Lillian looked at me keenly, then smiled.

"Can't you guess?" she asked significantly.

"You mean you put something in the mulled wine to make me sleep?"

"Of course. You have been through enough for any one woman. Dicky was in no danger, and I had no desire to have you ill on my hands."

I flushed a bit resentfully. I was not quite sure that I liked her high-handed way of disposing of me as if I were a child. Then as I felt her keen eyes upon me I knew that she was reading my thoughts, and I felt mightily ashamed of my childish petulance.

"You must forgive my arbitrary way of doing things," she resumed, a bit formally.

I put out my hand pleadingly. "Don't, Lillian," I said earnestly. "I'll be good, and I do thank you. You know that, don't you?"

Her face cleared. "Of course, goosie," she answered. "But I must help you dress. Your breakfast will be here in a moment."

I sprang out of bed before she could prevent me, and gave her a regular "bear hug."

"Help me dress!" I exclaimed indignantly. "Indeed, you will do no such thing. I feel as strong as ever, and I am going to put you to bed before I go to Dicky. But tell me, how is—"

She spared me from speaking the name I so dreaded.

"Miss Draper is no worse. Indeed, Dr. Pettit thinks she has rallied slightly this morning. She is resting easily now, has been since about 3 o'clock, when Dr. Pettit went home."

I was hurrying into my clothes as she talked. "Have you found out yet how it happened?" I asked.

"I know what Harry does," she answered. "He says that yesterday the girl appeared as calm, even cheerful, as ever, went with him to the manager's office, performed her dancing stunt as cleverly as she did the other night, and in response to the very good offer the manager made her, asked for a day to consider it. As she was leaving the office, she asked Harry if Dicky were in his studio, saying she had left there something she prized highly and would like to get it. Something in the way she said it made Harry suspicious. Of course, I had told him confidentially of her attempt to drown you, so he remarked nonchalantly that he was also going to the studio. He said she seemed nonplussed for a moment, then coolly accepted his escort.

"They went to the studio, and Harry stuck close to Dicky, never permitting the Draper girl to be alone with him for a minute. After a few moments she bade them a commonplace goodby and left, but she must have stayed near by and cleverly shadowed them when they left.

"At any rate, she appeared at the door of our house shortly after Harry and Dicky had entered—Harry wanted to get some things before coming out to Marvin again—and asked Betty to see Dicky. Unfortunately, Harry was in his rooms and did not hear the request, so that Dicky went into the little sitting room off the hall with her, and Betty says the girl herself closed the door. What was said no one knows but Dicky and the girl.

"Harry heard a shot, rushed downstairs, and found Dicky, with the blood flowing from his arm, struggling with the girl in an attempt to keep her from firing another shot. Harry took the revolver away, unloaded and pocketed it, and could have prevented any further tragedy only for Dicky's growing faint from loss of blood.

"Harry turned his attention to Dicky, and the girl picked up a stiletto, which Harry uses for a paper cutter—you know he has the house filled with all sorts of curios from all over the world—and drove it into her left breast. She aimed for her heart, of course, and she almost turned the trick. I imagine she has a pretty good chance of pulling through if infection doesn't develop. The stiletto hadn't been used for some time, and there were several small rust spots on it. But here comes your breakfast."

Her voice had been absolutely emotionless as she told me the story. As she busied herself with setting out attractively on a small table the delicious breakfast Katie had brought, I had a queer idea that if it were not for the publicity that would inevitably follow, Lillian would not very much regret the ultimate success of Grace Draper's attempt at self-destruction.



XXIX

"BUT YOU WILL NEVER KNOW—"

I do not believe that ever in my life can I again have an experience so horrible as that which followed the development of infection in the dagger wound which Grace Draper had inflicted upon herself after her unsuccessful attempt to shoot Dicky.

Against the combined protest of Dicky and Lillian, I shared the care of the girl with the trained nurse whom Lillian's forethought had provided and Dicky's money had paid for.

The reason for my presence at her bedside was a curious one.

At the close of the third day following the girl's attempt at murder and self-destruction, Lillian came to the door of the room where I was reading to Dicky, who was now almost recovered, and called me out into the hall.

"Madge," she said abruptly, "that poor girl in there has been calling for you for an hour. We tried every way we could think of to quiet her, but nothing else would do. She must see you. I imagine she has made up her mind she's going to die and wants to ask your forgiveness or something of that sort."

"I will go to her at once," I said quietly. As I moved toward the door my knees trembled so I could hardly walk.

Lillian came up to me quickly and put her strong arm around me.

We went down the hall to a wonderful room of ivory and gold, which I knew must be Lillian's guest room. In a big ivory-tinted bed the girl lay, a pitiful wreck of the dashing, insolent figure she had been.

Her face was as white as the pillows upon which she lay, while her hands looked utterly bloodless as they rested listlessly upon the coverlet. Only her eyes held anything of her old spirit. They looked unusually brilliant. I wondered uneasily if their appearance was the result of their contrast to her deathly white face or whether the fever which the doctor dreaded had set in.

She looked at me steadily for a long minute, then spoke huskily—I was surprised at the strength of her voice.

"Of course I have no right to ask anything of you, Mrs. Graham," she said, "but death, you know, always has privileges, and I am going to die."

I saw the nurse glance swiftly, sharply, at her, and then go quietly out of the room.

"She's hurrying to get the doctor," the girl said, with the uncanny intuition of the very sick, "but he can't do me any good. I'm going to die and I know it. And I want you to promise to stay with me until the end comes. I shall probably be unconscious, and not know whether you are here or not, but I know you. You're the kind that if you give a promise you won't break it, and I have a sort of feeling that I'd like to go out holding your hand. Will you promise me that?"

Her eyes looked fiercely, compelling, into mine. I stepped forward and laid my hand on hers, lying so weak on the bed.

"Of course I promise," I said pitifully.

There was a quick, savage gleam in her eyes which I could not fathom, a gleam that vanished as quickly as it came. I told myself that the look I had surprised in her eyes was one of ferocious triumph, and that as my hand touched hers she had instinctively started to draw her hand away from mine, and then yielded it to my grasp.

"All right," she said indifferently, closing her eyes. "Remember now, don't go away."

"Dicky! Dicky! what have I done that you are so changed? How can you be so cold to me when you remember all that we have been to each other? Don't be so cruel to me. Kiss me just once, just once, as you used to do."

Over and over again the plaintive words pierced the air of the room where Grace Draper lay, while Dr. Pettit and the nurse battled for her life.

The theme of all her delirious cries and mutterings was Dicky. She lived over again all the homely little humorous incidents of their long studio association. She went with him upon the little outings which they had taken together, and of which I learned for the first time from her fever-crazed lips.

"Isn't this delicious salad, Dicky?" she would cry. "What a magnificent view of the ocean you can get from here? Wouldn't Belasco envy that moonlight effect?"

Then more tender memories would obsess her. To me, crouching in my corner, bound by my promise to stay in the room, it seemed a most cruel irony of fate that I should be compelled to listen to this unfolding of my husband's faithlessness to me within so short a time of our tender reconciliation.

I do not think Dr. Pettit knew I was in the room when he first entered it, anxious because of his imperative summons by the nurse. Lillian's guest room had the alcove characteristic of the old-fashioned New York houses, and she and I were seated in that.

The physician bent over the bed, carefully studying the patient. Through his professional mask I thought I saw a touch of bewilderment. He studied the girl's pulse and temperature, listened to her breathing, then turned to the nurse sharply.

"How long has she been delirious?"

"Since just after I called you," the girl replied.

"Did you notice anything unusual about her before that? You said something over the telephone about her talking queerly."

The nurse looked quickly over to the alcove where Lillian and I sat. Dr. Pettit's eyes followed her glance. With a quick muttered exclamation he strode swiftly to where we sat and towered angrily above us.

"What does this mean?" he asked imperatively. "Why are you here listening to this stuff? It is abominable."

"I agree with you, Dr. Pettit. It is abominable, but she made Madge promise to stay," Lillian said quietly. She made an almost imperceptible gesture of her head toward the bed, and her voice was full of meaning. He started, looked her steadily in the eyes, then nodded slightly as if asserting some unspoken thought of hers.

"Dicky darling," the voice from the bed rose pleadingly, "don't you remember how you promised me to take me away from all this, how we planned to go far, far away, where no one would ever find us again?"

Dr. Pettit turned almost savagely on me.

"Promise or no promise," he said, "I will not allow this any longer. You must go out of this room and stay out."

I stood up and faced him unflinchingly.

"I cannot, Dr. Pettit," I answered firmly. "I must keep my promise."

"Then I will get your release from that promise at once," he said and strode toward the bed.

I watched him with terrified fascination. Had he gone suddenly mad? What did he mean to do?

As Dr. Pettit turned from Lillian and me, and strode toward the bed where the sick girl lay, apparently raving in delirium, I called out to him in horror.

"Oh, don't disturb that delirious, dying girl!"

I made an impetuous step forward to try to stop him when Lillian caught my arm and whirled me into a recess of the alcove.

"You unsuspecting little idiot," she said, giving me a tender little shake that robbed the words of their harshness, "can't you see that that girl is shamming?"

For a moment I could not comprehend what she meant; then the full truth burst upon me. If what Lillian said were true, if the girl was pretending delirium that she might utter words concerning Dicky's infatuation for her which would torture me, then it was more than probable, almost certain, in fact, that there was no word of truth in her pretended delirious mutterings.

Dicky was not faithless to me, as I had feared during the tortured moments in which I had listened to, the girl's ravings.

The joy of the sudden revelation almost unnerved me. I believe I would have swooned and fallen had not Lillian caught me.

"Listen," she said in my ear, pinching my arm almost cruelly to arouse me, "listen to what Dr. Pettit is saying, and you'll see that I am right."

My eyes followed hers to the bed where Dr. Pettit stood gazing down upon the seemingly unconscious girl and speaking in measured, merciless fashion.

"This won't do, my girl," he was saying, and his tone and manner of address seemed in some subtle fashion to strip all semblance of dignity from the girl and leave her simply a "case" of the doctor's, of a type only too familiar to him.

"It won't do," he repeated. "You are simply shamming this delirium, and you are lessening your chances for life every minute you persist in it. I'm sorry to be hard on you, but I'm going to give you an ultimatum right now. Either you will release Mrs. Graham from her promise at once and quit this nonsense, or I shall call an officer, report the truth of this occurrence, and you will be arrested not only upon a charge of attempted suicide, but of attempted murder.

"Of course, you will then be removed to the jail hospital, where I am afraid you may not enjoy the skilful care you are getting now. And, if you live, the after effects of these charges will be exceedingly unpleasant for you."

My heart almost stopped beating as I listened to the physician's relentless words.

Suppose Dr. Pettit was mistaken and the girl should be really delirious, after all. But just as I had reached the point of torturing doubt hardly to be borne, the girl stopped her delirious muttering, opened her eyes and looted steadily up at the physician.

"You devil," she said, at last, with quiet malignity. "You've called the turn. I throw up my hands."

"I thought so." This was the physician's only response. He stood quietly waiting while the girl gazed steadily, unwinkingly at him.

"Tell me," she said at last, coolly, "am I going to die?"

"I do not know," the physician returned, as coolly. "You have a slight temperature, and I am afraid infection has developed. But I can tell you that your performance of the last hour or two has not helped your chances any. You must be perfectly quiet and obedient, conserve every bit of strength if you wish to live."

"How about that very chivalric threat you made just now," the girl retorted, sneeringly. "If I live, are you going to have me arrested for this thing?"

"Not if you behave yourself and promise to make no more trouble," the physician replied gravely.

There was another long silence. The girl lay with eyes closed. The physician stood watching her keenly. Presently she opened her eyes again.

"Call Mrs. Graham over here," she said peremptorily.

"What are you going to say to her?" the physician shot back.

"That's my business and hers," Miss Draper returned, with a flash of her old spirit. "If you want a release from that promise you'd better let her come over here, otherwise I'll hold her to it."

Disregarding Lillian's clutch upon my arm I moved swiftly to the side of the bed and looked down into the sick girl's eyes, brilliant with fever.

"Did you wish to speak to me?" I asked gently.

"Yes," she said abruptly, "I release you from your promise, and you are free to believe or not what I have said during my—delirium."

She emphasized the last word with a little mocking smile. The same smile was on her lips as she added, slowly, sneeringly:

"But you will never know, will you, Madgie dear, just how much of what I said was false and how much true?"

Her eyes held mine a moment longer, and the malignance in their feverish brightness frightened me. Then she closed them wearily.

As I turned away from her bedside I realized that she had prophesied only too truthfully. There would be times in my life when I would believe Dicky only. But I was also afraid there would be others when her words would come back to me with intensified power to sear and scar.



XXX

THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED

Grace Draper did not die. Thanks to the assiduous care of Dr. Pettit and the two trained nurses Dicky had provided she gradually struggled up from the "valley of the shadow of death" in which she had lain to convalescence.

As soon as she was able to travel she went to the home of the relative in the country whom she had visited in the summer. One of the nurses went with her to see that she was settled comfortably, and upon returning reported that she was getting strong fast, and in a month or two more would be her usual self again.

Neither Dicky nor I had seen her before she left. Indeed, Dicky appeared to have taken an uncontrollable aversion to the girl since her attempt to kill him and herself and disliked hearing even her name mentioned. As for me, I had a positive dread of ever looking into the girl's beautiful false face again.

It was Lillian who made all the necessary arrangements both for the girl's stay in her own home and her transfer to the country.

But between the time of my mother-in-law's arrival at our house in Marvin and the departure of Grace Draper from Lillian's home lay an interval of a fortnight in which what we all considered the miraculous happened. My mother-in-law grew to like Lillian Underwood.

For the first three or four days after the ultimatum which I had given her that she should respect our guests if she stayed in our house she was like a sulky child. She kept to her room, affecting fatigue, and demanding her meals be carried up to her by Katie.

Of course Lillian and Harry wanted to go away at once, but Dicky and I overruled them. I was resolved to see the thing through. I felt that if my mother-in-law did not yield her prejudices at this time she never would, and that I would simply have to go through the same thing again later.

Lillian saw the force of my reasoning and agreed to stay, although I knew that the sensitive delicacy of feeling which she concealed beneath her rough and ready mask made her uncomfortable in a house which held such a disapproving element as my mother-in-law.

Then, one day the little god of chance took a hand. Harry and Dicky had gone to the city. It was Katie's afternoon off, and she and Jim, who had become a regular caller at our kitchen door, had gone away together.

Mother Graham was still sulking in her room, and Lillian was busy in Dicky's improvised studio with some drawings and jingles which were a rush order.

The day was a wonderful autumn one, and I felt the need of a walk.

"I think I will run down to the village," I said to Lillian. "This is the day the candy kitchen makes up the fresh toasted marshmallows. I think we could use some, don't you?"

"Lovely," agreed Lillian enthusiastically.

"I don't think Mother Graham will come out of her room while I'm gone," I went on. "Just keep an eye out for her if she should need you."

"She'd probably bite me if I offered her any assistance," returned Lillian, laughing, "but I'll look out for her."

But when I came back with the marshmallows, after a longer walk than I had intended, I found Lillian sitting by my mother-in-law's bedside, watching her as she slept. When she saw me she put her finger to her lips and stole softly out into the hall.

"She had a slight heart attack while you were gone, and I was fortunate enough to know just what to do for her. It was not serious at all. She is perfectly all right now and"—she hesitated and smiled a bit—"I do not think she dislikes me any more."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" I exclaimed, ecstatically hugging her. "Everything will come out all right now."

During the rest of the Underwoods' stay it seemed as if my words had come true. The ice once broken, my mother-in-law's heart thawed perceptibly toward Lillian.

By the time the day came when Harry and Lillian left us to go back to their apartment the elder Mrs. Graham had so far gotten over her prejudices as to bid Lillian a reluctant farewell and express a sincere wish that she might soon see her again.

Toward Harry Underwood my mother-in-law's demeanor remained rigid. She treated him with formal, icy politeness which irritated Dicky, but appeared greatly to amuse Mr. Underwood. He took delight in paying her the most elaborate attentions, laying fresh nosegays of flowers at her plate at each meal. If he had been a lover besieging a beautiful girl's heart he could not have been more attentive, while he was absolutely impervious to all the chilling rebuffs she gave him.

I think that the touch of malice which is always a part of this man's humor was gratified by the frigid annoyance which the elder Mrs. Graham exhibited toward his attentions. At any rate, he kept them up until the very hour of his departure.

It was when he happened to be alone with me on the veranda a few moments before the coming of the taxi which was to bear them to their homeward train that he gave me the real explanation of his conduct.

"Tell me, loveliest lady," he said, with the touch of exaggeration which his manner always holds toward me, "tell me, haven't I squared up part of your account with the old girl this last week?"

"Why, what do you mean?" I stammered.

"Don't pretend such innocence," he retorted. "If you want me to tell you in so many words, I beg leave to inform you that I've been doing my little best to annoy your august mother-in-law to pay her off for her general cussedness toward you, and, incidentally, me."

"But she hasn't been cross to me," I protested.

"Not the last three or four days perhaps, but I'll bet you've had quite a dose since she came to live at your house, and you'll have another if she ever finds out my wicked designs upon you." He smiled mockingly and took a step nearer to me. "Don't forget you owe me a kiss," he said, with teasing maliciousness, referring to the time when he had threatened to "kiss me under water." "Don't you think you had better give in to me now?"

Dicky's step in the hall prevented my rebuking him as I wished. I told myself that, of course, his persistent reference to that kiss was simply one of mockery and I also admitted to myself that as much as I loved Lillian I was glad that her husband was to be no longer a guest in our house.



XXXI

A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

"Well, my dear, what are you mooning over that you didn't see me come in? I beg your pardon, Madge, what is the matter? Tell me."

Lillian Underwood stood before me a week after her visit to us. Lillian, whose entrance into the small reception room of the Sydenham, at which we had an appointment, I had not even seen. She stood looking down at me with an anxious, alarmed expression in her eyes.

"There is nothing the matter," I returned, evasively.

"Don't tell me a tarradiddle, my dear," Lillian countered smoothly. "You're as white as a sheet, and I can see your hands trembling this minute. Something has happened to upset you. But, of course, if you'd rather not tell me—"

There was a subtle hint of withdrawal in her tone. I was afraid that I had offended her. After all, why not tell her of the stranger who had so startled me?

"Look over by the door, Lillian," I said, in a low voice, "not suddenly as if I had just spoken to you about it, but carelessly. Tell me if there is a man still standing there staring at us."

Lillian whistled softly beneath her breath, a little trick she has when surprised.

"Oh-h-h!" she breathed, and turning, she looked swiftly at the place I had indicated.

"I see a disappearing back which looks as though it might belong to a 'masher.' I just caught sight of him as he turned—well set-up man about middle age, hair sprinkled with gray, rather stunning looking."

"Yes, that is the man," I returned, faintly, "but, Lillian, I'm sure he isn't an ordinary 'masher.' He had the strangest, saddest, most mysterious look in his eyes. It was almost as if he knew me or thought he did, and I have the most uncanny feeling about him, as if he were some one I had known long ago. I can't describe to you the effect he had upon me."

"Nonsense," Lillian said, brusquely, "the man is just an ordinary common lady-killer of the type that infests these hotels, and ought to be horsewhipped at sight. You're getting fanciful, and I don't wonder at it. You've had a terrible summer, with all that trouble the Draper caused you, and I imagine you haven't been having any too easy a time with dear mamma-in-law, I'm mighty glad you're going to get away with Dicky by yourself. A week in the mountains ought to set you up wonderfully, and you certainly need it when you start weaving mysterious tragedies about the commoner garden variety of 'masher.'"

Lillian's rough common sense steadied me, as it always does. I felt ashamed of my momentary emotion.

"I fancy you're right, Lillian," I said nonchalantly. "Let's forget about it and have some lunch. Where shall we go?"

"There's a bully little tea room down the street here." she said. "It's very English, with the tea cozies and all that sort of frills, and some of their luncheon dishes are delicious. Shall we try it?"

"By all means," I returned, and we went out of the hotel together.

Although I looked around furtively and fearfully as we left the hotel entrance, I could see no trace of the man who had so startled me. Scoring myself for being so foolish as to imagine that the man might still be keeping track of me, I put all thought of his actions away from me and kept up with Lillian's brisk pace, chatting with her gayly over our past experience in buying hats and the execrable creations turned out by milliners generally.

The tea room proved all that Lillian had promised. Fortunately, we were early enough to escape the noon hour rush and secure a good table near a window looking out upon the street.

"I like to look out upon the people passing, don't you?" Lillian said, as she seated herself.

"Yes, I do," I assented, and then we turned our attention to the menu cards.

"I'm fearfully hungry," Lillian announced. "I've been digging all morning. Oh! it's chicken pie here today." Her voice held all the glee of a gormandizing child. "I don't think these individual chicken pies they serve here can be beaten in New York," she went on. "You know the usual mess—potatoes and onions, and a little bit of chicken mixed up with a sauce they insult with the name gravy. These are the real article—just the chicken meat with a delicious gravy covering it, baked in the most flaky crust you can imagine. What do you say to those, with some baked potatoes, new lima beans, sliced tomatoes and an ice for dessert?"

"I don't think it can be improved upon," I said, gayly, and then I clutched Lillian's arm. "Look quickly," I whispered, "the other side of the street!"

Lillian's eyes followed mine to the opposite side of the street, where, walking slowly along, was the man I had seen in the hotel. He did not once look toward the tea room, but as he came opposite to it he turned from the pavement and crossed the street leisurely toward us.

"Oh! I believe he is coming in," I gasped, and my knees began to tremble beneath me.

"Suppose he is," Lillian snapped back. Her tone held a contemptuous impatience that braced me as nothing else could. "The man has a right to come in here if he wishes. It may be a mere coincidence, or he may have followed you. You're rather fetching in that little sport rig, my dear, as your mirror probably told you this morning. Unless he obtrudes himself there is nothing you can do or say, and if he should attempt to get fresh—well, I pity him, that's all."

Lillian's threatening air was so comical that I lost my nervousness and laughed outright at her belligerency. The laugh was not a loud one, but it evidently was audible to the man entering the door, for he turned and cast a quick, sharp look upon me before moving on to a table farther down the room. The waitress indicated a chair, which, if he had taken it, would have kept his back toward us. He refused it with a slight shake of the head, and passing around to the other side of the table, sat down in a chair which commanded a full view of us.

Lillian's foot beat a quick tattoo beneath the table. "The insolent old goat," she murmured, vindictively. "He'd better look out. I'd hate to forget I'm a perfect lady, but I'm afraid I may have to break loose if that chap stays around here."

"Oh, don't say anything to him, Lillian," I pleaded, terribly distressed and upset at the very thought of a possible scene. "Let's hurry through our luncheon and get out."

"We'll do nothing of the kind," Lillian said. "Don't think about the man at all, just go ahead and enjoy your luncheon as if he were not here at all. I'll attend to his case good and plenty if he gets funny."

In spite of Lillian Underwood's kindly admonition I could not enjoy the delicious lunch we had ordered. The presence of a mysterious man at the table opposite ours robbed the meal of its flavor and me of my self-possession.

I could not be sure, of course, that the man had purposely followed me from the little reception room of the Sydenham, where I had waited for Lillian. There I had first seen him staring frankly at me with such a sad, mysterious, tragic look in his eyes that I had been most bewildered and upset by it. But his appearance at the tea room within a few minutes of our entering it, and his choice of a chair which faced our table indicated rather strongly that he had purposely followed me.

Whether or not Lillian's flashing eyes and the withering look she gave him deterred him from gazing at me as steadily as he had at the hotel I had no means of knowing. At any rate, he did not once stare openly at me. I should have known it if he had, for his position was such that unless I kept my eyes steadily fixed upon my plate, I could not help but see him. He was unobtrusive, but I received the impression that he was keeping track of every movement in the furtive glances he cast at us from time to time.

Although he had ordered after us, his meal kept pace with our own. In fact, he called for his check, paid it and left the restaurant before we did. As he passed out of the door I drew a breath of relief and fell to my neglected lunch.

"I hope I've seen the last of him," I said vindictively.

Lillian did not answer. I looked up surprised to see her chin cupped in her hands, in the attitude which was characteristic of her when she was studying some problem, her eyes following the man as he made his way slowly down the street, swinging his stick with a pre-occupied air. She continued to stare after him until he was out of sight, then with a start, she came back to herself.

"You were right, Madge, and I was wrong," she said reflectively, still as if she were studying her problem; "that man is no 'masher.'"

I looked up startled. "What makes you think so?" I asked breathlessly.

"I don't know," she returned, "but he either thinks he knows you, or you remind him of some dead daughter, or sister—or sweetheart, or—oh, there might be any one of a dozen reasons why he would want to stare at you. I think he's harmless, though. He probably won't ever try to speak to you—just take it out in following you around and looking at you."

"Oh," I gasped, "do you think he's going to keep this up?"

"Looks like it," Lillian returned, "but simply ignore him. He has all the ear-marks of a gentleman. I don't think he will annoy you. Now forget him and enjoy your ice, and then we'll go and get that hat."

Under Lillian's guidance the selection of the hat proved an easy task.

Lillian bade me good-by at the door of the hat shop.

"You don't need me any longer, do you?" she asked, "now that this hat question is settled?"

"No, no, Lillian," I returned, "and I am awfully grateful to you for giving me so much of your time."

"'Til Wednesday, then," Lillian said, "good-by."

I had quite a long list in my purse of small purchases to be made. At last even the smallest item on my list was attended to, and, wearied as only shopping can tire a woman, I went over to the railroad station. In my hurry of departure in the morning I had forgotten my mileage ticket, so that I had to go to the ticket office to purchase a ticket to Marvin.

I had forgotten all about the man who had annoyed me in the reception room of the Sydenham, and the little English tea room, so, when I turned from buying my ticket to find him standing near enough to me to have heard the name of Marvin, I was startled and terrified.

He did not once glance toward me, however, but strolled away quickly, as if in finding out the name of my home town he had learned all he wished.

I was thoroughly upset as I hurried to my train, and all through my hour's journey home to Marvin the thought of the man troubled me. What was the secret of his persistent espionage? The coincidences of the day had been too numerous for me to doubt that the man was following me around with the intention of learning my identity.

When the train stopped at Marvin I was aghast to see the mysterious stranger alight from it hurriedly and go into the waiting room of the station. I thought I saw his scheme. From the window of the station he could see me as I alighted, and either ascertain my identity from the station agent or from the driver of whatever taxi I took.

I had only felt terror of the man before, but now I was thoroughly indignant. "The thing had gone far enough," I told myself grimly. Instead of getting off the train I passed to the next car, resolving to stop at the next village, Crest Haven, and take a taxi home from there.

The ruse succeeded. As the train sped on toward Crest Haven I had a quiet little smile at the way I had foiled the curiosity of the mysterious stranger.

I debated for some time whether or not I ought to tell Dicky of the incident. I had so much experience of his intensely jealous temperament that I feared he might magnify and distort the incident.

Finally I temporized by resolving to say nothing to Dicky unless the man's tracking of me reached the point of attempting to speak to me. But the consciousness of keeping a secret from Dicky made me pre-occupied during our dinner.

Dicky reached home an hour after I did, and all through the dinner hour I noticed him casting curious glances at me from time to time.

"What's the matter?" he asked, as after dinner he and I went out to the screened porch to drink our coffee.

"Why, nothing," I responded guiltily. "Why do you ask?"

"You act as if you thought you had the responsibility of the great war on your shoulders," Dicky returned.

"I haven't a care in the world," I assured him gayly, and arousing myself from my depression I spent the next hour in gay, inconsequential chatter in an attempt to prove to Dicky that I meant what I said.

In the kitchen I heard the voices of Jim and Katie. They were raised earnestly as if discussing something about which they disagreed. Presently Katie appeared on the veranda.

"Plees, Missis Graham, can you joost coom to kitchen, joost one little meenit."

"Certainly, Katie," I replied, rising, while Dicky mumbled a half-laughing, half-serious protest.

"I'll be back in a minute, Dicky," I promised, lightly.

It was full five before I returned, for Jim had something to tell me, which confirmed my impression that the mysterious stranger's spying upon me was something to be reckoned with.

"I didn't think I ought to worry you with this, Mrs. Graham, but Katie thinks you ought to know it, and what she says goes, you know." He cast a fatuous smile at the girl, who giggled joyously. "To-night, down at Crest Haven, I overheard one of the taxi drivers telling another about a guy that had come down there and described a woman whom he said must have gotten off at Crest Haven and taken a taxi back to Marvin. The description fitted you all right, and the driver gave him your name and address. He said he got a five spot for doing it."

My face was white, my hands cold, as I listened to Jim, but I controlled myself, and said, quietly:

"Thank you, Jim, very much for telling me, but I do not think it amounts to anything."



XXXII

"THE DEAREST FRIEND I EVER HAD"

Dinner with Dicky in a public dining room is almost always a delight to me. He has the rare art of knowing how to order a perfect dinner, and when he is in a good humor he is most entertaining. He knows by sight or by personal acquaintance almost every celebrity of the city, and his comments on them have an uncommon fascination for me because of the monotony of my life before I met Dicky.

But the very expression of my mother-in-law's back as I followed her through the glittering grill room of the Sydenham told me that our chances for having a pleasant evening were slender indeed.

"Well, mother, what do you want to eat?" Dicky began genially, when an obsequious waiter had seated us and put the menu cards before us.

"Please do not consider me in the least," my mother-in-law said with her most Christian-martyr-like expression. "Whatever you and Margaret wish will do very well for me."

Dicky turned from his mother with a little impatient shrug.

"What about you, Madge?" he asked.

"Chicken a la Maryland in a chafing dish and a combination salad with that anchovy and sherry dressing you make so deliciously," I replied promptly. "The rest of the dinner I'll leave to you."

My mother-in-law glared at me.

"It strikes me there isn't much left to leave to him after an order of that kind," she said, tartly.

"You haven't eaten many of Dicky's dinners then," I said audaciously, with a little moue at him. "He orders the most perfect dinners of any one I know."

"Of course, with your wide experience, you ought to be a critical judge of his ability," my mother-in-law snapped back.

Her tone was even more insulting than her words. It tipped with cruel venom her allusion to the quiet, almost cloistered life of my girlhood.

I drew a long breath as I saw my mother-in-law adjust her lorgnette and proceed to gaze through it with critical hauteur at the other diners. I hoped that her curiosity and interest in the things going on around her would make her forget her imaginary grievances, but my hope was destined to be short lived.

It was while we were discussing our oysters, the very first offered of the season, that she spoke to me, suddenly, abruptly:

"Margaret, do you know that man at the second table back of us? He hasn't taken his eyes from you for the last ten minutes."

My heart almost stopped beating, for my intuition told me at once the identity of the gazer. It must be the man whose uncanny, mournful look had so distressed me when I was waiting for Lillian Underwood in the little reception room at the Sydenham the preceding Monday, the man who had followed us to the little tea room, who had even taken the same train to Marvin with me.

I felt as if I could not lift my eyes to look at the man my mother-in-law indicated, and yet I knew I must glance casually at him if I were to avert the displeased suspicion which I already saw creeping into her eyes.

When my eyes met his he gave not the slightest sign that he knew I was looking at him, simply continued his steady gaze, which had something of wistful mournfulness in it. I averted my eyes as quickly as possible, and tried to look absolutely unconcerned.

"I am sure he cannot be looking at me," I said, lightly. "I do not know him at all."

I hoped that my mother-in-law would not notice my evasion, but she was too quick for me.

"You may not know him, but have you ever seen him before?" she asked, shrewdly.

"Really, mother," Dicky interposed, his face darkening, "you're going a little too far with that catechism. Madge says she doesn't know the man, that settles it. By the way, Madge, is he annoying you? If he is, I can settle him in about two seconds."

"Oh, no," I said nervously, "I don't think the man's really looking at me at all; he's simply gazing out into space, thinking, and happens to be facing this way. It would be supremely ridiculous to call him to account for it."

My mother-in-law snorted, but made no further comment, evidently silenced by Dicky's reproof.

I may have imagined it, but it seemed to me that Dicky looked at me a little curiously when I protested my belief that the man was simply absorbed in thought and not looking at me at all.

When we were dallying with the curiously moulded ices which Dicky had ordered for dessert, I saw his eyes light up as he caught sight of some one he evidently knew.

"Pardon me just a minute, will you?" he said, turning to his mother and me, apologetically, "I see Bob Simonds over there with a bunch of fellows. Haven't seen him in a coon's age. He's been over across the pond in the big mixup. Didn't know he was back. I don't want any more of this ice, anyway, and when the waiter comes, order cheese, coffee and a cordial for us all."

He was gone in another instant, making his way with the swift, debonair grace which is always a part of Dicky, to the group of men at a table not far from ours, who welcomed him joyously.

My mother-in-law's eyes followed mine, and I knew that for once, at least, we were of one mind, and that mind was full of pride in the man so dear to, us both. He was easily the most distinguished figure at the table full of men who greeted him so joyously. I knew that his mother noted with me how cordial was the welcome each man gave Dicky, how they all seemed to defer to him and hang upon his words.

Then across my vision came a picture most terrifying to me. It was as if my mother-in-law and I were spectators of a series of motion picture films. Toward the table, where Dicky stood surrounded by his friends, there sauntered the mysterious stranger, who had attracted my mother-in-law's attention by his scrutiny of me.

But he was no stranger to the men surrounding Dicky. Most of them greeted him warmly. Of course, I was too far away to hear what was said, but I saw the pantomime in which he requested an introduction to Dicky of one of his friends!

Then I saw the stranger meet Dicky and engage him in earnest conversation. I did not dare to look at my mother-in-law. I knew she was gazing in open-mouthed wonder at her son, but I hoped she did not know the queer mixture of terror and interest with which I watched the picture at the other table.

For it was no surprise to me when, a few minutes later, Dicky came back toward our table. With him, talking earnestly, as if he had been a childhood friend, walked the mysterious stranger. I told myself that I had known it would be so from the first.

From the moment I had first seen this man's haunting eyes gazing at me in the reception room of the Sydenham I had felt that a meeting with him was inevitable. How or where he would touch my life I did not know, but that he was destined to wield some influence, sinister or favorable, over me, I was sure, and I trembled with vague terror as I saw him drawing near.

"Mother, may I present Mr. Gordon? My wife, Mr. Gordon."

Dicky's manner was nervous, preoccupied, as he spoke. His mother's face showed very plainly her resentment at being obliged to meet the man upon whose steady staring at me she had so acidly commented a few minutes before.

For my own part, I was so upset that I felt actually ill, as the eyes of the persistent stranger met mine. How had this man, who had so terrified me by his persistent pursuit and scrutiny, managed to obtain an introduction to Dicky?

Dicky made a place for the man near me, and signalled the waiter.

"I know you have dined," he said, courteously, "but you'll at least have coffee and a cordial with us, will you not?"

"Thank you," Mr. Gordon said, in a deep, rich voice, "I have not yet had coffee. If you will be so kind, I should like a little apricot brandy instead of a cordial."

Dicky gave the necessary order to the waiter, and we all sat back in our chairs.

I, for one, felt as though I were a spectator at a play, waiting for the curtain to run up upon some thrilling episode. For the few minutes while we waited for our coffee, Dicky had to carry the burden of the conversation. His mother, with her lips pressed together in a tight, thin line, evidently had resolved to take no part in any conversation with the stranger. I was really too terrified to say anything, and, besides the briefest of assents to Dicky's observations, the stranger said nothing.

There was something about the man's whole personality that both attracted and repelled me. With one breath I felt that I had a curious sense of liking and admiration for him, and was proud of the interest in me, which he had taken no pains to conceal. The next moment a real terror and dislike of him swept over me.

I waited with beating heart for him to finish his coffee. It seemed to me that I could hardly wait for him to speak. For I had a psychic presentiment that before he left the table he would make known to us the reason for his rude pursuit of me.

His first words confirmed my impression:

"I am afraid, Mrs. Graham," he said, courteously, turning to me, as he finished his coffee, "that I have startled and alarmed you by my endeavor to ascertain your identity."

I did not answer him. I did not wish to tell him that I had been frightened; neither could I truthfully deny his assertion. And I wished that I had not evaded my mother-in-law's query concerning him.

He did not appear to heed my silence however, but went on rapidly:

"It is a very simple matter, after all," he said. "You see, you resemble so closely a very dear friend of my youth, in fact, the dearest I ever had, that when I caught sight of you the other day in the reception room of the Sydenham, it seemed as if her very self stood before me."

There was a vibrant, haunting note in his voice that told me, better than words, that, whoever this woman of his youth might have been, her memory was something far more to him than of a mere friend.

"I could not rest until I found out your identity, and secured an introduction to you," he went on. "You will not be offended if I ask you one or two rather personal questions, will you?"

"Indeed, no," I returned mechanically.

Mr. Gordon hesitated. His suave self-possession seemed to have deserted him. He swallowed hard twice, and then asked, nervously:

"May I ask your name before you were married, Mrs. Graham?"

"Margaret Spencer," I returned steadily.

There was a cry of astonishment from Dicky. Mr. Gordon had reeled in his chair as if he were about to faint, then, with closed eyes and white lips, he sat motionless, gripping the table as if for support.

"Do not be alarmed—I am all right—only a momentary faintness, I assure you."

Mr. Gordon opened his eyes and smiled at us wanly.

I knew that Dicky was as much relieved as I at our guest's return to self-command. That he was resentful as well as mystified at the singular behavior of Mr. Gordon I also gleaned from his darkened face, and a little steely glint in his eyes.

"I hope that you will forgive me," Mr. Gordon went on, and his rich voice was so filled with regret and humility that I felt my heart soften toward him.

"I trust you have not gained the impression that my momentary faintness had anything to do with your name," he said. "My attack at that time was merely a coincidence. I am subject to these spells of faintness. I hope this one did not alarm you."

He looked at me directly, as if expecting an answer.

"I am not easily alarmed," I returned, trying hard to keep out of my voice anything save the indifferent courtesy which one would bestow upon a stranger, for the atmosphere of mystery seemed deepening about this stranger and me. I did not believe he had spoken the truth, when he said that my utterance of my maiden name, in response to his question, had nothing to do with his faintness. I was as certain as I was of anything that it was the utterance of that name, the revelation of my identity thus made to him, that caused his emotion. I sat thrilled, tense, in anticipation of revelations to follow.

Mr. Gordon's voice was quiet, but a poignant little thrill ran through it, which I caught as he spoke again.

"Was not your mother's name Margaret Bickett and your father's, Charles Spencer?" he asked.

"You are quite correct." I forced the words through lips stiffened by excitement.

I saw Dicky look at me curiously, almost impatiently, but I had no eyes, no ears, save for the mysterious stranger who was quizzing me about my parents.

One of Mr. Gordon's hands was beneath the table; as he was sitting next to his I saw what no one else did—that the long, slender, sensitive fingers pressed themselves deeply, quiveringly, into the palm at my affirmation of his question. But except for that momentary grip there was no evidence of excitement in his demeanor as he turned to me.

"I thought so," he said quietly. "I have found the daughter of the dearest friends I ever had. Your resemblance to your mother is marvelous. I remember that you looked much like her when you were a tiny girl."

"You were at our home in my childhood, then?" I asked, wondering if this might be the explanation of my uncanny notion that I had sometime in my life seen this man bending over his demitasse as he had done a few minutes before.

"Oh, yes," he said, "your mother, as I have told you, was the dearest friend I ever had. And your father was my other self—then—"

His emphasis upon the word "then" gave me a quick stab of pain, for it recalled the odium with which every one who had known my childhood seemed to regard the memory of my father.

I, myself, had no memories of my father. My mother had never spoken of him to me but once, when she had told me the terrible story of his faithlessness.

When I was four years old he had run away from us both with my mother's dearest friend, and neither she, nor any of his friends, had ever heard of him afterward. I had always felt a sort of hatred of my unknown father, who had deserted me and so cruelly treated my mother, and the knowledge that this man was an intimate of his turned me faint.

But if Mr. Gordon's inflection meant anything it meant that even if he had been my father's "other self," my mother's desertion had aroused in him the same contempt for my father that all the rest of our little world had felt. I felt my indefinable feeling of repulsion against the man melt into warm approval of him. He had loved the mother I had idolized, had resented her wrongs, and I felt my heart go out to him.

"I cannot tell you what this finding of your wife means to me," said Mr. Gordon, turning to Dicky. The inflection of his voice, the movement of his hand, spelled a subtle appeal to the younger man.

"I have been a wanderer for years," the deep, rich voice went on. "I have no family ties"—he hesitated for a moment, with a curious little air of indecision—"no wife, no child. I am a very lonely man. I wonder if it would be asking too much to let me come to see you once in a while and renew the memories of my youth in this dear child?"

He turned to me with the most fascinating little air of deferential admiration I had ever seen.

But I looked in vain for any answer to his appeal in Dicky's eyes. My husband still retained the air of formal, puzzled courtesy with which he had brought Mr. Gordon to our table and introduced him to us. I could see that the mysterious stranger's appeal to be made an intimate of our home did not meet with Dicky's approval.

I could not understand the impulse that made me turn toward the stranger and say, earnestly: "I shall be so glad to have you come to see us, Mr. Gordon. I want you to tell me about my mother's youth."



XXXIII

"MOTHER" GRAHAM HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

It may have been the preparation we were making for an autumn vacation in the Catskills, or it may have been that Dicky was becoming more the master of himself, that he did not voice to me the very real uneasiness with which I knew he viewed Robert Gordon's attitude toward me. But whatever may have been the cause, the fact is that during the preparations for our trip and during the vacation itself in the gorgeous autumn-clad mountains Dicky did not refer to Robert Gordon.

It was my mother-in-law who brought his name up the day of our return. She had moved from the hotel where we had left her in the city to the house at Marvin, and when we arrived there her greeting of me was almost icy. As soon as we had taken off our wraps, she explained her departure from the hotel without any questioning from us.

"I never have been so insulted and annoyed in my life," she began abruptly, "and it is all your fault, Richard. If you never had brought the unspeakable person over he would not have had the chance to annoy me. And as for you, Margaret, I cannot begin to tell you what I think of your conduct in leading your husband to believe you had never seen the man before—"

"For heaven's sake, mother!" Dicky exploded, his slender patience evidently worn to its last thread by his mother's incoherence, "what on earth are you talking about?"

"Don't pretend ignorance," she snapped. "You introduced the man to me yourself the night before you went on your trip. You cannot have forgotten his name so soon."

"Robert Gordon!" Dicky exclaimed in amazement.

"Yes, Robert Gordon!" his mother returned grimly. "And let me tell you, Richard Graham, that if you do not settle that man he will make you the laughing stock and the scandal of everybody. The way he talks of Margaret is disgusting."

Dicky's face became suddenly stern and set.

"He didn't exhibit his lack of good taste the first time he came over to my table in the dining room," my mother-in-law went on. "But the second time he sat down with me he began to talk of Margaret in the most fulsome, extravagant manner. From that time his sole topic of conversation was Margaret, the wonderful woman she had grown into, the wonderful attraction she has for him. You would have thought him a man who had discovered his lost sweetheart after years of wandering. Imagine the lack of decency and good taste the man must have to say such things to me, the mother of Margaret's husband!"

"Is that all you have to say, mother?" he asked.

She looked at him in amazement.

"Are you lost to all decency that you do not resent such extravagant praise and admiration of your wife from the lips of another man?" she demanded, and then in the same breath went on rapidly:

"Richard, you are perfectly hopeless! The man may have been in love with Margaret's mother, I do not doubt that he was, but have you never heard of such men falling in love with the daughters of the women they once loved hopelessly?"

"Don't make the poor man out a potential Mormon, mother!" Dicky jibed.

"Jeer at your old mother if you wish, Richard," his mother went on icily, "but let me tell you that Mr. Gordon is madly in love with Margaret and if you do not look out you will have a scandal on your hands."

"You are going a bit too far in your excitement, mother," Dicky said sternly. "You may not realize it, but you are insinuating that there might be a possible chance of Madge's returning the man's admiration."

"I am not insinuating anything," his mother returned, white-lipped with anger, "but I certainly think Margaret owes both you and me an explanation of the untruth she told us at the supper table the night you introduced Mr. Gordon to us."

I sprang to my feet with my cheeks afire.

"Mother Graham, I have listened to you with respect as long as I can," I exclaimed. "Whatever else you have to say to my husband about me you can say in my absence. If he at any time wishes an explanation of any action of mine he has only to ask me for it."

White with rage I dashed out of the room, up the stairs and into my own room, locking the door behind me. In a few minutes Dicky's step came swiftly up the stairs; his knock sounded on my door.

"Madge, let me in," he commanded, but the note of tenderness in his voice was the influence that hurried my fingers in the turning of the key.

As I opened the door he strode in past me, closed and locked the door again, and, turning, caught me in his arms.

"Don't you dare to cry!" he stormed, kissing my reddened eyelids. "Aren't you ever going to get used to mother's childish outbursts? You know she doesn't mean what she says in those tantrums of hers. She simply works herself up to a point where she's absolutely irresponsible, and she has to explode or burst. You wouldn't like to see a perfectly good mother-in-law strewn in fragment all over the room, simply because she had restrained her temper, would you?" he added, with the quick transition from hot anger to whimsical good nature that I always find so bewildering in him.

I struggled for composure. My mother-in-law's words had been too scathing, her insult too direct for me to look upon it as lightly as Dicky could, but the knowledge that he had come directly after me, and that he had no part in the resentment his mother showed, made it easy for me to control myself.

"I ought to remember that your mother is an old woman, and an invalid, and not allow myself to get angry at some of the unjust things she says," I returned, swallowing hard. "So we'll just forget all about it and pretend it never happened."

"You darling!" Dicky exclaimed, drawing me closer, and for a moment or two I rested in his arms, gathering courage for the confession I meant to make to him.

"Dicky, dear," I murmured at last, "there is something I want to tell you about this miserable business, something I ought to have told you before, but I kept putting it off."

Dicky held me from him and looked at me quizzically, "'Confession is good for the soul,'" he quoted, "so unburden your dreadful secret."

He drew me to an easy chair and sat down, holding me in his arms as if I were a little child. "Now for it," he said, smiling tenderly at me.

"It isn't so very terrible," I smiled at him reassured by his tenderness. "It is only that without telling you a deliberate untruth, that I gave both you and your mother the impression I had never seen Mr. Gordon before that night at the Sydenham."

"Is that all?" mocked Dicky. "Why, I knew that the moment you spoke as you did that night! You're as transparent as a child, my dear, and besides, your elderly friend let the cat out of the bag when he said he feared he had annoyed you by trying to find out your identity. I knew you must have seen him somewhere."

"You don't know all," I persisted, and then without reservation I told him frankly the whole story of Mr. Gordon's spying upon me. I omitted nothing.

When I had finished, Dicky's face had lost its quizzical look. He was frowning, not angrily, but as if puzzled.

"Don't think I blame you one bit," he said slowly; "but it looks to me as if mother's dope might be right, as if the old guy is smitten with you after all."

"I cannot hope to make your understand, Dicky," I began, "how confused my emotions are concerning Mr. Gordon. I think perhaps I can tell you best by referring to something about which we have never talked but once—the story I told you before we were married of the tragedy in my mother's life."

"I believe you told me that neither your mother nor you had ever heard anything of your father since he left." Dicky's voice was casual, but there was a note in it that puzzled me.

"That is true," I answered, and then stopped, for the conviction had suddenly come to me that while I had never seen nor heard from my father since he left us—indeed, I had no recollection of him—yet I was not sure whether or not my mother had ever received any communication from him. I had heard her say that she had no idea whether he was living or dead, and I had received my impression from that. But even as I answered Dicky's question there came to my mind the memory of an injunction my mother had once laid upon me, an injunction which concerned a locked and sealed box among her belongings.

I felt that I could not speak of it even to Dicky, so put all thought of it aside until I should be alone.

"I do not think I can make you understand," I began, "how torn between two emotions I have always been when I think of my father. Of course, the predominant feeling toward him has always been hatred for the awful suffering he caused my mother. I never heard anything to foster this feeling, however, from my mother. She rarely spoke of him, but when she did it was always to tell me of the adoration he had felt for me as a baby, of the care and money he had lavished on me. But while with one part of me I longed to hear her tell me of those early days, yet the hatred I felt for him always surged so upon me as to make me refuse to listen to any mention of him.

"But since she went away from me the desire to know something of my father has become almost an obsession with me. My hatred of his treachery to my mother is still as strong as ever, but in my mother's last illness she told me that she forgave him, and asked me if ever he came into my life to forget the past and to remember only that he was my father. I am afraid I never could do that, but yet I long so earnestly to know something of him.

"So now you see, Dicky," I concluded, "why Mr. Gordon has such a fascination for me. He knew my father and my mother—from his own words I gather that he was the nearest person to them. He is the only link connecting me with my babyhood, for Jack Bickett, my nearest relative, was but a young boy himself when my father left, and remembered little about it. I don't want to displease you, Dicky, but I would so like to see Mr. Gordon occasionally."

Dicky held me close and kissed me.

"Why, certainly, sweetheart," he exclaimed. "Whenever you wish I'll arrange a little dinner down-town for Mr. Gordon. What do you think about inviting the Underwoods, too? They could entertain me while you're talking over your family history."

"That would be very nice," I agreed, but I had an inward dread of talking to Robert Gordon with the malicious eyes of Harry Underwood upon me. Indeed, I felt intuitively that if ever Mr. Gordon were to reveal the history of his friendship for my mother to me, it would be when no other ears, not even Dicky's, were listening.

Dicky kissed me again and then he rose and went out of the room quickly, closing the door behind him. I waited until I heard his footsteps descending the stairs before turning the key in the lock. Then I went directly to a little old trunk which I had kept in my own room ever since my mother's death, and, kneeling before it unlocked it with reverent fingers.



XXXIV

A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST

It was my mother's own girlhood trunk, one in which she had kept her treasures and mementoes all her life. The chief delight of my childhood had been sitting by her side when she took out the different things from it and showed them to me.

Dear, thoughtful, little mother of mine! Almost the last thing she did before her strength failed her utterly was to repack the little trunk, wrapping and labeling each thing it contained, and putting into it only the things she knew I would not use, but wished to keep as memories of her and of my own childhood.

"I do not wish you to have to look over these things while your grief is still fresh for me," she had said, with the divine thoughtfulness that mothers keep until the last breath they draw. "There is nothing in it that you will have to look at for years if you do not wish to do so—that is, except one package that I am going to tell you about now."

She stopped to catch the breath which was so pitifully short in those torturing days before her death, and over her face swept the look of agony which always accompanied any mention by her of my father.

"In the top tray of this trunk," she said, "you will find the inlaid lock box that was your grandmother's and that you have always admired so much. I do not wish to lay any request or command upon you concerning it—you must be the only judge of your own affairs after I leave you—but I would advise you not to open that box unless you are in desperate straits, or until the time has come when you feel that you no longer harbor the resentment you now feel toward your father."

The last words had come faintly through stiffened white lips, for her labor at packing and the emotional strain of talking to me concerning the future had brought on one of the dreaded heart attacks which were so terribly frequent in the last weeks of her life. We had never spoken of the matter afterward, for she did not leave her bed again until the end.

At one time she had motioned me to bring from her desk the old-fashioned key ring on which she kept her keys. She had held up two, a tiny key and a larger one, and whispered hoarsely: "These keys are the keys to the lock box and the little trunk—you know where the others belong." Then she had closed her eyes, as if the effort of speaking had exhausted her, as indeed it had.

In the wild grief which followed my mother's death there was no thought of my unknown father except the bitterness I had always felt toward him. I knew that the terrible sorrow he had caused my mother had helped to shorten her life, and my heart was hot with anger against him.

I had never opened the trunk since her death. The exciting, almost tragic experiences of my life with Dicky had swept all the old days into the background. I could not analyze the change that had come over me. As I lifted the lid of the trunk and took from the top tray the inlaid box which my mother's hands had last touched, my grief for her was mingled with a strange new longing to find out anything I could concerning the father I had never known.

"For my daughter Margaret's eyes alone."

The superscription on the envelope which I held in my hand stared up at me with all the sentience of a living thing. The letters were in the crabbed, trembling, old-fashioned handwriting of my mother—the last words that she had ever written. It was as if she had come back from the dead to talk to me.

With the memory of my mother's advice, I hesitated for a long time before breaking the seal. With the letters pressed close against my tear-wet cheeks I sat for a long time, busy with memories of my mother and debating whether or not I had the right to open the letter.

I certainly was not in desperate straits, and I could not conscientiously say that I no longer harbored any resentment toward^the father of whom I had no recollection. I felt that never in my life could I fully pardon the man who had made my mother suffer so terribly. But the longing to know something of my father, which I had felt since the coming into my life of Robert Gordon, had become almost an obsession, with me.

"Little mother," I whispered, "forgive me if I am doing wrong, but I must know what is in this letter to me."

With trembling fingers I broke the seal and drew out the closely written pages which the envelope contained.

"Mother's Only Comfort," the letter began, and at the sight of the dear familiar words, which I had so often heard from my mother's lips—it was the name she had given me when a tiny girl, and which she used until the day of her death—tears again blinded my eyes.

"When you read this I shall have left you forever. It is my prayer that when the time comes for you to read it, it will be because you have forgiven your father, not because you are in desperate need. How I wish I could have seen you safe in the shelter of a good man's love before I had to go away from you forever!"

"Safe in the shelter of a good man's love," I repeated the words thoughtfully. Had my mother been given her wish when she could no longer witness its fulfilment? I was angry and humiliated at myself that I could not give a swift, unqualified assent to my own question. A "good man" Dicky certainly was, and I was in the "shelter of his love" at present. But "safe" with Dicky I was afraid I could never be. Mingled always with my love for him, my trust in him, was a tiny undercurrent of uncertainty as to the stability of my husband's affection for me.

As I turned to my mother's letter again, there was a tiny pang at my heart at the thought that by my marriage with Dicky I had thwarted the dearest wish of my little mother's heart.

For between the lines I could read the unspoken thought that had been in her mind since I was a very young girl. "Safe in the shelter of a good man's love" meant to my mother only one thing. If she had written the words "safe in the shelter of Jack Bickett's love," I could not have grasped her meaning more clearly.

But my mother's wish must forever remain ungranted. Jack was "somewhere in France," and for me, safe or not safe, stable or unstable, Dicky was "my man," the only man I had ever loved, the only man I could ever love. "For better or worse," the dear old minister had said who performed our wedding ceremony, and my heart reaffirmed the words as I bent my eyes again to the closely written pages I held in my hands.

"Because you have always been so bitter, Margaret, against your father, and because it has always caused me great anguish to speak of him, I have allowed you to rest under the impression that I had never heard anything concerning him since his disappearance, and that I do not know whether he be living or dead. The last statement is true, for years ago I definitely refused to receive any communication from him, but I must tell you that I believe him to be living, and that I know that living or dead he has provided money for your use if you should ever wish to claim it.

"The address he last sent me, and that of the firm of lawyers who has the management of the property intended for you, are sealed in envelopes in this box. In it also are all the things necessary to establish your identity, my marriage certificate, your birth record, pictures of your father and of me, and of the three of us taken when you were two years old, before the shadow of the awful tragedy that came later had begun to fall."

I sprang from my chair, dropping the pages of the letter unheeded in the shock of the revelation they brought me. My father had planned for me; had provided for me; had tried to communicate with my mother! He must have been repentant; he was not all the heartless brute I had thought him. As though a cloud had been lifted, from my life and a weary weight had rolled from my heart, I turned again to mother's letter.

"Remember, it is my last wish, Margaret, that if your father be living, sometime you may be reconciled, to him. I have been weak and bitter enough during all these years to be meanly comforted by your stanch championship of me, and your detestation of the wrong your father did me. But death brings clearer vision, my child, and I cannot wish that your father's last years,—if, indeed, he be living—should be desolated by not knowing you. I want you to know that there were many things which, while they did not extenuate your father, yet might in some measure explain his action.

"I was much to blame—I can see it now, for not being able to hold his love. You are so much like me, my darling, that I tremble for your happiness if you should happen to marry the wrong kind of man. I have wondered often if the story of my tragedy, terrible as it is for me to think of it, might not help you. And yet—it might do more harm than good. At any rate, I have written it all out, and put it with the other things in the box. I feel a curious sort of fatalism concerning this letter. It is borne in upon me that if you ever need to read it you will read it. It will help you to understand your father better. It may help you to understand your husband; although, God grant, knowledge like mine may never come to you.

"Of one thing I am certain, you will never have anything to do with the woman who abused my friendship and took your father from me. I cannot carry my forgiveness far enough, even in the presence of death, to bid you go to him if she be still a part of his life.

"I can write no more, my darling. I want you to know that you have been the dearest child a mother could have, and that you have never given me moment's uneasiness in my life. God bless and keep you.

"MOTHER."

I did not weep when I had finished the letter. There was that in its closing words that dried my tears. I put the pages reverently in the envelope, laid it in the old box, closed and locked the lid, and replaced it in the trunk. For my mother's bitter mention of the woman who had stolen my father from her had brought back the old, wild hatred I had felt for so many years.

"Whatever Robert Gordon can tell me of you, mother darling, I will gladly hear," I whispered, as I locked her old trunk, "but I never want to hear him talk of the woman who so cruelly ruined your life."



XXXV

THE WORD OF JACK

"O, pray do not let me disturb you."

Mother Graham drew back from the open door of the living room with a little affected start of surprise at seeing me sitting before the fire. Her words were courteous, but her manner brought the temperature of the room down perceptibly.

She had managed to keep out of my way in clever fashion since the scene of the day before, when she had attacked me concerning the interest taken in me by Robert Gordon.

"You are not disturbing me in the least," I said, pleasantly, "I was simply watching the fire. Jim certainly has outdone himself in the matter of logs this time."

"Yes, he has," she admitted, grudgingly, as she came forward slowly and took the chair I proffered her. "I only hope he doesn't set the house afire with such a blaze. I must tell Richard to speak to him about it."

Always the pin prick, the absolute ignoring of me as the mistress of the house. I could not tell whether she had deliberately done it, or whether long usage to dominance in a household had made her speak as she did unconsciously.

I made no reply, and, for a long time, we sat staring at the fire until Dicky's entrance came as a welcome interruption.

I went sedately to the door to meet him, although I was so glad to see him that a dance step would more appropriately have expressed my feelings, and returned his warm kiss and greeting. He kept my hand in his as he came down to the fire, not even releasing it when he kissed his mother, who still maintained the rigid dignity with which she surrounded herself when displeased.

"Well," Dicky said, manfully ignoring any hint of unpleasantness, "this is what I call comfortable, coming home to a fire and a welcome like this on a dreary day."

There was a note of forced jollity in his voice that made me look up quickly into his eyes. As they looked into mine, I caught a glimpse of something half-hidden, half-revealed, something fiercely sombre, which frightened me.

"What had happened," I asked myself, with a little clutch at my heart, "to make Dicky look at me in this way?" I had a longing to take him away where we could be alone.

I was glad when my mother-in-law rose stiffly from her chair.

"If you are too much occupied, Margaret," she remarked, icily, "I will go and tell Katie that Richard is here, and that she may serve dinner immediately."

She swept out of the room majestically, and as the door closed after her Dicky caught me in his arms and clasped me so closely that I was frightened.

"Tell me you love me," he said tensely, "better than anybody in the world or out of it." His eyes were glowing with some emotion I could not understand. I felt my vague uneasiness of his first entrance deepen into real foreboding of something unknown and terrible coming to me.

"Why, of course, you know that, sweetheart," I replied. "There is no one for me but just you! But what is the matter? Something must be the matter."

"Where did you get that idea?" he evaded. "I just wanted to be sure, that's all. Wait here for me—I'll dash up and get some of the dust off in a jiffy before dinner."

I spent an anxious interval before, he came down, for, despite his denials, I felt that something out of the ordinary must have happened to cause his queer, passionate outburst.

When he returned to, the living room, it was with no trace of any emotion, and throughout the dinner, while not so given to conversation as usual, he showed no indication that he was at all disturbed.

But I was very glad when the dinner was over, and we returned to the living-room fire. And when, after a few minutes, my mother-in-law yawned sleepily and went to her room, I drew a deep breath of relief.

Dicky drew my chair close to his, and we sat for a long time looking at the leaping flames, only occasionally speaking.

It was at the end of a long silence that Dicky turned toward me, with eyes so troubled that all my fears leaped up anew. I sprang to my feet.

"What is it, Dicky?" I entreated, wildly. "Oh! I know something terrible is the matter!"

He rose from his chair, and clasped my hands tightly.

"I suppose I'd better tell you quickly, dear," he replied. "Your cousin, Jack Bickett, is reported killed."

"Killed!" I repeated faintly. "Jack Bickett killed! Oh, no, no, Dicky; no, no, no!"

I heard my own voice rise to a sort of shriek, felt Dicky release my hands and seize my shoulders, and then everything went black before me, and I knew nothing more.

When I came to myself, I was lying on the couch before the fire, with my face and the front of my gown dripping with water, the strong smell of hartshorn in the room, and Dicky with stern, white face, and Katie in tears, hovering over me.

Dicky was trying to force a spoon between my teeth when I opened my eyes. He promptly dropped it, and the brandy it contained trickled down my neck. I raised my hand to wipe it away, and Dicky uttered a low, "Thank God!"

"Oh, she no dead, she alive again!" Katie cried out, and threw herself on her knees by my side, sobbing.

"Get up, Katie, and stop that howling!" Dicky spoke sternly. "Do you want to get my mother down here? Go upstairs at once and prepare Mrs. Graham's bed for her. I will carry her up directly. Are you all right now, Madge?"

His tone was anxious, but there was a note of constraint in it, which I understood even through the returning anguish at Dicky's terrible news, which was possessing me with returning consciousness.

He believed that my feeling for my brother-cousin, Jack Bickett, was a deeper one than that which I had always professed, a sisterly love for the only near relative I had in the world. This was the reason for his sudden, passionate embrace of me when he entered the house, his demand that I tell him I loved him better than anybody in the world or out of it.

He had been jealous of Jack living, he would still be jealous of him dead! But as the realization again swept over me that Jack, steadfast, manly Jack, the only near relative I had, was no longer in the same world with me, that never again would I see his kind eyes, hear his deep, earnest voice, all thoughts of anything else but my loss fled from me, and I gave a little moan.

I felt Dicky's arm which was around my shoulders shrink away instinctively, then tighten again. He turned my face against his shoulder, and, gathering me in his arms, lifted me from the couch.

"Oh, Dicky, I am sure I can walk," I protested faintly.

He stopped and looked at me fixedly.

"Don't you want my arms around you?" he asked, and there was that in his voice which made me answer hastily:

"Of course I do, but I am afraid I am too heavy."

"Let me be the judge of that," he returned sternly, and forthwith carried me up the stairs, down the hall, and laid me on the bed in my own room.

"Now you must get that wet gown off," he said practically. "Katie emptied nearly a gallon of water over you in her fright."

He smiled constrainedly, and I made a brave effort to return the smile, but I could not accomplish it. Indeed, I was glad to be able to keep back the tears, which I knew instinctively would hurt him.

He undressed me as tenderly as a woman could have done, and, wrapping a warm bathrobe over my nightdress, for I was shivering as if from a chill, tucked me in between the blankets of my bed. Then he drew a chair to the bedside and sat down.

"Are you sure you are all right now?" he asked. "Your color is coming back."

"Perfectly sure," I returned, "and I am so sorry to have made you so much trouble."

"Don't say that," he returned, a trifle sharply. "It is so meaningless. Try to sleep a little, can't you?"

"Not yet, Dicky," I returned. "I am feeling much better, however. Of course, the shock was terrible at first, for, as you know, Jack was the only brother I ever knew. But I am all right now and I want you to tell me how you learned the news."

"Mrs. Stewart telephoned to me," he said. "It seems your cousin gave her as the 'next of kin,' to be notified in case of his death, and she received the notice this morning. There was nothing but the usual official notification."

I caught my breath, stifling the moan that rose to my lips. Somewhere in France lay buried the tenderest heart, the manliest man God ever put into the world. And I had sent him to his death. Despite the comforting assurance Jack had written me, just before his departure for France, that his discovery of my marriage, with the consequent blasting of the hope he had cherished for years, had not been the cause of his sailing, I knew he would never have left me if I had not been married.

I think Dicky must have read my thoughts in my face, for, after a moment, he said gently, yet with a tenseness which told me he was putting a rigid control over his voice:

"You must not blame yourself so harshly. Your cousin would probably have gone to the war even if—circumstances had been different."

There was that in Dicky's voice and eyes which told me that he, too, was suffering. I gathered my strength together, made a supreme effort to put the sorrow and remorse I felt behind me until I could be alone. I knew that I must strive at once to eradicate the false impression my husband had gained as a result of my reception of the news of my brother-cousin's death.

So I forced my lips to words which, while not utterly false, yet did not at all reveal the truth of what I was feeling.

"I know that, Dicky," I returned, and I tried to hold my voice to a conversational tone. "He went with his dearest friend, a Frenchman, you know. I had nothing to do with his going. It isn't that which makes me feel as I do. It is because his death brings back my mother's so plainly. He was always so good to her, and she loved him so much."

Dicky bent his face so quickly to mine that I could not catch his expression. He kissed me tenderly, and, kneeling down by the side of the bed, gathered my head up against his shoulder.

"Cry it all out, if you want to, sweetheart," he said, and I fancied the tension was gone from his voice. "It will do you good."

So, "cry it out" I did, against the blessed shelter of my husband's shoulder. And the tears seemed to wash away all the shock of the news I had, heard, all the bitter, morbid remorse I had felt, all the secret wonder as to whether I might have loved and married my brother-cousin if Dicky had not come into my life. There was left only a sane, sisterly sorrow for a loved brother's death, and a tremendous surge of love for my husband, and gratitude for his tenderness.

"Try to sleep if you can," he said.

I tried to obey his injunction, but I could not. I could see the hands of my little bedroom clock, and after the longest quarter of an hour I had ever known I turned restlessly on my pillow.

"It's no use, Dicky," I said, "I cannot go to sleep. I would rather talk. Tell me, did Mrs. Stewart's voice sound as if she were much upset? She is an old woman, you know, and she was very fond of Jack."

Dicky hesitated, and a curious, intent expression came into his eyes.

"Yes, I think she was pretty well broken up," he answered, "but the thing about which she seemed most anxious was that you should not lose any time in attending to the property your cousin left. I believe he wrote you concerning his disposition of it before he sailed."

I looked up, startled. Dicky's words brought something to my mind that I had completely forgotten. I was the heiress to all that Jack possessed, not great wealth, it is true, but enough to insure me a modest competence for the rest of my life.

"Do you object to my taking this money, Dicky?" I asked, and my voice was tense with emotion.

"Object!" the words came from Dicky's mouth explosively, then he jumped to his feet and paced up and down the room rapidly for a moment or two, his jaw set, his eyes stern. When he stopped by the bed he had evidently recovered his hold on himself, but his words came quickly, jerkily, almost as if he were afraid to trust himself to speak.

"You are in no condition to discuss this tonight," he said, dropping his hand on my hair, "we will speak of it again tomorrow, when you have somewhat recovered. Now you must try to go to sleep. I shall have to call a physician if you don't."

I lay awake for hours, debating the problem which had come to me. I saw clearly that Dicky did not wish me to take this bequest of Jack's. Indeed, I knew that he expected me to refuse it, and that he would be bitterly disappointed if I did not do so.

My heart was hot with rebellion. It seemed like a profanation of Jack's last wish, like hurling a gift into the face of the dead, to do as Dicky wished.

And yet—Dicky was my husband. I had sworn to love and honor him. I knew that he felt sincerely, however wrongly, that my acceptance of Jack's gift would be a direct slap at him. I felt as if my heart were being torn in two, with my desire to do justice both to the living and the dead. It was not until nearly daylight that the solution of my problem came to me. Then I fell asleep, exhausted, and did not awaken until Dicky came into the room, dressed for the journey which he took daily to the city.

"I wouldn't disturb you, sweetheart," he said, "only it's time for me to go in to the studio, and I did not want to leave you without knowing how you are."

"Oh, have I slept so late?" I returned, contritely, springing up in bed.

Dicky put me back with a firm hand.

"Lie still," he commanded, gently. "Katie will bring you up some breakfast shortly, and there is no need of your getting up for hours."

He bent down to kiss me good-by. There was a restraint in both his voice and his caress that told me he was still thinking of the conversation of the night before. I put my arms about his neck and drew his face down to mine.

"Sweetheart," I whispered, "I want to tell you what I've decided about Jack's property."

"Not now," Dicky interrupted hurriedly.

"Yes, now," I returned decidedly. "I am going to accept it"—I gripped his hands firmly as I felt them drawing away from mine, "but I am not going to use any of it for myself. I will see that it all goes to the orphaned kiddies of the soldiers with whom Jack fought."

Dicky started, looked at me a bit wildly, then stooped, and, gathering me to him convulsively, pressed a long, tender kiss upon my lips.

"My own girl!" he murmured. "I shall not forget that you have done this for me!"



XXXVI

"AND YET—"

"What's the big idea?"

Dicky looked up from the breakfast table with a mildly astonished air as I came hurriedly into the room dressed for the street, wearing my hat, and carrying my coat over my arm.

"I'm going into town with you," I returned quietly.

"Shopping, I suppose." The words sounded idle enough, but I, who knew Dicky so well, recognized the note of watchfulness in the query.

"I shall probably go into some of the shops before I return," I said carelessly, "but the real reason of my going into the city is Mrs. Stewart. I should have gone to see her yesterday."

Dicky frowned involuntarily, but his face cleared again in an instant. It was the second day after he had brought me the terrible news that Jack Bickett, my brother-cousin, was reported killed "somewhere in France." I knew that Dicky, in his heart, did not wish me to go to see Mrs. Stewart, but I also knew that he was ashamed to give voice to his reluctance.

When Dicky spoke at last, it was with just the right shade of cordial acquiescence in his voice.

"Of course you must go to see her," he said, "but are you sure you're feeling fit enough? It will try your nerves, I imagine."

Far better than Dicky could guess I knew what the day's ordeal would be. Mrs. Stewart had been very fond of my brother-cousin. With my mother, she had hoped that he and I would some day care for each other. With her queer partisan ideas of loyalty, when Dicky had been so cruelly unjust to me about Jack, she had wished me to divorce Dicky and marry Jack, even though Jack himself had never whispered such a solution of my life's problem. That she believed me to be responsible for his going to the war I knew. I dreaded inexpressibly the idea of facing her.

But when, after a rather silent trip to the city with Dicky, I stood again in Mrs. Stewart's little upstairs sitting-room, I found only a very sorrowful old woman, not a reproachful one.

"I thought you'd come today," she said, and her voice was tired, dispirited. I felt a sudden compunction seize me that my visits to her had been so few since Jack's going.

"I couldn't have kept away," I said, and then my old friend dropped my hand, which she had been holding, and, sinking into a chair, put her wrinkled old hands up to her face. I saw the slow tears trickling through her fingers, and I knelt by her side and drew her head against my shoulder, comforting her as she once had comforted me.

Mrs. Stewart was never one to give way to emotion, and it was but a few moments before she drew herself erect, wiped her eyes, and said quietly:

"I'll show you the cablegram."

She went to her desk, and drew out the message, clipped, abbreviated in the puzzling fashion of cablegrams:

"Regret inform you, Bickett killed, action French front. Details later."

(Signed) "CAILLARD."

"Caillard? Caillard?" Where had I heard that name? Then I suddenly remembered. Paul Caillard was the friend with whom Jack had gone across the ocean to the Great War. I examined the paper carefully.

"I thought Dicky said you received the usual official notification," I remarked.

"That's what I told him," she replied. "That's it."

"But this isn't an official message," I persisted.

"Why isn't it?"

I explained the difference haltingly, and spoke of the wonderful system of identification in the French army, with every man tagged with a metal identification check.

"You will probably receive the official notification in a few days," I commented.

A queer, startled expression flashed into her face. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, and then, looking at me sharply, closed it again. Reaching out her hand for the cablegram, she folded it mechanically, as if thinking of something far away, then going to her desk, put it away, and stood as if thinking deeply for two or three minutes, which seemed an hour to me.

At last I saw her body straighten. She gave a little shake of her shoulders, as if rousing herself, and, turning from the desk, came toward me. I saw that she held in her hand a bundle of letters.

"I understand that you and Jack made some fool agreement that he was not to write to you, and that you were not even to read his letters to me. I'm not expressing my opinion about it, but now that he's gone, I'm going to turn these letters over to you. I'm not blind, you know. Most of them were all really written to you, even if I did receive them. Poor lad! It seems such a pity he should be struck down just as a little happiness seemed coming his way."

She put the letters in my hands, and, turning swiftly, went out of the room. I knew her well enough to realize that she would not return until I had read the messages from Jack. But what in the world did she mean by her last words?

I drew a big, easy chair to the fireside, and began to read the missives. Some were short, some were long, but all were filled with a quiet courage and cheerfulness that I knew had illuminated not only Jack's letters to his old friend, but his life and the lives of others wherever he had been. Every one of them had some reference to me—an inquiry after my health, an injunction to Mrs. Stewart to be sure to keep track of my happiness, a little kodak print or other souvenir marked "For Margaret if I do not come back."

I felt guilty, remorseful, that I had seen so little of Mrs. Stewart since his departure. My own affairs, especially my long, terrible summer's experience with Grace Draper, had shut everything else from my mind.

One letter in particular made my eyes brim with sudden tears. The first of it had been cheery, with entertaining little accounts of the few poor bits of humor which the soldiers in the trenches extracted from their terrible every day round. Along toward the end a sudden impulse seemed to have swept the writer's pen into a more sombre channel.

"I have been thinking much, dear old friend," he wrote, "of the futility of human desires. Life in the trenches is rather conducive to that form of mediation, as you may imagine. You know, none better, how I loved Margaret, how I wanted to make her my wife—I often wonder whether if I had not delayed so long, 'fearing my fate too much,' I might not have won her. But thoughts, like that are worse than useless.

"Instead, there has come to me a clearer understanding of Margaret, a better insight into the golden heart of her. If she had never met the other man, or some one like him, I believe I could have made her happy, kept her contented. But I realize fully that having met him there could never be any other man for her but him. Her love for him is like a flame, transforming her. I could never have called forth such passion from her. I see clearly now how foolish it was in me to have hoped it. There was nothing in the humdrum, commonplace brotherly affection which she thought I gave her to arouse the romance which I know slumbers under that calm, cold exterior of hers.

"Sometimes I query, too, whether my love for Margaret had that flame-like quality which characterizes her love for her husband. Margaret has always been so much a part of my life that my love for her began I could not tell when, and grew and strengthened with the years. There never has been any other woman but Margaret in my life. Even if I should ever come out of this living hell, which I doubt, I do not believe there ever will be another.

"And yet—"

"I have just been summoned for duty. Good-by, dear friend, until the next time. Lovingly yours, Jack Bickett."

I laid the letter aside with a queer little startled feeling at my heart.

Those two little words, "and yet," at the end of Jack's letter gave me much food for thought. Was it possible that before his death Jack had realized that his love for me was not the consuming passion he had thought it, but partook more of the fraternal affection that I had had for him?

I hoped for Jack's sake that this was so.

"And yet—"

I ran through the rest of the letters rapidly. One, the third from the last, arrested my attention sharply.

"Such a pleasant thing happened to me today," Jack wrote, "one of the unexpected gleams of sunlight that are so much brighter because of the general gloom against which they are reflected.

"I was given a week's furlough last Saturday and went up to Paris with my friend, Paul Caillard. He had a friend in a hospital on the way there, headed by Dr. Braithwaite, the celebrated surgeon of Detroit."

I caught my breath. As well as if I had already read the words, I knew what was coming.

"At an unexpected turn in the corridor I almost knocked over a little nurse who was hurrying toward the office. She looked up at me startled, out of the prettiest brown eyes I ever saw, and then stopped, staring at me as if I had been a ghost. I stared back, frankly, for her face was familiar to me, although for the moment I could not tell where I had seen her before.