This story Arthur whispered to Louis, floating between the moonlit shores of Champlain. He lay in the stern watching the rhythmic rise of the oar-blades, and the flashing of the water-drops falling back like diamonds into the wave. Happiness lay beside him steering the boat, a seraph worked the oars, the land ahead must be paradise. His was a lover's story, clear, yet broken with phrases of love; for was he not speaking to the heart, half his own, that beat with his in unison? The tears flowed down the deacon's cheek, tears of dread and of sympathy. What if Honora refused this gift laid so reverently at her feet? He spoke his dread.

"One must take the chance," said the lover calmly. "She is free too. I would not have her bound. The very air up here will conspire with me to win her. She must learn at once that I want her for my wife. Then let the leaven work."

The boat came back to the landing. The ladies sat on the veranda chatting quietly, watching the moon which rose higher and higher, and threw Valcour into shadow so deep, that it looked like a great serpent asleep on a crystal rock, nailed by a golden spike through its head to the crystal rock beneath. The lighthouse lamp burning steadily at the south point, and its long reflection in the still waters, was the golden nail. A puffing tug passed by with its procession of lumber boats, fanciful with colored lights, resounding with the roaring songs of the boatmen; and the waves recorded their protest against it in long groans on the shore. Arthur drank in the scene without misgiving, bathed in love as in moonlight. This moon would see the consummation of his joy.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

LOVE IS BLIND.

Next morning after breakfast the house began to echo with the singing of the inmates. Mona sang to the baby in an upper room, the Deacon thrummed the piano and hummed to himself in the raucous voice peculiar to most churchmen. Judy in the kitchen meditatively crooned to her maids an ancient lamentation, and out on the lawn, Arthur sang to his mother an amorous ditty in compliment to her youthful appearance. Honora, the song-bird, silent, heard with amusement this sudden lifting up of voices, each unconscious of the other. Arthur's bawling dominated.

"Has the house gone mad?" she inquired from the hallway stairs, so clearly that the singers paused to hear. "What is the meaning of all this uproar of song. Judy in the kitchen, Mona in the nursery, Louis in the parlor, Arthur on the lawn?"

The criminals began to laugh at the coincidence.

"I always sing to baby," Mona screamed in justification.

"I wasn't singing, I never sing," Louis yelled from the parlor.

"Mother drove me to it," Arthur howled through the door.

"I think the singin' was betther nor the shoutin'," Judy observed leaning out of the window to display her quizzical smile.

A new spirit illumined the old farmhouse. Love had entered it, and hope had followed close on his heels; hope that Honora would never get to her beloved convent. They loved her so and him that with all their faith, their love and respect for the convent life, gladly would they have seen her turn away from the holy doors into Arthur's reverential arms. With the exception of Anne. So surely had she become his mother that the thought of giving him up to any woman angered her. She looked coldly on Honora for having inspired him with a foolish passion.

"Come down, celestial goddess," said Arthur gayly, "and join the Deacon and me in a walk over the bluff, through the perfumed woods, down the loud-resounding shore. Put on rubbers, for the dew has no respect for the feet of such divinity."

They went off together in high spirits, and Mona came down to the veranda with the baby in her arms to look after them. Anne grieved at the sight of their intimacy.

"I have half a mind," she said, "to hurry Honora off to her convent, or to bring Sister Magdalen and the Mother Superior up here to strengthen her. If that boy has his way, he'll marry her before Christmas. He has the look of it in his eye."

"And why shouldn't he?" Mona asked. "If she will have him, then she has no business with the convent, and it will be a good opportunity for her to test her vocation."

"And what luck will there be in it for him?" said the mother bitterly. "How would you feel if some hussy cheated Louis out of his priesthood, with blue eyes and golden hair and impudence? If Arthur wants to marry after waiting so long, let him set eyes on women that ask for marriage. He'll never have luck tempting a poor girl from the convent."

"Little ye think o' the luck," said Judy, who had come out to have her morning word with the mistress. "Weren't ye goin' into a convent yerself whin Pat Dillon kem along, an' wid a wink tuk ye to church undher his arm. An' is there a woman in the whole world that's had greater luck than yerself?"

"Oh, I know you are all working for the same thing, all against me," Anne said pettishly.

"Faith we are, and may the angels guide him and her to each other. Can't a blind man see they wor made to be man an' wife? An' I say it, knowin' that the convent is the best place in the world for anny girl. I wish every girl that was born wint there. If they knew what is lyin' in wait for thim whin they take up wid a man, there wouldn't be convents enough to hould all that wud be runnin' to thim. But ye know as well as I do that the girls are not med for the convent, except the blessed few...."

Anne fled from the stream of Judy's eloquence, and the old lady looked expressively at Mona.

"She's afraid she's goin' to lose her Artie. Oh, these Irish mothers! they'd kape a boy till his hairs were gray, an' mek him belave it too, if they cud. I never saw but wan mother crazy to marry her son. That was Biddy Brady, that wint to school wid yer mother, an' poor Micksheen was a born ijit, wid a lip hangin' like a sign, so's ye cud hang an auction notice on it. Sure, the poor boy wudn't lave his mother for Vanus herself, an' the mother batin' him out o' the house every day, an' he bawlin' for fear the women wud get hould of him."

Honora had observed the happy change in Arthur, her knight of service, who had stood between her and danger, and had fought her battles with chivalry; asking no reward, hinting at none, because she had already given him all, a sister's love. What tenderness, what adoration, what service had he lavished on her, unmarred by act, or word, or hint! God would surely reward him for his consideration. Walking through the scented woods she found it easy to tell them of the date fixed for her entrance into the convent. Grand trees were marshalled along the path, supporting a roof of gold and green, where the sun fell strong on the heavy foliage.

"September," said Arthur making a calculation. "Why not wait until October and then shed your colors with the trees. I can see her," he went on humorously, "decorously arranging the black dress so that it will hang well, and not make her a fright altogether before the other women; and getting a right tilt to the black bonnet and enough lace in it to set off her complexion."

"Six months later," said the Deacon taking up the strain, "she will do better than that. Discarding the plain robes of the postulant, she will get herself into the robes of a bride...."

"Oh, sooner than that," said Arthur with a meaning which escaped her.

"No, six months is the period," she corrected seriously.

"In wedding finery she will prance before her delighted friends for a few minutes, and then march out to shed white silk and fleecy tulle. A vengeful nun, whose hair has long been worn away, will then clip with one snip of the scissors her brown locks from her head...."

"Horror!" cried Arthur.

"Sure, straight across the neck, you know, like the women's-rights people. Then the murder of the hair has to be concealed, so they put on a nightcap, and hide that with a veil, and then bring her into the bishop to tell him it's all right, and that she's satisfied."

"And what do they make of the hair?" said Arthur.

"That's one of the things yet to be revealed."

"And after that she is set at chasing the rule, or being chased by the rule for two years. She studies striking examples of observing the rule, and of the contrary. She has a shy at observing it herself, and the contrary. The rule is it when she observes it; she's it when she doesn't. At this point the mother superior comes into the game."

"Where do the frowsy children come in?"

"At meals usually. Honora cuts the bread and her fingers, butters it, and passes it round; the frowsy butter themselves, and Honora; this is an act of mortification, which is intensified when the mistress of novices discovers the butter on her habit."

"Finally the last stage is worse than the first, I suppose. Having acquired the habit she gets into it so deeply...."

"She sheds it once more, Arthur. Then she's tied to the frowsy children forever, and is known as Sister Mary of the Cold Shoulder to the world."

"This is a case of rescue," said Arthur with determination, "I move we rescue her this minute. Help, help!"

The woods echoed with his mocking cries. Honora had not spoken, the smile had died away, and she was plainly offended. Louis observant passed a hint to Arthur, who made the apology.

"We shall be there," he said humbly, "with our hearts bleeding because we must surrender you. And who are we that you need care? It is poor Ireland that will mourn for the child that bathed and bound her wounds, that watched by her in the dark night, and kept the lamp of hope and comfort burning, that stirred hearts to pity and service, that woke up Lord Constantine and me, and strangers and enemies like us, to render service; the child whose face and voice and word and song made the meanest listen to a story of injustice; all shut out, concealed, put away where the mother may never see or hear her more."

His voice broke, his eyes filled with tears at the vividness of the vision called up in the heart of the woods; and he walked ahead to conceal his emotion. Honora stopped dead and looked inquiringly at the Deacon, who switched the flowers with downcast eyes.

"What is the meaning of it, Louis?"

He knew not how to make answer, thinking that Arthur should be the first to tell his story.

"Do you think that we can let you go easily?" he said. "If we tease you as we did just now it is to hide what we really suffer. His feeling got the better of him, I think."

The explanation sounded harmless. For an instant a horrid fear that these woods must witness another scene like Lord Constantine's chilled her heart. She comforted Arthur like a sister.

"Do not feel my going too deeply. Change must come. Let us be glad it is not death, or a journey into distant lands with no return. I shall be among you still, and meanwhile God will surely comfort you."

"Oh, if we could walk straight on like this," Arthur answered, "through the blessed, free, scented forest, just as we are, forever! And walking on for years, content with one another, you, Louis, and I, come out at last, as we shall soon come out here on the lake, on the shore of eternity, just as life's sun sets, and the moon of the immortal life rises; and then without change, or the anguish of separation and dying, if we could pass over the waters, and enter the land of eternity, taking our place with God and His children, our friends, that have been there so long!"

"Is not that just what we are to do, not after your fashion, but after the will of God, Arthur? Louis at the altar, I in the convent before the altar, and you in the field of battle fighting for us both. Aaron, Miriam, Moses, here are the three in the woods of Champlain, as once in the desert of Arabia," and she smiled at the young men.

Louis returned the smile, and Arthur gave her a look of adoration, so tender, so bold, that she trembled. The next moment, when the broad space through which they were walking ended in a berry-patch, he plunged among the bushes with eagerness, to gather for her black raspberries in his drinking-cup. Her attempt to discuss her departure amiably had failed.

"I am tired already," said she to Louis helplessly. "I shall go back to the house, and leave you to go on together."

"Don't blame him," the Deacon pleaded, perceiving how useless was concealment. "If you knew how that man has suffered in his life, and how you opened heaven to him ..." she made a gesture of pain ... "remember all his goodness and be gentle with him. He must speak before you go. He will take anything from you, and you alone can teach him patience and submission."

"How long...." she began. He divined what she would have asked.

"Mona has known it more than a year, but no one else, for he gave no sign. I know it only a short time. After all it is not to be wondered at. He has been near you, working with you for years. His life has been lonely somehow, and you seemed to fill it. Do not be hasty with him. Let him come to his avowal and his refusal in his own way. It is all you can do for him. Knowing you so well he probably knows what he has to receive."

Arthur came back with his berries and poured them out on a leaf for her to eat. Seated for a little on a rock, while he lay on the ground at her feet, she ate to please him; but her soul in terror saw only the white face of Lord Constantine, and thought only of the pain in store for this most faithful friend. Oh, to have it out with him that moment! Yet it seemed too cruel. But how go on for a month in dread of what was to come?

She loved him in her own beautiful way. Her tears fell that night as she sat in her room by the window watching the high moon, deep crimson, rising through the mist over the far-off islands. How bitter to leave her beloved even for God, when the leaving brought woe to them! So long she had waited for the hour of freedom, and always a tangle at the supreme moment! How could she be happy and he suffering without the convent gates? This pity was to be the last temptation, her greatest trial. Its great strength did not disarm her. If twenty broke their hearts on that day, she would not give up her loved design. Let God comfort them, since she could not. But the vision of a peaceful entrance into the convent faded. She would have to enter, as she had passed through life, carrying the burden of another's woe, in tears.

She could see that he never lost heart. The days passed delightfully, and somehow his adoration pleased her. Having known him in many lights, there was novelty in seeing him illumined by candid love. How could he keep so high a courage with the end so dark and so near? Honora had no experience of love, romantic love, and she had always smiled at its expression in the novels of the time. If Arthur only knew the task he had set for himself! She loved him truly, but marriage repelled her almost, except in others.

Therefore, having endured the uncertainty of the position a week, she had it out with Arthur. Sitting on the rocks of an ancient quarry, high above the surface of the lake, they watched the waters rough and white from the strong south wind. The household had adjourned that day for lunch to this wild spot, and the members were scattered about, leaving them, as they always did now, by common consent alone.

"Perhaps," she said calmly, "this would be a good time to talk to you, Arthur, as sister to brother ... can't we talk as brother and sister?"

For a change came over his face that sickened her. The next moment he was ready for the struggle.

"I fear not, Honora," said he humbly. "I fear we can never do that again."

"Then you are to stand in my way too?" with bitterness.

"No, but I am not going to stand in my own way," he replied boldly. "Have I ever stood in your way, Honora?"

"You have always helped me. Do not fail me at the last, I beg of you."

"I shall never fail you, nor stand in your way. You are free now as your father wished you to be. You shall go to the convent on the date which you have named. Neither Ireland, nor anything but your heart shall hinder you. You have seen my heart for a week as you never saw it before. Do not let what you saw disturb or detain you. I told your father of it the last day of his life, and he was glad. He said it was like ... he was satisfied. Both he and I were of one mind that you should be free. And you are."

Ideas and words fled from her. The situation of her own making she knew not how to manage. What could be more sensible than his speech?

"Very well, thank you," she said helplessly.

He had perfect control of himself, but his attitude expressed his uneasiness, his face only just concealed his pain. All his life in moments like this, Arthur Dillon would suffer from his earliest sorrow.

"I hope you will all let me go with resignation," she began again.

"I give you to God freely," was his astonishing answer, "but I may tell you it is my hope He will give you back to me. I have nothing, and He is the Lord of all. He has permitted my heart to be turned to ashes, and yet gave it life again through you. I have confidence in Him. To you I am nothing; in the future I shall be only a memory to be prayed for. If we had not God to lift us up, and repay us for our suffering, to what would we come? I could not make my heart clear to you, show you its depths of feeling, frightful depths, I think sometimes, and secure your pity. God alone, the master of hearts, can do that. I have been generous to the last farthing. He will not be outdone by me."

"Oh, my God!" she murmured, looking at him in wonder, for his words sounded insanely to her ear.

"I love you, Honora," he went on, with a flush on his cheek, and so humble that he kept his eyes on the ground. "Go, in spite of that, if God demands it. If you can, knowing that I shall be alone, how much alone no one may know, go nevertheless. Only bear it in mind, that I shall wait for you outside the convent gate. If you cannot remain thinking of me, I shall be ready for you. If not here, then hereafter, as God wills. But you are free, and I love you. Before you go, God's beloved," and he looked at her then with eyes so beautiful that her heart went out to him, "you must let me tell you what I have been. You will pray for me better, when you have learned how far a man can sink into hell, and yet by God's grace reach heaven again."



CHAPTER XXXIV.

A HARPY AT THE FEAST.

Honora now saw that suffering was not to be avoided. Experience had taught her how to economize with it. In the wood one day she watched for minutes two robins hopping about in harmony, feeding, singing now and then low notes of content from a bough, and always together. A third robin made appearance on the scene, and their content vanished. Irritated and uneasy, even angered, they dashed at the intruder, who stood his ground, confident of his strength. For a long time he fought them, leaving only at his own pleasure. Longer still the pair remained unquiet, distressed by the struggle rather than wearied, complaining to each other tenderly.

Behold a picture of her own mind, its order upset by the entrance of a new idea. That life of the mind, which is our true life, had to change its point of view in order to meet and cope with the newcomer. Arthur's love had the fiber of tragedy. She felt rather than knew its nature. For years it had been growing in his strong heart, disciplined by steady buffeting, by her indifference, by his own hard circumstances; no passion of an hour like Romeo's; more like her father's love for Erin.

Former ideas began to shift position, and to struggle against the intruder vainly. Some fought in his favor. The vision of convent peace grew dim. She must take it with tears, and his sorrow would cloud its beauty. Marriage, always so remote from her life, came near, and tried to prove the lightness of its yoke with Arthur as the mate. The passion of her father's life awoke. Dear Erin cried out to her for the help which such a union would bring.

Her fixed resolve to depart for her convent in September kept the process from tangle. Sweet indeed was the thought of how nobly he loved her. She was free. God alone was the arbiter. None would hinder her going, if her heart did not bid her stay for his sake. Her father had needed her. She would never have forgiven herself had she left him to carry his sorrow alone. Perhaps this poor soul needed her more. With delight one moment and shame the next, she saw herself drifting towards him. Nevertheless she did not waver, nor change the date of her departure.

Arthur continued to adore at her shrine as he had done for years, and she studied him with the one thought: how will he bear new sorrow? No man bore the mark of sorrow more terribly when he let himself go, and at times his mask fell off in spite of resolve. As a lover Honora, with all her distaste for marriage, found him more lovable than ever, and had to admit that companionship with her hero would not be irritating. The conspiracy in his favor flourished within and without the citadel. Knowing that he adored her, she liked the adoration. To any goddess the smell of the incense is sweet, the sight of the flowers, the humid eyes, the leaping heart delightful. Yet she put it one side when the day over, and she knelt in her room for prayer. Like a dream the meanings of the day faded, and the vision of her convent cell, its long desired peace and rest, returned with fresher coloring. The men and women of her little world, the passions and interests of the daylight, so faded, that they seemed to belong to another age.

While this comedy went on the farmhouse and its happy life were keenly and bitterly watched by the wretched wife of Curran. It was her luck, like Sonia's, to spoil her own feast in defiling her enemy's banquet. Having been routed at all points and all but sent to Jezebel's fate by Arthur Dillon, she had stolen into this paradise to do what mischief she could. Thus it happened, at the moment most favorable for Arthur's hopes, when Honora inclined towards him out of sisterly love and pity, that the two women met in a favorite haunt of Honora's, in the woods near the lake shore.

To reach it one took a wild path through the woods, over the bluff, and along the foot of the hill, coming out on a small plateau some fifteen feet above the lake. Behind rose a rocky wall, covered with slender pines and cedars; noble trees shaded the plateau, leaving a clearing towards the lake; so that one looked out as from a frame of foliage on the blue waters, the islet of St. Michel, and the wooded cape known as Cumberland Head.

As Honora entered this lovely place, Edith sat on a stone near the edge of the precipice, enjoying the view. She faced the newcomer with unfailing impertinence, and coolly studied the woman whom Arthur Dillon loved. Sickness of heart filled her with rage. The evil beauty of Sonia and herself showed purely animal beside the pale spiritual luster that shone from this noble, sad-hearted maid. Honora bowed distantly and passed on. Edith began to glow with delight of torturing her presently, and would not speak lest her pleasure be hurried. The instinct of the wild beast, to worry the living game, overpowered her. What business had Honora with so much luck? The love of Arthur, fame as a singer, beauty, and a passion for the perfect life? God had endowed herself with three of these gifts. Having dragged them through the mud, she hated the woman who had used them with honor. What delight that in a moment she could torture her with death's anguish!

"I came here in the hope of meeting you, madam," she began suddenly, "if you are Miss Ledwith. I come to warn you."

"I do not need warnings from strangers," Honora replied easily, studying the other for an instant with indifferent eyes, "and if you wished me to see on proper matters you should have called at the house."

"For a scene with the man who ran away from his wife before he deceived me, and then made love to you? I could hardly do that," said she as demure and soft as a purring cat.

Honora's calm look plainly spoke her thought: the creature was mad.

"I am not mad. Miss Ledwith, and your looks will not prevent me warning you. Arthur Dillon is not the man he pretends——"

"Please go away," Honora interrupted.

"He is not the son of Anne Dillon——"

"Then I shall go," said Honora, but Edith barred the only way out of the place, her eyes blazing with the insane pleasure of torturing the innocent. Honora turned her back on her and walked down to the edge of the cliff, where she remained until the end.

"I know Arthur Dillon better than you know him," Edith went on, "and I know you better than you think. Once I had the honor of your acquaintance. That doesn't matter. Neither does it matter just who Arthur Dillon is. He's a fraud from cover to cover. His deserted wife is living, poor as well as neglected. The wretched woman has sought him long——"

"Why don't you put her on the track?" Honora asked, relieved that the lunatic wished only to talk.

"He makes love to you now as he has done for years, and he hopes to marry you soon. I can tell that by his behavior. I warn you that he is not free to marry. His wife lives. If you marry him I shall put her on his track, and give you a honeymoon of scandal. It was enough for him to have wrecked my life and broken my heart. I shall not permit him to repeat that work on any other unfortunate."

"Is that all?"

Edith, wholly astonished at the feeble impression made by her story, saw that her usual form had been lacking. Her scorn for Honora suggested that acting would be wasted on her; that the mere news of the living wife would be sufficient to plunge her into anguish. But here was no delight of pallid face and trembling limbs. Her tale would have gone just as well with the trees.

"I have risked my life to tell you this," said she throwing in the note of pathos. "If Arthur Dillon, or whoever he is, hears of it, he will kill me."

"Don't worry then," and Honora turned about with benign face and manner, quite suited to the need of a crazy patient escaped from her keepers, "I shall never tell him. But please go, for some one is coming. It may be he."

Edith turned about swiftly and saw a form approaching through the trees. She had her choice of two paths a little beyond, and fled by the upper one. Her fear of Arthur had become mortal. As it was she rushed into the arms of Louis, who had seen the fleeing form, and thought to play a joke upon Mona or Honora. He dropped the stranger and made apologies for his rudeness. She curtsied mockingly, and murmured:

"Possibly we have met before."

The blood rose hot to his face as he recognized her, and her face paled as he seized her by the wrist with scant courtesy.

"I scarcely hoped for the honor of meeting you again, Sister Claire. Of course you are here only for mischief, and Arthur Dillon must see you and settle with you. I'll trouble you to come with me."

"You have not improved," she snarled. "You would attack my honor again."

Then she screamed for help once, not the second time, which might have brought Arthur to the scene; but Honora came running to her assistance.

"Ah, this was your prey, wolf?" said Louis coolly. "Honora, has she been lying to you, this fox, Sister Claire, Edith Conyngham, with a string of other names not to be remembered? Didn't you know her?"

Honora recoiled. Edith stood in shame, with the mortified expression of the wild beast, the intelligent fox, trapped by an inferior boy.

"Oh, let her go, Louis," she pleaded.

"Not till she has seen Arthur. The mischief she can do is beyond counting. Arthur knows how to deal with her."

"I insist," said Honora. "Come away, Louis, please, come away."

He flung away her wrist with contempt, and pointed out her path. In a short time she had disappeared.

"And what had she to tell you, may I ask?" said the Deacon. "Like the banshee her appearance brings misfortune to us."

"You have always been my confidant, Louis," she answered after some thought. "Do you know anything about the earlier years of Arthur Dillon?"

"Much. Was that her theme?"

"That he was married and his wife still lives."

"He will tell you about that business himself no doubt. I know nothing clear or certain ... some hasty expressions of feeling ... part of a dream ... the declaration that all was well now ... and so on. But I shall tell him. Don't object, I must. The woman is persistent and diabolical in her attempts to injure us. He must know at least that she is in the vicinity. He will guess what she's after without any further hint. But you mustn't credit her, Honora. As you know...."

"Oh, I know," she answered with a smile. "The wretched creature is not to be believed under any circumstances. Poor soul!"

Nevertheless she felt the truth of Edith's story. It mattered little whether Arthur was Anne Dillon's son, he would always be the faithful, strong friend, and benefactor. That he had a wife living, the living witness of the weakness of his career in the mines, shocked her for the moment. The fact carried comfort too. Doubt fled, and the weighing of inclinations, the process kept up by her mind apart from her will, ceased of a sudden. The great pity for Arthur, which had welled up in her heart like a new spring, dried up at its source. For the first time she felt the sin in him, the absence of the ideal. He had tripped and fallen like all his kind in the wild days of youth; and according to his nature had been repeating with her the drama enacted with his first love. She respected his first love. She respected the method of nature, but did not feel forced to admire it.

Her distaste for the intimacy of marriage returned with tenfold strength. One might have become submissive and companionable with a virgin nature; to marry another woman's lover seemed ridiculous. This storm cleared the air beautifully. Her own point of view became plainer, and she saw how far inclination had hurried her. For some hours she had been near to falling in love with Arthur, had been willing to yield to tender persuasion. The woman guilty of such weakness did not seem at this moment to have been Honora Ledwith; only a poor soul, like a little ship in a big wind, borne away by the tempest of emotion.

She had no blame for Arthur. His life was his own concern. Part of it had brought her much happiness. Edith's scandalous story did not shake her confidence in him. Undoubtedly he was free to marry, or he would not have approached her. His freedom from a terrible bond must have been recent, since his manner towards herself had changed only that summer, within the month in fact. The reserve of years had been prompted by hard conditions. In honor he could not woo. Ah, in him ran the fibre of the hero, no matter what might have been his mistakes! He had resisted every natural temptation to show his love. Once more they were brother and sister, children of the dear father whose last moments they had consoled. Who would regret the sorrow which led to such a revealing of hearts?

The vision of her convent rose again to her pleased eye, fresh and beautiful as of old, and dearer because of the passing darkness which had concealed it for a time; the light from the chapel windows falling upon the dark robes in the choir, the voices of the reader, chanter, and singer, and the solemn music of the organ; the procession filing silently from one duty to another, the quiet cell when the day was over, and the gracious intimacy with God night and day. Could her belief and her delight in that holy life have been dim for an instant? Ah, weakness of the heart! The mountain is none the less firm because clouds obscure its lofty form. She had been wrapped in the clouds of feeling, but never once had her determination failed.



CHAPTER XXXV.

SONIA CONSULTS LIVINGSTONE.

Edith's visit, so futile, so unlike her, had been prompted by the hatefulness of her nature. The expedition to California had failed, her effort to prove her instincts true had come to nothing, and Arthur Dillon had at last put his foot down and extinguished her and Sonia together. Free to snarl and spit if they chose, the two cats could never plot seriously against him more. Curran triumphed in the end. Tracking Arthur Dillon through California had all the features of a chase through the clouds after a bird. The scene changed with every step, and the ground just gone over faded like a dream.

They found Dillons, a few named Arthur, some coincidences, several mysteries, and nothing beyond. The police still had the photographs sent out by Anne Dillon, and a record that the man sought for had been found and returned to his mother. The town where the search ended had only a ruined tavern and one inhabitant, who vaguely remembered the close of the incident. Edith surrendered the search in a violent temper, and all but scratched out the eyes of her devoted slave. To Sonia the detective put the net result very sensibly.

"Arthur Dillon did not live in California under his own name," said he, "and things have so changed there in five years that his tracks have been wiped out as if by rain. All that has been done so far proves this man to be just what he appears. We never had a worse case, and never took up a more foolish pursuit. We have proved just one sure thing: that if this man be Horace, then he can't be found. He is too clever to be caught, until he is willing to reveal himself. If you pursue him to the point which might result in his capture, there'll be murder or worse waiting for you at that point. It might be better for you two not to find him."

This suggestion, clever and terrifying, Sonia could not understand as clearly as Curran. She thought the soft nature of Horace quite manageable, and if murder were to be done her knife should do it. Oh, to seize his throat with her beautiful hands, to press and squeeze and dig until the blood gorged his face, and to see him die by inches, gasping! He had lied like a coward! Nothing easier to destroy than such a wretch!

"Don't give up, Sonia," was Edith's comment on the wise words of Curran. "Get a good lawyer, and by some trick drag Dillon and his mother and the priest to court, put them on oath as to who the man is; they won't perjure themselves, I'll wager."

"That is my thought," said Sonia tenderly nursing the idea. "There seems to be nothing more to do. I have thought the matter over very carefully. We are at the end. If this fails I mean to abandon the matter. But for his money I would have let him go as far as he wanted, and I would let this man pass too but for the hope of getting at his money. It is the only way to punish Horace, as he punished me. I feel like you, that the mystery is with this Arthur Dillon. Since I saw you last, he has filled my dreams, and always in the dreams he has been so like Horace that I now see more of a likeness in Arthur Dillon. I have a relative in the city, a very successful lawyer, Quincy Livingstone. I shall consult him. Perhaps it would be well for you to accompany me, Edith. You explain this case so well."

"No, she'll keep out of it, by your leave," the detective answered for her. "Dillon has had patience with this woman, but he will resent interference so annoying."

Edith made a face at him.

"As if I could be bossed by either you or Arthur. Sonia, you have the right stuff in you, clear grit. This trick will land your man."

"You'll find an alligator who will eat the legs off you both before you can run away," said Curran.

"Do you know what I think, Dick Curran?" she snapped at him. "That you have been playing the traitor to us, telling Arthur Dillon all we've been doing. Oh, if I could prove that, you wretch!"

"You have a high opinion of his softness, if you think he would throw away money to learn what any schoolboy might learn by himself. How much did you, with all your cleverness, get out of him in the last five years?"

He laughed joyfully at her wicked face.

"Let me tell you this," he added. "You have been teasing that boy as a monkey might a lion. Now you will set on him the man that he likes least in this world, Livingstone. What a pretty mouthful you will be when he makes up his mind that you've done enough."

Nevertheless the two women called on Livingstone. The great man, no longer great, no longer in the eye of the world, out of politics because the charmed circle had closed, and no more named for high places because his record had made him impossible, had returned to the practice of law. Eminent by his ability, his achievement, and his blood, but only a private citizen, the shadow of his failure lay heavy on his life and showed clearly in his handsome face. That noble position which he had missed, so dear to heart and imagination, haunted his moments of leisure and mocked his dreams. He had borne the disappointment bravely, had lightly called it the luck of politics. Now that the past lay in clear perspective, he recognized his own madness.

He had fought with destiny like a fool, had stood in the path of a people to whom God had given the chance which the rulers of the earth denied them; and this people, through a youth carrying the sling of David, had ruined him. He had no feeling against Birmingham, nor against Arthur Dillon. The torrent, not the men, had destroyed him. Yet he had learned nothing. With a fair chance he would have built another dam the next morning. He was out of the race forever. In the English mission he had touched the highest mark of his success. He mourned in quiet. Life had still enough for him, but oh! the keenness of his regret.

Sonia's story he had heard before, at the beginning of the search, as a member of the Endicott family. The details had never reached him. The cause of Horace Endicott's flight he had forgotten. Edith in her present costume remained unknown, nor did she enlighten him. Her thought as she studied him was of Dillon's luck in his enterprises. Behold three of his victims. Sonia repeated for the lawyer the story of her husband's disappearance, and of the efforts to find him.

"At last I think that I have found him," was her conclusion, "in the person of a man known in this city as Arthur Dillon."

Livingstone started slightly. However, there must be many Arthur Dillons, the Irish being so numerous, and tasteless in the matter of names. When she described her particular Arthur his astonishment became boundless at the absurdity of the supposition.

"You have fair evidence I suppose that he is Horace Endicott, madam?"

"I am sorry to tell you that I have none, because the statement makes one feel so foolish. On the contrary the search of a clever detective ... he's really clever, isn't he, Edith?... shows that Dillon is just what he appears to be, the son of Mrs. Anne Dillon. The whole town believes he is her son. The people who knew him since he was born declare him to be the very image of his father. Still, I think that he is Horace Endicott. Why I think so, ... Edith, my dear, it is your turn now. Do explain to the lawyer."

Livingstone wondered as the dancer spoke where that beautiful voice and fluent English had become familiar. Sister Claire had passed from his mind with all the minor episodes of his political intrigues. He could not find her place in his memory. Her story won him against his judgment. The case, well put, found strength in the contention that the last move had not been made, since the three most important characters in the play had not been put to the question.

His mind ran over the chief incidents in that remarkable fight which Arthur Dillon had waged in behalf of his people: the interview before the election of Birmingham, ... the intrigues in London, the dexterous maneuvers which had wrecked the campaign against the Irish, had silenced McMeeter, stunned the Bishop, banished Fritters, ruined Sister Claire, tumbled him from his lofty position, and cut off his shining future. How frightful the thought that this wide ruin might have been wrought by an Endicott, one of his own blood!

"A woman's instincts are admirable," he said, politely and gravely, "and they have led you admirably in this case. But in face of three facts, the failure of the detective, the declaration of Mr. Dillon, and your failure to recognize your husband after five years, it would be absurd to persist in the belief that this young man is your husband. Moreover there are intrinsic difficulties, which would tell even if you had made out a good case for the theory. No Endicott would take up intimate connection with the Irish. He would not know enough about them, he could not endure them; his essence would make the scheme, even if it were presented to him by others, impossible. One has only to think of two or three main difficulties to feel and see the utter absurdity of the whole thing."

"No doubt," replied Sonia sweetly. "Yet I am determined not to miss this last opportunity to find my husband. If it fails I shall get my divorce, and ... bother with the matter no more."

Edith smiled faintly at the suggestive pause, and murmured the intended phrase, "marry Quincy Lenox."

"Very well," said the lawyer. "You have only to begin divorce proceedings here, issue a summons for the real Horace Endicott, and serve the papers on Mr. Arthur Dillon. You must be prepared for many events however. The whole business will be ventilated in the journals. The disappearance will come up again, and be described in the light of this new sensation. Mr. Dillon is eminent among his people, and well known in this city. It will be a year's wonder to have him sued in a divorce case, to have it made known that he is supposed to be Horace Endicott."

"That is unavoidable," Edith prompted, seeing a sudden shrinking on the part of Sonia. "Do not forget, sir, that all Mrs. Endicott wants is the sworn declaration of Arthur Dillon that he is not Horace Endicott, of his mother that he is her son, of Father O'Donnell that he knows nothing of Horace Endicott since his disappearance."

"You would not like the case to come to trial?" said the lawyer to Sonia.

"I must get my divorce," she answered coolly, "whether this is the right man or no."

"Let me tell you what may happen after the summons, or notice, is served on Mr. Dillon," said the lawyer. "The serving can be done so quietly that for some time no others but those concerned need know about it. I shall assume that Mr. Dillon is not Horace Endicott. In that case he can ignore the summons, which is not for him, but for another man. He need never appear. If you insisted on his appearance, you would have to offer some evidence that he is really Horace Endicott. This you cannot do. He could make affidavit that he is not the man. By that time the matter would be public property, and he could strike back at you for the scandal, the annoyance, and the damage done to his good name."

"What I want is to have his declaration under oath that he is not Horace. If he is Horace he will never swear to anything but the truth."

For the first time Sonia showed emotion, tears dropped from her lovely eyes, and the lawyer wondered what folly had lost to her husband so sweet a creature. Evidently she admired one of Horace's good qualities.

"You can get the declaration in that way. To please you, he might at my request make affidavit without publicity and scenes at court."

"I would prefer the court," said Sonia firmly.

"She's afeared the lawyer suspects her virtue," Edith said to herself.

"Let me now assume that Arthur Dillon is really Horace Endicott," continued Livingstone. "He must be a consummate actor to play his part so well and so long. He can play the part in this matter also, by ignoring the summons, and declaring simply that he is not the man. In that case he leaves himself open to punishment, for if he should thereafter be proved to be Horace Endicott, the court could punish him for contempt. Or, he can answer the summons by his lawyer, denying the fact, and stating his readiness to swear that he is not any other than Arthur Dillon. You would then have to prove that he is Horace Endicott, which you cannot do."

"All I want is the declaration under oath," Sonia repeated.

"And you are ready for any ill consequences, the resentment and suit of Mr. Dillon, for instance? Understand, my dear lady, that suit for divorce is not a trifling matter for Mr. Dillon, if he is not Endicott."

"Particularly as he is about to marry a very handsome woman," Edith interjected, heedless of the withering glance from Sonia.

"Ah, indeed!"

"Then I think some way ought to be planned to get Anne Dillon and the priest into court," Edith suggested. "Under oath they might give us some hint of the way to find Horace Endicott. The priest knows something about him."

"I shall be satisfied if Arthur Dillon swears that he is not Horace," Sonia said, "and then I shall get my divorce and wash my hands of the tiresome case. It has cost me too much money and worry."

"Was there any reason alleged for the remarkable disappearance of the young man? I knew his father and mother very well, and admired them. I saw the boy in his schooldays, never afterwards. You have a child, I understand."

Edith lowered her eyes and looked out of the window on the busy street.

"It is for my child's sake that I have kept up the search," Sonia answered with maternal tenderness. "Insanity is supposed to be the cause. Horace acted strangely for three months before his disappearance, he grew quite thin, and was absent most of the time. As it was summer, which I spent at the shore with friends, I hardly noticed his condition. It was only when he had gone, without warning, taking considerable money with him, that I recalled his queer behavior. Since then not a scrap of information, not a trace, nor a hint of him, has ever come back to me. The detectives did their best until this moment. All has failed."

"Very sad," Livingstone said, touched by the hopeless tone. "Well, as you wish it then, I shall bring suit for divorce and alimony against Horace Endicott, and have the papers served on Arthur Dillon. He can ignore them or make his reply. In either case he must be brought to make affidavit that he is not the man you look for."

"And the others? The priest and Mrs. Dillon?" asked Edith.

"They are of no consequence," was Sonia's opinion.

After settling unimportant details the two women departed. Livingstone found the problem which they had brought to his notice fascinating. He had always marked Arthur Dillon among his associates, as an able and peculiar young man, he had been attracted by him, and had listened to his speeches with more consideration than most young men deserved. His amazing success in dealing with a Livingstone, his audacity and nerve in attacking the policy which he brought to nothing, were more wonderful to the lawyer than to the friends of Dillon, who had not seen the task in its entirety.

And this peculiar fellow was thought to be an Endicott, of his own family, of the English blood, more Irish than the Irish, bitterer towards him than the priests had been. The very impossibility of the thing made it charming. What course of thought, what set of circumstances, could turn the Puritan mind in the Celtic direction? Was there such genius in man to convert one personality into another so neatly that the process remained undiscoverable, not to be detected by the closest observation? He shook off the fascination. These two women believed it, but he knew that no Endicott could ever be converted.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

ARTHUR'S APPEAL.

Suit was promptly begun by Livingstone on behalf of Sonia for a divorce from Horace Endicott. Before the papers had been fully made out, even before the officer had been instructed to serve them on Arthur Dillon, the lawyer received an evening visit from the defendant himself. As a suspicious act he welcomed it; but a single glance at the frank face and easy manner, when one knew the young man's ability, disarmed suspicion. The lawyer studied closely, for the first time with interest, the man who might yet prove to be his kinsman. He saw a form inclined to leanness, a face that might have been handsome but for the sunken cheeks, dark and expressive eyes whose natural beauty faded in the dark circles around them, a fine head with dead black hair, and a handsome beard, streaked with gray. His dress, gentleman-like but of a strange fashion, the lawyer did not recognize as the bachelor costume of Cherry Hill prepared by his own tailor. Nothing of the Endicott in face or manner, nothing tragical, the expression decorous and formal, perhaps a trifle quizzical, as this was their first meeting since the interview in London.

"I have called to enter a protest," Arthur began primly, "against the serving of the papers in the coming Endicott divorce case on your humble servant."

"As the papers are to be served only on Horace Endicott, I fail to see how you have any right or reason to protest," was the suave answer.

"I know all about the matter, sir, for very good reasons. For some months the movements of the two women concerned in this affair have been watched in my interest. Not long after they left you a few days ago, the result of their visit was made known to me. To anticipate the disagreeable consequences of serving the papers on me, I have not waited. I appeal to you not only as the lawyer of Mrs. Endicott, but also as one much to blame for the new persecution which is about to fall upon me."

"I recognize the touch," said Livingstone, unable to resist a smile. "Mr. Dillon must be audacious or nothing."

"I am quite serious," Arthur replied. "You know part of the story, what Mrs. Endicott chose to tell you, but I can enlighten you still more. I appeal to you, as the lady's lawyer, to hinder her from doing mischief; and again I appeal to you as one to blame in part for the threatened annoyances. But for the lady who accompanied Mrs. Endicott, I would not be suspected of relationship with your honored family. But for the discipline which I helped to procure for that lady, she would have left me in peace. But for your encouragement of the lady, I would not have been forced to subject a woman to discipline. You may remember the effective Sister Claire?"

So true was the surprise that Livingstone blushed with sudden violence.

"That woman was the so-called escaped nun?" he exclaimed.

"Now Mrs. Curran, wife of the detective employed by Mrs. Endicott for five years to discover her lost husband. She satisfies her noblest aspirations by dancing in the theaters, ... and a very fine dancer she is. Her leisure is devoted to plotting vengeance on me. She pretends to believe that I am Horace Endicott; perhaps she does believe it. Anyway she knows that persecution will result, and she has persuaded Mrs. Endicott to inaugurate it. I do not know if you were her selection to manage the case."

This time Livingstone did not blush, being prepared for any turn of mood and speech from this singular young man.

"As the matter was described to me," he said, "only a sentimental reason included you in the divorce proceedings. I can understand Mrs. Curran's feelings, and to what they would urge a woman of that character. Still, her statements here were very plausible."

"Undoubtedly. She made her career up to this moment on the plausible. Let me tell you, if it is not too tedious, how she has pursued this theory in the face of all good sense."

The lawyer bowed his permission.

"I am of opinion that the creature is half mad, or subject to fits of insanity. Her husband had talked much of the Endicott case, which was not good for a woman of her peculiarities. By inspiration, insane suggestion, she assumed that I was the man sought for, and built up the theory as you have heard. First, she persuaded her good-natured husband, with whom I am acquainted, to investigate among my acquaintances for the merest suspicion, doubt, of my real personality. A long and minute inquiry, the details of which are in writing in my possession, was made by the detective with one result: that no one doubted me to be what I was born."

Livingstone cast a look at him to see the expression which backed that natural and happy phrase. Arthur Dillon might have borne it.

"She kept at her husband, however, until he had tried to surprise my relatives, my friends, my nurse, and my mother, ... yes, even my confessor, into admissions favorable to her mad dream. My rooms, my papers, my habits, my secrets were turned inside out; Mrs. Endicott was brought on from Boston to study me in my daily life; for days I was watched by the three. In the detective's house I was drugged into a profound sleep, and for ten minutes the two women examined my sleeping face for signs of Horace Endicott. When all these things failed, Sister Claire dragged her unwilling husband to California, where I had spent ten years of my life, and tried hard to find another Arthur Dillon, or to disconnect me with myself. She proved to her own satisfaction that these things could not be done. But there is a devil of perversity in her. She is like a boa constrictor ... I think that's the snake which cannot let go its prey once it has seized it. She can't let go. In desperation she is risking her own safety and happiness to make public her belief that I am Horace Endicott. In spite of the overwhelming proofs against the theory, and in favor of me, she is bent on bringing the case into court."

"Risking her own safety and happiness?" Livingstone repeated.

"If the wild geese among the Irish could locate Sister Claire, who is supposed to have fled the town long ago, her life would be taken. If this suit continues she will have to leave the city forever. Knowing this the devil in her urges her to her own ruin."

"You have kept close track of her," said Livingstone.

"You left me no choice," was the reply, "having sprung the creature on us, and then thrown her off when you found out her character. If she had only turned on her abettors and wracked them I wouldn't have cared."

"You protest then against the serving of these papers on you. Would it not be better to settle forever the last doubts in so peculiar a matter?"

"What have I to do with the doubts of an escaped nun, and of Mrs. Endicott? Must I go to court and stand the odium of a shameful imputation to settle the doubts of a lunatic criminal and a woman whose husband fled from her with his entire fortune?"

"It is regrettable," the lawyer admitted with surprise. "As Mrs. Endicott is perhaps the most deeply interested, I fear that the case must go on."

"I have come to show you that it will not be to the interest of the two women that it should go on. In fact I feel quite certain that you will not serve those papers on me after I have laid a few facts before you."

"I shall be glad to examine them in the interest of my client."

"Having utterly failed to prove me other than I am," Arthur said easily, while the lawyer watched with increasing interest the expressive face, "these women have accepted your suggestion to put me under oath as to my own personality. I would not take affidavit," and his contempt was evident. "I am not going to permit any public or official attempt to cast doubt on my good name. You can understand the feeling. My mother and my friends are not accustomed to the atmosphere of courts, nor of scandal. It would mean severe suffering for them to be dragged into so sensational a trial. The consequences one cannot measure beforehand. The unpleasantness lives after all the parties are dead. Since I can prevent it I am going to do it. As far as I am concerned Mrs. Endicott must be content with a simple denial, or a simple affirmation rather, that I am Arthur Dillon, and therefore not her husband. It is more than she deserves, because there is not a shred of evidence to warrant her making a single move against me. She has not been able to find in me a feature resembling her husband."

"Then, you are prepared to convince Mrs. Endicott that she has more to lose than to gain by bringing you into her divorce suit?"

"Precisely. Here is the point for her to consider: if the papers in this suit are served upon me, then there will be no letting-up afterward. Her affairs, the affairs of this woman Curran, the lives of both to the last detail, will be served up to the court and the public. You know how that can be done. I would rather not have it done, but I proffer Mrs. Endicott the alternative."

"I do not know how strong an argument that would be with Mrs. Endicott," said Livingstone with interest.

"She is too shallow a woman to perceive its strength, unless you, as her lawyer and kinsman, make it plain to her," was the guileless answer. "Mrs. Curran knows nothing of court procedure, but she is clever enough to foresee consequences, and her history before her New York fiasco includes bits of romance from the lives of important people."

Livingstone resisted the inclination to laugh, and then to get angry.

"You think then, that if Mrs. Endicott could be made to see the possibilities of a desperate trial, the possible exposures of her sins and the sins of others, that she would not risk it?"

"She has family pride," said Arthur seriously, "and would not care to expose her own to scorn. I presume you know something about the Endicott disappearance?"

"Nothing more than the fact, and the failure to find the young man?"

"His wife employed the detective Curran to make the search for Endicott, and Curran is a Fenian, as interested as myself in such matters. He was with me in the little enterprise which ended so fatally for Ledwith and ... others." Livingstone was too sore on this subject to smile at the pause and the word. "Curran told me the details after he had left the pursuit of Endicott. They are known now to Mrs. Endicott's family in part. It is understood that she will marry her cousin Quincy Lenox when she gets a divorce. He was devoted to her before her marriage and is faithful still, I am told."

Not a sign of feeling in the utterance of these significant words!

"It is not affection, then, which prompts the actions of my client? She wishes to make sure of the existence or non-existence of her husband before entering upon this other marriage?"

"Of course I can tell you only what the detective and one other told us," Arthur said. "When Horace Endicott disappeared, it is said, he took with him his entire fortune, something over a million, leaving not one cent to his wife. He had converted his property into cash secretly. Her anxiety to find him is very properly to get her lawful share in that property, that is, alimony with her divorce?"

"I see," said Livingstone, and he began to understand the lines and shadows on this young man's face. "A peculiar, and I suppose thorough, revenge."

"If the papers are served on me, you understand, then in one fashion or another Mrs. Endicott shall be brought to court, and Quincy Lenox too, with the detective and his wife, and a few others. It is almost too much that you have been made acquainted with the doubts of these people. I bear with it, but I shall not endure one degree more of publicity. Once it is known that I am thought to be Horace Endicott, then the whole world must know quite as thoroughly that I am Arthur Dillon; and also who these people are that so foolishly pursue me. It cannot but appear to the average crowd that this new form of persecution is no more than an outgrowth of the old."

Then they glared at each other mildly, for the passions of yesterday were still warm. Livingstone's mood had changed, however. He felt speculatively certain that Horace Endicott sat before him, and he knew Sonia to be a guilty woman. As his mind flew over the humiliating events which connected him with Dillon, consolation soothed his wounded heart that he had been overthrown perhaps by one of his own, rather than by the Irish. The unknown element in the contest had given victory to the lucky side. He recalled his sense of this young fellow's superiority to his environment. He tried to fathom Arthur's motive in this visit, but failed. As a matter of fact Arthur was merely testing the thoroughness of his own disappearance. His visit to Livingstone the real Dillon would have made. It would lead the lawyer to believe that Sonia, in giving up her design, had been moved by his advice and not by a quiet, secret conversation with her husband. Livingstone quickly made up his mind that the divorce suit would have to be won by default, but he wished to learn more of this daring and interesting kinsman.

"The decision must remain with Mrs. Endicott," he said after a pause. "I shall tell her, before your name is mixed up with the matter, just what she must expect. If she has anything to fear from a public trial you are undoubtedly the man to bring it out."

"Thank you."

"I might even use persuasion ..."

"It would be a service to the Endicott family," Arthur said earnestly, "for I can swear to you that the truth will come out, the scandal which Horace Endicott fled to avoid and conceal forever."

"Did you know Endicott?"

"Very well indeed. I was his guide in California every time he made a trip to that country."

"I might persuade Mrs. Endicott," said the lawyer with deeper interest, "for the sake of the family name, to surrender her foolish theory. It is quite clear to any one with unbiased judgment that you are not Horace Endicott, even if you are not Arthur Dillon. I knew the young man slightly, and his family very well. I can see myself playing the part which you have presented to us for the past five years, quite as naturally as Horace Endicott would have played it. It was not in Horace's nature, nor in the Endicott nature to turn Irish so completely."

Arthur felt all the bitterness and the interest which this shot implied.

"I had the pleasure of knowing Endicott well, much better than you, sir," he returned warmly, "and while I know he was something of a good-natured butterfly, I can say something for his fairness and courage. If he had known what I know of the Irish, of their treatment by their enemies at home and here, of English hypocrisy and American meanness, of their banishment from the land God gave them and your attempt to drive them out of New York or to keep them in the gutter, he would have taken up their cause as honestly as I have done."

"You are always the orator, Mr. Endi ... Dillon."

"I have feeling, which is rare in the world," said Arthur smiling. "Do you know what this passion for justice has done for me, Mr. Livingstone? It has brought out in me the eloquence which you have praised, and inspired the energy, the deviltry, the trickery, the courage, that were used so finely at your expense.

"I was like Endicott, a wild irresponsible creature, thinking only of my own pleasure. Out of my love for one country which is not mine, out of a study of the wrongs heaped upon the Irish by a civilized people, I have secured the key to the conditions of the time. I have learned to despise and pity the littleness of your party, to recognize the shams of the time everywhere, the utter hypocrisy of those in power.

"I have pledged myself to make war on them as I made war on you; on the power that, mouthing liberty, holds Ireland in slavery; on the powers that, mouthing order and peace, hold down Poland, maintain Turkey, rob and starve India, loot the helpless wherever they may. I was a harmless hypocrite and mostly a fool once. Time and hardship and other things, chiefly Irish and English, have given me a fresh start in the life of thought. You hardly understand this, being thoroughly English in your make-up.

"You love good Protestants, pagans who hate the Pope, all who bow to England, and that part of America which is English. You can blow about their rights and liberties, and denounce their persecutors, if these happen to be French or Dutch or Russian. For a Pole or an Irishman you have no sympathy, and you would deny him any place on the earth but a grave. Liberty is not for him unless he becomes a good English Protestant at the same time. In other words liberty may be the proper sauce for the English goose but not for the Irish gander."

"I suppose it appears that way to you," said Livingstone, who had listened closely, not merely to the sentiments, but to the words, the tone, the idiom. Could Horace Endicott have ever descended to this view of his world, this rawness of thought, sentiment, and expression? So peculiarly Irish, anti-English, rich with the flavor of the Fourth Ward, and nevertheless most interesting.

"I shall not argue the point," he continued. "I judge from your earnestness that you have a well-marked ambition in life, and that you will follow it."

"My present ambition is to see our grand cathedral completed and dedicated as soon as possible, as the loudest word we can speak to you about our future. But I fear I am detaining you. If during the next few days the papers in the divorce case are not served on me, I may feel certain that Mrs. Endicott has given up the idea of including me in the suit?"

"I shall advise her to leave you in peace for the sake of the Endicott name," said Livingstone politely.

Arthur thanked him and departed, while the lawyer spent an hour enjoying his impressions and vainly trying to disentangle the Endicott from the Dillon in this extraordinary man.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE END OF MISCHIEF.

Arthur set out for the Curran household, where he was awaited with anxiety. Quite cheerful over his command of the situation, and inclined to laugh at the mixed feelings of Livingstone, he felt only reverence and awe before the human mind as seen in the light of his own experience. His particular mind had once been Horace Endicott's, but now represented the more intense and emotional personality of Arthur Dillon. He was neither Horace, nor the boy who had disappeared; but a new being fashioned after the ideal Arthur Dillon, as Horace Endicott had conceived him. What he had been seemed no more a part of his past, but a memory attached to another man. All his actions proved it.

The test of his disappearance delighted him. He had gone through its various scenes with little emotion, with less than Edith had displayed; far less than Arthur Dillon would have felt and shown. Who can measure the mind? Itself the measure of man's knowledge, the judge in the court of human destiny, how feeble its power over itself! A few years back this mind directed Horace Endicott; to-day it cheerfully served the conscience of Arthur Dillon!

Edith and her husband awaited their executioner. The detective suffered for her rather than himself. From Dillon he had nothing to fear, and for his sake, also for the strange regard he had always kept for Curran's wife, Arthur had been kind when harshness would have done more good. Now the end had come for her and Sonia. As the unexpected usually came from this young man, they had reason to feel apprehension. He took his seat comfortably in the familiar chair, and lit his cigar while chaffing her.

"They who love the danger shall perish in it," he said for a beginning. "You court it, Colette, and not very wisely."

"How, not wisely?" she asked with a pretence of boldness.

"You count on the good will of the people whom you annoy and wrong, and yet you have never any good will to give them in return. You have hated me and pursued me on the strength of my good will for you. It seems never to have occurred to you to do me a good turn for the many I have done for you. You are a bud of incarnate evil, Colette."

How she hated him when he talked in that fashion!

"Well, it's all settled. I have had the last talk with Livingstone, and spoiled your last trick against the comfort of Arthur Dillon. There will be no dragging to court of the Dillon clan. Mr. Livingstone believes with me that the publicity would be too severe for Mrs. Endicott and her family, not to mention the minor revelations connected with yourself. So there's the end of your precious tomfoolery, Colette."

She burst into vehement tears.

"But you weep too soon," he protested. "I have saved you as usual from yourself, but only to inflict my own punishment. Don't weep those crocodile diamonds until you have heard your own sentence. Of course you know that I have followed every step you took in this matter. You are clever enough to have guessed that. You discovered all that was to be discovered, of course. But you are too keen. If this trial had come to pass you would have been on the witness stand, and the dogs would have caught the scent then never to lose it. You would have ruined your husband as well as yourself."

"Why do you let him talk to me so?" she screamed at Curran.

"Because it is for your good," Arthur answered. "But here's briefness. You must leave New York at once, and forever. Get as far from it as you can, and stay there while I am alive. And for consolation in your exile take your child with you, your little boy, whom Mrs. Endicott parades as her little son, the heir of her beloved Horace."

A frightful stillness fell in the room with this terrific declaration. But for pity he could have laughed at the paralysis which seized both the detective and his wife. Edith sat like a statue, white-faced, pouting at him, her hands clasped in her lap.

"Well, are you surprised? You, the clever one? If I am Horace Endicott, as you pretend to believe, do I not know the difference between my own child and another's? I am Arthur Dillon only, and yet I know how you conspired with Mrs. Endicott to provide her with an heir for the Endicott money. You did this in spite of your husband, who has never been able to control you, not even when you chose to commit so grave a crime. Now, it is absolutely necessary for the child's sake that you save him from Mrs. Endicott's neglect, when he is of no further use to her. She loves children, as you know."

"Who are you, anyway?" Curran burst out hoarsely after a while.

"Not half as good a detective as you are, but I happen in this matter to be on the inside," Arthur answered cheerfully. "I knew Horace Endicott much better than his wife or his friends. The poor fellow is dead and gone, and yet he left enough information behind him to trouble the clever people. Are you satisfied, Colette, that this time everything must be done as I have ordered?"

"You have proved yourself Horace Endicott," she gasped in her rage, burning with hate, mortification, shame, fifty tigerish feelings that could not find expression.

"Fie, fie, Colette! You have proved that I am Arthur Dillon. Why go back on your own work? If you had known Horace Endicott as I did, you would not compare the meek and civilized Dillon with the howling demon into which his wife turned him. That fellow would not have sat in your presence ten minutes knowing that you had palmed off your child as his, without taking your throat in his hands for a death squeeze. His wife would not have escaped death from the madman had he ever encountered her. Here are your orders now; it is late and I must not keep you from your beauty sleep; take the child as soon as the Endicott woman sends him to you, and leave New York one hundred miles behind you. If you are found in this city any time after the month of September, you take all the risks. I shall not stand between you and justice again. You are the most ungrateful sinner that I have ever dealt with. Now go and weep for yourself. Don't waste any tears on Mrs. Endicott."

Sobbing like an angry and humiliated child, Edith rushed out of the room. Curran felt excessively foolish. Though partly in league with Arthur, the present situation went beyond him.

"Be hanged if I don't feel like demanding an explanation," he said awkwardly.

"You don't need it," said Arthur as he proceeded to make it. "Can't you see that Horace Endicott is acting through me, and has been from the first, to secure the things I have secured. He is dead as I told you. How he got away, kept himself hid, and all that, you are as good an authority as I. While he was alive you could have found him as easily as I could, but he was beyond search always, though I guess not beyond betrayal. Well, let me congratulate you on getting your little family together again. Don't worry over what has happened to-night. Drop the Endicott case. You can see there's no luck in it for any one."

Certainly there had been no luck in it for the Currans. Arthur went to his club in the best humor, shaking with laughter over the complete crushing of Edith, with whom he felt himself quite even in the contest that had endured so long. Next morning it would be Sonia's turn. Ah, what a despicable thing is man's love, how unstable and profitless! No wonder Honora valued it so lightly. How Horace Endicott had raved over this whited sepulcher five years ago, believed in her, sworn by her virtue and truth! And to-day he regarded her without feeling, neither love nor hate, perfect indifference only marking his mental attitude in her regard. Somehow one liked to feel that love is unchangeable, as with the mother, the father; as with God also, for whom sin does not change relationship with the sinner.

When he stood before her the next day in the hotel parlor, she reminded him in her exquisite beauty of a play seen from the back of the stage; the illusion so successful with the audience is there an exposed sham, without coherence, and without beauty. Her eyes had a scared look. She had to say to herself, if this is Horace then my time has come, if it is Arthur Dillon I have nothing to worry about, before her hate came to her aid and gave her courage. She murmured the usual formula of unexpected pleasure. He bowed, finding no pleasure in this part of his revenge. Arthur Dillon could not have been more considerate of Messalina.

"It is certainly a privilege and an honor," said he, "to be suspected of so charming a relationship with Mrs. Endicott. Nevertheless I have persuaded your lawyer, Mr. Livingstone, that it would be unprofitable and imprudent to bring me into the suit for divorce. He will so advise you I think to-day."

She smiled at the compliment and felt reassured.

"There were some things which I could not tell the lawyer," he went on, "and so I made bold to call on you personally. It is disagreeable, what I must tell you. My only apology is that you yourself have made this visit necessary by bringing my name into the case."

Her smile died away, and her face hardened. She prepared herself for trouble.

"I told your lawyer that if the papers were served on me, and a public and official doubt thrown on my right to the name of Arthur Dillon, I would not let the business drop until the Endicott-Curran-Dillon mystery had been thoroughly ventilated in the courts. He agreed with me that this would expose the Endicott name to scandal."

"We have been perhaps too careful from the beginning about the Endicott name," she said severely. "Which is the reason why no advance has been made in the search for my dear husband."

"That may be true, Mrs. Endicott. You must not forget, however, that you will be a witness, and Mrs. Curran, and her husband, and Mr. Quincy Lenox, and others besides. How do you think these people would stand questioning as to who your little boy, called Horace Endicott, really is?"

She sat prepared for a dangerous surprise, but not for this horror; and the life left her on the spot, for the poor weed was as soft and cowardly as any other product of the swamp. He rang for restoratives and sent for her maid. In ten minutes, somewhat restored, she faced the ordeal, if only to learn what this terrible man knew.

"Who are you?" she asked feebly, the same question asked by Curran in his surprise.

"A friend of Horace Endicott," he answered quietly.

"And what do you know of us?"

"All that Horace knew."

She could not summon courage to put a third question. He came to her aid.

"Perhaps you are not sure about what Horace knew? Shall I tell you? I did not tell your lawyer. I only hinted that the truth would be brought out if my name was dragged into the case against my protest. Shall I tell you what Horace knew?"

With closed eyes she made a sign of acquiescence.

"He knew of your relations with Quincy Lenox. He saw you together on a certain night, when he arrived home after a few days' absence. He also heard your conversation. In this you admitted that out of hatred for your husband you had destroyed his heir before the child was born. He knew your plan of retrieving that blunder by adopting the child of Edith Curran, and palming him off as your own. He knew of your plan to secure the good will of his Aunt Lois for the impostor, and found the means to inform his aunt of the fraud. All that he knew will be brought out at any trial in which my name shall be included. Your lawyer will tell you that it cannot be avoided. Therefore, when your lawyer advises you to get a divorce from your former husband without including me as that husband, yon had better accept that advice."

She opened her eyes and stared at him with insane fright. Who but Horace Endicott could know her crimes? All but the crime which he had named her blunder. Could this passionless stranger, this Irish politician, looking at her as indifferently as the judge on the bench, be Horace? No, surely no! Because that fool, dolt though he was, would never have seen this wretched confession of her crimes, and not slain her the next minute. Into this ambuscade had she been led by the crazy wife of Curran, whose sound advice she herself had thrown aside to follow the instincts of Edith. Recovering her nerve quickly, she began her retreat as well as one might after so disastrous a field.

"It was a mistake to have disturbed you, Mr. Dillon," she said. "You may rest assured that no further attempt will be made on your good name. Since you pretend to such intimacy with my unfortunate husband I would like to ask you...."

"That was the extent of my intimacy, Mrs. Endicott, and I would never have revealed it except to defend myself," he interrupted suavely. "Of course the revelation brings consequences. You must arrange to have your little Horace die properly in some remote country, surround his funeral with all the legal formalities, and so on. That will be easy. Meanwhile you can return the boy to his mother, who is ready to receive him. Then your suit for divorce must continue, and you will win it by default, that is, by the failure of Horace Endicott to defend his side. When these things are done, it would be well for your future happiness to lay aside further meddling with the mystery of your husband's disappearance."

"I have learned a lesson," she said more composedly. "I shall do as you command, because I feel sure it is a command. I have some curiosity however about the life which Horace led after he disappeared. Since you must have known him a little, would it be asking too much from you...."

She lost her courage at sight of his expression. Her voice faded. Oh, shallow as any frog-pond, indecently shallow, to ask such a question of the judge who had just ordered her to execution. His contempt silenced her. With a formal apology for having caused her so much pain, he bowed and withdrew. Some emotion had stirred him during the interview, but he had kept himself well under control. Later he found it was horror, ever to have been linked with a monster; and dread too that in a sudden access of passion he might have done her to death. It seemed natural and righteous to strike and destroy the reptile.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A TALE WELL TOLD.

Of these strange and stirring events no one knew but Arthur himself; nor of the swift consequences, the divorce of Sonia from her lost husband, her marriage to Quincy Lenox, the death and burial of her little boy in England, and the establishment of La Belle Colette and her son Horace in Chicago, where the temptation to annoy her enemies disappeared, and the risk to herself was practically removed forever. Thus faded the old life out of Arthur's view, its sin-stained personages frightened off the scene by his well-used knowledge of their crimes. Whatever doubt they held about his real character, self-interest accepted him as Arthur Dillon.

He was free. Honora saw the delight of that freedom in his loving and candid expression. He repressed his feelings no more, no longer bound.

He was gayer than ever before, with the gaiety of his nature, not of the part which he had played. Honora knew how deeply she loved him, from her very dread of inflicting on him that pain which was bound to come. The convent would be her rich possession; but he who had given her and her father all that man could give, he would have only bitter remembrance. How bitter that could be experience with her father informed her. The mystery of his life attracted her. If not Arthur Dillon, who was he? What tragedy had driven him from one life into another? Did it explain that suffering so clearly marked on his face? To which she must add, as part of the return to be made for all his goodness!

Her pity for him grew, and prompted deeper tenderness; and how could she know, who had been without experience, that pity is often akin to love?

The heavenly days flew by like swift swallows. September came with its splendid warnings of change. The trees were suddenly bordered in gold yellow and dotted with fire-red. The nights began to be haunted by cool winds. Louis packed his trunk early in the month. His long vacations had ended, ordination was at hand, and his life-work would begin in the month of October.

The household went down to the city for the grand ceremony. Mona and her baby remained in the city then, while the others returned to the lake for a final week, Anne with perfect content, Honora in calmness of spirit, but also in dread for Arthur's sake. He seemed to have no misgivings. Her determination continued, and the situation therefore remained as clear as the cold September mornings. Yet some tie bound them, elusive, beyond description, but so much in evidence that every incident of the waiting time seemed to strengthen it. Delay did not abate her resolution, but it favored his hope.

"Were you disturbed by the revelations of Mrs. Curran?" he said as they sat, for the last time indeed, on the terrace so fatal to Lord Constantine. Anne read the morning newspaper in the shadow of the grove behind them, with Judy to comment on the news. The day, perfect, comfortable, without the perfume of August, sparkled with the snap of September.