"They shall never know—not while I have life left in me," Jane exclaimed firmly.

"Yes, but that won't keep 'em from lyin'."

The two sat still for some minutes, Martha gazing into vacancy, Jane lying back in her chair, her eyes closed. One emotion after another coursed through her with lightning rapidity—indignation at the charge, horror at the thought that any of her friends might believe it, followed by a shivering fear that her father's good name, for all her care and suffering, might be smirched at last.

Suddenly there arose the tall image of Doctor John, with his frank, tender face. What would he think of it, and how, if he questioned her, could she answer him? Then there came to her that day of parting in Paris. She remembered Lucy's willingness to give up the child forever, and so cover up all traces of her sin, and her own immediate determination to risk everything for her sister's sake. As this last thought welled up in her mind and she recalled her father's dying command, her brow relaxed. Come what might, she was doing her duty. This was her solace and her strength.

"Cruel, cruel people!" she said to Martha, relaxing her hands. "How can they be so wicked? But I am glad it is I who must take the brunt of it all. If they would treat me so, who am innocent, what would they do to my poor Lucy?"



CHAPTER X

A LATE VISITOR

These rumors never reached the doctor. No scandalmonger ever dared talk gossip to him. When he first began to practise among the people of Warehold, and some garrulous old dame would seek to enrich his visit by tittle-tattle about her neighbors, she had never tried it a second time. Doctor John of Barnegat either received the news in silence or answered it with some pleasantry; even Ann Gossaway held her peace whenever the doctor had to be called in to prescribe for her oversensitive throat.

He was aware that Jane had laid herself open to criticism in bringing home a child about which she had made no explanation, but he never spoke of it nor allowed anyone to say so to him. He would have been much happier, of course, if she had given him her confidence in this as she had in many other matters affecting her life; but he accepted her silence as part of her whole attitude toward him. Knowing her as he did, he was convinced that her sole incentive was one of loving kindness, both for the child and for the poor mother whose sin or whose poverty she was concealing. In this connection, he remembered how in one of her letters to Martha she had told of the numberless waifs she had seen and how her heart ached for them; especially in the hospitals which she had visited and among the students. He recalled that he himself had had many similar experiences in his Paris days, in which a woman like Jane Cobden would have been a veritable angel of mercy.

Mrs. Cavendish's ears were more easily approached by the gossips of Warehold and vicinity; then, again she was always curious over the inmates of the Cobden house, and any little scraps of news, reliable or not, about either Jane or her absent sister were eagerly listened to. Finding it impossible to restrain herself any longer, she had seized the opportunity one evening when she and her son were sitting together in the salon, a rare occurrence for the doctor, and only possible when his patients were on the mend.

"I'm sorry Jane Cobden was so foolish as to bring home that baby," she began.

"Why?" said the doctor, without lifting his eyes from the book he was reading.

"Oh, she lays herself open to criticism. It is, of course, but one of her eccentricities, but she owes something to her position and birth and should not invite unnecessary comment."

"Who criticises her?" asked the doctor, his eyes still on the pages.

"Oh, you can't tell; everybody is talking about it. Some of the gossip is outrageous, some I could not even repeat."

"I have no doubt of it," answered the doctor quietly. "All small places like Warehold and Barnegat need topics of conversation, and Miss Jane for the moment is furnishing one of them. They utilize you, dear mother, and me, and everybody else in the same way. But that is no reason why we should lend our ears or our tongues to spread and encourage it."

"I quite agree with you, my son, and I told the person who told me how foolish and silly it was, but they will talk, no matter what you say to them."

"What do they say?" asked the doctor, laying down his book and rising from his chair.

"Oh, all sorts of things. One rumor is that Captain Holt's son, Barton, the one that quarrelled with his father and who went to sea, could tell something of the child, if he could be found."

The doctor laughed. "He can be found," he answered. "I saw his father only last week, and he told me Bart was in Brazil. That is some thousand of miles from Paris, but a little thing like that in geography doesn't seem to make much difference to some of our good people. Why do you listen to such nonsense?" he added as he kissed her tenderly and, with a pat on her cheek, left the room for his study. His mother's talk had made but little impression upon him. Gossip of this kind was always current when waifs like Archie formed the topic; but it hurt nobody, he said to himself—nobody like Jane.

Sitting under his study lamp looking up some complicated case, his books about him, Jane's sad face came before him. "Has she not had trouble enough," he said to himself, "parted from Lucy and with her unsettled money affairs, without having to face these gnats whose sting she cannot ward off?" With this came the thought of his own helplessness to comfort her. He had taken her at her word that night before she left for Paris, when she had refused to give him her promise and had told him to wait, and he was still ready to come at her call; loving her, watching ever her, absorbed in every detail of her daily life, and eager to grant her slightest wish, and yet he could not but see that she had, since her return, surrounded herself with a barrier which he could neither understand nor break down whenever he touched on their personal relations.

Had he loved her less he would, in justice to himself, have faced all her opposition and demanded an answer—Yes or No—as to whether she would yield to his wishes. But his generous nature forbade any such stand and his reverence for her precluded any such mental attitude.

Lifting his eyes from his books and gazing dreamily into the space before him, he recalled, with a certain sinking of the heart, a conversation which had taken place between Jane and himself a few days after her arrival—an interview which had made a deep impression upon him. The two, in the absence of Martha—she had left the room for a moment—were standing beside the crib watching the child's breathing. Seizing the opportunity, one he had watched for, he had told her how much he had missed her during the two years, and how much happier his life was now that he could touch her hand and listen to her voice. She had evaded his meaning, making answer that his pleasure, was nothing compared to her own when she thought how safe the baby would be in his hands; adding quickly that she could never thank him enough for remaining in Barnegat and not leaving her helpless and without a "physician." The tone with which she pronounced the word had hurt him. He thought he detected a slight inflection, as if she were making a distinction between his skill as an expert and his love as a man, but he was not sure.

Still gazing into the shadows before him, his unread book in his hand, he recalled a later occasion when she appeared rather to shrink from him than to wish to be near him, speaking to him with downcast eyes and without the frank look in her face which was always his welcome. On this day she was more unstrung and more desolate than he had ever seen her. At length, emboldened by his intense desire to help, and putting aside every obstacle, he had taken her hand and had said with all his heart in his voice:

"Jane, you once told me you loved me. Is it still true?"

He remembered how at first she had not answered, and how after a moment she had slowly withdrawn her hand and had replied in a voice almost inarticulate, so great was her emotion.

"Yes, John, and always will be, but it can never go beyond that—never, never. Don't ask many more questions. Don't talk to me about it. Not now, John—not now! Don't hate me! Let us be as we have always been—please, John! You would not refuse me if you knew."

He had started forward to take her in his arms; to insist that now every obstacle was removed she should give him at once the lawful right to protect her, but she had shrunk back, the palms of her hands held out as barriers, and before he could reason with her Martha had entered with something for little Archie, and so the interview had come to an end.

Then, still absorbed in his thoughts, his eyes suddenly brightened and a certain joy trembled in his heart as he remembered that with all these misgivings and doubts there were other times—and their sum was in the ascendency—when she showed the same confidence in his judgement and the same readiness to take his advice; when the old light would once more flash in her eyes as she grasped his hand and the old sadness again shadow her face when his visits came to an end. With this he must be for a time content.

These and a hundred other thoughts raced through Doctor John's mind as he sat to-night in his study chair, the lamplight falling on his open books and thin, delicately modelled hands.

Once he rose from his seat and began pacing his study floor, his hands behind his back, his mind on Jane, on her curious and incomprehensible moods, trying to solve them as he walked, trusting and leaning upon him one day and shrinking from him the next. Baffled for the hundredth time in this mental search, he dropped again into his chair, and adjusting the lamp, pulled his books toward him to devote his mind to their contents. As the light flared up he caught the sound of a step upon the gravel outside, and then a heavy tread upon the porch. An instant later his knocker sounded. Doctor Cavendish gave a sigh—he had hoped to have one night at home—and rose to open the door.

Captain Nat Holt stood outside.

His pea-jacket was buttoned close up under his chin, his hat drawn tight down over his forehead. His weather-beaten face, as the light fell upon it, looked cracked and drawn, with dark hollows under the eyes, which the shadows from the lamplight deepened.

"It's late, I know, doctor," he said in a hoarse, strained voice; "ten o'clock, maybe, but I got somethin' to talk to ye about," and he strode into the room. "Alone, are ye?" he continued, as he loosened his coat and laid his hat on the desk. "Where's the good mother? Home, is she?"

"Yes, she's inside," answered the doctor, pointing to the open door leading to the salon and grasping the captain's brawny hand in welcome. "Why? Do you want to see her?"

"No, I don't want to see her; don't want to see nobody but you. She can't hear, can she? 'Scuse me—I'll close this door."

The doctor looked at him curiously. The captain seemed to be laboring under a nervous strain, unusual in one so stolid and self-possessed.

The door closed, the captain moved back a cushion, dropped into a corner of the sofa, and sat looking at the doctor, with legs apart, his open palms resting on his knees.

"I got bad news, doctor—awful bad news for everybody," as he spoke he reached into his pocket and produced a letter with a foreign postmark.

"You remember my son Bart, of course, don't ye, who left home some two years ago?" he went on.

The doctor nodded.

"Well, he's dead."

"Your son Bart dead!" cried the doctor, repeating his name in the surprise of the announcement. "How do you know?"

"This letter came by to-day's mail. It's from the consul at Rio. Bart come in to see him dead broke and he helped him out. He'd run away from the ship and was goin' up into the mines to work, so the consul wrote me. He was in once after that and got a little money, and then he got down with yellow fever and they took him to the hospital, and he died in three days. There ain't no doubt about it. Here's a list of the dead in the paper; you kin read his name plain as print."

Doctor John reached for the letter and newspaper clipping and turned them toward the lamp. The envelope was stamped "Rio Janeiro" and the letter bore the official heading of the consulate.

"That's dreadful, dreadful news, captain," said the doctor in sympathetic tones. "Poor boy! it's too bad. Perhaps, however, there may be some mistake, after all. Foreign hospital registers are not always reliable," added the doctor in a hopeful tone.

"No, it's all true, or Benham wouldn't write me what he has. I've known him for years. He knows me, too, and he don't go off half-cocked. I wrote him to look after Bart and sent him some money and give him the name of the ship, and he watched for her and sent for him all right. I was pretty nigh crazy that night he left, and handled him, maybe, rougher'n I ou'ter, but I couldn't help it. There's some things I can't stand, and what he done was one of 'em. It all comes back to me now, but I'd do it ag'in." As he spoke the rough, hard sailor leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand. The news had evidently been a great shock to him.

The doctor reached over and laid his hand on the captain's knee. "I'm very, very sorry, captain, for you and for Bart; and the only son you have, is it not?"

"Yes, and the only child we ever had. That makes it worse. Thank God, his mother's dead! All this would have broken her heart." For a moment the two men were silent, then the captain continued in a tone as if he were talking to himself, his eyes on the lamp:

"But I couldn't have lived with him after that, and I told him so—not till he acted fair and square, like a man. I hoped he would some day, but that's over now."

"We're none of us bad all the way through, captain," reasoned the doctor, "and don't you think of him in that way. He would have come to himself some day and been a comfort to you. I didn't know him as well as I might, and only as I met him at Yardley, but he must have had a great many fine qualities or the Cobdens wouldn't have liked him. Miss Jane used often to talk to me about him. She always believed in him. She will be greatly distressed over this news."

"That's what brings me here. I want you to tell her, and not me. I'm afraid it'll git out and she'll hear it, and then she'll be worse off than she is now. Maybe it's best to say nothin' 'bout it to nobody and let it go. There ain't no one but me to grieve for him, and they don't send no bodies home, not from Rio, nor nowheres along that coast. Maybe, too, it ain't the time to say it to her. I was up there last week to see the baby, and she looked thinner and paler than I ever see her. I didn't know what to do, so I says to myself, 'There's Doctor John, he's at her house reg'lar and knows the ins and outs of her, and I'll go and tell him 'bout it and ask his advice.' I'd rather cut my hand off than hurt her, for if there's an angel on earth she's one. She shakes so when I mention Bart's name and gits so flustered, that's why I dar'n't tell her. Now he's dead there won't be nobody to do right by Archie. I can't; I'm all muzzled up tight. She made me take an oath, same as she has you, and I ain't goin' to break it any more'n you would. The little feller'll have to git 'long best way he kin now."

Doctor John bent forward in his chair and looked at the captain curiously. His words convey no meaning to him. For an instant he thought that the shock of his son's death had unsettled the man's mind.

"Take an oath! What for?"

"'Bout Archie and herself."

"But I've taken no oath!"

"Well, perhaps it isn't your habit; it ain't some men's. I did."

"What about?"

It was the captain's turn now to look searchingly into his companion's face. The doctor's back was toward the lamp, throwing his face into shadow, but the captain could read its expression plainly.

"You mean to tell me, doctor, you don't know what's goin' on up at Yardley? You do, of course, but you won't say—that's like you doctors!"

"Yes, everything. But what has your son Bart got to do with it?"

"Got to do with it! Ain't Jane Cobden motherin' his child?"

The doctor lunged forward in his seat, his eyes staring straight at the captain. Had the old sailor struck him in the face he could not have been more astounded.

"His child!" he cried savagely.

"Certainly! Whose else is it? You knew, didn't ye?"

The doctor settled back in his chair with the movement of an ox felled by a sudden blow. With the appalling news there rang in his ears the tones of his mother's voice retailing the gossip of the village. This, then, was what she could not repeat.

After a moment he raised his head and asked in a low, firm voice:

"Did Bart go to Paris after he left here?"

"No, of course not! Went 'board the Corsair bound for Rio, and has been there ever since. I told you that before. There weren't no necessity for her to meet him in Paris."

The doctor sprang from his chair and with eyes biasing and fists tightly clenched, stood over the captain.

"And you dare to sit there and tell me that Miss Jane Cobden is that child's mother?"

The captain struggled to his feet, his open hands held up to the doctor as if to ward off a blow.

"Miss Jane! No, by God! No! Are you crazy? Sit down, sit down, I tell ye!"

"Who, then? Speak!"

"Lucy! That's what I drove Bart out for. Mort Cobden's daughter—Mort, mind ye, that was a brother to me since I was a boy! Jane that that child's mother! Yes, all the mother poor Archie's got! Ask Miss Jane, she'll tell ye. Tell ye how she sits and eats her heart out to save her sister that's too scared to come home. I want to cut my tongue out for tellin' ye, but I thought ye knew. Martha told me you loved her and that she loved you, and I thought she'd told ye. Jane Cobden crooked! No more'n the angels are. Now, will you tell her Bart's dead, or shall I?"

"I will tell her," answered the doctor firmly, "and to-night."



CHAPTER XI

MORTON COBDEN'S DAUGHTER

The cold wind from the sea freighted with the raw mist churned by the breakers cut sharply against Doctor John's cheeks as he sprang into his gig and dashed out of his gate toward Yardley. Under the shadow of the sombre pines, along the ribbon of a road, dull gray in the light of the stars, and out on the broader highway leading to Warehold, the sharp click of the mare's hoofs striking the hard road echoed through the night. The neighbors recognized the tread and the speed, and Uncle Ephraim threw up a window to know whether it was a case of life or death, an accident, or both; but the doctor only nodded and sped on. It WAS life and death—life for the woman he loved, death for all who traduced her. The strange news that had dropped from the captain's lips did not affect him except as would the ending of any young life; neither was there any bitterness in his heart against the dead boy who had wrecked Lucy's career and brought Jane humiliation and despair. All he thought of was the injustice of Jane's sufferings. Added to this was an overpowering desire to reach her side before her misery should continue another moment; to fold her in his arms, stand between her and the world; help her to grapple with the horror which was slowly crushing out her life. That it was past her hour for retiring, and that there might be no one to answer his summons, made no difference to him. He must see her at all hazards before he closed his eyes.

As he whirled into the open gates of Yardley and peered from under the hood of the gig at the outlines of the old house, looming dimly through the avenue of bushes, he saw that the occupants were asleep; no lights shone from the upper windows and none burned in the hall below. This discovery checked to some extent the impetus with which he had flung himself into the night, his whole being absorbed and dominated by one idea. The cool wind, too, had begun to tell upon his nerves. He drew rein on the mare and stopped. For the first time since the captain's story had reached his ears his reason began to work. He was never an impetuous man; always a thoughtful and methodical one, and always overparticular in respecting the courtesies of life. He began suddenly to realize that this midnight visit was at variance with every act of his life. Then his better judgment became aroused. Was it right for him to wake Jane and disturb the house at this hour, causing her, perhaps, a sleepless night, or should he wait until the morning, when he could break the news to her in a more gentle and less sensational way?

While he sat thus wondering, undetermined whether to drive lightly out of the gate again or to push forward in the hope that someone would be awake, his mind unconsciously reverted to the figure of Jane making her way with weary steps down the gangplank of the steamer, the two years of her suffering deep cut into every line of her face. He recalled the shock her appearance had given him, and his perplexity over the cause. He remembered her refusal to give him her promise, her begging him to wait, her unaccountable moods since her return.

Then Lucy's face came before him, her whole career, in fact (in a flash, as a drowning man's life is pictured), from the first night after her return from school until he had bade her good-by to take the train for Trenton. Little scraps of talk sounded in his ears, and certain expressions about the corners of her eyes revealed themselves to his memory. He thought of her selfishness, of her love of pleasure, of her disregard of Jane's wishes, of her recklessness.

Everything was clear now.

"What a fool I have been!" he said to himself. "What a fool—FOOL! I ought to have known!"

Next the magnitude of the atonement, and the cruelty and cowardice of the woman who had put her sister into so false a position swept over him. Then there arose, like the dawning of a light, the grand figure of the woman he loved, standing clear of all entanglements, a Madonna among the saints, more precious than ever in the radiance of her own sacrifice.

With this last vision his mind was made up. No, he would not wait a moment. Once this terrible secret out of the way, Jane would regain her old self and they two fight the world together.

As he loosened the reins over the sorrel a light suddenly flashed from one of the upper windows disappeared for a moment, and reappeared again at one of the smaller openings near the front steps. He drew rein again. Someone was moving about—who he did not know; perhaps Jane, perhaps one of the servants. Tying the lines to the dashboard, he sprang from the gig, tethered the mare to one of the lilac bushes, and walked briskly toward the house. As he neared the steps the door was opened and Martha's voice rang clear:

"Meg, you rascal, come in, or shall I let ye stay out and freeze?"

Doctor John stepped upon the porch, the light of Martha's candle falling on his face and figure.

"It's I, Martha, don't be frightened; it's late, I know, but I hoped Miss Jane would be up. Has she gone to bed?"

The old nurse started back. "Lord, how ye skeered me! I don't know whether she's asleep or not. She's upstairs with Archie, anyhow. I come out after this rapscallion that makes me look him up every night. I've talked to him till I'm sore, and he's promised me a dozen times, and here he is out ag'in. Here! Where are ye? In with ye, ye little beast!" The dog shrank past her and darted into the hall. "Now, then, doctor, come in out of the cold."

Doctor John stepped softly inside and stood in the flare of the candle-light. He felt that he must give some reason for his appearance at this late hour, even if he did not see Jane. It would be just as well, therefore, to tell Martha of Bart's death at once, and not let her hear it, as she was sure to do, from someone on the street. Then again, he had kept few secrets from her where Jane was concerned; she had helped him many times before, and her advice was always good. He knew that she was familiar with every detail of the captain's story, but he did not propose to discuss Lucy's share in it with the old nurse. That he would reserve for Jane's ears alone.

"Bring your candle into the sitting-room, Martha; I have something to tell you," he said gravely, loosening the cape of his overcoat and laying his hat on the hall table.

The nurse followed. The measured tones of the doctor's voice, so unlike his cheery greetings, especially to her, unnerved her. This, in connection with the suppressed excitement under which he seemed to labor and the late hour of his visit, at once convinced her that something serious had happened.

"Is there anything the matter?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"Yes."

"Is it about Lucy? There ain't nothin' gone wrong with her, doctor dear, is there?"

"No, it is not about Lucy. It's about Barton Holt."

"Ye don't tell me! Is he come back?"

"No, nor never will. He's dead!

"That villain dead! How do you know?" Her face paled and her lips quivered, but she gave no other sign of the shock the news had been to her.

"Captain Nat, his father, has just left my office. I promised I would tell Miss Jane to-night. He was too much broken up and too fearful of its effect upon her to do it himself. I drove fast, but perhaps I'm too late to see her."

"Well, ye could see her no doubt,—she could throw somethin' around her—but ye mustn't tell her THAT news. She's been downhearted all day and is tired out. Bart's dead, is he?" she repeated with an effort at indifference. "Well, that's too bad. I s'pose the captain's feelin' putty bad over it. Where did he die?"

"He died in Rio Janeiro of yellow fever," said the doctor slowly, wondering at the self-control of the woman. Wondering, too, whether she was glad or sorry over the event, her face and manner showing no index to her feelings.

"And will he be brought home to be buried?" she asked with a quick glance at the doctor's face.

"No; they never bring them home with yellow fever."

"And is that all ye come to tell her?" She was scrutinizing Doctor John's face, her quick, nervous glances revealing both suspicion and fear.

"I had some other matters to talk about, but if she has retired, perhaps I had better come to-morrow," answered the doctor in undecided tones, as he gazed abstractedly at the flickering candle.

The old woman hesitated. She saw that the doctor knew more than he intended to tell her. Her curiosity and her fear that some other complication had arisen—one which he was holding back—got the better of her judgment. If it was anything about her bairn, she could not wait until the morning. She had forgotten Meg now.

"Well, maybe if ye break it to her easy-like she can stand it. I don't suppose she's gone to bed yet. Her door was open on a crack when I come down, and she always shuts it 'fore she goes to sleep. I'll light a couple o' lamps so ye can see, and then I'll send her down to ye if she'll come. Wait here, doctor, dear."

The lamps lighted and Martha gone, Doctor John looked about the room, his glance resting on the sofa where he had so often sat with her; on the portrait of Morton Cobden, the captain's friend; on the work-basket filled with needlework that Jane had left on a small table beside her chair, and upon the books her hands had touched. He thought he had never loved her so much as now. No one he had ever known or heard of had made so great a sacrifice. Not for herself this immolation, but for a sister who had betrayed her confidence and who had repaid a life's devotion with unforgivable humiliation and disgrace. This was the woman whose heart he held. This was the woman he loved with every fibre of his being. But her sufferings were over now. He was ready to face the world and its malignity beside her. Whatever sins her sister had committed, and however soiled were Lucy's garments, Jane's robes were as white as snow, he was glad he had yielded to the impulse and had come at once. The barrier between them once broken down and the terrible secret shared, her troubles would end.

The whispering of her skirts on the stairs announced her coming before she entered the room. She had been sitting by Archie's crib and had not waited to change her loose white gown, whose clinging folds accentuated her frail, delicate form. Her hair had been caught up hastily and hung in a dark mass, concealing her small, pale ears and making her face all the whiter by contrast.

"Something alarming has brought you at this hour," she said, with a note of anxiety in her voice, walking rapidly toward him. "What can I do? Who is ill?"

Doctor John sprang forward, held out both hands, and holding tight to her own, drew her close to him.

"Has Martha told you?" he said tenderly.

"No; only that you wanted me. I came as soon as I could."

"It's about Barton Holt. His father has just left my office. I have very sad news for you. The poor boy—"

Jane loosened her hands from his and drew back. The doctor paused in his recital.

"Is he ill?" she inquired, a slight shiver running through her.

"Worse than ill! I'm afraid you'll never see him again."

"You mean that he is dead? Where?"

"Yes, dead, in Rio. The letter arrived this morning."

"And you came all the way up here to tell me this?" she asked, with an effort to hide her astonishment. Her eyes dropped for a moment and her voice trembled. Then she went on. "What does his father say?"

"I have just left him. He is greatly shaken. He would not tell you himself, he said; he was afraid it might shock you too much, and asked me to come up. But it is not altogether that, Jane. I have heard something to-night that has driven me half out of my mind. That you should suffer this way alone is torture to me. You cannot, you shall not live another day as you have! Let me help!"

Instantly there flashed into her mind the story Martha had brought in from the street. "He has heard it," she said to herself, "but he does not believe it, and he comes to comfort me. I cannot tell the truth without betraying Lucy."

She drew a step farther from him.

"You refer to what the people about us call a mystery—that poor little child upstairs?" she said slowly, all her self-control in her voice. "You think it is a torture for me to care for this helpless baby? It is not a torture; it is a joy—all the joy I have now." She stood looking at him as she spoke with searching eyes, wondering with the ever-questioning doubt of those denied love's full expression.

"But I know—"

"You know nothing—nothing but what I have told you; and what I have told you is the truth. What I have not told you is mine to keep. You love me too well to probe it any further, I am sorry for the captain. He has an iron will and a rough exterior, but he has a warm heart underneath. If you see him before I do give him my deepest sympathy. Now, my dear friend, I must go back to Archie; he is restless and needs me. Good-night," and she held out her hand and passed out of the room.

She was gone before he could stop her. He started forward as her hand touched the door, but she closed it quickly behind her, as if to leave no doubt of her meaning. He saw that she had misunderstood him. He had intended to talk to her of Archie's father, and of Lucy, and she had supposed he had only come to comfort her about the village gossip.

For some minutes he stood like one dazed. Then a feeling of unspeakable reverence stole over him. Not only was she determined to suffer alone and in silence, but she would guard her sister's secret at the cost of her own happiness. Inside that sacred precinct he knew he could never enter; that wine-press she intended to tread alone.

Then a sudden indignation, followed by a contempt of his own weakness took possession of him. Being the older and stronger nature, he should have compelled her to listen. The physician as well as the friend should have asserted himself. No woman could be well balanced who would push away the hand of a man held out to save her from ruin and misery. He would send Martha for her again and insist upon her listening to him.

He started for the door and stopped irresolute. A new light broke in upon his heart. It was not against himself and her own happiness that she had taken this stand, but to save her father's and her sister's name. He knew how strong was her devotion to her duty, how blind her love for Lucy, how sacred she held the trust given to her by her dead father. No; she was neither obstinate nor quixotic. Hers was the work of a martyr, not a fanatic. No one he had ever known or heard of had borne so great a cross or made so noble a sacrifice. It was like the deed of some grand old saint, the light of whose glory had shone down the ages. He was wrong, cruelly wrong. The only thing left for him to do was to wait. For what he could not tell. Perhaps God in his mercy would one day find the way.

Martha's kindly voice as she opened the door awoke him from his revery.

"Did she take it bad?" she asked.

"No," he replied aimlessly, without thinking of what he said. "She sent a message to the captain. I'll go now. No, please don't bring a light to the door. The mare's only a short way down the road."

When the old nurse had shut the front door after him she put out the lamps and ascended the stairs. The other servants were in bed. Jane's door was partly open. Martha pushed it gently with her hand and stepped in. Jane had thrown herself at full length on the bed and lay with her face buried in her hands. She was talking to herself and had not noticed Martha's footsteps.

"O God! what have I done that this should be sent to me?" Martha heard her say between her sobs. "You would be big enough, my beloved, to bear it all for my sake; to take the stain and wear it; but I cannot hurt you—not you, not you, my great, strong, sweet soul. Your heart aches for me and you would give me all you have, but I could not bear your name without telling you. You would forgive me, but I could never forgive myself. No, no, you shall stand unstained if God will give me strength!"

Martha walked softly to the bed and bent over Jane's prostrate body.

"It's me, dear. What did he say to break your heart?"

Jane slipped her arm about the old nurse's neck, drawing her closer, and without lifting her own head from the pillow talked on.

"Nothing, nothing. He came to comfort me, not to hurt me."

"Do ye think it's all true 'bout Bart?" Martha whispered.

Jane raised her body from the bed and rested her head on Martha's shoulder.

"Yes, it's all true about Bart," she answered in a stronger and more composed tone. "I have been expecting it. Poor boy, he had nothing to live for, and his conscience must have given him no rest."

"Did the captain tell him about—" and Martha pointed toward the bed of the sleeping child. She could never bring herself to mention Lucy's name when speaking either of Bart or Archie.

Jane sat erect, brushed the tears from her eyes, smoothed her hair back from her temples, and said with something of her customary poise:

"No, I don't think so. The captain gave me his word, and he will not break it. Then, again, he will never discredit his own son. The doctor doesn't know, and there will be nobody to tell him. That's not what he came to tell me. It was about the stories you heard last week and which have only just reached his ears. That's all. He wanted to protect me from their annoyance, but I would not listen to him. There is trouble enough without bringing him into it. Now go to bed, Martha."

As she spoke Jane regained her feet, and crossing the room, settled into a chair by the boy's crib. Long after Martha had closed her own door for the night Jane sat watching the sleeping child. One plump pink hand lay outside the cover; the other little crumpled rose-leaf was tucked under the cheek, the face half-hidden in a tangle of glossy curls, now spun-gold in the light of the shaded lamp.

"Poor little waif," she sighed, "poor little motherless, fatherless waif! Why didn't you stay in heaven? This world has no place for you."

Then she rose wearily, picked up the light, carried it across the room to her desk, propped a book in front of it so that its rays would not fall upon the sleeping child, opened her portfolio, and sat down to write.

When she had finished and had sealed her letter it was long past midnight. It was addressed to Lucy in Dresden, and contained a full account of all the doctor had told her of Bart's death.



CHAPTER XII

A LETTER FROM PARIS

For the first year Jane watched Archie's growth and development with the care of a self-appointed nurse temporarily doing her duty by her charge. Later on, as the fact became burned into her mind that Lucy would never willingly return to Warehold, she clung to him with that absorbing love and devotion which an unmarried woman often lavishes upon a child not her own. In his innocent eyes she saw the fulfilment of her promise to her father. He would grow to be a man of courage and strength, the stain upon his birth forgotten, doing honor to himself, to her, and to the name he bore. In him, too, she sought refuge from that other sorrow which was often greater than she could bear—the loss of the closer companionship of Doctor John—a companionship which only a wife's place could gain for her. The true mother-love—the love which she had denied herself, a love which had been poured out upon Lucy since her father's death—found its outlet, therefore, in little Archie.

Under Martha's watchful care the helpless infant grew to be a big, roly-poly boy, never out of her arms when she could avoid it. At five he had lost his golden curls and short skirts and strutted about in knee-trousers. At seven he had begun to roam the streets, picking up his acquaintances wherever he found them.

Chief among them was Tod Fogarty, the son of the fisherman, now a boy of ten, big for his age and bubbling over with health and merriment, and whose life Doctor John had saved when he was a baby. Tod had brought a basket of fish to Yardley, and sneaking Meg, who was then alive—he died the year after—had helped himself to part of the contents, and the skirmish over its recovery had resulted in a friendship which was to last the boys all their lives. The doctor believed in Tod, and always spoke of his pluck and of his love for his mother, qualities which Jane admired—but then technical class distinctions never troubled Jane—every honest body was Jane's friend, just as every honest body was Doctor John's.

The doctor loved Archie with the love of an older brother; not altogether because he was Jane's ward, but for the boy's own qualities—for his courage, for his laugh—particularly for his buoyancy. Often, as he looked into the lad's eyes brimming with fun, he would wish that he himself had been born with the same kind of temperament. Then again the boy satisfied to a certain extent the longing in his heart for home, wife, and child—a void which he knew now would never be filled. Fate had decreed that he and the woman he loved should live apart—with this he must be content. Not that his disappointments had soured him; only that this ever-present sorrow had added to the cares of his life, and in later years had taken much of the spring and joyousness out of him. This drew him all the closer to Archie, and the lad soon became his constant companion; sitting beside him in his gig, waiting for him at the doors of the fishermen's huts, or in the cabins of the poor on the outskirts of Barnegat and Warehold.

"There goes Doctor John of Barnegat and his curly-head," the neighbors would say; "when ye see one ye see t'other."

Newcomers in Barnegat and Warehold thought Archie was his son, and would talk to the doctor about him:

"Fine lad you got, doctor—don't look a bit like you, but maybe he will when he gets his growth." At which the doctor would laugh and pat the boy's head.

During all these years Lucy's letters came but seldom. When they did arrive, most of them were filled with elaborate excuses for her prolonged stay. The money, she wrote, which Jane had sent her from time to time was ample for her needs; she was making many valuable friends, and she could not see how she could return until the following spring—a spring which never came. In no one of them had she ever answered Jane's letter about Bart's death, except to acknowledge its receipt. Nor, strange to say, had she ever expressed any love for Archie. Jane's letters were always filled with the child's doings; his illnesses and recoveries; but whenever Lucy mentioned his name, which was seldom, she invariably referred to him as "your little ward" or "your baby," evidently intending to wipe that part of her life completely out. Neither did she make any comment on the child's christening—a ceremony which took place in the church, Pastor Dellenbaugh officiating—except to write that perhaps one name was as good as another, and that she hoped he would not disgrace it when he grew up.

These things, however, made but little impression on Jane. She never lost faith in her sister, and never gave up hope that one day they would all three be reunited; how or where she could not tell or foresee, but in some way by which Lucy would know and love her son for himself alone, and the two live together ever after—his parentage always a secret. When Lucy once looked into her boy's face she was convinced she would love and cling to him. This was her constant prayer.

All these hopes were dashed to the ground by the receipt of a letter from Lucy with a Geneva postmark. She had not written for months, and Jane broke the seal with a murmur of delight, Martha leaning forward, eager to hear the first word from her bairn. As she read Jane's face grew suddenly pale.

"What is it?" Martha asked in a trembling voice.

For some minutes Jane sat staring into space, her hand pressed to her side. She looked like one who had received a death message. Then, without a word, she handed the letter to Martha.

The old woman adjusted her glasses, read the missive to the end without comment, and laid it back on Jane's lap. The writing covered but part of the page, and announced Lucy's coming marriage with a Frenchman: "A man of distinction; some years older than myself, and of ample means. He fell in love with me at Aix."

There are certain crises in life with conclusions so evident that no spoken word can add to their clearness. There is no need of comment; neither is there room for doubt. The bare facts stand naked. No sophistry can dull their outlines nor soften the insistence of their high lights; nor can any reasoning explain away the results that will follow. Both women, without the exchange of a word, knew instantly that the consummation of this marriage meant the loss of Lucy forever. Now she would never come back, and Archie would be motherless for life. They foresaw, too, that all their yearning to clasp Lucy once more in their arms would go unsatisfied. In this marriage she had found a way to slip as easily from out the ties that bound her to Yardley as she would from an old dress.

Martha rose from her chair, read the letter again to the end, and without opening her lips left the room. Jane kept her seat, her head resting on her hand, the letter once more in her lap. The revulsion of feeling had paralyzed her judgment, and for a time had benumbed her emotions. All she saw was Archie's eyes looking into hers as he waited for an answer to that question he would one day ask and which now she knew she could never give.

Then there rose before her, like some disembodied spirit from a long-covered grave, the spectre of the past. An icy chill crept over her. Would Lucy begin this new life with the same deceit with which she had begun the old? And if she did, would this Frenchman forgive her when he learned the facts? If he never learned them—and this was most to be dreaded—what would Lucy's misery be all her life if she still kept the secret close? Then with a pathos all the more intense because of her ignorance of the true situation—she fighting on alone, unconscious that the man she loved not only knew every pulsation of her aching heart, but would be as willing as herself to guard its secret, she cried:

"Yes, at any cost she must be saved from this living death! I know what it is to sit beside the man I love, the man whose arm is ready to sustain me, whose heart is bursting for love of me, and yet be always held apart by a spectre which I dare not face."

With this came the resolve to prevent the marriage at all hazards, even to leaving Yardley and taking the first steamer to Europe, that she might plead with Lucy in person.

While she sat searching her brain for some way out of the threatened calamity, the rapid rumbling of the doctor's gig was heard on the gravel road outside her open window. She knew from the speed with which he drove that something out of the common had happened. The gig stopped and the doctor's voice rang out:

"Come as quick as you can, Jane, please. I've got a bad case some miles out of Warehold, and I need you; it's a compound fracture, and I want you to help with the chloroform."

All her indecision vanished and all her doubts were swept away as she caught the tones of his voice. Who else in the wide world understood her as he did, and who but he should guide her now? Had he ever failed her? When was his hand withheld or his lips silent? How long would her pride shut out his sympathy? If he could help in the smaller things of life why not trust him in this larger sorrow?—one that threatened to overwhelm her, she whose heart ached for tenderness and wise counsel. Perhaps she could lean upon him without betraying her trust. After all, the question of Archie's birth—the one secret between them—need not come up. It was Lucy's future happiness which was at stake. This must be made safe at any cost short of exposure.

"Better put a few things in a bag," Doctor John continued. "It may be a case of hours or days—I can't tell till I see him. The boy fell from the roof of the stable and is pretty badly hurt; both legs are broken, I hear; the right one in two places."

She was upstairs in a moment, into her nursing dress, always hanging ready in case the doctor called for her, and down again, standing beside the gig, her bag in her hand, before he had time to turn his horse and arrange the seat and robes for her comfort.

"Who is it?" she asked hurriedly, resting her hand in his as he helped her into the seat and took the one beside her, Martha and Archie assisting with her bag and big driving cloak.

"Burton's boy. His father was coming for me and met me on the road. I have everything with me, so we will not lose any time. Good-by, my boy," he called to Archie. "One day I'll make a doctor of you, and then I won't have to take your dear mother from you so often. Good-by, Martha. You want to take care of that cough, old lady, or I shall have to send up some of those plasters you love so."

They were off and rattling down the path between the lilacs before either Archie or the old woman could answer. To hearts like Jane's and the doctor's, a suffering body, no matter how far away, was a sinking ship in the clutch of the breakers. Until the lifeboat reached her side everything was forgotten.

The doctor adjusted the robe over Jane's lap and settled himself in his seat. They had often driven thus together, and Jane's happiest hours had been spent close to his side, both intent on the same errand of mercy, and BOTH WORKING TOGETHER. That was the joy of it!

They talked of the wounded boy and of the needed treatment and what part each should take in the operation; of some new cases in the hospital and the remedies suggested for their comfort; of Archie's life on the beach and how ruddy and handsome he was growing, and of his tender, loving nature; and of the thousand and one other things that two people who know every pulsation of each other's hearts are apt to discuss—of everything, in fact, but the letter in her pocket. "It is a serious case," she said to herself—"this to which we are hurrying—and nothing must disturb the sureness of his sensitive hand."

Now and then, as he spoke, the two would turn their heads and look into each other's eyes.

When a man's face lacks the lines and modellings that stand for beauty the woman who loves him is apt to omit in her eager glance every feature but his eyes. His eyes are the open doors to his soul; in these she finds her ideals, and in these she revels. But with Jane every feature was a joy—the way the smoothly cut hair was trimmed about his white temples; the small, well-turned ears lying flat to his head; the lines of his eyebrows; the wide, sensitive nostrils and the gleam of the even teeth flashing from between well-drawn, mobile lips; the white, smooth, polished skin. Not all faces could boast this beauty; but then not all souls shone as clearly as did Doctor John's through the thin veil of his face.

And she was equally young and beautiful to him. Her figure was still that of her youth; her face had not changed—he still caught the smile of the girl he loved. Often, when they had been driving along the coast, the salt wind in their faces, and he had looked at her suddenly, a thrill of delight had swept through him as he noted how rosy were her cheeks and how ruddy the wrists above the gloves, hiding the dear hands he loved so well, the tapering fingers tipped with delicate pink nails. He could, if he sought them, find many telltale wrinkles about the corners of the mouth and under the eyelids (he knew and loved them all), showing where the acid of anxiety had bitten deep into the plate on which the record of her life was being daily etched, but her beautiful gray eyes still shone with the same true, kindly light, and always flashed the brighter when they looked into his own. No, she was ever young and ever beautiful to him!

To-day, however, there was a strange tremor in her voice and an anxious, troubled expression in her face—one that he had not seen for years. Nor had she once looked into his eyes in the old way.

"Something worries you, Jane," he said, his voice echoing his thoughts. "Tell me about it."

"No—not now—it is nothing," she answered quickly.

"Yes, tell me. Don't keep any troubles from me. I have nothing else to do in life but smooth them out. Come, what is it?"

"Wait until we get through with Burton's boy. He may be hurt worse than you think."

The doctor slackened the reins until they rested on the dashboard, and with a quick movement turned half around and looked searchingly into Jane's eyes.

"It is serious, then. What has happened?"

"Only a letter from Lucy."

"Is she coming home?"

"No, she is going to be married."

The doctor gave a low whistle. Instantly Archie's laughing eyes looked into his; then came the thought of the nameless grave of his father.

"Well, upon my soul! You don't say so! Who to, pray?"

"To a Frenchman." Jane's eyes were upon his, reading the effect of her news. His tone of surprise left an uncomfortable feeling behind it.

"How long has she known him?" he continued, tightening the reins again and chirruping to the mare..

"She does not say—not long, I should think."

"What sort of a Frenchman is he? I've known several kinds in my life—so have you, no doubt," and a quiet smile overspread his face. "Come, Bess! Hurry up, old girl."

"A gentleman, I should think, from what she writes. He is much older than Lucy, and she says very well off."

"Then you didn't meet him on the other side?"

"And never heard of him before?"

"Not until I received this letter."

The doctor reached for his whip and flecked off a fly that had settled on the mare's neck.

"Lucy is about twenty-seven, is she not?"

"Yes, some eight years younger than I am. Why do you ask, John?"

"Because it is always a restless age for a woman. She has lost the protecting ignorance of youth and she has not yet gained enough of the experience of age to steady her. Marriage often comes as a balance-weight. She is coming home to be married, isn't she?"

"No; they are to be married in Geneva at his mother's."

"I think that part of it is a mistake," he said in a decided tone. "There is no reason why she should not be married here; she owes that to you and to herself." Then he added in a gentler tone, "And this worries you?"

"More than I can tell you, John." There was a note in her voice that vibrated through him. He knew now how seriously the situation affected her.

"But why, Jane? If Lucy is happier in it we should do what we can to help her."

"Yes, but not in this way. This will make her all the more miserable. I don't want this marriage; I want her to come home and live with me and Archie. She makes me promises every year to come, and now it is over six years since I left her and she has always put me off. This marriage means that she will never come. I want her here, John. It is not right for her to live as she does. Please think as I do!"

The doctor patted Jane's hand—it was the only mark of affection he ever allowed himself—not in a caressing way, but more as a father would pat the hand of a nervous child.

"Well, let us go over it from the beginning. Maybe I don't know all the facts. Have you the letter with you?"

She handed it to him. He passed the reins to her and read it carefully to the end.

"Have you answered it yet?"

"No, I wanted to talk to you about it. What do you think now?"

"I can't see that it will make any difference. She is not a woman to live alone. I have always been surprised that she waited so long. You are wrong, Jane, about this. It is best for everybody and everything that Lucy should be married."

"John, dear," she said in a half-pleading tone—there were some times when this last word slipped out—"I don't want this marriage at all. I am so wretched about it that I feel like taking the first steamer and bringing her home with me. She will forget all about him when she is here; and it is only her loneliness that makes her want to marry. I don't want her married; I want her to love me and Martha and—Archie—and she will if she sees him."

"Is that better than loving a man who loves her?" The words dropped from his lips before he could recall them—forced out, as it were, by the pressure of his heart.

Jane caught her breath and the color rose in her cheeks. She knew he did not mean her, and yet she saw he spoke from his heart. Doctor John's face, however, gave no sign of his thoughts.

"But, John, I don't know that she does love him. She doesn't say so—she says HE loves her. And if she did, we cannot all follow our own hearts."

"Why not?" he replied calmly, looking straight ahead of him: at the bend in the road, at the crows flying in the air, at the leaden sky between the rows of pines. If she wanted to give him her confidence he was ready now with heart and arms wide open. Perhaps his hour had come at last.

"Because—because," she faltered, "our duty comes in. That is holier than love." Then her voice rose and steadied itself—"Lucy's duty is to come home."

He understood. The gate was still shut; the wall still confronted him. He could not and would not scale it. She had risked her own happiness—even her reputation—to keep this skeleton hidden, the secret inviolate. Only in the late years had she begun to recover from the strain. She had stood the brunt and borne the sufferings of another's sin without complaint, without reward, giving up everything in life in consecration to her trust. He, of all men, could not tear the mask away, nor could he stoop by the more subtle paths of friendship, love, or duty to seek to look behind it—not without her own free and willing hand to guide him. There was nothing else in all her life that she had not told him. Every thought was his, every resolve, every joy. She would entrust him with this if it was hers to give. Until she did his lips would be sealed. As to Lucy, it could make no difference. Bart lying in a foreign grave would never trouble her again, and Archie would only be a stumbling-block in her career. She would never love the boy, come what might. If this Frenchman filled her ideal, it was best for her to end her days across the water—best certainly for Jane, to whom she had only brought unhappiness.

For some moments he busied himself with the reins, loosening them from where they were caught in the harness; then he bent his head and said slowly, and with the tone of the physician in consultation:

"Your protest will do no good, Jane, and your trip abroad will only be a waste of time and money. If Lucy has not changed, and this letter shows that she has not, she will laugh at your objections and end by doing as she pleases. She has always been a law unto herself, and this new move of hers is part of her life-plan. Take my advice: stay where you are; write her a loving, sweet letter and tell her how happy you hope she will be, and send her your congratulations. She will not listen to your objections, and your opposition might lose you her love."

Before dark they were both on their way back to Yardley. Burton's boy had not been hurt as badly as his father thought; but one leg was broken, and this was soon in splints, and without Jane's assistance.

Before they had reached her door her mind was made up.

The doctor's words, as they always did, had gone down deep into her mind, and all thoughts of going abroad, or of even protesting against Lucy's marriage, were given up. Only the spectre remained. That the doctor knew nothing of, and that she must meet alone.

Martha took Jane's answer to the post-office herself. She had talked its contents over with the old nurse, and the two had put their hearts into every line.

"Tell him everything," Jane wrote. "Don't begin a new life with an old lie. With me it is different. I saved you, my sister, because I loved you, and because I could not bear that your sweet girlhood should be marred. I shall live my life out in this duty. It came to me, and I could not put it from me, and would not now if I could, but I know the tyranny of a secret you cannot share with the man who loves you. I know, too, the cruelty of it all. For years I have answered kindly meant inquiry with discourteous silence, bearing insinuations, calumny, insults—and all because I cannot speak. Don't, I beseech you, begin your new life in this slavery. But whatever the outcome, take him into your confidence. Better have him leave you now than after you are married. Remember, too, that if by this declaration you should lose his love you will at least gain his respect. Perhaps, if his heart is tender and he feels for the suffering and wronged, you may keep both. Forgive me, dear, but I have only your happiness at heart, and I love you too dearly not to warn you against any danger which would threaten you. Martha agrees with me in the above, and knows you will do right by him."

When Lucy's answer arrived weeks afterward—after her marriage, in fact—Jane read it with a clutching at her throat she had not known since that fatal afternoon when Martha returned from Trenton.

"You dear, foolish sister," Lucy's letter began, "what should I tell him for? He loves me devotedly and we are very happy together, and I am not going to cause him any pain by bringing any disagreeable thing into his life. People don't do those wild, old-fashioned things over here. And then, again, there is no possibility of his finding out. Maria agrees with me thoroughly, and says in her funny way that men nowadays know too much already." Then followed an account of her wedding.

This letter Jane did not read to the doctor—no part of it, in fact. She did not even mention its receipt, except to say that the wedding had taken place in Geneva, where the Frenchman's mother lived, it being impossible, Lucy said, for her to come home, and that Maria Collins, who was staying with her, had been the only one of her old friends at the ceremony. Neither did she read it all to Martha. The old nurse was growing more feeble every year and she did not wish her blind faith in her bairn disturbed.

For many days she kept the letter locked in her desk, not having the courage to take it out again and read it. Then she sent for Captain Holt, the only one, beside Martha, with whom she could discuss the matter. She knew his strong, honest nature, and his blunt, outspoken way of giving vent to his mind, and she hoped that his knowledge of life might help to comfort her.

"Married to one o' them furriners, is she?" the captain blurted out; "and goin' to keep right on livin' the lie she's lived ever since she left ye? You'll excuse me, Miss Jane,—you've been a mother, and a sister and everything to her, and you're nearer the angels than anybody I know. That's what I think when I look at you and Archie. I say it behind your back and I say it now to your face, for it's true. As to Lucy, I may be mistaken, and I may not. I don't want to condemn nothin' 'less I'm on the survey and kin look the craft over; that's why I'm partic'lar. Maybe Bart was right in sayin' it warn't all his fault, whelp as he was to say it, and maybe he warn't. It ain't up before me and I ain't passin' on it,—but one thing is certain, when a ship's made as many voyages as Lucy has and ain't been home for repairs nigh on to seven years—ain't it?" and he looked at Jane for confirmation—"she gits foul and sometimes a little mite worm-eaten—especially her bilge timbers, unless they're copper-fastened or pretty good stuff. I've been thinkin' for some time that you ain't got Lucy straight, and this last kick-up of hers makes me sure of it. Some timber is growed right and some timber is growed crooked; and when it's growed crooked it gits leaky, and no 'mount o' tar and pitch kin stop it. Every twist the ship gives it opens the seams, and the pumps is goin' all the time. When your timber is growed right you kin all go to sleep and not a drop o' water'll git in. Your sister Lucy ain't growed right. Maybe she kin help it and maybe she can't, but she'll leak every time there comes a twist. See if she don't."

But Jane never lost faith nor wavered in her trust. With the old-time love strong upon her she continued to make excuses for this thoughtless, irresponsible woman, so easily influenced. "It is Maria Collins who has written the letter, and not Lucy," she kept saying to herself. "Maria has been her bad angel from her girlhood, and still dominates her. The poor child's sufferings have hardened her heart and destroyed for a time her sense of right and wrong—that is all."

With this thought uppermost in her mind she took the letter from her desk, and stirring the smouldering embers, laid it upon the coals. The sheet blazed and fell into ashes.

"No one will ever know," she said with a sigh.



CHAPTER XIII

SCOOTSY'S EPITHET

Lying on Barnegat Beach, within sight of the House of Refuge and Fogarty's cabin, was the hull of a sloop which had been whirled in one night in a southeaster, with not a soul on board, riding the breakers like a duck, and landing high and dry out of the hungry clutch of the surf-dogs. She was light at the time and without ballast, and lay stranded upright on her keel. All attempts by the beach-combers to float her had proved futile; they had stripped her of her standing rigging and everything else of value, and had then abandoned her. Only the evenly balanced hull was left, its bottom timbers broken and its bent keelson buried in the sand. This hulk little Tod Fogarty, aged ten, had taken possession of; particularly the after-part of the hold, over which he had placed a trusty henchman armed with a cutlass made from the hoop of a fish barrel. The henchman—aged seven—wore knee-trousers and a cap and answered to the name of Archie. The refuge itself bore the title of "The Bandit's Home."

This new hulk had taken the place of the old schooner which had served Captain Holt as a landmark on that eventful night when he strode Barnegat Beach in search of Bart, and which by the action of the ever-changing tides, had gradually settled until now only a hillock marked its grave—a fate which sooner or later would overtake this newly landed sloop itself.

These Barnegat tides are the sponges that wipe clean the slate of the beach. Each day a new record is made and each day it is wiped out: records from passing ships, an empty crate, broken spar or useless barrel grounded now and then by the tide in its flow as it moves up and down the sand at the will of the waters. Records, too, of many footprints,—the lagging steps of happy lovers; the dimpled feet of joyous children; the tread of tramp, coast-guard or fisherman—all scoured clean when the merciful tide makes ebb.

Other records are strewn along the beach; these the tide alone cannot efface—the bow of some hapless schooner it may be, wrenched from its hull, and sent whirling shoreward; the shattered mast and crosstrees of a stranded ship beaten to death in the breakers; or some battered capstan carried in the white teeth of the surf-dogs and dropped beyond the froth-line. To these with the help of the south wind, the tides extend their mercy, burying them deep with successive blankets of sand, hiding their bruised bodies, covering their nakedness and the marks of their sufferings. All through the restful summer and late autumn these battered derelicts lie buried, while above their graves the children play and watch the ships go by, or stretch themselves at length, their eyes on the circling gulls.

With the coming of the autumn all this is changed. The cruel north wind now wakes, and with a loud roar joins hands with the savage easter; the startled surf falls upon the beach like a scourge. Under their double lash the outer bar cowers and sinks; the frightened sand flees hither and thither. Soon the frenzied breakers throw themselves headlong, tearing with teeth and claws, burrowing deep into the hidden graves. Now the forgotten wrecks, like long-buried sins, rise and stand naked, showing every scar and stain. This is the work of the sea-puss—the revolving maniac born of close-wed wind and tide; a beast so terrible that in a single night, with its auger-like snout, it bites huge inlets out of farm lands—mouthfuls deep enough for ships to sail where but yesterday the corn grew.

In the hull of this newly stranded sloop, then—sitting high and dry, out of the reach of the summer surf,—Tod and Archie spent every hour of the day they could call their own; sallying forth on various piratical excursions, coming back laden with driftwood for a bonfire, or hugging some bottle, which was always opened with trembling, eager fingers in the inmost recesses of the Home, in the hope that some tidings of a lost ship might be found inside; or with their pockets crammed with clam-shells and other sea spoils with which to decorate the inside timbers of what was left of the former captain's cabin.

Jane had protested at first, but the doctor had looked the hull over, and found that there was nothing wide enough, nor deep enough, nor sharp enough to do them harm, and so she was content. Then again, the boys were both strong for their age, and looked it, Tod easily passing for a lad of twelve or fourteen, and Archie for a boy of ten. The one danger discovered by the doctor lay in its height, the only way of boarding the stranded craft being by means of a hand-over-hand climb up the rusty chains of the bowsprit, a difficult and trousers-tearing operation. This was obviated by Tod's father, who made a ladder for the boys out of a pair of old oars, which the two pirates pulled up after them whenever an enemy hove in sight. When friends approached it was let down with more than elaborate ceremony, the guests being escorted by Archie and welcomed on board by Tod.

Once Captain Holt's short, sturdy body was descried in the offing tramping the sand-dunes on his way to Fogarty's, and a signal flag—part of Mother Fogarty's flannel petticoat, and blood-red, as befitted the desperate nature of the craft over which it floated, was at once set in his honor. The captain put his helm hard down and came up into the wind and alongside the hulk.

"Well! well! well!" he cried in his best quarterdeck voice—"what are you stowaways doin' here?" and he climbed the ladder and swung himself over the battered rail.

Archie took his hand and led him into the most sacred recesses of the den, explaining to him his plans for defence, his armament of barrel hoops, and his ammunition of shells and pebbles, Tod standing silently by and a little abashed, as was natural in one of his station; at which the captain laughed more loudly than before, catching Archie in his arms, rubbing his curly head with his big, hard hand, and telling him he was a chip of the old block, every inch of him—none of which did either Archie or Tod understand. Before he climbed down the ladder he announced with a solemn smile that he thought the craft was well protected so far as collisions on foggy nights were concerned, but he doubted if their arms were sufficient and that he had better leave them his big sea knife which had been twice around Cape Horn, and which might be useful in lopping off arms and legs whenever the cutthroats got too impudent and aggressive; whereupon Archie threw his arms around his grizzled neck and said he was a "bully commodore," and that if he would come and live with them aboard the hulk they would obey his orders to a man.

Archie leaned over the rotten rail and saw the old salt stop a little way from the hulk and stand looking at them for some minutes and then wave his hand, at which the boys waved back, but the lad did not see the tears that lingered for an instant on the captain's eyelids, and which the sea-breeze caught away; nor did he hear the words, as the captain resumed his walk: "He's all I've got left, and yet he don't know it and I can't tell him. Ain't it hell?"

Neither did they notice that he never once raised his eyes toward the House of Refuge as he passed its side. A new door and a new roof had been added, but in other respects it was to him the same grewsome, lonely hut as on that last night when he had denounced his son outside its swinging door.

Often the boys made neighborly visits to friendly tribes and settlers. Fogarty was one of these, and Doctor Cavendish was another. The doctor's country was a place of buttered bread and preserves and a romp with Rex, who was almost as feeble as Meg had been in his last days. But Fogarty's cabin was a mine of never-ending delight. In addition to the quaint low house of clapboards and old ship-timber, with its sloping roof and little toy windows, so unlike his own at Yardley, and smoked ceilings, there was a scrap heap piled up and scattered over the yard which in itself was a veritable treasure-house. Here were rusty chains and wooden figure-heads of broken-nosed, blind maidens and tailless dolphins. Here were twisted iron rods, fish-baskets, broken lobster-pots, rotting seines and tangled, useless nets—some used as coverings for coops of restless chickens—old worn-out rope, tangled rigging—everything that a fisherman who had spent his life on Barnegat beach could pull from the surf or find stranded on the sand.

Besides all these priceless treasures, there was an old boat lying afloat in a small lagoon back of the house, one of those seepage pools common to the coast—a boat which Fogarty had patched with a bit of sail-cloth, and for which he had made two pairs of oars, one for each of the "crew," as he called the lads, and which Archie learned to handle with such dexterity that the old fisherman declared he would make a first-class boatman when he grew up, and would "shame the whole bunch of 'em."

But these two valiant buccaneers were not to remain in undisturbed possession of the Bandit's Home with its bewildering fittings and enchanting possibilities—not for long. The secret of the uses to which the stranded craft bad been put, and the attendant fun which Commodore Tod and his dauntless henchman, Archibald Cobden, Esquire, were daily getting out of its battered timbers, had already become public property. The youth of Barnegat—the very young youth, ranging from nine to twelve, and all boys—received the news at first with hilarious joy. This feeling soon gave way to unsuppressed indignation, followed by an active bitterness, when they realized in solemn conclave—the meeting was held in an open lot on Saturday morning—that the capture of the craft had been accomplished, not by dwellers under Barnegat Light, to whom every piece of sea-drift from a tomato-can to a full-rigged ship rightfully belonged, but by a couple of aliens, one of whom wore knee-pants and a white collar,—a distinction in dress highly obnoxious to these lords of the soil.

All these denizens of Barnegat had at one time or another climbed up the sloop's chains and peered down the hatchway to the sand covering the keelson, and most of them had used it as a shelter behind which, in swimming-time, they had put on or peeled off such mutilated rags as covered their nakedness, but no one of them had yet conceived the idea of turning it into a Bandit's Home. That touch of the ideal, that gilding of the commonplace, had been reserved for the brain of the curly-haired boy who, with dancing eyes, his sturdy little legs resting on Tod's shoulder, had peered over the battered rail, and who, with a burst of enthusiasm, had shouted: "Oh, cracky! isn't it nice, Tod! It's got a place we can fix up for a robbers' den; and we'll be bandits and have a flag. Oh, come up here! You never saw anything so fine," etc., etc.

When, therefore, Scootsy Mulligan, aged nine, son of a ship-caulker who worked in Martin Farguson's ship-yard, and Sandy Plummer, eldest of three, and their mother a widow—plain washing and ironing, two doors from the cake-shop—heard that that French "spad," Arch Cobden what lived up to Yardley, and that red-headed Irish cub, Tod Fogarty—Tod's hair had turned very red—had pre-empted the Black Tub, as the wreck was irreverently called, claiming it as their very own, "and-a-sayin' they wuz pirates and bloody Turks and sich," these two quarrelsome town rats organized a posse in lower Barnegat for its recapture.

Archie was sweeping the horizon from his perch on the "poop-deck" when his eagle eye detected a strange group of what appeared to be human beings advancing toward the wreck from the direction of Barnegat village. One, evidently a chief, was in the lead, the others following bunched together. All were gesticulating wildly. The trusty henchman immediately gave warning to Tod, who was at work in the lower hold arranging a bundle of bean-poles which had drifted inshore the night before—part of the deck-load, doubtless, of some passing vessel.

"Ay, ay, sir!" cried the henchman with a hoist of his knee-pants, as a prelude to his announcement.

"Ay, ay, yerself!" rumbled back the reply. "What's up?" The commodore had not read as deeply in pirate lore as had Archie, and was not, therefore, so ready with its lingo.

"Band of savages, sir, approaching down the beach."

"Where away?" thundered back the commodore, his authority now asserting itself in the tones of his voice.

"On the starboard bow, sir—six or seven of 'em."

"Armed or peaceable?"

"Armed, sir. Scootsy Mulligan is leadin' 'em."

"Scootsy Mulligan! Crickety! he's come to make trouble," shouted back Tod, climbing the ladder in a hurry—it was used as a means of descent into the shallow hold when not needed outside. "Where are they? Oh, yes! I see 'em—lot of 'em, ain't they? Saturday, and they ain't no school. Say, Arch, what are we goin' to do?" The terminal vowels softening his henchman's name were omitted in grave situations; so was the pirate lingo.

"Do!" retorted Archie, his eyes snapping. "Why, we'll fight 'em; that's what we are pirates for. Fight 'em to the death. Hurray! They're not coming aboard—no sir-ee! You go down, Toddy [the same free use of terminals], and get two of the biggest bean-poles and I'll run up the death flag. We've got stones and shells enough. Hurry—big ones, mind you!"

The attacking party, their leader ahead, had now reached the low sand heap marking the grave of the former wreck, but a dozen yards away—the sand had entombed it the year before.

"You fellers think yer durned smart, don't ye?" yelled Mr. William Mulligan, surnamed "Scootsy" from his pronounced fleetness of foot. "We're goin' to run ye out o' that Tub. 'Tain't yourn, it's ourn—ain't it, fellers?"

A shout went up in answer from the group on the hillock.

"You can come as friends, but not as enemies," cried Archie grandiloquently. "The man who sets foot on this ship without permission dies like a dog. We sail under the blood-red flag!" and Archie struck an attitude and pointed to the fragment of mother Fogarty's own nailed to a lath and hanging limp over the rail.

"Hi! hi! hi!" yelled the gang in reply. "Oh, ain't he a beauty! Look at de cotton waddin' on his head!" (Archie's cropped curls.) "Say, sissy, does yer mother know ye're out? Throw that ladder down; we're comin' up there—don't make no diff'rence whether we got yer permish or not—and we'll knock the stuffin' out o' ye if ye put up any job on us. H'ist out that ladder!"

"Death and no quarter!" shouted back Archie, opening the big blade of Captain Holt's pocket knife and grasping it firmly in his wee hand. "We'll defend this ship with the last drop of our blood!"

"Ye will, will ye!" retorted Scootsy. "Come on, fellers—go for 'em! I'll show 'em," and he dodged under the sloop's bow and sprang for the overhanging chains.

Tod had now clambered up from the hold. Under his arm were two stout hickory saplings. One he gave to Archie, the other he kept himself.

"Give them the shells first," commanded Archie, dodging a beach pebble; "and when their hands come up over the rail let them have this," and he waved the sapling over his head. "Run, Tod,—they're trying to climb up behind. I'll take the bow. Avast there, ye lubbers!"

With this Archie dropped to his knees and crouched close to the heel of the rotting bowsprit, out of the way of the flying missiles—each boy's pockets were loaded—and looking cautiously over the side of the hulk, waited until Scootsy's dirty fingers—he was climbing the chain hand over hand, his feet resting on a boy below him—came into view.

"Off there, or I'll crack your fingers!"

"Crack and be—"

Bang! went Archie's hickory and down dropped the braggart, his oath lost in his cries.

"He smashed me fist! He smashed me fist! Oh! Oh!" whined Scootsy, hopping about with the pain, sucking the injured hand and shaking its mate at Archie, who was still brandishing the sapling and yelling himself hoarse in his excitement.

The attacking party now drew off to the hillock for a council of war. Only their heads could be seen—their bodies lay hidden in the long grass of the dune.

Archie and Tod were now dancing about the deck in a delirium of delight—calling out in true piratical terms, "We die, but we never surrender!" Tod now and then falling into his native vernacular to the effect that he'd "knock the liver and lights out o' the hull gang," an expression the meaning of which was wholly lost on Archie, he never having cleaned a fish in his life.

Here a boy in his shirt-sleeves straightened up in the yellow grass and looked seaward. Then Sandy Plummer gave a yell and ran to the beach, rolling up what was left of his trousers legs, stopping now and then to untie first one shoe and then the other. Two of the gang followed on a run. When the three reached the water's edge they danced about like Crusoe's savages, waving their arms and shouting. Sandy by this time had stripped off his clothes and had dashed into the water. A long plank from some lumber schooner was drifting up the beach in the gentle swell of the tide. Sandy ran abreast of it for a time, sprang into the surf, threw himself upon it flat like a frog, and then began paddling shoreward. The other two now rushed into the water, grasping the near end of the derelict, the whole party pushing and paddling until it was hauled clean of the brine and landed high on the sand.

A triumphant yell here came from the water's edge, and the balance of the gang—there were seven in all—rushed to the help of the dauntless three.

Archie heaped a pile of pebbles within reach of his hand and waited the attack. What the savages were going to do with the plank neither he nor Tod could divine. The derelict was now dragged over the sand to the hulk, Tod and Archie pelting its rescuers with stones and shells as they came within short range.

"Up with her, fellers!" shouted Sandy, who, since Scootsy's unmanly tears, had risen to first place. "Run it under the bowsprit—up with her—there she goes! Altogether!"

Archie took his stand, his long sapling in his hand, and waited. He thought first he would unseat the end of the plank, but it was too far below him and then again he would be exposed to their volleys of stones, and if he was hurt he might not get back on his craft. Tod, who had resigned command in favor of his henchman after Archie's masterly defence in the last fight, stood behind him. Thermopylae was a narrow place, and so was the famous Bridge of Horatius. He and his faithful Tod would now make the fight of their lives. Both of these close shaves for immortality were closed books to Tod, but Archie knew every line of their records, Doctor John having spent many an hour reading to him, the boy curled up in his lap while Jane listened.

Sandy, emboldened by the discovery of the plank, made the first rush up and was immediately knocked from his perch by Tod, whose pole swung around his head like a flail. Then Scootsy tried it, crawling up, protecting his head by ducking it under his elbows, holding meanwhile by his hand. Tod's blows fell about his back, but the boy struggled on until Archie reached over the gunwale, and with a twist of his wrist, using all his strength, dropped the invader to the sand below.

The success of this mode of attack was made apparent, provided they could stick to the plank. Five boys now climbed up. Archie belabored the first one with the pole and Tod grappled with the second, trying to throw him from the rail to the sand, some ten feet below, but the rat close behind him, in spite of their efforts, reached forward, caught the rail, and scrambled up to his mate's assistance. In another instant both had leaped to the sloop's deck.

"Back! back! Run, Toddy!" screamed Archie, waving his arms. "Get on the poop-deck; we can lick them there. Run!"

Tod darted back, and the two defenders clearing the intervening rotten timbers with a bound, sprang upon the roof of the old cabin—Archie's "poop."

With a whoop the savages followed, jumping over the holes in the planking and avoiding the nails in the open beams.

In the melee Archie had lost his pole, and was now standing, hat off, his blue eves flashing, all the blood of his overheated little body blazing in his face. The tears of defeat were trembling under his eyelids, He had been outnumbered, but he would die game. In his hand he carried, unconsciously to himself, the big-bladed pocket knife the captain had given him. He would as soon have used it on his mother as upon one of his enemies, but the Barnegat invaders were ignorant of that fact, knives being the last resort in their environment.

"Look out, Sandy!" yelled Scootsy to his leader, who was now sneaking up to Archie with the movement of an Indian in ambush;—"he's drawed a knife."

Sandy stopped and straightened himself within three feet of Archie. His hand still smarted from the blow Archie had given it. The "spad" had not stopped a second in that attack, and he might not in this; the next thing he knew the knife might be between his ribs.

"Drawed a knife, hev ye!" he snarled. "Drawed a knife, jes' like a spad that ye are! Ye oughter put yer hair in curl-papers!"

Archie looked at the harmless knife in his hand.

"I can fight you with my fists if you are bigger than me," he cried, tossing the knife down the open hatchway into the sand below. "Hold my coat, Tod," and he began stripping off his little jacket.

"I ain't fightin' no spads," sneered Sandy. He didn't want to fight this one. "Yer can't skeer nobody. You'll draw a pistol next. Yer better go home to yer mammy, if ye kin find her."

"He ain't got no mammy," snarled Scootsy. "He's a pick-up—me father says so."

Archie sprang forward to avenge the insult, but before he could reach Scootsy's side a yell arose from the bow of the hulk.

"Yi! yi! Run, fellers! Here comes old man Fogarty! he's right on top o' ye! Not that side—this way. Yi! yi!"

The invaders turned and ran the length of the deck, scrambled over the side and dropped one after the other to the sand below just as the Fogarty head appeared at the bow. It was but a step and a spring for him, and with a lurch he gained the deck of the wreck.

"By jiminy, boys, mother thought ye was all killed! Has them rats been botherin' ye? Ye oughter broke the heads of 'em. Where did they get that plank? Come 'shore, did it? Here, Tod, catch hold of it; I jes' wanted a piece o' floorin' like that. Why, ye're all het up, Archie! Come, son, come to dinner; ye'll git cooled off, and mother's got a mess o' clams for ye. Never mind 'bout the ladder; I'll lift it down."

On the way over to the cabin, Fogarty and Tod carrying the plank and Archie walking beside them, the fisherman gleaned from the boys the details of the fight. Archie had recovered the captain's knife and it was now in his hand.

"Called ye a 'pick-up' did he, the rat, and said ye didn't have no mother. He's a liar! If ye ain't got a mother, and a good one, I don't know who has. That's the way with them town-crabs, allus cussin' somebody better'n themselves."