"Thank you. Mrs. Craigmile accompanies him, I suppose?"

"It is not likely, no. Her health demands—ahem—a little longer rest and change."

"Ah! The Elder not called back by—for any particular reason? No. Business going well? Good. I'm told there's a great deal of depression."

"Oh, in a way—there may be,—but we're all of the conservative sort here in Leauvite. We're not likely to feel it if there is. Good afternoon."

No one paid any attention to Harry King as he walked out after the Leauvite Mercury reporter, except Mr. Copeland, who glanced at him keenly as he passed his desk. Then, looking at his watch, he came out of his corral and turned the key in the bank door.

"We'll have no more interruptions now," he said, as he paused at the teller's window. "You know the young man who just went out?"

"Sam Carter of the Mercury. Old Billings no doubt sent him in to learn how we stand."

"No, no, no. Sam Carter—I know him. Who's the young man who followed him out?"

"I don't know. Here's his signature. He's just made a big deposit on long time—only one thousand on call. Unusual these days."

Mr. Copeland's eyes glittered an instant. "Good. That's something. I decided to give the town people to understand that there is no need for their anxiety. It's the best policy, and when the Elder returns, he may be induced to withdraw his insane offer of reward. Ten thousand dollars! It's ridiculous, when the young men may both be dead, for all the world will ever know."

"If we could do that—but I've known the Elder too long to hope for it. This deposit stands for a year, see? And the ten thousand the Elder has set one side for the reward gives us twenty thousand we could not count on yesterday."

"In all the history of this bank we never were in so tight a place. It's extraordinary, and quite unnecessary. That's a bright boy—Sam Carter. I never thought of his putting such a construction on it when I admitted the fact that Mrs. Craigmile is to remain. Two big banks closed in Chicago this morning, and twenty small ones all over the country during the last three days. One goes and hauls another down. If we had only cabled across the Atlantic two weeks ago when I sent that letter—he must have the letter by now—and if he has, he's on the ocean."

"This deposit tides us over a few days, and, as I said, if we could only get our hands on that reserve of the Elder's, we'd be safe whatever comes."

"He'll have to bend his will for once. He must be made to see it, and we must get our hands on it. I think he will. He'd cut off his right hand before he'd see this bank go under."

"It's his son's murder that's eating into his heart. He's been losing ground ever since."

The clerks gradually disappeared, quietly slipping out into the sunshine one by one as their books were balanced, and now the two men stood alone. It was a time used by them for taking account of the bank's affairs generally, and they felt the stability of that institution to be quite personal to them.

"I've seen that young man before," said Mr. Copeland. "Now, who is he? Harry King—Harry King,—the Kings moved away from here—twelve years ago—wasn't it? Their son would not be as old as this man."

"Boys grow up fast. You never can tell."

"The Kings were a short, thickset lot."

"He may not be one of them. He said nothing about ever having been here before. I never talk with any one here at the window. It's quite against my rules for the clerks, and has to be so for myself, of course. I leave that sort of thing to you and the Elder."

"I say—I've seen him before—the way he walks—the way he carries his head—there's a resemblance somewhere."

The two men also departed, after looking to the safe, and the last duties devolving on them, seeing that all was locked and double-locked. It was a solemn duty, always attended to solemnly.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE ARREST

Sam Carter loitered down the street after leaving the bank, and when Harry King approached, he turned with his ready smile and accosted him.

"Pleasant day. I see you're a stranger here, and I thought I might get an item from you. Carter's my name, and I'm doing the reporting for the Mercury. Be glad to make your acquaintance. Show you round a little."

Harry was nonplussed for a moment. Such things did not use to occur in this old-fashioned place as running about the streets picking up items from people and asking personal questions for the paper to exploit the replies. He looked twice at Sam Carter before responding.

"Thank you, I—I've been here before. I know the place pretty well."

"Very pretty place, don't you think so? Mean to stop for some time?"

"I hardly know as yet." Harry King mused a little, then resolved to break his loneliness by accepting the casual acquaintance, and to avoid personalities about himself by asking questions about the town and those he used to know, but whom he preferred not to see. It was an opportunity. "Yes, it is a pretty place. Have you been here long?"

"I've been here—let's see. About three years—maybe a little less. You must have been away from Leauvite longer than that, I judge. I've never left the place since I came and I never saw you before. No wonder I thought you a stranger."

"I may call myself one—yes. A good many changes since you came?"

"Oh, yes. See the new courthouse? It's a beauty,—all solid stone,—cost fifty thousand dollars. The Mercury had a great deal to do with bringing it about,—working up enthusiasm and the like,—but there is a great deal of depression just now, and taxes running up. People think government is taking a good deal out of them for such public buildings, but, Lord help us! the government is needing money just now as much as the people. It's hard to be public spirited when taxes are being raised. You have people here?"

"Not now—no. Who's mayor here now?"

"Harding—Harding of the iron works. He makes a good one, too. There's the new courthouse. The jail is underneath at the back. See the barred windows? No breaking out of there. Three prisoners did break out of the old one during the year this building was under construction,—each in a different way, too,—shows how badly they needed a new one. Quite an ornament to the square, don't you think so?"

"The jail?"

"No, no,—The building as a whole. Better go over it while you're here."

"I may—do so—yes."

"Staying some time, I believe you said."

"Did I? I may have said so."

"Staying at the hotel, I believe?"

"Yes, and here we are." Harry King stood an instant—undecided. Certain things he wished to know, but had not the courage to ask—not on the street—but maybe seated on the veranda he could ask this outsider, in a casual way. "Drop in with me and have a smoke."

"I will, thank you. I often run in,—in the way of business,—but I haven't tried it as a stopping place. Meals pretty good?"

"Very good." They took seats at the end of the piazza where Harry King led the way. The sun was now low, but the air was still warm enough for comfort, and no one was there but themselves, for it lacked an hour to the return of the omnibus and the arrival of the usual loafers who congregated at that time.

"You've made a good many acquaintances since you came, no doubt?"

"Well—a good many—yes."

"Know the Craigmiles?"

"The Craigmiles? There's no one there to know—now—but the Elder. Oh, his wife, of course, but she stays at home so close no one ever sees her. They're away now, if you want to see them."

"And she never goes out—you say?"

"Never since I've been in the town. You see, there was a tragedy in the family. Just before I came it happened, and I remember the town was all stirred up about it. Their son was murdered."

Harry King gave a quick start, then gathered himself up in strong control and tilted his chair back against the wall.

"Their son murdered?" he asked. "Tell me about it. All you know."

"That's just it—nobody knows anything. They know he was murdered, because he disappeared completely. The young man was called Peter Junior, after his father, of course—and he was the one that was murdered. They found every evidence of it. It was there on the bluff, above the wildest part of the river, where the current is so strong no man could live a minute in it. He would be dashed to death in the flood, even if he were not killed in the fall from the brink, and that young man was pushed over right there."

"How did they know he was pushed over?"

"They knew he was. They found his hat there, and it was bloody, as if he had been struck first, and a club there, also bloody,—and it is believed he was killed first and then pushed over, for there is the place yet, after three years, where the earth gave way with the weight of something shoved over the edge. Well, would you believe it—that old man has kept the knowledge of it from his wife all this time. She thinks her son quarreled with his father and went off, and that he will surely return some day."

"And no one in the village ever told her?"

"All the town have helped the old Elder to keep it from her. You'd think such a thing impossible, wouldn't you? But it's the truth. The old man bribed the Mercury to keep it out, and, by jiminy, it was done! Here, in a town of this size where every one knows all about every one else's affairs—it was done! It seems people took an especial interest in keeping it from her, yet every one was talking about it, and so I heard all there was to hear. Hallo! What are you doing here?"

This last remark was addressed to Nels Nelson, who appeared just below them and stood peering up at them through the veranda railing.

"I yust vaiting for Meestair Stiles. He tol' me vait for heem here."

"Mr. Stiles? Who's he?"

"Dere he coomin'."

As he spoke G. B. Stiles came through the hotel door and walked gravely up to them. Something in his manner, and in the expectant, watchful eye of the Swede, caused them both to rise. At the same moment, Kellar, the sheriff, came up the front steps and approached them, and placing his hand on Harry King's shoulder, drew from his pocket a pair of handcuffs.

"Young man, it is my duty to arrest you. Here is my badge—this is quite straight—for the murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr."

The young man neither moved nor spoke for a moment, and as he stood thus the sheriff took him by the arm, and roused him. "Richard Kildene, you are under arrest for the murder of your cousin, Peter Craigmile, Jr."

With a quick, frantic movement, Harry King sprang back and thrust both men violently from him. The red of anger mounted to his hair and throbbed in his temples, then swept back to his heart, and left him with a deathlike pallor.

"Keep back. I'm not Richard Kildene. You have the wrong man. Peter Craigmile was never murdered."

The big Swede leaped the piazza railing and stood close to him, while the sheriff held him pinioned, and Sam Carter drew out his notebook.

"You know me, Mr. Kellar,—stand off, I say. I am Peter Craigmile. Look at me. Put away those handcuffs. It is I, alive, Peter Craigmile, Jr."

"That's a very clever plea, but it's no go," said G. B. Stiles, and proceeded to fasten the irons on his wrists.

"Yas, I know you dot man keel heem, all right. I hear you tol' some von you keel heem," said the Swede, slowly, in suppressed excitement.

"You're a very good actor, young man,—mighty clever,—but it's no go. Now you'll walk along with us if you please," said Mr. Kellar.

"But I tell you I don't please. It's a mistake. I am Peter Craigmile, Jr., himself, alive."

"Well, if you are, you'll have a chance to prove it, but evidence is against you. If you are he, why do you come back under an assumed name during your father's absence? A little hitch there you did not take into consideration."

"I had my reasons—good ones—I—came back to confess to the—un—un—witting—killing of my cousin, Richard." He turned from one to the other, panting as if he had been running a race, and threw out his words impetuously. "I tell you I came here for the very purpose of giving myself up—but you have the wrong man."

By this time a crowd had collected, and the servants were running from their work all over the hotel, while the proprietor stood aloof with staring eyes.

"Here, Mr. Decker, you remember me—Elder Craigmile's son? Some of you must remember me."

But the proprietor only wagged his head. He would not be drawn into the thing. "I have no means of knowing who you are—no more than Adam. The name you wrote in my book was Harry King."

"I tell you I had my reasons. I meant to wait here until the Elder's—my father's return and—"

"And in the meantime we'll put you in a quiet little apartment, very private, where you can wait, while we look into things a bit."

"You needn't take me through the streets with these things on; I've no intention of running away. Let me go to my room a minute."

"Yes, and put a bullet through your head. I've no intention of running any risks now we have you," said the detective.

"Now you have who? You have no idea whom you have. Take off these shackles until I pay my bill. You have no objection to that, have you?"

They turned into the hotel, and the handcuffs were removed while the young man took out his pocketbook and paid his reckoning. Then he turned to them.

"I must ask you to accompany me to my room while I gather my toilet necessities together." This they did, G. B. Stiles and the sheriff walking one on either side, while the Swede followed at their heels. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, turning suddenly upon the stable man.

"Oh, I yust lookin' a leetle out."

"Mr. Stiles, what does this mean, that you have that man dogging me?"

"It's his affair, not mine. He thinks he has a certain interest in you."

Then he turned in exasperation to the sheriff. "Can you give me a little information, Mr. Kellar? What has that Swede to do with me? Why am I arrested for the murder of my own self—preposterous! I, a man as alive as you are? You can see for yourself that I am Elder Craigmile's son. You know me?"

"I know the Elder fairly well—every one in Leauvite knows him, but I can't say as I've ever taken particular notice of his boy, and, anyway, the boy was murdered three years ago—a little over—for it was in the fall of the year—well, that's most four years—and I must say it's a mighty clever dodge, as Mr. Stiles says, for you to play off this on us. It's a matter that will bear looking into. Now you sit down here and hold on to yourself, while I go through your things. You'll get them all, never fear."

Then Harry King sat down and looked off through the open window, and paid no heed to what the men were doing. They might turn his large valise inside out and read every scrap of written paper. There was nothing to give the slightest clew to his identity. He had left the envelope addressed to the Elder, containing the letters he had written, at the bank, to be placed in the safety vault, and not to be delivered until ordered to do so by himself.

As they finished their search and restored the articles to his valise, he asked again that the handcuffs be left off as he walked through the streets.

"I have no desire to escape. It is my wish to go with you. I only wish I might have seen the—my father first. He could not have helped me—but he would have understood—it would have seemed less—"

He could not go on, and the sheriff slipped the handcuffs in his pocket, and they proceeded in silence to the courthouse, where he listened to the reading of the warrant and his indictment in dazed stupefaction, and then walked again in silence between his captors to the jail in the rear.

"No one has ever been in this cell," said Mr. Kellar. "I'm doing the best I can for you."

"How long must I stay here? Who brings accusation?"

"I don't know how long: as this is a murder charge you can't be bailed out, and the trial will take time. The Elder brings accusation—naturally."

"When is he expected home?"

"Can't say. You'll have some one to defend you, and then you can ask all the questions you wish." The sheriff closed the heavy door and the key was turned.

Then began weary days of waiting. If it had been possible to get the trial over with, Harry would have been glad, but it made little difference to him now, since the step had been taken, and a trial in his case would only be a verdict, anyway—and confession was a simple thing, and the hearing also.

The days passed, and he wondered that no one came to him—no friend of the old time. Where were Bertrand Ballard and Mary? Where was little Betty? Did they not know he was in jail? He did not know that others had been arrested on the same charge and released, more than once. True, no one had made the claim of being the Elder's own son and the murdered man himself. As such incidents were always disturbing to Betty, when Bertrand read the notice of the arrest in the Mercury, the paper was laid away in his desk and his little daughter was spared the sight of it this time.

But he spoke of the matter to his wife. "Here is another case of arrest for poor Peter Junior's murder, Mary. The man claims to be Peter Junior himself, but as he registered at the hotel under an assumed name it is likely to be only another attempt to get the reward money by some detective. It was very unwise for the Elder to make it so large a sum."

"It can't be. Peter Junior would never be so cruel as to stay away all this time, if he were alive, no matter how deeply he may have quarreled with his father. I believe they both went over the bluff and are both dead."

"It stands to reason that one or the other body would have been found in that case. One might be lost, but hardly both. The search was very thorough, even down to the mill race ten miles below."

"The current is so swift there, they might have been carried over the race, and on, before the search began. I think so, although no one else seems to."

"I wish the Elder would remove that temptation of the reward. It is only an inducement to crime. Time alone will solve the mystery, and as long as he continues to brood over it, he will go on failing in health. It's coming to an obsession with him to live to see Richard Kildene hung, and some one will have to swing for it if he has his way. Now he will return and find this man in jail, and will bend every effort, and give all his thought toward getting him convicted."

"But I thought you said they do not hang in this state."

"True—true. But imprisonment for life is—worse. I'm thinking of what the Elder would like could he have his way."

"Bertrand—I believe the Elder is sure the man will be found and that it will kill his wife, when she comes to know that Peter Junior was murdered, and that is why he took her to Scotland. She told me she was sure her son was there, or would go to see his great aunts there, and that is why she consented to go—but I'm sure the Elder wished to get her out of the way."

"Strange—strange," said Bertrand. "After all, it is better to forgive. No one knows what transpired, and Richard is the real sufferer."

"Do you suppose he'll leave Hester there, Bertrand?"

"I hardly think she would be left, but it is impossible to tell. A son's loss is more than any other—to a mother."

"Do you think so, Bertrand? It would be hardest of all to lose a husband, and the Elder has failed so much since Peter Junior's death."

"Peter Junior seems to be the only one who has escaped suffering in this tragedy. Remorse in Richard's case, and stubborn anger in the Elder's—they are emotions that take large toll out of a man's vitality. If ever Richard is found, he will not be the young man we knew."

"Unless he is innocent. All this may have been an accident."

"Then why is he staying in hiding?"

"He may have felt there was no way to prove his innocence."

"Well, there is another reason why the Elder should withdraw his offer of a reward, and when he comes back, I mean to try what can be done once more. Everything would have to be circumstantial. He will have a hard time to prove his nephew's guilt."

"I can't see why he should try to prove it. It must have been an accident—at the last. Of course it might have been begun in anger, in a moment of misunderstanding, but the nature of the boys would go to show that it never could have been done intentionally. It is impossible."



CHAPTER XXX

THE ARGUMENT

"Mr. Ballard, either my son was murdered, or he was a murderer. The crime falls upon us, and the disgrace of it, no matter how you look at it." The Elder sat in the back room at the bank, where his friend had been arguing with him to withdraw the offer of a reward for the arrest. "It's too late, now—too late. The man's found and he claims to be my son. You're a kindly man, Mr. Ballard, but a blind one."

Bertrand drew his chair closer to the Elder's, as if by so doing he might establish a friendlier thought in the man's heart. "Blind? Blind, Elder Craigmile?"

"I say blind. I see. I see it all." The Elder rose and paced the floor. "The boys fought, there on the bluff, and sought to kill each other, and for the same cause that has wrought most of the evil in the world. Over the love of a woman they fought. Peter carried a blackthorn stick that ought never to have been in my house—you know, for you brought it to me—and struck his cousin with it, and at the same instant was pushed over the brink, as Richard intended."

"How do you know that Richard was not pushed over? How do you know that he did not fall over with his cousin? How can you dare work for a man's conviction on such slight evidence?"

"How do I know? Although you would favor that—that—although—" The Elder paused and struggled for control, then sat weakly down and took up the argument again with trembling voice. "Mr. Ballard, I would spare you—much of this matter which has been brought to my knowledge—but I cannot—because it must come out at the trial. It was over your little daughter, Betty, that they fought. She has known all these years that Richard Kildene murdered her lover."

"Elder—Elder! Your brooding has unbalanced your mind."

"Wait, my friend. This falls on you with but half the burden that I have borne. My son was no murderer. Richard Kildene is not only a murderer, but a coward. He went to your daughter while we were dragging the river for my poor boy's body, and told her he had murdered her lover; that he pushed him over the bluff and that he intended to do so. Now he adds to his crime—by—coming here—and pretending—to be—my son. He shall hang. He shall hang. If he does not, there is no justice in heaven." The Elder looked up and shook his hand above his head as if he defied the whole heavenly host.

Bertrand Ballard sat for a moment stunned. Such a preposterous turn was beyond his comprehension. Strangely enough his first thought was a mere contradiction, and he said: "Men are not hung in this state. You will not have your wish." He leaned forward, with his elbows on the great table and his head in his hands; then, without looking up, he said: "Go on. Go on. How did you come by this astounding information? Was it from Betty?"

"Then may he be shut in the blackest dungeon for the rest of his life. No, it was not from Betty. Never. She has kept this terrible secret well. I have not seen your daughter—not—since—since this was told me. It has been known to the detective and to my attorney, Milton Hibbard, for two years, and to me for one year—just before I offered the increased reward to which you so object. I had reason."

"Then it is as I thought. Your offer of ten thousand dollars reward has incited the crime of attempting to convict an innocent man. Again I ask you, how did you come by this astounding information?"

"By the word of an eyewitness. Sit still, Mr. Ballard, until you hear the whole; then blame me if you can. A few years ago you had a Swede working for you in your garden. You boarded him. He slept in a little room over your summer kitchen; do you remember?"

"Yes."

"He saw Richard Kildene come to the house when we were all away—while you were with me—your wife with mine,—and your little daughter alone. This Swede heard all that was said, and saw all that was done. His testimony alone will—"

"Convict a man? It is greed! What is your detective working for and why does this Swede come forward at this late day with his testimony? Greed! Elder Craigmile, how do you know that this testimony is not all made up between them? I will go home and ask Betty, and learn the truth."

"And why does the young man come here under an assumed name, and when he is discovered, claim to be my son? The only claim he could make that could save him! If he knows anything, he knows that if he pretends he is my son—laboring under the belief that he has killed Richard Kildene—when he knows Richard's death can be disproved by your daughter's statement that she saw and talked with Richard—he knows that he may be released from the charge of murder and may establish himself here as the man whom he himself threw over the bluff, and who, therefore, can never return to give him the lie. I say—if this is proved on him, he shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law, or there is no justice in the land."

Bertrand rose, sadly shaken. "This is a very terrible accusation, my friend. Let us hope it may not be proved true. I will go home and ask Betty. You will take her testimony before that of the Swede?"

"If you are my friend, why are you willing my son should be proven a murderer? It is a deep-laid scheme, and Richard Kildene walks close in his father's steps. I have always seen his father in him. I tried to save him for my sister's sake. I brought him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and did for him all that fathers do for their sons, and now I have the fool's reward—the reward of the man who warmed the viper in his bosom. He, to come here and sit in my son's place—to eat bread at my table—at my wife's right hand—with her smile in his eyes? Rather he shall—"

"We will find out the truth, and, if possible, you shall be saved from yourself, Elder Craigmile, and your son will not be proven a murderer. Let me still be your friend." Bertrand's voice thrilled with suppressed emotion and the sympathy he could not utter, as he held out his hand, which the Elder took in both his own shaking ones. His voice trembled with suppressed emotion as he spoke.

"Pray God Hester may stay where she is until this thing is over. And pray God you may not be blinded by love of your daughter, who was not true to my son. She was promised to become his wife, but through all these years she protects by her silence the murderer of her lover. Ponder on this thought, Bertrand Ballard, and pray God you may have the strength to be just."

Bertrand walked homeward with bowed head. It was Saturday. The day's baking was in progress, and Mary Ballard was just removing a pan of temptingly browned tea cakes from the oven when he entered. She did not see his face as he asked, "Mary, where can I find Betty?"

"Upstairs in the studio, drawing. Where would you expect to find her?" she said gayly. Something in her husband's voice touched her. She hastily lifted the cakes from the pan and ran after him.

"What is it, dear?"

He was halfway up the stairs and he turned and came back to her. "I've heard something that troubles me, and must see her alone, Mary. I'll talk with you about it later. Don't let us be disturbed until we come down."

"I think Janey is with her now."

"I'll send her down to you."

"Bertrand, it is something terrible! You are trying to spare me—don't do it."

"Ask no questions."

"Tell Janey I want her to help in the kitchen."

Mary went back to her work in silence. If Bertrand wished to be alone with Betty, he had a good reason; and presently Janey skipped in and was set to paring the potatoes for dinner.

Bertrand found Betty bending closely over a drawing for which she had no model, but which was intended to illustrate a fairy story. She was using pen and ink, and trying to imitate the fine strokes of a steel engraving. He stood at her side, looking down at her work a moment, and his artist's sense for the instant crowded back other thoughts.

"You ought to have a model, daughter, and you should work in chalk or charcoal for your designing."

"I know, father, but you see I am trying to make some illustrations that will look like what are in the magazines. I'm making fairies, father, and you know I can't find any models, so I have to make them up."

"Put that away. I have some questions to ask you."

"What's the matter, daddy? You look as if the sky were falling." He had seated himself on the long lounge where she had once sat and chatted with Peter Junior. She recalled that day. It was when he kissed her for the first time. Her cheeks flushed hotly as they always did now when she thought of it, and her eyes were sad. She went over and established herself at her father's side.

"What is it, daddy, dear?"

"Betty,"—he spoke sternly, as she had never heard him before,—"have you been concealing something from your father and mother—and from the world—for the last three years and a half?"

Her head drooped, the red left her cheeks, and she turned white to the lips. She drew away from her father and clasped her hands in her lap, tightly. She was praying for strength to tell the truth. Ah, could she do it? Could she do it! And perhaps cause Richard's condemnation? Had they found him?—that father should ask such a question now, after so long a time?

"Why do you ask me such a question, father?"

"Tell me the truth, child."

"Father! I—I—can't," and her voice died away to a whisper.

"You can and you must, Betty."

She rose and stood trembling before him with clinched hands. "What has happened? Tell me. It is not fair to ask me such a question unless you tell me why." Then she dropped upon her knees and hid her face against his sleeve. "If you don't tell me what has happened, I will never speak again. I will be dumb, even if they kill me."

He put his arm tenderly about the trembling little form, and the act brought the tears and he thought her softened. He knew, as Mary had often said, that "Betty could not be driven, but might be led."

"Tell father all about it, little daughter." But she did not open her lips. He waited patiently, then asked again, kindly and persistently, "What have you been hiding, Betty?" but she only sobbed on. "Betty, if you do not tell me now and here, you will be taken into court and made to tell all you know before all the world! You will be proven to have been untrue to the man you were to marry and who loved you, and to have been shielding his murderer."

"Then it is Richard. They have found him?" She shrank away from her father and her sobs ceased. "It has come at last. Father—if—if—I had—been married to Richard—then would they make me go in court and testify against him?"

"No. A wife is not compelled to give testimony against her husband, nor may she testify for him, either."

Betty rose and straightened herself defiantly; with flaming cheeks and flashing eyes she looked down upon him.

"Then I will tell one great lie—father—and do it even if—if it should drag me down to—hell. I will say I am married to Richard—and will swear to it." Bertrand was silent, aghast. "Father! Where is Richard?"

"He is there in Leauvite, in jail. You must do what is right in the eye of God, my child, and tell the truth."

"If I tell the truth,—they will do what is right in their own eyes. They don't know what is right in the eye of God. If they drag me into court—there before all the world I will lie to them until I drop dead. Has—has—the Elder seen him?"

"Not yet. He refused to see him until the trial."

"He is a cruel, vindictive old man. Does he think it will bring Peter back to life again to hang Richard? Does he think it will save his wife from sorrow, or—or bring any one nearer heaven to do it?"

"If Richard has done the thing he is accused of doing, he deserves the extremest rigor of the law."

"Father! Don't let the Elder make you hard like himself. What is he accused of doing?"

"He is making claim that he is Peter Junior, and that he has come back to Leauvite to give himself up for the murder of his cousin, Richard Kildene. He thinks, no doubt, that you will say that you know Richard is living, and that he has not killed him, and in that way he thinks to escape punishment, by proving that Peter also is living, and is himself. Do you see how it is? He has chosen to live here an impostor rather than to live in hiding as an outcast, and is trading on his likeness to his cousin to bear him out. I had hoped that it was all a detective's lie, got up for the purpose of getting hold of the reward money, but now I see it is true—the most astounding thing a man ever tried."

"Did he send you to me?"

"No, child. I have not seen him."

"Father Bertrand Ballard! Have you taken some detective's word and not even tried to see him?"

"Child, child! He is playing a desperate game, and taking an ignoble part. He is doing a dastardly thing, and the burden is laid on you to confess to the secret you have been hiding and tell the truth."

Bertrand spoke very sadly, and Betty's heart smote her for his sorrow; yet she felt the thing was impossible for Richard to do, and that she must hold the secret a little longer—all the more because even her father seemed now to credit the terrible accusation. She threw her arms about his neck and implored him.

"Oh, father, dear! Take me to the jail to see him, and after that I will try to do what is right. I can think clearer after I have seen him."

"I don't know if that will be allowed—but—"

"It will have to be allowed. How can I say if it is Richard until I see him. It may not be Richard. The Elder is too blinded to even go near him, and dear Mrs. Craigmile is not here. Some one ought to go in fairness to Richard—who loves—" She choked and could say no more.

"I will talk to your mother first. There is another thing that should soften your heart to the Elder. All over the country there is financial trouble. Banks are going to pieces that never were in trouble before, and Elder Craigmile's bank is going, he fears. It will be a terrible crash, and we fear he may not outlive the blow. I tell you this, even though you may not understand it, to soften your heart toward him. He considers it in the nature of a disgrace."

"Yes. I understand, better than you think." Betty's voice was sad, and she looked weary and spent. "If the bank breaks, it breaks the Elder's heart. All the rest he could stand, but not that. The bank, the bank! He tried to sacrifice Peter Junior to that bank. He would have broken Peter's heart for that bank, as he has his wife's; for if it had not been for Peter's quarrel with his father, first of all, over it, I don't believe all the rest would have happened. Peter told me a lot. I know."

"Betty, did you never love Peter Junior? Tell father."

"I thought I did. I thought I knew I did,—but when Richard came home—then—I—I—knew I had made a terrible mistake; but, father, I meant to stand by Peter—and never let anybody know until—Oh, father, need I tell any more?"

"No, my dear. You would better talk with your mother."

Bertrand Ballard left the studio more confused in his mind, and yet both sadder and wiser then he had ever been in his life. He had seen a little way into his small daughter's soul, and conceived of a power of spirit beyond him, although he considered her both unreasonable and wrong. He grieved for her that she had carried such a great burden so bravely and so long. How great must have been her love, or her infatuation! The pathetic knowledge hardened his heart toward the young man in the jail, and he no longer tried to defend him in his thoughts.

He sent Mary up to talk with Betty, and that afternoon they all walked over to the jail; for Mary could get no nearer her little daughter's confidence, and no deeper into the heart of the matter than Betty had allowed her father to go.



CHAPTER XXXI

ROBERT KATER'S SUCCESS

"Halloo! So it's here!" Robert Kater stood by a much-littered table and looked down on a few papers and envelopes which some one had laid there during his absence. All day long he had been wandering about the streets of Paris, waiting—passing the time as he could in his impatience—hoping for the communication contained in one of these very envelopes. Now that it had come he felt himself struck with a singular weakness, and did not seize it and tear it open. Instead, he stood before the table, his hands in his pockets, and whistled softly.

He made the tour of the studio several times, pausing now and then to turn a canvas about, apparently as if he would criticize it, looking at it but not regarding it, only absently turning one and another as if it were a habit with him to do so; then returning to the table he stirred the envelopes apart with one finger and finally separated one from the rest, bearing an official seal, and with it a small package carefully secured and bearing the same seal, but he did not open either. "Yes, it's here, and that's the one," he said, but he spoke to himself, for there was no one else in the room.

He moved wearily away, keeping the packet in his hand, but leaving the envelope on the table, and hung his hat upon a point of an easel and wiped his damp brow. As he did so, he lifted the dark brown hair from his temple, showing a jagged scar. Quickly, as if with an habitual touch, he rearranged the thick, soft lock so that the scar was covered, and mounting a dais, seated himself on a great thronelike chair covered with a royal tiger skin. The head of the tiger, mounted high, with glittering eyes and fangs showing, rested on the floor between his feet, and there, holding the small packet in his hand, with elbows resting on the arms of the throne, he sat with head dropped forward and shoulders lifted and eyes fixed on the tiger's head.

For a long time he sat thus in the darkening room. At last it grew quite dark. Only the great skylight over his head showed a defined outline. The young man had had no dinner and no supper, for his pockets were empty and his last sou gone. If he had opened the envelopes, he would have found money, and more than money, for he would have learned that the doors of the Salon had opened to him and the highest medal awarded him, and that for which he had toiled and waited and hoped,—for which he had staked his last effort and sacrificed everything, was won. He was recognized, and all Paris would quickly know it, and not Paris only, but all the world. But when he would open the envelope, his hands fell slack, and there it still lay on the table concealed by the darkness.

Down three flights of stairs in the court a strange and motley group were collecting, some bearing candles, all masked, some fantastically dressed and others only concealed by dominoes. The stairs went up on the outer wall of this inner court, past the windows of the basement occupied by the concierge and his wife and pretty daughter, and entered the building on the first floor above. By this arrangement the concierge could always see from his window who mounted them.

"Look, mamma." The pretty daughter stood peering out, her face framed in the white muslin curtains. "Look. See the students. Ah, but they are droll!"

"Come away, ma fille."

"But the owl and the ape, there, they seem on very good terms. I wonder if they go to the room of Monsieur Kater! I think so; for one—the ghost in white, he is a little lame like the Englishman who goes always to the room of Monsieur.—Ah, bah! Imbecile! Away with you! Pig!"

The ape had suddenly approached his ugly face close to the face framed in the white muslin curtains on the other side of the window, and made exaggerated motions of an embrace. The wife of the concierge snatched her daughter away and drew the curtains close.

"Foolish child! Why do you stand and watch the rude fellows? This is what you get by it. I have told you to keep your eyes within."

"But I love to see them, so droll they are."

Stealthily the fantastic creatures began to climb the stairs, one, two, three flights, traversing a long hall at the end of each flight and turning to climb again. The expense of keeping a light on each floor for the corridors was not allowed in this building, and they moved along in the darkness, but for the flickering light of the few candles carried among them. As they neared the top they grew more stealthy and kept close together on the landing outside the studio door. One stooped and listened at the keyhole, then tried to look through it. "Not there?" whispered another.

"No light," was the whispered reply. They spoke now in French, now in English.

"He has heard us and hid himself. He is a strange man, this Scotchman. He did not attend the 'Vernissage,' nor the presentation of prizes, yet he wins the highest." The owl stretched out an arm, bare and muscular, from under his wing and tried the door very gently. It was not locked, and he thrust his head within, then reached back and took a candle from the ghost. "This will give light enough. Put out the rest of yours and make no noise."

Thus in the darkness they crept into the studio and gathered around the table. There they saw the unopened envelopes.

"He is not here. He does not know," said one and another.

"Where then can he be?"

"He has taken a panic and fled. I told you so," said the ghost.

"Ah, here he is! Behold! The Hamlet of our ghost! Wake, Hamlet; your father's spirit has arrived," cried one in English with a very French accent.

They now gathered before the dais, shouting and cheering in both English and French. One brought the envelopes on a palette and presented them. The young man gazed at them, stupidly at first, then with a feverish gleam in his eyes, but did not take them.

"Yes, I found them when I came in—but they are—not for me."

"They are addressed to you, Robert Kater, and the news is published and you leave them here unopened."

"He does not know—I told you so."

"You have the packet in your hand. Open it. Take it from him and decorate him. He is in a dream. It is the great medal. We will wake him."

They began to cheer and cheer again, each after the manner of the character he had assumed. The ass brayed, the owl hooted, the ghost groaned. The ape leaped on the back of the throne whereon the young man still sat, and seized him by the hair, chattering idiotically after the manner of apes, and began to wag his head back and forth. In the midst of the uproar Demosthenes stepped forward and took the envelopes from the palette, and, tearing them open, began reading them aloud by the light of a candle held for him by Lady Macbeth, who now and then interrupted with the remark that "her little hand was stained with blood," stretching forth an enormous, hairy hand for their inspection. But as Demosthenes read on the uproar ceased, and all listened with courteous attention. The ape leaped down from the back of the throne, the owl ceased hooting, and all were silent until the second envelope had been opened and the contents made known—that his exhibit had been purchased by the Salon.

"Robert Kater, you are at the top. We congratulate you. To be recognized by the 'Salon des Artistes Francaises' is to be recognized and honored by all the world."

They all came forward with kindly and sincere words, and the young man stood to receive them, but reeling and swaying, weary with emotion, and faint with hunger.

"Were you not going to the mask?"

"I was weary; I had not thought."

"Then wake up and go. We come for you."

"I have no costume."

"Ah, that is nothing. Make one; it is easy."

"He sits there like his own Saul, enveloped in gloom. Come, I will be your David," cried one, and snatched a guitar and began strumming it wildly.

While the company scattered and searched the studio for materials with which to create for him a costume for the mask, the ghost came limping up to the young man who had seated himself again wearily on the throne, and spoke to him quietly.

"The tide's turned, Kater; wake up to it. You're clear of the breakers. The two pictures you were going to destroy are sold. I brought those Americans here while you were away and showed them. I told you they'd take something as soon as you were admitted. Here's the money."

Robert Kater raised himself, looking in the eyes of his friend, and took the bank notes as if he were not aware what they really might be.

"I say! You've enough to keep you for a year if you don't throw it away. Count it. I doubled your price and they took them at the price I made. Look at these."

Then Robert Kater looked at them with glittering eyes, and his shaking hand shut upon them, crushing the bank notes in a tight grip. "We'll halve it, share and share alike," he whispered, staring at the ghost without counting it. "As for this," his finger touched the decoration on his breast—"it is given to a—You won't take half? Then I'll throw them away."

"I'll take them all until you're sane enough to know what you're doing. Give them to me." He took them back and crept quietly, ghostlike, about the room until he found a receptacle in which he knew they would be safe; then, removing one hundred francs from the amount, he brought it back and thrust it in his friend's pocket. "There—that's enough for you to throw away on us to-night. Why are you taking off your decoration? Leave it where it is. It's yours."

"Yes, I suppose it is." Robert Kater brushed his hand across his eyes and stepped down from the throne. Then lifting his head and shoulders as if he threw off a burden, he leaped from the dais, and with one long howl, began an Indian war dance. He was the center and life of the hilarious crowd from that moment. The selection of materials had been made. A curtain of royal purple hung behind the throne, and this they threw around him as a toga, then crowned him as Mark Antony. They found for him also a tunic of soft wool, and with a strip of gold braid they converted a pair of sheepskin bedroom slippers into sandals, bound on his feet over his short socks.

"I say! Mark Antony never wore things like these," he shouted. "Give me a mask. I'll not wear these things without a mask." He snatched at the head of the owl, who ducked under his arm and escaped. "Go then. This is better. Mark, the illustrious, was an ass." He made a dive for the head of his braying friend and barely missed him.

"Come. We waste time. Cleopatra awaits him at 'la Fourchette d'or'; all our Cleopatras await us there."

"Surely?"

"Surely. Madame la Charne is there and the sisters Lucie and Bertha,—all are there,—and with them one very beautiful blonde whom you have never seen."

"She is for you—you cold Scotchman! That stone within you, which you call heart, to-night it will melt."

"You have everything planned then?"

"Everything is made ready."

"Look here! Wait, my friends! I haven't expressed myself yet." They were preparing to lift him above their heads. "I wish to say that you are all to share my good fortune and allow—"

"Wait for the champagne. You can say it then with more force."

"I say! Hold on! I ask you to—"

"So we do. We hold on. Now, up—so." He was borne in triumph down the stairs and out on the street and away to the sign of the Golden Fork, and seated at the head of the table in a small banquet room opening off from the balcony at one side where the feast which had been ordered and prepared was awaiting them.

A group of masked young women, gathered on the balcony, pelted them with flowers as they passed beneath it, and when the men were all seated, they trooped out, and each slid into her appointed place, still masked.

Then came a confusion of tongues, badinage, repartee, wit undiluted by discretion—and rippling laughter as one mask after another was torn off.

"Ah, how glad I am to be rid of it! I was suffocating," said a soft voice at Robert Kater's side.

He looked down quickly into a pair of clear, red-brown eyes—eyes into which he had never looked before.

"Then we are both content that it is off." He smiled as he spoke. She glanced up at him, then down and away. When she lifted her eyes an instant later again to his face, he was no longer regarding her. She was piqued, and quickly began conversing with the man on her left, the one who had removed her mask.

"It is no use, your smile, mademoiselle. He is impervious, that man. He has no sense or he could not turn his eyes away."

"I like best the impervious ones." With a light ripple of laughter she turned again to her right. "Monsieur has forgotten?"

"Forgotten?" Robert was mystified until he realized in the instant that she was pretending to a former acquaintance. "Could I forget, mademoiselle? Permit me." He lifted his glass. "To your eyes—and to your—memory," he said, and drank it off.

After that he became the gayest of them all, and the merriment never flagged. He ate heartily, for he was very hungry, but he drank sparingly. His brain seemed supplied with intellectual missiles which he hurled right and left, but when they struck, it was only to send out a rain of sparks like the balls of holiday fireworks that explode in a fountain of brilliance and hurt no one.

"Monsieur is so gay!" said the soft voice of the blonde at his side.

"Are we not here for that, to enjoy ourselves?"

"Ah, if I could but believe that you remember me!"

"Is it possible mademoiselle thinks herself one to be so easily forgotten?"

"Monsieur, tell me the truth." She glanced up archly. "I have one very good reason for asking."

"You are very beautiful."

"But that is so banal—that remark."

"You complain that I tell you the truth when you ask it? You have so often heard it that the telling becomes banal? Shall I continue?"

"But it is of yourself that I would hear."

"So? Then it is as I feared. It is you who have forgotten."

They were interrupted at that moment, for he was called upon for a story, and he related one of his life as a soldier,—a little incident, but everything pleased. They called upon him for another and another. The hour grew late, and at last the banqueters rose and began to remask and assume their various characters.

"What are you, monsieur, with that very strange dress that you wear, a Roman or a Greek?" asked his companion.

"I really don't know—a sort of nondescript. I did not choose my costume; it was made up for me by my friends. They called me Mark Antony, but that was because they did not know what else to call me. But they promised me Cleopatra if I would come with them."

"They would have done better to call you Petrarch, for I am Laura."

"But I never could have taken that part. I could make a very decent sort of ass of myself, but not a poet."

"What a very terrible voice your Lady Macbeth has!"

"Yes; but she was a terror, you know. Shall we follow the rest?"

They all trooped out of the cafe, and fiacres were called to take them to the house where the mask was held. The women were placed in their respective carriages, but the men walked. At the door of the house, as they entered the ballroom, they reunited, but again were soon scattered. Robert Kater wandered about, searching here and there for his very elusive Laura, so slim and elegant in her white and gold draperies, who seemed to be greatly in demand. He saw many whom he recognized; some by their carriage, some by their voices, but Laura baffled him. Had he ever seen her before? He could not remember. He would not have forgotten her—never. No, she was amusing herself with him.

"Monsieur does not dance?" It was a Spanish gypsy with her lace mantilla and the inevitable red rose in her hair. He knew the voice. It was that of a little model he sometimes employed.

"I dance, yes. But I will only take you out on the floor, my little Julie,—ha—ha—I know you, never fear—I will take you out on the floor, but on one condition."

"It is granted before I know it."

"Then tell me, who is she just passing?"

"The one whose clothing is so—so—as if she would pose for the—"

"Hush, Julie. The one in white and gold."

"I asked if it were she. Yes, I know her very well, for I saw a gentleman unmask her on the balcony above there, to kiss her. It is she who dances so wonderfully at the Opera Comique. You have seen her, Mademoiselle Fee. Ah, come. Let us dance. It is the most perfect waltz."

At the close of the waltz the owl came and took the little gypsy away from Robert, and a moment later he heard the mellifluous voice of his companion of the banquet.

"I am so weary, monsieur. Take me away where we may refresh ourselves."

The red-brown eyes looked pleadingly into his, and the slender fingers rested on his arm, and together they wandered to a corner of palms where he seated her and brought her cool wine jelly and other confections. She thanked him sweetly, and, drooping, she rested her head upon her hand and her arm on the arm of her chair.

"So dull they are, these fetes, and the people—bah! They are dull to the point of despair."

She was a dream of gold and white as she sat there—the red-gold hair and the red-brown eyes, and the soft gold and white draperies, too clinging, as the little gypsy had indicated, but beautiful as a gold and white lily. He sat beside her and gazed on her dreamily, but in a manner too detached. She was not pleased, and she sighed.

"Take the refreshment, mademoiselle; you will feel better. I will bring you wine. What will you have?"

"Oh, you men, who always think that to eat and drink something alone can refresh! Have you never a sadness?"

"Very often, mademoiselle."

"Then what do you do?"

"I eat and drink, mademoiselle. Try it."

"Oh, you strange man from the cold north! You make me shiver. Touch my hand. See? You have made me cold."

"Cold? You are a flame from the crown of gold on your head to your shoes of gold."

"Now that you are become a success, monsieur, what will you do? To you is given the heart's desire." She toyed with the quivering jelly, merely tasting it. It too was golden in hue, and golden lights danced in the heart of it.

"A great success? I am dreaming. It is so new to me that I do not believe it."

"You are very clever, monsieur. You never tell your thoughts. I asked if you remembered me and you answered in a riddle. I knew you did not, for you never saw me before."

"Did I never see you dance?"

"Ah, there you are again! To see me dance—in a great audience—one of many? That does not count. You but pretended."

He leaned forward, looking steadily in her eyes. "Did I but pretend when I said I never could forget you? Ah, mademoiselle, you are too modest."

She was maddened that she could not pique him to a more ardent manner, but gave no sign by so much as the quiver of an eyelid. She only turned her profile toward him indifferently. He noticed the piquant line of her lips and chin and throat, and the golden tones of her delicate skin.

"Did I not also tell you the truth when you asked me? And you rewarded me by calling me banal."

"And I was right. You, who are so clever, could think of something better to say." She gave him a quick glance, and placed a quivering morsel of jelly between her lips. "But you are so very strange to me. Tell me, were you never in love?"

"That is a question I may not answer." He still smiled, but it was merely the continuation of the smile he had worn before she shot that last arrow. He still looked in her eyes, but she knew he was not seeing her. Then he rallied and laughed. "Come, question for question. Were you never in love—or out of love—let us say?"

"Oh! Me!" She lifted her shoulders delicately. "Me! I am in love now—at this moment. You do not treat me well. You have not danced with me once."

"No. You have been dancing always, and fully occupied. How could I?"

"Ah, you have not learned. To dance with me—you must take me, not stand one side and wait."

"Are you engaged for the next?"

"But, yes. It is no matter. I will dance it with you. He will be consoled." She laughed, showing her beautiful, even teeth. "I make you a confession. I said to him, 'I will dance it with you unless the cold monsieur asks me—then I will dance with him, for it will do him good.'"

Robert Kater rose and stood a moment looking through the palms. The silken folds of his toga fell gracefully around him, and he held his head high. Then he withdrew his eyes from the distance and turned them again on her,—the gold and white being at his feet,—and she seemed to him no longer human, but a phantom from which he must flee, if but he might do so courteously, for he knew her to be no phantom, and he could not be other than courteous.

"Will you accept from me my laurel crown?" He took the chaplet from his head and laid it at her feet. Then, lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed the tips of her pink fingers, bowing low before her. "I go to send you wine. Console your partner. It is better so, for I too am in love." He smiled upon her as he had smiled at first, and was gone, walking out through the crowd—the weird, fantastic, bizarre company, as if he were no part of them. One and another greeted him as he passed, but he did not seem to hear them. He called a waiter and ordered wine to be taken to Mademoiselle Fee, and quickly was gone. They saw him no more.

It was nearly morning. A drizzling rain was falling, and the air was chill after the heat of the crowded ballroom. He drew it into his lungs in deep draughts, glad to be out in the freshness, and to feel the cool rain on his forehead. He threw off his encumbering toga and walked in his tunic, with bare throat and bare knees, and carried the toga over one bare arm, and swung the other bare arm free. He walked with head held high, for he was seeing visions, and hearing a far-distant call. Now at last he might choose his path. He had not failed, but with that call from afar—what should he do? Should he answer it? Was it only a call from out his own heart—a passing, futile call, luring him back?

Of one thing he was sure. There was the painting on which he had labored and staked his all now hanging in the Salon. He could see it, one of his visions realized,—David and Saul. The deep, rich shadows, the throne, the tiger skin, the sandaled feet of the remorseful king resting on the great fanged and leering head, the eyes of the king looking hungrily out from under his forbidding brows, the cruel lips pressed tightly together, and the lithe, thin hands grasping the carved arms of the throne in fierce restraint,—all this in the deep shadows between the majestic carved columns, their bases concealed by the rich carpet covering the dais and their tops lost in the brooding darkness above—the lowering darkness of purple gloom that only served to reveal the sinister outlines of the somber, sorrowful, suffering king, while he indulged the one pure passion left him—listening—gazing from the shadows out into the light, seeing nothing, only listening.

And before him, standing in the one ray of light, clothed only in his tunic of white and his sandals, a human jewel of radiant color and slender strength, a godlike conception of youth and grace, his harp before him, the lilies crushed under his feet that he had torn from the strings which his fingers touched caressingly, with sunlight in his crown of golden, curling hair and the light of the stars in his eyes—David, the strong, the simple, the trusting, the God-fearing youth, as Robert Kater saw him, looking back through the ages.

Ah, now he could live. Now he could create—work: he had been recognized, and rewarded—Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes! The hope of his life realized, the goblet raised to his lips, and the draft—bitter. The call falling upon his heart—imperative—beseeching—what did it mean?

Slowly and heavily he mounted the stairs to his studio, and there fumbled about in the darkness and the confusion left by his admiring comrades until he found candles and made a light. He was cold, and his light clothing clung to him wet and chilling as grave clothes. He tore them off and got himself into things that were warm and dry, and wrapping himself in an old dressing gown of flannel, sat down to think.

He took the money his friend had brought him and counted it over. Good old Ben Howard! Half of it must go to him, of course. And here were finished canvases quite as good as the ones that had sold. Ben might turn them to as good an account as the others,—yes,—here was enough to carry him through a year and leave him leisure to paint unhampered by the necessity of making pot boilers for a bare living.

"Tell me, were you never in love?" That soft, insinuating voice haunted him against his will. In love? What did she know of love—the divine passion? Love! Fame! Neither were possible to him. He bowed his head upon the table, hiding his face, crushing the bank notes beneath his arms. Deep in his soul the eye of his own conscience regarded him,—an outcast hiding under an assumed name, covering the scar above his temple with a falling lock of hair seldom lifted, and deep in his soul a memory of a love. Oh, God! Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes!

He rose, and, taking his candle with him, opened a door leading from the studio up a short flight of steps to a little cupboard of a sleeping room. Here he cast himself on the bed and closed his eyes. He must sleep: but no, he could not. After a time of restless tossing he got up and drew an old portmanteau from the closet and threw the contents out on the bed. From among them he picked up the thing he sought and sat on the edge of his bed with it in his hands, turning it over and regarding it, tieing and untieing the worn, frayed, but still bright ribbons, which had once been the cherry-colored hair ribbons of little Betty Ballard.

Suddenly he rose and lifted his head high, in his old, rather imperious way, put out his candle, and looked through the small, dusty panes of his window. It was day—early dawn. He was jaded and weary, but he would try no longer to sleep. He must act, and shake off sentimentalism. Yes, he must act. He bathed and dressed with care, and then in haste, as if life depended on hurry, he packed the portmanteau and stepped briskly into the studio, looking all about, noting everything as if taking stock of it all, then sat down with pen and paper to write.

The letter was a long one. It took time and thought. When he was nearly through with it, Ben Howard lagged wearily in.

"Halloo! Why didn't you wait for me? What did you clear out for and leave me in the lurch? Fresh as a daisy, you are, old chap, and I'm done for, dead."

"You're not scientific in your pleasures." Robert Kater lifted his eyes and looked at his friend. "Are you alive enough to hear me and remember what I say? Will you do something for me? Shall I tell you now or will you breakfast first?"

"Breakfast? Faugh!" He looked disgustedly around him.

"I'm sorry. You drink too much. Listen, Ben. I'll tell you what I mean to do and what I wish you to do for me—and—you remember all you can of it, will you? I must do it now, for you'll be asleep soon, and this will be the last I shall see of you—ever. I'm leaving in two hours—as soon as I've breakfasted."

"What's that? Hold on!" Ben Howard sprang up, and darting behind a screen where they washed their brushes, he dashed cold water over his head and came back toweling himself. "I'm fit now. I did drink too much champagne, but I'll sleep it off. Now fire away,—what's up?"

"In two hours I'll be en route for the coast, and to-morrow I'll take passage for home on the first boat." Robert closed and sealed the long letter he had been writing and tossed it on the table. "I want this mailed one week from to-day. Put it in your pocket so you won't lose it among the rubbish here. One week from to-day it must be mailed. It's to my great aunt, Jean Craigmile, who gave me the money to set up here the first year. I've paid that up—last week—with my last sou—and with interest. By rights she should have whatever there is here of any value, for, if it were not for her help, there would not have been a thing here anyway, and I've no one else to whom to leave it—so see that this letter is mailed without fail, will you?"

The Englishman stood, now thoroughly awake, gazing at him, unable to make common sense out of Robert's remarks. "B—b—but—what's up? What are you leaving things to anybody for? You're not on your deathbed."

"I'm going home, don't you see?"

"But why don't you take the letter to her yourself—if you're going home?"

"Not there, man; not to Scotland."

"Your home's there."

"I have allowed you to think so." Robert forced himself to talk calmly. "In truth, I have no home, but the place I call home by courtesy is where I was brought up—in America."

"You—you—d—d—don't—"

"Yes—it's time you knew this. I've been leading a double life, and I'm done with it. I committed a crime, and I'm living under an assumed name. There is no such man as Robert Kater that I know of on earth, nor ever was. My name is—no matter—. I'm going back to the place where I killed my best friend—to give myself up—to imprisonment—I do not know to what—maybe death—but it will end my torture of mind. Now you know why I could not go to the Vernissage, to be treated—well, I could not go, that's all. Nor could I accept the honors given me under a name not my own. All the time I've lived in Paris I've been hiding—and this thing has been following me—although my occupation seems to have been the best cover I could have had—yet my soul has known no peace. Always—always—night and day—my own conscience has been watching and accusing me, an eye of dread steadily gazing down into my soul and seeing my sin deep, deep in my heart. I could not hide from it. And I would have given up before only that I wished to make good in something before I stepped down and out. I've done it." He put his hand heavily on Ben Howard's shoulder. "I've had a revelation this night. The lesson of my life is learned at last. It is, that there is but one road to freedom and life for me—and that road leads to a prison. It leads to a prison,—maybe worse,—but it leads me to freedom—from the thing that haunts me, that watches me and drives me. I may write you from that place which I will call home—Were you ever in love?"

The abruptness of the question set Ben Howard stammering again. He seized Robert's hand in both his own and held to it. "I—I—I—old chap—I—n—n—no—were you?"

"Yes; I've heard the call of her voice in my heart—and I'm gone. Now, Ben, stop your—well, I'll not preach to you, you of all men,—but—do something worth while. I've need of part of the money you got for me—to get back on—and pay a bill or two—and the rest I leave to you—there where you put it you'll find it. Will you live here and take care of these things for me until my good aunt, Jean Craigmile, writes you? She'll tell you what to do with them—and more than likely she'll take you under her wing—anyway, work, man, work. The place is yours for the present—perhaps for a good while, and you'll have a chance to make good. If I could live on that money for a year, as you yourself said, you can live on half of it for half a year, and in that time you can get ahead. Work."

He seized his portmanteau and was gone before Ben Howard could gather his scattered senses or make reply.



CHAPTER XXXII

THE PRISONER

Harry King did not at once consult an attorney, for Milton Hibbard, the only one he knew or cared to call upon for his defense, was an old friend of the Elder's and had been retained by him to assist the district attorney at the trial. The other two lawyers in Leauvite, one of whom was the district attorney himself, were strangers to him. Twice he sent messages to the Elder after his return, begging him to come to him, never dreaming that they could be unheeded, but to the second only was any reply sent, and then it was but a cursory line. "Legal steps will be taken to secure justice for you, whoever you are."

To his friends he sent no messages. Their sympathy could only mean sorrow for them if they believed in him, and hurt to his own soul if they distrusted him, and he suffered enough. So he lay there in the clean, bare cell, and was glad that it was clean and held no traces of former occupants. The walls smelled of lime in their freshly plastered surfaces, and the floor had the pleasant odor of new pine.

His life passed in review before him from boyhood up. It had been a happy life until the tragedy brought into it by his own anger and violence, but since that time it had been one long nightmare of remorse, heightened by fear, until he had met Amalia, and after that it had been one unremitting strife between love and duty—delight in her mind, in her touch, in her every movement, and in his own soul despair unfathomable. Now at last it was to end in public exposure, imprisonment, disgrace. A peculiar apathy of peace seemed to envelop him. There was no longer hope to entice, no further struggle to be waged against the terror of fear, or the joy of love, or the horror of remorse; all seemed gone from him, even to the vague interest in things transpiring in the world.

He had only a puzzled feeling concerning his arrest. Things had not proceeded as he had planned. If the Elder would but come to him, all would be right. He tried to analyze his feelings, and the thought that possessed him most was wonder at the strange vacuity of the condition of emotionlessness. Was it that he had so suffered that he was no longer capable of feeling? What was feeling? What was emotion: and life without either emotion, or feeling, or caring to feel,—what would it be?

Valueless.—Empty space. Nothing left but bodily hunger, bodily thirst, bodily weariness. A lifetime, for his years were not yet half spent,—a lifetime at Waupun, and work for the body, but vacuity for the mind—maybe—sometimes—memories. Even thinking thus he seemed to have lost the power to feel sadness.

Confusion reigned within him, and yet he found himself powerless to correlate his thoughts or suggest reasons for the strange happenings of the last few days. It seemed to him that he was in a dream wherein reason played no part. In the indictment he was arraigned for the murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr.,—as Richard Kildene,—and yet he had seen his cousin lying dead before him, during all the years that had passed since he had fled from that sight. In battle he had seen men clubbed with the butt end of a musket fall dead with wounded temples, even as he had seen his cousin—stark—inert—lifeless. He had felt the strange, insane rage to kill that he had seen in others and marveled at. And now, after he had felt and done it, he was arrested as the man he had slain.

All the morning he paced his cell and tried to force his thoughts to work out the solution, but none presented itself. Was he the victim of some strange form of insanity that caused him to lose his identity and believe himself another man? Drunken men he had seen under the delusion that all the rest of the world were drunken and they alone sober. Oh, madness, madness! At least he was sane and knew himself, and this was a confusion brought about by those who had undertaken his arrest. He would wait for the Elder to come, and in the meantime live in his memories, thinking of Amalia, and so awaken in himself one living emotion, sacred and truly sane. In the sweetness of such thinking alone he seemed to live.

He drew the little ivory crucifix from his bosom and looked at it. "The Christ who bore our sins and griefs"—and again Amalia's words came to him. "If they keep you forever in the prison, still forever are you free." In snatches her words repeated themselves over in his mind as he gazed. "If you have the Christ in your heart—so are you high—lifted above the sin." "If I see you no more here, in Paradise yet will I see you, and there it will be joy—great—joy; for it is the love that is all of life, and all of eternity, and lives—lives."

Bertrand Ballard and his wife and daughter stood in the small room opening off from the corridor that led to the rear of the courthouse where was the jail, waiting for the jailer to bring his keys from his office, and, waiting thus, Betty turned her eyes beseechingly on her father, and for the first time since her talk with her mother in the studio, opened her lips to speak to him. She was very pale, but she did not tremble, and her voice had the quality of determination. Bertrand had yielded the point and had taken her to the jail against his own judgment, taking Mary with him to forestall the chance of Betty's seeing the young man alone. "Surely," he thought, "she will not ask to have her mother excluded from the interview."

"I don't want any one—not even you—or—or—mother, to go in with me."

"My child, be wise—and be guided."

"Yes, father,—but I want to go in alone." She slipped her hand in her mother's, but still looked in her father's eyes. "I must go in alone, father. You don't understand—but mother does."

"This young man may be an impostor. It is almost unmaidenly for you to wish to go in there alone. Mary—"

But Mary hesitated and trusted to her daughter's intuition. "Betty, explain yourself," was all she said.

"Suppose it was father—or you thought it might be father—and a terrible thing were hanging over him and you had not seen him for all this time—and he were in there, and I were you—wouldn't you ask to see him first alone? Would you stop for one moment to think about being proper? What do I care! If he is an impostor, I shall know it. In one moment I shall know it. I—I—just want to see him alone. It is because he has suffered so long—that is why he has come like this—if—they aren't accusing him wrongfully, and I—he will tell me the truth. If he is Richard, I would know it if I came in and stood beside him blindfolded. I will call you in a moment. Stand by the door, and let me see him alone."

The jailer returned, alert and important, shaking the keys in his hand. "This way, please."

In the moment's pause of unlocking, Betty again turned upon her father, her eyes glowing in the dim light of the corridor with wide, sorrowful gaze, large and irresistibly earnest. Bertrand glanced from her to his wife, who slightly nodded her head. Then he said to the surprised jailer: "We will wait here. My daughter may be able to recognize him. Call us quickly, dear, if you have reason to change your mind." The heavy door was closed behind her, and the key turned in the lock.

Harry King loomed large and tall in the small room, standing with his back to the door and his face lifted to the small window, where he could see a patch of the blue sky and white, scudding clouds. For the moment his spirit was not in that cell. It was free and on top of a mountain, looking into the clear eyes of a woman who loved him. He was so rapt in his vision that he did not hear the grating of the key in the lock, and Betty stood abashed, with her back to the door, feeling that she was gazing on a stranger. Relieved against the square of light, his hair looked darker than she remembered Peter's ever to have been,—as dark as Richard's, but that rough, neglected beard,—also dark,—and the tanned skin, did not bring either young man to her mind.

The pause was but for a moment, when he became aware that he was not alone and turned and saw her there.

"Betty! oh, Betty! You have come to help me." He walked toward her slowly, hardly believing his eyes, and held out both hands.

"If—I—can. Who are you?" She took his hands in hers and walked around him, turning his face to the light. Her breath came and went quickly, and a round red spot now burned on one of her cheeks, and her face seemed to be only two great, pathetic eyes.

"Do I need to tell you, Betty? Once we thought we loved each other. Did we, Betty?"

"I don't—don't—know—Peter! Oh, Peter! Oh, you are alive! Peter! Richard didn't kill you!" She did not cry out, but spoke the words with a low intensity that thrilled him, and then she threw her arms about his neck and burst into tears. "He didn't do it! You are alive! Peter, he didn't kill you! I knew he didn't do it. They all thought he did, and—and—your father—he has almost broken his bank just—just—hunting for Richard—to—to—have him hung—and oh! Peter, I have lived in horror,—for—fear he w—w—w—would, and—"

"He never could, Betty. I have come home to atone. I have come home to give myself up. I killed Richard—my cousin—my best friend. I struck him in hate and saw him lying dead: all the time they were hunting him it was I they should have hunted. I can't understand it. Did they take his dead body for mine—or—how was it they did not know he was struck down and murdered? They must have taken his body for mine—or—he must have fallen over—but he didn't, for I saw him lying dead as I had struck him. All these years the eye of vengeance has been upon me, and my crime has haunted me. I have seen him lying so—dead. God! God!"

Betty still clung to him and sobbed incoherently. "No, no, Peter, it was you who were drowned—they found all your things and saw where you had been pushed over, and—but you weren't drowned! They only thought it—they believed it—"

He put his hand to his head as if to brush away the confusion which staggered him. "Yes, Richard lay dead—and they found him,—but why did they hunt for him? And I—I—living—why didn't they hunt me,—and he, dead and lying there—why did they hunt him? But my father would believe the worst of him rather than to see himself disgraced in his son. Don't cry, little Betty, don't cry. You've had too much to bear. Sit here beside me and I'll tell you all about it. That's why I came back."

"B—b—ut if you weren't drowned, why—why didn't you come home and say so? Didn't you ever see the papers and how they were hunting Richard all over the world? I knew you were dead, because I knew you never would be so cruel as to leave every one in doubt and your father in sorrow—just because he had quarreled with you. It might have killed your mother—if the Elder had let her know."

"I can't tell you all my reasons, Betty; mostly they were coward's reasons. I did my best to leave evidence that I had been pushed over the bluff, because it seemed the only way to hide myself. I did my best to make them think me dead, and never thought any one could be harmed by it, because I knew him to be dead; so I just thought we would both be dead so far as the world would know,—and as for you, dear,—I learned on that fatal night that you did not love me—and that was another coward's reason why I wished to be dead to you all." He began pacing the room, and Betty sat on the edge of the narrow jail bedstead and watched him with tearful eyes. "It was true, Betty? You did not really love me?"

"Peter! Didn't you ever see the papers? Didn't you ever know all about the search for you and how he disappeared, too? Oh, Peter! And it was supposed he killed you and pushed you over the bluff and then ran away. Oh, Peter! But it was kept out of the home paper by the Elder so your mother should not know—and Peter—didn't you know Richard lived?"

"Lived? lived?" He lifted his clasped hands above his head, and they trembled. "Lived? Betty, say it again!"

"Yes, Peter. I saw him and I know—"

"Oh, God, make me know it. Make me understand." He fell on his knees beside her and hid his face in the scant jail bedding, and his frame shook with dry sobs. "I was a coward. I told you that. I—I thought myself a murderer, and all this time my terrible thought has driven me—Lived? I never killed him? God! Betty, say it again."

Betty sat still for a moment, shaken at first with a feeling of resentment that he had made them all suffer so, and Richard most of all. Then she was overwhelmed with pity for him, and with a glad tenderness. It was all over. The sorrow had been real, but it had all been needless. She placed her hand on his head, then knelt beside him and put her arm about his neck and drew his head to her bosom, motherwise, for the deep mother heart in her was awakened, and thus she told him all the story, and how Richard had come to her, broken and repentant, and what had been said between them. When they rose from their knees, it was as if they had been praying and at the same time giving thanks.

"And you thought they would find him lying there dead and know you had killed him and hunt you down for a murderer?"

"Yes."

"Poor Peter! So you pushed that great stone out of the edge of the bluff into the river to make them think you had fallen over and drowned—and threw your things down, too, to make it seem as if you both were dead."

"Yes."

"Oh, Peter! What a terrible mistake! How you must have suffered!"

"Yes, as cowards suffer."

They stood for a moment with clasped hands, looking into each other's eyes. "Then it was true what Richard told me? You did not love me, Betty?" He had grown calmer, and he spoke very tenderly. "We must have all the truth now and conceal nothing."

"Not quite—true. I—I—thought I did. You were so handsome! I was only a child then—and I thought I loved you—or that I ought to—for any girl would—I was so romantic in those days—and you had been wounded—and it was like a romance—"

"And then?"

"And then Richard came, and I knew in one instant that I had done wrong—and that I loved him—and oh, I felt myself so wicked."

"No, Betty, dear. It was all—"

"It was not fair to you. I would have been true to you, Peter; you would have never known—but after Richard came and told me he had killed you,—I felt as if I had killed you, too. I did like you, Peter. I did! I will do whatever is right."

"Then it was not in vain—that we have all suffered. We have been saved from doing each other wrong. Everything will come right now. All that is needed is for father to hear what you have told me, and he will come and take me out of here—Where is Richard?"

"No one knows."

"Not even you, Betty?"

"No; he has dropped out of the world as completely as you did."

"Well, it will be all right, anyway. Father will withdraw his charge and—did you say his bank was going to pieces? He must have help. I can help him. You can help him, Betty."

"How?"

Then Peter told Betty how he had found Richard's father in his mountain retreat and that she must write to him. "If there is any danger of the bank's going, write for me to Larry Kildene. Father never would appeal to him if he lost everything in the world, so we must do it. As soon as I am out of here we can save him." Already he felt himself a new man, and spoke hopefully and cheerfully. He little knew the struggle still before him.

"Peter, father and mother are out there in the corridor waiting. I was to call them. I made them let me come in alone."

"Oh, call them, call them!"

"I don't think they will know you as I did, with that great beard on your face. We'll see."

When Bertrand and Mary entered, they stood for a moment aghast, seeing little likeness to either of the young men in the developed and bronzed specimen of manhood before them. But they greeted him warmly, eager to find him Peter, and in their manner he missed nothing of their old-time kindliness.

"You are greatly changed, Peter Junior. You look more like Richard Kildene than you ever did before in your life," said Mary.

"Yes, but when we see Richard, we may find that a change has taken place in him also, and they will stand in their own shoes hereafter."

"Since the burden has been lifted from my soul and I know that he lives, I could sing and shout aloud here in this cell. Imprisonment—even death—means nothing to me now. All will come right before we know it."

"That is just the way Richard would act and speak. No wonder you have been taken for him!" said Bertrand.

"Yes, he was always more buoyant than I. Maybe we have both changed, but I hope he has not. I loved my friend."

As they walked home together Mary Ballard said, "Now, Peter ought to be released right away."

"Certainly he will be as soon as the Elder realizes the truth."

"How he has changed, though! His face shows the mark of sorrow. Those drooping, sensitive lines about his mouth—they were never there before, and they are the lines of suffering. They touched my heart. I wish Hester were at home. She ought to be written to. I'll do it as soon as I get home."

"Peter is handsomer than he was, in spite of the lines, and, as you say, he does look more like his cousin than he used to—because of them, I think. Richard always had a debonair way with him, but he had that little, sensitive droop to the lips—not so marked as Peter's is now—but you remember, Mary—like his mother's."

"Oh, mother, don't you think Richard could be found?" Betty's voice trailed sorrowfully over the words. She was thinking how he had suffered all this time, and wishing her heart could reach out to him and call him back to her.

"He must be, dear, if he lives."

"Oh, yes. He'll be found. It can be published that Peter Junior has returned, and that will bring him after a while. Peter's physique seems to have changed as well as his face. Did you notice that backward swing of the shoulders, so like his cousin's, when he said, 'I could sing and shout here in this cell'? And the way he lifted his head and smiled? That beard is a horrible disguise. I must send a barber to him. He must be himself again."

"Oh, yes, do. He stands so straight and steps so easily. His lameness seems to have quite gone," said Mary, joyously,—but at that, Bertrand paused in his walk and looked at her, then glancing at Betty walking slowly on before, he laid his finger to his lips and took his wife's arm, and they said no more until they reached home and Betty was in her room.

"I simply can't think it, Bertrand. I see Peter in him. It is Peter. Of course he's like Richard. They were always alike, and that makes him all the more Peter. No other man would have that likeness, and it goes to show that he is Peter."

"My dear, unless the Elder sees him as we see him, the thing will have to be tried out in the courts."

"Unless we can find Richard. Hester ought to be here. She could set them right in a moment. Trust a mother to know her own boy. I'll write her immediately. I'll—"

"But you have no authority, Mary."

"No authority? She is my friend. I have a right to do my duty by her, and I can so put it that it will not be such a shock to her as it inevitably will be if matters go wrong, or Peter should be kept in prison for lack of evidence—or for too much evidence. She'll have to know sooner or later."

Bertrand said no more against this, for was not Mary often quite right? "I'll see to it that he has a barber, and try to persuade the Elder to see him. That may settle it without any trouble. If not, I must see that he has a good lawyer to help in his defense."

"If that savage old man remains stubborn, Hester must be here."

"If the thing goes to a trial, Betty will have to appear against him."

"Well, it mustn't go to a trial, that's all."

That night two letters went out from Leauvite, one to Hester Craigmile at Aberdeen, Scotland, and one to the other end of the earth, where Larry Kildene waited for news of Harry King, there on the mountain top. On the first of each month Larry rode down to the nearest point where letters could be sent, making a three days' trip on horseback. His first trip brought nothing, because Harry had not sent his first letter in time to reach the station before Larry was well on his way back up the mountain. He would not delay his return, for fear of leaving the two women too long alone.

After Harry's departure, Madam Manovska had grown restless, and once had wandered so far away as to cause them great alarm and a long search, when she was found, sitting close to the fall, apparently too weak and too dazed to move. This had so awakened Amalia's fears that she never allowed her mother to leave the cabin alone, but always on one pretext or another accompanied her.

The situation was a difficult one for them all. If Amalia took her mother away to some town, as she wished to do, she feared for Madam Manovska's sanity when she could not find her husband. And still, when she tried to tell her mother of her father's death, she could not convince her of its truth. For a while she would seem to understand and believe it, but after a night's rest she would go back to the old weary repetition of going to her husband and his need of her. Then it was all to go over again, day after day, until at last Amalia gave up, and allowed her mother the comfort of her belief: but all the more she had to invent pretexts for keeping her on the mountain. So she accepted Larry's kindly advice and his earnestly offered hospitality and his comforting companionship, and remained, as, perforce, there was nothing else for her to do.



CHAPTER XXXIII

HESTER CRAIGMILE RECEIVES HER LETTER

The letters reached their opposite destinations at about the same time. The one to Amalia closely buttoned in Larry's pocket, and the short one to himself which he read and reread as his horse slowly climbed the trail, were halfway up the mountain when the postboy delivered Hester Craigmile's at the door of the sedate brick house belonging to the Craigmiles of Aberdeen.

Peter Junior's mother and two elderly women—his grandaunts—were seated in the dignified parlor, taking afternoon tea, when the housemaid brought Hester her letter.

"Is it from Peter, maybe?" asked the elder of the two aunts.

"No, Aunt Ellen; I think it is from a friend."

"It's strange now, that Peter's no written before this," said the younger, leaning forward eagerly. "Will ye read it, dear? We'll be wantin' to know if there's ae word about him intil't."

"There may be, Aunt Jean." Hester set her cup of tea down untasted, and began to open her letter.

"But tak' yer tea first, Hester. Jean's an impatient body. That's too bad of ye, Jean; her toast's gettin' cold."

"Oh, that's no matter at all, Aunt Ellen. I'll take it as soon as I see if he's home all right. Yes, my friend says my husband has been home for three days and is well."

"That's good. Noo ye're satisfied, lay it by and tak' yer tea." And Hester smilingly laid it by and took her tea, for Mary Ballard had said nothing on the first page to startle her friend's serenity.