"I have a warmth at heart that the three men most beloved of me would go onto the French battle line with me," I murmured to myself as the black chauffeur drove me back to that Club of Old Hickory to get me again in company of my Buzz. "And yet it is the custom of women to believe that they command the deepest affection of which a man is possessed. And, helas, it is believed to be impossible for a comrade that he be also a lover!"

It has been my good fortune to be one of the guests at many very brilliant receptions of much state in some of the very grand and ancient palaces of the different countries of Europe, but at none of them have I seen a greater brilliancy than at the one given in his Mansion by the Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth in America. All of that old Mansion, which has the high ceilings and the decorations of a palace, if not quite the size, was adorned with very large masses of a most lovely and handsome flower, which is of many shades of a pink hue set in dark and shining leaves and which is called the rhododendron. There were many lights and music of a softness I have never heard equaled, because the souls of those black men seem to be formed for a very strange kind of music. Also I had never beheld women of a more loveliness than those of the State of Harpeth, who had come from many small cities near to Hayesville at an invitation of very careful selection for their beauty by my Buzz.

"Let's give him a genuine dazzle," he had remarked while making a list for the sending of the cards.

And most beautiful of all those beautiful grande dames was that Madam Patricia Whitworth, who, with her husband, stood at the side of His Excellency, the great Gouverneur Faulkner, for the receiving of his guests. Her eyes of the blue flowers set in the snow of crystals were in a gleaming and the costume that she wore was but a few wisps of gossamer used for the revealing of her radiant body. In my black and stiff attire of the raven I stood near to the other hand of the Gouverneur Faulkner and there was such an anger for her in my heart that it was difficult that I made a return of the smile she cast upon me at every few minutes. Was there a mockery in that smile, that she had discovered my woman's estate and was using her own beauty for a challenge to me? I could not tell nor could I judge exactly what the smile of boldness which the Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon, cast upon me, might mean. And in doubt and anxiety I stood there in that great salon for many hours to make conversation with the guest of honor easy with those who came to him for presentation, until at last I was so weary that I could not make even a good night to my Uncle, the General Robert, when we entered, long after midnight, the doors of Twin Oaks.

When in my own apartment, alone with the beautiful Grandmamma, I cast myself upon the bed upon which my father had had birth, and wept with all my woman's heart which beat so hard under that attire of the raven.

"Scarcely one more day and perhaps I must flee in dishonor from all the love of these friends," I sobbed to myself, but deeper than all that I wept for the picture of that beautiful woman at the side of my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner.

And then suddenly as I lay in my weeping the telephone upon the table beside my bed gave a loud ringing in the darkness that was long after midnight. Very quickly from fear I covered my head with my pillow and waited with a great fluttering of heart.

Then a second time it rang with a great fury and I perceived that I must make a response to it.

I arose and took that receiver into my hand and spoke with a fine though husky calmness.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Is that you, Robert?" came the voice of my beloved Gouverneur, which made the heart of that anguished Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, beat into a sudden great happiness though also alarm.

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Can you dress very quietly, get your car and come up here to the Mansion without letting anybody know of it?"

"I will do what you command."

"I need you, boy, and I need you quick."

"I come."

"Stop the car at the street beyond the side door and come in that way. Cato will let you in. Come to my bedroom quietly so as not to wake Jenkins. Can you find your way?"

For just one single long second that grande dame, Roberta, the Marquise of Grez and Bye, cowered in fear upon her warm bed in the house of her Uncle, the General Robert, at the thought of going out into the night at the command of a man, and then that devoted daredevil, Mr. Robert Carruthers, answered into the telephone to the Gouverneur Faulkner:

"Immediately I come to you."



CHAPTER XVII

THE TALL TIMBERS OF OLD HARPETH

Is it that there comes to the world an hour in the twenty and four in which it lays aside the mortality of the earth and clothes itself in an immortality of a very great awe? I think that it is so; and it was out into the whiteness of that hour that I stepped when I had successfully passed from my room to the garden of the home of my Uncle, the General Robert, which is also the home of my American ancestors. A command for my presence had come to me from the loved Gouverneur Faulkner and it was needful that I make all possible haste; but it seemed to me that all of the beautiful faded flowers of my dead grandmammas in that garden rose up around me for beguilement and gave to me a perfume that they had kept in saving for the Roberta, some day to come across the waters to them. And all of their little descendants, the opening blossoms of spring, also gave perfume to me in a mist in the white moonlight, while a few fragrant rose vines bent to detain me as I left that home of my grandmothers to go out into that sleeping city, alone. I had a great fear, but yet a great devotion drew me and in a very few minutes I had driven my Cherry from the garage and was on my way through the silent streets to—I did not know what.

At the door of the Mansion I was admitted by my good Cato, who was attired in a very long red flannel sleeping garment, with a red cap also of the flannel tied down upon the white wool of his head.

"Has you got dat hoodoo, little Mas'?" he demanded of me as I passed into the hall beneath the candle in a tall stand of silver which he held high over my head.

"Yes, good Cato," I made answer to him and I was indeed glad that I had now of a habit put his gift under the heel of my left foot. It gave me great courage.

"De Governor is up in his room and you kin go right up. I never heard of no such doings as is going on in dis house dis night with that there wild man with a gun five feet long, coming and going like de wind. Go on up, honey, and see what you kin do to dem with dat hoodoo." With which information good Cato started me up the stairs. "First door to the right, front, and don't knock," he called in a whisper that might have come from his tomb in death as he slowly retired into the darkness below with his candle.

For a very long minute I stood before that door in the dim light that came through one of the wide windows from the moon without.

"What is this madness that you perform, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye?" I made demand of myself while my knees trembled in the trousers of heavy gray worsted.

"Robert Carruthers goes to his chief in an hour of need and he is descended of that Madam Donaldson who had no fear of the Indian or the bear when there was danger to her beloved," I made answer to myself and softly I turned the handle of that door and entered the room of the Gouverneur Faulkner.

"Is that you, Robert?" came a question in his voice from a large table over by the window. The room was entirely in shadow, except for the shaded light upon the table, under whose rays I remarked the head and shoulders of that Gouverneur Faulkner, at whose bidding I had come out into the dead of the night. "Come over here and walk softly, so as not to stir up Jenkins," he commanded me and I went immediately to his side, even if I did experience a difficulty in the breath of Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye.

"What is it that you wish, my Gouverneur Faulkner?" I asked as I looked down upon him as he sat with a paper in his hand regarding it intently. And as I looked I observed that he, as well as I, had not entirely disrobed after that very brilliant reception. He had discarded his coat of the raven and also what is called a vest in America, and he was very beautiful to me in the whiteness of his very fine linen above which his dark bronze hair with its silver crests, that I had always observed to be in a very sleek order, was tossed into a mop that resembled the usual appearance of my own. His eyes were very deep under their heavy lashes but of the brilliancy of the stars in the blackness of a dark night.

"Sit down here under the light beside me," was his next command to me, and he reached out one of his slender and powerful hands and drew me down into a chair very close beside him.

"What is it?" I asked as my head came so close to his that I felt the warmth of his breath on my cold cheek.

"Hold these two fragments of paper together and translate the French written upon them literally," he said to me as he handed me two small pieces of paper upon which there was writing.

And this is what I discovered to be written:

"Honored Madam:

"The one at the head of all has sent me to this place to inspect grazing lands and make report. I send in a report of what is not here and the signing of the papers by your Gouverneur Faulkner must be done quickly in blindness before a discovery of what is not—"

"It is written to a woman," I said very quietly as I made a finish of reading.

"Yes, boy, to a woman. I have made my last fight to—to hold an old belief, which in some way seemed to be—be one of my foundation stones. The General is right: they are all alike, the soft, beautiful, lying things. The truth is not in them, and their own or a man's honor is a plaything. That piece of paper was sent me by a man up in the mountains of Old Harpeth, who loves me with the same blood bond that I love you, boy, all on account of a gun struck up in the hands of his enemy. Here's the note he sent with it.

"Bill, we cotched a furren man fer a revenue up by the still at Turkey Gulch and this was in his pocket. I made out to read yo name. I send it. The man is kept tied. What is mules worth? Send price and what to do with this man critter by son Jim. Hell, Bill, they ain't no grazing fer five thousand mules on Paradise Ridge, but I know a place. Jim Todd."

"What is the significance of this paper, my Gouverneur Faulkner?" I asked after I had made the attempt to translate to myself the very peculiar writing he had given to me.

"I do not know just exactly myself, Robert," answered my Gouverneur Faulkner as he dropped his head upon his hands while he rested his elbows on the polished table among its scattered papers. "I am convinced now that this mule contract business is the plot against my honor that the General believes it to be and has been trying to get to a legal surface. In some way Jim Todd has got hold of one end of the conspiracy. It has been hard for me to believe that a woman would sell me out. If I take it to her in the morning I'll perhaps get an explanation that will satisfy me. The men who are in with Jeff Whitworth are the best financiers in the State and it is impossible to believe that—"

Very suddenly it happened in my heart to know what to compel that very large man beside me to do for the rescue of his honor. He must see the matter, not through the lies of that beautiful Madam Whitworth, the instrument of that very ugly husband, but he must look into the matter with his blood friend, that Mr. Jim Todd.

"You must go immediately to that Mr. Jim Todd and his prisoner to discover truth, Your Excellency," I said with a very firm determination as I looked straight into his sad eyes that had in them almost the look of shame for dishonor.

"It's twenty-four hours on horseback across Old Harpeth from Springtown, boy. The trip would take three days. I can't do it with these guests here, even if they are robbers. I'll have to stay and dig down to the root of the matter here. I may find it in the hearts of my friends," he answered me with a look of great despair.

"The root of the matter is that man who is a prisoner, my Gouverneur Faulkner. I say that you go; that you start while yet it is night and while no man can advise you not to take that journey. It can be done while this entertainment to the farm of the Brices is made for the inspection of mules and also the running of horses. It is necessary!" As I spoke to him in that manner a great force rose in me that I poured out to him through my eyes.

"Great Heavens, boy, I believe I'll do it. I could never get anything if I went when they knew I was going, but I might find out the whole thing if I went to it in secret. If I go now they'll not have time to get their breath before I am back. I'll be able to think out there is those hills and I'm—a—man who needs to think—with a vision unobscured." For a long minute my Gouverneur Faulkner sat with his head bowed in his hands as he rested his elbows on that table, then he rose to his feet. "Let's get away while it is still the dead of night, Robert. I'll leave a note with Cato to tell the General that I've taken you, and nobody except himself must know where I have gone or why. He'll put up the right bluff and we'll be back before they get anything out of him. It's three o'clock and we must be far out on the road by daybreak. We'll take your car and leave it in hiding at Springtown, where by sunup we'll get horses to cross the mountains."

"Is it that I must go for three days out into those mountains with you, my Gouverneur Faulkner?" faltered that ridiculous and troublesome Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye.

"Why, no, Robert, unless—unless—Oh, well, I suppose this prisoner of Jim's can speak English as they all can. I rather wanted you—but perhaps it is best for me to fight it out alone. Will you help me pack a bag? Get the one from my dressing room while I take a plunge."

"Quick, Robert Carruthers, make an excuse to that Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, who is of such a foolishness, that you must go with your beloved Gouverneur Faulkner for his aid," I said to myself.

"It is necessary that your foreign secretary accompany you to deal with that gentleman of France who is in prison, my Gouverneur Faulkner," I said with decision as I rose from the side of the table with a great quickness. "I must return home for a few necessities of my toilet for those three days, but I will be back in what that good Kizzie says to be a jiffy, when speaking of cooking that is delayed."

"Good," answered me my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner. Then he laid his hand upon my shoulder as we stood together in the dimness out from the rays of the light. "There is something in your eyes, Robert, that renews my faith in the truths of—of life. I'm going out into the wilderness on a grave mission whose result may shake down some houses of—of cards, but because of your being with me I feel as if I were starting off on a picnic or a day's fishing at the age of ten. Now, I'll hurry." And as he spoke my Gouverneur Faulkner made a start in the direction of his room for the bath.

"Is it that I may begin the packing of your bag for you, Your Excellency, before I go for those necessities of my own?" I asked of him.

"Won't be time for you to go home, boy," he answered me, looking at a clock upon the mantel over his large fireplace. "You are still in your evening clothes, I see. But that's easy: you climb into that pink coat and a pair of those corduroy trousers of mine you see hanging in my dressing room. I haven't hunted for two years but they are still there. Put linen in that saddlebag on the shelf for us both out of the drawers in the old chest over there. Take heavy socks to go under the leggings. You'd better put on a flannel shirt, too, and take an extra one for both of us. We'll travel light. I'll only be in the bath a couple of minutes." With which assurance he entered the room of the bath and closed the door upon me.

"Mon Dieu, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye!" was all that I allowed myself to exclaim as I made a very quick rush for that dressing room, switched on the light, flung off my coat, seized a pair of corduroy riding breeches that hung in a corner beside another pair, discarded my own of broadcloth and struggled with both of my legs the same moment into them. Then in a hurry as great as I shall ever know I discovered a gray flannel shirt in a drawer of the very tall old mahogany chest and inserted myself into that with an equal rapidity. A wide leather belt made the two very large garments secure around my waist and I again allowed breath to come into my lungs. I then opened a very queer bag which I knew to be for a saddle, that was upon a shelf in the dressing room, and began to put things into it according to directions of the Gouverneur Faulkner. The other pair of those riding breeches I laid with another of the flannel shirts in a great conspicuousness upon a chair in the bedroom directly in front of the door from the dressing room.

"We're going to make a record get-away, boy," said that Gouverneur Faulkner to me as in a few minutes he came, clothed in those riding trousers and that flannel shirt, to the door of his dressing room, where I was just making a finish of putting needful clothing into his bag. "You'll find the other things we need in the bathroom. Put it all in while I get together a few papers I want. We can start now in two minutes."

"All is ready now, my Gouverneur Faulkner," I made the announcement after a wading into that very wet room of the bath and a return.

"Here, give me the bag, and you go ahead with this electric torch. Quiet now," admonished that Gouverneur Faulkner to me as we took our departure through the dark hall.

"This is the maddest escapade that a Governor of this ancient State has ever undertaken, and the weight of years has slid from me, boy," said that Gouverneur Faulkner to me as the Cherry made a long glide from the city out into the open road.

The day was just beginning to come with its light from behind the very large and crooked old mountain that is called Old Harpeth, when my Gouverneur Faulkner made me to turn my good Cherry from off the main road into a little road, of much narrowness and of beautiful brown dirt the color of the riding trousers that I wore, and stop beside a very humble, small house, which was covered with a vine in beautiful bud, and around which many chickens hovered in waiting for a morning breakfast. Behind the small house was a large barn and as I made a nice turn and stop beside the white gate a man in a blue garment that I now know is called overalls, came to the door of the barn.

"Hello, Bud. Are Lightfoot and Steady in good condition for a trip across to Turkey-Gulch?" called my Gouverneur Faulkner as he alighted from the car.

"Fit as fiddles, Governor Bill," answered the man as he came to the gate to shake hands with the Gouverneur Faulkner. "'Light and come in to breakfast. Granny has got a couple of chickens already in the skillet. And say, I want you to see what Mandy have got in the bed with her. Ten pounds, Gov."

"Congratulations, Bud; that is some—boy?" said my Gouverneur Faulkner with a question as he again grasped the hand of the large man.

"Naw, Gov; we didn't have no luck this first shot but I tells Mandy that we've got about a dozen more chanstes if she does as well by me as she oughter. Anyway what's the matter with a gal child?" And the nice young father of the poor little female made a bristle of his disposition in defense of his daughter.

"Not a thing on earth, Bud; except that the whole sex are the unknown quantity. This is my secretary, Robert Carruthers, the General's nephew. Come in, Robert, and you'll have one square meal in your life if you never get another. Get me the usual food wallet together, Bud, please, and let me have it and the horses the very moment I've swallowed the last bite of my drum bone, will you? We've got to ride fast and far to-day and I want nobody on my trail. Understand?"

"Yep, Gov," was the answer that good Bud man made as my Gouverneur Faulkner and I took our way through many chickens into the low little house.

"God bless my soul, if here ain't the Governor come for a bite with Granny Bell this fine morning!" exclaimed a very nice old lady from above a stove, which was steaming with food of such an odor as to create a madness in my very empty stomach.

"More than any bite, Granny," answered my Gouverneur Faulkner as he came beside the stove to shake hands with the nice hostess.

"I'd like to feed you some gold, fried in silk. Governor Bill, fer that mercy to my nephew Timms. I can't say what I feels and finish this cream gravy the right color for you," and as she spoke the fine old friend of my Gouverneur Faulkner wept as she shook a steaming sauce in a black pan and turned with the left hand a golden piece of bread upon another part of the stove.

"I don't need anything more than your 'well done,' Granny," answered my Gouverneur Faulkner as he laid a gentle hand on the trembling shoulder of the nice old lady. "This youngster here got the word from Mary and you can give him both of the liver wings if you want to show your gratitude to him."

"God bless you, young gentleman, and you shall have anything that Granny Bell has to give you in gratitude. Now draw up two chairs and fall to, boys," and as she spoke she set the dishes of a beautiful odor upon a very clean table beside the stove.

"Is it that I may wash the grease stains of the car from my hands before eating, dear Madam?" I asked of her.

"Back porch, you'll find the bucket and pan and towel, youngster. I can't wait for you," made answer my Gouverneur Faulkner as he laughed and began upon the repast that must of necessity be a hurried one.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE CAMP HEAVEN

And I was very glad indeed that he did not go with me for that toilet to my hands, for it might have happened that a noise would have deprived me of a very beautiful thing that I discovered, through a window under a vine of roses that opened upon that back porch.

A very pretty young girl, with hair the color of the maize in the fields, lay upon a white bed beneath a quilt of many colors. Her sleeping garment was drawn back from her breast, against which lay a little human person drinking therefrom with much energy. The eyes of the mother were closed and her arm held the babe loosely as if in a deep dreaming. I softly poured the water into the basin, made clean my hands and quietly withdrew into the kitchen, with much care that I did not awaken her. On my cheeks I could feel a deep glow of color, and something within my heart pounded with force against my own breast under its gay red coat of a hunting man. I could not raise my eyes to those of my Gouverneur Faulkner and I ate not as much of that good breakfast as Robert Carruthers could have consumed if the woman in his heart had not been so stirred.

And all of that long day in the soft early spring which was bursting into a budding and a flowering under the feet of our horses and above our heads in the trees, it was the woman Roberta that rode at the side of my Gouverneur Faulkner, with her heart at an ache under her coat of a man. It was with a difficulty that I forced my eyes to meet and make answer to the merriment and joy of the woods in his deep ones; and I was of a great gladness when the descending of the sun brought a moon-silvered twilight down upon us from the young green branches of the large trees of the forest through which we rode.

"Time to make camp. We've got to old Jutting Rock. You are halfway up between heaven and earth, youngster," said my Gouverneur Faulkner as he drew to a halt his horse in front of me and pointed down into the dim valley that lay at our feet.

"I am glad that we have made this Camp Heaven," I answered to him as I slid from my horse, ungirthed him, and drew from his back the heavy saddle he had worn for the day, as I had been taught by my father to do after a day's hunting, if no grooms came immediately. "Is it that you have hunger, my Gouverneur Faulkner?"

"Only about ten pounds of food craving," he made answer to me with a large laugh that was the first I had ever heard him to give forth. "I'll rustle the fire and water if you'll open the food wallet and feed the horses."

"Immediately I will do all of that," I made an answer to him and because of the happiness of that laugh he had given forth, a gladness rose in my heart that made me again that merry boy Robert.

And it was with a great industry for a short hour that we prepared the Camp Heaven for a sojourn of a night. Upon a very nice hot fire I put good bacon to cook and my Gouverneur set also the pot of coffee upon the coals. Then, while I made crisp with the heat the brown corn pones, with which that Granny Bell had provided us, he brought a large armful of a very fragrant kind of tree and threw it not far into the shadow of the great tree which was the roof to our Camp Heaven.

"Bed," he said as he came and stood beside the fire in a large towering over me. I dropped beyond rescue a fragment of that corn bread into the extreme heat of the coals, but I said with a great composure and a briefness like unto his words:

"Supper."

"Why is it that a man thinks he wants more of life's goods than fatigue, supper and bed, do you suppose, boy?" questioned my Gouverneur Faulkner to me as at last in repletion he leaned back against our giant rooftree, between two of whose hospitable large roots we had made our repast, and lighted a pipe of great fragrance which he had taken from his pocket.

"I would not possess happiness even though I had this nice supper, if I was alone in this great forest, Your Excellency; I would have fear," I answered him with a small laugh as I took my corduroy knees into my embrace and looked off into that distant valley below us which was beginning to glow with stars of home lights.

"Didn't I tell you once that you don't count, that you are just myself, youngster? You ought not to know I am here. I don't know you exist except as a form of pleasure of which I do not ask the reason," was the answer that my Gouverneur Faulkner made to me.

"I excuse myself away with humbleness for impertinence, Your Excellency," I returned to him.

"If you tried, do you think you could call me Bill, just for to-night, boy?" was the answer he made to my excuses as he puffed a beautiful ring of smoke at me.

"I could not," I answered with an indignation.

"I heard you call Sue Tomlinson 'Sue' the first night you danced with her."

"But that Mademoiselle Sue is a woman, my Gouverneur Faulkner," I answered with haste.

"That's the reason that women get at us to do us, youngster; we don't approach them as human to human but we go up on their blind side and they come back at us in the dark with a knife." And as he spoke all of the gayness of joy was lost from the voice of my beloved Gouverneur and in its place was a bitterness.

"With pardon I say that it is not a truth of all women, Your Excellency," I answered with pride as my head went up high at his condemnation of the sex of which I was one.

"You don't know what you are talking about, youngster. They all think I am cold and pass me along, except a few experienced ladies who—shall I say?—adventure for graft with me. I've been too busy really to love or let love but I know 'em and you don't. Let's stop talking about what concerns neither of us and go to bed. See this young cedar tree? I'm going to throw my blanket across it and with these extra boughs I'll make a genuine cradle for each of us on the opposite sides of the trunk. Then we'll cover with your blanket and be as comfortable as two middies in their hammocks in a man of war. This is a piece of woodcraft of my own invention and I'm proud of it, old scout."

And while he talked my Gouverneur Faulkner had prepared those cradles of our blankets unstrapped from the saddles of the horses at feeding time, seated himself upon the edge of one of them and began to pull from his feet his riding boots. "Take off your boots and your coat, youngster, and turn in. I'll take the windward side and you can bivouac against the fire. Good night!" As he finished speaking my Gouverneur Faulkner rolled beneath that blanket upon the outer edge and left for me the hammock next to the fire, sheltered from a cool wind that had begun to come up from the valley.

Almost immediately, so that I should not have a fright, I lifted the blanket and crawled into the branches of the fragrant tree. Even as I did so I perceived a loud breathing of deep sleep from my Gouverneur Faulkner; but to me came no repose.

Awake through the bright night, I lay there in the sweet branches of the young tree beside the great Gouverneur of one of the greatest states of America and perceived clearly the pass to which my course of lies and dishonor had led me. And from that wild daredevil, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, was born the honest woman Roberta who must extricate herself from a situation not to be longer endured, even if discovery was not upon me.

"I will finish this journey with my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner," I counseled myself, "upon which it is of a certainty that this plot for his ruin in the world of his politics will be averted, and I will return to the home of my Uncle, the General Robert. If I be not discovered in my woman's estate in a few days' space of time I will endeavor to do some piece of loving kindness that will keep me in the memory of all who have given me love, from poor black Bonbon up to His Excellency himself here beside me, and then I will go into those trenches of France to give my life for my country, perhaps not as a soldier but as a good nurse of the Red Cross. And never, never, must any living person who has loved Robert Carruthers know that he is a human of dishonor. Nannette will be true to my directions to hide my secret, and wee Pierre will keep it forever because I go to fight for France as he cannot. I will put with great firmness into the mind of Pierre that he is to be of a great devotion to my Uncle, the General Robert, through life.

"And what will you do for that great Gouverneur Faulkner, from whom each day you have stolen more and more affection with your false attitude of much loyalty, to keep from him grief at the loss of you?" I asked myself with a sob in my heart.

"Forgive me, my beloved chief. When away from you I must die of a coldness," I said to myself in a very low tone into the moonlight.

"Cold? Do you want the whole blanket, youngster? Snuggle into your cradle closer," suddenly answered me my Gouverneur Faulkner as he reached his long arm across the tree trunk to tuck in the blanket about me and again he was immediately in the deep sleep from which my spoken words had but partly awakened him. And then at his bidding I did settle myself down into the fragrant boughs and I wept myself also into a deep sleep.

The round sun was high over that Old Harpeth hill when I opened my eyes. For a moment I did not see clearly and then I looked straight into the deep eyes of my Gouverneur Faulkner. which for that first time I had been able to see to be the color of violets in the twilight. He was seated beside me smoking the fragrant pipe and looking down at me with a great wonderment that was mingled with as great a tenderness.

"Boy," he asked softly, "are you sure God has got that pattern of you put away carefully in France?"

Before I could make answer to him a picture flashed into my mind. When still a child one morning I opened my eyes to find my loved father bending over me and in the hollow of his arm he held my mother in her breakfast gown of lace and ribbons. He spoke:

"Some day, Celeste, a man will bend over her and watch her waken. God grant it will be with the love—that produced that beauty. Look at that love curl!"

And at the recall of that picture of me into my mind, my hands flew to my face to find that same treacherous curl had descended to my cheek from the mop above. With a fury of embarrassment I sprang to my feet from under that blanket.

"I have a great hunger," I said as I observed a very crisp breakfast to be prepared upon the coals of the fire. "I must have a fragment of bacon upon the instant." And I bent over the fire to obtain what I had demanded for a cover to my confusion.

"No, you don't, until you've washed that face and those hands that still have the supper smudge on them, in the pool down there. I left the soap and the dry sleeves and bosom of a flannel shirt for you. Don't you pack towels in a kit in your country?" With which laughing answer my Gouverneur Faulkner denied unto me an immediate breakfast.

"You thought him to admire the love curl, while he was remarking the soil upon your face, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye," I laughed to myself as I plunged my face into the icy pool.

After a finish to the breakfast, my Gouverneur Faulkner gave to me the information that we must tether the good horses and make the remainder of the journey by walking, which we did for hardly a short hour.

"The wildcat still is straight up Turkey Gulch and we'll have to scramble for it. It's hid like the nest of an old turkey hen," he said to me as we set out upon the mounting of a very steep precipice.

"What is that word, 'wildcat still'?" I asked as I slid over a great rock with emerald moss encrusted, and struggled beside my Gouverneur Faulkner through a heavy underbrush of leafy greenness.

"A place where men make whiskey in defiance of the law of their State," he answered me as he held aside a long branch of green that was pink tipped, so that I might slip thereunder without a scratching.

"Are you not the law of the State, my Gouverneur Faulkner?" I asked of him as I pulled myself by his arm through the thickness.

"I'm all that, but I'm the son of Old Harpeth and Jim Todd's blood brother first. Some day I'll smoke Jim out of his hole and get him a good job. Now, wait a minute and see what happens," and as he spoke my Gouverneur Faulkner stood very still for a long minute. As I sat at his side upon the fallen trunk of a large tree I regarded him with admiration, because he had the aspect of some beautiful, lithe animal of the woods as he listened with a deep attention. Then very quickly he put his two long fingers to his mouth, and behold the call of a wild bird came from between his lips. Twice it was repeated and then he stood again in deep attention. I made not even a little breathing as I too listened.

Then came three clear notes of that same wild bird in reply from not very far up the mountain from us.

"That's Jim, the old turkey; come on!" said my Gouverneur Faulkner as he again began to break through the leafy barriers of the low trees.

And in a very short space of time a man emerged from a little path that led behind a tall cliff of the gray rocks. He was a very large and a very fierce man and I might have had a fright of him if his blue eyes had not held such a kindness and joy in them at the sight of my Gouverneur Faulkner.

"Howdy, Bill," he said with no handshake or other form of a comrade's greeting.

"Howdy, Jim," returned my Gouverneur Faulkner in a manner of the same indifference but with also an expression in his face of delight at the sight of his blood brother, that Mr. Jim Todd.

"That thar boy a shet-mouth?"

"He's Bob, and as hard as a nut," was the introduction I had from my Gouverneur Faulkner.

"Then come on," with which command that wild man led us around the tall cliff of gray rock, over which climbed a sweet vine of rosy blossoming, which I now know to call a laurel, and we arrived in front of a small and low hut that was built against the rocks. A clear, small stream made a very noisy way past the door of the hut, but save for its clamor all was silent.

"Where are the boys?" asked my Gouverneur Faulkner.

"Hid in the bushes. I've got the man tied back in the still room. I 'low he ain't no revenue but they 'low different. Come back and see if you kin make out his gibberish."

"Come on, Robert," said my Gouverneur Faulkner to me as he followed the wild Jim into the hut and back into a room that was as a cave cut into the rock. And I, Robert Carruthers, followed him—to my death.

Seated upon a rude bench in that cave room, bound with a rope of great size, disheveled and soiled, but with all of the nobility of his great estate in his grave face, was my adored friend, Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles! As we entered he rose beside the bench and in that rising displayed a chain by which one of his feet was made fast to the rock of the wall.

"Good morning, sir," said my Gouverneur Faulkner, as if greeting a gentleman upon the street of that city of Hayesville.

"Also a good morning, sir," made reply my poor Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles. And he stood with a fine and great courtesy waiting for my Gouverneur Faulkner to state to him what his visit could portend, as would he have done in his regimental room at Tour.

And as he stood, for that very long minute, there expired the last moments of the life of Robert Carruthers. A stream of light fell from the little window high in the rock upon his luckless head as he stood as if frozen into a statue of great fear. And as he so stood, the eyes of the Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, fell upon him and he started forward as far as the length of the chain by which he was bound would allow him and from there held out his hand to the frozen boy standing in the stream of light from high heaven.

"My most beautiful lady Roberta, do I find that it is you who have come to my rescue?" he questioned. "I lost you, mon enfant, in that great New York."

"My beloved Capitaine, how is it that I find you thus?" I exclaimed as I went to within his reach and allowed that he take my two hands in his poor shackled ones and put warm kisses of greeting upon them.

And it was while I was shedding tears of pity for the imprisonment of that great man of France in that mountain hut in America, as he kissed my hands, that I raised my eyes to encounter a cold lightning as of a flash on steel, from under the black brows of my Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth, that again froze the blood in my heart.

"You?" he asked of me in a voice that was of the same coldness and sharpness as that steel, and his beautiful mouth was set into one straight line as he flung into my face that one word.



CHAPTER XIX

ALL IS LOST

And to that word of challenge I made no answer, but I raised my head and looked into his eyes with a dignity that came to me as my right from suffering. So regarding each other, we stood for a very short minute in which the Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, raised his head from his kisses of salutation upon my hands.

"And, mon enfant, is this the good Uncle to whose care you came into America?" asked that Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, as he reached out his imprisoned hands for a greeting to my relative.

I did not make any answer to that question. My head raised itself yet higher, and I looked my Gouverneur Faulkner again full in the face while I waited to hear what he would answer of my kinship to him.

"Sir, I am the friend of General Carruthers and I am also the Governor of the State of Harpeth. I have come across the mountains to talk with you about the business of this contract for mules for your army and I have brought your young friend to assist me if I should need translating from or to you. We Americans, Captain, are poor handlers of any language not our own, and the matter is of much gravity." And as the Gouverneur Faulkner spoke those words to my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, with a great courtesy but also a great sternness, in which he named me not as his friend but as the friend of that Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, I knew that I was placed by him among all women liars of the world and that to him his boy Robert of honor was of a truth dead forever.

"It is indeed of such a gravity that I have come from the English Canada to make all clear to myself," answered my beloved Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, as he drew himself to his entire height, which was well-nigh as great as that of the Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth.

"And I have ridden a day and a night, sir, for the same purpose," answered my great Gouverneur Faulkner with that beautiful courtesy of business I have always observed him to use in the transaction of his affairs in his office at the Capitol of the State of Harpeth. "And as one of us must make a beginning, will you not tell me, Captain, why you are here and in this predicament?"

"In a few words I will make all clear to you, Your Excellency," made answer my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, with an air of courtesy equal to that of the Gouverneur Faulkner. "I sent down into your State of Harpeth one of my Commission, to whom I gave the direction that with a lack of annoying publicity he should investigate the preparedness of the State of Harpeth to deliver those five thousand of mules to the Republique of France as was being proposed. Behold, a report that all is well comes to me, but—ah, it is with sorrow and shame that such a thing could be done by a son of poor France who struggles for life!—among the sheets of that report was left by mistake the fragments of a draft of a letter to an American woman, which made a partial disclosure of an intended falseness of that statement to me. Immediately I came alone to interview that false officer and I find him gone from that small town not far from here into your Capital. I was seeking to rapidly ride alone by directions into your Capital city to prevent that he make a signature, which I had given to him the authority to write, to those papers of so great an importance. I was thus arrested by that man of great wildness, whose patois I could not understand as he could not comprehend the English I make use of, and you see me thus. I beg of you to tell me if that wicked signature has been made."

"The papers have not been signed, thank God, Captain, and your very impatient lieutenant is being shown some Southern hospitality by the flower and chivalry of Old Harpeth. And I beg your pardon for allowing you to be a prisoner a minute longer than necessary," was the answer made to him by my Gouverneur Faulkner. "Untie the Captain, Jim; he's all right. And you can bring us a little of your mountain dew while I clear this table here to use for the papers of our business." And still my Gouverneur Faulkner did not speak or look at me and in my heart I then knew that he never would.

"I will make all ready," I said as I lifted a large gun, a horn of a beast full of powder and several pipes with tobacco, from the table of rough boards that stood under the window for light.

"Ah, that is a good release! Thank you that you did not make tight enough for abrasions your cords, my good man," said my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, as he stretched out his arms and then bent to make a rubbing of his ankle upon which had been the chain.

"I said you warn't no revenue. Here, drink, stranger!" answered the wild Jim as he handed a bottle of white liquid to my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, and also another to my Gouverneur Faulkner. "That boy can suck the drippings," he added as he looked at me with humor.

"Get cups and water, Jim," commanded my Gouverneur Faulkner with a smile. "Don't drink it straight, Captain. It will knock you down."

"I will procure the cups and the water," I said with rapidity, for I longed to leave that room for a few moments in which to shake from my eyes some of the tears that were making a mist before them.

"Git a fresh bucket from the spring up the gulch, Bob, while I go beat the boys outen the bushes with the news that they ain't no revenue. They'll want to see Bill," was the direction that wild Jim gave to me as he placed in my hand a rude bucket and pointed up the side of the hill of great steepness. After so doing he descended around the rock by the path which we had ascended.

"What is it that you shall do now, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye?" I wept a question to myself as I dipped that bucket into a clear pool and made ready to return to the hut. "All is lost to you.

"I do not know," I answered to myself.

And when I had made a safe return to the hut with a small portion of the water only remaining in the bucket, for the cause of many slides in the steep descent from the pool, I found my Gouverneur Faulkner and my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, engaged deeply in a mass of papers on the table between them and with no thanks to Roberta, the Marquise of Grez and Bye, when she served to them tin cups of the water and a liquid that I had ascertained by tasting to be of fire. I believe it to be thus that in affairs of business, in the minds of men all women are become drowned.

"Will you write this out for His Excellency, my dear Mademoiselle?" would request my good Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles.

"Thank you," would be the reply I received from the Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth, with never one small look into my eyes that so besought his.

And for all of the hours of that very long afternoon I sat on a low stool beside the feet of those two great gentlemen and served them in their communications while the heart in my breast was going into death by a slow, cruel torture.

The exact meaning of those papers and words of business I did not know, but once I observed my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, throw down his pencil and look into the face of the Gouverneur Faulkner with a great and stern astonishment.

"The work of grafters, Captain Lasselles, with a woman as a tool. But I yet don't see just how it was that she worked it. My Secretary of State, General Carruthers, and I have been at work for weeks and we could not catch the exact fraud," made answer my Gouverneur Faulkner with a cold sternness.

"I was warned in Paris that beautiful American women were very much interested in the placing of war contracts, Monsieur le Gouverneur. I fled upon a tug boat from the ship that I escape some for whom I had letters of introduction which I could not ignore."

"It was your Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, whom that Madam Whitworth sought upon the ship, Roberta," I said to myself.

"I think women are alike the world over, Captain, and the discussion of them and their mental and moral processes is—fruitless," answered my Gouverneur Faulkner as he again took up his pencil.

"When it happened to me to find the fragment of the letter to the lady of America from my false lieutenant, I had a deep distress that tenderness for the sufferings of poor France should fail to be in even one American woman's heart. And now I am in deep concern. Where am I to obtain the good strong mules by which to transport through fields heavy with mud the food to my poor boys in their trenches?"

"Right here, Captain, I feel reasonably sure. I think I see a way to give you what you want at a better figure; and from it no man shall reap more than a just wage for honest work. As the Governor of the State of Harpeth, I can give you at least that assurance." And as he spoke my Gouverneur Faulkner looked the Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, in the eyes with a fine honesty that carried with it the utmost of conviction.

"I give thanks to le bon Dieu," I said with words that were very soft in my throat, but at which I observed the mouth of that Gouverneur Faulkner to again become as one straight line of coldness.

"Indeed, thanks to le bon Dieu, Mademoiselle," made courteous answer to me my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles. "But how will you accomplish that purpose. Monsieur le Gouverneur?"

"As soon as I've done with these figures I'll have in Jim, your jailer, and then you'll hear some things about the American mountain mule that you never heard before, I believe." As he spoke, my Gouverneur Faulkner proceeded with making figures with his pencil, a fine glow of eagerness added to that of rage in his eyes very deep under their brows. "Now, I'll go and call in Jim," he said after a few minutes of waiting, and left the room in which I was then alone with my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, who came to me with outstretched hands.

"Ah, Mademoiselle Roberta," he exclaimed, "I am in a debt of gratitude to you for bringing this great gentleman, your friend, to my rescue and also to the solving of this very strange situation concerning these contracts. Indeed have you accomplished the mission for which you enlisted: your 'Friends for France.' But before procedure I must ask you, little lady, why it was that you made a vanishment from that hotel of Ritz-Carlton in New York. I sought you. I sought out that Monsieur Peter Scudder to inquire for you. Behold, he also is in sorrow over the loss of you and had for me a strange news of a cup of tea thrown in the face of that Mr. Raines of Saint Louis by a member of your family who had departed immediately into the south of America. I said to myself, 'The beautiful child does not know that your heart is in anxiety for her,' and immediately I intended to seek you in the city, to which the very fine lady, who had reported that 'tea fight' as she so spoke of it to her paper, directed me after my finding of her. It is a great ease to my unhappy heart to find you in the care of a family and friends. I make compliments on your costume of the ride. I also observed the custom of attire masculine to be on those plains of the great West where I sought the wheat."

"It is a great joy to me, mon Capitaine, that you give to me your approval. Much has happened to me in these short weeks since you left me in loneliness on that great ship that I must tell to you," I said as a sob rose into my words.

"Poor little girl, it will not be many hours now before I can say to you the things that have been growing in my heart for you since that night upon the ship," he said to me in a great tenderness as he raised my hand and bent to kiss it just as entered the great Gouverneur Faulkner and the wild Jim.

I had not the courage to gaze upon the face of my Gouverneur Faulkner, but I felt its coldness strike into my body and turn it to hardness.

For a second I stood as a stone, then a sudden resolve rose in me and again that daredevil seized upon my thought. I took a piece of that white paper with caution and also a pencil, and with them slipped from the room, while that wild Jim seated himself upon my lowly stool beside the table at which again the two great men were writing.

And out in the soft light that was now slowly fading from the side of the mountain because of the retirement of the sun, I sat me down upon the step of the hut and wrote to my Gouverneur Faulkner this small letter:

"Honored Excellency, the Gouverneur Faulkner, of the State of Harpeth:

"I go from you into the trenches of France. If your humble boy Robert has done for you any small service, I beg of you in that name that my Uncle, the General Robert, and my friends never know of my dishonor of lies about my woman's estate, but believe me to die as a soldier for France as will be the case. Make all clear for me to my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles. It is that all women are not lies. Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye."

Then I left that letter upon the doorstep, held in place by the weight of a stone, and very softly slipped out into the shadows of the twilight and down the mountain by the path up which that morning I had come with my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner, then my friend. I felt a certainty that as many as two hours would those men continue in a consulting with that wild Jim and in that time by going fleetingly I could gain the place where were tethered the horses, before a complete darkness had come. From my honored father I had learned the ways of woods in hunting and also I knew that the good Lightfoot would in darkness carry me in safety to his stall in the barn of Mr. Bud Bell, beside which stood my Cherry. From there I could gain the city of Hayesville in the dead hours of the night and in those same dead hours depart to France, after obtaining the money I had left in my desk and which I had earned by my labors and would not be in the act of stealing from the State of Harpeth. Only one night and day would I be alone in the forest and I did not care if a death should overtake me. In my body my heart was dead and why should I desire the life of that body?

And as I had planned I then accomplished. I discovered that Lightfoot at pasture and I quickly had placed the saddle upon him and had turned him down the mountain to choose a safe path for both himself and me. I did not look upon those cradles of fragrant boughs in which the boy Robert had lain at rest beside his great friend, the Gouverneur Faulkner, from whom he had stolen faith and affection.

"Why did not you also steal his pocketbook as he lay asleep beside you, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye?" I questioned myself with scorn and torture, as good Lightfoot crashed down from that Camp Heaven into the dark night.

And on we rode, the large horse with the woman upon his back, for a long night, through fragrant thickets that caught at my riding breeches with rose tendril fingers and under thick forests of budding trees, through whose branches of tender leaves the wise old stars looked down upon my bitter weeping with nothing of comfort, perhaps because they had grown of a hardness of heart from having seen so many tears of women drop in the silence of a lonely night.

Then came a dawn and a noon and a twilight through which I pushed forward the large horse with great cruelty, only pausing beside streams to allow that he drink of the water and also to throw myself down on my face and lap the cool refreshment like do all humble things. And, when at last the stars were again there to look down upon me, we arrived behind the barn of that Bud Bell to find all in the little house at rest. I thought of that small child in sleep in the arms of that woman, and a great sobbing came from my heart as I threw myself into my Cherry, after giving a supper to good Lightfoot, and fled down the long road to the distant city of Hayesville that lay away in the valley like a great nest of glowworms in a glade of the leaves of darkness. And among those glowworms I knew that more than a hundred friends to me were beginning to go into sleep with deep affection in their hearts for that Robert Carruthers whom wicked Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, was about to steal from them. I wept as I turned my Cherry through the back street and into the garage of my Uncle, the General Robert. Then I paused. All was quiet in the house and no light burned in the apartments of my beloved protector and relative. From the watch at my wrist I ascertained the hour to be half after ten o'clock, and I knew that he was safely in cards at that Club of Old Hickory, whose lists now bore the added one of another Robert Carruthers, man of honor and descendant of its founders. Also there was no light in the rear of the house in the apartment of that kind Kizzie, in whose affections I had made a large place. A dim light burned in the hall and I knew that there I would find my faithful chocolate Bonbon sitting upon a chair by the great door in a deep sleep. And in a very few minutes I so found him.

"It is hello there, good Bonbon," I greeted him.

"Howdy, Mr. Robert," he answered me by a very large smile with very white teeth set in his face of extreme blackness. "The Gen'l said to call him on the 'fome as soon as you come."

"That I will attend to from my apartment," I answered him and then ascended the wide dark stairway with feet which were as a weight to my ankles.

Very slowly I entered that apartment and turned on the bright light. All was in readiness for me, and on the small table under the glass case that contained that beflowered robe of state of the dead Grandmamma Carruthers stood a vase of very fresh and innocent young roses.

"I would that I could remain and fulfill the destiny of a woman of your house, Madam Grandmamma," I whispered to her lovely and smiling portrait on the wall opposite. "I am the last of the ladies Carruthers but I have made a forfeit of that destiny and I must go out in the night again in man's attire to a death that will tear asunder the tender flesh that you have borne. Good-bye!"

Then I made a commencement of a very rapid packing, in one of those bags which I had purchased from the kind gentleman in the City of New York, of what raiment I knew would be suitable for a man in very hurried traveling. I put into it the two suits of clothing for wear in the daytime, but I discarded all of my clothing for the pursuits of pleasure. The bag was at that moment full and I did not know that it could be closed. Then I bethought me of that brown coat that had upon it the blood which I had been allowed to shed for my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner who was now lost to me.

"That I will take and discard the night raiment, to sleep 'as is' in the manner spoken of by my friend, that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit," I counseled myself as I laid aside the silken garments that I did so like and placed in their stead the bloody coat of many wrinkles.

After all of that was accomplished I went into a hot bath and again quickly began to assume my man's clothing, while from my eyes dripped the slow tears that bleed from the heart of a woman.

"You must make a great hurry, thief Roberta, for it draws near midnight and that is the hour that the train departs to the North," I cautioned my weeping self. "At that hour you go forth into the world alone."

And then what ensued?

Very suddenly I heard the noise of a car being drawn to the curb in front of the house and the rapid steps of a man progress along the pavings of brick to the front door, at which he made a loud ringing. In not a moment was the good Bonbon at my door with a knocking.

"The Governor is here to see you, Mr. Robert," he informed me.

"What shall you do, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye?" I asked of myself. "How is it that you can be able to support the cold reproaches he will give to you while requiring that you stay to bring dishonor to your Uncle, the General Robert? You are caught in a trap as is an animal."

And then as I cowered there in my agony, very suddenly that terrible daredevil rose within me and gave to me a very strange counsel. As it was speaking to me my gaze was fixed upon the robe of state of the beautiful Grandmamma.

"Very well, then, that great Gouverneur Faulkner can give his chastisement and lay his commands upon the beautiful and wicked Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, in proper person, and not have the privilege of again addressing his faithful and devoted comrade Robert, who is dead. I, the Marquise Roberta of Grez and Bye, will accord to him an interview and in the language of this United States it will be 'some' interview!" With which resolve I turned to make an answer to the faithful Bonbon at the door.

"Where awaits His Excellency, the Gouverneur Faulkner?" I questioned to him.

"In the hall at the bottom of the steps," he made reply to me.

"Attend him into the large drawing room for a waiting and make all of the lights to burn. Say to him that I will descend in a very small space of time," I commanded.

"Yes, sir," he made reply and departed.



CHAPTER XX

"YOU ARE—MYSELF!"

And then in my wickedness I began to commit a desecration on the memory of my beautiful and honored Grandmamma Carruthers. I walked to that glass case in which reposed that gown of the beautiful flowered silk and took it therefrom and laid it upon a chair above the soiled riding breeches of corduroy I had so lately discarded. I opened the carved wooden box on the table underneath and took from it the silver slippers and the stockings of silk, also the lace fan and the silver band for the hair. Thereupon I walked to my mirror and commenced to make a toilet of great care but of a great rapidity.

My first action was to take down that lovelock and with the oil of roses to lay it in its accustomed place upon my cheek, which burned with a beautiful rose of shame and at the same moment with some other emotion that I did not understand; which emotion also made my eyes as bright as the night stars out in that Camp Heaven. The silver band held closely the rest of my mop and gave it the appearance of the very close coiffure which is the fashion of this day, and one very sweet young rose I put into it just above the curl with an effect of great and wicked beauty.

The coiffure having been accomplished, the rest of the toilet, from the slippers of the cloth of silver to the edge of fine old lace, now the color of rich cream, that rested upon the arch of my bare white breast was only a matter of a few moments, and then I stood away from my mirror and beheld myself therein.

"You are as beautiful as you are wicked, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, but you go to your death in a manner befitting a grande dame of your ancient house of France, whose daughters once showed the rabble how to approach a guillotine, costumed in magnificence. Descend for that cold knife to your heart!" And so speaking, I picked up my fan and made my way through the hall to the halfway of the wide steps. At that point a commotion occurred.

"Lordee! It's the old lady come to ha'nt!" exclaimed my good Bonbon and with a groan he fled into the darkness in the back regions of the house.

And it happened that his loud cry brought a response which came to me before I was quite in readiness for it. As I reached the last step of the wide staircase, under the bright light I raised my eyes, and behold, the Gouverneur Faulkner to whom I had descended for the purpose of mortal combat, stood before me!

And was it that cruel and wicked and cold Gouverneur Faulkner who was to scourge me and keep me in the house of my Uncle, the General Robert, for a dishonor? It was not. Before me stood a tall man who was of a great paleness and a terrible fatigue also, covered with the dust of a long, hard ride, with eyes that were full of a fear, who stood and looked at me with not one word of any kind.

Suddenly I bowed my head and stretched out my bare arms, the one of which bore the red scar from the wound suffered for him, and thus suppliant I waited to receive the reproaches that were due to me.

And for a long minute I waited and then again for another long period of time and no word came to me. Then I raised my head!

For all women now in the world who have the love of a man in their hearts, and for those unborn who will come into that possession, I pray that they may be given the opportunity to plant in the hearts of those men of their desire the seed of a fine loyalty and service and comradeship, and that they may some day look into his eyes and see that seed slowly expand into a great white flower of mate love, as I beheld bloom for me in the eyes of my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner. Long we stood there and looked into the soul of each other and let the flower grow, drinking from our hearts and the veins of our bodies until at last it was fully open; and then I went with a love cry into his arms held out to me, and pressed the heart of my soft woman's body close against his own.

"I think my heart has always known, though my mind's eyes were blind. God, if I had lost you into that hell of war, you daredevil!" he whispered and I tasted the salt of his tears on my lips.

"I am a lie," I whispered back to him.

"You are—myself," he laughed through a sob, and then, while with his large warm hand he held my throat as a person does the stem of a flower, he pressed his lips into mine until they reached to the heart within me. In a moment with my hands I held him back from me.

"I must go, my beloved, even as I have said," I cried to him. "I cannot stay to my dishonor and to the rage and unhappiness my Uncle, the General Robert, will experience when he discovers that a girl has cheated him in his great affection and generosity to her.

"It is going to be hard on the General to have his grandmother come to life on his hands like this," laughed my Gouverneur Faulkner, bending and placing upon the creamy lace of my Grandmamma a kiss which was warm to my heart through the beflowered silk.

"Let me die in those trenches so that he will never know," I pleaded.

"No, sweetheart, that would be too easy. You are going to stay right here and face the old Forty-Two Centimeter," he made a reply to my pleading request as he bent and laid his cheek upon the lovelock. "That curl ought to have opened my eyes when I sat and watched you open yours day before yesterday morning," was the remark he added to his cruel command that I stay and face my very dreadful and so very much beloved Uncle, the General Robert.

"I am afraid," I answered as I clung to him with a trembling.

"Yes, I know you are afraid of him—or anything," laughed my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner with a shake of my bare shoulders under his strong hands. "But perhaps these papers I have in my pocket from Captain Lasselles, who is at the Mansion getting rid of dust, will help you out after the first explosion, which you will have to stand in a very few minutes from now, if that hall clock is correct and I know the General's habits as I think I do."

"Oh, let me ascend and get once again into my trousers!" I exclaimed as I sought to leave the arms that again held me close.

"Never," said my Gouverneur Faulkner after another kiss upon the lace on my breast. "You'll just wear this ball gown until you can get some dimity, Madam, and don't you ever even mention to me—"

But just here an interruption arrived, and I sprang from the arms of my Gouverneur Faulkner only in time to avoid being discovered therein. My beloved Uncle, the General Robert, entered the door in a great hurry, with that much frightened Bonbon following close at his heels.

"What's all this that fool nigger phoned about ghosts walking and—" Then he stood very still in the spot upon which his feet were placed and regarded me as I turned from the arms of my Gouverneur Faulkner and faced him.

"My God, Governor, what has happened to my boy?" he asked, and his fine old face was of a great whiteness and trembling. "Sam says he's dead and the ghost—" and then came another pause in which all of the persons present held for a long minute their breath.

Did I make excuses and explanations and pleadings to my beloved Uncle, the General Robert, in such suffering over the death of that Robert? I did not. I opened my strong young arms wide and took him into them with a tenderness of such great force that it would of a necessity go into his very heart.

"I am a wicked girl who has come to you in lies as a boy, my Uncle Robert, but I have a love that is so great for you that I will be in death if you do not accept of it from me," I said as I pressed my cheek in its tears against his.

And for still another long minute all of the persons present waited again and I forced to remain in my throat a sob, while my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner laid one of his hands on the shoulder of my Uncle, the General Robert.

And then did come that explosion!

"You young limb of Satan, you! I could shake the life out of you if I didn't prefer a live girl to a dead boy. I knew just such a thing as this would happen to me in my old age for a long life of cussedness. And what's more, I'll wager I'll never be able to give a great husky thing like you away. You cost as much to feed as a man. Who'd want you?"

But even as he stormed at me I felt his strong old arms cease from their tremblings and clasp me with a very rough tenderness.

"I do, General," said my Gouverneur Faulkner as he attempted to take me from that very rough embrace of my Uncle, the General Robert. "I'll take her off your hands."

"No, sir, I never ask personal favors of my friends," answered my Uncle, the General Robert, as he held me away from the arms of the Gouverneur Faulkner with a very great determination.

"General Carruthers," then said my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner as he drew his beautiful body to all the height that was possible to him, and looked into the eyes of my beloved Uncle Robert with his own, which are stars of the dawn, so that all of his heart and soul and honor shone therefrom in a radiance, "the Marquise of Grez and Bye went a three days' journey into the wilds of the Harpeth mountains with me to rescue my honor and for the welfare of this great State and of France. And because we thought not of ourselves but of the welfare of Harpeth and of France, and did but what was necessary as two comrades, God has revealed to us his gift of gifts—love. As you see, she is returned to you radiant and unharmed. Have I your consent to try to win her hand in marriage?"

For no more than a long minute my Uncle, the General Robert, gazed straight into the eyes of my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner, and then a very beautiful smile did break from under those white swords crossed above his lips, as he spoke with a great urgency:

"Would you like to take the baggage along with you to-night, Governor? Don't leave her here. I don't want a woman about my house. I can wake up the county court clerk for a license," he said with a fine twinkling of the eye.

"Oh, but all friends must forgive me my deception; and then must not a courtship of great decorum be made from my Gouverneur Faulkner for the hand of the lady whom he would make his wife?" I asked with an uncertainty as I looked from my Uncle, the General Robert, to my Gouverneur Faulkner.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I think the Marquise is right and under the circumstances I'll have to make a very public courtship, which out of consideration for you I'll make as ardent and rapid as possible. Only we three know the wonderful truth and we'll keep it to ourselves." And as he spoke that great Gouverneur Faulkner bent and laid a kiss of great ceremony upon the hand of Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye.

"Very well, sir, I'll keep her for a few days and have her fitted out in a lot of folderols for you, but only for a short period, mind you. A very short period!" answered my Uncle, the General Robert, with a smile that showed much delight in me. I flew to him and gave to him an embrace with my arms and also laid my cheek against his.

"I am for always your most humble and obedient girl, my Uncle Robert," I whispered to him.

"Humble and obedient—no woman would know those words if she met them in her own drawing-room," he answered to me with a great scorn but he also gave to me a shake that was of a seeming great fierceness, but that I knew to be a caress.

And into that caress came also another interruption of great hurry. My Buzz entered the door with a rapidity and this exclamation:

"What's the trouble, General? I just got your phone and—" Then he too stood in a great and sudden stillness, regarding me as I stood from the shelter of the arms of my Uncle, the General Robert, and looked into his eyes of great fright.

"My Buzz," I said to him softly.

"Great heavens!" he exclaimed, with terror in his eyes as he backed away from me. "I haven't had but one glass of draft beer, General."

"It's all right, Buzz," answered my very wise Gouverneur Faulkner, in a voice of great soothing. "This is just—just Robert in a—a—"

"Not much Bobby, that," answered my Buzz as he backed farther towards the door. "I think I'll step outside in the cool air. I haven't felt well all day. I—" and with which remark my good Buzz turned himself into the arms of the lovely Mademoiselle Sue entering the door.

"I'm tired of waiting out there in that car, Buzz, and—" And again came an awful pause of terror. But is it not that women have a wit that is very much more rapid than is that of men? I think it is so.

"You know, I thought Bobby was a queer kind of man and he is a perfectly lovely girl," she said as she came towards me with a laugh and her lovely arms outstretched. "I read about two French girls who got into Germany in German uniforms, just last night in a magazine. You are some kind of a French spy about those dreadful mules, aren't you, Bobby dear?" And as she asked that question of me, my lovely Sue gave to me a kiss upon my lips that I valued with a great gratitude.

"Please make it that my Buzz also understands," I pleaded to her within her arms.

"Brace up, Buzz, and be nice to Bobby, even if he is a girl. Just when did you begin not to like girls, I'd like to know?" questioned my Sue of him with a great emphasis.

"You see why it is that I cannot go into that business of timber with you and be married to—" I made a commencement to say to him.

"That will do, L'Aiglon," interrupted my Buzz with a great haste and a glance in the direction of lovely Sue. "Forget it! It is an awful shame, for you were one nice youngster and—"

"Be a sport, Buzz, and forgive her and—love her again," said my Gouverneur Faulkner with a laugh. "That is, as much as Miss Susan will—" But at this point my Uncle, the General Robert, caused an interruption in the conversation.

"What are you doing here, sir, when I left you to watch the side-steps of that French popinjay and the Whitworth woman? Did you hear what all that powwow was about at her tea fight this afternoon?" he demanded of fine Buzz, with a great anxiety. "There's been hell to pay, since you left, Governor, and I think this French scoundrel and Jeff's gang are preparing to put through some sort of a private steal if you jump the track on them."

"Madam Pat has got 'em all up at the Club, plotting in a corner at the little dinner dance we got up when his High-and-Mightiness refused the rural expedition, as soon as they heard you were not to go, Governor," said my Buzz with a great anxiety in his face. "I'd like to see anybody put out Mrs. Pat's light when she is once lit."

"It's all right, Buzz, and don't worry. Something has arrived to stop it all. It's up at the Mansion now and is man-sized," answered my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner with a great soothing.

And after that remark there were many very long explanations that made a beginning about the crooked back of the wee Pierre, which, in a letter come to my Uncle, the General Robert, that day, was declared by that great Doctor Burns to be of a certainty straight within the year, and that ended in the library where my Uncle, the General Robert, and my Gouverneur Faulkner, with good Buzz, read and read yet again the papers that my great Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, had signed for an honest delivery of the many mules to France. I do not know all that my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner said to my Uncle, the General Robert, for I remained in the hall with my Sue in a discussion about the telling without offense of the departure of Robert Carruthers to my Belle and other loved ones. And to us soon returned my Buzz of great curiosity.

"There is no humbleness that I will not perform for their forgiveness, my Buzz and my Sue," I said to them. "Seek that they grant it to me."

"Oh, it will be so exciting and up-to-date with its spy and war flavor that everybody will forgive you. You are a lovely darling and they'll all be glad you are a girl—all the boys especially," said to me my Sue, with a defiance at my Buzz.

"Sure, Bobbyette, I'll see that you're no wall-flower," he made answer to her in the person of me, with a return of that defiance. "Come on, Susan, let me take you home. Good night, old top—no, I mean belle Marquise" and it was a very funny thing to see that Buzz with a great awkwardness, bend and kiss my hand at a laugh from my Sue as they left me.

It was not for many moments that I stood alone in the hall after the departure of my Sue and my Buzz, before there entered my beloved Uncle, the General Robert, and also my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner, who came to stand, one upon the one side of me and one upon the other.

"Sure you wouldn't like to take her along with you to-night, Governor?" again asked my Uncle, the General Robert, with a great fierceness but also a twinkling of the eye.

"Only as far as your garden for a few minutes, General," answered my Gouverneur Faulkner with that laugh of a boy I had remarked once before up in those mountains of Old Harpeth, and he took my hand in his as if to lead me through one of the tall windows out into the fragrant night.

"All right, take her and don't return her until you have to," remarked my Uncle, the General Robert, as he handed me in the direction of my Gouverneur Faulkner and immediately took his departure up the stairs.

And it was under the light of the old moon, in the garden of those grande dames Carruthers, that Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, who is the last of their line, walked with the great gentleman who was and is her lover. Is it that those beautiful dead Grandmammas each planted her flowers in her own great happiness so that they would give forth a very tender perfume in which to enfold the wooings of their daughters then not come into the world? I think it is so, and I was thus enwrapped in their fragrance as I was in the arms of that great Gouverneur Faulkner.

"Now I am a truth that I do love you," I made answer to a question that was pressed upon my lips.

"His woman is God's gift of truth to a man," were the words that were heard by those listening flowers and Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, who from a world at war had come home.

THE END