the schoolhouse again that evening on his return from the "buryin'," he found it deserted. There was a sign on the door. "School closed for a week. Gone fishing."

"A casual sort of school-teacher, this," said Philip, disappointed. "A regular gadabout! I'm afraid I shan't see him at all. What did you say his name was?"

The man Anse, who was his companion, eyed Philip impassively. "Dunno as I said. Dunno as I ever heerd tell. We calls him 'Teacher' hereabouts."

"Do you mean to say you've never asked his name?" demanded Philip.

"Folks hereabouts ain't much on axin' questions," remarked Anse. "'T ain't allus healthy, Preacher."

Philip felt oddly rebuked.



CHAPTER XXX

As if Philip's wish had materialized her, it was Jemima herself who met Jacqueline and Channing at the Storm station late that night; Jemima, fully equipped for the occasion, ambulance and all, brisk and important and even sympathetic in a professional sort of way.

Jacqueline hailed her with mingled feelings of relief and sisterly pleasure, complicated with certain misgivings as to her future freedom.

"Why, Jemmy! I thought you were going to stay with that Mrs. Lawton at least three weeks."

"Lucky I didn't," remarked her sister succinctly. "I had just got home when your telegram to mother came, telling about the accident, so of course I took charge of things. Mother wanted to come herself, but she seemed rather tired, so I made her stop at home. The doctor will be there to meet us."

Channing saw the improvised ambulance with thanksgiving. The journey back to civilization was a chapter in his experience which he had no wish to repeat....

It had started gaily enough, Channing quite comfortable in a sort of litter swung between two mules, led at a foot-pace by the versatile peddler and a silent young mountaineer, a son of their former host, Anse. The school-teacher rode with them to the foot of the mountain, to make sure of the bandages, and Jacqueline brought up the procession on her mule.

Before they started, Channing spoke a few appreciative if rather patronizing words to the school-master. "You've been awfully kind and clever about this. A surgeon could not have done better. You really ought to charge me a whopping big price, you know." He put his hand into his pocket, suggestively.

The other raised his eyebrows. "My services were not professional, Mr. Channing. I make no charge for them. It is all part of my day's work."

"Oh, but really—" insisted the author.

"Of course if you've plenty of money, you may pay what you like," added the teacher indifferently, and went back into the schoolhouse for something he had forgotten.

Channing grinned. "Of course! I've never seen services yet, professional or otherwise, that could not be paid for. What do you think I ought to give him?"

It was to Jacqueline he spoke, but the Apostle answered: "You don't give him nothin', son. You puts what you kin in this here box for the Hospital."

He obligingly lifted down a box with a slit in it, that hung beside the schoolhouse door, bearing the inscription, "Hospital Fund." He rattled it as he did so. "It's gettin' real heavy," he commented with satisfaction. "Reck'n there must 'a' bin a lot of sick folks lately. Teacher must be pleased."

Channing lifted his eyebrows at Jacqueline. "Do you mean to say he leaves a box of money hanging outside his door at the mercy of any passing stranger?"

"Why not?" asked the teacher himself, reappearing.

"Very few strangers do pass, and though my neighbors have their failings, dishonesty is not one of them. Besides, it is their own money. They have given it."

"Rather an ambitious idea of yours, isn't it, a hospital in these wilds?"

"The name is more ambitious than the idea, Mr. Channing. What I hope to build is merely another small cabin for women, on the other side of my schoolhouse, and perhaps later an isolated building for contagious cases."

"And who is to care for your patients?"

"Oh, I have plenty of assistance. Some of the women have become excellent nurses, and one or two of the boys show a distinct aptitude for medicine. We shall make doctors of them yet." He broke off apologetically. "You will think that I have a partiality for hygienic matters, and perhaps I have. It is my theory that most crime is traceable to physical causes; to disease; and as most disease is the result of ignorance—" he shrugged. "You will see why I consider hygiene an important part of my school curriculum."

Channing was looking at him curiously. His manner had lost its patronage. "May I ask," he said, "whether the State finances this institution of yours?"

"No. The nearest school supplied by the State is miles away, over roads which for part of the year are almost impassable. That is why I happened to settle here."

"Then who does finance it? Yourself?"

The teacher smiled. "It is not 'financed' at all, nor does it need to be. My pupils supply me with food and fuel and free labor, in return for which I share with them what 'book-larnin'' I happen to possess. And I wish there were more of it! What few books are needed I manage to provide. Mine is more a practical course than an academic one, you see."

Jacqueline had been listening with deep interest, her face a-glow. "And yet you think you are not a Christian!" she said softly. "Why, you are doing just such a thing as Christ might have done Himself."

"In a more up-to-date manner, I hope, young lady," shrugged the teacher. "We have gone far in 1900 years."

Jacqueline subsided, shocked. She wished Philip were there to put this irreverent person in his place.

"Have you never," questioned Channing, "considered asking for help from outside? Rich people go in for this sort of thing a great deal nowadays. It is quite a fashionable philanthropy."

"I have no acquaintance among rich people," said the other, "and I do not think my neighbors would care to accept philanthropy. They are proud."

Channing said, rather nicely, "If they are proud, they will understand that I prefer to pay for value received." He slipped into the box a bill whose denomination made the Apostle's eyes open wide.

"Fifty dollars!" he exclaimed in awe, "That's right, son—'Give up all thou hast and follow Me.' 'It is harder fer a rich man to enter into heaven than fer a camuel to go thoo the eye of a needle.' That's the way to git religion!—"

The teacher bowed, gravely. "The Woman's Ward is now an accomplished fact. Thank you, Mr. Channing."

For the first part of the journey down the mountain, the author had rather enjoyed the novel role of uncomplaining sufferer. The teacher's presence was both stimulating and reassuring. After he turned back, however, with a final look at the bandages, reaction set in. The sufferer's cheerfulness relapsed into a wincing silence, broken occasionally by faint groans, when a stumble on the part of his bearers set loose all the various aches that racked his body.

These aches were the result of exhaustion rather than of his wound; but he did not know this, nor did Jacqueline. The literary imagination pictured him in the last stages of blood-poison, and groans became more frequent. He could have found no surer way of appealing to Jacqueline's tenderness. She was one of the women to whom weakness is a thing irresistible. Her moment of ugly doubt when her lover showed panic under fire had passed instantly with a realization of his dependence upon her. To give is the instinct of such natures, maternal in their very essence. The fact that Channing seemed to need her had always been his chief hold on her fancy.

She walked beside him most of the way, leading her mule, so that she might hold his hand; yearning over him, suffering far more than he suffered, crooning tender words of encouragement.

"I wish," she said once, passionately, "that you were littler, that you were small enough to carry in my arms, so that nothing could hurt you!"—a sentiment which drew a glance of sympathy from even the stolid young mountaineer at the mule's head, and which set old Brother Bates to thinking wistfully of the long, long road that lay between him and the ministrations of his wife, Sally.

But the author was too far gone in anxiety and bone-weariness to care to linger just then in any primrose path of dalliance. He even wished heartily, if inaudibly, that the girl would be quiet and leave him alone.

Therefore, the final sight of Jemima and her business-like ambulance was a most welcome one.

He demurred politely when he heard where he was to be taken. "I ought not to impose on your mother's hospitality! Couldn't you get me to Farwell's house?"

"And who would take care of you there—men-servants? Nonsense!" said Jemima, briskly. "Mother wouldn't hear of it, and neither would I. Don't talk now. Just drink your coffee." (She had brought it hot in a thermos bottle.) "And thank your stars you weren't killed outright in those wild mountains. What an expedition!—feckless Jacky, that dreamer Philip, and a mad peddler! It never would have happened if I'd been at home.—Get up in front with the driver, Jack."

But this usurpation of her rights and privileges was more than the younger one could bear.

"Feckless I may be, Jemmy Kildare," she cried hotly, "but it was me who defended Mr. Channing from bears and things, me who helped with the operation, me who brought him home all by myself! And it's me he wants now—don't you, dear? Sit up in front yourself, smarty!"

Jemima obeyed, lifting astonished eyebrows. All the way to Storm her eyebrows fluttered up and down like flags in a gale of wind. She listened with straining ears to certain whisperings behind her; to certain silences more pregnant than whispering.

"So-o!" she thought. "That's what the child is up to! Calling him 'dear!' That's why she wouldn't go visiting.—Have mother and I been blind?"



CHAPTER XXXI

Channing began to be aware, despite the hospitality and comfort which were provided for him in overflowing measure, that he was seeing very little of Jacqueline under her mother's roof. In the ten days he had been there they had managed hardly more than as many minutes alone together. It was as if the entire household were entered into a coalition against them.

No sooner would Jacqueline slip into his room in the morning, bearing a dainty breakfast tray upon which she lavished all of her growing domestic artistry, than the series of interruptions began. First it would be the Madam herself, off on her rounds of inspection, but stopping long enough for a few minutes' chat with her guest. She would be followed by the elderly, apologetic housewoman, to put his things in order, answering Jacqueline's imperious demand for haste with an humble "Yais 'm, Miss Jacky, I's hurryin' fas' as a pusson kin go, but de Madam wouldn't like it a bit ef I skimped comp'ny's room."

Then would come, perhaps, Big Liza the cook, to enquire for "comp'ny's" health with elephantine coquetries; then Lige, erstwhile stable-boy and butler, now promoted to the proud role of valet, requesting orders for the day, and lingering with an appreciative ear for the conversation of his betters.

When these were out of the way, a firm tap at the door revealed Jemima, book in hand or with a basket of sewing, announcing quietly that she now had an hour or so at Mr. Channing's disposal; whereupon Jacqueline would give up in despair and flounce away, or resign herself to listen, seated behind her sister's back where she could make faces at it unseen except by the invalid.

The afternoons were quite as bad, the family solicitude being augmented by the presence of visitors, the most frequent of whom was Farwell; and in the evenings all sat together about the great fireplace in the hall—for the nights were growing chill—playing games, or listening to Jacqueline's music, or telling stories like children, until nine o'clock; at which hour Mrs. Kildare assembled her household, white and black, read a few prayers in a firm but inattentive manner, and sent everybody to bed.

The life had a simple charm which Channing savored with due appreciation; but it gave him very little of Jacqueline, and both thought longingly of the Ruin, at present inaccessible. In one thing Jemima's inexperience played her false. To a man of Channing's temperament, occasional and tantalizing glimpses of the inamorata had an allure that unrestricted intercourse might soon have lessened. But considering her youth, Jemima was doing very well indeed.

Mag Henderson was the lovers' only ally. Notes still passed between them with a frequency which eluded Jemima's vigilance; and notes make very good fuel for a fire, if there is none better available.

One of these, extracted by Channing from his napkin under the very eye of the enemy, read:

Jemmy is certainly taking notice. Look out! We must put her off the track somehow. Couldn't you make love to her—a little? Not much, and, oh, please, never before me, because I just couldn't bear it!—This is a kiss. O

Channing appreciated this Machiavellian policy, and endeavored to put it into practice; but without success.

Nothing doing! (He wrote in answer). There's a look in that cool, greenish eye that sheds Cupid's darts like chain armor. If I must make love to any one but you, darling, it will have to be your mother. She's human. I tell you no man living would have the courage to breathe airy nothings into your sister's ear more than once.—Here's two kisses. O O

"Poor Jemmy!" thought Jacqueline, gently, when she read this.

"Poor Jemmy," indeed. Possibly she had made some such discovery for herself.

The time came when the author reluctantly admitted to himself that he had no further excuse to trespass upon Mrs. Kildare's hospitality. From the first he had been able to limp about the house, pale but courageous; now he found it difficult even to limp with any conviction. At last Farwell quite bluntly advised him that he would better be moving on.

"Your book is calling you, eh, what? If not, it ought to be. The old 'un is looking rather firm, if you ask me. Polite, of course, even cordial—it would not enter the creed of these people to be anything else, so long as one is under their roof. But firm, nevertheless."

Channing started. "You don't think she's on?"

Farwell shrugged—a gesture carefully done from the model of Philip Benoix. "How did you explain your accident up there?"

"Told her we happened to be prowling about the hillside, and ran upon a moonshine still that didn't like us."

"Did you mention the hour of your innocent ramble?"

Charming flushed. "It was an innocent ramble, you know.—I did not mention the hour, however."

"What about Benoix? He and Mrs. Kildare are very thick."

Channing flushed again. The memory of his last conversation with the clergyman rankled. "Benoix's not the talking sort," he muttered. "Besides, he's still up in the mountains, arranging about a mission or something."

Farwell looked at him thoughtfully. "Not the talking sort—you're right, he's the acting sort. Typical Kentuckian and all that. His father's a convicted 'killer,' by the way."

"Oh, shut up!" said the author, inelegantly. "What if I have made love to Jacqueline? Does every girl who gets love made to her have to be led forthwith to the altar? The notorious Mrs. Kildare would hardly be a squeamish mama, I think. Why, she's got a common woman of the streets here in the house as a sort of maid-companion to her young daughters! What can you expect?"

"Nevertheless," demanded his friend, significantly, "how much have you seen of the girl since you have been here? You know, and I know, that the most squeamish of mamas are ladies who happen to be acquainted with the ropes themselves. Verbum sap.—Besides, there is your uncle. Might he have—er—conversed too freely, perhaps?"

Channing stirred uneasily. "He regards the recent episode, to which I suppose you refer, as somewhat of a blot upon the family escutcheon. It isn't likely he would mention it. But you're right—perhaps it behooves me to be moving before all is lost.—Damn it, Morty," he said savagely, "what an ass I have made of myself!"

He put his face in his hands, and groaned.

The actor regarded him curiously.

"Hard hit, eh? But you've been hard hit before, and got over it. Cheer up!"

"That's it," grunted Channing. "I will get over it, and—I don't want to, Morty! Every fellow's got a best time in his life. This is mine, and I know it. I want it to last. She's—she's sweet, I tell you! I could marry a girl like that...."

The other whistled. "Well, why not? She'd wait."

"She might—but what about me?" Channing spoke with a sort of desperation. "You know me! If I go away from her, I'm bound to get over it. If I don't go away from her—" he broke off, and walked restlessly around the room, limping occasionally from force of habit. "It's easy enough for a cold-blooded chap like you to say 'wait.' But she doesn't help me, she doesn't help me! You phlegmatic people don't know how emotion, even the sight of emotion, goes to the head—or you'd never be actors. You wouldn't dare.—I am mad about her now, absolutely mad about her. Absurd, isn't it?" He gave a forlorn laugh. "In the words of the classic, 'I want what I want—when I want it.'"

Farwell was quite unconsciously and methodically making mental notes of his friend's gestures and expressions for future use. "The old boy's in earnest for once," he thought; and congratulated himself anew that he himself was no genius, merely a person with a knack for imitation, and a habit of keeping his finger on the pulse of the public. It puzzled him that a man who knew his own weaknesses so thoroughly should make no effort to deny or conquer them. Channing seemed to observe his ego as casually as if it belonged to a stranger; and with as little attempt to interfere with it. That, thought Farwell, must be one of the earmarks of genius. Mere men like himself, when they choose to fracture what rules have been laid down for them, do it as blindly as possible, with an ostrich-like hiding of their heads in the sand; but genius sees exactly what it is about, and does it just the same.—So ran the cogitations of Mr. Farwell.

"What would you do if you were I?" asked Channing, appealingly.

"Me? I'd go away from here while the going is good."

"Away from Storm, you mean?"

"Away from Kentucky."

Channing groaned. "Damn it all, I will, then! Though it's going to play hob with my book.—No time like the present. I'll go back with you to-day, Morty, and put my things together.—It 's been the best time of my life!" he sighed, already beginning to dramatize himself as the self-denying Spartan.

He sought out his hostess in her office an hour later, and confessed to her that he had no longer any excuse for remaining under her roof.

"We authors are such slaves," he murmured. "I must get back to my native habitat, like a bear to its cave." (he had almost said "wounded bear.")

"You are leaving Kentucky, then?"

"Yes, after a few days at Holiday Hill to get my things together."

"You are sure you are quite well and strong again?" she asked slowly.

"I fear I am. Better than I've ever been in my life, and fatter, alas! thanks to your excellent cook."

She did not give him an answering smile. "I am glad of that, because I should not like any guest, above all Jim Thorpe's nephew, to leave my house until he was quite ready to do so.—And I have been waiting," she added, very quietly, "until you were quite well and strong to speak to you about a certain matter."

His tongue went dry in his mouth; a sensation that reminded him of episodes in his schooldays, when circumstances led him not infrequently into the office of the headmaster.

Mrs. Kildare said quite suddenly, "I understand that you are courting my daughter Jacqueline, Mr. Channing."

For the moment a reply failed him. He had not expected quite such a lack of delicacy.

She went on. "Something my daughter Jemima noticed led us to that conclusion. Perhaps she was mistaken? You will understand, Mr. Channing, that I must be father as well as mother to my children."

She paused again; and still the usually fluent Channing had not found his voice.

"I thought it best," she went on, "to write to my friend Professor Thorpe, who introduced you to our house. Be kind enough to read his reply."

Channing took the letter, and made pretense of reading it, though he was only too well aware of its contents.

MY DEAR KATE:

Your letter overwhelms me. I had no idea that my nephew was on terms of any intimacy in your household. Jemima, in fact, assured me that the contrary was the case, and Jemima is not often mistaken.

I blame myself deeply for having introduced Percival at Storm without explanation. It is painful for me to have to inform you that my sisters son is at present under somewhat of a cloud. To be frank, he recently made a journey to Canada in company with a certain young person whom he had the hardihood to introduce at various hotels, clubs, etc., as his wife. When he wished to terminate the arrangement, he found himself unable to do so because the woman entered claims upon him as what is termed a common-law wife.

The matter has with some difficulty been kept out of the public prints, and is now in the hands of lawyers for adjustment. My sister meanwhile claimed my hospitality for her son until such time as the scandal shall have blown over. I need not say that I regret having acceded to her request.

My nephew, being in no position to marry, was of course culpably wrong in offering attentions to any young girl. I can only hope that the peculiarities of his temperament prevented him from realizing what he was doing, and that he possibly regards Jacqueline merely as an extremely charming child, which she is. Surely the affair cannot go deeply with one so immature as Jacqueline.

On my return to Kentucky, I shall hasten to make apologies to you in person for myself and for my nephew. I do not trust myself to communicate with Percival at present, lest I forget what is due the undeniable ties of blood.

Your devoted servant, THORPE.

Postscriptum: Percival is an egregious young ass.

J. T.

Channing finished the letter, adding to it a heartfelt if unspoken "Amen!"

"Well?" asked Mrs. Kildare. "What have you to say, please? Do you regard Jacqueline as merely a charming child?"

"No," he was impelled to answer. "Not—not now."

"Ah! Not now." Kate's lips set grimly, but she continued in a very quiet voice, "Have you anything to say, perhaps? I do not wish to be unfair."

Channing had a great deal to say, but he found some difficulty in saying it. He found some difficulty in meeting Mrs. Kildare's eyes. He felt more and more like a schoolboy who is about to receive a well-deserved whipping.—And then, quite suddenly, he recalled the past career of this outraged mother, with her righteous indignation; and fluency returned to him.

"My dear lady, it's all such a tempest in a tea-pot! My uncle's an old fogy. But you're a woman of the world—you will understand.—I made a fool of myself in that affair, of course. Still, who would have supposed the woman wouldn't play the game? She's an old hand, an ex-chorus girl, and all that—Fay Lanham—any one can tell you about her. I don't know what got into her, except that I'm making a good deal of money nowadays, and I suppose she's ready to settle down. It was all quite understood, I assure you—"

Mrs. Kildare suddenly rose, and he saw for the first time how tall she was. "I am not and have never been a woman of the world, but I know men, if that is what you mean. And I know"—her voice cut like a whip—"that when these things occur among men of honor, at least the names of their victims are not mentioned."

He stared at her in genuine surprise. Chivalry in connection with Fay Lanham!—the combination was fantastic. "Oh, but—professionals!" he murmured. "I assure you she was no 'victim'—not as much a victim, perhaps, as myself."

"That does not interest me. What I wish to know is whether you are free to marry or not."

"Frankly, I don't know, Mrs. Kildare. The lawyers are to settle that."

"And not knowing, you have dared to court my daughter Jacqueline?"

The repetition of the old-fashioned phrase jarred his over-strung nerves. "My dear lady, if you mean by 'courting,' Have I proposed marriage to your daughter? I have not. If you mean, Have I made love to her? Yes. Naturally. Why not? I assure you, she has met me more than half way."

The instant the words were out, he would have given much to recall them. Why could he not have been simple and natural, told her that he loved Jacqueline, and that he was most heartily ashamed of himself?

Kate reached for the bell-rope and jerked it. When Lige came running—the service at Storm was not elegant, but it was prompt—she said, "Pack Mr. Channing's bag, and bring it down at once."

Then she spoke to Channing without looking at him. "My little girl is only seventeen. You are the nephew of my oldest and most trusted friend. It has never occurred to me to warn my daughters against gentlemen. I had forgotten it was necessary. I blame myself very deeply.—Now you will give me your word to make no effort to communicate with Jacqueline again in any way."

He protested. "Surely you will let me see her once, Mrs. Kildare! To explain?—to—to say good-by?"

"Certainly, in my presence. Your word of honor, please."

He gave it with as much dignity as he could muster.

She immediately opened the door and led him out into the hall, where Farwell and the two girls were amusing themselves with the graphophone.

"I know you will be sorry," she said from the threshold, "to hear that Mr. Channing is leaving us at once."

At the tone of her voice, Farwell gave a startled glance toward his friend, and Jemima suddenly put an arm around her sister, further rising to the occasion with polite murmurings of regret. But Jacqueline with one gesture brushed aside tact and subterfuge. She ran to Channing and caught his hand.

"Why, what's the matter?" she cried. "What has happened? Why is mother sending you away?"

"Jacqueline! Am I in the habit of sending guests away from my house?"

"You're doing it now, and I know why!" She threw back her head and laughed. "It's too late, Mummy dear! I suppose the fat's in the fire—but it was fun while it lasted! You didn't suspect your little girl was big enough to have a real sweetheart, did you?" A lovely blush spread over her face. She tugged at Channing's hand. "Come, why don't you tell her everything? Time to 'speak for yourself, John!'"

The silence puzzled her. She looked from one to the other. "Mummy, you're not really angry because we kept it a secret? Remember!—didn't you keep it a secret from your mother, too, just at first? It's a thing girls have to keep to themselves, just at first, till they're used to it—Jemmy," she cried, suddenly turning on her sister, "why are you looking so sympathetic at me?"

Channing lifted the little hand that was clutching his to his lips. "This is good-by," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry—Your mother will explain.—I must go away."

"But you're coming back soon?"

He shook his head.

"Why, but—I'll see you again before you go, won't I?" Her voice was piteous.

"Mr. Channing has given me his word," said her mother, "to make no further attempt to communicate with you."

The girl took a long breath. Her chin lifted. "Oh! So you are still going to treat me as a little girl?" she said. "That's a mistake, Mother!"

Without any further effort to detain Channing, she walked to the stairs and up them, her chin still high.

Channing looked back once from the door. Mrs. Kildare, standing in the center of the hall, bowed to him gravely, as a queen might in dismissing an audience. Jemima, on guard at the foot of the staircase, also bowed in stately fashion.

But halfway up, Jacqueline paused and turned; and as his miserable gaze met hers, she distinctly winked at him.



CHAPTER XXXII

More and more, as the days passed, Kate congratulated herself on having taken Jacqueline's affairs in hand before any harm was done. Startled out of her own preoccupation by Jemima's discovery of how matters stood between Jacqueline and the author, she continued to watch the younger girl narrowly; but she saw no signs of secret grief, nor even of wounded pride. The girl had never been more radiant, her cheeks a-glow, her eyes so soft and lustrous that sometimes her mother's grew dim at sight of them. She remembered a time when her own mirror had shown her just such a look of brooding revery.

"Channing has done nothing more than wake her womanhood," thought the mother. "And now, now it is Philip's turn!"

Philip, since his return from the mountains, spent more time than ever at Storm. Kate noted with satisfaction the added gentleness of his manner with Jacqueline, and threw them together as much as possible. Jemima, too, seemed to have a great deal of time to give her younger sister in those days. Between them all, Jacqueline was rarely alone; but she had no longer any wish to be alone. She avoided the Ruin now, and took no more long rides about the country, except with Kate. She clung to her mother with the persistency of a child who is recovering from an illness.

Jemima had taken it upon herself to watch the mails, and reported that there were no letters for Jacqueline. Channing evidently intended to keep his word implicitly.

Jacqueline had received her mother's explanation of his conduct quite calmly.

"Let's not discuss it, Mummy," she begged, flushing a little. "Of course if Mr. Charming was already married, that way, he couldn't ask me to marry him. I understand." She attempted one little apology for him. "Geniuses aren't quite—quite like other men, and they ought to be judged differently, Mummy."

Her sister, who was present at the interview, came over to her here, and bestowed one of her rare kisses. Pride and dignity always had a strong appeal for Jemima....

When she had first gone to her mother with her suspicions, Kate was aghast. "In love with each other, child! Why, that's impossible. Where have they seen each other? He is an intellectual, sophisticated young man of the world,—and our Jacky—!"

"The attraction of opposites," Jemima reminded her.

For just one moment, the mother's thoughts were selfish. If Jacqueline after all did not marry Philip, what would become of her own vindication, that triumphant answer to the world for which she had so patiently waited? She put the old plan from her with a sigh.

"Of course Channing would be a good match for little Jacqueline. But I had hoped," she said, half to herself, "that my child might marry Philip."

Jemima gave her a queer, quick glance. "You think Philip wants that?"

Kate nodded. "Perhaps he does not know it yet, though."

The girl said haltingly, "I have always thought that Philip was rather fond of—you, Mother."

"Of me? So he is. Philip has loved me since he was a little boy," she answered, smiling tenderly. "All the more reason for him to love my Jacqueline. We are very much alike, only that she is prettier, and younger—which counts, of course.—But now you say she wants to marry this Channing."

"I do not say that he wants to marry her."

"Jemmy!"

"Well, why should he?" asked the girl, evenly. "It would not be a good match for Mr. Channing. His family are conservative Boston people. Can you imagine Jacky among conservative Boston people? Sliding down banisters, riding bareback, making eyes at all the men—"

"That is not what you mean," said her mother, rather white about the lips. "You mean the scandal about me. Yes, that would make a difference.—You think it is only a flirtation, then?"

"On his part, yes. On Jacqueline's—I don't know. But even flirtation is not very safe for Jacqueline. Remember her inheritance." Jemima met her mother's wincing eyes firmly.

"What do you mean?" gasped the older woman.

"I mean—that Jacqueline is oversexed." She had no intention of seeing her little sister come to grief for lack of frankness. "I know it, and you know it, and we both know that it is not her fault." She added after a moment, "I have reason to believe that Mr. Channing is not a marrying man. There was talk in Lexington—If I were you I should write to Professor Jim and ask him."

Kate promptly took her advice, with the results that have been seen; and her respect for the acumen of her elder child became somewhat akin to awe.

Nor was Jemima at the end of her surprises for her mother.

One morning she followed Kate rather aimlessly into her office; a thing almost unprecedented, for Mrs. Kildare was rarely disturbed in her sanctum except upon matters of business.

"You wish to see me about something, daughter?"

"Oh, no, I just wanted to talk."

Kate's heart thumped suddenly. It was a long time since the girl had sought her out for one of their old confidential chats about nothing in particular. She had been almost glad of the trouble about Jacqueline because for the moment it had brought her close again to her other child. The newly formed alliance was evidently to continue.

She said lightly, "Talk away, then!"

Jemima wandered about the room, examining this thing and that, without attention. "You've never asked me a question about the visit to Mrs. Lawton, nor why I came home sooner than I had expected to."

"I did not dare," admitted Kate, smiling a little. "I was afraid the great experiment had not proved a success."

"Oh, but it was. A great success!—That is not why I came home so soon."

"Why, then?"

Jemima gave a most unexpected answer. "Because I was homesick."

Tears of pure pleasure came into Kate's eyes.

"You see, I'd never been away from home before, and I had no idea how much I should miss you-all. But people were very kind to me; on Professor Jim's account, I think."

"Dear old Jim!" said Kate, softly. "He deserves loyal friends, because he knows so well how to be one.—I have missed him lately. When is he coming home again?"

"To-day. He will be out to-morrow for supper, as usual."

"Oh, yes, it is Friday, isn't it? What an odd idea, that lecture tour!—so unlike Jim. He has always been so shy and retiring. I wonder what made him undertake it?"

"I did," said Jemima.

"You?"

"Why, yes. Some of his lectures seemed to me most unusual, much too good to waste there in Lexington. So when the opportunity was offered to him to speak in several other places, I persuaded him to accept it. We went over the talks together and made them simpler; more popular, you know. Sometimes he forgets that every audience is not composed of scholars."

Kate stared at her child in amused respect. "Do you mean to say you have added literary censorship to your various other accomplishments?"

Jemima smiled deprecatingly. "I was glad to be able to help him a little, after all he has done for us.—Look here, Mother,"—she began to finger the papers on the desk—"do you care at all for Professor Jim?"

"Of course I do!"

"No—I don't mean that way. I mean—Are you ever going to marry him, do you think?"

Kate's speechless surprise was sufficient answer.

"Because if you're not,"—the girl cleared her voice—"don't you think it would be kinder to say so once and for all? You see, if he were sure you would not have him" (suddenly hot color surged over her face), "he might want to marry some one else."

"Old Jim marry! Jemima! What are you driving at? What can you mean?"

"I mean—me," gasped the girl, and suddenly turned and fled from the room.

It took Kate some moments to regain sufficient presence of of mind to follow her. She found her level-headed daughter face downward among the pillows of her bed, sobbing most humanly.

Kate sat down beside her and pulled the golden head over into her arms, where she smoothed and caressed it as she had rarely done since the girl's babyhood.

"Now tell mother all about it. What put such a strange idea into your wise little old pate? Not Jim himself—I'm sure of that."

"Oh, no!—But it isn't a strange idea," protested the muffled voice from her lap. "I don't want to be an old maid—" (sniff, sniff). "He hasn't asked me yet, exactly—but he would if he were quite sure you didn't want him—" (sob). "And I'm twenty years old, now. I want to be married, like other women."

"Only twenty years old!" repeated her mother, gently.

"Oh, I know it sounds young, but it isn't always as young as it sounds" said the girl with unconscious pathos. "Look at me, Mother—I'm older than you, right now! I don't believe I ever was very young."

"But you may be yet," said Kate. "With your first lover, your first baby—Ah, child, child, you must not run the risk of marrying without love! You don't know what love can do to you."

"Yes, I do," whispered Jemima.

"What! You can't tell me you're in love with old Jim?"

The girl sat erect, and propounded certain decided views of hers on love and marriage as earnestly as if her little nose were not pink with embarrassed tears, and her eyes swimming with them like a troubled baby's.

"Being in love doesn't seem as important to me as it does to some people. Of course it's necessary, or the world would not go on. There has to be some sort of glamour to—to make things possible.—But I'm sure it's not a comfortable feeling to live with, any more than hunger would be.—Being in love does quite as much harm as good, anyway. Half the crimes in the world are the result of it, and all the unnecessary children. I don't want love, Mother! It hurts, and it makes fools of otherwise intelligent persons. I shouldn't like, ever, to lose my self-control.—And the feeling doesn't last! Look at you, for instance. I suppose once you were in love with my father?"

Kate nodded.

"And then in a very little while you were in love with—some one else. Did it make you any happier, all that loving, or any better? I think not. Only unhappier, in the long run.—No, no, Mother! I don't want it. I don't want any emotions!"—She spoke with a queer distaste, the same fastidious shrinking with which she had often watched Jacqueline cuddling Mag's baby. "I only want to be safe."

"Marriage isn't always safe, my little girl."

"Mine will be. That's why I've chosen Professor Jim."

Kate made a helpless gesture with her hands. "Child, you don't know what you're giving up! You can't!"

Jemima swallowed hard. The confession she had to make was not easy. "Yes, I do. Because I tried love first, to be sure."

"My dear! You—tried love?"

"There was a young man—You remember, Jacqueline called him 'the most beautiful man in the room'? He was very handsome, and—nice to me. That's why I went to visit Mrs. Lawton, chiefly. I wanted to see more of him.—Whenever he touched my hand, or even my dress, little shivers ran up my back. I—I liked it. That's being in love, isn't it? Sometimes we went driving, in a buggy. Once it was moonlight, and I knew when we started that something was going to happen.—I meant it to. I flirted with him."

"Did you, dear!" murmured the mother, between tears and laughter. "I didn't suppose you knew how!"

"Oh, those things come, somehow. I've watched Jacky.—After a while, he kissed me. But do you know, Mother, that was the end of everything! I stopped having thrills the minute he did it. His mouth was so—so mushy, and his nose seemed to get in the way.—Still, I went on flirting. I wanted to give him every chance.—He didn't kiss me again, though. When we got home I asked him why that was. He said it was because he respected me too much."

She made a scornful gesture, "You see, it's just as I thought! Kisses and all that sort of thing have nothing to do with respect, with real liking. And if my own thrills couldn't outlast one moonlight buggy-ride, they would not do to marry on. It will be better for me to marry on respect."

"But poor Jim!" said Kate, unsteadily. "Must he, too, marry on respect?"

Jemima met her gaze candidly. "Why, no. Men are different, I think, even intellectual ones. He has thrills. I can feel him having them, when I dance with him. That's how I knew he wanted me. And I'm rather glad of it," she finished, her voice oddly kind.

Kate at the moment could think of nothing further to say. The thing was incomprehensible to her, appalling, yet strangely touching. This twenty-year-old girl, groping her way toward safety, that refuge of the middle-aged, as eagerly as other young things grasp at happiness, at romance!—She recalled phrases spoken by another startled mother to another girl quite as headstrong: "You are only a child! He is twice your age! You don't know!"

She did not give them utterance. What was the use? In this, if in nothing else, Jemima was her mother's daughter. She would always make her own decisions.

The girl went on presently to mention various advantages of the proposed marriage.

"Of course Professor Jim is quite rich—Oh, yes, didn't you know that? I asked him his income, and he told me. With that, and the money you have promised me, we can travel and see the world, and keep a good house to come back to. I could do a good deal for Jacqueline, of course. You will visit us, too, whenever you like. It may be my only chance of getting away from Storm, you see. I do not meet many young men, and I'm not the sort they are apt to marry, anyway."

"Are you so anxious to get away from Storm?" interrupted poor Kate. "You said you were homesick for us."

"And will be again, often. But that's a weakness one has to get over. And then, though I have been happy here, I've been unhappy, too. Lonely and a little—ashamed, lately." She forgot for the moment to whom she was speaking. Kate had ceased to be a person, was only "mother" to her, a warm, enfolding comprehension, such as perhaps children are aware of before they come to the hour of birth.—"Oh, it will be good to live among people who don't know, who aren't always staring and whispering behind their hands about us Kildares!" she sighed.

Kate forced herself to say, impartially, "Lexington is not far away. I am afraid there will always be people there who know about us Kildares, dear."

"Lexington?" The girl's lip curled. "You don't suppose I shall let my husband spend the rest of his life in a little place like that! He has been wasted there too long already, he is a brilliant scholar, Mother, far more brilliant than people realize, too modest and simple to make the most of himself. You wait! I'll see to that."

Kate gave up. She lifted her daughter in her arms, and held her close for a long moment.

"You must do whatever you think best, my girl."

"Yes, Mother. I always do," said Jemima.



CHAPTER XXXIII

And so Mrs. Kildare had her second interview with a man who wanted, not herself, but one of her children. It made her feel very old, as if she were becoming a looker-on at life, almost an outsider.

Jemima had firmly led her choice to the door of the office and left him there, with reassuring whispers that were quite audible to the mother within. It was evident that she was bestowing counsel, and straightening his tie, and otherwise preparing him for conquest.

"Well, old Jim?" Kate looked up as he entered with a tremulous smile that drove from his mind irrevocably the fine speech he had prepared.

The professor was attired in new and dapper tweeds; the eye-glasses upon his aristocratic nose had dependent from them a rather broad black ribbon; and the shirtfront across which it dangled was of peppermint-striped silk, its dominant color repeated in silk socks appearing above patent-leather shoes. But dazzling raiment did not seem to produce in the inner man that careless courage which, as a psychologist, he had been led to expect.

"To think of coming to this house, to this room, and asking your permission to—to marry some one else! Kate," he blurted out, "I never felt such a fool in all my life!"

"And you never looked so handsome. Why, Jim, you're a boy again!" She rose and put her two hands on his shoulders, studying his sensitive, plain face, forcing his embarrassed eyes to meet hers. "My dear friend, my dear friend—So after all I am able to give you your happiness," she said softly, and kissed him for the first time in their acquaintance.

In such fashion was her consent to his marriage with Jemima asked and granted; and with it full forgiveness for his treachery to a devotion of over twenty years.

They turned their attention hastily away from sentiment to settlements. Thorpe was astonished by the amount of the dower Kate spoke of settling upon Jemima.

"Why, it is a small fortune! How did you make all this money?"

"Mules," she said. "Also hogs and dairy products, my three specialties. Mustn't the old horse-breeding Kildares turn over in their graves out there at the desecration? When I came into the property, I soon saw that racing stock was a luxury we could not afford, so I used the grass lands for mules instead. We have been lucky. Storm mules have the reputation now that Storm thoroughbreds used to have in Basil's day: and they sell at a far surer profit.

"Then I sent to an agricultural college for the best scientific farmer they had, and the best dairyman—a big expense, but they have paid. Also, we sell our products at city prices, since I persuaded the railroad to give us a spur here. We've cleared most of the land that Basil kept for cover, now, and are using every acre of it.—Oh, yes, I have made money, and I will make more. When I die the girls are going to be rich. The original Storm property will be divided between them then, according to Basil's will, you remember."

"I do remember it," said Thorpe, quietly. "There was another provision in that will.... The girls will never inherit Storm, my dear, because some day Benoix will come back to you."

She looked away out of the window. "I have given up hope, Jim. Months now, and no word from him. He has gone. Philip thinks so, too.—But you are right. If he does come, the girls will not inherit, because I shall marry him. Even if we are old people, I shall marry him."

She had lifted her head, and her voice rang out as it had rung through the prison when she cried to her lover that she would wait.

Thorpe kissed her hand. "And when that happens," he said gently, "I want you to know that Jemima will understand. I can promise that. I shall teach my wife to know her mother better."

She smiled at him, sadly. She suspected that he was promising a miracle he could not perform, counting upon an influencing factor that did not exist. "Was he fatuous enough to believe that Jemima loved him? Her fears for her child's happiness suddenly became fears for the happiness of this life-long friend. She felt that she must warn him.

"I wonder if you know just the sort of woman you are marrying, Jim? Jemima is very intelligent, and like many intelligent people she is a little—ruthless. Honorable, clear-sighted; but hard. She is more her father's child than mine. I do not always understand her, but—I do know that she is not sentimental, Jim dear."

He touched her hand reassuringly. "She has told me that she is not marrying me for love, if that is what you are trying to say. She has given me to understand, quite conscientiously, that she is merely accepting the opportunities I can offer her—I, a dull, middle-aged, dyspeptic don in a backwater college!" he chuckled. "But," he added—and the glow in his eyes was quite boyish—"I have had occasion to observe in Jemima certain symptoms—a proprietary interest in my belongings, for instance, my rooms, my welfare, my health, my—er—personal appearance—which lead me to believe that her regard for me is not entirely intellectual. In fact, I know rather more about Jemima's inner workings, so to speak, than she knows herself. One is not a psychologist for nothing! The—er—the tender passion manifests itself in various ways. Some women love with their emotions, as it were; some, God bless them! with their capable hands and brains."

Kate was deeply touched. "Perhaps you're right, Jim. I hope so, my dear. I do hope so!"

Jacqueline received the news of her sister's engagement with shouts of glee. "What a joke on you, Mummy! What a joke! Old Faithful carried off under your very nose, by your own child! And Jemmy, of all people! That's the way she did to that young man at Goddy's party. Good old Jemmy! When she warms up, I tell you she can trot a heat with the best."

"Jacky, hush!" Kate laughed despite herself. "You're getting too big to use that stable-talk. You would suppose Jemima had actually tried to entice him out of my clutches!"

"And didn't she, didn't she just? Why, you blessed innocent, she's had this up her sleeve for some time! I thought she was being mighty attentive to Goddy, teaching him to dance, and making him ties and all—only it never occurred to me she'd want—this!—Gracious!" she said, suddenly grave, "you don't suppose she kisses him, Mummy?"

"I hope so, dear. Why not? You've kissed him often enough yourself."

"And shall again, the funny old lamb! But not that way. Ugh!"

Mrs. Kildare winced to realize how far the education of her youngest had proceeded without her supervision.

Jacqueline's volatile thoughts had taken a new direction. "That means Jemmy is going away to live. 'Way off to Lexington."

Kate sighed. "Farther than that, if I know Jemima."

"Then," said the girl, slowly, "when—if—I ever go away, you'd be here all alone, Mummy!"

"Mothers expect that, dear. Always we know that some day we shall be left alone. But we do not mind, we are even glad. We risk our lives to give life to our children, and we want them to have it all, life at its fullest. Otherwise we feel that we have been failures, somehow. Breath is such a small part of life!—So when your time comes, too, my girlie, you are not to hesitate because of me. Take your future in your two hands—just as all your many mothers have done before you.—Women have even less right to show cowardice than men" (it was a favorite theme with her), "because they have to be the mothers of men, and the maternal strain is nearly always the dominant—or so Jim Thorpe says—But I don't believe that you, at least, will ever go very far away from your mother!"

She was thinking, of course, of Philip.

Jacqueline was rather pale. Her eyes dropped. "I'm not so sure. I've been thinking lately—Mummy, could I possibly go to New York? I'm so tired of home!"

Kate was troubled. This restlessness was the first indication she had noticed that the affair with Channing might have left its effect. But she said, as if the girl's wish were very natural, "To New York? That's not impossible. It's a long time since I have been out of the State myself, and I've been thinking for some time of taking you and Jemmy for a trip. Suppose we go to New York, all three of us, and buy Jemmy's trousseau? And we'll take Philip, too—it's always pleasant to have a man about. We'll have a regular old orgy of theaters and shops and galleries, such as I used to have sometimes with my father and mother, years ago. Would that please you?"

"Oh, it would be wonderful! But—" the girl crimsoned, "that is not quite what I meant, Mummy darling. When I go to New York, I want to stay. For years."

"Years! But why?"

"To study music. To begin my career."

Kate sat down in the nearest chair. Since childhood Jacqueline had been talking at intervals about this career of hers, an ambition varying in scope from journalism to, more latterly, the operatic stage. It was a favorite family joke, Jacqueline's career. And here it stared her suddenly in the face, no longer a joke. Jacqueline was in earnest.

She watched her mother's face anxiously. "I know it would be horribly expensive, lessons and all. But we can afford to be expensive, can't we?"

Kate's lips set. "We can, but we won't. Not in the matter of careers. What put this into your head, my girl?"

"It's always been there, I think. But you remember Mr. Channing spoke to you—"

"Ah, yes, Mr. Channing! I do remember; but that is hardly a recommendation that appeals to me," said Kate, drily.

"Mr. Channing has heard all the great singers of the world, and knows them, too." Jacqueline spoke with a firmness new to her. "And if he says I have a voice, I have. I ought to waste no more time, Mother."

"I also have a 'voice,' my dear, and I've found it extremely useful without having recourse to a career."

"How—useful!"

"Singing lullabies to my children, for one thing. It did not seem to me a waste of time—No, no, my girlie, no stage women in this family! We've been conspicuous enough without that."

"Would you really mind so very much?" asked Jacqueline, wistfully.

"So much," answered her mother, smiling but grave, "that I should lock you into the cellar on a bread-and-water diet, at the first hint of such a thing! Understand me, I forbid it absolutely. You may put this nonsense out of your head."

Kate had rarely occasion to speak to her children in such a tone, and Jacqueline looked at her, rather frightened. But she said nothing.

"Why, Jacqueline, little daughter, why should you spend your youth and your loveliness on a public that will cast you aside like an old glove when it is worn out? No, no, there's a larger purpose for you in life than any mere career. Careers are for the women who miss the other things, and who use in default the best they have. Fame, bah! It does not outlast a generation—or if it does, you will not know it. What you have to give will outlast many generations, will never die, will become part of the muscle and sinew and back-bone of your nation. Sons! Big, clean, lusty, well-born children!—Why, don't you suppose you and my clever Jemima—yes, and even my little crippled Katharine—were better gifts for me to bring the world than a mere passing pleasure in my voice?—Ah, Jacky, there's just one career open to women like you and me. You know very well what it is."

The girl was oddly stirred. When her mother spoke like this, she always thought, for some reason, of a statue she had never seen, a great bronze Liberty, with torch aloft, lighting into her safe harbor the ships of all the world.

But she said, after a moment, "You put me on a par with Mag Henderson, Mother. Has she fulfilled the purpose of her creation, then?"

Kate was startled anew. Jacqueline in the role of thinker was unexpected. But she answered, honestly as always, "I believe she has. Nature often makes use of unworthy vessels to accomplish her own ends—poor little vessels! Mag is waste, perhaps. Her child will not be waste.—I'll see to that. So the balance of economy is kept.—But you are no unworthy vessel, Jacqueline, thank God!"

The girl went to the window and stood looking out, over the garden that merged into a pasture, and so down gradually into the ravine where the ruined slave-house stood.

"Suppose," she asked in a muffled voice, "suppose I couldn't marry? What then?"

Kate believed she understood. The affair with Channing had left more of a hurt than she had realized. Jacqueline, at seventeen, doubtless considered herself a blighted being.—She controlled the smile that twitched at her lips, and said cheerfully, "Then you will just have to be a prop for my declining years. You won't begrudge me a prop, dear? Surely you don't want to go away from me?"

The unconscious emphasis on the pronoun went to Jacqueline's heart. She remembered the day Jemima had shut them out into the world of people who were not Kildares, she and her mother together....

She came back at a run, and plumped herself down on Kate's knees, great girl that she was, hiding her face in that sheltering breast, holding her mother tight, tight, as if she could never let her go.

Kate returned the embrace with interest. She, too, remembered.

"It will be something bigger than a career that takes you away from your mother!" she whispered.

"Something bigger than a career," echoed Jacqueline, clinging closer.



CHAPTER XXXIV

Kate broached the subject of the New York trip at supper that night, but met with no encouragement whatever from her elder daughter, somewhat to her surprise.