Marilyn's cheeks grew red and her eyes flashed but she whirled back to her keyboard and began to play, this time a sweet old hymn, and while she was playing and before the two strangers had thought of anything to say, Mr. Severn came in with the Book in his hand, followed by his wife, who drew a small rocker and sat down beside him.

Marilyn paused and the minister opened his Bible and looked around on them:

"I hope you'll join us in our evening worship," he said pleasantly to the two guests, and then while they still stared he began to read: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me," on through the beautiful chapter.

It was as Greek to the strangers, who heard and did not comprehend, and they looked about amazed on this little family with dreamy eyes all listening as if it meant great treasures to them. It was as if they saw the Severns for the first time and realized them as individuals, as a force in the world, something complete in itself, a family that was not doing the things they did, not having the things considered essential to life, nor trying to go after any of the things that life had to offer, but living their own beautiful lives in their own way without regard to the world, and actually enjoying it! That was the queer part about it. They were not dull nor bored! They were happy! They could get out from an environment like this if they choose, and they did not. They wanted to stay here. It was incredible!

Laurie got out his cigarette case, selected a cigarette, got out his match box, selected a match, and all but lit it. Then somehow there seemed to be something incongruous about the action and he looked around. No one was seeing him but Opal, and she was laughing at him. He flushed, put back the match and the cigarette, and folded his arms, trying to look at home in this strange new environment. But the girl Marilyn's eyes were far away as if she were drinking strange knowledge at a secret invisible source, and she seemed to have forgotten their presence.

Then the family knelt. How odd! Knelt down, each where he had been sitting, and the minister began to talk to God. It did not impress the visitors as prayer. They involuntarily looked around to see to whom he was talking. Laurie reddened again and dropped his face into his hands. He had met Opal's eyes and she was shaking with mirth, but somehow it affected him rawly. Suddenly he felt impelled to get to his knees. He seemed conspicuous reared up in a chair, and he slid noiselessly to the floor with a wrench of the hurt ankle that caused him to draw his brows in a frown. Opal, left alone in this room full of devout backs, grew suddenly grave. She felt almost afraid. She began to think of Saybrook Inn and the man lying there stark and dead! The man she had danced with but a week before! Dead! And for her! She cringed, and crouched down in her chair, till her beaded frock swept the polished floor in a little tinkley sound that seemed to echo all over the room, and before she knew it her fear of being alone had brought her to her knees. To be like the rest of the world—to be even more alike than anybody else in the world, that had always been her ambition. The motive of her life now brought her on her knees because others were there and she was afraid to sit above lest their God should come walking by and she should see Him and die! She did not know she put it that way to her soul, but she did, in the secret recesses of her inner dwelling.

Before they had scarcely got to their knees and while that awkward hush was yet upon them the room was filled with the soft sound of singing, started by the minister, perhaps, or was it his wife? It was unaccompanied, "Abide with me, Fast falls the eventide, the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide!" Even Laurie joined an erratic high tenor humming in on the last verse, and Opal shuddered as the words were sung, "Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, Shine through the dark and point me to the skies." Death was a horrible thing to her. She never wanted to be reminded of death. It was a long, long way off to her. She always drowned the thought in whatever amusement was at hand.

The song died away just in time or Opal might have screamed. She was easily wrought up. And then this strange anomoly of a girl, her young hostess, turned to her with a natural smile just as if nothing extraordinary had been going on and said:

"Now, shall we say good-night and go upstairs? I know you must be tired after your long ride, and I know father has had a hard day and would like to get the house settled for the night."

Opal arose with a wild idea of screaming and running away, but she caught the twinkle of Laurie's eyes and knew he was laughing at her. So she relaxed into her habitual languor, and turning haughtily requested:

"Would you send your maid to the cyar for my bag, please?"

Before anyone could respond the minister stepped to the door with a courteous "Certainly," and presently returned with a great blue leather affair with silver mountings, and himself carried it up the stairs.

At the head of the stairs Marilyn met him, and put her head on his shoulder hiding her face in his coat, and murmured, "Oh, Daddy!"

Severn smoothed her soft hair and murmured gently: "There, there little girl! Pray! Pray! Our Father knows what's best!" but neither of them were referring to the matter of the unwelcome guests.

Mrs. Severn was solicitous about asking if there was anything the guest would like, a glass of milk, or some fruit? And Opal declined curtly, made a little moue at Shafton and followed up the stairs.

"Well!" she said rudely, as she entered the lovely room and stared around, "so this is your room!" Then she walked straight to the wall on the other side of the room where hung a framed photograph of Mark at twelve years old; Mark, with all the promise of his princely bearing already upon him.

"So this is the perfect icicle of a stunning young prince that was down on the lawn, is it? I thought there was some reason for your frantic indifference to men. Is his name Billy or Mark? Laurie said it was either Billy or Mark, he wasn't sure which."



XIV

Mark Carter and Billy as they rode silently down the little street toward Aunt Saxon's cottage did not speak. They did not need to speak, these two. They had utmost confidence in one another, they were both troubled, and had no solution to offer for the difficulty. That was enough to seal any wise mouth. Only at the door as Billy climbed out Mark leaned toward him and said in a low growl:

"You're all right, Kid! You're the best friend a man ever had! I appreciate what you did!"

"Aw!" squirmed Billy, pulling down his cap, "That's awright! See you t'morra' Cart! S'long!" And Billy stalked slowly down the street remembering for the first time that he had his aunt yet to reckon with.

With the man's way of taking the bull by the horns he stormed in:

"Aw, Gee! I'm tired! Now, I'spose you'll bawl me out fer a nour, an' I couldn't help it! You always jump on me worst when I ain't to blame!"

Aunt Saxon turned her pink damp face toward the prodigal and broke into a plaintive little smile:

"Why, Willie, is that you? I'm real glad you've come. I've kept supper waiting. We've got cold pressed chicken, and I stirred up some waffles. I thought you'd like something hot."

Billy stared, but the reaction was too much. In order to keep the sudden tears back he roared out crossly:

"Well, I ain't hungry. You hadn't oughtta have waited. Pressed chicken, did ya say? Aw Gee! Just when I ain't hungry! Ef that ain't luck! An' waffles! You oughtta known better! But bring 'em on. I'll try what I can do," and he flung himself down in his chair at the table and rested a torn elbow on the clean cloth, and his weary head on a grimy hand. And then when she put the food before him, without even suggesting that he go first and wash, he became suddenly conscious of his dishevelled condition and went and washed his hands and face without being sent! Then he returned and did large justice to the meal, his aunt eyeing furtively with watery smiles, and a sigh of relief now and then. At last she ventured a word by way of conversation:

"How is the man on the mountain?" Billy looked up sharply, startled out of his usual stolidity with which he had learned from early youth to mask all interest or emotion from an officious and curious world.

Miss Saxon smiled:

"Mrs. Carter told me how you and Mark went to help a man on the mountain. It was nice of you Billy."

"Oh! that!" said Billy scornfully, rallying to screen his agitation, "Oh, he's better. He got up and went home. Oh, it wasn't nothing. I just went and helped Cart. Sorry not to get back to Sunday School Saxy, but I didn't think 'twould take so long."

After that most unusual explanation, conversation languished, while Billy consumed the final waffle, after which he remarked gravely that if she didn't mind he'd go to bed. He paused at the foot of the stair with a new thoughtfulness to ask if she wanted any wood brought in for morning, and she cried all the time she was washing up the few dishes at his consideration of her. Perhaps, as Mrs. Severn had told her, there was going to come a change and Billy was really growing more manly.

Billy, as he made his brief preparation for bed told himself that he couldn't sleep, he had too much to worry about and dope out, but his head had no more than touched the pillow till he was dead to the world. Whatever came on the morrow, whatever had happened the day before, Billy had to sleep it out before he was fit to think. And Billy slept.

But up the street in the Carter house a light burned late in Mark's window, and Mark himself, his mother soothed and comforted and sent to sleep, sat up in his big leather chair that his mother had given him on the last birthday before he left home, and stared at the wall opposite where hung the picture of a little girl in a white dress with floating hair and starry eyes. In his face there grew a yearning and a hopelessness that was beyond anything to describe. It was like a face that is suffering pain of fire and studying to be brave, yet burns and suffers and is not consumed. That was the look in Mark Carter's eyes and around his finely chiseled lips. Once, when he was in that mood travelling on a railway carriage, a woman across the aisle had called her husband's attention to him. "Look at that man!" she said, "He looks like a lost soul!"

For a long time he sat and stared at the picture, without a motion of his body, or without even the flicker of an eyelash, as if he were set there to see the panorama of his thoughts pass before him and see them through to the bitter end. His eyes were deep and gray. In boyhood they had held a wistful expectation of enchanting things and doing great deeds of valor. They were eyes that dream, and believe, and are happy even suffering, so faith remain and love be not denied. But faith had been struck a deadly blow in these eyes now, and love had been cast away. The eyes looked old and tired and unbelieving, yet still searching, searching, though seeing dimly, and yet more dim every day, searching for the dreams of childhood and knowing they would never come again. Feeling sure that they might not come again because he had shut the door against them with his own hand, and by his own act cut the bridge on which they might have crossed from heaven to him.

A chastened face, humbled by suffering when alone, but proud and unyielding still before others. Mark Carter looking over his past knew just where he had started down this road of pain, just where he had made the first mistake, sinned the first sin, chosen pride instead of humility, the devil instead of God. And to-night Mark Carter sat and faced the immediate future and saw what was before him. As if a painted map lay out there on the wall before him, he saw the fire through which he must pass, and the way it would scorch the faces of those he loved, and his soul cried out in anguish at the sight. Back, back over his past life he tramped again and again. Days when he and Lynn and her father and mother had gone off on little excursions, with a lunch and a dog and a book, and all the world of nature as their playground. A little thought, a trifling word that had been spoken, some bit of beauty at which they looked, an ant they watched struggling with a crumb too heavy for it, a cluster of golden leaves or the scarlet berries of the squaw vine among the moss. How the memories made his heart ache as he thought them out of the past.

And the books they had read aloud, sometimes the minister, sometimes his wife doing the reading, but always he was counted into the little circle as if they were a family. He had come to look upon them as his second father and mother. His own father he had never known.

His eyes sought the bookcase near at hand. There they were, some of them birthday gifts and Christmases, and he had liked nothing better than a new book which he always carried over to be read in the company. Oh, those years! How the books marked their going! Even way back in his little boyhood! "Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates." He touched its worn blue back and silver letters scarcely discernible. "The Call of the Wild." How he had thrilled to the sorrows of that dog! And how many life lessons had been wrapped up in the creature's experience! How had he drifted so far away from it all? How could he have done it? No one had pushed him, he had gone himself. He knew the very moment when after days of agony he had made the awful decision, scarcely believing himself that he meant to stick by it; hoping against hope that some great miracle would come to pass that should change it all and put him back where he longed to be! How he had prayed and prayed in his childish faith and agony for the miracle, and—it had not come! God had gone back on him. He had not kept His promises! And then he had deliberately given up his faith. He could think back over all the days and weeks that led up to this. Just after the time when he had been so happy; had felt that he was growing up, and understanding so many of the great problems of life. The future looked rosy before him, because he felt that he was beginning to grasp wisdom and the sweetness of things. How little he had known of his own foolishness and sinfulness!

It was just after they had finished reading and discussing Dante's Vision. What a wonderful man Mr. Severn was that he had taken two children and guided them through that beautiful, fearful, wonderful story! How it had impressed him then, and stayed with him all these awful months and days since he had trodden the same fiery way—!

He reached his hand out for the book, bound in dull blue cloth, the symbol of its serious import. He had not opened the book since they finished it and Mr. Severn had handed it over to him and told him to keep it, as he had another copy. He opened the book as if it had been the coffin of his beloved, and there between the dusty pages lay a bit of blue ribbon, creased with the pages, and jagged on the edges because it had been cut with a jack knife. And lying smooth upon it in a golden curve a wisp of a yellow curl, just a section of one of Marilyn's, the day she put her hair up, and did away with the curls! He had cut the ribbon from the end of a great bow that held the curls at the back of her head, and then he had laughingly insisted on a piece of the curl, and they had made a great time collecting the right amount of hair, for Marilyn insisted it must not make a rough spot for her to brush. Then he had laid it in the book, the finished book, and shut it away carefully, and gone home, and the next day,—the very next day, the thing had happened!

He turned the leaves sadly:

"In midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray Gone from the path direct:—"

It startled him, so well it fitted with his mood. It was himself, and yet he could remember well how he had felt for the writer when he heard it first. Terrible to sit here to-night and know it was himself all the time the tale had been about! He turned a page or two and out from the text there stood a line:

"All hope abandon ye who enter here."

That was the matter with himself. He had abandoned all hope. Over the leaf his eye ran down the page:

"This miserable fate Suffer the wretched souls of those who lived Without praise or blame, with that ill band Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves Were only."

How well he remembered the minister's little comments as he read, how the sermons had impressed themselves upon his heart as he listened, and yet here he was, himself, in hell! He turned over the pages again quickly unable to get away from the picture that grew in his mind, the vermilion towers and minarets, the crags and peaks, the "little brook, whose crimson'd wave, yet lifts my hair with horror," he could see it all as if he had lived there many years. Strange he had not thought before of the likeness of his life to this. He read again:

"O Tuscan! thou who through the city of fire Alive art passing,—"

Yes, that was it. A City of Fire. He dwelt in a City of Fire! Hell! There was a hell on earth to-day and mortals entered it and dwelt there. He lived in that City of Fire continually now. He expected to live there forever. He had sinned against God and his better self, and had begun his eternal life on earth. It was too late ever to turn back. "All Hope abandon, ye who enter here." He had read it and defied it. He had entered knowing what he was about, and thinking, poor fool that he was, that he was doing a wise and noble thing for the sake of another.

Over in the little parsonage, the white souled girl was walking in an earthly heaven. Ah! There was nothing, nothing they had in common now any more. She lived in the City of Hope and he in the City of Fire.

He flung out the book from him and dropped his face into his hands crying softly under his breath, "Oh, Lynn, Lynn—Marilyn!"



XV

For one instant Lynn stood against the closed door, flaming with anger, her eyes flashing fire as they well knew how to flash at times. Then suddenly her lips set close in a fine control the fire died out of her eyes, she drew a deep breath, and a quick whimsical smile lighted up her face, which nevertheless did not look in the least like one subdued:

"You know I could get very angry at that if I chose and we'd have all kinds of a disagreeable time, but I think it would be a little pleasanter for us both if you would cut that out, don't you?" She said it in a cool little voice that sounded like one in entire command of the situation, and Opal turned around and stared at her admiringly. Then she laughed one of her wild silvery laughs that made them say she had a lute-like voice, and sauntered over toward her hostess:

"You certainly are a queer girl!" she commented, "I suppose it would be better to be friends, inasmuch as we're to be roommates. Will you smoke with me?" and out from the depths of a beaded affair that was a part of her frock and yet looked more like a bag than a pocket, she drew forth a gold cigarette case and held it out.

Marilyn controlled the growing contempt in her face and answered with spirit:

"No, I don't smoke. And you won't smoke either—not in here! I'm sorry to seem inhospitable, but we don't do things like that around here, and if you have to smoke you'll have to go out doors."

"Oh, really?" Opal arched her already permanently arched, plucked brows and laughed again. "Well, you certainly have lots of pep. I believe I'm going to like you. Let's sit down and you tell me about yourself?"

"Why don't you tell me about yourself?" hedged Marilyn relaxing into a chair and leaving the deep leather one for her guest, "I'm really a very simple affair, just a country girl very glad to get home after four years at college. There's nothing complex and nothing to tell I assure you."

"You're entirely too sophisticated for all that simplicity," declared Opal, "I suppose it's college that has given you so much poise. But why aren't you impressed with Laurie? Simply everybody is impressed with Laurie! I don't believe you even know who he is!"

Lynn laughed:

"How should I? And what difference would it make any way? As for being impressed, he gave me the impression of a very badly spoiled boy out trying to have his own way, and making a great fuss because he couldn't get it."

"And you didn't know that his father is William J. Shafton, the multi-millionaire?" Opal brought the words out like little sharp points that seemed to glitter affluently as she spoke them.

"No," said Marilyn, "I didn't know. But it doesn't matter. We hadn't anything better to offer him than we've given, and I don't know why I should have been impressed by that. A man is what he is, isn't he? Not what his father is. He isn't your—brother—is he? I was over at the church when you arrived and didn't hear the introductions. I didn't even get your name."

Opal laughed uproariously as if the subject were overwhelmingly amusing:

"No," she said recovering, "I'm just Opal. Fire Opal they call me sometimes, and Opalescence. That's Laurie's name for me, although lately he's taken to calling me Effervescence. No, he's not my brother little Simple Lady, he's just one of my friends. Now don't look shocked. I'm a naughty married lady run off on a spree for a little fun." Marilyn regarded her thoughtfully:

"Now stop looking at me with those solemn eyes! Tell me what you were thinking about me! I'd lots rather hear it. It would be something original, I'm sure. You're nothing if not original!"

"I was just wondering why," said Marilyn still thoughtfully.

"Why what?"

"Why. Why you did it. Why you wanted to be that kind of a married woman when the real kind is so much more beautiful and satisfactory."

"What do you know about it?" blazed Opal, "You've never been married, have you?"

"My mother has had such a wonderful life with my father—and my father with my mother!"

Opal stared at her amazed for an instant, then shrugged her shoulders lightly:

"Oh, that!" she said and laughed disagreeably, "If one wants to be a saint, perhaps, but there aren't many men-saints I can tell you! You haven't seen my husband or you wouldn't talk like that! Imagine living a saintly life with Ed Verrons! But my dear, wait till you're married! You won't talk that rubbish any more!"

"I shall never marry unless I can," said Lynn decidedly, "It would be terrible to marry some one I could not love and trust!"

"Oh, love!" said Opal contemptuously, "You can love any one you want to for a little while. Love doesn't last. It's just a play you soon get tired to death of. But if that's the way you feel don't pin your trust and your love as you call it to that princely icicle we saw down on the lawn. He's seen more of the world than you know. I saw it in his eyes. There! Now don't set your eyes to blazing again. I won't mention him any more to-night. And don't worry about me, I'm going to be good and run back to-morrow morning in time to meet my dear old hubby in the evening when he gets back from a week's fishing in the Adirondacks, and he'll never guess what a frolic I've had. But you certainly do amuse me with your indifference. Wait till Laurie gets in some of his work on you. I can see he's crazy already about you, and if I don't decide to carry him off with me in the morning I'll miss my guess if he doesn't show you how altogether charming the son of William J. Shafton can be. He never failed to have a girl fall for him yet, not one that he went after, and he's been after a good many girls I can tell you."

Lynn arose suddenly, her chin a bit high, a light of determination in her eyes. She felt herself growing angry again:

"Come and look at my view of the moon on the valley," she said suddenly, pulling aside the soft scrim curtain and letting in a flood of moonlight. "Here, I'll turn out the light so you can see better. Isn't that beautiful?"

She switched off the lights and the stranger drew near apathetically, gazing out into the beauty of the moonlight as it touched the houses half hidden in the trees and vines, and flooded the Valley stretching far away to the feet of the tall dark mountains.

"I hate mountains!" shuddered Opal, "They make me afraid! I almost ran over a precipice when I was coming here yesterday. If I have to go back that same way I shall take Laurie, or if he won't go I'll cajole that stunning prince of yours if you don't mind. I loathe being alone. That's why I ran down here to see Laurie!"

But Lynn had switched on the lights and turned from the window. Her face was cold and her voice hard:

"Suppose we go to bed," she said, "will you have the bed next the window or the door? And what shall I get for you? Have you everything? See, here is the bathroom. Father and mother had it built for me for my birthday. And the furniture is some of mother's grandmother's. They had it done over for me."

"It's really a dandy room!" said Opal admiringly, "I hadn't expected to find anything like this," she added without seeming to know she was patronizing. "You are the only child, aren't you? Your father and mother just dote on you too. That must be nice. We had a whole houseful at home, three girls and two boys, and after father lost his money and had to go to a sanitarium we had frightful times, never any money to buy anything, the girls always fighting over who should have silk stockings, and mother crying every night when we learned to smoke. Of course mother was old fashioned. I hated to have her weeping around all the time, but all our set smoked and what could I do? So I just took the first good chance to get married and got out of it all. And Ed isn't so bad. Lots of men are worse. And he gives me all the money I want. One thing the girls don't have to fight over silk stockings and silk petticoats any more. I send them all they want. And I manage to get my good times in now and then too. But tell me, what in the world do you do in this sleepy little town? Don't you get bored to death? I should think you'd get your father to move to the city. There must be plenty of churches where a good looking minister like your father could get a much bigger salary than out in the country like this. When I get back to New York I'll send for you to visit me and show you a real good time. I suppose you've never been to cabarets and eaten theatre suppers, and seen a real New York good time. Why, last winter I had an affair that was talked of in the papers for days. I had the whole lower floor decorated as a wood you know, with real trees set up, and mossy banks, and a brook running through it all. It took days for the plumbers to get the fittings in, and then they put stones in the bottom, and gold fish, and planted violets on the banks and all kinds of ferns and lilies of the valley, everywhere there were flowers blossoming so the guests could pick as many as they wanted. The stream was deep enough to float little canoes, and they stopped in grottoes for champagne, and when they came to a shallow place they had to get out and take off their shoes and stockings and wade in the brook. On the opposite bank a maid was waiting with towels. The ladies sat down on the bank and their escorts had to wipe their feet and help them on with their shoes and stockings again, and you ought to have heard the shouts of laughter! It certainly was a great time! Upstairs in the ball room we had garden walks all about, with all kinds of flowers growing, and real birds flying around, and the walls were simply covered with American beauty roses and wonderful climbers, in such bowers that the air was heavy with perfume. The flowers alone cost thousands—What's the matter? Did you hear something fall? You startled me, jumping up like that! You're nervous aren't you? Don't you think music makes people nervous?"

Marilyn smiled pathetically, and dropped back to the edge of her bed:

"Pardon me," she said, "I was just in one of my tempers again. I get them a lot but I'm trying to control them. I happened to think of the little babies I saw in the tenement districts when I was in New York last. Did you ever go there? They wear one little garment, and totter around in the cold street trying to play, with no stockings, and shoes out at the toes. Sometimes they haven't enough to eat, and their mothers are so wretchedly poor and sorrowful—!"

"Mercy!" shuddered Opal, "How morbid you are! What ever did you go to a place like that for? I always keep as far away from unpleasant things as I can. I cross the street if I see a blind beggar ahead. I just loathe misery! But however did you happen to think of them when I was telling you about my beautiful ball room decorations?"

Lynn twinkled:

"I guess you wouldn't understand me," she said slowly, "but I was thinking of all the good those thousands of dollars would have done if they had been spent on babies and not on flowers."

"Gracious!" said Opal. "I hate babies! Ed is crazy about them, and would like to have the house full, but I gave him to understand what I thought about that before we were married."

"I love babies," said Marilyn. "They want me to go this Fall and do some work in that settlement, and I'm considering it. If it only weren't for leaving father and mother again—but I do love the babies and the little children. I want to gather them all and do so many things for them. You know they are all God's babies, and it seems pitiful for them to have to be in such a dreadful world as some of them have!"

"Oh, God!" shuddered Opal quite openly now, "Don't talk about God! I hate God! He's just killed one of my best men friends! I wish you wouldn't talk about God!"

Marilyn looked at her sadly, contemplatively, and then twitched her mouth into a little smile:

"We're not getting on very well, are we? I don't like your costly entertainments, and you don't like my best Friend! I'm sorry. I must seem a little prude to you I'm afraid, but really, God is not what you think. You wouldn't hate Him, you would love Him,—if you knew Him."

"Fancy knowing God—as you would your other friends! How dreadful! Let's go to bed!"

Opal began to get out her lovely brushes and toilet paraphernalia and Lynn let down her wonderful golden mane and began to brush it, looking exquisite in a little blue dimity kimona delicately edged with' valenciennes. Opal made herself radiant in a rose-chiffon and old-point negligee and went through numerous gyrations relating to the complexion, complaining meanwhile of the lack of a maid.

But after the lights were out, and Lynn kneeling silently by her bed in the moonlight, Opal lay on the other bed and watched her wonderingly, and when a few minutes later, Marilyn rose softly and crept into bed as quietly as possible lest she disturb her guest, Opal spoke:

"I wonder what you would do if a man—the man you liked best in all the world,—had got killed doing something to please you. It makes you go crazy when you think of it—someone you've danced with lying dead that way all alone. I wonder what you'd do!"

Lynn brought her mind back from her own sorrows and prayers with a jerk to the problem of this strange guest. She did not answer for a moment, then she said very slowly:

"I think—I don't know—but I think I should go right to God and ask Him what to do. I think nobody else could show what ought to be done. There wouldn't be anything else to do!"

"Oh, murder!" said Opal turning over in bed quickly, and hiding her face in the pillow, and there was in the end of her breath just the suggestion of a shriek of fear.

But far, far into the night Marilyn lay on her sleepless pillow, her heart crying out to God: "Oh, save Mark! Take care of Mark! Show him the way back again!"

Afar in the great city a message stole on a wire through the night, and presently the great presses were hot with its import, printing thousands and thousands of extras for early morning consumption, with headlines in enormous letters across the front page:

"LAURENCE SHAFTON, SON OF WILLIAM J. SHAFTON, KIDNAPPED!"

"Mrs. Shafton is lying in nervous collapse as the result of threats from kidnappers who boldly called her up on the phone and demanded a king's ransom, threatening death to the son if the plot was revealed before ten o'clock this morning. The faithful mother gathered her treasures which included the famous Shafton Emeralds, and a string of pearls worth a hundred thousand dollars, and let them down from her window as directed, and then fainted, knowing nothing more till her maid hearing her fall, rushed into the room and found her unconscious. When roused she became hysterical and told what had happened. Then remembering the threat of death for telling ahead of time she became crazy with grief, and it was almost impossible to soothe her. The maid called her family physician, explaining all she knew, and the matter was at once put into the hands of capable detectives who are doing all they know how to locate the missing son, who has been gone only since Saturday evening; and also to find the missing jewels and other property, and it is hoped that before evening the young man will be found."

Meantime, Laurence Shafton slept soundly and late in the minister's study, and knew nothing of the turmoil and sorrow of his doting family.



XVI

Though Mark had scarcely slept at all the night before he was on hand long before the city-bred youth was awake, taking apart the big machine that stood in front of the parsonage. Like a skillful physician he tested its various valves and compartments, went over its engine carefully, and came at last to the seat of the trouble which the minister had diagnosed the night before.

Lynn with dark circles under her eyes had wakened early and slipped down to the kitchen to help her mother and the little maid of all work who lived down the street and was a member of the Sunday School and an important part of the family. It was Naomi who discovered the young mechanic at the front door. There was not much that Naomi did not see. She announced his presence to Marilyn as she was filling the salt cellars for breakfast. Marilyn looked up startled, and met her mother's eyes full of comfort and reassurance. Somehow when Mark came quietly about in that helpful way of his it was impossible not to have the old confidence in him, the old assurance that all would soon be right, the old explanation that Mark was always doing something quietly for others and never taking care for himself. Marilyn let her lips relax into a smile and went about less heavy of heart. Surely, surely, somehow, Mark would clear himself of these awful things that were being said about him. Surely the day would bring forth a revelation. And Mark's action last night when he refused to speak with her, refused to let her touch his arm, and called himself unworthy was all for her sake; all because he did not want her name sullied with a breath of the scandal that belonged to him. Mark would be that way. He would protect her always, even though he did not belong to her, even though he were not her friend.

She was almost cheerful again, when at last the dallying guests appeared for a late breakfast. Mark was still working at the car, filing something with long steady grinding noises. She had seen him twice from the window, but she did not venture out. Mark had not wished her to speak to him, she would not go against his wish,—at least not now—not until the guests were out of the way. That awful girl should have no further opportunity to say things to her about Mark. She would keep out of his way until they were gone. Oh, pray that the car would be fixed and they pass on their way at once! Later, if there were opportunity, she would find a way to tell Mark that he should not refuse her friendship. What was friendship if it could not stand the strain of falsehood and gossip, and even scandal if necessary. She was not ashamed to let Mark know she would be his friend forever. There was nothing unmaidenly in that. Mark would understand her. Mark had always understood her. And so she cheered her heavy heart through the breakfast hour, and the foolish jesting of the two that sounded to her anxious ears, in the language of scripture, like the "crackling of thorns under a pot."

But at last they finished the breakfast and shoved their chairs back to go and look at the car. Mr. Severn and his wife had eaten long ago and gone about their early morning duties, and it had been Marilyn's duty to do the honors for the guests, so she drew a sigh of relief, and, evading Laurie's proffered arm slid into the pantry and let them go alone.

But when she glanced through the dining-room window a few minutes later as she passed removing the dishes from the table, she saw Mark upon his knees beside the car, looking up with his winning smile and talking to Opal, who stood close beside him all attention, with her little boy attitude, and a wide childlike look in her big effective eyes. Something big and terrible seemed to seize Marilyn's heart with a vise-like grip, and be choking her breath in her throat. She turned quickly, gathered up her pile of dishes and hurried into the pantry, her face white and set, and her eyes stinging with proud unshed tears.

A few minutes later, dressed in brown riding clothes exquisitely tailored, and a soft brown felt hat, she might have been seen hurrying through the back fence, if anybody had been looking that way, across the Joneses' lot to the little green stable that housed a riding horse that was hers to ride whenever she chose. She had left word with Naomi that she was going to Economy and would be back in time for lunch, and she hoped in her heart that when she returned both of their guests would have departed. It was perhaps a bit shabby of her to leave it all on her mother this way, but mother would understand, and very likely be glad.

So Lynn mounted her little brown horse and rode by a circuitous way, across the creek, and out around the town to avoid passing her own home, and was presently on her way up to the crossroads down which Laurie Shafton had come in the dark midnight.

As she crossed the Highway, she noticed the Detour, and paused an instant to study the peculiar sign, and the partly cleared way around. And while she stood wondering a car came swiftly up from the Economy way past the Blue Duck Tavern. The driver bowed and smiled and she perceived it was the Chief of Police from Economy, a former resident of Sabbath Valley, and very much respected in the community, and with him in the front seat, was another uniformed policeman!

With a sudden constriction at her heart Marilyn bowed and rode on. Was he going to Sabbath Valley? Was there truth in the rumor that Mark was in trouble? She looked back to see if he had turned down the Highway, but he halted the car with its nose pointed Sabbath Valleyward and got out to examine the Detour on the Highway. She rode slowly and turned around several times, but as long as she was in sight his car remained standing pointed toward the Valley.



XVII

Billy awoke to the light of day with the sound of a strange car going by. The road through Sabbath Valley was not much frequented, and Billy knew every car that usually travelled that way. They were mostly Economy and Monopoly people, and as there happened to be a mountain trolley between the two towns higher up making a circuit to touch at Brooktown, people seldom came this way. Therefore at the unusual sound Billy was on the alert at once. One movement brought him upright with his feet upon the floor blinking toward his window, a second carried him to shelter behind the curtain where he could see the stranger go by.

Billy had reduced the science of dressing to a fine degree. He could climb into the limited number of summer garments in less time than any boy in the community, and when he saw that the car had halted just above the house and that the driver was interviewing Jim Rafferty, he reached for a handful of garments, and began to climb, keeping one eye out the window for developments. Was that or was it not the Chief's car out there? If it was what did it want?

Billy was in socks, trousers and shirt by the time the car began to puff again for starting, and he stove his feet into his old shoes and dove down stairs three steps at a stride and out the door where he suddenly became a casual observer of the day.

"Hullo, Billy! That you?" accosted the Chief driving slowly down the street, "Say, Billy, you haven't seen Mark Carter, have you? They said he had gone down to the blacksmith's to get something fixed for a car. I thought perhaps you'd seen him go by."

Billy shook his head lazily:

"Nope," he said, "I've been busy this morning. He mighta gone by."

"Well I'll just drive down and see!" The car started on and turned into the Lane that led to the blacksmith shop.

Billy dove into the house, made short work of his ablutions, gave his hair a brief lick with the brush, collected his cap and sweater, bolted the plate of breakfast Aunt Saxon had left on the back of the stove when she went away for her regular Monday's wash, and was ready behind the lilac bush with old trusty, down on his knees oiling her a bit, when the Chief drove back with Mark Carter in the back seat looking strangely white and haughty, but talking affably with the Chief.

His heart sank. Somehow he knew something was wrong with Mark. Mark was in his old clothes with several pieces of iron in his hand as if he hadn't taken time to lay them down. Billy remained in hiding and watched while the Chief's car stopped at Carter's and Mark got out. The car waited several minutes, and then Mark came out with his good clothes on and his best hat, and got into the car and they drove off, Mark looking stern and white. Billy shot out from his hiding and mounting his steed flew down the road, keeping well behind the maples and hedges, and when the Chief's car stopped in front of the parsonage he dismounted and stepped inside Joneses' drive to listen. Mark got out, sprang up the steps, touched the bell, and said to someone who appeared at the door, "Mr. Shafton, I'm sorry, but I'll not be able to get those bearings fixed up to-day. The blacksmith doesn't seem to have anything that will do. I find I have to go over to Economy on business, and I'll look around there and see if anybody has any. I expect to be back by twelve o'clock, and will you tell the lady that I will be ready to start at half-past if that will suit her. I am sure we shall have plenty of time to get her to Beechwood by five or sooner. If anything occurs to keep me from going I'll telephone you in an hour, so that she can make other arrangements. Thank you, Mr. Shafton. Sorry I couldn't fix you up right away, but I'll look after the lady for you." Mark hurried back to the car again and they drove off.

Billy escorted the Department of Justice distantly, as far as the Crossing at the Highway, from which eminence he watched until he saw that they stopped at the Blue Duck Tavern for a few minutes, after which they went on toward Economy; then he inspected the recent clearing of his detour, obviously by the Chief, and hurried down the Highway toward the railroad Crossing at Pleasant View. It was almost train time, and he had a hunch that there might be something interesting around that hidden telephone. If he only had had more time he might have arranged to tap the wire and listen in without having to go so near, but he must do the best he could.

When he reached a point on the Highway where Pleasant View station was easily discernible he dismounted, parked his wheel among the huckleberries, and slid into the green of the Valley. Stealing cautiously to the scene of the Saturday night hold-up he finally succeeded in locating the hidden telephone, and creeping into a well screened spot not far away arranged himself comfortably to wait till the trains came. He argued that Pat would likely come down to report or get orders about the same time as before, and so in the stillness of the morning he lay on the ground and waited. He could hear a song sparrow high up on the telegraph wire, sing out its wild sweet lonely strain: Sweet—sweetsweetsweet—sweetsweet—sweetsweet—! and a hum of bees in the wild grape that trailed over the sassafras trees. Beside him a little wood spider stole noiselessly on her busy way. But his heart was heavy with new burdens and he could not take his usual rhapsodic joy in the things of Nature. What was happening to Mark and what could he do about it? Perhaps Mark would have been better off if he had left him in the old house on Stark's mountain. The chief couldn't have found him then and the kidnappers would have kept him safe for a good many days till they got some money. But there wouldn't have been any money! For Mark wasn't the right man! And the kidnappers would have found it out pretty soon and what would they have done to Mark? Killed him perhaps so they wouldn't get into any more trouble! There was no telling! And time would have gone on and nobody would have known what had become of Mark. And the murder trial— if it was really a murder—would come off and they couldn't find Mark, and of course they would think Mark had killed the man and then run away. And Mark would never be able to come home again! No, he was glad Mark was out and safe and free from dope. At least Mark would know what to do to save himself. Or would he? Billy suddenly had his doubts. Would Mark take care of himself, just himself, or not? Mark was always looking after other people, but he had somehow always let people say and do what they would with him. Aw gee! Now Mark wouldn't let them locate a thing like a murder on him, would he? And there was Miss Lynn! And Mark's mother! Mark oughtta think of them. Well, maybe he wouldn't realize how much they did care. Billy had a sudden revelation that maybe that was half the matter, Mark didn't know how much any of them cared. Back in his mind there was an uncomfortable memory of Aunt Saxon's pink damp features and anxious eyes and a possible application of the same principle to his own life, as in the case of Judas. But he wasn't considering himself now. There might come a time when he would have to change his tactics with regard to Aunt Saxon somewhat. She certainly had been a good sport last night. But this wasn't the time to consider that. He had a great deal more important matters to think of now. He had to find out how he could make it perfectly plain to the world that Mark Carter had not shot a man after twelve o'clock Saturday night at the Blue Duck Tavern. And as yet he didn't see any way without incriminating himself as a kidnapper. This cut deep because in the strict sense of the word he was not a kidnapper, because he hadn't meant to be a kidnapper. He had only meant to play a joke on the kidnappers, and at worst his only really intended fault had been the putting up of that detour on the Highway. But he had an uncomfortable conviction that he wouldn't be able to make the Chief and the Constable, and some of those people over at Economy Court House see it that way. As matters stood he was safe if he kept his mouth shut. Nobody knew but Mark, and he didn't know the details. Besides, Mark would never tell. Mark would even go to trial for murder before he would let himself out by telling on Billy, Billy knew that as well as he knew that the old mountain on whose feet he lay stretched now would stand up there for ages and always keep his secret for him. Mark was that way. That was why it made it worse for Billy. Judas again! Billy was surprised to find how much Judas-blood there seemed to be in him. He lay there and despised himself without being able to help himself out or think of anything he could do. And then quite suddenly as he was going over the whole circumstance from the time he first listened to Pat's message into the moss of the mountain, until now, the name Shafton came to him. Laurence Shafton. Shafton, son of William J., of Gates and Shafton. Those were the words the telephone had squeaked out quite plainly. And Shafton. Mr. Shafton. That was the name Mark had called the guy with the car at the parsonage. Mr. Shafton. The same guy, of course. Bah! What a mess he had made of it all. Got Mark kidnapped, landed that sissy-guy on the Severns for no knowing how long, and perhaps helped to tangle Mark up in a murder case. Aw Gee! There's the train! What could he do? That rich guy! Well, there wasn't anything to that. He would get out as soon as Mark got his car fixed up and never know he had been kidnapped. And what was he, Billy, waiting here for anyway? Just a chance! Just to see whether Pat and Sam had found out yet that their quarry had vanished. Just to wonder what had become of Link and Shorty.

The trains came and went, and the hush settled down once more at the station. From where he lay, hidden under a ledge, with a thick growth of laurel and sumac between him and the world, Billy could not see the station platform, and had no means of telling whether Pat was about or not.

He had lain still a long time and was beginning to think that his trip had been in vain, when he heard a soft crackling of the twigs above him, a heavy tread crashing through the bushes, a puffing snorting breath from the porpoise-like Pat, and he held his own breath and lay very still. Suppose Pat should take a new trail and discover his hiding place? His heart pounded with great dull thuds. But Pat slid heavily down to the little clearing below him, fumbled a moment with his key, and then in a gruff guarded voice called:

"Hullo! Hullo! Sam? That you? Yes, aw'right! Yes, aw'right! How's things? What? Hell's to pay? Whaddaya mean hell? Ain't you gonta put it over? After all my trouble you ain't a gonta let that million slip through? What? Oh! Who? The Valet? He's beat it, has he? Whaddaya mean? He took 'em? He took the pearls an' diamonds? Well, Em'ruls then! What's tha diffrunce? We ain't gottum have we? Oh, bonds too! Well, whattya gonta do about it? Move him? What, the rich guy? Move him where? Why? We ain'ta gonta run no more risks. Link an' Shorty are sore 'za pup when they come. I don't think they'll stan' for it. Well, where'll ya move him? Who? Shorty? Oh, Link? Both? Well, I ain't seen 'em. I tol' 'em to keep good an' far away from me. I don't build on loosin' this job just now, See? What? It's in the papers a'ready? You don't say! Well, who you figger done that? That Valet? Well, where's the harm? Can't you work it all the better? We got the guy, ain't we? He ain't gottim that's certain. We c'n deliver the goods, so we get the reward. How much reward they offerin? You don't say! Well, I should say, get in yer work soon 'fore we get caught. Aw'right! I'm with ya. Well, s'long! I'll be down here at nine sharp. Take a trip to China with ya next week ef ya pull it off. Aw'right! Goobby!" and Pat hung up and puffed his way up the hill again, leaving Billy drenched with perspiration and filled with vague plans, and deep anxiety. He had got a clue but what good was it? How could he work it to the salvation of Mark? He could easily put the sissy over at the parsonage wise, do him a good turn, save his dad some money, but what good would that do Mark? Mark needed to establish an alibi, he could see that with half an eye, but how would anything Billy knew help that along unless—unless he told on himself? For a moment a long trail of circumstances that would surely follow such a sacrificial ordinance appeared before him and burned into his soul, most prominent among them being Aunt Saxon, hard worked and damp-pink-eyed, crying her heart out for the boy she had tried faithfully to bring up. And Miss Lynn. How sad her eyes would grow if Billy had to be tried and sentenced to prison. Not that Billy was afraid to go to prison, in fact the thought of it as an experience was rather exhilirating than not, but he was afraid to have those two know he had gone, afraid of their eyes, their sad eyes! Yes, and he was afraid of the thought of his own ingratitude, for down deep in his heart he could see a long line of things Aunt Saxon had done for him that she hadn't been obliged to do. Going without a new winter coat to get him an overcoat. His old one was warm, but his arms were out of it too far and he wouldn't wear it. Sitting up nights the time he drank swamp water and had the fever! That was fierce! How he did rag her! And how patiently she bore it! The scare she had when the dog bit him! As if a little dog bite was anything! Doggone it, why were women such fools!

And now this! Billy sat up with a jerk and shook himself free from the dead moss and leaves, wending his way sulkily across to where he had left his wheel, and pondering—pondering. "Shafton!" There ought to be something there to work on, but there wasn't!

Meantime Marilyn rode hard down the way to Economy, not slowing her pony till they reached the outskirts of Economy. Her mind was in such a tumult that she felt as if she were being whirled on with circumstances without having a will to choose one thing from another. Mark! The unwelcome guests! Mark and Opal! Mark and Cherry! Cherry! The Chief of Police! Mark! And yes, Cherry! She was on her way to see Cherry! But what was she going to do when she got there, and how was she to excuse her strange visit after almost five years since she had seen the child? If there was truth in the rumor that she was connected with a shooting affair at the Blue Duck, and especially if there was truth in the charge that Mark had been going with her, would it not seem strange—perhaps be misconstrued by Cherry? By her family? They had all known of her own intimacy with Mark in the past. She shrank from the idea. Yet Marilyn Severn had not been brought up to regard public opinion when it was a question of doing something that ought to be done. The only question was, was it really something that ought to be done or was she letting Billy influence her unduly? Billy was shrewd. He knew Mark. He knew a lot more than he ever told. What did Billy know? How she wished she had asked her father's advise before coming, and yet, if she had, he might have been unduly influenced by dreading to have her put herself in the position of prying into the matter.

As she rode and pondered she came near to the little house on the village street where Cherry lived, a house set out plumb with the sidewalk, and a little gate at the side to go round to the back door where the family lived, the front room being the tailor shop. As she drew near she looked up and was sure she saw Cherry in a short narrow skirt and an old middy blouse scurrying through the gate to the back door, and her heart thumped so hard she was almost tempted to ride on to the store first before making her call. But something in her that always held her to a task until it was completed forced her to dismount and knock at the door.

It seemed long to wait with her heart thumping so, and why did it thump? She found herself praying, "O God, show me what to say!" and then the door was open a crack and a sharp wizened face with a striking resemblance to Cherry's bold little beauty, was thrust at her. It must be Cherry's mother. Of course it was!

"Mr. Fenner ain't in the shop!" said the woman, "He can't do nothin to-day. He's sick!"

Marilyn smiled: "But I wanted to see Cherry," she said, "Aren't you her mother? Don't you remember me? I'm Marilyn Severn, her old music teacher. Is Cherry in?"

A frightened look passed over the woman's face as she scanned the sweet face before her, and then a wily expression darted into her eyes:

"Oh," she said with a forced smirk, "Yes, Miss Marilyn. Excuse me fer not recognizing you. You've grown a lot. Why no, Cherry ain't at home this morning. She'll be awful sorry not to see you. She thought a lot of you, she did. She got on so well with you in her music too. I says to her the other day, I says Cherry, I hear Miss Marilyn is home again, you'll have to take up yer music again, and she says yes, she guessed she would. She'll be round some day to see you. Sorry I can't ask you in, but Mr. Fenner's pretty sick. Oh, just the grip I guess. He'll soon be all right."

She began to realize that the woman was in a hurry to get rid of her and she hastened away, relieved yet puzzled at the whole affair. She rode down into the village mechanically and bought a spool of silk and the coffee strainer which had been her legitimate errand to the village, and turning back had scarcely passed the last house before she saw the Chief's car coming toward her, and Mark, his face white and haggard, looking out from the back seat. He drew back as he recognized her, and tried to hide, and she rode on with only a passing bow which comprehended the whole car; but she was aware of Mark's eyes upon her, steadily, watching her. She would have known he was watching her from the darkness of the back seat if her own eyes had been shut. What was it all about and what were they doing to Mark?



XVIII

The last house in the village on the road to Economy was the Harricutt's. It was built of gray cement blocks that the elder had taken for a bad debt, and had neither vine nor blossom to soften its grimness. Its windows were supplied with green holland shades, and its front door-yard was efficiently manned with plum trees and a peach, while the back yard was given over to vegetables. Elder Harricutt walked to Economy every day to his office in the Economy bank. He said it kept him in good condition physically. His wife was small and prim with little quick prying eyes and a false front that had a tendency to go askew. She wore bonnets with strings and her false teeth didn't quite fit; they clicked as she talked. She kept a watch over the road at all times and very little ever got by her unnoticed.

In wholesome contrast next door was the trim little white cottage where Tom McMertrie and his mother Christie lived, smothered in vines and ablaze with geraniums all down the front walk. And below that, almost facing the graveyard was a little green shingled bungalow. Mary Rafferty kept her yard aglow with phlox, verbenas and pansies, and revelled in vines and flowering shrubs.

These two women were wonderful friends, though forty years marched between them. Mary's hair was black as a crow's wing above her great pansy-blue eyes with their long curling lashes, while Christie's hair was sandy silver and her tongue full of brrrs. They had opposite pantry windows on the neighboring sides of their houses, where they often talked of a morning while Christie moulded her sweet loaves of bread or mixed scones and Mary made tarts and pies and cake for Jim's supper. Somehow without much being said about it they had formed a combination against their hard little knot of a neighbor behind the holland shades.

The first house on the side street that ran at right angles to the main thoroughfare, just below Rafferty's, was Duncannon's. A picket fence at the side let into the vegetable gardens of the three, and the quiet little Mrs. Duncannon with the rippley brown hair and soft brown eyes often slipped through and made a morning call under cover of the kindly pole beans that hid her entrances and exits perfectly from any green holland shaded windows that might be open that way. Jane Duncannon formed a third in this little combination.

On the Monday morning following the session meeting Mary Rafferty and Christie McMertrie were at their respective pantry windows flinging together some toothsome delicacies for the evening meal, that all might move smoothly during the busy day.

A neat line of flopping clothes glimmered in each back yard over the trim "green" that stretched across in front of the back door, and the irons were on in both kitchens preparing for a finish as soon as a "piece" should show signs of dry.

"Hev ye haird whut the extra session meetin' was called for, Mary?" asked the older woman looking up from her mixing bowl. "Tom went to the mill to tak the place of the noight watchman. His feyther's dyin' ye ken, and Tom's not come by yet. I thot ye might hev haird."

Mary lifted her eyes with troubled glance:

"Not yet," she said, "but I'm thinkin of running over to Duncannons as soon as I get these pies in the oven. The clothes won't be dry for a while, an' I'll take my pan of peas to shell. She'll know of course. Maybe it's nothing much,—but Jim said they held up Mark Carter and made him come in. It was ten minutes of ten before he got away—! You don't suppose anybody's taken the gossip to the session do you?"

"There's one we know well would be full cawpable of the same," affirmed Christie patting her biscuits into place and tucking the bread cloth deftly over them, "But I'd be sorry to see a meenister an' a session as wud be held up by one poor whimperin' little elder of the like of him."

"Mr. Severn won't, I'm sure o' that!" said Mary trustingly, "but there comes Mrs. Duncannon now, I'll run over and see what's in the wind."

Mrs. Duncannon had grown a smile on her gentle face that was like as two peas to her husband's wide kindly grin, but there was no smile on her face this morning as she greeted her two friends, and dropped into a chair by the door of Christie's immaculate kitchen, and her soft brown eyes were snapping: She had an air of carrying kindly mysterious explosives:

"Did ye hear that the old ferret held up Mark Carter last night and as good as called him a murderer in the face of the whole session?" she asked breathlessly.

"And whut said our meenister to thot?" inquired Christie.

Jane Duncannon flashed her a twinkle of appreciation:

"He just clapped the senior elder in the chair as neat as a pin in a pincushion an' moved an expression of confidence, utmost confidence was the word—!"

"Mmmmmmmm! I thot as much!" commented Christie, "The blessed mon!"

"Oh, I'm so glad!" sighed Mary Rafferty sinking into a chair, "Jim thinks the sun rises and sets in Mark Carter. They were kids together you know. He says people don't know Mark. And he said if they turned Mark down at the church now, if they didn't stand by him in his trouble, he had no more use for their religion!"

"Don't you believe it, Mary Rafferty! Jim Rafferty loves the very ground the meenister walks on!"

"What was that?" exclaimed Jane Duncannon running to the side window. "A strange car! Mary, come here! Is that the Chief of Police from Economy?"

Mary darted to the window followed by the elder woman:

"Yes, it is!" she exclaimed drawing back aghast, "You don't suppose he's going to Carter's? He wouldn't do that would he?"

"He huz to do his dooty, doesn't he?" mused Christie, "But thot's not sayin' he loikes it, child!"

"Well, he might find a way not to frighten his mother—!"

Mrs. Duncannon stretched her neck to see if he was really stopping at the parsonage, and Christie murmured: "Perhaps he will."

The little group lingered a moment, till Mary bethought her of her pies in the oven and the three drifted thriftily back to their morning tasks, albeit with mind and heart down in the village.

Presently on the glad morning air sounded again the chug chug of the motor, bringing them sharply back to their windows. Yes, there was the Chief's car again. And Mark Carter with white haggard face sat in the back seat! Apprehension flew to the soul of each loyal woman.

But before the sound of the Chief's motor bearing Mark Carter Economyward had passed out of hearing, Jane Duncannon in a neat brown dress with a little round brown ribboned hat set trimly on her rippley hair, and a little round basket on her arm covered daintily with a white napkin, was nipping out her tidy front gate between the sunflowers and asters and tripping down Maple street as if it had been on her mind to go ever since Saturday night.

Even before Mary Rafferty had turned from her Nottingham laced parlor window and gone with swift steps to her kitchen door Christie McMertrie stood on her back step with her sunbonnet on and a glass of jelly wrapped in tissue paper in her hand:

"She's glimpsed 'em," she whispered briefly, with a nod toward the holland shades, "an' she's up in her side bedroom puttin' on her Sunday bunnit. She'll be oot the door in another two meenits, the little black crow! If we bide in the fields we can mak Carters' back stoop afore she gets much past the tchurch!"

Mary Rafferty caught up her pan of peas, dashed them into a basket that hung on the wall by the door, and bareheaded as she was hastened out through the garden after her friend for all the world as if she were going to pick more peas. Down the green lane between the bean poles they hurried through the picket gate, pushing aside the big gray Duncannon cat who basked in the sun under a pink hollyhock with a Duncannon smile on its gray whiskers like the rest of the family.

"Jane! Jane Duncannon!" called Christie McMertrie. But the hollow echoes in the tidy kitchen flung back emptily, and the plate of steaming cinnamon buns on the white scrubbed table spoke as plainly as words could have done that no one was at home.

"She's gone!"

The two hurried around the house, through the front gate, across the street with a quick glance up and down to be sure that the Petrie babies playing horse in the next yard were their only observers, and then ducking under the bars of the fence they scuttled down a slope, crossed a trickle of a brook that hurried creekward, and up the opposite bank. Behind Little's barn they paused to glance back. Some one was coming out the Harricutt door, some one wearing a bonnet and a black veil. They hurried on. There were two more fences separating the meadows.

Mary went over and Christie between. They made quick work of the rest of the way and crept panting through the hedge at the back of Carter's just as Jane Duncannon swung open the little gate in front with a glimpse back up the street in triumph and a breath of relief that she had won. By only so much as a lift of her lashes and a lighting of her soft brown eyes did she recognize and incorporate the other two in her errand, and together the three entered the Carter house by the side entrance, with a neighborly tap and a call: "Miz Carter, you home?"

Quick nervous steps overhead, a muffled voice calling catchily, "Yes, I'm coming, just set down, won't you?" and they dropped into three dining-room chairs and drew 'breath, mopping their warm faces with their handkerchiefs and trying to adjust their minds to the next move.

Their hostess gave them no time to prepare a program. She came hurriedly down stairs, obviously anxious, openly with every nerve on the qui vive, and they saw at once that she had been crying. Her hair was damp about her forehead as if from hasty ablution. She looked from one to another of her callers with a frightened glance that went beyond them as if looking for others to come, as she paused in the doorway puzzled.

"This is a s'prise party, Miz Carter," began Jane Duncannon laughing, "We all brought our work along and can't stay but a minute, but we got an idea an' couldn't keep it till Ladies' Aid. You got a minute to spare? Go get your knitting and set down. Now! It's Miz'Severn's birthday next Sat'day an' we thought 'twould be nice to get her a present. What do you think about it?"

Mrs. Carter who had stood tensely in the doorway, her fingers whitely gripping the woodwork, her face growing whiter every minute, suddenly relaxed with relief in every line of her body, and bloomed into a smile:

"Oh, why, is it? Of course! What'll it be? Why, couldn't we finish that sunburst bed quilt we started last year while she was away? If we all get at it I think we could finish. There's some real fast quilters in the Aid. Wait, till I get my apples to pare. I promised Mark I'd have apple sauce for lunch!"

A quick glance went from eye to eye and a look of relief settled down on the little company. She expected Mark home for lunch then!

They were in full tide of talk about the quilting pattern when a knock came on the front door, and Mary Rafferty jumped up and ran to open it. They heard the Harricutt voice, clear, sharp, incisive:

"I came to sympathize—!" and then as Mary swung her face into the sunlight the voice came suddenly up as against a stone wall with a gasp and "Oh, it's you! Where's Mrs. Carter? I wish to see Mrs. Carter."

"She's right back in the dining-room, Mrs. Harricutt. Come on back. We're talking over how to celebrate Miz Severn's birthday. Do you like a straight quilting or diamond, Miz Harricutt: It's for the sunburst coverlet you know!"

"The sunburst coverlet!" exclaimed Mrs. Harricutt irately, as though somehow it were an indecent subject at such a time as this, but she followed Mary back to the dining-room with a sniff of curiosity. She fairly gasped when she saw Mrs. Carter with her small sensitive face bright with smiles:

"Just take that chair by the window, Mrs. Harricutt," she said affably, "and excuse me fer not getting up. I've got to get these apples on the fire, for I promised Mark some apple sauce for lunch, and he likes it stone cold."

Mrs. Harricutt pricked up her ears:

"Oh, Mark is coming home for lunch then!" Her voice was cold, sharp, like a steel knife dipped in lemon juice. There was a bit of a curl on the tip of it that made one wince as it went through the soul. Little Mrs. Carter flushed painfully under her sensitive skin, up to the roots of her light hair. She had been pretty in her girlhood, and Mark had her coloring in a stronger way.

"Oh, yes, he's coming home for lunch," she answered brightly, glad of this much assurance. "And he has to have it early because he has to drive that strange young woman from the parsonage back somewhere down in New Jersey. She came alone by herself yesterday, but the mountain passes sort of scairt her, and she asked Mark to drive back with her."

"Oh!" There was a challenge in the tone that called the red to Mrs. Carter's cheek again, But Christie McMertrie's soft burring tongue slid in smoothly:

"What wad ye think o' the briar pattern around the edge? I know it's some worruk, but it's a bonnie border to lie under, an' it's not so tedious whan there's plenty o' folks to tak a hand."

They carried the topic along with a whirl then and Mrs. Harricutt had no more chance to harry her hostess. Then suddenly Mary arose in a panic:

"I left my pies in the oven!" she cried, "They'll be burned to a crisp. I must go. Miz Harricutt, are you going along now? I'll walk with you. I want to ask you how you made that plum jam you gave me a taste of the other day. Jim thinks it is something rare, and I'll have to be making some or he'll never be satisfied, that is if you don't mind—!" and before Mrs. Carter realized what was happening Mary had marshalled the Harricutt vulture down the street, and was questioning eagerly about measures of sugar and plums and lemon peel and nuts:

"Now," said Christie setting down her jelly glass that she had been holding all this time, "We'll be ganging awa. There's a bit jar of raspberry jam for the laddie with the bright smile, an' you think it over and run up and say which pattern you think is bonniest."

"It was just beautiful of you all to come—" said little Mrs. Carter looking from one to another in painful gratitude—why it's been just dear for you to run in this way—"

"Yes, a regular party!" said Jane Duncannon squeezing her hand with understanding. "See, Mary has left her peas. You'd best put them on to boil for Mark. He'll be coming back pretty soon. Come, Christie, wumman, it's time we was back at our worruk!" and they hurried through the hedge and across the meadows to their home once more, but as they entered the Duncannon gate they marked Billy Gaston, head down, pedalling along over on Maple Street, his jaws keeping rhythmic time with his feet.

One hour later the smooth chug of a car that was not altogether unfamiliar to their ears brought those four women eagerly to their respective windows, and as the old clock chimed the hour of noon they beheld Mark Carter driving calmly down the street toward his own home in his own car. His own car! and Billy Gaston lounging lazily by his side still chewing rhythmically.

Mark's Car! Mark! Billy! Ah Billy! Three of them mused with a note of triumph in their eyes.

And Mrs. Harricutt as she rolled her Sunday bonnet strings mused:

"Now, how in the world did that Mark Carter get his own car down to Economy when he went up with the Chief? He had it down here this morning, I know, for I saw him riding round. And that little imp of a Billy! I wonder why he always tags him round! Miss Saxon ought to be warned about that! I'll have to do it! But how in the world did Mark get his car?"

Billy enjoyed his lunch that day, a bit of cold chicken and bread, two juicy red cheeked apples, and an unknown quantity of sugary doughnuts from the stone crock in the pantry. He sat on the side step munching the last doughnut he felt he could possibly swallow. Mark was home and all was well. Himself had seen the impressive glance that passed between Mark and the Chief at parting. The Chief trusted Mark that was plain. Billy felt reassured. He reflected that that guy Judas had been precipitate about hanging himself. If he had only waited and done a little something about it there might have been a different ending to the story. It was sort of up to Judas anyway, having been the cause of the trouble.

With this virtuous conclusion Billy wiped the sugar from his mouth, mounted his wheel and went forth to browse in familiar and much neglected pastures.

He eyed the Carter house as he slid by. Mrs. Carter was placidly shaking out the table cloth on the side porch. Mark had eaten his apple sauce and gone. He passed Browns, Todds, Bateses, chasing a white hen that had somehow escaped her confines, but in front of Joneses he suddenly became aware of the blue car that stood in front of the parsonage. It had come to life and was throbbing. It was backing toward him and going to turn around. On the sidewalk leaning on a cane stood the obnoxious stranger for whose presence in Sabbath Valley he, Billy Gaston, was responsible. He lounged at ease with a smile on his ugly mug and acted as if he lived there! There was nothing about his appearance to suggest his near departure. His disabled car still stood silent and helpless beside the curb. Aw Gee!

Billy swerved to the other side of the road to avoid the blue car at a hair's breadth, but as it turned he looked up impudently to behold the strange girl with the flour on her face and the green baseball bats in her ears smiling up into the face of Mark Carter, who was driving. Billy nearly fell off his wheel and under the car, but recovered his balance in time to swerve out of the way without apparently having been observed by either Mark or the lady, and shot like a streak down the road. Beyond the church he drew a wide curve and turned in at the graveyard, casting a quick furtive eye toward the parsonage, where he was glad not to discover even the flutter of a garment to show that Lynn Severn was about. That guy was there, but Miss Lynn was not chasing him. That was as it should be. He breathed a sigh from his heavy heart and stole sadly, back to the old mossy stone where so many of his life problems had been thought out. Still, that guy was there! He had the advantage! And Mark and that lady! Bah! He sat down to meditate on Judas and his sins. It seemed that life was just about as disappointing as it could be! His rough young hand leaned hard against the grimy old stone till the half worn lettering hurt his flesh and he shifted his position and lifted his hand. There on the palm were the quaint old letters, imprinted in the flesh, "Blessed are the dead— " Gosh yes! Weren't they? Judas had been right after all. "Aw Gee!" he said aloud, "Whatta fool I bin!" He glanced down at the stone as he rubbed the imprint from the fleshy part of his hand. The rest of the text caught his eye. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!" There was a catch in that of course. It wasn't blessed if you didn't die in the Lord. "In the Lord" meant that you didn't do anything Judas-like. He understood. The people who didn't die in the Lord weren't blessed. They didn't go to heaven, whatever heaven was. They went to hell. Heaven had never seemed very attractive to Billy when he thought of it casually, and he had taken it generally for granted that he being a boy was naturally destined for the other place. In fact until he knew Lynn Severn he had always told himself calmly that he expected to go to hell sometime, it had seemed the manly thing to do. Most men to his mind were preparing for hell. It seemed the masculine place of final destiny, Heaven was for women. He had ventured some of this philosophy on his aunt once in a particularly strenuous time when she had told him that he couldn't expect the reward of the righteous if he continued in his present ways, but she had been so horrified, and wept so long and bitterly that he hadn't ever had the nerve to try it again. And since Marilyn Severn had been his teacher he had known days when he would almost be willing to go to heaven—for her sake. He had also suspected, at times, that Mr. Severn was fully as much of a man as Mark Carter, although Mark was his own, and if Mark decided to go to hell Billy felt there could be no other destiny for himself.

But now, face to face with realities, Billy suddenly began to realize what hell was going to be like. Billy felt hell surrounding him. Flames could not beat the reproach that now flared him in the face and stung him to the quick with his own sinfulness. He, Billy Gaston, Captain of the Sabbath Valley Base Ball team, prospective Captain of the Sabbath Valley Foot Ball team, champion runner, and high jumper, champion swimmer and boxer of the boy's league of Monopoly County, friend and often tolerated companion of Mark Carter the great, trusted favorite of his beloved and saintly Sunday School teacher, was in hell! He could never more hold up his head and walk proud of himself. He was in hell at fourteen for life, and by his own act! And Gosh hang it! Hell didn't look so attractive in the near vision stretching out that way through life, and then some, as it had before he faced it. He'd rather walk through fire somewhere and stand some chance of getting done with it sometime. "Aw Gee! Gosh! Whatta fool I bin!"

And then he set himself to see just what he had done, while the high walls of sin seemed to rise closer about him, and his face burned with the heat of the pit into which he had put himself.

There was that guy Shafton—sissyman!—He had put him in the parsonage along with his beloved teacher! If he only hadn't taken that ten dollars or listened to that devil of a Pat, he wouldn't have put up that detour and Shafton would have gone on his way. What difference if he had got kidnapped? His folks wouldda bailed him out with their old jewels and things. Whaddid anybody want of jewels for anyway? Just nasty little bits of stone and glass! Mark had seen the guy there in church. Mark didn't like it. He knew by the set of Mark's mouth. Of course Mark went with Cherry sometimes, but then that was different! Lynn was—well, Lynn was Miss Marilyn! That was all there was about it.

And if he hadn't put up that detour Mark would have gone home that night before twelve and his mother would have known he was home, and likely other people would have seen him, and been able to prove he wasn't out shooting anybody, and then they wouldn't have told all those awful things about him. Of course now Mark was safe, of course, but then it wasn't good to have things like that said about Mark. It was fierce to have a thing like that session meeting to remember! He wanted to kill that old ferret of a Harricutt whenever he thought about it. Then he would be a murderer, and be hanged, and he wouldn't care if he did mebbe. Aw Gee!

A meadow lark suddenly pierced the sky with its wild sweet note high in the air somewhere, and Billy wondered with a sick thud of his soul how larks dared to sing in a world like this where one could upset a whole circle of friends by a single little turn of finance that he hadn't meant anything wrong by at all? The bees droned around the honeysuckle that billowed over the little iron fence about a family burying lot, and once Lynn Severn's laugh—not her regular laugh, but a kind of a company polite one—echoed lightly across to his ears and his face dropped into his hands. He almost groaned. Billy Gaston was at the lowest ebb he had ever been in his young life, and his conscience, a thing he hadn't suspected he had, and wouldn't have owned if he had, had risen up within him to accuse him, and there seemed no way on earth to get rid of it. A conscience wasn't a manly thing according to his code, yet here he was, he Billy Gaston, with a conscience!

It was ghastly!



XIX

Laurie Shafton had caught Lynn as she came down the stairs with a bit of sewing in her hand to give Naomi a direction from her mother, and had begged her to come out on the porch and talk to him. He pleaded that he was lonesome, and that it was her duty as hostess to amuse him for a while.

Lynn had no relish for talking with the guest. Her heart was too sore to care to talk with any one. But her innate courtesy, and natural gentleness finally yielded to his pleading, for Laurie had put on a humility that was almost becoming, and made her seem really rude to refuse.

She made him sit down in the hammock at the far end, however, and insisted on herself taking the little rocker quite near the front door. She knew her father would soon be returning from some parish calls and would relieve her, so she settled herself with the bit of linen she was hemstitching and prepared to make the best of it.

"It's a shame my car is out of commission yet," began Laurie settling back in the hammock and by some strange miracle refraining from lighting a cigarette. It wouldn't have entered his head that Lynn would have minded. He didn't know any girls objected to smoking. But this girl interested him strangely. He wasn't at all sure but it was a case of love at first sight. He had always been looking for that to happen to him. He hoped it had. It would be such a delightful experience. He had tried most of the other kinds.

"Yes, it is too bad for you to be held up in your journey this way," sympathized Lynn heartily, "but father says the blacksmith is going to fix you up by to-morrow he hopes. Those bearings will likely come to-night."

"Oh, but it has been a dandy experience. I'm certainly glad it happened. Think what I should have missed all my life, not knowing you!"

He paused and looked soulfully at Lynn waiting for an appreciative glance from her fully occupied eyes, but Lynn seemed to have missed the point entirely:

"I should think you might have well afforded to lose the experience of being held up in a dull little town that couldn't possibly be of the slightest interest to you," she said dryly, with the obvious idea of making talk.

"Oh, but I think it is charming," he said lightly! "I hadn't an idea there was such a place in the world as this. It's ideal, don't you know, so secluded and absolutely restful. I'm having a dandy time, and you people have been just wonderful to me. I think I shall come back often if you'll let me."

"I can't imagine your enjoying it," said Lynn looking at him keenly, "It must be so utterly apart from your customary life. It must seem quite crude and almost uncivilized to you."

"That's just it, it's so charmingly quaint. I'm bored to death with life as I'm used to it. I'm always seeking for a new sensation, and I seem to have lighted on it here all unexpectedly. I certainly hope my car will be fixed by morning. If it isn't I'll telegraph for my man and have him bring down some bearings in one of the other cars and fix me up. I'm determined to take you around a bit and have you show me the country. I know it would be great under your guidance."

"Thank you," said Lynn coolly, "But I haven't much time for pleasuring just now, and you will be wanting to go on your way—"

He flushed with annoyance. He was not accustomed to being baffled in this way by any girl, but he had sense enough to know that only by patience and humility could he win any notice from her.

"Oh, I shall want to linger a bit and let this doctor finish up this ankle of mine. It isn't fair to go away to another doctor before I'm on my feet again."

He thought she looked annoyed, but she did not answer.

"Did you ever ride in a racer?" he asked suddenly, "I'll teach you to drive. Would you like that?"

"Thank you," she said pleasantly, "but that wouldn't be necessary, I know how to drive."

He almost thought there was a twinkle of mischief in her eye:

"You know how to drive! But you haven't a car? Oh, I suppose that young Carter taught you to drive his," he said with chagrin. He was growing angry. He began to suspect her of playing with him. After all, even if she was engaged to that chap, he had gone off with Opal quite willingly it would appear. Why should he and she not have a little fling?

"No," said Marilyn, "Mr. Carter did not have a car until he went away from Sabbath Valley. I learned while I was in college."

"Oh, you've been to college!" the young man sat up with interest, "I thought there was something too sophisticated about you to have come out of a place like this. You had a car while you were in college I suppose.".

Lynn's eyes were dancing:

"Why didn't you say 'dump' like this? That's what your tone said," she laughed, "and only a minute ago you were saying how charming it was. No, I had no car in college, I was—" But he interrupted her eagerly: