There is something to be said for this manner of love-making, it is sincere at all events.

He tried to think of something else and he only succeeded in thinking of Phyl in another dress. He saw her as he saw her that first day in the stable yard at Grangersons. Then he saw her as she was dressed that day in Charleston.

Then he remembered the scene in the churchyard. He could still feel the smack she had given him on the face. The smack had not angered him with her but the remembrance of it angered him now. She would not have done that to Pinckney.

Turning a corner of the road he came upon a clear space and on the borders of the clearing to the right some cottages. There were some half-naked pikaninnies playing in the grass before them; and a coloured woman, washing at a tub set on trestles, catching sight of him, stood, shading her eyes and looking in his direction.

Silas paused for a moment as if undecided, then he came on. He asked the woman his whereabouts and then whether she could sell him some food. She had nothing but some corn bread and cold bacon to offer him and he bought it, paying her a dollar and not listening to her when she told him she could not make change.

He was like a man doing things in his sleep; his mind seemed a thousand miles away. The woman packed the bread and bacon in a mat basket with a plate and knife and watched him turn back in his tracks and vanish round the bend of the road, glad to see the last of him. She reckoned him crazy.

He was going back to Phyl.

His resolution never to see her again had vanished. She was his and he was going to keep her, no matter what happened.

He would never part with her alive, if she killed him, if he killed her, what matter. Nothing would stand in his path.

He reached the turning and there in the sunlight lay the half ruined cabins and the well.

Walking softly he came to the door of the cabin where he had left Phyl. She was there lying on the straw fast asleep. It was the sleep that comes after exhaustion or profound excitement; she scarcely seemed to breathe.

Putting his bundle down by the door he came in softly and knelt down beside her. His face was so close to hers that he could feel her breath upon his mouth.

It only wanted that to complete his madness. He was about to cast himself beside her when a pain, vicious and sharp as the stab of a red hot needle struck him just above his right instep.



CHAPTER V

When Richard Pinckney came down to breakfast that morning, he found Miss Pinckney seated at the table reading letters.

"Phyl went out early and has not come back yet," said she putting the letters aside and pouring out the tea.

"Gone out," said he. "Where can she have gone to?"

Miss Pinckney did not seem to hear the question. She was not thinking of Phyl or her whereabouts. Richard's engagement to Frances Rhett was still dominating her mind, casting a shadow upon everything. It was like a death in the family.

"I hope she's not bothered about what happened last night," went on Richard. "I didn't tell you at the time, but I had—some words with Silas Grangerson, and—Phyl was there. Silas is a fool, but it's just as well the thing happened for it has brought matters to a head. I want to tell you something—I'm not engaged to Frances Rhett."

"Not engaged?"

"I was, but it's broken off. I had a moment's talk with her before we left last night. I was in a temper about a lot of things, and the business with Silas put the cap on it. Anyhow, we had words, and the thing is broken off."

"Oh, dear me," said Miss Pinckney. The joyful shock of the news seemed to have reduced her mind to chaos for a moment. One could not have told from her words or manner whether the surprise was pleasant or painful to her.

She drew her chair back from the table a little, and sought for and found her handkerchief. She dried her eyes with it as she found her voice.

"I don't know, I don't know, I'm sure. I've prayed all night that this might be, and now that the Lord has heard my prayer and answered it, I feel cast right down with the wonder of it. Had I the right to interfere? I don't know, I'm sure. It seems terrible to separate two people but I had no thought only for you. I've spoken against the girl, and wished against her, and felt bad in my heart against her, and now it's all over I'm just cast down."

"She did not care for me," said Pinckney. "Why she was laughing at me last night with him. They were sitting outside together, and when I passed them I heard them laughing at me."

Miss Pinckney put her handkerchief away, drew in her chair, and poured herself out some more tea energetically and with a heightened colour.

"I don't want to speak bad about any one," said she, "but there are girls and girls. I know them, and time and again I've seen girls hanging themselves out with labels on them. 'I'm the finest apple on the tree,' yet no one has picked them for all their labels, because every one has guessed that they aren't—That crab apple labelling itself a pippin and daring to laugh at you! And that long loony Silas Grangerson, a man without a penny to bless himself with, a creature whose character is just kinks. Well, I'm sure—pass me the butter—laughing at you. And what were they laughing at pray? Aren't you straight and the best looking man in Charleston? Couldn't you buy the Rhetts twice over if you wanted to buy such rubbish? Aren't you the top man in Charleston in name and position and character? Why, they'll be laughing at the jokes in the N'York papers next—They'll be appreciating their own good sense and cleverness and personal beauty next thing—They'll be worshipping Bryan."

"Oh, I don't think they'll ever get as bad as that," said he laughing, "but I don't think I care whether people grin at me or not; it's only just this, she and I were never meant for each other, and I found it out, and found it out in time. You see the engagement was never made public, so the breaking of it won't do her any harm. She would not let me tell people about it, she said it would be just as well to keep it secret for a while, and then if either of us felt disposed we could break it off and no harm done."

"Meaning that she could break it off if she wanted to but you couldn't."

"Perhaps. When I went back last night and told her I wanted to be free, she flew out."

"Said you must stick to your word?"

"Nearly that. Then I told her she herself had said that it was open to either of us to break the business off."

"What did she say to that?"

"Nothing. She had nothing to say. She asked why I wanted to break it off."

"And you told her it was because of her conduct, I hope."

"No. I told her it was because I had come to care for some one else."

Miss Pinckney said nothing for a moment. Then she looked at him.

"Richard, do you care for Phyl?"

"Yes."

"Thank God," said she.

The one supreme wish of her life had been granted to her. Her gaze wandered to the glimpse of garden visible through the open window and rested there. She was old, she had seen friend and relative fade and vanish, the Mascarenes, the Pinckneys, children, old people, all had become part of that mystery, the past. Richard alone remained to her, and Phyl. On the morning of Phyl's arrival Miss Pinckney had felt just as though some door had opened to let this visitor in from the world of long ago. It was not only her likeness to Juliet Mascarene, but all the associations that likeness brought with it. Vernons became alive again, as in the good old days. Charleston itself caught some tinge of its youth. And there was more than that.

"Richard," said she, coming back from her fit of abstraction, "I will tell you something I'd never have spoken of if you didn't care for her. It may be an old woman's fancy, but Phyl is more to us, seems to me, than we think, she's Juliet come back—Oh, it's more than the likeness. I'm sure I can't explain what I mean, it's just she herself that's the same. There's a lot more to a person than a face and a figure. I know it sounds absurd, so would most things if we had never heard them before. What's more absurd than to be born, and look at that butterfly, what's more absurd than to tell me that yesterday it was a worm? Well, it doesn't much matter whether she was Juliet or not, now she's going to be yours, and to save you from that pasty—no matter she's over and done with, but I reckon she's laughing on the wrong side of her face this morning."

Miss Pinckney rose from the table. The absence of Phyl did not disturb her. Phyl sometimes stayed out and forgot meals, though this was the first time she had been late for breakfast. Richard, who had business to transact that morning in the town looked at his watch.

"I'm going to Philips', the lawyers," said he, "and then I'll look in at the club. I'll be back to luncheon."

An hour later to Miss Pinckney engaged in dusting the drawing-room appeared Rachel the cook.

Rachel was the most privileged of the servants, a trustworthy woman with a character and will of her own, and absolutely devoted to the interests of the house.

"Mistress Pinckney," said the coloured woman closing the door. "Ole Colonel Grangerson's coachman's in de kitchen, an' he says Miss Phyl's been an' run off with young Silas Grangerson dis very mornin'."

Miss Pinckney without dropping the duster stood silent for a moment before Rachel. Then she broke out.

"Miss Phyl run off with young Silas Grangerson! What on earth are you talking about, what rubbish is this, who's dared to come here talking such nonsense? Go on—what more have you to say?"

Rachel had a lot to say.

Phyl had met Silas on the road beyond the town. They had talked together, then Silas had sent the groom back to Charleston to return to Grangerville by train, and had driven off with Phyl. The groom, a relation of Dinah's, having some three hours to wait for a train, had dropped into Vernons to pass the time and tell the good news. He was in the kitchen now.

Miss Pinckney could not but believe. She threw the duster on a chair, left the room and went to the kitchen.

Prue was still in her corner by the fireplace, and Colonel Grangerson's coloured man was seated at the table finishing a meal and talking to Dinah who scuttled away as he rose up before the apparition of Miss Pinckney.

"What's all this nonsense you have been talking," said she, "coming here saying Miss Phyl has run away with Mr. Silas? She started out this morning to meet him and drive to Grangersons; I'm going there myself at eleven—and you come here talking of people running away. Do you know you could be put in prison for saying things like that? You dare to say it again to any one and I'll have you taken off before you're an hour older, you black imp of mischief."

There was a rolling pin on the table, and half unconsciously her hand closed on it. Colonel Grangerson's man, grey and clutching at his hat, did not wait for the sequel, he bolted.

Then the unfortunate woman, nearly fainting, but supported by her grand common sense and her invincible nature, left the kitchen and, followed by Rachel, went to the library. Here she sat down for a moment to collect herself whilst Rachel stood watching her and waiting.

"It is so and it's not so," said she at last, talking half to herself half to the woman. "It's some trick of Silas Grangerson's. But the main thing is no one must know. We have got to get her back. No one must know—Rachel, go and find Seth and send him off at once to the garage place and tell them to let me have an automobile at once, at once, mind you. Tell them I want the quickest one they've got for a long journey."

Rachel went off and Miss Pinckney left to herself went down on her knees by the big settee adjoining the writing table and began to wrestle with the situation in prayer. Miss Pinckney was not overgiven to prayer. She held that worriting the Almighty eternally about all sorts of nonsense, as some people do who pray for "direction" and weather, etc., was bad form to say the least of it. She even went further than that, and held that praising him inordinately was out of place and out of taste. Saying that, if Seth or Dinah came singing praises at her bedroom door in the morning instead of getting on with their work, she would know exactly what it meant—Laziness or concealed broken china, or both.

But in moments of supreme stress and difficulty, Miss Pinckney was a believer in prayer. Her prayer now was speechless, one might compare it to a mental wrestle with the abominable situation before God.

When she rose from her knees everything was clear to her. Two things were evident. Phyl must be got back at any cost, and scandal must be choked, even if it had to be choked with solid lies.

To save Phyl's reputation, Miss Pinckney would have perjured herself twice over.

Miss Pinckney had many faults and limitations, but she had the grand common sense of a clean heart and a clear mind. She could tell a lie with a good conscience in a good cause, but to hide even a small fault of her own, the threat of death on the scaffold would not have made her tell a lie.

She went to the writing table now and taking a sheet of paper, wrote:

Dear Richard,

Seth Grangerson is bad again, and I am going over there now with Phyl. We mayn't be back to-night. I am taking the automobile. We will be back to-morrow most likely.

Your affectionate Aunt, Maria Pinckney.

She read the note over. If all went well then everything would be well. If the worst occurred then she could explain everything to Richard.

It was a desperate gamble; well she knew how the dice were loaded against her, but the game had to be played out to the very last moment.

Already she had stopped the mouth of slander by her prompt action with Colonel Grangerson's coloured man, but she well knew how coloured servants talk; Grangerson's man was safe enough, he was frightened and he would have to get back to Grangerville. Rachel was absolutely safe, Dinah alone was doubtful.

She called Rachel in, gave her the note for Richard and told her to keep a close eye on Dinah.

"Don't let her get talking to any one," said Miss Pinckney, "and when Mr. Richard comes in give him that note yourself. If he asks about Miss Phyl, say she came back and went with me. You understand, Rachel, Miss Phyl has done a foolish thing, but there's no harm in it, only what fools will make of it if they get chattering. No one must know, not even Mr. Richard."

"I'll see to that, Miss Pinckney, an' if I catch Dinah openin' her mouth to say more'n 'potatoes' I'll dress her down so's she won't know which end of her's which."

Miss Pinckney went upstairs, dressed hurriedly, packed a few things in a bag and the automobile being now at the door, started.

It was after one o'clock when she reached Grangersons.

Just as on the day when she had arrived with Phyl, Colonel Grangerson, hearing the noise of the car, came out to inspect.

He came down the steps, hat in hand, saw the occupant, started back, and then advanced to open the door.

"Why, God bless my soul, it's you," cried the Colonel. "What has happened?"

Miss Pinckney without a word got out and went up the steps with him.

In the hall she turned to him.

"Where is Silas?"

"Silas," replied the Colonel. "I haven't seen him since he went to Charleston to attend some dance or another. What on earth is the matter with you, Maria?"

"Come in here," said Miss Pinckney. She went into the drawing room and they shut the door.

"Silas has run away with Phyl," said she, "that's what's the matter with me. Your son has taken that girl off, Seth Grangerson, and may God have mercy upon him."

"The red-headed girl?" said the Colonel.

"Phyl," replied she, "you know quite well whom I mean."

Colonel Grangerson made a few steps up and down the room to calm himself. Maria Pinckney was speaking to him in a tone which, had it been used by any one else, would have caused an explosion.

"But when did it happen," he asked, "and where have they gone? Explain yourself, Maria. Good God! Why the fellow never spoke to her scarcely—are you sure of what you say?"

Miss Pinckney told her tale.

"I came here to try and get her back," said she, "thinking he and she might possibly have come here or that you might know their whereabouts—they have not come, but there is just the chance that they may come here yet."

"But if they have run off with each other," said the Colonel, "how are we to stop them—they'll be married by this."

Miss Pinckney who had taken off her gloves sat down and began to fold them, neatly rolling one inside the other.

"Married," said she.

The Colonel standing by the window with his hands in his pockets turned.

"And why not?" said he. "The girl's a lady, and you told me she was not badly off. Silas might have done worse it seems to me."

"Done worse! He couldn't have done worse. I'd sooner see her dead in her coffin than married to Silas—There, you have it plain and straight. He'll make her life a misery. Let me speak, Seth Grangerson, you are just going to hear the truth for once. You have ruined that boy the way you've brought him up, he was crazy wild to start with and you've never checked him. Oh, I know, he has always been respectful to you and flattered your pride and vanity, he calls you sir when he speaks to you, and you are the only person in the world to whom he shews respect. I don't say he acts like that from any double dealing motive, it's just the old southern tradition he's inherited; he does respect you, and I daresay he's fond of you, but he respects nothing else, especially women. I know him. And I know her, and he'll make her life a misery. If he'd left her alone she'd have been happy. Richard loves her, and would have made her a good husband. My mind was set on it, and now it's all over."

Miss Pinckney began to weep, and the Colonel who had been swelling himself up found his anger collapsing. She was only a woman. Women have queer fancies—This especial woman too was part of the past and privileged.

He came to her and stood beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder.

"My dear Maria," said the Colonel, "youth is youth—There is not any use in laying down the law for young people or making plans for their marriages. Leave it in the hands of Providence. The most carefully arranged marriages often turn out the worst, and a scratch match has often as not turned out happily. Anyhow, you will stay here till news comes of them?"

"Yes, I will stay," said Miss Pinckney.



CHAPTER VI

At eleven o'clock that night, just as Miss Pinckney was on the point of retiring to bed the news came in the form of Phyl herself.

She arrived in a buggy driven by the farmer who owned the land through which the grass road ran.

She gave a little glad cry when she saw Miss Pinckney and ran into her arms.

Upstairs and alone with the lady, she told her story. Told her how she had met Silas on the road that morning, how, tired of life and scarce knowing what she did, she had got into the phaeton, how he had upset it and smashed it, how she had sheltered in the cabin whilst he went in search of help.

"Then I went to sleep," said Phyl, "and when I woke up it was afternoon. He was not there, but he must have come back when I was asleep and left some food for me, for there was a bundle outside the door with some bread and bacon in it. Then I started off to walk and found a village with some coloured people. I told them I was lost and wanted to get to Grangersons. They were kind to me, but I had to wait a long time before they could find that gentleman, the farmer, and he could get a cart to drive me here."

"Thank God it is all over and you are back," said Miss Pinckney. "But oh, Phyl! what made you do it?"

"I don't know," said Phyl.

But Miss Pinckney did.

"Listen," said she. "You know what I told you about Richard and Frances Rhett—that's all done with. He has broken off the engagement."

Phyl flushed, then she hid her burning face on Miss Pinckney's shoulder.

Miss Pinckney held her for awhile. Then she began to talk.

"We will get right back to-morrow early; no one knows anything and I'll take care they never do. Well, it's strange—I can understand everything but I can't understand that crazy creature. What's become of him? That's what I want to know."

* * * * *

This is what had become of him.

Kneeling beside Phyl the sudden sharp pain just above his instep made him turn. In turning he caught a glimpse of his assailant. It had been creeping towards the door when he entered and had taken refuge beneath the straw. He had almost knelt on it. Escaping, a movement of his foot had raised its anger and it had struck, it was now whisking back into the darkness of the cabin beyond the straw heap.

He recognised it as the deadliest snake in the South.

For a moment he recognised nothing else but the fact that he had been bitten.

His passion and desire had vanished utterly. Phyl might have been a thousand miles away from him for all that he thought of her.

He rose up and came out into the sunlight, went to the well head, sat down on the frame and removed his shoe and sock. The mark of the bite was there between the adductor tendons. A red hot iron and a bottle of whisky might have saved him. He had not even a penknife to cut the wound out—He thought of Phyl, she could do nothing. He thought of the bar of the Charleston Hotel, and the verse of the song about the old hen with a wooden leg and the statement that it was just about time for another little drink, ran through his head.

Then suddenly the idea came to him that there might possibly be help at the village where he had obtained the food from the coloured woman. It was a long way off, but still it was a chance.

He put the sock in his pocket, put on the shoe and started. He ran for the first couple of hundred yards, then he slackened his pace, then he stopped holding one hand to his side.

The poison already had hold of him.

The game was up and he knew it. It was useless to go on, he would not live to reach the village or reaching it would die there.

And every one would pity him with that shuddering pity people extend to those who meet with a horrible form of death.

Death from snake bite was a low down business, it was no end for a Grangerson; but there in the swamp to the left a man might lie forever without being found out.

He turned from the road to the left and walked away among the trees.

The ground here sank beneath the foot, a vague haze hung above the marsh and the ponds. Here nothing happened but the change of season, night and day, the chorus of frogs and the crying of the white owl amidst the trees.



CHAPTER VII

Miss Pinckney and Phyl left Grangersons next morning at seven o'clock to return to Charleston.

During the night the Colonel had sent after the horses and they had been captured and brought back. The broken phaeton was left for the present.

"I'll make Silas go and fetch it himself when he comes back," said the Colonel. "I reckon the exercise will do him good."

"Do," said Miss Pinckney, "and then send him on to me. I reckon what I'll give him will help him to forget the exercise."

On the way back she said little. She was reckoning with the fact that she had deceived Richard. Now that everything had turned out so innocently and so well she decided to tell him the bare facts of the matter. There was nothing to hide except the fact of Phyl's stupidity in going with Silas.

Richard Pinckney was not in when they arrived but he returned shortly before luncheon time and Miss Pinckney, who was waiting for him, carried him off into the library.

She shut the door and faced him.

"Richard," said Miss Pinckney, "Seth Grangerson is as well as you are. I didn't go to see him because he was ill, I went because of Phyl. She did a stupid thing and I went to set matters right."

She explained the whole affair. How Phyl had met Silas, how he had persuaded her to get into the phaeton with him, the accident and all the rest. The story as told by Miss Pinckney was quite simple and without any dark patches, and no man, one might fancy, could find cause for offence in it.

Miss Pinckney, however, was quite unconscious of the fact that Silas Grangerson had attempted to take Richard Pinckney's life on the night of the Rhetts' dance.

To Richard the thought that Phyl should have met Silas only a few hours after that event, talked to him, made friends with him, and got into his carriage was a monstrous thought. He could not understand the business in the least, he could only recognise the fact.

Had he known that it was her love for him and her despair at losing him that led her to the act it would have been different.

He said nothing for a moment after Miss Pinckney had finished. Having already confessed to her his love for Phyl he was too proud to show his anger against her now.

"It was unwise of her," he said at last, turning away to the window and looking out.

"Most," replied she, "but you cannot put old heads on young shoulders. Well, there, it's over and done with and there's no more to be said. Well, I must go up and change before luncheon. You are having luncheon here?"

"No," said he, "I have to meet a man at the club. I only just ran in to see if you were back."

He went off and that day Miss Pinckney and Phyl had luncheon alone.



CHAPTER VIII

Richard Pinckney, like most people, had the defects of his qualities, but he was different from others in this: his temper was quick and blazing when roused, yet on rare occasions it could hold its heat and smoulder, and keep alive indefinitely.

When in this condition he shewed nothing of his feelings except towards the person against whom he was in wrath.

Towards them he exhibited the two main characteristics of the North Pole—Distance and Ice.

Phyl felt the frost almost immediately. He talked to her just the same as of old but his pleasantness and laughter were gone and he never sought her eye. She knew at once that it was the business with Silas that had caused this change, and she would have been entirely miserable but for the knowledge of two great facts: she was innocent of any disloyalty to him, he had broken off his engagement to Frances Rhett. Instinct told her that he cared for her, Miss Pinckney had told her the same thing.

Yet day after day passed without bringing the slightest change in Richard Pinckney.

That gentleman after many debates with himself had arrived at the determination against will, against reason, against Love, and against nature to have nothing more to do with Phyl.

Old Pepper Pinckney, that volcano of the past had suffered a fancied insult from his wife; no one knew of it, no one suspected it till on his death his will disclosed it by the fact that he had left the lady—one dollar. The will being unwitnessed—that was the sort of man he was—did not hold; all the same, it held an unsuspected part of his character up for public inspection.

Richard, incapable of such an act, still had Pepper Pinckney for an ancestor. Ancestors leave us more than their pictures.

Having come to this momentous decision, he arrived at another.

One morning at breakfast he announced his intention of going to New York on business, he would start on the morrow and be gone a month. The Beauregards had always been bothering him to go on a visit and he might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Miss Pinckney made little resistance to the idea. She had noticed the coolness between the young people; knowing how much they cared one for the other she had little fear as to the end of the matter and she fancied a change might do good.

But to Phyl it seemed that the end of the world had come.

All that day she scarcely spoke except to Miss Pinckney. She was like a person stunned by some calamity.

Richard Pinckney, notwithstanding the fact that he was to leave for New York on the morrow, did not return to dinner that night. Phyl went upstairs early but she did not go to her room, she went to Juliet's. Sorrow attracts sorrow. Juliet had always seemed more than a friend, more than a sister, even.

There were times when the ungraspable idea came before her that Juliet was herself. The vision of the Civil War sometimes came back to her and always with the hint, like a half veiled threat, that Richard the man she loved was Rupert the man she had loved, that following the dark law of duplication that works alike for types and events, forms and ideas, her history was to repeat the history of Juliet.

She had saved Richard from death at the hands of Silas Grangerson, her love for him had met Fate face to face and won, but Fate has many reserve weapons. She is an old warrior, and the conqueror of cities and kings does not turn from her purpose because of a momentary defeat.

Phyl shut the door of the room, put the lamp she was carrying on a table and opened the long windows giving upon the piazza. The night was absolutely still, not a breath of wind stirred the foliage of the garden and the faint sounds of the city rose through the warm night. The waning moon would not rise yet for an hour and the stars had the sky to themselves.

She turned from the window and going to the little bureau by the door opened the secret drawer and took out the packet of letters. Then drawing an armchair close to the table and the lamp she sat down, undid the ribbon and began to read the letters.

She felt just as though Juliet were talking to her, telling her of her troubles. She read on placing each letter on the table in turn, one upon the other.

The chimes of St. Michael's came through the open window but they were unheeded.

When she had read through all the letters she picked out one. The one containing the passionate declaration of Juliet's love.

She re-read it and then placed it on the table on top of the others.

If she could speak of Richard like that!

But she could do nothing and say nothing. It is one of the curses of womanhood that a woman may not say to a man "I love you," that the initiative is taken out of her hands.

Phyl was a creature of impulse and it was now for the first time in her life that she recognised this fatal barrier on the woman's side. With the recognition came the impulse to over jump it.

He cared for her, she knew, or had cared for her. She felt that it only required a movement on her side, a touch, a word to destroy the ice that had formed between them. If he were to go away he might never return, nay, he would never return, of that she felt sure.

And he would go away unless she spoke. She must speak, not to-morrow in the cold light of day when things were impossible, but now, at once, she would say to him simply the truth, "I love you." If he were to turn away or repulse her it would kill her. No matter, life was absolutely nothing.

She rose from her chair and was just on the point of turning to the door when something checked her.

It was the clock of St. Michael's striking one.

One o'clock. The whole household would be in bed. He would have retired to his room long ago—and to-morrow it would be too late.

She could never say that to him to-morrow; even now the impulse was dying away, the strength that would have broken convention and disregarded all things was fading in her. She had been dreaming whilst she ought to have been doing, and the hour had passed and would never return.

She sat down again in the chair.

The moon in the cloudless sky outside cast a patch of silver on the floor, then it shewed a silver rim gradually increasing against the sky as it pushed its way through the night to peep in at Phyl. Leaning back in the chair limp and exhausted, with closed eyes, one might have fancied her dead or in a trance and the moon as if to make sure pushed on, framing itself now fully in the window space.

The clock of St. Michael's struck two, then it chimed the quarter after and almost on the chime Phyl sat up. It was as though she had suddenly come to a resolve. She clasped her hands together for a moment, then she rose, gathered up the letters and put them away, all except one which she held in her hand as though to give her courage for what she was about to do. She carefully extinguished the lamp and then led by the moonlight came out on to the piazza.

Charleston was asleep under the moon; the air was filled with the scent of night jessamine and the faint fragrance of foliage, and scarcely a sound came from all the sleeping city beyond the garden walls and the sea beyond the city.

As she stood with one hand on the piazza rail, suddenly, far away but shrill, came the crowing of a cock.

She shivered as though the sound were a menace, then rigidly gliding like a ghost escaped from the grave and warned by the cockcrow that the hour of return was near, she came along the piazza, mounted the stair to the next floor and came along the upper piazza to the window of Richard Pinckney's bedroom.

The window was open and, pushing the curtains aside, she went in.



CHAPTER IX

Richard Pinckney went to his room at eleven that night. He rarely retired before twelve, but to-night he had packing to do as Jabez, his man, was away and he knew better than to trust Seth.

He packed his portmanteau and left it lying open in case he had forgotten anything that could be put in at the last moment. Then he packed a kit-bag and, having smoked a cigarette, went to bed.

But he did not fall asleep. As a rule he slept at once on lying down, but to-night he lay awake.

He was miserable; going away was death to him, but he was going.

First of all, because he had said that he was going. Secondly, because he wanted to hit and hurt Phyl whom he loved, thirdly, because he wanted to torture himself, fourthly, because he loathed and hated Silas Grangerson, fifthly, because in his heart of hearts he knew what he was doing was wrong.

You never know really what is in a man till he is pinched by Love. Love may stun him with a blow or run a dagger into him without bringing his worst qualities to light whilst a sly pinch will raise devils—all the miserable devils that march under the leadership of Pique.

If he had not loved Phyl the fact of her going off with Silas for a drive after what had occurred on the night before would have hurt him. Loving her it had maddened him.

He was not angry with her now, so he told himself—just disgusted.

Meanwhile he could not sleep. The faithful St. Michael's kept him well aware of this fact. He lit a candle and tried to read, smoked a cigarette and then, blowing the candle out, tried to sleep. But insomnia had him fairly in her grip; to-night there was no escape from her and he lay whilst the moon, creeping through the sky, cast her light on the piazza outside.

St. Michael's chimed the quarter after two and sleep, long absent, was coming at last when, suddenly, the sound of a light footstep on the piazza drove her leagues away.

Then outside in the full moonlight he saw a figure. It was Phyl, fully dressed, standing with outstretched hands. Her eyes wide open, fixed, and sightless, told their tale. She was asleep.

She moved the curtains aside and entered the room, darkening the window space, passed across the room without the least sound, reached the bed, and knelt down beside it. Her hand was feeling for him, it touched his neck, he raised his head slightly from the pillow and her arm, gliding like a snake round his neck drew his head towards her; then her lips, blindly seeking, found his and clung to them for a moment.

Nothing could be more ghostly, more terrible, and yet more lovely than that kiss, the kiss of a spirit, the embrace of a soul rising from the profound abysm of sleep to find its mate.

Then her lips withdrew and he lay praying to God, as few men have ever prayed, that she might not wake.

He felt the arm withdrawing from around his neck, she rose, wavered for a moment, and then passed away towards the window. The lace curtains parted as though drawn aside, closed again, and she was gone.

He left his bed and came out on the piazza. Craning over he caught a glimpse of her returning along the lower piazza and vanishing.

Coming back to his room he saw something lying on the floor by his bed; it was a letter; he struck a match, lit the candle and picked the letter up. It was just a folded piece of paper, it had been sealed, but the seal was broken, and sitting down on the side of the bed he spread it open, but his hands were shaking so that he had to rest it on his knee.

It was not from Phyl. That letter had been written many, many years ago, the ink was faded and the handwriting of another day.

He read it.

"Not to-night. I have to go to the Calhouns. It is just as well for I have a dread of people suspecting if we meet too often....

"Sometimes I feel as if I were deceiving him and everybody. I am, and I don't care. Oh, my darling! my darling! my darling! If the whole world were against you I would love you all the more. I will love you all my life, and I will love you when I am dead."

It was the letter of Juliet to her lover.

He turned it over and looked at the seal with the little dove upon it. He knew of Juliet's letters, and he knew at once that this was one of them, and he guessed vaguely that she had been reading it when sleep overtook her and that it had formed part of the inspiration that led her to him. But the whole truth he would never know.

* * * * *

A blazing red Cardinal was singing in the magnolia tree by the gate, butterflies were chasing one another above the flowers; it was seven o'clock and the blue, lazy, lovely morning was unfolding like a flower to the sea wind.

Richard Pinckney was standing in the piazza before his bedroom window looking down into the garden.

To him suddenly appeared Seth.

"If you please, sah," said Seth, "Rachel tole me tell yo' de train for N'York—"

"Damn New York," said Pinckney. "Get out."

Seth vanished, grinning, and he returned to his contemplation of the garden.

She must never know.—In the years to come, perhaps, he might tell her— In the years to come—

He was turning away when a step on the piazza below made him come to the rail again and lean over. It was Phyl. She vanished and then reappeared again, leaving the lower piazza and coming right out into the garden. He waited till the sun had caught her in both hands, holding her against the background of the cherokee roses, then he called to her:

"Phyl!"

She started, turned, and looked up.

THE END