"Then you don't oppose it, Mrs. Gusty," he cried eagerly. "You'll write her you are willing?"

"Not yet," said Mrs. Gusty; "there's a condition."

"There ain't any condition in the world I won't meet to get her," he exclaimed recklessly, his fervor bursting its bounds. "You don't know how I feel about that young lady. Why, I'd live on bread and water all the rest of my life if it would make her happy. There hasn't been a hour since I met her that she hasn't held my soul—as you might say—in the pa'm of her hand."

"People don't often get it so bad at our age," remarked Mrs. Gusty, sarcastically, and Mr. Opp winced.

"The condition," went on Mrs. Gusty, "that I spoke about, was your sister. Of course I never would consent to Guin-never living under the same roof with a crazy person."

The hope which was carrying Mr. Opp to the dizziest heights dropped to earth at this unexpected shaft, and for a moment he was too stunned to speak.

"Kippy?" he began at last, and his voice softened at the name. "Why, you don't understand about her. She's just similar to a little child. I told Miss Guin-never all about her; she never made any objections. You—you—wouldn't ask me to make any promises along that line?" Abject entreaty shone from Mr. Opp's eyes; it was a plea for a change of sentence. She had asked of him the only sacrifice in the world at which he would have faltered. "Don't—don't put it like that!" he pleaded, laying his hand on her arm in his earnestness. "I'm all she's got in the world; I've kind of become familiar with her ways, you know, and can manage her. She'll love Miss Guin-never if I tell her to. She shan't be a bit of care or trouble; I and Aunt Tish will continue on doing everything for her. You won't refuse your consent on that account, will you? You'll promise to say yes, now won't you, Mrs. Gusty?"

A slight and ominous cough in the doorway caused them both to start. Mr. Tucker, in widower's weeds, but with a jonquil jauntily thrust through his buttonhole, stood with his hand still on the knob, evidently transfixed by the scene he had witnessed.

For a moment the company was enveloped in a fog of such dense embarrassment that all conversation was suspended. Mrs. Gusty was the first to emerge.

"Howdy, Mr. Tucker," she said, rustling forward in welcome. "I didn't think you'd get here before five. Mr. Opp just dropped in to consult me about—about boarding a friend of his. Won't you draw up to the fire?"

Mr. Tucker edged forward with a suspicious eye turned upon Mr. Opp, who was nervously searching about for his hat.

"There it is, by the door," said Mrs. Gusty, eager to speed his departure; and as they both reached for it, the picture upon which it hung toppled forward and fell, face upward, on the floor. It was the portrait of Mr. Tucker mourning under the willow-tree which Miss Jim had left with Mrs. Gusty for safe-keeping.

Mr. Opp went home across the fields that evening instead of through the town. He was not quite up to any of his roles—editor, promoter, or reformer. In fact, he felt a desperate need of a brief respite from all histrionic duties. A reaction had set in from the excitement of the past week, and the complication involved in Mrs. Gusty's condition puzzled and distressed him. Of course, he assured himself repeatedly, there was a way out of the difficulty; but he was not able to find it just yet. He had observed that Mrs. Gusty's opinions became fixed convictions under the slightest opposition, whereas Guinevere's firmest decision trembled at a breath of disapproval. He sighed deeply as he meditated upon the vagaries of the feminine mind.

Overhead the bare trees lifted a network of twigs against a dull sky, a cold wind stirred the sedge grass, and fluttered the dry leaves that had lain all winter in the fence corners. Everything looked old and worn and gray, even Mr. Opp, as he leaned against a gaunt, white sycamore, his head bent, and his brows drawn, wrestling with his problem.

Suddenly he lifted his head and listened, then he smiled. In the tree above him a soft but animated conversation was in progress. A few daring birds had braved the cold and the wind, and had ventured back to their old trysting-place to wait for the coming of the spring. No hint of green had tinged the earth, but a few, tiny, pink maple-buds had given the secret away, and the birds were cuddled snugly together, planning, in an ecstasy of subdued enthusiasm, for the joyous days to come.

Mr. Opp listened and understood. They were all whispering about one thing, and he wanted to whisper about it, too. It was the simple theme of love without variations—love, minus problems, minus complications, minus consequences. He took out his little packet of letters and read them through; then, unmindful of the chill, he stretched himself under the tree and listened to the birds until the twilight silenced them.

When he reached home at last, Miss Kippy met him at the door with a happy cry of welcome.

"D.," she said, with her arm through his, and her cheek rubbing his sleeve, "I've been good. I've let my hair stay up all day, and Aunt Tish is making me a long dress like a lady." She looked at him shyly and smiled, then she pulled his head down and whispered, "If I'm very good, when I grow up, can I marry Mr. Hinton?"

Miss Kippy, too, had been listening to the bird-song.



XIII

It was May when Willard Hinton arrived at the Cove and took up his abode at Mrs. Gusty's. For the first week he kept to his bed, but at the end of that time he was able to crawl down to the porch and, under the protection of dark glasses and a heavy shade, sit for hours at a time in the sunshine. The loss of his accustomed environment, the ennui that ensues from absolute idleness, the consciousness that the light was growing dimmer day by day, combined to plunge him into abysmal gloom.

He shrank from speaking to any one, he scowled at a suggestion of sympathy, he treated Mr. Opp's friendly overtures with open discourtesy. Conceiving himself on the rack of torture, he set his teeth and determined to submit in silence, but without witnesses.

One endless day dragged in the wake of another, and between them lay the black strips of night that were heavy with the suggestion of another darkness pending. When sleep refused to come, he would go out into the woods and walk for hours, moody, wretched, and sick to his innermost soul with loneliness.

The one thing in the whole dreary round of existence that roused in him a spark of interest was his hostess. She bestowed upon him the same impersonal attention that she gave her fowls. She fed him and cared for him and doctored him as she saw fit, and after these duties were performed, she left him to himself, pursuing her own vigorous routine in her own vigorous way.

Hinton soon discovered that Mrs. Gusty was temperamental. Her intensely energetic nature demanded an emotional as well as a physical outlet. Sometime during the course of each day she indulged in emotional fireworks, bombs of anger, rockets of indignation, or set pieces of sulks and pouts.

These periodic spells of anger acted upon her like wine: they warmed her vitals and exhilarated her; they made her talk fluently and eloquently. As a toper will accept any beverage that intoxicates, so Mrs. Gusty accepted any cause that would rouse her. At stated intervals her feelings demanded a stimulant, and obeying the call of nature, she went forth and got angry.

Hinton came to consider these outbursts as the one diversion in a succession of monotonous hours. He tabulated the causes, and made bets with himself as to the strength and duration of each.

Meanwhile the sun and the wind and the silence were working their miracle. Hinton was introduced to nature by a warlike old rooster whose Hellenic cast of countenance had suggested the name of Menelaus. A fierce combat with a brother-fowl had inevitably recalled the great fight with Paris, and upon investigation Hinton found that the speckled hen was Helen of Troy! This was but the beginning of a series of discoveries, and the result was an animated and piquant version of Greek history, which boldly set aside tradition, and suggested many possibilities heretofore undreamed of.

Early one morning as Hinton was wandering listlessly about the yard he heard the gate click, and, looking up, saw Mr. Opp hurrying up the walk with a large bunch of lilacs in one hand and a cornet in the other.

"Good morning," said that gentleman, cheerily. "Mighty glad to see you out enjoying the beauties of nature. I haven't got but a moment in which to stop; appointment at eight-fifteen. We are arranging for a concert soon up in Main Street, going to practise this afternoon. I'll be glad to call by for you if you feel able to enjoy some remarkable fine selections."

Hinton accepted the proffered bouquet, but made a wry face at the invitation.

"None of your concerts for me," he said brusquely. "It would interfere too seriously with my own musical job of getting in tune with the infinite."

"Mornin', Mr. Opp," said Mrs. Gusty from the dining-room window. "There ain't many editors has time to stand around and talk this time of day."

"Just paused a moment in passing," said Mr. Opp. "Wanted to see if I couldn't induce our young friend here to give us a' article for 'The Opp Eagle.' Any nature, you know; we are always metropolitan in our taste. Thought maybe he'd tell us some of his first impressions of our city."

Hinton smiled and shook his head. "You'd better not stir up my impressions about anything these days; I am apt to splash mud."

"We can stand it," said Mr. Opp, affably. "If Cove City needs criticism and rebuke, 'The Opp Eagle' is the vehicle to administer it. You dictate a few remarks to my reporter, and I'll feature it on the front editorial column."

Hinton's eyes twinkled wickedly behind his blue glasses. "I'll give you an article," he said, "but no name is to be signed."

Mr. Opp, regretting the stipulation, but pleased with the promise, was turning to depart when Mrs. Gusty appeared once more at the window.

"What's the matter with the oil-wells?" she demanded, as she dusted off the sill. "Why don't they open up? You can't use bad weather for an excuse any longer."

"It wasn't the weather," said Mr. Opp, with the confident and superior manner of one who is conversant with the entire situation. "This here delay has been arranged with a purpose. I and Mr. Mathews has a plan that will eventually yield every stock-holder in the Cove six to one for what he put into it."

"Intend selling out to a syndicate?" asked Hinton.

Mr. Opp looked at him in surprise.

"Well, yes; I don't mind telling you two, but it mustn't go any farther. The oil prospects in this region are of such a great magnitude that we can't command sufficient capital to do 'em justice. I and Mr. Mathews are at present negotiating with several large concerns with a view to selling out the entire business at a large profit. You can't have any conception of the tac' and patience it takes to manage one of these large deals."

"Who was that man Clark that was down here last week?" asked Mrs. Gusty, impressed, in spite of herself, at being taken into the confidence of such a man of affairs.

Mr. Opp's face clouded. "Now that was a very unfortunate thing about Clark. He was sent down by the Union Syndicate of New York city to make a report on the region, and he didn't get the correct ideas in the case at all. If they hadn't sent such a poor man, the whole affair might have been settled by now."

"Wasn't his report favorable?" asked Hinton.

"He hasn't made it yet," said Mr. Opp; "but he let drop sundry casual remarks to me that showed he wasn't a man of fine judgment at all. I went over the ground with him, and pointed out some of the places where we calculated on drilling; but he was so busy making measurements and taking notes that he didn't half hear what I was saying."

"He stayed at Our Hotel," said Mrs. Gusty. "Mr. Tucker said he had as mean a face as ever he looked into."

"Who said so?" asked Hinton.

She tossed her head and flipped her duster at him, but it was evident that she was not displeased.

"By the way, Mr. Opp," she said, "I'm thinking about letting Guin-never come home week after next. Guess you ain't sorry to hear that."

On the contrary, Mr. Opp was overcome with joy. Letters were becoming less and less satisfying, and the problem suggested by Mrs. Gusty was still waiting solution.

"If you'll just mention the date," he said, trying to keep his countenance from expressing an undue amount of rapture, "I'll make a business trip down to Coreyville on purpose to accompany her back home."

But Mrs. Gusty declined to be explicit. She deemed it unwise to allow a mere man to know as much as she did upon any given subject.

Hinton's editorial appeared in the next issue of "The Opp Eagle." It was a clever and cutting satire on the impressions of a foreigner visiting America for the first time. Hinton interviewed himself concerning his impressions of the Cove. He approached the subject with great seriousness, handling village trifles as if they were municipal cannon-balls. He juggled with sense and nonsense, with form and substance. The result shot far over the heads of the country subscribers, and hit the bull's-eye of a big city daily.

Mr. Opp's excitement was intense when he found that an editorial from "The Opp Eagle" had been copied in a New York paper. The fact that it was not his own never for a moment dimmed the glory of the compliment.

"We are getting notorious," he said exultingly to Hinton. "There are few, if any, papers that in less than a year has extended its influence as far as the Atlantic Ocean. Now I am considering if it wouldn't be a wise and judicious thing to get you on the staff permanent—while you are here, that is. Of course you understand I am invested up pretty close; but I'd be willing to let you have a little of my oil stock in payment for services."

Hinton laughingly shook his head. "Whenever you run short of material, you can call on me. The honor of seeing my humble efforts borne aloft on the wings of 'The Opp Eagle' will be sufficient reward."

Having once conceived it as a favor that was in his power to bestow, Mr. Opp lost no opportunity for inviting contributions from the aspiring author.

As Hinton's strength returned, Mr. Opp adopted him as a protege, at first patronizing him, then consulting him, and finally frankly appealing to him. For during the long afternoon walks which they got into the habit of taking together, Mr. Opp, in spite of bluster and brag and evasion, found that he was constantly being embarrassed by a question, a reference, a statement from his young friend. It was the first time he had ever experienced any difficulty in keeping his head above the waves of his own ignorance.

"You see," he said one day by way of explanation, "my genius was never properly tutored in early youth. It's what some might regard as a remarkable brain that could cope with all the different varieties of enterprises that I have engaged in, with no instruction or guidance but just the natural elements that God give it in the beginning."

But in spite of Mr. Opp's lenient attitude toward his intellectual short-comings, it was evident that upon the serene horizon of his egotism small clouds of humility were threatening to gather.

Hinton, restlessly seeking for something to fill the vacuum of his days, found Mr. Opp and his paper a growing source of diversion. "The Opp Eagle," at first an object of ridicule, gradually became a point of interest in his limited range of vision. Under his suggestions it was enlarged and improved, and induced to publish news not strictly local.

Mr. Opp, meanwhile, was buzzing as persistently and ineffectually as a fly on a window-pane. The night before Guinevere's return, he found that, in order to accomplish all that he was committed to, it would be necessary to spend the night at the office.

The concert for which the Unique Orchestra had been making night hideous for two weeks had just come to a successful close, and the editor found himself at a late hour tramping out the lonely road that led to the office with the prospect of a couple of hours' work to do before he could seek a well-earned rest upon the office bench.

He was flushed with his double triumph as director and cornet soloist, and still thrilled by the mighty notes he had breathed into his beloved instrument.

The violin sobs, the flute complains, the drum insists, but the cornet brags, and Mr. Opp found it the instrument through which he could best express himself.

It was midnight, and the moon, one moment shining brightly and the next lost behind a flying cloud, sent all sorts of queer shadows scurrying among the trees. Mr. Opp thought once that he saw the figure of a man appear and disappear in the road before him, but he was so engrossed in joyful anticipation of the morrow that he gave the incident no attention. As he was passing the Gusty house, he was rudely plunged from sentiment into suspicion by the sight of a figure stealthily moving along the wall beneath the front windows.

Mr. Opp crouched behind the fence to watch him, but the moon took that inopportune moment to sink into a bank of clouds, and the yard was left in darkness. No sound broke the stillness save the far-off bark of a dog or an occasional croak from a bullfrog. Mr. Opp waited and listened in a state of intense suspense. Presently he heard the unmistakable sound of a window being cautiously raised, and then just as cautiously lowered. Summoning all his courage, he skirted the yard and hid in the bushes near the house. Nothing was to be seen or heard. He watched for a light at any of the windows, but none came.

The rash desire to capture the burglar single-handed, and thus distinguish himself in the eyes of Guinevere's mother, caused Mr. Opp to stiffen his knees and assume a fierce and determined expression. But he was armed only with his cornet, which, though often deadly as an instrument of attack, has never been recognized as a weapon of defense. There seemed no alternative but to waken Hinton and effect a simultaneous attack from within and without.

After throwing a few unsuccessful pebbles at Hinton's window, Mr. Opp remembered a ladder he had seen at the back of the barnyard. Shaking as if with the ague, but breathing dauntless courage, he departed in great excitement to procure it.

Unfortunately another party was in possession. A dozen guinea-fowls were roosting on the rungs, and when he gave them to understand they were to vacate they raised an outcry that would have quelled the ardor of a less valiant knight.

But the romantic nature of the adventure had fired Mr. Opp's imagination. He already saw himself lightly dusting his hands after throttling the intruder, and smiling away Mrs. Gusty's solicitude for his safety. Meanwhile he staggered back to the house with his burden, dodging fearfully at every shadow, and painfully aware that his heart was beating a tattoo on his ear-drums.

Placing the ladder as quietly as possible under Hinton's window, he cautiously began the ascent. The sudden outburst of the guineas had set his nerves a-quiver, and what with his breathless condition, and a predisposition to giddiness, he found some difficulty in reaching the sill. When at last he succeeded, he saw, by the light of the now refulgent moon, the figure of Hinton lying across the foot of the bed, dressed, but asleep. The opening not being sufficiently large to admit him, he thrust in his head and whispered hoarsely through his chattering teeth:

"Hinton! I say, Hinton, there's a burglar in the house!"

Hinton started up, and stared dully at the excited apparition.

"Hush!" whispered Mr. Opp, dramatically, lifting a warning hand. "I've been tracking the scoundrel for half an hour. He's in the house now. We'll surround him. We'll bind him hand and foot. You get the front door open, and I'll meet you on the outside. It's all planned; just do as I say."

Hinton, who was springing for the door, paused with his hand on the knob. "What's that?"

It was Mrs. Gusty's commanding tones from a front window: "He's round at the side of the house. He's been after my guineas! I saw him a minute ago going across the yard with a ladder. Shoot him if you can. Shoot him in the leg, so he can't get away. Quick! Quick!"

Mr. Opp had only time to turn from the window when he felt the ladder seized from below and jerked violently forward. With a terrific crash he came down with it, and found himself locked in a close struggle with the supposed burglar. To his excited imagination his adversary seemed a Titan, with sinews of steel and breath of fire. The combatants rolled upon the ground and fought for possession of each other's throats. The conflict, while fierce, was brief. As Hinton and Mrs. Gusty rushed around the corner of the house, the fighters shouted in unison, "I've got him!" and Mr. Opp, opening one swollen eye, gazed down into the mild but bloody features of little Mr. Tucker!

With the instinct that always prompted him to apologize when any one bumped into him, he withdrew his hands immediately from Mr. Tucker's throat and began vehement explanations. But Mr. Tucker still clung to his collar, sputtering wrathful ejaculations. Mrs. Gusty, wrapped in a bed-quilt, and with her unicorn horn at its most ferocious angle, held the lamp on high while Hinton rushed between the belligerents.

Excited and incoherent explanations followed, and it was not until Mr. Opp, who was leaning limply against a tree, regained his breath that the mystery was cleared up.

"If you will just listen here at me a moment," he implored, holding a handkerchief to his bruised face. "We are one and all laboring under a grave error. It's my belief that there ain't any burglar whatsoever here at present. Mr. Hinton forgot his key and had to climb in the window. I mistaken him for the burglar, and Mrs. Gusty, here, from what she relates, mistaken me for him, and not knowing Mr. Hinton had come in, telephoned our friend Mr. Tucker, and me and Mr. Tucker might be said, in a general way, to have mistaken each other for him."

"A pretty mess to get us all into!" exclaimed Mrs. Gusty. "A man made his fortune once 'tending to his own business."

"But, Mrs. Gusty—" began Mr. Opp, indignantly.

Hinton interrupted. "You would better put something on that eye of yours. It will probably resemble a Whistler 'Nocturne' by morning. What are you looking for?"

The object lost proved to be Mr. Opp's cherished cornet, and the party became united in a common cause and joined in the search. Some time elapsed before the horn was found under the fallen ladder, having sustained internal injuries which subsequently proved fatal.

When dawn crept into the dingy office of "The Opp Eagle," the editor was watching for it. He was waiting to welcome the day that would bring back Guinevere. As Hope with blindfold eyes bends over her harp and listens to the faint music of her one unbroken string, so Mr. Opp, with bandaged head, bent over his damaged horn and plaintively evoked the only note that was left therein.



XIV

Those who have pursued the coy goddess of happiness through the mazes of the labyrinth of life, know well how she invites her victim on from point to point, only to evade capture at the end. Mr. Opp rose with each summer dawn, radiant, confident, and expectant, and each night he sat in his window with his knees hunched, and his brows drawn, and wrestled with that old white-faced fear.

Two marauders were harassing the editor these days, dogging his footsteps, and snapping at him from ambush. One was the wolf that howls at the door, and the other was the monster whose eyes are green.

Since the halcyon days that had wafted Miss Guinevere Gusty back to the shore of the Cove, Mr. Opp had not passed a serene hour out of her presence. His disposition, though impervious to the repeated shafts of unkind fortune, was not proof against the corrosive effect of jealousy.

If he could have regarded Willard Hinton in the light of a hated rival, and met him in fair and open fight, the situation would have been simplified. But Hinton was the friend of his bosom, the man who, he had declared to the town, "possessed the grandest intelligence he had ever encountered in a human mind." He admired him, he respected him, and, in direct contradiction to the emotion that was consuming him, he trusted him.

Concerning Miss Guinevere Gusty's state of mind, Mr. Opp permitted himself only one opinion. He fiercely denied that she was absent-minded and listless when alone with him; he refused to believe his own eyes when he saw a light in her face when she looked at Hinton that was never there for him. He preferred to exaggerate to himself her sweetness, her gentleness, her loyalty, demanding nothing, and continuing to give all.

His entire future happiness, he assured himself, hung upon the one question of little Miss Kippy. For four months the problem had been a matter for daily, prayerful consideration, but he was still in the dark.

When he was with Guinevere the solution seemed easy. In explaining away the difficulties to her, he explained them away to himself, also. It was only a matter of time, he declared, before the oil-well would yield rich profit. When that time arrived, he would maintain two establishments, the old one for Miss Kippy, and a new and elegant one for themselves. Mr. Opp used the hole in the ground as a telescope through which he viewed the stars of the future.

But when he was alone with Kippy, struggling with her whims, while he tried to puzzle out the oldest and most universal of conundrums,—that of making ends meet,—the future seemed entirely blotted out by the great blank wall of the present.

The matter was in a way complicated by the change that had come over Miss Kippy herself. Two ideas alternately depressed and elated her. The first was a fixed antipathy to the photograph of Miss Guinevere Gusty which Mr. Opp had incased in a large hand-painted frame and installed upon his dresser. At first she sat before it and cried, and later she hid it and refused for days to tell where it was. The sight of it made her so unhappy that Mr. Opp was obliged to keep it under lock and key. The other idea produced a different effect. It had to do with Hinton. Ever since his visit she had talked of little else. She pretended that he came to see her every day, and she spread her doll dishes, and repeated scraps of his conversation, and acted over the events of the dinner at which he had been present. The short gingham dresses no longer pleased her; she wanted long ones, with flowing sleeves like the blue merino. She tied her hair up in all manner of fantastic shapes, and stood before the glass smiling and talking to herself for hours. But there were times when her mind paused for a moment at the normal, and then she would ask frightened, bewildered questions, and only Mr. Opp could soothe and reassure her.

"D.," she said one night suddenly, "how old am I?"

Mr. Opp, whose entire mental and physical powers were concentrated upon an effort to put a new band on his old hat, was taken off his guard. "Twenty-six," he answered absently.

A little cry brought him to her side.

"No," she whispered, shivering away from him, yet clinging to his sleeve, "that's a lady that's grown up! Ladies don't play with dolls. But I want to be grown up, too. D., why am I different? I want to be a lady; show me how to be a lady!"

Mr. Opp gathered her into his arms, along with his hat, a pair of scissors, and a spool of thread.

"Don't, Kippy!" he begged. "Now, don't cry like that! You are getting on elegant. Hasn't brother D. learned you to read a lot of pieces in your first reader? And ain't we going to begin on handwriting next? Wouldn't you like to have a slate, and a sponge to rub out with?"

In an instant her mood veered.

"And a basket?" she cried eagerly. "The children carry a basket, too. I see them when I peep through the shutters. Can I have a basket, too?"

The network of complexities that was closing in upon Mr. Opp apparently affected his body more than his spirits. He seemed to shrivel and dwindle as the pressure increased; but the fire in his eyes shone brighter than before.

"None of his folks live long over forty," said Mrs. Fallows, lugubriously; "they sorter burn themselves out."

Hinton, meanwhile, utterly unaware of being the partial cause of the seismic disturbance in the editorial bosom, pursued the monotonous routine of his days. It had taken him only a short time to adapt himself to the changes that the return of the daughter of the house had brought about. He had anticipated her arrival with the dread a nervous invalid always feels toward anything that may jolt him out of his habitual rut. He held a shuddering remembrance of her musical accomplishments, and foresaw with dread the noisy crowd of young people she might bring about the house.

But Guinevere had slipped into her place, an absent-minded, dreamy, detached damsel, asserting nothing, claiming nothing, bending like a flower in the high winds of her mother's wrath.

Hinton watched the dominating influence nip every bud of individuality that the girl ventured to put forth, and he determined to interfere. During the long months he had spent with Mrs. Gusty he had discovered a way to manage her. The weak spot in her armor was pride of intellect; she acknowledged no man her superior. By the use of figurative language, and references to esoteric matters, he was always able to baffle and silence her. His joy in handling her in one of her tempers was similar to that of controlling a cat-boat in squally weather. Both experiences redounded to his masculine supremacy.

One hot August day, he and Mrs. Gusty had just had an unusually sharp round, but he had succeeded, by alternate compliment and sarcasm, in reducing her to a very frustrated and baffled condition.

It was Sunday, the day the Cove elected for a spiritual wash-day. In the morning the morals of the community were scrubbed and rinsed in the meeting-house, and in the afternoon they were hung out on the line to dry. The heads of the families sat in their front yards and dutifully tended the children, while their wives flitted from house to house, visiting the sick and the afflicted, and administering warnings to the delinquent. It was a day in which Mrs. Gusty's soul reveled, and she demanded that Guinevere's soul should revel likewise.

It was with the determination that Guinevere should occasionally be allowed the privilege of following her own inclinations that Hinton hurled himself into the breach.

"I'll go, Mother," said Guinevere; "but it's so hot. We went to see everybody last Sunday. I thought I'd rather stay home and read, if you didn't mind."

Mrs. Gusty tossed her head in disgust, and turned to Hinton.

"Now, ain't that a Gusty for you! I never saw one that didn't want to set down to the job of living. Always moping around with their nose in a book. I never was a reader, never remember wasting a' hour on a book in my life, and yet I never saw the time that I wasn't able to hold my own with any Gusty living."

"In short," said Hinton, sympathetically, "to quote a noted novelist, you have never considered it necessary to add the incident of learning to the accident of brains."

Mrs. Gusty tied her bonnet-strings in a firmer knot as she looked at him uncertainly, then, not deigning to cast another glance in the direction of her daughter, who was disappearing up the stairs, swept out of the house.

Hinton looked at his watch; it was not yet two o'clock. The afternoon threatened to be a foretaste of eternity. He went out on the porch and lay in the hammock, with his hands clasped across his eyes. He could no longer see to read or to write. The doctor said the darkness might close in now at any time, after that the experiment of an operation would be made, and there was one chance in a hundred for the partial restoration of the sight.

Having beaten and bruised himself against the bars of Fate, he now lay exhausted and passive in the power of his jailer. He had tried to run his own life in his own way, and the matter had been taken out of his hands. He must lie still now and wait for orders from headquarters. The words of Mr. Opp, spoken in the low-ceiled, weird old dining-room, came vividly back to him: "What the fight is concerning, or in what manner the general is a-aiming to bring it all correct in the end, ain't, according to my conclusion, a particle of our business."

And Hinton, after a year of rebellion and struggle and despair, had at last acknowledged a superior officer and declared himself ready to take whatever orders came.

As he lay in the hammock he turned his head at every noise within the house, and listened. He had become amazingly dependent upon a soft, drawling voice which day after day read to him for hours at a time. At first he had met Guinevere's offers of help with moody irritability.

"Pray, don't bother about me," he had said. "I am quite able to look after myself; besides, I like to be alone."

But her unobtrusive sympathy and childish frankness soon conquered his pride. She read to him from books she did not understand, played games with him, and showed him new walks in the woods. And incidentally, she revealed to him her struggling, starving, wistful soul that no one else had ever discovered.

She never talked to him of her love affair, but she dwelt vaguely on the virtues of duty and loyalty and self-sacrifice. The facts in the case were supplied by Mrs. Gusty.

Hinton looked at his watch again, and groaned when he found it was only a quarter past two. Feeling his way cautiously along the porch and down the steps, he moved idly about the yard. He could not distinguish Menelaus from Paris now, and Helen of Troy was no longer to be recognized.

At long intervals a vehicle rattled past, leaving a cloud of dust behind. The air shimmered with the heat, and the low, insistent buzzing of bees beat on his ears mercilessly. He wondered impatiently why Guinevere did not come down, then checked himself as he remembered the constant demands he made upon her time.

At three o'clock he could stand it no longer. He felt a queer, dull sensation about his head, and he constantly drew his hand across his eyes to dispel the impression of a mist before them.

"Oh, Miss Guinevere!" he called up to her window. "Would you mind coming down just for a little while!"

Guinevere's head appeared so promptly that it was evident it had been lying on the window-sill.

"Is it time for your medicine?" she asked guiltily. "Mother said it didn't come till four."

"Oh, no," said Hinton, with forced cheerfulness; "it isn't that. You remember the old song, don't you, 'When a man's afraid, a beautiful maid is a cheering sight to see'?"

She disappeared from the window, and in a moment joined him behind the screen of honeysuckles on the porch. The hammock hung, inviting ease, but neither of them took it. She sat primly on the straight-backed, green settee, and he sat on the step at her feet with his hat pulled over his eyes.

"What an infernal nuisance I have been to you!" he said ruefully; "but no more than I have been to myself. The only difference was that I had to stand it, and you stood it out of the goodness of that kind little heart of yours. Well, it's nearly over now; I'm expecting to go to the city any day. I guess you'll not be sorry to get rid of me, will you, Miss Guinevere?"

Instead of answering, she drew a quick breath and turned her head away. When she did speak, it was after a long pause.

"I like the way you say my name. Nobody says it like that down here."

"Guinevere?" he repeated.

She nodded. "When you say it like that, I feel like I was another person. It makes me think of flowers, and poetry, and the wind in the trees, and all those things I've been reading you out of your books. Guin-never and Guinevere don't seem the same at all, do they?"

"They aren't the same," he said, "and you aren't the same girl I met on the boat last March. I guess we've both grown a bit since then. You know I was rather keen on dying about that time,—'in love with easeful death,'—well, now I am not keen about anything, but I am willing to play the game out."

They sat in silence for a while, then he said slowly, without raising his eyes: "I am not much good at telling what I feel, but before I go away I want you to know how much you've helped me. You have been the one light that was left to show me the way down into the darkness."

A soft touch on his shoulder made him lift his head. Guinevere was bending toward him, all restraint banished from her face by the compassion and love that suffused it.



Instinctively he swayed toward her, all the need of her crying out suddenly within him, then he pulled himself sharply together, and, resolutely thrusting his hands in his pockets, rose and took a turn up and down the porch.

"Do you mind reading to me a little?" he asked at length. "There are forty devils in my head to-day, all hammering on the back of my eyeballs. I'll get my Tennyson; you like him better than you do the others. Wait; I'm going."

But she was up the steps before him, eager to serve, and determined to spare him every effort.

Through the long afternoon Guinevere read, stumbling over the strange words and faltering through the difficult passages, but vibrant to the beauty and the pathos of it all. On and on she read, and the sun went down, and the fragrance of dying locust bloom came faintly from the hill, and overhead in the tree-tops the evening breeze murmured its world-old plaint of loneliness and longing.

Suddenly Guinevere's voice faltered, then steadied, then faltered again, then without warning she flung her arms across the back of the bench, and, dropping her head upon them, burst into passionate sobs.

Hinton, who had been sitting for a long time with his hands pressed over his eyes, sprang up to go to her.

"Guinevere," he said, "what's the matter? Don't cry, dear!" Then, as he stumbled, a look of terror crossed his face and he caught at the railing for support. "Where are you?" he asked sharply. "Speak to me! Give me your hand! I can't see—I can't—oh, my God, it has come!"



XV

The warning note sounded by Mrs. Fallows at the beginning of the oil boom was echoed by many before the summer was over. The coldest thing in the world is an exhausted enthusiasm, and when weeks slipped into months, and notes fell due, and the bank became cautious about lending money, a spirit of distrust got abroad, and a financial frost settled upon the community.

Notwithstanding these conditions, "The Opp Eagle" persistently screamed prosperity. It attributed the local depression to the financial disturbance that had agitated the country at large, and assured the readers that the Cove was on the eve of the greatest period in its history.

"The ascending, soaring bubble of inflated prices cannot last much longer," one editorial said; "the financial flurry in the Wall Streets of the North were pretty well over before we become aware of it, in a major sense. 'The Opp Eagle' has in the past, present, and future waged noble warfare against the calamity jays. Panic or no panic, Cove City refuses to remain in the backgrounds. There has been a large order for job-work in this office within the past ten days, also several new and important subscribers, all of which does not make much of a showing for hard times, at least not from our point of looking at it."

But in the same issue, in an inconspicuous corner, were a couple of lines to the effect that "the editor would be glad to take a load of wood on subscription."

The truth was that it required all of Mr. Opp's diplomacy to rise to the occasion. The effort to meet his own obligations was becoming daily more embarrassing, and he was reduced to economies entirely beneath the dignity of the editor of "The Opp Eagle." But while he cheerfully restricted his diet to two meals a day, and wore shirt-fronts in lieu of the genuine article, he was, according to Nick's ideas, rashly extravagant in other ways.

"What did you go and buy Widow Green's oil-shares back for?" Nick demanded upon one of these occasions.

"Well, you see," explained Mr. Opp, "it was purely a business proposition. Any day, now, things may open up in a way that will surprise you. I have good reason to believe that those shares are bound to go up; and besides," he added lamely in an undertone, "I happen to know that that there lady was in immediate need of a little ready money."

"So are we," protested Nick; "we need every cent we can get for the paper. If we don't get ahead some by the first of the year, we are going under, sure as you live."

Mr. Opp laid a hand upon his shoulder and smiled tolerantly. "Financiers get used to these fluctuations in money circles. Don't you worry, Nick; you leave that to the larger brains in the concern."

But in spite of his superior attitude of confidence, Nick's words rankled in his mind, and the first of the year became a time which he preferred not to consider.

One day in September the mail-packet brought two letters of great importance to Mr. Opp. One was from Willard Hinton, the first since his operation, and the other was from Mr. Mathews, stating that he would arrive at the Cove that day to lay an important matter of business before the stock-holders of the Turtle Creek Land Company.

Mr. Opp rushed across the road, a letter in each hand, to share the news with Guinevere.

"It's as good as settled," he cried, bursting in upon her, where she sat at the side door wrestling with a bit of needlework. "Mr. Mathews will be here to-day. He is either going to open up work or sell out to a syndicate. I'm going to use all my influence for the latter; it's the surest and safest plan. Miss Guin-never,"—his voice softened,—"this is all I been waiting for to make my last and final arrangement with your mother. It was just yesterday she was asking me what I'd decided to do, and I don't mind telling you, now it's all over, I never went to bed all last night—just sat up trying to figure it out. But this will settle it. I'll be in a position to have a little home of my own and take care of Kippy, too. I don't know as I ever was so happy in all my life put together before." He laughed nervously, but his eyes anxiously studied her averted face.

"Then there's more news," he plunged on, when she did not speak—"a letter from Mr. Hinton. I thought maybe you'd like to hear what he had to say."

Guinevere's scissors dropped with a sharp ring on the stepping-stone below, and as they both stooped to get them, their fingers touched. Mr. Opp ardently seized her hand in both of his, but unfortunately he seized her needle as well.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said. "Wait, let me do it," and with a compassion which he considered nothing short of divine she extricated the needle, and comforted the wounded member. Mr. Opp would have gladly suffered the fate of a St. Sebastian to have elicited such sympathy.

"Is—is Mr. Hinton better?" she asked, still bending over his hand.

"Hinton?" asked Mr. Opp. "Oh, I forgot; yes. I'll read you what he says. He got his nurse to write this for him.

Dear Opp: The die is cast; I am a has-been. I did not expect anything, so I am not disappointed. The operation was what they called successful. The surgeon, I am told, did a very brilliant stunt; something like taking my eyes out, playing marbles with them, and getting them sewed back again all in three minutes and a half. The result to the patient is of course purely a minor consideration, but it may interest you to know that I can tell a biped from a quadruped, and may in time, by the aid of powerful glasses, be able to distinguish faces.

With these useful and varied accomplishments I have decided to return to the Cove. My modest ambition now is to get out of the way, and the safest plan is to keep out of the current.

You will probably be a Benedick by the time I return. My heartiest congratulations to you and Miss Guinevere. Words cannot thank either of you for what you have done for me. All I can say is that I have tried to be worthy of your friendship.

What's left of me is

Yours,

Willard Hinton."

Mr. Opp avoided looking at her as he folded the sheets and put them back in the envelop. The goal was bright before his eyes, but quicksands dragged at his feet.

"And he will find us married, won't he, Miss Guin-never? You'll be ready just as soon as I and your mother come to a understanding, won't you? Why, it seems more like eleven years than eleven months since you and me saw that sunset on the river! There hasn't been a day since, you might say, that hasn't been occupied with you. All I ask for in the world is just the chance for the rest of my life of trying to make you happy. You believe that, don't you, Miss Guin-never?"

"Yes," she said miserably, gazing out at the little arbor Hinton had made for her beneath the trees.

"Well, I'll stop by this evening after the meeting, if it ain't too late," said Mr. Opp. "You'll—you'll be—glad if everything culminates satisfactory, won't you?"

"I'm glad of everything good that comes to you," said Guinevere so earnestly that Mr. Opp, who had lived on a diet of crumbs all his life, looked at her gratefully, and went back to the office assuring himself that all would be well.

The visit of Mr. Mathews, while eagerly anticipated, could not have fallen on a less auspicious day. Aunt Tish, the arbiter of the Opp household, had been planning for weeks to make a visit to Coreyville, and the occasion of an opportune funeral furnished an immediate excuse.

"No, sir, Mr. D., I can't put hit off till to-morrow," she declared in answer to Mr. Opp's request that she stay with Miss Kippy until after the stock-holders' meeting. "I's 'bleeged to go on dat night boat. De funeral teks place at ten o'clock in de mawnin', an' I's gwine be dar ef I has to swim de ribber."

"Was he a particular friend, the one that died?" asked Mr. Opp.

"Friend? Bunk Bivens? Dat onery, good-fer-nothin' ole half-strainer? Naw, sir; he ain't no friend ob mine."

"Well, what makes you so pressing and particular about attending his funeral?" asked Mr. Opp.

"'Ca'se I 'spise him so. I been hating dat nigger fer pretty nigh forty year, an' I ain't gwine lose dis chanst ob seein' him buried."

"But, Aunt Tish," persisted Mr. Opp, impatiently, "I've got a very important and critical meeting this afternoon. The business under consideration may be wound up in the matter of a few minutes, and then, again, it may prolong itself into several consecutive hours. You'll have to stay with Kippy till I get home."

The old woman looked at him strangely. "See dis heah hole in my haid, honey? 'Member how you and Ben uster ast Aunt Tish what mek hit? Dat nigger Bunk Bivens mek hit. He was a roustabout on de ribber, an' him an' yer paw fell out, an' one night when you was a baby he follow yer paw up here, an' me an' him had hit out."

"But where was my father?" asked Mr. Opp.

"Dey was 'sputin' right heah in dis heah kitchen where we's standin' at, an' dat mean, bow-laigged nigger didn't have no better manners den to 'spute wif a gentleman dat was full. An' pore Miss she run in so skeered an' white an' she say, 'Aunt Tish, don't let him hurt him; he don't know what he's sayin',' she baig, an' I tell her to keep yer paw outen de way an' I tek keer ob Bunk."

"And did he fight you?" asked Mr. Opp, indignantly.

"Naw, sir; I fit him. We put nigh tore up de floor ob de kitchen. Den he bust my haid open wif de poker, an' looks lak I been losing my knowledge ever sence. From dat day I 'low I's gwine to git even if it took me till I died, an' now dat spiteful old devil done died fust. But I's gwine see him buried. I want to see 'em nail him up in a box and th'ow dirt on him."

Aunt Tish ended the recital in a sing-song chant, worked up to a state of hysteria by the recital of her ancient wrong.

Mr. Opp sighed both for the past and the present. He saw the futility of arguing the case.

"Well, you'll stay until the boat whistles?" he asked. "Sometimes it is two hours late."

"Yas, sir; but when dat whistle toots I's gwine. Ef you is heah, all right; ef you ain't, all right: I's gwine!"

As Mr. Opp passed through the hall he saw Miss Kippy slip ahead of him and conceal herself behind the door. She carried something hidden in her apron.

"Have you learned your reading lesson to say to brother D. to-night?" he asked, ignoring her behavior. "You are getting so smart, learning to read handwriting just as good as I can!"

But Miss Kippy only peeped at him through the crack in the door and refused to be friendly. For several days she had been furtive and depressed, and had not spoken to either Aunt Tish or himself.

On the way to his office Mr. Opp was surprised to see Mr. Gallop leaning out of the window of his little room beckoning frantically. It was evident that Mr. Gallop had a secret to divulge, and Mr. Gallop with a secret was as excited as a small bird with a large worm.

"Just come in a minute and sit down," he fluttered; "you'll have to excuse the looks of things. Having just this one room for telegraph office and bedroom and everything crowds me up awful. I've been trying to fix my lunch for half an hour, but the telephone just keeps me busy. Then, besides, Mr. Mathews was here; he came down on the launch at twelve o'clock. Now, of course I know it ain't right to repeat anything I hear over the long-distance wire, but being such a good friend of yours, and you being such a friend of mine—why, Mr. Opp there ain't anybody in the world I owe more to than I do to you, not only the money you've lent me from time to time, but your standing up for me when everybody was down on me—and—"

"Yes; but you was remarking about Mr. Mathews?" Mr. Opp interrupted.

"Yes; and I was saying I never make a practice of repeating what I hear, but he was talking right here in the room, and I was mixing up a little salad dressing I promised Mrs. Fallows for the social,—it's to be over at Your Hotel this evening—there's the telephone!"

Mr. Opp sat on the edge of the sofa, the rest of it being occupied with gaily embroidered sofa pillows, specimens, the town declared, of Mr. Gallop's own handiwork. In fact, the only unoccupied space in the room was on the ceiling, for between his duties as operator and housekeeper Mr. Gallop still found time to cultivate the arts, and the result of his efforts was manifest in every nook and corner.

"It was Mrs. Gusty getting after Mr. Toddlinger for sending vanilla extract instead of lemon," explained Mr. Gallop, who had stopped to hear the discussion.

"Well, as I was saying, Mr. Mathews called up somebody in the city almost as soon as he got here—Now you've got to promise me you won't tell a living soul about this."

Mr. Opp promised.

"He said to telegraph New York party that terms were agreed on, and to mail check at once to Clark, and tell him to keep his mouth shut. Then the other end said something, and Mr. Mathews said: 'We can't afford to wait. You telegraph at once; I'll manipulate the crowd down here.' They talked a lot more, then he said awful low, but I heard him: 'Well, damn it! they've got to. There's too much at stake.'"

The editor sat with his hat in his hand, and blinked at the operator: "Manipulate," he said in a puzzled tone, "did he use that particular word?"

Mr. Gallop nodded.

"He may have been referring to something else," said Mr. Opp, waiving aside any disagreeable suspicion. "Mr. Mathews is a business gentleman. He's involved in a great many ventures, something like myself. You wouldn't think from what you heard that—er—that he was contemplating not acting exactly—fair with us, would you?"

Mr. Gallop, having delivered himself of his information, did not feel called upon to express a personal opinion.

"If you ever say I told you a word of this, I'll swear I didn't," he said. "It was just because you were such a good friend, and—there's that 'phone again!"

During the early hours of the afternoon, Mr. Opp was oppressed with a vague uneasiness. He made several attempts to see Mr. Mathews, but that gentleman was closeted with his stenographer until five o'clock, the hour named for the meeting.

All feeling of distrust was banished, however, when Mr. Mathews made his way through the crowd of stock-holders that filled the office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, "You kinder looked for him to purr when he wasn't talking."

He set forth at great length the undoubted oil wealth of the region, he complimented them on their sagacity and foresight in buying up the Turtle Creek ground, he praised the Cove in general and that distinguished citizen, the editor of "The Opp Eagle," in particular. The enterprise upon which they had embarked, he said, had grown to such proportions that large capital was required to carry it on. Owing to the recent depression in the money market, the Kentucky company did not feel able properly to back the concern, so it had been agreed that if a good offer was made to buy it, it should be accepted. It was with such an offer, Mr. Mathews said, that he had come to them to-day.

A stir of excitement met this announcement, and Miss Jim Fenton waved her lace scarf in her enthusiasm.

"Some time ago," went on Mr. Mathews, graciously acknowledging the applause, "the Union Syndicate of New York sent an expert, Mr. Clark, down here to report on the oil conditions in this region." Mr. Opp's eyes became fixed on Mr. Mathews's face, and his lips parted. "The report was so entirely satisfactory," continued Mr. Mathews, "that the following offer has been made."

Mr. Opp rose immediately. "Excuse me, sir, there is—er—rather, there must be some little mistake just at this juncture."

All eyes were turned upon him, and a murmur of dissent arose at an interruption at such a critical point.

Mr. Mathews gave him permission to proceed.

"You see—I—Mr. Clark, that is,"—Mr. Opp's fingers were working nervously on the back of the chair before him,—"him and myself went over the ground together, and—I—well, I must say I don't consider him a competent judge."

Mr. Mathews smiled. "I am afraid, Mr. Opp, that your opinion is overruled. Mr. Clark is a recognized authority, although," he added significantly, "of course the most expert make mistakes at times."

"That ain't the point," persisted Mr. Opp; "it's the conflicting difference in what he said to me, and what he's reported to them. He told me that he didn't consider our prospects was worth a picayune, and if the wells were drilled, they probably wouldn't run a year. I didn't believe him then; but you say now that he is a expert and that he knows."

Mr. Mathews's tolerance seemed limitless. He waited patiently for Mr. Opp to finish, then he said smoothly:

"Yes, yes; I understand your point perfectly, Mr. Opp. Mr. Clark's remarks were injudicious, but he was looking at all sides of the question. He saw me after he saw you, you know, and I was able to direct his attention to the more favorable aspects of the case. His report was entirely favorable, and I guess that is all that concerns us, isn't it?" He embraced the room with his smile.

During the next quarter of an hour Mr. Opp sat with his arms folded and his eyes bent on the floor and bit his lips furiously. Something was wrong. Again and again he fought his way back to this conclusion through the enveloping mazes of Mr. Mathews's plausibility. Why had they waited so long after drilling that first well? Why, after making elaborate plans and buying machinery, had they suddenly decided to sell? Why had Mr. Clark given such contradictory opinions? What did Mr. Mathews mean by that message from Mr. Gallop's office? Mr. Opp's private affairs, trembling in the balance, were entirely lost sight of in his determination for fair play.

Covering his eyes with his hand, and trying not to hear the flood of argument which Mr. Mathews was bringing to bear upon his already convinced audience, Mr. Opp attempted to recall all that Mr. Gallop had told him.

"He said 'manipulate,'" repeated Mr. Opp to himself. "I remember that, and he said 'telegraph New York party that terms were agreed on.' Then he said 'mail check to Clark; tell him to keep his mouth shut.' What's he paying Clark for? Why—"

"The motion before the house," Mr. Tucker's piping voice broke in upon his agitated reasoning, "is whether the stock-holders of the Turtle Creek Land Company is willing to sell out at a rate of seven to one to the Union Syndicate."

In the buzz of delight that ensued, Mr. Opp found himself standing on a chair and demanding attention.

"Listen here," he cried, pounding on the wall with his hand, "I've got important information that's got to be told: that man Clark is a rascal. He's—he's deceiving his company. He's been paid to make a good report of our ground. I can't prove it, but I know it. We're taking part in a fraud; we're—we're being manipulated."

Mr. Opp almost shrieked the last word in his agony of earnestness; but before the crowd could fully apprehend his meaning, Mr. Mathews rose and said somewhat sharply:

"What the representative of the Union Syndicate is, or is not, doesn't concern us in the least. I come to you with a gilt-edged proposition; all I ask you is to sit tight, and take my advice, and I guarantee you an immediate return of seven dollars to every one you put into this concern. Mr. Chairman, will you put it to the vote?"

But Mr. Opp again stopped proceedings. "As a director in this company I won't stand for what's going on. I'll telegraph the syndicate. I'll advertise the whole matter!"

Mat Lucas pulled at his sleeve, and the preacher put a restraining arm about his shoulder. The amazing rumor had become current that the Cove's stanchest advocate for temperance had been indulging in drink, and there was nothing in the editor's flushed face and excited manner to contradict the impression.

"If by any chance," Mr. Mathews went on in a steady voice, "there should be a stock-holder who is unwilling to take advantage of this magnificent offer, we need hardly say that we are prepared to buy his stock back at the amount he gave for it." He smiled, as if inviting ridicule at the absurdity of the proposition.

"I am unwilling," cried Mr. Opp, tugging at the restraining hands. "I have never yet in all the length and breadth of my experience been associated with a dishonest act."

"Don't! Mr. Opp, don't!" whispered Mat Lucas. "You're acting like a crazy man. Don't you see you are losing the chance to make three thousand dollars?"

"That hasn't nothing to do with it," cried Mr. Opp, almost beside himself. "I'll not be a party to the sale. I'll—"

Mr. Mathews turned to his secretary. "Just fix up those papers for Mr. Opp, and give him a check for what is coming to him. Now, Mr. Chairman, will you put the matter to the vote?"

Amid the hilarious confusion that succeeded the unanimous vote, and the subsequent adjournment of the meeting, Mr. Opp pushed his way through the crowd that surrounded Mr. Mathews.

"You know what I was alluding at," he shouted through his chattering teeth. "You've carried this through, but I'll blockade you. I am going to tell the truth to the whole community. I am going to telegraph to the syndicate and stop the sale."

Mr. Mathews lifted his brows and smiled deprecatingly.

"I am sorry you have worked yourself up to such a pitch, my friend," he said. "Telegraph, by all means if it will ease your mind; but the fact is, the deal was closed at noon to-day."

The long, low whistle of the packet sounded, but Mr. Opp heeded it not. He was flinging his way across to the telegraph office in a frenzy of Quixotic impatience to right the wrong of which he had refused to be a part.



XVI

Half an hour later, Mr. Opp dragged himself up the hill to his home. All the unfairness and injustice of the universe seemed pressing upon his heart. Every muscle in his body quivered in remembrance of what he had been through, and an iron band seemed tightening about his throat. His town had refused to believe his story! It had laughed in his face!

With a sudden mad desire for sympathy and for love, he began calling Kippy. He stumbled across the porch, and, opening the door with his latch-key, stood peering into the gloom of the room.

The draft from an open window blew a curtain toward him, a white spectral, beckoning thing, but no sound broke the stillness.

"Kippy!" he called again, his voice sharp with anxiety.

From one room to another he ran, searching in nooks and corners, peering under the beds and behind the doors, calling in a voice that was sometimes a command, but oftener a plea: "Kippy! Kippy!"

At last he came back to the dining-room and lighted the lamp with shaking hands. On the hearth were the remains of a small bonfire, with papers scattered about. He dropped on his knees and seized a bit of charred cardboard. It was a corner of the hand-painted frame that had incased the picture of Guinevere Gusty! Near it lay loose sheets of paper, parts of that treasured package of letters she had written him from Coreyville.

As Mr. Opp gazed helplessly about the room, his eyes fell upon something white pinned to the red table-cloth. He held it to the light. It was a portion of one of Guinevere's letters, written in the girl's clear, round hand:

Mother says I can never marry you until Miss Kippy goes to the asylum.

Mr. Opp got to his feet. "She's read the letter," he cried wildly; "she's learned out about herself! Maybe she's in the woods now, or down on the bank!" He rushed to the porch. "Kippy!" he shouted. "Don't be afraid! Brother D.'s coming to get you! Don't run away, Kippy! Wait for me! Wait!" and leaving the old house open to the night, he plunged into the darkness, beating through the woods and up and down the road, calling in vain for Kippy, who lay cowering in the bottom of a leaking skiff that was drifting down the river at the mercy of the current.

* * * * *

Two days later, Mr. Opp sat in the office of the Coreyville Asylum for the Insane and heard the story of his sister's wanderings. Her boat had evidently been washed ashore at a point fifteen miles above the town, for people living along the river had reported a strange little woman, without hat or coat, who came to their doors crying and saying her name was "Oxety," and that she was crazy, and begging them to show her the way to the asylum. On the second day she had been found unconscious on the steps of the institution, and since then, the doctor said, she had been wild and unmanageable.

"Considering all things," he concluded, "it is much wiser for you not to see her. She came of her own accord, evidently felt the attack coming on, and wanted to be taken care of."

He was a large, smooth-faced man, with the conciliatory manner of one who regards all his fellow-men as patients in varying degrees of insanity.

"But I'm in the regular habit of taking care of her," protested Mr. Opp. "This is just a temporary excitement for the time being that won't ever, probably, occur again. Why, she's been improving all winter; I've learnt her to read and write a little, and to pick out a number of cities on the geographical atlas."

"All wrong," exclaimed the doctor; "mistaken kindness. She can never be any better, but she may be a great deal worse. Her mind should never be stimulated or excited in any way. Here, of course, we understand all these things and treat the patient accordingly."

"Then I must just go back to treating her like a child again?" asked Mr. Opp, "not endeavoring to improve her intellect, or help her grow up in any way?"

The doctor laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.

"You leave her to us," he said. "The State provides this excellent institution for just such cases as hers. You do yourself and your family, if you have one, an injustice by keeping her at home. Let her stay here for six months or so, and you will see what a relief it will be."

Mr. Opp sat with his elbow on the desk and his head propped in his hand, and stared miserably at the floor. He had not had his clothes off for two nights, and he had scarcely taken time from his search to eat anything. His face looked old and wizened and haunted from the strain. Yet here and now he was called upon to make his great decision. On the one hand lay the old, helpless life with Kippy, and on the other a future of dazzling possibility with Guinevere. All of his submerged self suddenly rose and demanded happiness. He was ready to snatch it, at any cost, regardless of everything and everybody—of Kippy; of Guinevere, who, he knew, did not love him, but would keep her promise; of Hinton, whose secret he had long ago guessed. And, as a running accompaniment to his thoughts, was the quiet, professional voice of the doctor urging him to the course that his heart prompted. For a moment the personal forces involved trembled in equilibrium.

After a long time he unknotted his fingers, and drew his handkerchief across his brow.

"I guess I'll go up and see her now," he said, with the gasping breath of a man who has been under water.

In vain the doctor protested. Mr. Opp was determined.

As the door to the long ward was being unlocked, he leaned for a moment dizzily against the wall.

"You'd better let me give you a swallow of whisky," suggested the doctor, who had noted his exhaustion.

Mr. Opp raised his hand deprecatingly, with a touch of his old professional pride. "I don't know as I've had occasion to mention," he said, "that I am the editor and sole proprietor of 'The Opp Eagle'; and that bird," he added, with a forced smile, "is, as everybody knows, a complete teetotaler."

At the end of the crowded ward, with her face to the wall, was a slight, familiar figure. Mr. Opp started forward; then he turned fiercely upon the attendant.

"Her hands are tied! Who dared to tie her up like that?"

"It's just a soft handkerchief," replied the matronly woman, reassuringly. "We were afraid she would pull her hair out. She wants its fixed a certain way; but she's afraid for any of us to touch her. She has been crying about it ever since she came."

In an instant Mr. Opp was on his knees beside her. "Kippy, Kippy darling, here's brother D.; he'll fix it for you! You want it parted on the side, don't you, tied with a bow, and all the rest hanging down? Don't cry so, Kippy. I'm here now; brother D.'ll take care of you."

She flung her loosened arms around him and clung to him in a passion of relief. Her sobs shook them both, and his face and neck were wet with her tears.

As soon as they could get her sufficiently quiet, they took her into her little bedroom.

"You let the lady get you ready," urged Mr. Opp, still holding her hand, "and I'll take you back home, and Aunt Tish will have a nice, hot supper all waiting for us."

But she would let nobody else touch her, and even then she broke forth into piteous sobs and protests. Once she pushed him from her and looked about wildly. "No, no," she cried, "I mustn't go; I am crazy!" But he told her about the three little kittens that had been born under the kitchen steps, and in an instant she was all a-tremble with eagerness to go home to see them.

An hour later, Mr. Opp and his charge sat on the river-bank and waited for the little launch that was to take them back to the Cove. A curious crowd had gathered at a short distance, for their story had gone the rounds.

Mr. Opp sat under the fire of curious glances, gazing straight in front of him, and only his flushed face showed what he was suffering. Miss Kippy, in her strange clothes and with her pale hair flying about her shoulders, sat close by him, her hand in his.

"D.," she said once in a high, insistent voice, "when will I be grown up enough to marry Mr. Hinton?"

Mr. Opp for a moment forgot the crowd. "Kippy," he said with all the gentle earnestness that was in him, "you ain't never going to grow up at all. You are just always going to be brother D.'s little girl. You see, Mr. Hinton's too old for you, just like—" he paused, then finished it bravely—"just like I am too old for Miss Guin-never. I wouldn't be surprised if they got married with each other some day. You and me will just have to take care of each other."

She looked at him with the quick suspicion of the insane, but he was ready for her with a smile.

"Oh, D.," she cried, in a sudden rapture, "we are glad, ain't we?"



XVII

For the next four weeks there was no issue of "The Opp Eagle." When it did make its appearance, it contained the following editorial:

Ye editor has for several weeks been the victim of the La Grip which eventuated into a rising in our left ear. Although we are still in severe and continuous pain, we know that behind the clouds of suffering the blue sky of health is still shining, and that a brighter day is coming, as it were.

The night of Mr. Opp's return from Coreyville, he had written a long letter to Guinevere Gusty telling her of his final decision in regard to Kippy, and releasing her from her promise. This having been accomplished, he ceased to fight against the cold and exhaustion, and went to bed with a hard chill.

Aunt Tish, all contrition for the disasters she thought she had brought upon the household, served him night and day, and even Miss Kippy, moved by the unusual sight of her brother in bed, made futile efforts to assist in the nursing.

When at last he was able to crawl back to the office, he found startling changes had taken place in the Cove. The prompt payment of the oil stock-holders by the Union Syndicate had brought about such a condition of prosperity and general satisfaction as had never before been known. The civic spirit planted and carefully nourished by "The Opp Eagle" burst into bloom under this sudden and unexpected warmth. Committees, formed the year before, were called upon for reports, and gratifying results were obtained. The Cove awoke to the fact that it had lamp-posts, and side-walks and a post-office, with a possibility, looming large, of a court house.

Nor did this ambition for improvement stop short with the town: it extended to individuals. Jimmy Fallows was going to build a new hotel; Mr. Tucker was going to convert his hotel into a handsome private residence, for which Mrs. Gusty had been asked to select the wall-paper; Mat Lucas was already planning to build a large store on Main Street, and had engaged Mr. Gallop to take charge of the dry-goods department. The one person upon whom prosperity had apparently had a blighting effect was Miss Jim Fenton. Soon after the receipt of her check, she had appeared in the Cove in a plain, black tailor suit, and a small, severe felt hat innocent of adornment. The French-heeled slippers had been replaced by heavy walking shoes, and the lace scarf was discarded for a stiff linen collar.

But the state of Miss Jim's mind was not to be judged by the somberness of her raiment. The novelty of selecting her own clothes, of consulting her own taste, of being rid of the entangling dangers of lace ruffles and flying furbelows, to say nothing of unwelcome suitors, gave her a sense of exhilaration and independence which she had not enjoyed for years.

In the midst of all these tangible evidences of success, Mr. Opp found himself indulging in a hand-to-hand struggle with failure. As a hunter aims at a point well in advance of the flying bird, so he had aimed at possibilities ahead of the facts, and when events took an unexpected turn, he was left stranded, his ammunition gone, his judgment questioned, and his hands empty. He had been conducting his affairs not on the basis of his present income, but in reference to the large sums which he confidently believed would accrue from the oil-wells.

The circulation of "The Opp Eagle" was increasing steadily, but the growing bird must be fed, and the editor, struggling to meet daily pressing obligations, was in no condition to furnish the steady demand for copy.

All unnecessary diversions were ruthlessly foregone. He resigned with a pang the leadership of the Union Orchestra, he gave up his membership with the Odd Fellows. Even his more important duties, as president of the Town Improvement League, and director in the bank, were relinquished. For, in addition to his editorials, he had undertaken to augment his slender income by selling on subscription the "Encyclopedia of Wonder, Beauty, and Wisdom."

It was at this low ebb of Mr. Opp's fortunes that Willard Hinton returned to the Cove. He was still pale from his long confinement, but there was an unusual touch of animation about him, the half-surprised interest of one who has struck bottom, and found it not so bad as he had expected.

One dark afternoon in November he made his way over to the office of "The Opp Eagle," and stood irresolute in the door.

"That you, Mr. Opp? Or is it Nick?" He blinked uncertainly.

"Why, it is me," said Mr. Opp. "Come right in. I've been so occupied with engagements that I haven't scarcely had occasion to see anything of you since you come back. You are getting improved all the time, ain't you? I thought I saw you writing on a type-writer when I passed this morning."

"Yes," said Hinton; "it's a little machine I got before I came down, with raised letters on the keyboard. If I progress at the rapid pace I have started, I'll be an expert before long. Mrs. Gusty was able to read five words out of ten this morning!"

"Hope you'll do us an article or two," said Mr. Opp. "I don't mind telling you that things has been what you might name as pressing ever since that trouble about the oil-wells. I'm not regretting any step that I taken, and I am endeavoring not to harbor any feelings against those that went on after I give my word it wasn't a fair transaction. But if what that man Clark said is true, Mr. Hinton, the Union Syndicate will never open up another well in this community."

"Your conscience proved rather an expensive luxury that time, didn't it, Mr. Opp?" asked Hinton, who had heard as many versions of the affair as there were citizens in the Cove.

Mr. Opp shrugged his shoulders, and pursed his lips. "It's a matter that I cannot yet bring myself to talk about. After a whole year and more of associating with me in business and social ways, to think they wouldn't be willing to take my word for what I said."

"But it wasn't to their advantage," said Hinton, smiling. "You forget the amount of money involved."

"No," declared Mr. Opp with some heat, "you do those gentlemen a injustice. There ain't a individual of them that is capable of a dishonest act, any more than you or me. They just lacked the experience in dealing with a man like Mr. Mathews."

Hinton's smile broadened; he reached over and grasped Mr. Opp's hand.

"Do you know you are a rattling good fellow? I am sorry things have gotten so balled up with you."

"I'll pay out," said the editor. "It'll take some time, but I've got a remarkable ability for work in me. I don't mind telling you, though I'll have to ask you not to mention the fact to no one at present, that I am considering inventing a patent. It's a sort of improved type-setter, one of the most remarkable things you ever witnessed. I never knew till about six months ago what a scientific turn my mind could take. I've worked this whole thing out in my brain without the aid of a model of any sort."

"In the meanwhile," said Hinton, "I hear you will have to sell your paper."

Mr. Opp winced, and the lines in his face deepened. "Well, yes," he said, "I have about decided to sell, provided I keep the editorship, of course. After my patent gets on the market I will soon be in a position to buy it back."

"Mr. Opp," said Hinton, "I've got a proposition to make to you. I have a moderate sum of money in bank which I want to invest in business. How would you like to sell out the paper to me, lock, stock, and barrel?"

Mr. Opp, whose eyes had been resting on the bills that strewed his table, looked up eagerly.

"You to own it, and me to run it?" he asked hopefully.

"No," said Hinton; "you would help me to run it, I hope, but I would be the editor. I have thought the matter over seriously, and I believe, with competent help, I can make the paper an up-to-date, self-supporting newspaper, in spite of my handicap."

Mr. Opp sat as if stunned by a blow. He had known for some time that he must sell the paper in order to meet his obligations, but the thought of relinquishing his control of it never dawned upon him. It was the pride of his heart, the one tangible achievement in a wilderness of dreams. Life without Guinevere had seemed a desert; life without "The Opp Eagle" seemed chaos. He looked up bewildered.

"We'd continue on doing business here in the regular way?" he asked.

"No," said Hinton; "I would build a larger office uptown, and put in new presses; we could experiment with your new patent type-setter as soon as you got it ready."

But Mr. Opp was beyond pleasantries. "You'd keep Nick?" he asked. "I wouldn't consider anything that would cut Nick out."

"By all means," said Hinton. "I'm counting on you and Nick to initiate me into the mysteries of the profession. You could be city editor, and Nick—well, we could make him foreman."

One last hope was left to Mr. Opp, and he clung to it desperately, not daring to voice it until the end.

"The name," he said faintly, "would of course remain 'The Opp Eagle'?"

Hinton dropped his eyes; he could not stand the wistful appeal in the drawn face opposite.

"No," he said shortly; "that's a—little too personal. I think I should call my paper 'The Weekly News.'"

Mr. Opp could never distinctly remember what happened after that. He knew that he had at first declined the offer, that he had been argued with, had reconsidered, and finally accepted a larger sum than he had asked for; but the details of the transaction were like the setting of bones after an accident.

He remembered that he had sat where Hinton left him, staring at the floor until Nick came to close the office; then he had a vague impression of crossing the fields and standing with his head against the old sycamore-tree where the birds had once whispered of love. After that he knew that he had met Hinton and Guinevere coming up the river road hand in hand, that he had gotten home after supper was over, and had built a bridge of blocks for Miss Kippy.

Then suddenly he had wakened to full consciousness, staggered out of the house to the woodshed, and shivered down into a miserable heap. There in the darkness he seemed to see things, for the first time in his life, quite as they were. His gaze, accustomed to the glittering promise of the future, peered fearfully into the past, and reviewed the long line of groundless hopes, of empty projects, of self-deceptions. Shorn of its petty shams and deceits, and stripped of its counterfeit armor of conceit, his life lay naked before him, a pitiful, starved, futile thing.

"I've just been similar to Kippy," he sobbed, with his face in his hands, "continually pretending what wasn't so. I acted like I was young, and good-looking, and—and highly educated; and look at me! Look at me!" he demanded fiercely of the kindling-wood.

Mr. Opp had been fighting a long duel—a duel with Circumstance, and Mr. Opp was vanquished. The acknowledgment of defeat, even to himself, gave it the final stamp of verity. He had fought valiantly, with what poor weapons he had, but the thrusts had been too many and too sure. He lay clothed in his strange new garment of humility, and wondered why he did not want to die. He did not realize that in losing everything else, he had won the greater stake of character for which he had been unconsciously fighting all along.

The kitchen door opened, and he saw Miss Kippy's figure silhouetted against the light.

"Brother D.," she called impatiently, "ain't you coming back to play with me?"

He scrambled to his feet and made a hasty and somewhat guilty effort to compose himself.

"Yes, I'm a-coming," he answered briskly, as he smoothed his scant locks and straightened his tie. "You go on ahead and gather up the blocks; I only stopped playing for a little spell."



XVIII

The marriage of Guinevere Gusty and Willard Hinton took place in mid-winter, and the account of it, published in the last issue of "The Opp Eagle," proved that the eagle, like the swan, has its death-song.

Like many of the masterpieces of literature, the article had been written in anguish of spirit; but art, like nature, ignores the process, and reckons only the result, and the result, in Mr. Opp's opinion at least, more than justified the effort.

"In these strenuous, history-making meanderings of the sands of life," it ran, "we sometimes overlook or neglect particulars in events which prove of larger importance than appears on the surface. The case to which we have allusion to is the wedding which was solemnized at eventide at the residence of the bride's mother. The Gustys may be justly considered one of the best-furnished families in the county, and the parlors were only less beautiful than the only daughter there presiding. The collation served therein was of such a liberal nature that every guest, we might venture to say, took dinner enough home for supper. It has seldom been our fate to meet a gentleman of such intelligent attainments as Mr. Hinton, and his entire future existence, be it long or short, cannot fail of being thrice blessed by the companionship of the one who has confided her trust to him,—her choice, world-wide. Although a bachelor ourself, we know what happiness must be theirs, and with all our heart we vouchsafe them a joyful voyage across the uncertain billows of Time until their nuptial or matrimonial bark shall have been safely moored in the haven of everlasting bliss, where the storms of this life spread not their violence."

Some men spend their lives in the valley, and some are born and die on the heights; but it was Mr. Opp's fate to climb from the valley to his own little mountain-top of prosperity, only to have to climb down on the other side. It was evidence of his genius that in time he persuaded himself and his fellow-citizens that it was exactly what he wanted to do.