"What is the use of buying an expensive trousseau? Mag sews quite well enough, and anyway I have more clothes now than I know what to do with," she argued practically. "If you think I haven't enough lingerie and all that, I can take some of Jacky's. It seems rather mean to desert a man just as soon as you get engaged to him. Besides, James and I shall be going to New York next month, on our wedding-trip."

"Next month?" cried Kate.

"Why, yes, Mother. There's no use putting it off, I think. James has been alone so many years; and he certainly needs some one to look after him. If you could see the pile of perfectly good socks in his closet that only need a little darning!" She spoke unsentimentally as ever; but there was a tone in her voice that made her mother give her hand a little squeeze.

"Very well, dear. You shall be married to-morrow, if you like."

"To-morrow is a little soon. Suppose we say three weeks from to-day?"

Kate gasped, but consented.

Preparations for the wedding went on apace at Storm, though it was to be a very quiet affair, not the fashionable ceremony, with bridesmaids and champagne, for which Jemima's heart privately yearned.

"I don't know any girls well enough to ask them to be bridesmaids," she explained wistfully to her fiance, who made a mental note to supply her with young women friends hereafter, if he had to hire them.

Nevertheless, it was something of a ceremony. The Madam did not have a daughter married every day. For days beforehand the negroes were busy indoors and out, cleaning, painting and whitewashing, exhibiting a tendency to burst into syncopated strains of Lohengrin whenever Jemima or the Professor came into view. The kitchen chimney belched forth smoke like a factory; for though no invitations were sent out, it was inevitable that the countryside, white and black, would arrive to pay its respects to the newly wedded, and Big Liza, with an able corps of assistants, was preparing to welcome them in truly feudal fashion.

Gifts began to arrive, silver and glass and china from friends of the Professor and business connections of Mrs. Kildare. A magnificent service of plate came from Jemima's great-aunt, for whom she was named. ("We must make friends with Aunt Jemima, James," was the bride's thoughtful comment on the arrival of this present.) Philip could not afford to buy a handsome enough gift, and so parted with the bronze candelabra which Farwell had so covetously admired; a sacrifice which did much to break down the hauteur of the bride's recent manner with him. She knew how well he loved his few Lares and Penates.

There were other presentations of less conventional nature. These Professor Thorpe, whom the panting Ark conveyed nightly from the university to Storm and back again, eyed with a mixture of interest and dismay.

"This suckling pig, now," he murmured. "How are we to accommodate him in a city apartment, Jemima? And that highly decorative rooster—I fear we shall have some difficulty in persuading my janitor to accept him as an inmate. Do you suppose all your mother's tenants will feel called upon to supply us with livestock?"

"Oh, no, Goddy! Look at this crazy quilt," chuckled Jacqueline, busily unwrapping parcels, "It is made of the Sunday dresses of all Mrs. Sykes' friends and relations. She thought it might remind Jemmy of home. It will. Oh, it will! You've only to look at it and you'll see the entire congregation nodding over one of Phil's sermons!" She made a little face at the cleric, who responded by rumpling her hair. "Then the Housewives' League mother organized has crocheted enough perfectly hideous lace for all the sheets and things. Your bed-linen is going to bristle with it like a porcupine."

"It's very good of them," said Jemima, reprovingly. "As for the livestock, James, we can eat it.—Look at this barrel of potatoes, and these home-cured hams, and all the pickle. Stop laughing at my friends!"

Thorpe murmured meek apologies.

The evening before the wedding, Big Liza came striding into the hall where the family sat assembled, bearing aloft a large round object wrapped in newspaper.

"Huh! Look at what dat 'ooman Mahaly had the owdaciosity to bring fo' a bridal gif'!" she snorted, swelling with indignation. "Reck'n she 'lows dey ain't nary a cook at Sto'm good enough to make no bride-cake. Allus was a biggity, uppity piece, dat Mahaly!"

She placed it on a table, and waddled scornfully out again.

The professor undid the wrappings in a somewhat gingerly manner. There was an element of the unexpected about his wedding-gifts which intrigued curiosity. This time he gave a rather startled exclamation, blushed and backed away.

It was a mammoth white cake, which bore, besides certain garlands and other decorations of a distinctly Cubist tendency, the legend done in silver candies: FOR THE BABY.

"D-dear me!" murmured the professor, hastily shrouding it once more in its wrappings.

"That means Jemima," smiled Kate. "To Mahaly, Jemmy has always been 'The Baby.' She nursed her, you know."

"Nursed me—that mulatto woman who lives in the white people's neighborhood? I never knew that," said the girl. "How strange! She never comes here with the other old servants, even at Christmas time, and I've never gone to see her. Why was I not told?"

Kate did not answer.

"Did you have to dismiss her, Mother—was it that? Was she dishonest, or something of the sort?"

"No," said Kate, with an odd reluctance. "She was a very good servant in every way, and perfectly devoted to you and to little Katharine."

Jemima looked at her in surprise. It was very unlike the Madam to lose touch with any creature, human or otherwise, who had once faithfully served her. She waited for an explanation.

"Mahaly has never come to Storm," said Kate in a low voice, "since your father's death. She was his servant for many years before I came here."

"Oh!" said Jemima. The negress had evidently been one of her father's loyal supporters, resenting what she must have seen at Storm. "I see! In that case, Mother, I should like to do something for her. People who are faithful to my father—"

There was an uncomfortable stir in the room.

"Mahaly has been given the cottage in which she lives, as a present from you and little Katharine," interrupted Kate.

"I am glad of that," said the girl with a certain stateliness. "I was going to say that people who are faithful to my father must never be forgotten by his children."

"Nor by his wife," said Kate, with quiet dignity....

Despite the preoccupation of the wedding, Kate did not make the mistake of neglecting Jacqueline's affairs. She had had her warning. Moreover, though she would have denied it even to herself, the younger girl had come to occupy a far larger share of her heart than had even been given to the self-reliant Jemima. She had felt, lately (and the thought frightened her) that in watching Jacqueline she was watching her own youth over again. What possibilities lay in the girl's nature for strength and weakness, for hot-headed folly, for sacrifice and passion and unselfish service, she knew as do those who have been the victims of such natures themselves. Jacqueline, if it were in human possibility to compass it, should profit by her mother's bitter mistakes.

She redoubled her vigilance on learning that Channing had after all not left the vicinity. Philip had passed him one day in one of Farwell's machines, and hastened to report the encounter at Storm.

"Perhaps he has come back for your wedding," she said thoughtfully to Thorpe.

The Professor's lips closed grimly. "He is not invited to my wedding. J. Percival and I have, so to speak, severed diplomatic relations. Look out for him, Kate!"

Philip, too, was not so certain as she that Channing was keeping to his promise with regard to Jacqueline.

But the girl was under her mother's eye all day long, excited as Jemima herself over the preparations, stitching with unwonted diligence on the bridal finery, running errands, seeing visitors, happy and busy and asking nothing better than to be with Kate or her sister whatever they were about. It was a little touching to both, as if the madcap girl had suddenly realized that the old companionship of home was about to be broken up, and wanted to have as much of it as possible.

There was no hour in the full days when she might have seen Channing, even had she wished. And Jemima continued to watch her mail with a hawk's eye.

Channing's word of honor not to communicate with the girl would have seemed, in itself, an insufficient safeguard to Kate, had not her knowledge of men reassured her. She believed that her daughter was not the type to arouse more than a passing interest in such a man as Channing. Her beauty, her flattered response to his attentions, her fresh, unsophisticated charm of gaiety, might well appeal to him for a time, adding the fillip of the unaccustomed to a jaded palate. But it was an appeal that must be constantly renewed, that would not outlast any continued absence. She believed that Channing, while he would accept with eagerness whatever good thing came to his hand, was too indolent and too self-centered to overcome many obstacles in the pursuit of a fancy.

Jacqueline herself was reassuring, too. Her manner of receiving the news of Channing's perfidy had showed her no stranger to the Kildare pride. She seemed to regard the affair as a closed incident.

"Do you think," said Kate proudly to Philip, "that my daughter would care to have anything to do with the man, now that she knows his utter unworthiness?"

"It is just possible that she was attracted to Channing by other qualities than worthiness," commented Philip. "Weakness, for instance. Women have been attracted by weakness before this."

"Phil, Phil," Kate laughed, "you are an 'elderly young man,' as Jacky says! Almost as elderly and wise as our Jemima. Stop croaking and come and see the new wedding garments Mag is putting on my old chairs."

She flung an affectionate arm about him, and led him indoors, his heart beating too hard and suddenly to make further speech possible just then.—Yet there was much he wished to say, and not about Jacqueline. These wedding preparations stirred certain yearnings in his breast, certain eager hopes. It seemed to him that his lady was warmer lately, more approachable, more present, somehow. Was she, too, stirred by all this thought and talk of marriage? It was hard to wait patiently. Yet he was too good a horseman to rush his fences.

Mag on her knees, her mouth full of pins, was cleverly fitting slips of gay-flowered cretonne over the masculine chairs and sofas, assisted, or at least not hindered, by Jacqueline.

"The old hall won't know itself, will it?" cried the latter, waving them a welcome. "All got up in ruffles and things, looking as frivolous as the lion in the circus with a bow on his tail!"

She ran after her disappearing mother with some question, and Philip, finding himself alone with Mag, was reminded of a certain duty he had to perform.

He stood a moment gazing down at her, she so intent upon her labors that she did not notice he was there. As always, the pathos of the girl moved him strongly; so young she was to be already one of life's failures, so helplessly a victim of early environment. Believed from care and hardship, well-fed and well-clothed and sheltered, she had grown sleek and soft and pretty as a petted kitten, and there should have been a look of content about her which he missed. Her mouth drooped a little, and now and then a visible shadow crossed her face.

He sighed. Rumor was once again busy with the name of Mag Henderson. Sometimes Philip wearied of his job as the neighborhood's spiritual policeman.

He asked gently: "Mag, you're not happy here at Storm?"

She looked up with a start. "Why—I didn't know no one was there! Why, yes, sir. They're real good to me and baby here."

"And you like your work, don't you?"

Again he noticed the shadow on her face. "I reckon so—as well as I'd like any work." People were always frank with Philip. "A gal gits kind o' tired of workin' all the time, though. I make dresses and trim hats for most of the ladies round about, now, and they pay me good, too. But...."

"But it's all work and no play, eh?"

"That's it," she said, grateful for his understanding. "I don't never have no fun. I ain't got no gen'leman friends, nor nothing. What's the use of havin' good clothes, and lookin' pretty and all, ef you don't get to go somewhere so that folks kin see you? I'm tired of bein' looked down on," she complained fretfully. "I ain't got a friend on this place 'cep'n Miss Jacky, and now she—"

Mag stopped short. Philip wondered what she had been about to say, but he was too good a confessor to force confidences.

"You've always got the Madam," he said.

"Yes, but she don't care nothing about me. She's kind enough, but so's she kind to any cur dog that comes along. What am I to her?"

"You've got your baby, Mag."

But the childish, fretful face did not soften. "Babies are more trouble than company to a person. Besides, she likes Miss Jacky now bettern't her own mammy. She cries to go to her from me.—It's fun I want, like other gals. Everybody, it seems like, has fun but me, even the niggers. Parties, and picnics, and weddin's and all—Oh, my, but don't I wisht I was Miss Jemmy!"

Evidently the wedding preparations had stirred longings in more hearts than Philip's.

"Even if she is marryin' an old man an' a cast-off beau of her ma's, look at the ring he give her! A di'mon' big as my thumb-nail. She let me put it on my finger once, and it looked grand. Oh, my, I'd do 'most anything for a ring like that!"

"Would you, really, Mag?" he asked curiously, wondering at the fascination shining bits of stone possess for women far more civilized than this little savage. "Do you think a diamond ring would make you any happier?"

"In co'se it would," she said, impatiently.

"Why?"

"Oh, I dunno—it would make me look prettier, I expect."

He said, kindly: "You do not need to look any prettier. You are quite pretty enough, as it is."

Her whole expression changed. She gave him a conscious upward glance. "Am I? Why, Mr. Philip, I never thought a preacher'd notice how a gal looked!"

It told him all and more than he wanted to know. He continued to meet her gaze with grave eyes, and after a moment her own dropped.

"'T ain't much use bein' pretty round here," she muttered. "The city's the place for pretty gals."

"Who told you that? The drummer I saw you talking with behind the village store a few days ago?"

She tossed her head. "Well, what if it was? I got the right to pass the time o' day with a fellow, ain't I? You'd suppose I was in prison!"

Philip sought out his lady again with a troubled heart. "Sorry to croak any more at this busy time, but Mag will bear watching. She's been seen about with men once or twice lately."

Kate sighed with exasperation. "'Give a dog a bad name.' I shall have to acquire the hundred eyes of Argus to keep up with my household nowadays, it seems!"

It was not the first warning that had come to her about her protegee. Big Liza, for years her confidential friend and ally, had said to her one day: "Dat white gal ain't keerin' so much about de chile no mo', Miss Kate. She's allus a-leavin' her with me, ef Miss Jacky ain't got her. Gawd He knows I ain't complainin' about havin' a chile aroun', seein' as how I done raise nine of my own, right heah under ma kitchen stove, like so many little puppy-dawgs. But dey wuz cullud chillun, an' dat's diffunt. Is dishyer hot kitchen any place to raise up a w'ite chile in? Now I ax you! 'Pears to me like dat gal don' keer for nothin' no mo' but traipsin' down to de sto' an' gallivantin' roun' de roads wid her fine clo'es on. She ain't no better'n a yaller nigger gal!"

Kate asked reluctantly (she did not take kindly to spying), "Have you ever seen her with men, Liza?"

The black woman compressed her lips. "No'm, Miss Kate, I ain't nebber prezackly seed 'em—but laws, honey, dat kin' ob goin's-on don't aim to be seed!"

Now that she had a more definite rumor to go by, Kate said sorrowfully to Philip, "You told me it was a mistake to bring her here in the first place. It seems to me I make a great many mistakes!" She sighed again.

"At least," said he, "they are the sort of mistakes that will get you into heaven."

She laughed mirthlessly. "You always talk, you clergymen, as if you had special advices from heaven in your vest-pockets!"

But she was comforted, nevertheless. She would have found it hard to do without Philip's steady adulation.



CHAPTER XXXV

The night after the wedding proved to be for Kate Kildare one of the nuits blanches that were becoming common with her in the past few weeks. For many years the cultivated habit of serenity had carried her through whatever crises came into her life, following her days of unremitting labor with nights of blessed oblivion. But lately she found herself quite often waking just before daylight, with that feeling of oppression, that blank sense of apprehension, that is the peculiar property of "the darkest hour."

This night she occupied her brain as soothingly as possible with details of the wedding; smiling to remember the unaccustomed frivolity of the old hall, which the negroes had decorated with flowers and ribbons placed in all likely and unlikely places. Every antler sported its bow of white; the various guns which hung along the walls, as they had hung in the days of Basil's grandfather, each trailed a garland of blossoms; even the stuffed racehorse was not forgotten, so that he appeared to be running his final race with Death while incongruously munching roses.

Jacqueline as bridesmaid was, oddly enough, the only one of the wedding-party who seemed in the least upset. She was white as a sheet and trembling visibly, and when Philip greeted Jemima formally as "Mrs. Thorpe," she suddenly burst into tears, and refused to be comforted.

"He's so old!" she sobbed on her mother's shoulder. "Oh, poor Blossom! He's so old!"

Yet the bridegroom had looked to Kate's eyes amazingly young; and as he stood gazing down at the exquisite little white-clad figure beside him, there was such an expression of pride in his face, of incredulous, reverent happiness, that it was all his new mother-in-law could do to keep from kissing him before the ceremony was over.

Jemima herself was as calm as might have been expected; perhaps calmer. At the critical moment, when Philip's grave voice was beginning: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God"—the bride was heard to murmur to her attendant, "Jacky, pull my train out straight." Thereafter, she fixed her eye upon a certain flintlock rifle over the mantel-piece, which had won the first Kentucky Kildare his way into the virgin wilderness, and went through the ceremony with the aplomb of a general directing his forces into battle. The mother wondered what the girl was thinking of, staring so fixedly at the old rifle. Perhaps she was vowing to be worthy of it in the new wilderness she was about to tread.

Afterwards for an hour or so Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe had graciously received the uninvited guests of both colors who had come "to see the bride off." Then the two sisters went upstairs together to change into the going-away dress; and Kate, presently following, found Jemima alone.

"I thought you would come, Mother. That's why I sent Jacky away."

Kate, a little tremulous herself, had counted upon the bride's composure to carry the day; but behold! it was suddenly a thing of the past. She ducked her head and ran into her mother's arms as if she were trying to hide from something, breathless, panic-stricken; and Kate soothed her silently with tender hands.

Presently Jemima whispered in a queer little voice, "Mother? Now that we are both married women, tell me—Was my father—was my father good to you?"

"My little girl! You need never worry about Jim's being good to you."

"Oh, Jim—of course!—I'm not thinking of him, I'm thinking of you. If—if my father was not good to you, I can understand—I see—"

Then Kate realized what she was trying to say. This cold, proud child of hers was willing to give up her pride in her father, if so be she might hold fast again to the old faith in her mother.

The temptation was great, but Kate put it from her. She could not rob dead Basil of his child's respect.

"You must never blame your father, dear, for any weakness of mine," she said, steadily.

But the girl still clung to her, whispering another strange thing. "Often, when I am half awake, I remember some one—Not you, Mother. Some one with a deep laugh, whose coat feels smooth on my cheek—who used to toss me up in the air, and play with me, and pet me if I was frightened. I always want to cry when he goes.—Is that my father, Mother?"

A pulse beat thickly in Kate's throat. She had some difficulty in answering. "Perhaps. Who knows? A baby's dreams, dear. But cling to them, cling to them—"

She knew very well it was not Jemima's father, but the man who should have been her father, Jacques Benoix. So, after all, the first loves of life are not forgotten, even by Jemimas....

Lying there, despite the depressing hour, content stole over her; a feeling that all was well with her elder child, at least.

She turned her thoughts to Jacqueline. There, too, things were going better. None of Philip's growing interest and tenderness for his little playmate had escaped her notice. Motherwise, she exaggerated these into symptoms of greater import. Blunderer that she was, she had at least managed to bring the child safe through the perils of a first passion, that rock upon which so many young lives wreck, even as hers had wrecked. In the rebound from the affair with Channing, the girl could not fail to appreciate the superior charm of Jacques' big and simple son, who was so much like Jacques himself. She was sure that Jacqueline already loved Philip without suspecting it. Women ere this have loved two men at once.

Then, as suddenly as pain that has been waiting for the first motion on the part of its victim to pounce, the apprehension she had been fighting came back upon her, twofold.—Was she so certain? And had she not in her blundering life been certain of too many things? That she would be a true wife to Basil Kildare, for instance; that she could justify Jacques before the world; that at least she might atone to him for all he had lost through her. And in each of these things she had been wrong. She, with all her boast of efficiency, she the successful Mrs. Kildare of Storm, what was she in the end but a failure—a wife whose husband had not trusted her, a woman who had ruined her lover's life, a mother whose daughter married without love, to get away from her?

She wondered, as at all such moments, what was the purpose for which she had been created; or whether there had indeed been a purpose. This humanity that takes itself so seriously, may it be after all only a superior sort of spider-egg, hatching out in due season, spinning busy webs for the world to brush away, laying other eggs, and so on, ad infinitum? Perhaps the God of simple people, such as her mother and Philip Benoix and Brother Bates, the God upon whom she herself called at times because of the force of early habit—perhaps He was only life-principle—the warmth of the sun, for instance—an impersonal, intangible something which started the universe as one winds a clock, and left it to go on ticking till the mechanism runs down.... Good or bad, wise or foolish—what difference? Spin our webs no matter how carefully, they are only gossamer, visible for a moment with the dew or the frost upon them and then—vanished. Human and spider alike, unnoted, innumerable, self-perpetuating....

Poor Kate Kildare! When natures such as hers lose their self-reliance, life becomes as unsubstantial as an opium dream. If they cannot count upon themselves, what then may they count upon?

She jumped out of bed, and went to the window, where she stood for a while in the cold starlight, letting the wind blow in across her feverish face. She wrapped blankets around her, and sat listening to the sounds of the sleeping country; an owl mournfully hooting, a premature cock crowing lustily, the drowsy whickering of horses stirring in their stalls; for it was two o'clock, and the countryside was beginning to dream of day. She stayed for a long while brooding over the land she loved, as over a sleeping child. Always the great out-of-doors had its balm for her....

Suddenly she sat erect. In the shadows back of the stables something had moved. One of the dogs, perhaps? Then out into the starlight, crossing rapidly toward the house, flitted the slight figure of a girl, with several of the dogs leaping and gamboling about her in a silence that showed her to be no stranger. She was shrouded in a long hooded cape, and passed out of Kate's range too quickly lo be recognizable.

"Now which of the wenches was that?" thought Kate, frowning. The amorous adventures of their black servants have come to be accepted by Southern housekeepers with unenquiring philosophy. "But why was she coming to the house at this hour?" she wondered further.

The negroes had their quarters well at the back, and no one slept in the "great house" with Kate and her daughters, except the housewoman, Ella, too elderly for midnight adventure, and Mag Henderson, who with her baby occupied a room in the guest-wing, under the Madam's immediate supervision.

She listened acutely. Her bedroom door rattled a little in the draught of another door which opened and closed. She heard an unmistakable creaking of the back stairs that led to a hall behind her room and the girls' rooms, and which also led to the guest-wing.

"It's Mag!" she thought.

In the morning, anxious and distressed, she hurried to consult Philip. He shrugged. "I'm not surprised, but I honestly don't know how to advise you, Miss Kate. I never wanted you to take her to Storm, but now that she's there, I suppose only the devil himself would get her away from you."

"It looks as if the devil were going to have a try at it," she commented, grimly.

"Are you perfectly sure it was Mag?"

"No, I'm not. It was too dark to see her face, and she was wrapped in a big cape.—Now that I come to think of it, it was the cape we always keep hanging by the side door for whoever happens to be going out. None of the negroes would dare to put that on. So it must have been Mag."

"At least we must be definitely sure before we say anything to her. It is a delicate matter. Sometimes a lack of trust at the wrong moment.—Be very sure, Miss Kate!"

"I'll watch to-night. Perhaps the poor little fool will try to slip off again."

* * * * *

Midnight found the Madam seated at her dark window, dressed and fully prepared for any emergency—except that she happened to be asleep. Black coffee had not been sufficient to offset the treacherously soothing effect of a rain-laden breeze full of soft earth-odors, that blew across her eyelids. She might have slept there placidly till morning, had not a clap of thunder awakened her with a start.

The night had become very tense and still. The trees seemed to hold themselves rigid, as if they listened for something. Now and then, lightning stabbed viciously through the dark. Beneath her the old house creaked, bracing itself once more to meet the onslaught of its life-long enemy, the wind. Far away across the plateau came a faint rushing sound, that grew in volume rapidly. Once again the thunder boomed.

Kate rose, yawning. "No amorous adventures for Mag to-night, that's certain! It's going to be the first big storm of the season. There's bite as well as bark in that sky."

But at the moment, a flash of lightning showed her a slight girl's figure running, not toward, but away from the house.

Kate was startled. "It's serious then, poor silly creature, if she goes out on a night like this!" For Mag had even more than the usual cowardice of her class. Thunder-storms reduced her to abject terror.

For a moment Kate thought of following, before she realized the folly of the idea. How could she hope to catch so fleet a pair of heels, already lost in the darkness? Then a faint cry came to her, the sound of a child wailing forlornly.

She slipped out into the passage, careful not to wake Jacqueline. Whatever was to be done with Mag, one duty lay plain before her—to comfort the deserted baby.

She opened Mag's door without knocking.—The baby was not deserted. Mag herself stood at the window in her nightdress, cringing from the lightning, and wringing her hands and weeping. The baby wept in sympathy.

When she saw who had entered, Mag ran forward with a terrified cry, and fell on her knees, clinging to Kate's skirts as a dog crouches against its master to escape a beating.

"'T ain't my fault, 't ain't my fault! I done begged her not to go to-night, I done prayed her, Miss Kate! Oh, oh, look at that lightnin'! She'll be kilt!"

"What are you talking about? Pull yourself together, Mag!" Even then the truth did not dawn on Kate. She thought she must have been the victim of some optical illusion. Mag had to tell her in so many words.

"Miss Jacky's gone to meet her fella again, and I know she's goin' to git kilt!"

Kate reeled against the wall. "Again?" she whispered.

"I done begged her not to, no more. I knowed he'd git her into trouble if she kep' it up.—Oh, I helped 'em, and toted notes for 'em, an' all, 'cause I liked to see her so happy—but I didn't never think it would come to this! I'd 'a' tol' you if I dared, Miss Kate, but I dassent, I dassent. She liked me—she kissed me once. Oh, oh, and now she's gone!"

Kate forced her stiff lips into speech. "This—has been going on for some time?"

"Yes'm, right smart. Ever since he was sick here. I took'n him a letter from her the day he went away."

Even in that moment, Kate's whirling brain did Channing justice. He had kept his word, the letter of it, at least. He had not sought Jacqueline. It was she who had sought him.

She was getting back her breath. "Now," she said, "where shall I find them?"

Mag's wails broke forth anew. "I dunno! Reckon it's too late. Oh, my Lordy! I took'n her bag to the Ruin before supper, and he was to come for her there at midnight. Reckon it's past that now. They've done gone!"

"Gone?" The word was a gasping cry. "Gone—where?"

"I dunno. The city, I reckon, or wherever he lives at.—Oh, my Gawd, lissen at that!" The wind struck the house a great buffet, and the thunder was rattling steadily as artillery now.

Kate's knees refused to support her. She held herself upright by clinging to the bed.

The sight of the Madam thus stricken and speechless sobered Mag out of her own fears. She bethought herself suddenly of the letter Jacqueline had left for her mother.

"Here! Maybe it says in the letter where she's gone at. Don't look that way, Miss Kate! I wa'n't to give you the letter till mornin', but here it is. You kin have it now, see, Miss Kate!"

Only a few sentences of the long, incoherent screed in her hand penetrated to Kate's brain.

I can't bear to leave you, I just can't bear it; but I love him so, Mummy!—He needs me, and you don't. He can't finish his book without me.—We're going abroad, and I'll study my singing while he writes. Some day you'll be proud of your little girl—You said when the time came to take my life in my two hands, and it's come. You know it is not his fault that we can't be married right away—but what does all that matter? You'll be the first to understand, because I'm doing just what you would have done for Philip's father, if it hadn't been for us children. I know! I understand you so well, darling Mummy. I'm your own child.—We're not niggardly lovers, you and I! We're not afraid to give all we have—

Kate uttered a hoarse exclamation, and dropped the letter. Her moment of helplessness had passed. She ran down stairs, two steps at a time, Mag at her heels. She jerked open the side door, and was almost driven from her feet by a great gust of driving rain. It was Mag who wrapped around her the first cloak that came to hand, the big, hooded cape Jacqueline had worn the night before, Kate stopped for nothing except to seize the rawhide whip which hung on its accustomed nail beside the door.

"What you goin' to do with that?" gasped Mag.

"My pistols are upstairs," muttered the other.

Mag stood at the door as long as she could, catching glimpses as the lightning flashed of a shrouded, hooded figure running with the wind, fast, fast, like some wild witch abroad upon the elements.



CHAPTER XXXVI

It seemed to Kate presently, as she ran, that the wind was a friend, trying to help her. The driving rain on her face cleared her brain. Even the lightning was a friend, for without it she could not have seen a foot of her way ahead in the blackness.

Each time it flashed she stared about her, hoping to catch sight of Jacqueline. Suddenly she lifted up her voice and prayed aloud: "God, if You are up there, if there really is a You, now's Your chance to prove it! You hear me, God?" It was more a challenge than a prayer.

She knew that the girl had perhaps twenty minutes' start of her, but she might yet overtake her, and in this storm Channing might well be late. She slipped as she started down the ravine, and fell and rolled half way, bruising herself on tree roots and boulders, the wet grass soaking her to the skin.—No matter, it lost her no time. She fought her way through dripping, clinging underbrush to the ruins of the slave-house. The lightning showed it empty.—Could she have passed Jacqueline somehow in the darkness? She dared not wait to see, but ran on into the lane beyond. Nobody was in sight.

"I am too late!" she moaned, wringing her hands. "What shall I do now?"

She was convinced that Channing had already come for Jacqueline. She started running down the road, as if she might overtake the automobile on foot.

If she had waited at the cabin for a second lightning flash, she could not have failed to notice the traveling-bag left by Mag beside the door. Jacqueline, slipping into one of the stables to escape the first brunt of the storm, had lingered a moment to say good-by to her friends the horses; and it was at that moment that her mother passed. Kate had reached the Ruin first.

But she did not know it. When at the turn of the road she saw the glare of a headlight, she thought, "He's got her!" She was nearly exhausted by this time, too dazed to realize that the machine was approaching, not leaving, Storm. She gripped her rawhide whip and stepped directly into the path of the automobile.

It swerved violently, and came to a stand not a foot from her.

"Good God, Jacqueline! I almost ran you down," cried Channing. "Quick, jump in. You must be soaked to the bone, you plucky little darling!"

Quick as thought, Kate pulled open the door of the tonneau and slipped in behind. His mistake had stimulated her failing wits. Let him think her Jacqueline as long as possible! She choked back a laugh of rising excitement.

"You're wise—it's drier there than in front. Gad, what a storm! I was almost afraid it would scare you off. But I might have known better!"

Kate, listening acutely, detected a rather odd expression about the last words, and wondered suddenly whether Jacqueline's nonappearance might not have been something of a relief to Mr. Channing. Her eyes glittered, and she drew the shrouding hood closer about her face.

He had started the engine, and was turning the machine around. So far he had given her no opportunity to speak, and had to shout himself to be heard above the noise of the engine and the storm.

"We're going to have a run for it. I've arranged to have the 12:45 stop a second to take us on, and I'm late—This damned wind!"

The powerful car leaped forward. On two wheels it made the turn of the road, full into the teeth of the storm. Channing bent over his wheel. "Plenty of time to talk afterwards. Hold on tight!" His voice blew back to her, faint in the roar of the blast.

Kate settled back for the wild ride with a smile on her face, just such a grim, gay little smile as her daughter had worn when she led her cavalry charge against the Night Riders. She was secure from discovery for a few precious moments; while back there at the mouth of the ravine the real Jacqueline waited, bag in hand, anxious, crying a little perhaps, watching for a lover who would not appear.—Let her cry! She was safe there, safe with the friendly storm, the wind, the rain, and the lightning that do nothing worse than kill.

Far away across the wide plateau before them sounded the shrill whistle of a train. It shot into sight, a long, slim, glittering thing, flying a pennant of fiery smoke. Kate laughed exultingly. She never heard these trains shrieking their way through the darkness without a shuddering memory of her night of vigil in Frankfort, listening for the one which was to carry away her child, and which had taken instead the man she loved better than any child. She was a little beyond herself now, a little exaltee, as the French say, with the excitement of the moment; and it seemed to her that the approaching train was an old enemy upon whom she was about to be avenged by robbing it of its prey.

"Hurry, hurry!" she cried, leaning forward, forgetting in her excitement that she must not speak.

Charming laughed back over his shoulder. "You joy-rider! We're doing the best we can now—but we'll make it."

They drew up at the platform just as the train paused, a grinning porter waiting on the step with his box.

"Got your bag? Run for it," cried Channing, and followed through the pelting rain with his own luggage.

The train started even as the chuckling porter helped her on.

"Stateroom fo' N'Yawk,—yessir, yessir! Right in dis way, miss. I done seed you-all comin'. You suttinly did tek yo' foot in yo' han' an' trabbel—yessir! yes, suh!"

"Lord, what a run!" Channing was saying behind her. "I left the engine going, too—old Morty will be furious when he finds her! You must be wet as an otter in spite of that great cape.—Well, little sweetheart, here we are! Let 's—"

He stopped short. Kate had turned, slipping the cape from her shoulders.—There they were, indeed. The train sped on, gathering speed with each mile.

She began to laugh, softly at first, then more and more heartily, till her whole body shook and the tears streamed down her face. The romance-loving porter, listening outside, chuckled in sympathy. Channing essayed a sickly smile.

She stopped as suddenly as she had begun, and a silence fell.

Channing broke it, of course. It was his misfortune in moments of emergency always to become chatty.

"You have taken me by surprise, really!—I—I didn't recognize you at first. That cape—Look here, this isn't entirely my fault. You must know that! I meant to keep my word, I tried to. But Jacqueline would insist upon seeing me to—to prove that she trusted me. I told her it wouldn't do. She said she had made no promise.—Oh, hang it all, how could I help myself, with the girl throwing herself at my head like that? I'm no anchorite."

"No?" murmured Kate.

"No, certainly not! That is.—Look here, it's not what you think at all! I've been meeting her at night—it was the only way we could manage. But I am a gentleman, you know."

"Yes?" murmured Kate.

He tried again, perspiring freely. "This looks bad, I know, but I assure you—Jacqueline understands that I mean to marry her as soon as things are definitely settled. She understands me absolutely, the only woman, perhaps, who ever has. She has temperament herself. Why, that's the reason I consented to take her away," he continued eagerly, gaining confidence from the other's silence. "She really ought to have her training for opera. You don't realize what a voice it is, Mrs. Kildare! I could offer her certain opportunities, lessons abroad, introductions, a career, in fact—"

"And meanwhile you were going to act as her protector?" broke in Kate.

"Why—why, yes. Exactly!"

The faintest smile just lifted her lip. "From yourself?" she murmured.

Channing's eyes dropped. He would have given years of his life to meet without flinching that little smile. "I repeat, I would have married Jacqueline as soon as it was possible." He spoke with an effort for quiet dignity that was not convincing, even to himself; perhaps because he noticed just then, for the first time, the dog-whip which Mrs. Kildare was twisting and untwisting in her strong fingers.

"I suppose that dream is over now," he added sadly—a little hastily.

"I think we may safely say," she admitted, "that that dream is over."

He could not lift his eyes from those slender, muscular fingers. Across his too-vivid imagination had flashed Farwell's picture of the Madam going to the rescue of her fighting negroes. A little shudder went down his back. He wondered what he should do if she suddenly attacked him. Could he lay his hands upon a woman? Should he call for help? Must he simply stand there and let her—whip him?...

At that moment a whistle sounded, and the train began to slow down for a station. To his almost sick relief, Mrs. Kildare drew her cape about her shoulders. "I get off here," she said.

He rushed into speech. "Will you please tell Jacqueline how miserably sorry I am—how I regret—"

She cut him short. "I will tell Jacqueline nothing, and neither will you. All this"—she waved an inclusive hand about the stateroom—"it never happened."

"What! You mean—she is to believe I did not come for her?"

"Exactly. You have disappeared. And without any explanations to anybody."

"But, Mrs. Kildare! Good Lord! What will she think of me?"

"That you have simply broken your word again; which," said Kate, "is what I intend her to think. She shall not be further humiliated by the knowledge that there has been—an audience."

He began to understand. Kate knew her daughter. Pride was to be called to the rescue, and he himself would play a very sorry part hereafter in the memory of Jacqueline.

"But, Mrs. Kildare!" his vanity protested. "Really, I can't—"

His eyes dropped again, as if magnetized, to that twisting whip.

The author was not of the material out of which he created his heroes. He had a dread, an acute physical dislike, of what is called "a scene."—Very well! (he thought); if it helped poor, dear little Jacqueline to remember him as a cowardly wretch, as the sort of ungentlemanly villain of the piece who made engagements to elope with young women and then broke them—very well, let her so remember him.

Also, the thought occurred to him that if no explanations were to be made to any one, Philip Benoix would perhaps never hear of the thing he had tried and failed to do this night. For some odd reason, not entirely connected with the pistol he had seen in the clergyman's pocket, Channing wanted to be remembered as pleasantly as possible by Philip Benoix.

He sighed. "I see! You mean that Jacqueline shall learn to hate me.—As you wish, of course. I will make no explanations. I give you my word of honor never to write to her, or—"

"Your word of honor!" For one moment he met the full blast of the scorn in Kate's eyes, before his own fell again. "Never mind promises, sir. It will be to your advantage, Mr. Channing, to keep out of my way. Hereafter I take care of my own!"

For the first time her gaze followed his to the whip in her hands, and once more she burst out laughing; clear, ringing laughter that wakened half the car.

"Just a dog-whip," she explained from the door, reassuringly. Her voice was never sweeter. "I find after all that I shall not need it, you poor little prowling tomcat!—Good-by."



CHAPTER XXXVII

A rather watery sun was just showing over the tree-tops when Mrs. Kildare dismissed at her door the automobile she had commandeered, hoping to slip into the house unnoticed. But the dogs betrayed her. They were lingering hopefully about the kitchen door, with an eye on Big Liza, already up and about, for the Madam permitted no shiftless habits at Storm; and the sound of wheels brought them barking to the front of the house. Big Liza's curiosity was aroused, and she followed.

"My Lawdy, Miss Kate! whar you bin at?" she demanded, round-eyed. "You look lak a ghos', you sholy does!"

The Madam put her finger on her lip. "Business—I don't want it mentioned, Liza. You understand?"

The cook nodded importantly, pursing up her mouth. There is no safer confidante, as a rule, than a negro servant. The race is very amenable to the flattery of being trusted, and not too inquisitive about the doings of a superior order of beings. Kate had no fears with regard to Liza. It was Mag who bothered her.

The girl, who had not slept that night, met her at the foot of the stairs, looking terrified. "Oh, Miss Kate, whatever happened? Miss Jacky done come back an hour ago, and she's up in her room cryin' fit to break her heart. You—ain't killed him?" she whispered. It did not seem an unlikely question to ask of that white, set face with its burning eyes.

Kate drew her into the office and shut the door. "What have you told her?" she demanded.

"Who, Miss Jacky? I ain't told her nothin'. I didn't git a chance."

"Thank God!" murmured the mother.

All the way home her head had been spinning like a top with plans for keeping Jacqueline from knowing of her interference.

"She came in all wet and lookin' so queer!—No'm, she wa'n't cryin' then, but she looked kind o' pinched and old-like. She didn't say nothin' to me, except ask for the letter she done left for you, and when I give it to her, she thanked me that pretty way she has, for bein' so good to her.—Me, good to her! when I'd gone and told, and everything!" Mag began to blubber.

"Telling," muttered Kate, "was the one good thing you did for her.—What then?"

"Why, she went in her room an' locked the door, and when I axed through the keyhole didn't she want somethin' hot to drink, 'cause she was so wet, she said no, just let her alone, and please not to wake her up for breakfas' 'cause she might have a headache."

Kate's face softened. "Poor child! If it's nothing worse than a headache!—Now, then, my girl, I want to tell you what your 'goodness' might have done for Jacqueline." Her voice became harder and sterner than Mag had ever heard it. "Should you like to see her such a creature as you were before I brought you here, hunted, looked down upon, ashamed to face people—the kind of woman that the Night Riders try to drive out of decent communities?"

The girl cowered away from her. "Miss Jacky like me? Oh, she couldn't be, not ever! She's a lady," she cried piteously. "Her fella would have married her—you'd 'a' made him!"

"He could not, as it happens. He would have turned her, perhaps, into just such an outcast as you were, and you helping him! This is the return you have made me for my charity, Mag Henderson!"

The girl crouched with her face hidden, as if she expected a beating. "I didn't know, I didn't know!" she moaned. "I just wanted her to be happy with her fella—What you goin' to do with me, Miss Kate?"

"God knows," said the other bitterly.

Mag caught at her skirts, lifting her face in abject pleading. "Whatever you does to me, don't send little Kitty away! Don't git a mad on the baby! Say you won't, Miss Kate, say you won't!"

"Nonsense!" Kate spoke more gently. "Nobody's going to 'do' anything to you, or to the baby, either. I suppose you cannot help your ignorance. That's our job.—But it is evident that you can't be trusted."

"Yes'm, I kin!" sobbed the girl, childishly. "Yes'm, I kin, too! Just you try me."

"Very well, I'll try you." Kate made a quick decision. "Listen to me, Mag! It was I who met Mr. Channing and—persuaded him to go away. But Jacqueline does not know this, and she must never know it. I will not have my girl shamed before her mother. She must think he went off of his own accord, because he was afraid to take her.—Do you understand?"

Mag nodded, sniffling.

"You are to say nothing of what has happened to-night, either to Jacqueline or to any one else. You have been sound asleep all night! Do you hear?"

"But supposin'," said Mag fearfully, "supposin' Miss Jacky axes me questions?"

"Then you must lie. You know how to do that, I suppose!" said Kate, with some impatience.

As it happened, that was one thing Mag Henderson did not know how to do, certainly not with the clear, candid eyes of Jacqueline upon her. But an alternative occurred to her, and she made her promise.

"I won't never tell, I won't never tell nobody, Miss Kate, cross my heart and hope to die!"

"Very well, then." Mrs. Kildare was rather touched by the girl's contrition, her eagerness to be trusted. She held out a forgiving hand. "Shake hands on it, and remember this is for Jacky's sake."

Mag, with a gulp, put her hand into the Madam's, and forgot for the moment that she had been a creature hunted, looked down upon, ashamed to face decent people. Whatever harm she had done, she intended to atone for, even with sacrifice.

Kate patted her on the shoulder. "Now then, run and bring a pot of black coffee to my room, and see that I am not disturbed for at least two hours."

When she emerged at the end of that time, a little hollow-eyed and stiff, but ready for the day's routine, she found upon inquiry that Jacqueline had kept to her room with the prophesied headache and did not wish to be disturbed; also, that Mag had gone down to the village on an errand. She paused uncertainly at Jacqueline's door, but decided finally to respect the girl's desire for privacy, glad herself of a little longer respite before their meeting. Duplicity was not her forte, and she knew it. Her heart ached with tenderness for her child, a tenderness that she must not show.

All day long, as she rode upon her rounds, inspecting the damage wrought by last night's storm, she was rehearsing inwardly her first meeting with Jacqueline; planning to show her, without exciting suspicion, the depth of her love and her understanding. If only practical, unemotional Jemima were there, to act as buffer between them! She thought of consulting Philip, but decided that Jacqueline's secret was not hers to share.

One friend, however, she did consult, having so recently tested Him and found Him not wanting. Philip, happening into his always-open church early in the afternoon, was astounded to discover no less a person there than the Madam, on her knees, intent upon rendering unto God the things that are God's, as honestly as she rendered unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

He withdrew unnoticed; and thereafter, to his great delight, Kate Kildare was a regular frequenter of the church she had built, sitting with a rather bored expression through the service from first to last, while her horse and her dogs waited patiently at the door for their Sabbath exercise....

Kate shared the midday meal that day with workmen who were repairing damages to a favorite bit of beech-wood—frequently her custom when work was on hand that required her special attention. So it was not until dark that she rode wearily back to Storm, to discover her household seething with excitement.

Mag Henderson had never returned from her errand into the village. She had been gone since breakfast. A servant had just discovered, in Kate's room, a sealed letter addressed to the Madam, and pinned to her pillow.—Poor Mag had followed as closely as possible the example set by her beloved Miss Jacky.

Kate's face was very sad and discouraged as she read the little note:

I dassent stay cause if Miss Jacky was to ax me questions I'd be bound to tell and then you wuddent trust me no more but ef i go away I cain't answer no questions. You kin kepe Kitty. I luv her but I giv her to you cause I ain't got nothing else nice to give and you been awful kind to Me. plese let her be yore little Hands and feet, miss Kate, and kepe her always and fetch her up a lady like you not like me. plese mam dont you never let her do like me, and ef my Pappy ever comes to git her and says she's his'n for Gawds sake she aint no such thing she's yourn. There's a city fella a drummer been settin up to me right smart, and he says a purty gal is a fool to stay and not have no fun and just make close for other gals to ware and in the city ennyway gals have more chanct So he wanted me to go along with him but I wuddent becos of Kitty but now I reckon yore glad to git shut of me so no more at present from yores truly

MAG.

Plese tell miss Jaky ef she brushes Kittys hare the wrong way evry day mebbe it will come curly.

Kate looked about her at the circle of black faces, all rather pleased and eager-looking over Mag's downfall, for the "poor white" is never popular with the better class of negroes, and Mag's position in the household had aroused some jealousy.

"I suppose it's too late to catch her," she said dully. "There have been a dozen trains to the city—we don't even know what city.—Oh, I've done this, I've done this!" She was speaking to herself, though she spoke aloud.

Big Liza took it upon herself to administer consolation. "No you ain't, honey, no, you ain't! She was jes' nachelly bo'n dat-a-way. In co'se it's natchel enough fo' a body to take up with a gemman friend, but to leave her own baby-chile behine her—why, dat gal's aimin' fer hell-fire jus' as fas' as she kin trabbel!"

Kate was reminded of poor Mag's parting gift, her "little hands and feet." She asked, sighing:

"Where is the baby?"

"Miss Jack's got her in her room."

She entered unheard, and found Jacqueline holding the little whimpering creature tight against her breast, rocking and crooning to it.

"There, there, precious! Did it miss its mama? Never mind, I know. They're tired of us, they've left us—I know. They just didn't want us any more. Never mind, pet! You've got me."

Kate slipped away again with dim eyes, leaving Jacqueline and the deserted baby to comfort each other.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

Jacqueline had waited all that day for news from Channing, disappointed, more than a little humiliated, to think that he had failed where she had not, but making every allowance for him as a city-bred man not accustomed to storms such as that of the night before. Perhaps he had taken for granted that she would not venture out in it herself.

Then, as no word came from him, either by note or by telephone, she began to worry. The lightning had been very bad. After all, storms can be dangerous. Possibly he had met with an accident.

At last she could restrain herself no longer, and telephoned to Holiday Hill.

A noncommittal man-servant informed her that Mr. Farwell was still away (he had gone to Cincinnati on business for several days), and that the other gentleman had left unexpectedly the night before. He did not add that the household was all agog with the extreme unexpectedness of his leaving.

Jacqueline asked, rather tremulously, whether he would be returning soon. The servant thought not, as he had since telegraphed for all his luggage to be sent on to New York.

It was then that she began to realize what had happened to her. She still made excuses for him to herself. He had been thinking of her—he had decided that he could not accept her sacrifice. Perhaps he had been thinking a little of her mother, too, left alone there at Storm. Yes, she was sure he had been thinking a little of her mother, whom he so greatly admired, not understanding how eager Mrs. Kildare was for her children's happiness.—He would write, of course, and explain....

She dared not think of the blank and dreary future, but lived from hour to hour, watching for the mails. When the postman stopped on his daily round at the foot of Storm Hill, she was always waiting for him. Sometimes she met him down the road, in her eagerness. But there was never a letter for her, except now and then a line from the traveling Mrs. Thorpe.

Kate saw this eager watchfulness, and her heart smote her, and her secret lay heavy on her breast. But she made no comment, even when she noticed that the girl was neglecting her food in a manner unprecedented, and heard her prowling about the house at night, when she should have been asleep, like an unhappy little ghost.

"I must give her time, poor girlie," she thought, and wished that she might consult Philip.

Philip, however, was doing some observing on his own account. He had come across a phrase in a book recently that recurred to him whenever he saw Jacqueline nowadays: "God gives us our eyes, our parents gives us our noses, but we make our own mouths."

It occurred to him that Jacqueline was "making her mouth" far too rapidly. Of a sudden the lips had lost all their childish softness and were settling into a firm, curved line of great beauty, but which had more than a hint of pathos. "She has no right to such a mouth at her age!" he thought.

The fact of Channing's final disappearance was known to him, though not the manner of it; and at first it had filled him with satisfaction. Now, however, he realized that to get Channing out of sight was by no means to get him out of mind. His thoughts went back over the constant and secret companionship of many weeks, reaching as a climax the night the two had lost themselves in the mountains. He was uneasy—far more uneasy than Kate, who had in view a consolation for Jacqueline which Philip did not as yet suspect.

One day he happened in at Storm, to find Farwell making one of his frequent visits there. Jacqueline was chatting and laughing with him with her usual gaiety, but Philip, even as he entered, sensed a certain air of distress about the girl. It was Farwell's first call since Channing's disappearance.

"Hello, dominie," the actor greeted him cheerfully, evidently relieved by his arrival. "We've just been discussing the mysterious Percival. You knew, of course, that he'd gone without so much as a by-your-leave to me? Not that only, but took my favorite car and left it running in the mud, simply shaking itself to pieces. A queer devil!—I had gone to Cincinnati for a day or two, and when I got back, not a sign of my guest, neither hair nor hide of him!"

"Rude enough," commented Benoix.

"Oh, rude! Channing and I are old pals, and dropped our manners long ago. But unfriendly, that's what I call it! Leaving me in the lurch in that gloomy young barn of mine, without giving me a chance to get somebody in his place.—I tell you, this thing of being a country gentleman's the loneliest job I ever tackled! Do come and give me a cheering word now and then, Benoix.—And the only explanation the rotter made," he continued resentfully, "was a mere line saying he had been called to New York on urgent business. Urgent tommyrot! The only business he knows by sight is his own pleasure."

"His writing?" commented Jacqueline, quietly. "That isn't just pleasure."

"Oh, yes, it is, or you may be sure he wouldn't be doing it! I know Channing. He's selfish to the bone. Oh, I'm done with the chap!—The fact is," he added, very careful not to look at Jacqueline, "these geniuses aren't to be relied upon, either as friends or anything else, you see. They're just—geniuses."

"That's quite enough to be expected of them, isn't it?" remarked the girl, with a steady little smile.

Farwell changed the subject, having said what he had come to say; but inwardly he thought, "She's a brick! She's a loyal, plucky little brick, and Channing is a—skunk! Perhaps she chucked him, though," he reminded himself hopefully. "Serve him good and plenty if she did."

Thereafter the master of Holiday Hill spent as much time as he possibly could at Storm, Kate looking on at Jacqueline's friendly flirtation with him with something between a smile and a sigh.

The girl was doing a good deal in the way of flirtation just then, not only with Farwell, but with several of the earlier "victims" who continued to come out from Lexington occasionally, and were encouraged to come more often. Kate had been through just such a stage of unhappiness herself, the reckless, desperate, defiant stage, when trouble is to be kept at bay only by sheer bravado. And she had been watched safely through it by the understanding eyes of Jacques Benoix, even as Jacqueline would be watched through it by the understanding eyes of his son.

For it was only with Philip the girl dared to be quite herself just then, distraite and talkative by turns, subject to long silences, followed by bursts of wild gaiety. The change in his manner to her was very marked, he no longer teased and chaffed her as he had been wont to do, but treated her with a quiet affection, almost a deference; the camaraderie offered to a friend who has come abreast of oneself on the hard path of life. Jacqueline in trouble, gallant and uncomplaining and piteously gay, was a Jacqueline who appealed to every instinct of chivalry in his fine nature.

If it had not been for Kate herself, the thing she so greatly desired might very well have come to pass just then. He might have fallen in love with Jacqueline. But unfortunately Kate was there, never lovelier than in her guarding, tender maternity; and for Philip other women, as women, did not exist.

Into this rather disturbed atmosphere of Storm arrived one day the new Mrs. Thorpe, quite unexpectedly and with something of a flourish.

Jacqueline, hearing outside the sound of a mellifluous horn which she did not recognize, ran to the window and reported company approaching, "But it isn't Mr. Farwell, Mummy, and it isn't victims. It's a lady all dressed up. Why, Mummy, it's—no, it can't be. Yes it is too! It's the bride and groom, in a new Ark!"

Jemima was herself engineering a smart blue-painted touring-car up the hill, somewhat cautiously but with her usual air of determination. She remarked tensely to the beaming gentleman beside her, "Wave to them, James, please. I can't spare a hand."

When the excited greetings were over, Jemima looked about her with a contented sigh. "New York was very grand and rich, but I'm glad to be back in this queer, shabby old house. Aunt Jemima asked all about everything, Mother—whether you had left the stuffed horse's head on the wall, whether the turkeys still tried to roost on the front porch, what you had done with father's old servants, especially Mahaly—she seemed to be particularly interested in Mahaly, for some reason or other. I told her everything was just as it had been always—and it is, thank goodness!" She spoke as if she had expected to find cataclysmic changes after an absence of three weeks. "Dogs overrunning the place, and Big Liza warbling at the top of her lungs in the kitchen, and you in your second-best riding skirt at this hour in the afternoon—naughty mother! Everything just the same as if—" Her roving eyes chanced to rest on her sister's face, and she stopped short.

"So you saw your Aunt Jemima?" asked Kate quickly, to change the subject.

"Oh, yes, of course, Mother. That's one reason we went to New York." She was full of the visit to her father's aunt, and forgot for the moment her shock at the change in Jacqueline. "Such a wonderful place—a house as big as a hotel, and lawns that are evidently shaved and clipped and bathed as regularly as her pet poodle. But—think of it! She is seventy years old, and powdered and rouged like an actress!—Her manner was just a little—patronizing at first, but she soon got over that."

Thorpe chuckled. "My wife astonished her into a lamb-like meekness. She informed her that while she resembled the Kildare portraits to some slight degree, most of them were rather handsomer."

"Jemmy! Why, she was a famous beauty in her day!"

"Well, she isn't now; and I did not care for her manner," said the bride, calmly. "Besides, as it turned out, she liked rudeness. Some people do, you know. They think it's smart, and she's a very smart old person—likes a fast motor-car, and plays cards for money—hates to lose, too—and smokes, Mother! I kept thinking how surprised you would have been to see her."

"Pooh, that's nothing," said Jacqueline, moved to defend the honor of Storm. "Lots of women around here smoke. Why, you'll catch Big Liza with a pipe in her mouth at any time you go out in the kitchen!"

"Jacky, a pipe! The idea! Aunt Jemima has little gold-tipped cigarettes with her monogram on them. It's very much done."

"Blossom," cried Jacqueline accusingly, "did you smoke, yourself?"

The bride tossed her head, flushing. "Of course. One can't be too provincial." (The a in her "can't" had achieved a new and impressive breadth—which, considering that the honeymoon had been of only three weeks' duration, may serve to show something of the force and adaptability of Jemima's character.) "Still," she added, "I should not care to see mother smoking. I was rather—shocked by Aunt Jemima."

Kate smiled. She would not have been shocked. Her husband had too often spoken of his aunt as a true Kildare, and related with pride certain incidents in her career which had done their share toward creating the reputation of "the wild Kildares." It had always been a matter of astonishment to her that this wicked old woman, whose past might certainly have made for leniency in judgment, should have shown herself so hotly unforgiving toward the one episode she had selected to regard as the family scandal.

James Thorpe, the psychologist, could have told her that the recognized tolerance of innocence for vice has its complement in the approval with which unblemished reputations are regarded by those who have them not. Also, there was an unspoken tradition among her husband's people, as in many families, that while born Kildares, male or female, might exercise their Heaven-sent prerogative of behaving as they chose, it was for their mates to maintain the balance of discretion. Poor Kate had maintained no balance.

"Oh, speaking of New York," said the bride suddenly, "whom else do you suppose I saw there? Your friend the author, Jacky! Oh, not to speak to, of course ... James has broken with him entirely. Besides, he was with a person, a very blonde and pretty person, whom I did not care to meet." She smoothed down her skirts, the gesture of conscious rectitude the world over. "I should not be surprised if she were that woman—you know! Fay Something-or-other—"

Kate's warning glance reached her, and she bit her tongue.

Jacqueline had gone over to a window and stood looking out. "I miss the old Ark," she said after a moment. "What have you done with it?"

Jemima rushed into speech, her eyebrows flying distress signals at her mother. "Oh, that old thing? Why, when James bought the new car, I thought it would be nice to have the other painted and fixed up and give it to Philip for a present."

"Splendid!" said Kate. "It will be the greatest sort of help to him in his parochial visits—if you can persuade him to accept it. I've been trying for months to give him a decent horse to take the place of old Tom. What made you think of it?"

Jemima looked rather embarrassed. "Why, you see I have not been very—nice to Phil, lately. Not friendly, at least, as I used to be. But he's gone on just the same, as if nothing were the matter, just as dignified, and kindly; marrying us so beautifully, and sending us those rare candelabra, and all ... I like that way of acting, Mother, and I like Philip. So I thought it would be nice to give him the Ark as—as a sort of apology, you see."

Kate and James Thorpe exchanged a glance of mutual congratulation. Evidently the incipient feud was a thing of the past. Marriage was already rubbing off some of Jemima's edges.

"In that case," said Kate warmly, "I am sure Philip will accept the Ark, daughter. He would never refuse an apology.—Jacky, why don't you go and telephone him that the Thorpes are here, and that he is expected for supper?"

Jacqueline slipped out of the room very gratefully. The tears had been welling up behind her eyes so fast that she was afraid some of them would spill over. She wanted desperately to be alone until she had accustomed herself to the thought of Channing with another woman. A blonde, pretty person, Jemima had said.—At least she did not sound like a person who could help him to write books!



CHAPTER XXXIX

As soon as they were alone, Jemima demanded explanations of her mother. "What has happened to Jacky? Why, she's all eyes! I never saw such a change! Her smile makes you want to cry, somehow.—Mother, it can't be—Channing?"

"I am afraid it is—" sighed Kate.

"Then she really cared for him? Why, but that's incredible! Such a man, Mother! James has told me a good deal about him. He's a sort of male vampire, always needing a woman to pet and admire him—any sort of woman. And our Jacqueline!" Her lips set. "Humph! If the child still cares for him, I'll see that she hears the whole truth about him. Jacky's not lacking in pride."

"I hope and pray it is only her pride that is suffering now," said Kate, and took Jemima fully into her confidence. It was a great relief to talk it over with somebody. She realized how she had missed this cool and level-headed child of hers.

But when she had finished, Jemima was by no means cool and level-headed. All her pretty married complacency had gone. She was more excited than her mother had ever seen her. She jumped up and began to walk around the room, muttering rather surprising things.

"Why did you let him go? The horrid beast! Oh, poor little Jacky, poor little Jacky! Why did you let him off, Mother? Why didn't you—shoot him?"

"Daughter!"

"Well, I don't care," muttered the girl, defiantly. "I can understand killing a man like that, I can!"

A queer little smile twitched at Kate's lips. "Can you, my dear?"

Jemima stopped short, and her eyes met her mother's, widening. She realized of what Kate was thinking. "Yes, I can," she repeated, breathlessly. "A man like that ... Mother! Was my father—a—man like that?"

But Kate spoke quickly, as if she had not heard. "Then you think I did right in letting Jacqueline believe Channing had failed her?"

The girl thought it over. "No," she said at last, with her usual ruthlessness. "I don't. No good ever comes of deception, Mother. Look what it has done already! Poor Mag ran away because she was afraid of not keeping your secret."

Kate winced. "But I have Jacqueline!"

"And of course," conceded the other thoughtfully, "Mag would have gone to the bad anyway, soon or late.—Oh, yes, she would, Mother! No use blinking facts. As she used to say, she was 'spiled anyway.' On the whole," Jemima decided, "I think you have done the best thing possible. But I wish I had been here!—What are you going to do with Jacky now? Let her study singing?"

Kate realized the silence that had latterly fallen on Storm. The girl had not sung a note in weeks. Both piano and graphophone had been idle. She spoke of this.

"That's bad! Music has always meant so much to Jacky. She'll have to have an outlet of some sort. Better let her come home with me, Mother. I'll get her interested in something."

Kate shook her head. "Try, if you like, but she won't go. She's more 'mommerish' than ever just now, poor baby. She needs mothering, I think—and marrying!"

Jemima looked up quickly. "You mean Philip? Surely, Mother, you've given up the Philip idea, after this!"

"Why should I?"

"Why, Mother! Would it be fair to him? Don't you realize that poor little Jacky has been almost—wicked?"

"No, no, dear, never wicked! Only ignorant, and desperately in love. It seemed to her the honorable thing to do to go away openly with the man she loved, instead of concealing it.—Oh, can't you understand? Don't you see the difference between generous, blind sacrifice, and what you call 'wickedness'?"

"No," said Jemima, with pursed lips. "I must confess I can't. That happens to be my weakness.—But I can see, and have always seen, that Jacqueline is one of the sort of people who ought to be married as early in life as possible."

"Exactly! And who better for her than Philip?"

Jemima looked at her mother in utter exasperation. Was it possible that she was still blind to the thing that was the gossip of the countryside? Or—a new thought!—was it possible that she was going to take advantage of Philip's devotion to her, of his idealism and capacity for self-immolation, to persuade him into carrying out her long-laid plans? Jemima herself might have been capable of such a ruthless thing, but on consideration she did not believe it of her mother. There was a certain large innocence about Mrs. Kildare, an almost virginal shyness of mind, that made it difficult for her to conceive, even in the face of direct evidence, that a man younger than herself, a man whom she chose to regard as a son, could be regarding her in turn with eyes other than filial. Jemima did her the justice to recognize this.

She opened her lips to inform her mother of the truth, but somehow found herself saying instead, rather lamely, "She's not in love with Philip!"

Kate smiled. "This from you, my dear?"

The bride flushed. "When I spoke as I did about love not being necessary to marriage, I was thinking of myself, not of Jacqueline," she explained with dignity. "People have different requirements. Besides, I happened not to be in love with anybody else."

"That does make a difference, but I am counting on time," said the mother. "Time and propinquity. You are not old enough yet to realize the strength of those two factors, my dear. I am.—You said once that Jacqueline was oversexed. I think you are wrong. She simply matured very early, without our realising it. Certain instincts are very strong in her—the maternal instinct, for one—stronger than her judgment.—Just as it was with me. She is not the first poor little trusting dreamer to put up her altar to the Unknown God, and worship before the first who chooses to usurp it. But the altar remains, when the usurper has passed."

"For Philip to occupy? Poor Phil!" murmured Jemima under her breath.

Her mother wheeled round upon her. "Why do you say 'poor Phil'?" she demanded indignantly. "Do you suppose I would offer Jacques' son anything but the best I have to give? Don't you know that I am thinking of his happiness quite as much, perhaps more than of Jacqueline's? His is a bigger nature than yours, my daughter. He would never make the mistake of thinking the child capable of 'wickedness,' no matter what folly she might commit."

"And does he know of her latest 'folly,' Mother?"

"I do not know how much he may suspect, but that is not my affair. Jacqueline will tell him about it herself, doubtless ... after they are married," replied Kate, serenely.

Others entering the room just then put a stop to the conversation; but for the rest of the evening young Mrs. Thorpe was thoughtful. She knew the Madam's capacity for carrying out intentions. Watching Philip closely, his brotherly tenderness to Jacqueline contrasted with the silent, almost worshipful adoration her mother took so astonishingly for granted, she realized that it would be difficult for his lady to put any test to his devotion too difficult for him to perform. It seemed probable that Kate would succeed in covering one blunder with another blunder.

A great sympathy for Philip came over her—sympathy being a recently developed trait of Jemima's. She saw him suddenly as a piteous figure, even more piteous than her listless young sister, who would, after all, revive like a thirsty flower with the first draft of love that came to her reaching roots. Her mother had been right there.—But what was to atone to Philip for his lonely childhood, his lonely youth, always with the shadow resting upon it; his hopeless infatuation for a woman who would not see, his whole life devoted to that cold and thankless lot of service to others?

"We've taken too much from Philip as it is," she thought. "I must put a stop to this, somehow!"

She decided to drop a hint of warning to Jacqueline herself. Treachery it might be, but, as has been seen, Jemima was quite capable of treachery when it marched with expediency.

Drop a hint she accordingly did, one of her own especial brand of hints, as delicate and as subtle as a dynamite bomb.

It occurred at bedtime, when Jemima—the Thorpes were spending the night—slipped across into the room that had been the nursery to chat with her sister in the old-time intimacy of hair-brushing. Indeed, the room was still a nursery, for the crib that had been in turn Jemima's and Jacqueline's was drawn up close beside Jacqueline's bed, and contained the rosy, sleeping Kitty, with a favorite rattle tight clasped in one pink fist.

"Isn't she too precious, Jemmy?" whispered her foster-mother, who was leaning over the crib as her sister entered.

Jemima responded without particular enthusiasm—to her small Kitty would always represent in concrete form the doctrine of Original Sin. She said, "Come and let me show you how to fix your hair, dear, as they do it in New York. You're old enough now to wear it up."

"I try to, but it won't stay put, there's such a mop of it!" She submitted willingly to the other's deft ministrations. "Neither mother nor I look half as nice since you got married, Jemmy. Oh, I do love your smooth hands!" She held one affectionately to her cheek. "They're so nimble and sure of themselves, as if each finger had a little brain of its own that knew just exactly what it was about."

"I suppose, if one has a brain at all, it's everywhere, in the fingers as well as the head; just like God in the universe," said the other, rather absently. "Anyway, if I've got brains, you've got hair, and I don't know but what that's more important. You'll be a lovely creature like mother when I'm a weazened little old woman, as bald as a monkey—or with false things on, like Aunt Jemima. Intellectual hair is always so thin and brittle."

"Why, Blossom! Yours is just like curly sunlight!"

"Oh, yes, pretty while it lasts," said the other, dispassionately. "But not vital, like yours and mother's. You're both so splendidly vital. That's why—Look here, Jacky, Philip's more gone on mother than ever, isn't he? He just follows her around with his eyes, like that sentimental hound puppy who is always trying to crawl into her lap—"

"And spilling off," finished Jacqueline, with a chuckle. "I know! If she says 'good dog' to him, he wags steadily for an hour.—I used to think you were wrong about it," she added seriously, "and that Phil couldn't possibly be in love with any one so old as mother; not like men are with girls, you know. But lately—I'm not so sure."

Poor Jacqueline had learned a good deal lately about the possibilities of loving.

Jemima commented with satisfaction. "I'm glad you see it, anyway!"

"Of course he has not told me anything, but he—understands so well," sighed the other, without explaining what it was that he understood. "I wish he didn't, Jemmy. I would like to see dear old Phil happy! He's such a darling.—Do you suppose we could possibly persuade mother ever to marry him?"

Jemima started and dropped her hair-brush. That was a solution which had not occurred to her.

"I think it would be such a good thing, don't you, Jemmy? They're both so wonderful."

"Nonsense!" said Jemima sharply, recovering from the shock. "What an idea! Mother wouldn't dream of such an unseemly thing, of course."

"I'm not so sure," said Jacqueline, with her new pathetic little wisdom. "She's awfully sweet to Phil, always wanting him round, and petting him, and making a fuss over him."

"Just as she does over that hound puppy! No, my dear, you may be sure that whatever she does, mother will never do anything so undignified as to marry Dr. Benoix' son. On the contrary, I happen to know that she is plotting to marry him to some one else."

"Jemmy! Our Philip? To whom?"

The hint dropped. "To you," said Jemima.

But it was not greeted with the shocked surprise, the incredulous dismay, which she had counted upon. Jacqueline considered the matter in silence for some moments. At length she said, musingly, "That might not be a bad idea. Philip really ought to get married—the Bishop told him so. It creates confidence, like with young doctors. And if you really think mother never will—Of course I could keep house for him, and hold the Mothers' Meetings and all, and make him more comfortable than that wretched Dilsey."

Jemima gasped.—"Do you mean to say you would?—So soon?" She bit her tongue, but Jacqueline did not seem to notice the unfortunate reference.

"Oh, me?" she said a little wearily. "What does it matter about me? I mean—I suppose a girl has to marry some time, and I'm used to Philip. I'm awfully fond of him, really. He'd make a wonderful father, wouldn't he?"

"Jacqueline Kildare!" cried the bride, blushing.

The girl met her startled eyes in the glass. For the moment she seemed the older of the two. "Why, didn't you think of that when you married Goddy? No, you wouldn't have, I suppose. But it seems to me the most important thing of all, you know. It is something that will last, when—other things—don't. It seems to me people could stand a great deal of unhappiness," she said haltingly, "if they had babies. They wouldn't always be asking themselves, Why? Why? The answer would be there, right in their arms.—So if mother really wants me to marry Philip, and he doesn't mind ... I don't believe I shall mind, either."

Jemima made her last stand. "Suppose Philip does mind?"

"Then he won't ask me, of course, goosie!—Do show me how you made that perfectly beautiful puff."

Jemima returned to her lord and master somewhat subdued and crestfallen. She realized that for once she had overreached herself.



CHAPTER XL

Jemima's opposition had the effect, usual with determined natures, of crystallizing Mrs. Kildare's purpose, and she watched with impatience a situation that appeared rather slow in developing. Philip, touched to the heart by the change in Jacqueline, devoted much time and thought to her comforting, overtures which the girl met more than half way. The two were constantly together now, galloping over the frosty fields, driving about the country in the newly arrived Ark (which understanding Philip had accepted with a generosity that matched Jemima's), or reading aloud to each other in front of the roaring fire in Storm hall.