hams, a side of pork, a quarter of beef, hanks of yarn, and strings of
onions. It was a goodly array. Marcia felt that the minister must be
beloved by his people. She watched him and his wife as they greeted their
people, and wished she knew them better, and might come and see them
sometimes, and perhaps eventually feel as much at home with them as with
her own dear minister.

She avoided Hannah during the remainder of the evening. When the evening
was over and she went upstairs to get her wraps from the high four-poster
bedstead, she had almost forgotten Hannah and her ill-natured, prying
remarks. But Hannah had not forgotten her. She came forth from behind the
bed curtains where she had been searching for a lost glove, and remarked
that she should think Marcia would be lonely this first winter away from
home and want her sister with her a while.

But the presence of Hannah always seemed a mental stimulus to the spirit
of Marcia.

“Oh, I’m not in the least lonely,” she laughed merrily. “I have a great
many interesting things to do, and I love music and books.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot you are very fond of music. Harry Temple told me about
it,” said Hannah. Again there was that disagreeable hint of something more
behind her words, that aggravated Marcia almost beyond control. For an
instant a cutting reply was upon her lips and her eyes flashed fire; then
it came to her how futile it would be, and she caught the words in time
and walked swiftly down the stairs. David watching her come down saw the
admiring glances of all who stood in the hall below, and took her under
his protection with a measure of pride in her youth and beauty that he did
not himself at all realize. All the way home he talked with her about the
new theory of railroad construction, quite contented in her companionship,
while she, poor child, much perturbed in spirit, wondered how he would
feel if he knew what Hannah had said.

David fell into a deep study with a book and his papers about him, after
they had reached home. Marcia went up to her quiet, lonely chamber, put
her face in the pillow and thought and wept and prayed. When at last she
lay down to rest she did not know anything she could do but just to go on
living day by day and helping David all she could. At most there was
nothing to fear for herself, save a kind of shame that she had not been
the first sister chosen, and she found to her surprise that that was
growing to be deeper than she had supposed.

She wished as she fell asleep that her girl-dreams might have been left to
develop and bloom like other girls’, and that she might have had a real
lover,—like David in every way, yet of course not David because he was
Kate’s. But a real lover who would meet her as David had done that night
when he thought she was Kate, and speak to her tenderly.

One afternoon David, being wearied with an unusual round of taxing cares,
came home to rest and study up some question in his library.

Finding the front door fastened, and remembering that he had left his key
in his other pocket, he came around to the back door, and much preoccupied
with thought went through the kitchen and nearly to the hall before the
unusual sounds of melody penetrated to his ears. He stopped for an instant
amazed, forgetting the piano, then comprehending he wondered who was
playing. Perhaps some visitor was in the parlor. He would listen and find
out. He was weary and dusty with the soil of the office upon his hands and
clothes. He did not care to meet a visitor, so under cover of the music he
slipped into the door of his library across the hall from the parlor and
dropped into his great arm-chair.

Softly and tenderly stole the music through the open door, all about him,
like the gentle dropping of some tender psalms or comforting chapter in
the Bible to an aching heart. It touched his brow like a soft soothing
hand, and seemed to know and recognize all the agonies his heart had been
passing through, and all the weariness his body felt.

He put his head back and let it float over him and rest him. Tinkling
brooks and gentle zephyrs, waving of forest trees, and twitterings of
birds, calm lazy clouds floating by, a sweetness in the atmosphere, bells
far away, lowing herds, music of the angels high in heaven, the soothing
strain from each extracted and brought to heal his broken heart. It fell
like dew upon his spirit. Then, like a fresh breeze with zest and life
borne on, came a new strain, grand and fine and high, calling him to
better things. He did not know it was a strain of Handel’s music grown
immortal, but his spirit recognized the higher call, commanding him to
follow, and straightway he felt strengthened to go onward in the course he
had been pursuing. Old troubles seemed to grow less, anguish fell away
from him. He took new lease of life. Nothing seemed impossible.

Then she played by ear one or two of the old tunes they sang in church,
touching the notes tenderly and almost making them speak the words. It
seemed a benediction. Suddenly the playing ceased and Marcia remembered it
was nearly supper time.

He met her in the doorway with a new look in his eyes, a look of high
purpose and exultation. He smiled upon her and said: “That was good,
child. I did not know you could do it. You must give it to us often.”
Marcia felt a glow of pleasure in his kindliness, albeit she felt that the
look in his eyes set him apart and above her, and made her feel the child
she was. She hurried out to get the supper between pleasure and a nameless
unrest. She was glad of this much, but she wanted more, a something to
meet her soul and satisfy.

                               CHAPTER XIX

The world had not gone well with Mistress Kate Leavenworth, and she was
ill-pleased. She had not succeeded in turning her father’s heart toward
herself as she had confidently expected to do when she ran away with her
sea captain. She had written a gay letter home, taking for granted, in a
pretty way, the forgiveness she did not think it necessary to ask, but
there had come in return a brief harsh statement from her father that she
was no longer his daughter and must cease from further communication with
the family in any way; that she should never enter his house again and not
a penny of his money should ever pass to her. He also informed her plainly
that the trousseau made for her had been given to her sister who was now
the wife of the man she had not seen fit to marry.

Over this letter Mistress Kate at first stormed, then wept, and finally
sat down to frame epistle after epistle in petulant, penitent language.
These epistles following each other by daily mail coaches still brought
nothing further from her irate parent, and my lady was at last forced to
face the fact that she must bear the penalty of her own misdeeds; a lesson
she should have learned much earlier in life.

The young captain, who had always made it appear that he had plenty of
money, had spent his salary, and most of his mother’s fortune, which had
been left in his keeping as administrator of his father’s estate; so he
had really very little to offer the spoiled and petted beauty, who simply
would not settle down to the inevitable and accept the fate she had
brought upon herself and others. Day after day she fretted and blamed her
husband until he heartily wished her back from whence he had taken her;
wished her back with her straitlaced lover from whom he had stolen her;
wished her anywhere save where she was. Her brightness and beauty seemed
all gone: she was a sulky child insisting upon the moon or nothing. She
waited to go to New York and be established in a fine house with plenty of
servants and a carriage and horses, and the young captain had not the
wherewithal to furnish these accessories to an elegant and luxurious life.

He had loved her so far as his shallow nature could love, and perhaps she
had returned it in the beginning. He wanted to spend his furlough in quiet
places where he might have a honeymoon of his ideal, bantering Kate’s
sparkling sentences, looking into her beautiful eyes, touching her rosy
lips with his own as often as he chose. But Mistress Kate had lost her
sparkle. She would not be kissed until she had gained her point, her
lovely eyes were full of disfiguring tears and angry flashes, and her
speech scintillated with cutting sarcasms, which were none the less hard
to bear that they pressed home some disagreeable truths to the easy,
careless spendthrift. The rose had lost its dew and was making its thorns
felt.

And so they quarreled through their honeymoon, and Captain Leavenworth was
not sorry when a hasty and unexpected end came to his furlough and he was
ordered off with his ship for an indefinite length of time.

Even then Kate thought to get her will before he left, and held on her
sullen ways and her angry, blameful talk until the last minute, so that he
hurried away without even one good-bye kiss, and with her angry sentences
sounding in his ears.

True, he repented somewhat on board the ship and sent her back more money
than she could reasonably have expected under the circumstances, but he
sent it without one word of gentleness, and Kate’s heart was hard toward
her husband.

Then with bitterness and anguish,—that was new and fairly astonishing that
it had come to her who had always had her way,—she sat down to think of
the man she had jilted. He would have been kind to her. He would have
given her all she asked and more. He would even have moved his business to
New York to please her, she felt sure. Why had she been so foolish! And
then, like many another sinner who is made at last to see the error of his
ways, she cast hard thoughts at a Fate which had allowed her to make so
great a mistake, and pitied her poor little self out of all recognition of
the character she had formed.

But she took her money and went to New York, for she felt that there only
could she be at all happy, and have some little taste of the delights of
true living.

She took up her abode with an ancient relative of her own mother’s, who
lived in a quiet respectable part of the city, and who was glad to piece
out her small annuity with the modest sum that Kate agreed to pay for her
board.

It was not long before Mistress Kate, with her beautiful face, and the
pretty clothes which she took care to provide at once for herself,
spending lavishly out of the diminishing sum her husband had sent her, and
thinking not of the morrow, nor the day when the board bills would be due,
became well known. The musty little parlor of the ancient relative was
daily filled with visitors, and every evening Kate held court, with the
old aunt nodding in her chair by the fireside.

Neither did the poor old lady have a very easy time of it, in spite of the
promise of weekly pay. Kate laughed at the old furniture and the old ways.
She demanded new things, and got them, too, until the old lady saw little
hope of any help from the board money when Kate was constantly saying: “I
saw this in a shop down town, auntie, and as I knew you needed it I just
bought it. My board this week will just pay for it.” As always, Kate
ruled. The little parlor took on an air of brightness, and Kate became
popular. A few women of fashion took her up, and Kate launched herself
upon a gay life, her one object to have as good a time as possible,
regardless of what her husband or any one else might think.

When Kate had been in New York about two months it happened one day that
she went out to drive with one of her new acquaintances, a young married
woman of about her own age, who had been given all in a worldly way that
had been denied to Kate.

They made some calls in Brooklyn, and returned on the ferry-boat, carriage
and all, just as the sun was setting.

The view was marvellous. The water a flood of pink and green and gold; the
sails of the vessels along the shore lit up resplendently; the buildings
of the city beyond sent back occasional flashes of reflected light from
window glass or church spire. It was a picture worth looking upon, and
Kate’s companion was absorbed in it.

Not so Kate. She loved display above all things. She sat up statelily,
aware that she looked well in her new frock with the fine lace collar she
had extravagantly purchased the day before, and her leghorn bonnet with
its real ostrich feather, which was becoming in the extreme. She enjoyed
sitting back of the colored coachman, her elegant friend by her side, and
being admired by the two ladies and the little girl who sat in the ladies’
cabin and occasionally peeped curiously at her from the window. She drew
herself up haughtily and let her soul “delight itself in fatness”—borrowed
fatness, perhaps, but still, the long desired. She told herself she had a
right to it, for was she not a Schuyler? That name was respected
everywhere.

She bore a grudge at a man and woman who stood by the railing absorbed in
watching the sunset haze that lay over the river showing the white sails
in gleams like flashes of white birds here and there.

A young man well set up, and fashionably attired, sauntered up to the
carriage. He spoke to Kate’s friend, and was introduced. Kate felt in her
heart it was because of her presence there he came. His bold black eyes
told her as much and she was flattered.

They fell to talking.

“You say you spent the summer near Albany, Mr. Temple,” said Kate
presently, “I wonder if you happen to know any of my friends. Did you meet
a Mr. Spafford? David Spafford?”

“Of course I did, knew him well,” said the young man with guarded tone.
But a quick flash of dislike, and perhaps fear had crossed his face at the
name. Kate was keen. She analyzed that look. She parted her charming red
lips and showed her sharp little teeth like the treacherous pearls in a
white kitten’s pink mouth.

“He was once a lover of mine,” said Kate carelessly, wrinkling her piquant
little nose as if the idea were comical, and laughing out a sweet ripple
of mirth that would have cut David to the heart.

“Indeed!” said the ever ready Harry, “and I do not wonder. Is not every
one that at once they see you, Madam Leavenworth? How kind of your husband
to stay away at sea for so long a time and give us other poor fellows a
chance to say pleasant things.”

Then Kate pouted her pretty lips in a way she had and tapped the delighted
Harry with her carriage parasol across the fingers of his hand that had
taken familiar hold of the carriage beside her arm.

“Oh, you naughty man!” she exclaimed prettily. “How dare you! Yes, David
Spafford and I were quite good friends. I almost gave in at one time and
became Mrs. Spafford, but he was too good for me!”

She uttered this truth in a mocking tone, and Harry saw her lead and
hastened to follow. Here was a possible chance for revenge. He was ready
for any. He studied the lady before him keenly. Of what did that face
remind him? Had he ever seen her before?

“I should judge him a little straitlaced for your merry ways,” he
responded gallantly, “but he’s like all the rest, fickle, you know. He’s
married. Have you heard?”

Kate’s face darkened with something hard and cruel, but her voice was soft
as a cat’s purr:

“Yes,” she sighed, “I know. He married my sister. Poor child! I am sorry
for her. I think he did it out of revenge, and she was too young to know
her own mind. But they, poor things, will have to bear the consequences of
what they have done. Isn’t it a pity that that has to be, Mr. Temple? It
is dreadful to have the innocent suffer. I have been greatly anxious about
my sister.” She lifted her large eyes swimming in tears, and he did not
perceive the insincerity in her purring voice just then. He was thanking
his lucky stars that he had been saved from any remarks about young Mrs.
Spafford, whom her sister seemed to love so deeply. It had been on the tip
of his tongue to suggest that she might be able to lead her husband a gay
little dance if she chose. How lucky he had not spoken! He tried to say
some pleasant comforting nothings, and found it delightful to see her face
clear into smiles and her blue eyes look into his so confidingly. By the
time the boat touched the New York side the two felt well acquainted, and
Harry Temple had promised to call soon, which promise he lost no time in
keeping.

Kate’s heart had grown bitter against the young sister who had dared to
take her place, and against the lover who had so easily solaced himself.
She could not understand it.

She resolved to learn all that Mr. Temple knew about David, and to find
out if possible whether he were happy. It was Kate’s nature not to be able
to give up anything even though she did not want it. She desired the
life-long devotion of every man who came near her, and have it she would
or punish him.

Harry Temple, meanwhile, was reflecting upon his chance meeting that
afternoon and wondering if in some way he might not yet have revenge upon
the man who had humbled him. Possibly this woman could help him.

After some thought he sat down and penned a letter to Hannah Heath,
begemming it here and there with devoted sentences which caused that young
woman’s eyes to sparkle and a smile of anticipation to wreathe her lips.
When she heard of the handsome sister in New York, and of her former
relations with David Spafford, her eyes narrowed speculatively, and her
fair brow drew into puzzled frowns. Harry Temple had drawn a word picture
of Mrs. Leavenworth. Harry should have been a novelist. If he had not been
too lazy he would have been a success. Gold hair! Ah! Hannah had heard of
gold hair before, and in connection with David’s promised wife. Here was a
mystery and Hannah resolved to look into it. It would at least be
interesting to note the effect of her knowledge upon the young bride next
door. She would try it.

Meantime, the acquaintance of Harry Temple and Kate Leavenworth had
progressed rapidly. The second sight of the lady proved more interesting
than the first, for now her beautiful gold hair added to the charm of her
handsome face. Harry ever delighted in beauty of whatever type, and a
blonde was more fascinating to him than a brunette. Kate had dressed
herself bewitchingly, and her manner was charming. She knew how to assume
pretty child-like airs, but she was not afraid to look him boldly in the
eyes, and the light in her own seemed to challenge him. Here was a
delightful new study. A woman fresh from the country, having all the charm
of innocence, almost as child-like as her sister, yet with none of her
prudishness. Kate’s eyes held latent wickedness in them, or he was much
mistaken. She did not droop her lids and blush when he looked boldly and
admiringly into her face, but stared him back, smilingly, merrily,
daringly, as though she would go quite as far as he would. Moreover, with
her he was sure he need feel none of the compunctions he might have felt
with her younger sister who was so obviously innocent, for whether Kate’s
boldness was from lack of knowledge, or from lack of innocence, she was
quite able to protect herself, that was plain.

So Harry settled into his chair with a smile of pleasant anticipation upon
his face. He not only had the prospect before him of a possible ally in
revenge against David Spafford, but he had the promise of a most unusually
delightful flirtation with a woman who was worthy of his best efforts in
that line.

Almost at once it began, with pleasant banter, adorned with personal
compliments.

“Lovelier than I thought, my lady,” said Harry, bowing low over the hand
she gave him, in a courtly manner he had acquired, perhaps from the
old-world novels he had read, and he brushed her pink finger tips with his
lips in a way that signified he was her abject slave.

Kate blushed and smiled, greatly pleased, for though she had held her own
little court in the village where she was brought up, and queened it over
the young men who had flocked about her willingly, she had not been used
to the fulsome flattery that breathed from Harry Temple in every word and
glance.

He looked at her keenly as he stood back a moment, to see if she were in
any wise offended with his salutation, and saw as he expected that she was
pleased and flattered. Her cheeks had grown rosier, and her eyes sparkled
with pleasure as she responded with a pretty, gracious speech.

Then they sat down and faced one another. A good woman would have called
his look impudent—insulting. Kate returned it with a look that did not
shrink, nor waver, but fearlessly, recklessly accepted the challenge.
Playing with fire, were these two, and with no care for the fearful
results which might follow. Both knew it was dangerous, and liked it the
better for that. There was a long silence. The game was opening on a wider
scale than either had ever played before.

“Do you believe in affinities?” asked the devil, through the man’s voice.

The woman colored and showed she understood his deeper meaning. Her eyes
drooped for just the shade of an instant, and then she looked up and faced
him saucily, provokingly:

“Why?”

He admired her with his gaze, and waited, lazily watching the color play
in her cheeks.

“Do you need to ask why?” he said at last, looking at her significantly.
“I knew that you were my affinity the moment I laid my eyes upon you, and
I hoped you felt the same. But perhaps I was mistaken.” He searched her
face.

She kept her eyes upon his, returning their full gaze, as if to hold it
from going too deep into her soul.

“I did not say you were mistaken, did I?” said the rosy lips coquettishly,
and Kate drooped her long lashes till they fell in becoming sweeps over
her burning cheeks.

Something in the curve of cheek and chin, and sweep of dark lash over
velvet skin, reminded him of her sister. It was so she had sat, though
utterly unconscious, while he had been singing, when there had come over
him that overwhelming desire to kiss her. If he should kiss this fair lady
would she slap him in the face and run into the garden? He thought not.
Still, she was brought up by the same father and mother in all likelihood,
and it was well to go slow. He reached forward, drawing his chair a little
nearer to her, and then boldly took one of her small unresisting hands,
gently, that he might not frighten her, and smoothed it thoughtfully
between his own. He held it in a close grasp and looked into her face
again, she meanwhile watching her hand amusedly, as though it were
something apart from herself, a sort of distant possession, for which she
was in no wise responsible.

“I feel that you belong to me,” he said boldly looking into her eyes with
a languishing gaze. “I have known it from the first moment.”

Kate let her hand lie in his as if she liked it, but she said:

“And what makes you think that, most audacious sir? Did you not know that
I am married?” Then she swept her gaze up provokingly at him again and
smiled, showing her dainty, treacherous, little teeth. She was so
bewitchingly pretty and tempting then that he had a mind to kiss her on
the spot, but a thought came to him that he would rather lead her further
first. He was succeeding well. She had no mind to be afraid. She did her
part admirably.

“That makes no difference,” said he smiling. “That another man has secured
you first, and has the right to provide for you, and be near you, is my
misfortune of course, but it makes no difference, you are mine? By all the
power of love you are mine. Can any other man keep my soul from yours, can
he keep my eyes from looking into yours, or my thoughts from hovering over
you, or—” he hesitated and looked at her keenly, while she furtively
watched him, holding her breath and half inviting him—“or my lips from
drinking life from yours?” He stooped quickly and pressed his lips upon
hers.

Kate gave a quick little gasp like a sob and drew back. The aunt nodding
over her Bible in the next room had not heard,—she was very deaf,—but for
an instant the young woman felt that all the shades of her worthy
patriarchal ancestors were hurrying around and away from her in horror.
She had come of too good Puritan stock not to know that she was treading
in the path of unrighteousness. Nevertheless it was a broad path, and
easy. It tempted her. It was exciting. It lured her with promise of
satisfying some of her untamed longings and impulses.

She did not look offended. She only drew back to get breath and consider.
The wild beating of her heart, the tumult of her cheeks and eyes were all
a part of a new emotion. Her vanity was excited, and she thrilled with a
wild pleasure. As a duck will take to swimming so she took to the new
game, with wonderful facility.

“But I didn’t say you might,” she cried with a bewildering smile.

“I beg your pardon, fair lady, may I have another?”

His bold, bad face was near her own, so that she did not see the evil
triumph that lurked there. She had come to the turning of another way in
her life, and just here she might have drawn back if she would. Half she
knew this, yet she toyed with the opportunity, and it was gone. The new
way seemed so alluring.

“You will first have to prove your right!” she said decidedly, with that
pretty commanding air that had conquered so many times.

And in like manner on they went through the evening, frittering the time
away at playing with edged tools.

A friendship so begun—if so unworthy an intimacy may be called by that
sweet name—boded no good to either of the two, and that evening marked a
decided turn for the worse in Kate Leavenworth’s career.

                                CHAPTER XX

David had found it necessary to take a journey which might keep him away
for several weeks.

He told Marcia in the evening when he came home from the office. He told
her as he would have told his clerk. It meant nothing to him but an
annoyance that he had to start out in the early winter, leave his business
in other’s hands for an indefinite period, and go among strangers. He did
not see the whitening of Marcia’s lips, nor the quick little movement of
her hand to her heart. Even Marcia herself did not realize all that it
meant to her. She felt as if a sudden shock had almost knocked her off her
feet. This quiet life in the big house, with only David at intervals to
watch and speak to occasionally, and no one to open her true heart to, had
been lonely; and many a time when she was alone at night she had wept
bitter tears upon her pillow,—why she did not quite know. But now when she
knew that it was to cease, and David was going away from her for a long
time, perhaps weeks, her heart suddenly tightened and she knew how sweet
it had been growing. Almost the tears came to her eyes, but she made a
quick errand to the hearth for the teapot, busying herself there till they
were under control again. When she returned to her place at the table she
was able to ask David some commonplace question about the journey which
kept her true feeling quite hidden from him.

He was to start the next evening if possible. It appeared that there was
something important about railroading coming up in Congress. It was
necessary that he should be present to hear the debate, and also that he
should see and interview influential men. It meant much to the success of
the great new enterprises that were just in their infancy that he should
go and find out all about them and write them up as only he whose heart
was in it could do. He was pleased to have been selected for this; he was
lifted for the time above himself and his life troubles, and given to feel
that he had a work in the world that was worth while, a high calling, a
chance to give a push to the unrolling of the secret possibilities of the
universe and help them on their way.

Marcia understood it all, and was proud and glad for him, but her own
heart which beat in such perfect sympathy with the work felt lonely and
left out. If only she could have helped too!

There was no time for David to take Marcia to her home to stay during his
absence. He spoke of it regretfully just as he was about to leave, and
asked if she would like him to get some one to escort her by coach to her
father’s house until he could come for her; but she held back the tears by
main force and shook her head. She had canvassed that question in the
still hours of the night. She had met in imagination the home village with
its kindly and unkindly curiosity, she had seen their hands lifted in
suspicion; heard their covert whispers as to why her husband did not come
with her; why he had left her so soon after the honeymoon; why—a hundred
things. She had even thought of Aunt Polly and her acrid tongue and made
up her mind that whatever happened she did not want to go home to stay.

The only other alternative was to go to the aunts. David expected it, and
the aunts spoke of it as if nothing else were possible. Marcia would have
preferred to remain alone in her own house, with her beloved piano, but
David would not consent, and the aunts were scandalized at the suggestion.
So to the aunts went Marcia, and they took her in with a hope in their
hearts that she might get the same good from the visit that the sluggard
in the Bible is bidden to find.

“We must do our duty by her for David’s sake,” said Aunt Hortense, with
pursed lips and capable, folded hands that seemed fairly to ache to get at
the work of reconstructing the new niece.

“Yes, it is our opportunity,” said Aunt Amelia with a snap as though she
thoroughly enjoyed the prospect. “Poor David!” and so they sat and laid
out their plans for their sweet young victim, who all unknowingly was
coming to one of those tests in her life whereby we are tried for greater
things and made perfect in patience and sweetness.

It began with the first breakfast—the night before she had been company,
at supper—but when the morning came they felt she must be counted one of
the family. They examined her thoroughly on what she had been taught with
regard to housekeeping. They made her tell her recipes for pickling and
preserving. They put her through a catechism of culinary lore, and always
after her most animated account of the careful way in which she had been
trained in this or that housewifely art she looked up with wistful eyes
that longed to please, only to be met by the hard set lips and steely
glances of the two mentors who regretted that she should not have been
taught their way which was so much better.

Aunt Hortense even went so far once as to suggest that Marcia write to her
stepmother and tell her how much better it was to salt the water in which
potatoes were to be boiled before putting them in, and was much offended
by the clear girlish laugh that bubbled up involuntarily at the thought of
teaching her stepmother anything about cooking.

“Excuse me,” she said, instantly sobering as she saw the grim look of the
aunt, and felt frightened at what she had done. “I did not mean to laugh,
indeed I did not; but it seemed so funny to think of my telling mother how
to do anything.”

“People are never too old to learn,” remarked Aunt Hortense with offended
mien, “and one ought never to be too proud when there is a better way.”

“But mother thinks there is no better way I am sure. She says that it
makes potatoes soggy to boil them in salt. All that grows below the ground
should be salted after it is cooked and all that grows above the ground
should be cooked in salted water, is her rule.”

“I am surprised that your stepmother should uphold any such superstitious
ideas,” said Aunt Amelia with a self-satisfied expression.

“One should never be too proud to learn something better,” Aunt Hortense
said grimly, and Marcia retreated in dire consternation at the thought of
what might follow if these three notable housekeeping gentlewomen should
come together. Somehow she felt a wicked little triumph in the thought
that it would be hard to down her stepmother.

Marcia was given a few light duties ostensibly to “make her feel at home,”
but in reality, she knew, because the aunts felt she needed their
instruction. She was asked if she would like to wash the china and glass;
and regularly after each meal a small wooden tub and a mop were brought in
with hot water and soap, and she was expected to handle the costly
heirlooms under the careful scrutiny of their worshipping owners, who
evidently watched each process with strained nerves lest any bit of
treasured pottery should be cracked or broken. It was a trying ordeal.

The girl would have been no girl if she had not chafed under this
treatment. To hold her temper steady and sweet under it was almost more
than she could bear.

There were long afternoons when it was decreed that they should knit.

Marcia had been used to take long walks at home, over the smooth crust of
the snow, going to her beloved woods, where she delighted to wander among
the bare and creaking trees; fancying them whispering sadly to one another
of the summer that was gone and the leaves they had borne now dead. But it
would be a dreadful thing in the aunts’ opinion for a woman, and
especially a young one, to take a long walk in the woods alone, in winter
too, and with no object whatever in view but a walk! What a waste of time!

There were two places of refuge for Marcia during the weeks that followed.
There was home. How sweet that word sounded to her! How she longed to go
back there, with David coming home to his quiet meals three times a day,
and with her own time to herself to do as she pleased. With housewifely
zeal that was commendable in the eyes of the aunts, Marcia insisted upon
going down to her own house every morning to see that all was right,
guiltily knowing that in her heart she meant to hurry to her beloved books
and piano. To be sure it was cold and cheerless in the empty house. She
dared not make up fires and leave them, and she dared not stay too long
lest the aunts would feel hurt at her absence, but she longed with an
inexpressible longing to be back there by herself, away from that terrible
supervision and able to live her own glad little life and think her own
thoughts untrammeled by primness.

Sometimes she would curl up in David’s big arm-chair and have a good cry,
after which she would take a book and read until the creeping chills down
her spine warned her she must stop. Even then she would run up and down
the hall or take a broom and sweep vigorously to warm herself and then go
to the cold keys and play a sad little tune. All her tunes seemed sad like
a wail while David was gone.

The other place of refuge was Aunt Clarinda’s room. Thither she would
betake herself after supper, to the delight of the old lady. Then the
other two occupants of the house were left to themselves and might unbend
from their rigid surveillance for a little while. Marcia often wondered if
they ever did unbend.

There was a large padded rocking chair in Aunt Clarinda’s room and Marcia
would laughingly take the little old lady in her arms and place her
comfortably in it, after a pleasant struggle on Miss Clarinda’s part to
put her guest into it. They had this same little play every evening, and
it seemed to please the old lady mightily. Then when she was conquered she
always sat meekly laughing, a fine pink color in her soft peachy cheek,
the candle light from the high shelf making flickering sparkles in her old
eyes that always seemed young; and she would say: “That’s just as David
used to do.”

Then Marcia drew up the little mahogany stool covered with the worsted dog
which Aunt Clarinda had worked when she was ten years old, and snuggling
down at the old lady’s feet exclaimed delightedly: “Tell me about it!” and
they settled down to solid comfort.

There came a letter from David after he had been gone a little over a
week. Marcia had not expected to hear from him. He had said nothing about
writing, and their relations were scarcely such as to make it necessary.
Letters were an expensive luxury in those days. But when the letter was
handed to her, Marcia’s heart went pounding against her breast, the color
flew into her cheeks, and she sped away home on feet swift as the wings of
a bird. The postmaster’s daughter looked after her, and remarked to her
father: “My, but don’t she think a lot of him!”

Straight to the cold, lonely house she flew, and sitting down in his big
chair read it.

It was a pleasant letter, beginning formally: “My dear Marcia,” and asking
after her health. It brought back a little of the unacquaintedness she had
felt when he was at home, and which had been swept away in part by her
knowledge of his childhood. But it went on quite happily telling all about
his journey and describing minutely the places he had passed through and
the people he had met on the way; detailing every little incident as only
a born writer and observer could do, until she felt as if he were talking
to her. He told her of the men whom he had met who were interested in the
new project. He told of new plans and described minutely his visit to the
foundry at West Point and the machinery he had seen. Marcia read it all
breathlessly, in search of something, she knew not what, that was not
there. When she had finished and found it not, there was a sense of
aloofness, a sad little disappointment which welled up in her throat. She
sat back to think about it. He was having a good time, and he was not
lonely. He had no longing to be back in the house and everything running
as before he had gone. He was out in the big glorious world having to do
with progress, and coming in contact with men who were making history. Of
course he did not dream how lonely she was here, and how she longed, if
for nothing else, just to be back here alone and do as she pleased, and
not to be watched over. If only she might steal Aunt Clarinda and bring
her back to live here with her while David was away! But that was not to
be thought of, of course. By and by she mustered courage to be glad of her
letter, and to read it over once more.

That night she read the letter to Aunt Clarinda and together they
discussed the great inventions, and the changes that were coming to pass
in the land. Aunt Clarinda was just a little beyond her depth in such a
conversation, but Marcia did most of the talking, and the dear old lady
made an excellent listener, with a pat here, and a “Dearie me! Now you
don’t say so!” there, and a “Bless the boy! What great things he does
expect. And I hope he won’t be disappointed.”

That letter lasted them for many a day until another came, this time from
Washington, with many descriptions of public men and public doings, and a
word picture of the place which made it appear much like any other place
after all if it was the capitol of the country. And once there was a
sentence which Marcia treasured. It was, “I wish you could be here and see
everything. You would enjoy it I know.”

There came another letter later beginning, “My dear little girl.” There
was nothing else in it to make Marcia’s heart throb, it was all about his
work, but Marcia carried it many days in her bosom. It gave her a thrill
of delight to think of those words at the beginning. Of course it meant no
more than that he thought of her as a girl, his little sister that was to
have been, but there was a kind of ownership in the words that was sweet
to Marcia’s lonely heart. It had come to her that she was always looking
for something that would make her feel that she belonged to David.

                               CHAPTER XXI

When David had been in New York about three weeks, he happened one day to
pass the house where Kate Leavenworth was living.

Kate was standing listlessly by the window looking into the street. She
was cross and felt a great depression settling over her. The flirtation
with Harry Temple had begun to pall upon her. She wanted new worlds to
conquer. She was restless and feverish. There was not excitement enough in
the life she was living. She would like to meet more people, senators and
statesmen—and to have plenty of money to dress as became her beauty, and
be admired publicly. She half wished for the return of her husband, and
meditated making up with him for the sake of going to Washington to have a
good time in society there. What was the use of running away with a naval
officer if one could not have the benefit of it? She had been a fool. Here
she was almost to the last penny, and so many things she wanted. No word
had come from her husband since he sent her the money at sailing. She felt
a bitter resentment toward him for urging her to marry him. If she had
only gone on and married David she would be living a life of ease
now—plenty of money—nothing to do but what she pleased and no anxiety
whatever, for David would have done just what she wanted.

Then suddenly she looked up and David passed before her!

He was walking with a tall splendid-looking man, with whom he was engaged
in most earnest conversation, and his look was grave and deeply absorbed.
He did not know of Kate’s presence in New York, and passed the house in
utter unconsciousness of the eyes watching him.

Kate’s lips grew white, and her limbs seemed suddenly weak, but she
strained her face against the window to watch the retreating figure of the
man who had almost been her husband. How well she knew the familiar
outline. How fine and handsome he appeared now! Why had she not thought so
before? Were her eyes blind, or had she been under some strange
enchantment? Why had she not known that her happiness lay in the way that
had been marked out for her? Well, at least she knew it now.

She sat all day by that window and watched. She professed to have no
appetite when pressed to come to the table, though she permitted herself
to languidly consume the bountiful tray of good things that was brought
her, but her eyes were on the street. She was watching to see if David
would pass that way again. But though she watched until the sun went down
and dusk sifted through the streets, she saw no sign nor heard the sound
of his footsteps. Then she hastened up to her room, which faced upon the
street also, and there, wrapped in blankets she sat in the cold frosty
air, waiting and listening. And while she watched she was thinking bitter
feverish thoughts. She heard Harry Temple knock and knew that he was told
that she was not feeling well and had retired early. She watched him pause
on the stoop thoughtfully as if considering what to do with the time thus
unexpectedly thrown upon his hands, then saw him saunter up the street
unconcernedly, and she wondered idly where he would go, and what he would
do.

It grew late, even for New York. One by one the lights in the houses along
the street went out, and all was quiet. She drew back from the window at
last, weary with excitement and thinking, and lay down on the bed, but she
could not sleep. The window was open and her ears were on the alert, and
by and by there came the distant echo of feet ringing on the pavement.
Some one was coming. She sprang up. She felt sure he was coming. Yes,
there were two men. They were coming back together. She could hear their
voices. She fancied she heard David’s long before it was possible to
distinguish any words. She leaned far out of her upper window till she
could discern dim forms under the starlight, and then just as they were
under the window she distinctly heard David say:

“There is no doubt but we shall win. The right is on our side, and it is
the march of progress. Some of the best men in Congress are with us, and
now that we are to have your influence I do not feel afraid of the issue.”

They had passed by rapidly, like men who had been on a long day’s jaunt of
some kind and were hastening home to rest. There was little in the
sentence that Kate could understand. She had no more idea whether the
subject of their discourse was railroads or the last hay crop. The
sentence meant to her but one thing. It showed that David companioned with
the great men of the land, and his position would have given her a
standing that would have been above the one she now occupied. Tears of
defeat ran down her cheeks. She had made a bad mistake and she saw no way
to rectify it. If her husband should die,—and it might be, for the sea was
often treacherous—of course there were all sorts of possibilities,—but
even then there was Marcia! She set her sharp little teeth into her red
lips till the blood came. She could not get over her anger at Marcia. It
would not have been so bad if David had remained her lone lorn lover,
ready to fly to her if others failed. Her self-love was wounded sorely,
and she, poor silly soul, mistook it for love of David. She began to fancy
that after all she had loved him, and that Fate had somehow played her a
mad trick and tied her to a husband she had not wanted.

Then out of the watchings of the day and the fancies of the night, there
grew a thought—and the thought widened into a plan. She thought of her
intimacy with Harry and her new found power. Might she perhaps exercise it
over others as well as Harry Temple? Might she possibly lead back this man
who had once been her lover, to bow at her feet again and worship her? If
that might be she could bear all the rest. She began to long with intense
craving to see David grovel at her feet, to hear him plead for a kiss from
her, and tell her once more how beautiful she was, and how she fulfilled
all his soul’s ideals. She sat by the open window yet with the icy air of
the night blowing upon her, but her cheeks burned red in the darkness, and
her eyes glowed like coals of fire from the tawny framing of her fallen
hair. The blankets slipped away from her throat and still she heeded not
the cold, but sat with hot clenched hands planning with the devil’s own
strategy her shameless scheme.

By and by she lighted a candle and drew her writing materials toward her
to write, but it was long she sat and thought before she finally wrote the
hastily scrawled note, signed and sealed it, and blowing out her candle
lay down to sleep.

The letter was addressed to David, and it ran thus:

    “DEAR DAVID:”

    “I have just heard that you are in New York. I am in great
    distress and do not know where to turn for help. For the sake of
    what we have been to each other in the past will you come to me?

                                          “Hastily, your loving KATE.”

She did not know where David was but she felt reasonably sure she could
find out his address in the morning. There was a small boy living next
door who was capable of ferreting out almost anything for money. Kate had
employed him more than once as an amateur detective in cases of minor
importance. So, with a bit of silver and her letter she made her way to
his familiar haunts and explained most carefully that the letter was to be
delivered to no one but the man to whom it was addressed, naming several
stopping places where he might be likely to be found, and hinting that
there was more silver to be forthcoming when he should bring her an answer
to the note. With a minute description of David the keen-eyed urchin set
out, while Kate betook herself to her room to dress for David’s coming.
She felt sure he would be found, and confident that he would come at once.

The icy wind of the night before blowing on her exposed throat and chest
had given her a severe cold, but she paid no heed to that. Her eyes and
cheeks were shining with fever. She knew she was entering upon a dangerous
and unholy way. The excitement of it stimulated her. She felt she did not
care for anything, right or wrong, sin or sorrow, only to win. She wanted
to see David at her feet again. It was the only thing that would satisfy
this insatiable longing in her, this wounded pride of self.

When she was dressed she stood before the mirror and surveyed herself. She
knew she was beautiful, and she defied the glass to tell her anything
else. She raised her chin in haughty challenge to the unseen David to
resist her charms. She would bring him low before her. She would make him
forget Marcia, and his home and his staid Puritan notions, and all else he
held dear but herself. He should bend and kiss her hand as Harry had done,
only more warmly, for instinctively she felt that his had been the purer
life and therefore his surrender would mean more. He should do whatever
she chose. And her eyes glowed with an unhallowed light.

She had chosen to array herself regally, in velvet, but in black, without
a touch of color or of white. From her rich frock her slender throat rose
daintily, like a stem upon which nodded the tempting flower of her face.
No enameled complexion could have been more striking in its vivid reds and
whites, and her mass of gold hair made her seem more lovely than she
really was, for in her face was love of self, alluring, but heartless and
cruel.

The boy found David, as Kate had thought he would, in one of the quieter
hostelries where men of letters were wont to stop when in New York, and
David read the letter and came at once. She had known that he would do
that, too. His heart beat wildly, to the exclusion of all other thoughts
save that she was in trouble, his love, his dear one. He forgot Marcia,
and the young naval officer, and everything but her trouble, and before he
had reached her house the sorrow had grown in his imagination into some
great danger to protect her from which he was hastening.

She received him alone in the room where Harry Temple had first called,
and a moment later Harry himself came to knock and enquire for the health
of Mistress Leavenworth, and was told she was very much engaged at present
with a gentleman and could not see any one, whereupon Harry scowled, and
set himself at a suitable distance from the house to watch who should come
out.

David’s face was white as death as he entered, his eyes shining like dark
jewels blazing at her as if he would absorb the vision for the lonely
future. She stood and posed,—not by any means the picture of broken sorrow
he had expected to find from her note,—and let the sense of her beauty
reach him. There she stood with the look on her face he had pictured to
himself many a time when he had thought of her as his wife. It was a look
of love unutterable, bewildering, alluring, compelling. It was so he had
thought she would meet him when he came home to her from his daily
business cares. And now she was there, looking that way, and he stood
here, so near her, and yet a great gulf fixed! It was heaven and hell met
together, and he had no power to change either.

He did not come over to her and bow low to kiss the white hand as Harry
had done,—as she had thought she could compel him to do. He only stood and
looked at her with the pain of an anguish beyond her comprehension, until
the look would have burned through to her heart—if she had had a heart.

“You are in trouble,” he spoke hoarsely, as if murmuring an excuse for
having come.

She melted at once into the loveliest sorrow, her mobile features taking
on a wan cast only enlivened by the glow of her cheeks.

“Sit down,” she said, “you were so good to come to me, and so soon—” and
her voice was like lily-bells in a quiet church-yard among the
head-stones. She placed him a chair.

“Yes, I am in trouble. But that is a slight thing compared to my
unhappiness. I think I am the most miserable creature that breathes upon
this earth.”

And with that she dropped into a low chair and hid her glowing face in a
dainty, lace bordered kerchief that suppressed a well-timed sob.

Kate had wisely calculated how she could reach David’s heart. If she had
looked up then and seen his white, drawn look, and the tense grasp of his
hands that only the greatest self-control kept quiet on his knee, perhaps
even her mercilessness would have been softened. But she did not look, and
she felt her part was well taken. She sobbed quietly, and waited, and his
hoarse voice asked once more, as gently as a woman’s through his pain:

“Will you tell me what it is and how I can help you?” He longed to take
her in his arms like a little child and comfort her, but he might not. She
was another’s. And perhaps that other had been cruel to her! His clenched
fists showed how terrible was the thought. But still the bowed figure in
its piteous black sobbed and did not reply anything except, “Oh, I am so
unhappy! I cannot bear it any longer.”

“Is—your—your—husband unkind to you?” The words tore themselves from his
tense lips as though they were beyond his control.

“Oh, no,—not exactly unkind—that is—he was not very nice before he went
away,” wailed out a sad voice from behind the linen cambric and lace, “and
he went away without a kind word, and left me hardly any money—and he
hasn’t sent me any word since—and fa-father won’t have anything to do with
me any more—but—but—it’s not that I mind, David. I don’t think about those
things at all. I’m so unhappy about you. I feel you do not forgive me, and
I cannot stand it any longer. I have made a fearful mistake, and you are
angry with me—I think about it at night”—the voice was growing lower now,
and the sentences broken by sobs that told better than words what distress
the sufferer would convey.

“I have been so wicked—and you were so good and kind—and now you will
never forgive me—I think it will kill me to keep on thinking about it—”
her voice trailed off in tears again.

David white with anguish sprang to his feet.

“Oh, Kate,” he cried, “my darling! Don’t talk that way. You know I forgive
you. Look up and tell me you know I forgive you.”

Almost she smiled her triumph beneath her sobs in the little lace border,
but she looked up with real tears on her face. Even her tears obeyed her
will. She was a good actress, also she knew her power over David.

“Oh, David,” she cried, standing up and clasping her hands beseechingly,
“can it be true? Do you really forgive me? Tell me again.”

She came and stood temptingly near to the stern, suffering man wild with
the tumult that raged within him. Her golden head was near his shoulder
where it had rested more than once in time gone by. He looked down at her
from his suffering height his arms folded tightly and said, as though
taking oath before a court of justice:

“I do.”

She looked up with her pleading blue eyes, like two jewels of light now,
questioning whether she might yet go one step further. Her breath came
quick and soft, he fancied it touched his cheek, though she was not tall
enough for that. She lifted her tear-wet face like a flower after a storm,
and pleaded with her eyes once more, saying in a whisper very soft and
sweet:

“If you really forgive me, then kiss me, just once, so I may remember it
always.”

It was more than he could bear. He caught her to himself and pressed his
lips upon hers in one frenzied kiss of torture. It was as if wrung from
him against his will. Then suddenly it came upon him what he had done, as
he held her in his arms, and he put her from him gently, as a mother might
put away the precious child she was sacrificing tenderly, agonizingly, but
finally. He put her from him thus and stood a moment looking at her, while
she almost sparkled her pleasure at him through the tears. She felt that
she had won.

But gradually the silence grew ominous. She perceived he was not smiling.
His mien was like one who looks into an open grave, and gazes for the last
time at all that remains of one who is dear. He did not seem like one who
had yielded a moral point and was ready now to serve her as she would. She
grew uneasy under his gaze. She moved forward and put out her hands
inviting, yielding, as only such a woman could do, and the spell which
bound him seemed to be broken. He fumbled for a moment in his waistcoat
pocket and brought out a large roll of bills which he laid upon the table,
and taking up his hat turned toward the door. A cold wave of weakness
seemed to pass over her, stung here and there by mortal pride that was in
fear of being wounded beyond recovery.

“Where are you going?” she asked weakly, and her voice sounded to her from
miles away, and strange.

He turned and looked at her again and she knew the look meant farewell. He
did not speak. Her whole being rose for one more mighty effort.

“You are not going to leave me—now?” There was angelic sweetness in the
voice, pleading, reproachful, piteous.

“I must!” he said, and his voice sounded harsh. “I have just done that for
which, were I your husband, I would feel like killing any other man. I
must protect you against yourself,—against myself. You must be kept pure
before God if it kills us both. I would gladly die if that could help you,
but I am not even free to do that, for I belong to another.”

Then he turned and was gone.

Kate’s hands fell to her sides, and seemed stiff and lifeless. The bright
color faded from her cheeks, and a cold frenzy of horror took possession
of her. “Pure before God!” She shuddered at the name, and crimson shame
rolled over forehead and cheek. She sank in a little heap on the floor
with her face buried in the chair beside which she had been standing, and
the waters of humiliation rolled wave on wave above her. She had failed,
and for one brief moment she was seeing her own sinful heart as it was.

But the devil was there also. He whispered to her now the last sentence
that David had spoken: “I belong to another!”

Up to that moment Marcia had been a very negative factor in the affair to
Kate’s mind. She had been annoyed and angry at her as one whose ignorance
and impertinence had brought her into an affair where she did not belong,
but now she suddenly faced the fact that Marcia must be reckoned with.
Marcia the child, who had for years been her slave and done her bidding,
had arisen in her way, and she hated her with a sudden vindictive hate
that would have killed without flinching if the opportunity had presented
at that moment. Kate had no idea how utterly uncontrolled was her whole
nature. She was at the mercy of any passing passion. Hate and revenge took
possession of her now. With flashing eyes she rose to her feet, brushing
her tumbled hair back and wiping away angry tears. She was too much
agitated to notice that some one had knocked at the front door and been
admitted, and when Harry Temple walked into the room he found her standing
so with hands clenched together, and tears flowing down her cheeks
unchecked.

Now a woman in tears, when the tears were not caused by his own actions,
was Harry’s opportunity. He had ways of comforting which were as
unscrupulous as they generally proved effective, and so with affectionate
tenderness he took Kate’s hand and held it impressively, calling her
“dear.” He spoke soothing words, smoothed her hair, and kissed her flushed
cheeks and eyes. It was all very pleasant to Kate’s hurt pride. She let
Harry comfort her, and pet her a while, and at last he said:

“Now tell me all about it, dear. I saw Lord Spafford trail dejectedly away
from here looking like death, and I come here and find my lady in a fine
fury. What has happened? If I mistake not the insufferable cad has got
badly hurt, but it seems to have ruffled the lady also.”

This helped. It was something to feel that David was suffering. She wanted
him to suffer. He had brought shame and humiliation upon her. She never
realized that the thing that shamed her was that he thought her better
than she was.

“He is offensively good. I _hate_ him!” she remarked as a kitten might who
had got hurt at playing with a mouse in a trap.

The man’s face grew bland with satisfaction.

“Not so good, my lady, but that he has been making love to you, if I
mistake not, and he with a wife at home.” The words were said quietly, but
there was more of a question in them than the tone conveyed. The man
wished to have evidence against his enemy.

Kate colored uneasily and drooped her lashes.

Harry studied her face keenly, and then went on cautiously:

“If his wife were not your sister I should say that one might punish him
well through her.”

Kate cast him a hard, scrutinizing look.

“You have some score against him yourself,” she said with conviction.

“Perhaps I have, my lady. Perhaps I too hate him. He is offensively good,
you know.”

There was silence in the room for a full minute while the devil worked in
both hearts.

“What did you mean by saying one might punish him through his wife? He
does not love his wife.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“Perhaps he loves some one else, my lady.”

“He does.” She said it proudly.

“Perhaps he loves you, my lady.” He said it softly like the suggestion
from another world. The lady was silent, but he needed no other answer.

“Then indeed, the way would be even clearer,—were not his wife your
sister.”

Kate looked at him, a half knowledge of his meaning beginning to dawn in
her eyes.

“How?” she asked laconically.

“In case his wife should leave him do you think my lord would hold his
head so high?”

Kate still looked puzzled.

“If some one else should win her affection, and should persuade her to
leave a husband who did not love her, and who was bestowing his heart”—he
hesitated an instant and his eye traveled significantly to the roll of
bills still lying where David had left them—“and his gifts,” he hazarded,
“upon another woman——”

Kate grasped the thought at once and an evil glint of eagerness showed in
her eyes. She could see what an advantage it would be to herself to have
Marcia removed from the situation. It would break one more cord of honor
that bound David to a code which was hateful to her now, because its
existence shamed her. Nevertheless, unscrupulous as she was she could not
see how this was a possibility.

“But she is offensively good too,” she said as if answering her own
thoughts.

“All goodness has its weak spot,” sneered the man. “If I mistake not you
have found my lord’s. It is possible I might find his wife’s.”

The two pairs of eyes met then, filled with evil light. It was as if for
an instant they were permitted to look into the pit, and see the
possibilities of wickedness, and exult in it. The lurid glare of their
thoughts played in their faces. All the passion of hate and revenge rushed
upon Kate in a frenzy. With all her heart she wished this might be. She
looked her co-operation in the plan even before her hard voice answered:

“You need not stop because she is my sister.”

He felt he had her permission, and he permitted himself a glance of
admiration for the depths to which she could go without being daunted.
Here was evil courage worthy of his teaching. She seemed to him beautiful
enough and daring enough for Satan himself to admire.

“And may I have the pleasure of knowing that I would by so doing serve my
lady in some wise?”

She drooped her shameless eyes and murmured guardedly, “Perhaps.” Then she
swept him a coquettish glance that meant they understood one another.

“Then I shall feel well rewarded,” he said gallantly, and bowing with more
than his ordinary flattery of look bade her good day and went out.

                               CHAPTER XXII

David stumbled blindly out the door and down the street. His one thought
was to get to his room at the tavern and shut the door. He had an
important appointment that morning, but it passed completely from his
mind. He met one or two men whom he knew, but he did not see them, and
passed them swiftly without a glance of recognition. They said one to
another, “How absorbed he is in the great themes of the world!” but David
passed on in his pain and misery and humiliation and never knew they were
near him.

He went to the room that had been his since he had reached New York, and
fastening the door against all intrusion fell upon his knees beside the
bed, and let the flood-tide of his sorrow roll over him. Not even when
Kate had played him false on his wedding morning had he felt the pain that
now cut into his very soul. For now there was mingled with it the agony of
consciousness of sin. He had sinned against heaven, against honor and
love, and all that was pure and good. He was just like any bad man. He had
yielded to sudden temptation and taken another man’s wife in his arms and
kissed her! That the woman had been his by first right, and that he loved
her: that she had invited the kiss, indeed pleaded for it, his sensitive
conscience told him in no wise lessened the offense. He had also caused
her whom he loved to sin. He was a man and knew the world. He should have
shielded her against herself. And yet as he went over and over the whole
painful scene through which he had just passed his soul cried out in agony
and he felt his weakness more and more. He had failed, failed most
miserably. Acted like any coward!

The humiliation of it was unspeakable. Could any sorrow be like unto his?
Like a knife flashing through the gloom of his own shame would come the
echo of her words as she pleaded with him to kiss her. It was a kiss of
forgiveness she had wanted, and she had put her heart into her eyes and
begged as for her very life. How could he have refused? Then he would
parley with himself for a long time trying to prove to himself that the
kiss and the embrace were justified, that he had done no wrong in God’s
sight. And ever after this round of confused arguing he would end with the
terrible conviction that he had sinned.

Sometimes Marcia’s sweet face and troubled eyes would appear to him as he
wrestled all alone, and seemed to be longing to help him, and again would
come the piercing thought that he had harmed this gentle girl also. He had
tangled her into his own spoiled web of life, and been disloyal to her.
She was pure and true and good. She had given up every thing to help him
and he had utterly forgotten her. He had promised to love, cherish, and
protect her! That was another sin. He could not love and cherish her when
his whole heart was another’s. Then he thought of Kate’s husband, that
treacherous man who had stolen his bride and now gone away and left her
sorrowing—left her without money, penniless in a strange city. Why had he
not been more calm and questioned her before he came away. Perhaps she was
in great need. It comforted him to think he had left her all the money he
had with him. There was enough to keep her from want for a while. And yet,
perhaps he had been wrong to give it to her. He had no right to give it!

He groaned aloud at the thought of his helplessness to help her
helplessness. Was there not some way he could find out and help her
without doing wrong?

Over and over he went through the whole dreadful day, until his brain was
weary and his heart failed him. The heavens seemed brass and no answer
came to his cry,—the appeal of a broken soul. It seemed that he could not
get up from his knees, could not go out into the world again and face
life. He had been tried and had failed, and yet though he knew his sin he
felt an intolerable longing to commit it over again. He was frightened at
his own weakness, and with renewed vigor he began to pray for help. It was
like the prayer of Jacob of old, the crying out of a soul that would not
be denied. All day long the struggle continued, and far into the night. At
last a great peace began to settle upon David’s soul. Things that had been
confused by his passionate longings grew clear as day. Self dropped away,
and sin, conquered, slunk out of sight. Right and Wrong were once more
clearly defined in his mind. However wrong it might or might not be he was
here in this situation. He had married Marcia and promised to be true to
her. He was doubly cut off from Kate by her own act and by his. That was
his punishment,—and hers. He must not seek to lessen it even for her, for
it was God-sent. Henceforth his path and hers must be apart. If she were
to be helped in any way from whatsoever trouble was hers, it was not
permitted him to be the instrument. He had shown his unfitness for it in
his interview that morning, even if in the eyes of the world it could have
been at all. It was his duty to cut himself off from her forever. He must
not even think of her any more. He must be as true and good to Marcia as
was possible. He must do no more wrong. He must grow strong and suffer.

The peace that came with conviction brought sleep to his weary mind and
body.

When he awoke it was almost noon. He remembered the missed appointment of
the day before, and the journey to Washington which he had planned for
that day. With a start of horror he looked at his watch and found he had
but a few hours in which to try to make up for the remissness of yesterday
before the evening coach left for Philadelphia. It was as if some guardian
angel had met his first waking thoughts with business that could not be
delayed and so kept him from going over the painful events of the day
before. He arose and hastened out into the world once more.

Late in the afternoon he found the man he was to have met the day before,
and succeeded in convincing him that he ought to help the new enterprise.
He was standing on the corner saying the last few words as the two
separated, when Kate drove by in a friend’s carriage, surrounded by
parcels. She had been on a shopping tour spending the money that David had
given her, for silks and laces and jewelry, and now she was returning in
high glee with her booty. The carriage passed quite near to David who
stood with his back to the street, and she could see his animated face as
he smiled at the other man, a fine looking man who looked as if he might
be some one of note. The momentary glance did not show the haggard look of
David’s face nor the lines that his vigil of the night before had traced
under his eyes, and Kate was angered to see him so unconcerned and
forgetful of his pain of yesterday. Her face darkened with spite, and she
resolved to make him suffer yet, and to the utmost, for the sin of
forgetting her.

But David was in the way of duty, and he did not see her, for his guardian
angel was hovering close at hand.

As the Fall wore on and the winter set in Harry’s letters became less
frequent and less intimate. Hannah was troubled, and after consultation
with her grandmother, to which Miranda listened at the latch hole, duly
reporting quotations to her adored Mrs. Spafford, Hannah decided upon an
immediate trip to the metropolis.

“Hannah’s gone to New York to find out what’s become of that nimshi Harry
Temple. She thought she had him fast, an’ she’s been holdin’ him over poor
Lemuel Skinner’s head like thet there sword hangin’ by a hair I heard the
minister tell about last Sunday, till Lemuel, he don’t know but every
minute’s gone’ll be his last. You mark my words, she’ll hev to take poor
Lem after all, an’ be glad she’s got him, too,—and she’s none too good for
him neither. He’s ben faithful to her ever since she wore pantalets, an’
she’s ben keepin’ him off’n on an’ hopin’ an’ tryin’ fer somebody bigger.
It would jes’ serve her right ef she’d get that fool of a Harry Temple,
but she won’t. He’s too sharp for that ef he _is_ a fool. He don’t want to
tie himself up to no woman’s aprun strings. He rather dandle about after
’em all an’ say pretty things, an’ keep his earnin’s fer himself.”

Hannah reached New York the week after David left for Washington. She
wrote beforehand to Harry to let him know she was coming, and made plain
that she expected his attentions exclusively while there, and he smiled
blandly as he read the letter and read her intentions between the lines.
He told Kate a good deal about her that evening when he went to call, told
her how he had heard she was an old flame of David’s, and Kate’s jealousy
was immediately aroused. She wished to meet Hannah Heath. There was a sort
of triumph in the thought that she had scorned and flung aside the man
whom this woman had “set her cap” for, even though another woman was now
in the place that neither had. Hannah went to visit a cousin in New York
who lived in a quiet part of the city and did not go out much, but for
reasons best known to themselves, both Kate Leavenworth and Harry Temple
elected to see a good deal of her while she was in the city. Harry was
pleasant and attentive, but not more to one woman than to the other.
Hannah, watching him jealously, decided that at least Kate was not her
rival in his affections, and so Hannah and Kate became quite friendly.
Kate had a way of making much of her women friends when she chose, and she
happened to choose in this case, for it occurred to her it would be well
to have a friend in the town where lived her sister and her former lover.
There might be reasons why, sometime. She opened her heart of hearts to
Hannah, and Hannah, quite discreetly, and without wasting much of her
scanty store of love, entered, and the friendship was sealed. They had not
known each other many days before Kate had confided to Hannah the story of
her own marriage and her sister’s, embellished of course as she chose.
Hannah, astonished, puzzled, wondering, curious, at the tragedy that had
been enacted at her very home door, became more friendly than ever and
hated more cordially than ever the young and innocent wife who had stepped
into the vacant place and so made her own hopes and ambitions impossible.
She felt that she would like to put down the pert young thing for daring
to be there, and to be pretty, and now she felt she had the secret which
would help her to do so.

As the visit went on and it became apparent to Hannah Heath that she was
not the one woman in all the world to Harry Temple, she hinted to Kate
that it was likely she would be married soon. She even went so far as to
say that she had come away from home to decide the matter, and that she
had but to say the word and the ceremony would come off. Kate questioned
eagerly, and seeing her opportunity asked if she might come to the
wedding. Hannah, flattered, and seeing a grand opportunity for a wholesale
triumph and revenge, assented with pleasure. Afterward as Hannah had hoped
and intended, Kate carried the news of the impending decision and probable
wedding to the ears of Harry Temple.

But Hannah’s hint had no further effect upon the redoubtable Harry. Two
days later he appeared, smiling, congratulatory, deploring the fact that
she would be lost in a certain sense to his friendship, although he hoped
always to be looked upon as a little more than a friend.

Hannah covered her mortification under a calm and condescending exterior.
She blushed appropriately, said some sentimental things about hoping their
friendship would not be affected by the change, told him how much she had
enjoyed their correspondence, but gave him to understand that it had been
mere friendship of course from her point of view, and Harry indulgently
allowed her to think that he had hoped for more and was grieved but
consolable over the outcome.

They waxed a trifle sentimental at the parting, but when Harry was gone,
Hannah wrote a most touching letter to Lemuel Skinner which raised him to
the seventh heaven of delight, causing him to feel that he was treading
upon air as he walked the prosaic streets of his native town where he had
been going about during Hannah’s absence like a lost spirit without a
guiding star.

    “DEAR LEMUEL:” she wrote:—

    “I am coming home. I wonder if you will be glad?

(Artful Hannah, as if she did not know!)

    “It is very delightful in New York and I have been having a gay
    time since I came, and everybody has been most pleasant, but—

      “’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
      Still, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
      A charm from the skies seems to hallow it there,
      Which, go through the world, you’ll not meet with elsewhere.
                          Home, home, sweet home!
                        There’s no place like home.

    “That is a new song, Lemuel, that everybody here is singing. It is
    written by a young American named John Howard Payne who is in
    London now acting in a great playhouse. Everybody is wild over
    this song. I’ll sing it for you when I come home.

    “I shall be at home in time for singing school next week, Lemuel.
    I wonder if you’ll come to see me at once and welcome me. You
    cannot think how glad I shall be to get home again. It seems as
    though I had been gone a year at least. Hoping to see you soon, I
    remain

                                     “Always your sincere friend,

                                                       “HANNAH HEATH.”

And thus did Hannah make smooth her path before her, and very soon after
inditing this epistle she bade good-bye to New York and took her way home
resolved to waste no further time in chasing will-o-the-wisps.

When Lemuel received that letter he took a good look at himself in the
glass. More than seven years had he served for Hannah, and little hope had
he had of a final reward. He was older by ten years than she, and already
his face began to show it. He examined himself critically, and was pleased
to find with that light of hope in his eyes he was not so bad looking as
he feared. He betook himself to the village tailor forthwith and ordered a
new suit of clothes, though his Sunday best was by no means shiny yet. He
realized that if he did not win now he never would, and he resolved to do
his best.

On the way home, during all the joltings of the coach over rough roads
Hannah Heath was planning two campaigns, one of love with Lemuel, and one
of hate with Marcia Spafford. She was possessed of knowledge which she
felt would help her in the latter, and often she smiled vindictively as
she laid her neat plans for the destruction of the bride’s complacency.

That night the fire in the Heath parlor burned high and glowed, and the
candles in their silver holders flickered across fair Hannah’s face as she
dimpled and smiled and coquetted with poor Lemuel. But Lemuel needed no
pity. He was not afraid of Hannah. Not for nothing had he served his seven
years, and he understood every fancy and foible of her shallow nature. He
knew his time had come at last, and he was getting what he had wanted
long, for Lemuel had admired and loved Hannah in spite of the dance she
had led him, and in spite of the other lovers she had allowed to come
between them.

Hannah had not been at home many days before she called upon Marcia.

Marcia had just seated herself at the piano when Hannah appeared to her
from the hall, coming in unannounced through the kitchen door according to
old neighborly fashion.

Marcia was vexed. She arose from the instrument and led the way to the
little morning room which was sunny and cosy, and bare of music or books.
She did not like to visit with Hannah in the parlor. Somehow her presence
reminded her of the evil face of Harry Temple as he had stooped to kiss
her.

“You know how to play, too, don’t you?” said Hannah as they sat down.
“Your sister plays beautifully. Do you know the new song, ‘Home, Sweet
Home?’ She plays it with so much feeling and sings it so that one would
think her heart was breaking for her home. You must have been a united
family.” Hannah said it with sharp scrutiny in voice and eyes.

“Sit down, Miss Heath,” said Marcia coolly, lowering the yellow shades
that her visitor’s eyes might not be troubled by a broad sunbeam. “Did you
have a pleasant time in New York?”

Hannah could not be sure whether or not the question was an evasion. The
utterly child-like manner of Marcia disarmed suspicion.

“Oh, delightful, of course. Could any one have anything else in New York?”

Hannah laughed disagreeably. She realized the limitations of life in a
town.

“I suppose,” said Marcia, her eyes shining with the thought, “that you saw
all the wonderful things of the city. I should enjoy being in New York a
little while. I have heard of so many new things. Were there any ships in
the harbor? I have always wanted to go over a great ship. Did you have
opportunity of seeing one?”

“Oh, dear me. No!” said Hannah. “I shouldn’t have cared in the least for
that. I’m sure I don’t know whether there were any ships in or not. I
suppose there were. I saw a lot of sails on the water, but I did not ask
about them. I’m not interested in dirty boats. I liked visiting the shops
best. Your sister took me about everywhere. She is a most charming
creature. You must miss her greatly. You were a sly little thing to cut
her out.”

Marcia’s face flamed crimson with anger and amazement. Hannah’s dart had
hit the mark, and she was watching keenly to see her victim quiver.

“I do not understand you,” said Marcia with girlish dignity.

“Oh, now don’t pretend to misunderstand. I’ve heard all about it from
headquarters,” she said it archly, laughing. “But then I don’t blame you.
David was worth it.” Hannah ended with a sigh. If she had ever cared for
any one besides herself that one was David Spafford.

“I do not understand you,” said Marcia again, drawing herself up with all
the Schuyler haughtiness she could master, till she quite resembled her
father.

“Now, Mrs. Spafford,” said the visitor, looking straight into her face and
watching every expression as a cat would watch a mouse, “you don’t mean to
tell me your sister was not at one time very intimate with your husband.”

“Mr. Spafford has been intimate in our family for a number of years,” said
Marcia proudly, her fighting fire up, “but as for my having ‘cut my sister
out’ as you call it, you have certainly been misinformed. Excuse me, I
think I will close the kitchen door. It seems to blow in here and make a
draft.”

Marcia left the room with her head up and her fine color well under
control, and when she came back her head was still up and a distant
expression was in her face. Somehow Hannah felt she had not gained much
after all. But Marcia, after Hannah’s departure, went up to her cold room
and wept bitter tears on her pillow alone.

                 [Illustration: Copyright by C. Klackner
       MARCIA PASSED FROM THE OLD STONE CHURCH WITH THE TWO AUNTS.]

                        Copyright by C. Klackner
       MARCIA PASSED FROM THE OLD STONE CHURCH WITH THE TWO AUNTS.

After that first visit Hannah never found the kitchen door unlocked when
she came to make a morning call, but she improved every little opportunity
to torment her gentle victim. She had had a letter from Kate and had
Marcia heard? How often did Kate write her? Did Marcia know how fond Harry
Temple was of Kate? And where was Kate’s husband? Would he likely be
ordered home soon? These little annoyances were almost unbearable
sometimes and Marcia had much ado to keep her sweetness of outward
demeanor.

People looked upon Lemuel with new respect. He had finally won where they
had considered him a fool for years for hanging on. The added respect
brought added self-respect. He took on new manliness. Grandmother Heath
felt that he really was not so bad after all, and perhaps Hannah might as
well have taken him at first. Altogether the Heath family were well
pleased, and preparations began at once for a wedding in the near future.

And still David lingered, held here and there by a call from first one man
and then another, and by important doings in Congress. He seemed to be
rarely fitted for the work.

Once he was called back to New York for a day or two, and Harry Temple
happened to see him as he arrived. That night he wrote to Hannah a
friendly letter—Harry was by no means through with Hannah yet—and casually
remarked that he saw David Spafford was in New York again. He supposed now
that Mrs. Leavenworth’s evenings would be fully occupied and society would
see little of her while he remained.

The day after Hannah received that letter was Sunday.

The weeks had gone by rapidly since David left his home, and now the
spring was coming on. The grass was already green as summer and the willow
tree by the graveyard gate was tender and green like a spring-plume. All
the foliage was out and fluttering its new leaves in the sunshine as
Marcia passed from the old stone church with the two aunts and opened her
little green sunshade. Her motion made David’s last letter rustle in her
bosom. It thrilled her with pleasure that not even the presence of Hannah
Heath behind her could cloud.

However prim and fault-finding the two aunts might be in the seclusion of
their own home, in public no two could have appeared more adoring than
Amelia and Hortense Spafford. They hovered near Marcia and delighted to
show how very close and intimate was the relationship between themselves
and their new and beautiful niece, of whom in their secret hearts they
were prouder than they would have cared to tell. In their best black silks
and their fine lace shawls they walked beside her and talked almost
eagerly, if those two stately beings could have anything to do with a
quality so frivolous as eagerness. They wished it understood that David’s
wife was worthy of appreciation and they were more conscious than she of
the many glances of admiration in her direction.

Hannah Heath encountered some of those admiring glances and saw jealously
for whom they were meant. She hastened to lean forward and greet Marcia,
her spiteful tongue all ready for a stab.

“Good morning, Mrs. Spafford. Is that husband of yours not home yet?
Really! Why, he’s quite deserted you. I call that hard for the first year,
and your honeymoon scarcely over yet.”

“He’s been called back to New York again,” said Marcia annoyed over the
spiteful little sentences. “He says he may be at home soon, but he cannot
be sure. His business is rather uncertain.”

“New York!” said Hannah, and her voice was annoyingly loud. “What! Not
again! There must be some great attraction there,” and then with a meaning
glance, “I suppose your sister is still there!”

Marcia felt her face crimsoning, and the tears starting from angry eyes.
She felt a sudden impulse to slap Hannah. What if she should! What would
the aunts say? The thought of the tumult she might make roused her sense
of humor and a laugh bubbled up instead of the tears, and Hannah,
watching, cat-like, could only see eyes dancing with fun though the cheeks
were charmingly red. By Hannah’s expression Marcia knew she was baffled,
but Marcia could not get away from the disagreeable suggestion that had
been made.

Yes, David was in New York, and Kate was there. Not for an instant did she
doubt her husband’s nobleness. She knew David would be good and true. She
knew little of the world’s wickedness, and never thought of any blame, as
other women might, in such a suggestion. But a great jealousy sprang into
being that she never dreamed existed. Kate was there, and he would perhaps
see her, and all his old love and disappointment would be brought to mind
again. Had she, Marcia, been hoping he would forget it? Had she been
claiming something of him in her heart for herself? She could not tell.
She did not know what all this tumult of feeling meant. She longed to get
away and think it over, but the solemn Sunday must be observed. She must
fold away her church things, put on another frock and come down to the
oppressive Sunday dinner, hear Deacon Brown’s rheumatism discussed, or
listen to a long comparison of the morning’s sermon with one preached
twenty years ago by the minister, now long dead upon the same text. It was
all very hard to keep her mind upon, with these other thoughts rushing
pell-mell through her brain; and when Aunt Amelia asked her to pass the
butter, she handed the sugar-bowl instead. Miss Amelia looked as shocked
as if she had broken the great-grandmother’s china teapot.

Aunt Clarinda claimed her after dinner and carried her off to her room to
talk about David, so that Marcia had no chance to think even then. Miss
Clarinda looked into the sweet shadowed eyes and wondered why the girl
looked so sad. She thought it was because David stayed away so long, and
so she kept her with her all the rest of the day.

When Marcia went to her room that night she threw herself on her knees
beside the bed and tried to pray. She felt more lonely and heartsick than
she ever felt before in her life. She did not know what the great hunger
in her heart meant. It was terrible to think David had loved Kate. Kate
never loved him in return in the right way. Marcia felt very sure of that.
She wished she might have had the chance in Kate’s place, and then all of
a sudden the revelation came to her. She loved David herself with a great
overwhelming love. Not just a love that could come and keep house for him
and save him from the criticisms and comments of others; but with a love
that demanded to be loved in return; a love that was mindful of every dear
lineament of his countenance. The knowledge thrilled through her with a
great sweetness. She did not seem to care for anything else just now, only
to know that she loved David. David could never love her of course, not in
that way, but she would love him. She would try to shut out the thought of
Kate from him forever.

And so, dreaming, hovering on the edge of all that was bitter and all that
was sweet, she fell asleep with David’s letter clasped close over her
heart.

                              CHAPTER XXIII

Marcia had gone down to her own house the next morning very early. She had
hoped for a letter but none had come. Her soul was in torment between her
attempt to keep out of her mind the hateful things Hannah Heath had said,
and reproaching herself for what seemed to her her unseemly feeling toward
David, who loved another and could never love her. It was not a part of
her life-dream to love one who belonged to another. Yet her heart was his
and she was beginning to know that everything belonging to him was dear to
her. She went and sat in his place at the table, she touched with
tenderness the books upon his desk that he had used before he went away,
she went up to his room and laid her lips for one precious daring instant
upon his pillow, and then drew back with wildly beating heart ashamed of
her emotion. She knelt beside his bed and prayed: “Oh, God, I love him, I
love him! I cannot help it!” as if she would apologize for herself, and
then she hugged the thought of her love to herself, feeling its sweet pain
drift through her like some delicious agony. Her love had come through
sorrow to her, and was not as she would have had it could she have chosen.
It brought no ray of happy hope for the future, save just the happiness of
loving in secret, and of doing for the object loved, with no thought of a
returned affection.

Then she went slowly down the stairs, trying to think how it would seem
when David came back. He had been so long gone that it seemed as if
perhaps he might never return. She felt that it had been no part of the
spirit of her contract with David that she should render to him this wild
sweet love that he had expected Kate to give. He had not wanted it. He had
only wanted a wife in name.

Then the color would sweep over her face in a crimson drift and leave it
painfully white, and she would glide to the piano like a ghost of her
former self and play some sad sweet strain, and sometimes sing.

She had no heart for her dear old woods in these days. She had tried it
one day in spring; slipped over the back fence and away through the
ploughed field where the sea of silver oats had surged, and up to the
hillside and the woods; but she was so reminded of David that it only
brought heart aches and tears. She wondered if it was because she was
getting old that the hillside did not seem so joyous now, and she did not
care to look up into the sky just for the pure joy of sky and air and
clouds, nor to listen to the branches whisper to the robins nesting. She
stooped and picked a great handful of spring beauties, but they did not
seem to give her pleasure, and by and by she dropped them from listless
fingers and walked sedately down to the house once more.

On this morning she did not even care to play. She went into the parlor
and touched a few notes, but her heart was heavy and sad. Life was growing
too complex.

Last week there had come a letter from Harry Temple. It had startled her
when it arrived. She feared it was some ill-news about David, coming as it
did from New York and being written in a strange hand.

It had been a plea for forgiveness, representing that the writer had
experienced nothing but deep repentance and sorrow since the time he had
seen her last. He set forth his case in a masterly way, with little
touching facts of his childhood, and lonely upbringing, with no mother to
guide. He told her that her noble action toward him had but made him
revere her the more, and that, in short, she had made a new creature of
him by refusing to return his kiss that day, and leaving him alone with so
severe a rebuke. He felt that if all women were so good and true men would
be a different race, and now he looked up to her as one might look up to
an angel, and he felt he could never be happy again on this earth until he
had her written word of forgiveness. With that he felt he could live a new
life, and she must rest assured that he would never offer other than
reverence to any woman again. He further added that his action had not
intended any insult to her, that he was merely expressing his natural
admiration for a spirit so good and true, and that his soul was innocent
of any intention of evil. With sophistry in the use of which he was an
adept, he closed his epistle, fully clearing himself, and assuring her
that he could have made her understand it that day if she had not left so
suddenly, and he had not been almost immediately called away to the dying
bed of his dear cousin. This contradictory letter had troubled Marcia
greatly. She was keen enough to see that his logic was at fault, and that
the two pages of his letter did not hang together, but one thing was
plain, that he wished her forgiveness. The Bible said that one must
forgive, and surely it was right to let him know that she did, though when
she thought of the fright he had given her it was hard to do. Still, it
was right, and if he was so unhappy, perhaps she had better let him know.
She would rather have waited until David returned to consult him in the
matter, but the letter seemed so insistent that she had finally written a
stiff little note, in formal language, “Mrs. Spafford sends herewith her
full and free forgiveness to Mr. Harry Temple, and promises to think no
more of the matter.”

She would have liked to consult some one. She almost thought of taking
Aunt Clarinda into her confidence, but decided that she might not
understand. So she finally sent off the brief missive, and let her
troubled thoughts wander after it more than once.

She was standing by the window looking out into the yard perplexing
herself over this again when there came a loud knocking at the front door.
She started, half frightened, for the knock sounded through the empty
house so insistently. It seemed like trouble coming. She felt nervous as
she went down the hall.

It was only a little urchin, barefoot, and tow-headed. He had ridden an
old mare to the door, and left her nosing at the dusty grass. He brought
her a letter. Again her heart fluttered excitedly. Who could be writing to
her? It was not David. Why did the handwriting look familiar? It could not
be from any one at home. Father? Mother? No, it was no one she knew. She
tore it open, and the boy jumped on his horse and was off down the street
before she realized that he was gone.

    “DEAR MADAM:” the letter read,

    “I bring you news of your husband, and having met with an accident
    I am unable to come further. You will find me at the Green Tavern
    two miles out on the corduroy road. As the business is private,
    please come alone.

                                                        “A MESSENGER.”

Marcia trembled so that she sat down on the stairs. A sudden weakness went
over her like a wave, and the hall grew dark around her as though she were
going to faint. But she did not. She was strong and well and had never
fainted in her life. She rallied in a moment and tried to think. Something
had happened to David. Something dreadful, perhaps, and she must go at
once and find out. Still it must be something mysterious, for the man had
said it was private. Of course that meant David would not want it known.
David had intended that the man would come to her and tell her by herself.
She must go. There was nothing else to be done. She must go at once and
get rid of this awful suspense. It was a good day for the message to have
come, for she had brought her lunch expecting to do some spring cleaning.
David had been expected home soon, and she liked to make a bustle of
preparation as if he might come in any day, for it kept up her good cheer.

Having resolved to go she got up at once, closed the doors and windows,
put on her bonnet and went out down the street toward the old corduroy
road. It frightened her to think what might be at the end of her journey.
Possibly David himself, hurt or dying, and he had sent for her in this way
that she might break the news gently to his aunts. As she walked along she
conjured various forms of trouble that might have come to him. Now and
then she would try to take a cheerful view, saying to herself that David
might have needed more important papers, papers which he would not like
everyone to know about, and had sent by special messenger to her to get
them. Then her face would brighten and her step grow more brisk. But
always would come the dull thud of possibility of something more serious.
Her heart beat so fast sometimes that she was forced to lessen her speed
to get her breath, for though she was going through town, and must
necessarily walk somewhat soberly lest she call attention to herself, she
found that her nerves and imagination were fairly running ahead, and
waiting impatiently for her feet to catch up at every turning place.

At last she came to the corduroy road—a long stretch of winding way
overlaid with logs which made an unpleasant path. Most of the way was
swampy, and bordered in some places by thick, dark woods. Marcia sped on
from log to log, with a nervous feeling that she must step on each one or
her errand would not be successful. She was not afraid of the loneliness,
only of what might be coming at the end of her journey.

But suddenly, in the densest part of the wood, she became conscious of
footsteps echoing hers, and a chill laid hold upon her. She turned her
head and there, wildly gesticulating and running after her, was Miranda!

Annoyed, and impatient to be on her way, and wondering what to do with
Miranda, or what she could possibly want, Marcia stopped to wait for her.

“I thought—as you was goin’ ’long my way”—puffed Miranda, “I’d jes’ step
along beside you. You don’t mind, do you?”

Marcia looked troubled. If she should say she did then Miranda would think
it queer and perhaps suspect something.

She tried to smile and ask how far Miranda was going.

“Oh, I’m goin’ to hunt fer wild strawberries,” said the girl nonchalantly
clattering a big tin pail.

“Isn’t it early yet for strawberries?” questioned Marcia.

“Well, mebbe, an’ then ag’in mebbe ’tain’t. I know a place I’m goin’ to
look anyway. Are you goin’ ’s fur ’s the Green Tavern?”

Miranda’s bright eyes looked her through and through, and Marcia’s
truthful ones could not evade. Suddenly as she looked into the girl’s
homely face, filled with a kind of blind adoration, her heart yearned for
counsel in this trying situation. She was reminded of Miranda’s
helpfulness the time she ran away to the woods, and the care with which
she had guarded the whole matter so that no one ever heard of it. An
impulse came to her to confide in Miranda. She was a girl of sharp common
sense, and would perhaps be able to help with her advice. At least she
could get comfort from merely telling her trouble and anxiety.

“Miranda,” she said, “can you keep a secret?”

The girl nodded.

“Well, I’m going to tell you something, just because I am so troubled and
I feel as if it would do me good to tell it.” She smiled and Miranda
answered the smile with much satisfaction and no surprise. Miranda had
come for this, though she did not expect her way to be so easy.

“I’ll be mum as an oyster,” said Miranda. “You jest tell me anything you
please. You needn’t be afraid Hannah Heath’ll know a grain about it.
She’n’ I are two people. I know when to shut up.”

“Well, Miranda, I’m in great perplexity and anxiety. I’ve just had a note
from a messenger my husband has sent asking me to come out to that Green
Tavern you were talking about. He was sent to me with some message and has
had an accident so he couldn’t come. It kind of frightened me to think
what might be the matter. I’m glad you are going this way because it keeps
me from thinking about it. Are we nearly there? I never went out this road
so far before.”

“It ain’t fur,” said Miranda as if that were a minor matter. “I’ll go
right along in with you, then you needn’t feel lonely. I guess likely it’s
business. Don’t you worry.” The tone was reassuring, but Marcia’s face
looked troubled.

“No, I guess that won’t do, Miranda, for the note says it is a private
matter and I must come alone. You know Mr. Spafford has matters to write
about that are very important, railroads, and such things, and sometimes
he doesn’t care to have any one get hold of his ideas before they appear
in the paper. His enemies might use them to stop the plans of the great
improvements he is writing about.”

“Let me see that note!” demanded Miranda. “Got it with you?” Marcia
hesitated. Perhaps she ought not to show it, and yet there was nothing in
the note but what she had already told the girl, and she felt sure she
would not breathe a word to a living soul after her promise. She handed
Miranda the letter, and they stopped a moment while she slowly spelled it
out. Miranda was no scholar. Marcia watched her face eagerly, as if to
gather a ray of hope from it, but she was puzzled by Miranda’s look. A
kind of satisfaction had overspread her homely countenance.

“Should you think from that that David was hurt—or ill—or—or—killed—or
anything?” She asked the question as if Miranda were a wizard, and hung
anxiously upon her answer.

“Naw, I don’t reckon so!” said Miranda. “Don’t you worry. David’s all
right somehow. I’ll take care o’ you. You go ’long up and see what’s the
business, an’ I’ll wait here out o’ sight o’ the tavern. Likely’s not he
might take a notion not to tell you ef he see me come along with you. You
jest go ahead, and I’ll be on hand when you get through. If you need me
fer anything you jest holler out ‘Randy!’ good and loud an’ I’ll hear you.
Guess I’ll set on this log. The tavern’s jest round that bend in the road.
Naw, you needn’t thank me. This is a real pretty mornin’ to set an’ rest.
Good-bye.”

Marcia hurried on, glancing back happily at her protector in a calico
sunbonnet seated stolidly on a log with her tin pail beside her.

Poor stupid Miranda! Of course she could not understand what a comfort it
was to have confided her trouble. Marcia went up to the tavern with almost
a smile on her face, though her heart began to beat wildly as a slatternly
girl led her into a big room at the right of the hall.

As Marcia disappeared behind the bend in the road, Miranda stealthily
stole along the edge of the woods, till she stood hidden behind a clump of
alders where she could peer out and watch Marcia until she reached the
tavern and passed safely by the row of lounging, smoking men, and on into
the doorway. Then Miranda waited just an instant to look in all
directions, and sped across the road, mounting the fence and on through
two meadows, and the barnyard to the kitchen door of the tavern.

“Mornin’! Mis’ Green,” she said to the slovenly looking woman who sat by
the table peeling potatoes. “Mind givin’ me a drink o’ water? I’m terrible
thirsty, and seemed like I couldn’t find the spring. Didn’t thare used to
be a spring ’tween here’n town?”

“Goodness sakes! Randy! Where’d you come from? Water! Jes’ help yourself.
There’s the bucket jes’ from the spring five minutes since, an’ there’s
the gourd hanging up on the wall. I can’t get up, I’m that busy. Twelve to
dinner to-day, an’ only me to do the cookin’. ’Melia she’s got to be
upstairs helpin’ at the bar.”

“Who all you got here?” questioned Miranda as she took a draught from the
old gourd.

“Well, got a gentleman from New York fur one. He’s real pretty. Quite a
beau. His clo’es are that nice you’d think he was goin’ to court. He’s
that particular ’bout his eatin’ I feel flustered. Nothin’ would do but he
hed to hev a downstairs room. He said he didn’t like goin’ upstairs. He
don’t look sickly, neither.”

“Mebbe he’s had a accident an’ lamed himself,” suggested Miranda
cunningly. “Heard o’ any accidents? How’d he come? Coach or horseback?”

“Coach,” said Mrs. Green. “Why do you ask? Got any friends in New York?”

“Not many,” responded Miranda importantly, “but my cousin Hannah Heath
has. You know she’s ben up there for a spell visitin’ an’ they say there
was lots of gentlemen in love with her. There’s one in particular used to
come round a good deal. It might be him come round to see ef it’s true
Hannah’s goin’ to get married to Lem Skinner. Know what this fellow’s name
is?”

“You don’t say! Well now it might be. No, I don’t rightly remember his
name. Seems though it was something like Church er Chapel. ’Melia could
tell ye, but she’s busy.”

“Where’s he at? Mebbe I could get a glimpse o’ him. I’d jest like to know
ef he was comin’ to bother our Hannah.”

“Well now. Mebbe you could get a sight o’ him. There’s a cupboard between
his room an’ the room back. It has a door both sides. Mebbe ef you was to
slip in there you might see him through the latch hole. I ain’t usin’ that
back room fer anythin’ but a store-room this spring, so look out you don’t
stumble over nothin’ when you go in fer it’s dark as a pocket. You go
right ’long in. I reckon you’ll find the way. Yes, it’s on the right hand
side o’ the hall. I’ve got to set here an’ finish these potatoes er
dinner’ll be late. I’d like to know real well ef he’s one o’ Hannah
Heath’s beaux.”

Miranda needed no second bidding. She slipped through the hall and store
room, and in a moment stood before the door of the closet. Softly she
opened it, and stepped in, lifting her feet cautiously, for the closet
floor seemed full of old boots and shoes.

It was dark in there, very dark, and only one slat of light stabbed the
blackness coming through the irregular shape of the latch hole. She could
hear voices in low tones speaking on the other side of the door. Gradually
her eyes grew accustomed to the light and one by one objects came out of
the shadows and looked at her. A white pitcher with a broken nose, a row
of bottles, a bunch of seed corn with the husks braided together and hung
on a nail, an old coat on another nail.

Down on her knees beside the crack of light went Miranda. First her eye
and then her ear were applied to the small aperture. She could see nothing
but a table directly in front of the door about a foot away on which were
quills, paper, and a large horn inkstand filled with ink. Some one
evidently had been writing, for a page was half done, and the pen was laid
down beside a word.

The limits of the latch hole made it impossible for Miranda to make out
any more. She applied her ear and could hear a man’s voice talking in low
insinuating tones, but she could make little of what was said. It drove
her fairly frantic to think that she was losing time. Miranda had no mind
to be balked in her purpose. She meant to find out who was in that room
and what was going on. She felt a righteous interest in it.

Her eyes could see quite plainly now in the dark closet. There was a big
button on the door. She no sooner discovered it than she put up her hand
and tried to turn it. It was tight and made a slight squeak in turning.
She stopped but the noise seemed to have no effect upon the evenly
modulated tones inside. Cautiously she moved the button again, holding the
latch firmly in her other hand lest the door should suddenly fly open. It
was an exciting moment when at last the button was turned entirely away
from the door frame and the lifted latch swung free in Miranda’s hand. The
door opened outward. If it were allowed to go it would probably strike
against the table. Miranda only allowed it to open a crack. She could hear
words now, and the voice reminded her of something unpleasant. The least
little bit more she dared open the door, and she could see, as she had
expected, Marcia’s bonnet and shoulder cape as she sat at the other side
of the room. This then was the room of the messenger who had sent for Mrs.
Spafford so peremptorily. The next thing was to discover the identity of
the messenger. Miranda had suspicions.

The night before she had seen a man lurking near the Spafford house when
she went out in the garden to feed the chickens. She had watched him from
behind the lilac bush, and when he had finally gone away she had followed
him some distance until he turned into the old corduroy road and was lost
in the gathering dusk. The man she had seen before, and had reason to
suspect. It was not for nothing that she had braved her grandmother and
gone hunting wild strawberries out of season.

With the caution of a creature of the forest Miranda opened the door an
inch further, and applied her eye to the latch hole again. The man’s head
was in full range of her eye then, and her suspicion proved true.

When Marcia entered the big room and the heavy oak door closed behind her
her heart seemed almost choking her, but she tried with all her might to
be calm. She was to know the worst now.

On the other side of the room in a large arm-chair, with his feet extended
on another and covered by a travelling shawl, reclined a man. Marcia went
toward him eagerly, and then stopped:

“Mr. Temple!” There was horror, fear, reproach in the way she spoke it.

“I know you are astonished, Mrs. Spafford, that the messenger should be
one so unworthy, and let me say at the beginning that I am more thankful
than I can express that your letter of forgiveness reached me before I was
obliged to start on my sorrowful commission. I beg you will sit down and
be as comfortable as you can while I explain further. Pardon my not
rising. I have met with a bad sprain caused by falling from my horse on
the way, and was barely able to reach this stopping place. My ankle is
swollen so badly that I cannot step upon my foot.”

Marcia, with white face, moved to the chair he indicated near him, and sat
down. The one thought his speech had conveyed to her had come through
those words “my sorrowful commission.” She felt the need of sitting down,
for her limbs would no longer bear her up, and she felt she must
immediately know what was the matter.

“Mrs. Spafford, may I ask you once more to speak your forgiveness? Before
I begin to tell you what I have come for, I long to hear you say the words
‘I forgive you.’ Will you give me your hand and say them?”

“Mr. Temple, I beg you will tell me what is the matter. Do not think any
further about that other matter. I meant what I said in the note. Tell me
quick! Is my husband—has anything happened to Mr. Spafford? Is he ill? Is
he hurt?”

“My poor child! How can I bear to tell you? It seems terrible to put your
love and trust upon another human being and then suddenly find—— But wait.
Let me tell the story in my own way. No, your husband is not hurt,
physically. Illness, and death even, are not the worst things that can
happen to a mortal soul. It seems to me cruel, as I see you sit there so
young and tender and beautiful, that I should have to hurt you by what I
have to say. I come from the purest of motives to tell you a sad truth
about one who should be nearest and dearest to you of all the earth. I beg
you will look upon me kindly and believe that it hurts me to have to tell
you these things. Before I begin I pray you will tell me that you forgive
me for all I have to say. Put your hand in mine and say so.”

Marcia had listened to this torrent of words unable to stop them, a
choking sensation in her throat, fear gripping her heart. Some terrible
thing had happened. Her senses refused to name the possibility. Would he
never tell? What ailed the man that he wanted her hand in forgiveness? Of
course she forgave him. She could not speak, and he kept urging.

“I cannot talk until I have your hand as a pledge that you will forgive me
and think not unkindly of me for what I am about to tell you.”

He must have seen how powerfully he wrought upon her, for he continued
until wild with frantic fear she stumbled toward him and laid her hand in
his. He grasped it and thanked her profusely. He looked at the little cold
hand in his own, and his lying tongue went on:

“Mrs. Spafford, you are good and true. You have saved me from a life of
uselessness, and your example and high noble character have given me new
inspiration. It seems a poor gratitude that would turn and stab you to the
heart. Ah! I cannot do it, and yet I must.”

This was torture indeed! Marcia drew her hand sharply away and held it to
her heart. She felt her brain reeling with the strain. Harry Temple saw he
must go on at once or he would lose what he had gained. He had meant to
keep that little hand and touch it gently with a comforting pressure as
his story went on, but it would not do to frighten her or she might take
sudden alarm.

“Sit down,” he begged, reaching out and drawing a chair near to his own,
but she stepped back and dropped into the one which she had first taken.

“You know your husband has been in New York?” he began. She nodded. She
could not speak.

“Did you never suspect why he is there and why he stays so long?” A cold
vise gripped Marcia’s heart, but though she turned white she said nothing,
only looked steadily into the false eyes that glowed and burned at her
like two hateful coals of fire that would scorch her soul and David’s to a
horrid death.

“Poor child, you cannot answer. You have trusted perfectly. You thought he
was there on business connected with his writing, but did it never occur
to you what a very long time he has been away and that—that there might be
some other reason also which he has not told? But you must know it now, my
child. I am sorry to say it, but he has been keeping it from you, and
those who love you think you ought to know. Let me explain. Very soon
after he reached New York he met a lady whom he used to know and admire.
She is a very beautiful woman, and though she is married is still much
sought after. Your husband, like the rest of her admirers, soon lost his
heart completely, and his head. Strange that he could so easily forget the
pearl of women he had left behind! He went to see her. He showed his
affection for her in every possible way. He gave her large sums of money.
In fact, to make a long story short, he is lingering in New York just to
be near her. I hesitate to speak the whole truth, but he has surely done
that which you cannot forgive. You with your lofty ideas—Mrs. Spafford—he
has cut himself off from any right to your respect or love.

“And now I am here to-day to offer to do all in my power to help you. From
what I know of your husband’s movements, he is likely to return to you
soon. You cannot meet him knowing that the lips that will salute you have
been pressed upon the lips of another woman, and that woman _your own
sister_, dear Mrs. Spafford!

“Ah! Now you understand, poor child. Your lips quiver! You have reason to
understand. I know, I know you cannot think what to do. Let me think for
you.” His eyes were glowing and his face animated. He was using all his
persuasive power, and her gaze was fixed upon him as though he had
mesmerized her. She could not resist the flood-tide of his eloquence. She
could only look on and seem to be gradually turning to stone—frozen with
horror.

He felt he had almost won, and with demoniacal skill he phrased his
sentences.

“I am here for that purpose. I am here to help you and for no other
reason. In the stable are horses harnessed and a comfortable carriage. My
advice to you is to fly from here as fast as these fleet horses can carry
you. Where you go is for you to say. I should advise going to your
father’s house. That I am sure is what will please him best. He is your
natural refuge at such a time as this. If, however, you shrink from
appearing before the eyes of the village gossips in your native town, I
will take you to the home of a dear old friend of mine, hidden among the
quiet hills, where you will be cared for most royally and tenderly for my
sake, and where you can work out your life problem in the way that seems
best to you. It is there that I am planning to take you to-night. We can
easily reach there before evening if we start at once.”

Marcia started to her feet in horror.

“What do you mean?” she stammered in a choking voice. “I could never go
anywhere with you Mr. Temple. You are a bad man! You have been telling me
lies! I do not believe one word of what you have said. My husband is noble
and good. If he did any of those things you say he did he had a reason for
it. I shall never distrust him.”

Marcia’s head was up grandly now and her voice had come back. She looked
the man in the eye until he quailed, but still he sought to hold his power
over her.

“You poor child!” and his voice was gentleness and forbearance itself. “I
do not wonder in your first horror and surprise that you feel as you do. I
anticipated this. Sit down and calm yourself and let me tell you more
about it. I can prove everything that I have said. I have letters here——”
and he swept his hand toward a pile of letters lying on the table; Miranda
in the closet marked well the position of those letters. “All that I have
said is only too true, I am sorry to say, and you must listen to me——”

Marcia interrupted him, her eyes blazing, her face excited: “Mr. Temple, I
shall not listen to another word you say. You are a wicked man and I was
wrong to come here at all. You deceived me or I should not have come. I
must go home at once.” With that she started toward the door.

Harry Temple flung aside the shawl that covered his sometime sprained
ankle and arose quickly, placing himself before her, forgetful of his
invalid rôle:

“Not so fast, my pretty lady,” he said, grasping her wrists fiercely in
both his hands. “You need not think to escape so easily. You shall not
leave this room except in my company. Do you not know that you are in my
power? You have spent nearly an hour alone in my bedchamber, and what will
your precious husband have to do with you after this is known?”

                               CHAPTER XXIV

Miranda’s time had come. She had seen it coming and was prepared.

With a movement like a flash she pushed open the closet door, seized the
pot of ink from the table, and before the two excited occupants of the
room had time to even hear her or realize that she was near, she hurled
the ink pot full into the insolent face of Harry Temple. The inkstand
itself was a light affair of horn and inflicted only a slight wound, but
the ink came into his eyes in a deluge blinding him completely, as Miranda
had meant it should do. She had seen no other weapon of defense at hand.

Harry Temple dropped Marcia’s wrists and groaned in pain, staggering back
against the wall and sinking to the floor. But Miranda would not stay to
see the effect of her punishment. She seized the frightened Marcia,
dragged her toward the cupboard door, sweeping as she passed the pile of
letters, finished and unfinished, into her apron, and closed the cupboard
doors carefully behind her. Then she guided Marcia through the dark mazes
of the store room to the hall, and pushing her toward the front door,
whispered: “Go quick ’fore he gets his eyes open. I’ve got to go this way.
Run down the road fast as you can an’ I’ll be at the meetin’ place first.
Hurry, quick!”

Marcia went with feet that shook so that every step seemed like to slip,
but with beating heart she finally traversed the length of the piazza with
a show of dignity, passed the loungers, and was out in the road. Then
indeed she took courage and fairly flew.

Miranda, breathless, but triumphant, went back into the kitchen: “I guess
’tain’t him after all,” she said to the interested woman who was putting
on the potatoes to boil. “He’s real interesting to look at though. I’d
like to stop and watch him longer but I must be goin’. I come out to hunt
fer”—Miranda hesitated for a suitable object before this country-bred
woman who well knew that strawberries were not ripe yet—“wintergreens fer
Grandma,” she added cheerfully, not quite sure whether they grew around
these parts, “and I must be in a hurry. Good-bye! Thank you fer the
drink.”

Miranda whizzed out of the door breezily, calling a good morning to one of
the hostlers as she passed the barnyard, and was off through the meadows
and over the fence like a bird, the package of letters rustling loud in
her bosom where she had tucked them before she entered the kitchen.

Neither of the two girls spoke for some minutes after they met, but
continued their rapid gait, until the end of the corduroy road was in
sight and they felt comparatively safe.

“Wal, that feller certainly ought to be strung up an’ walluped, now, fer
sure,” remarked Miranda, “an I’d like to help at the wallupin’.”

Marcia’s overstrung nerves suddenly dissolved into hysterical laughter.
The contrast from the tragic to the ridiculous was too much for her. She
laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, and then she cried in
earnest. Miranda stopped and put her arms about her as gently as a mother
might have done, and smoothed her hair back from the hot cheek, speaking
tenderly:

“There now, you poor pretty little flower. Jest you cry ’s hard ’s you
want to. I know how good it makes you feel to cry. I’ve done it many a
time up garret where nobody couldn’t hear me. That old Satan, he won’t
trouble you fer a good long spell again. When he gets his evil eyes open,
if he ever does, he’ll be glad to get out o’ these parts or I miss my
guess. Now don’t you worry no more. He can’t hurt you one mite. An’ don’t
you think a thing about what he said. He’s a great big liar, that’s what
he is.”

“Miranda, you saved me. Yes, you did. I never can thank you enough. If you
hadn’t come and helped me something awful might have happened!” Marcia
shuddered and began to sob convulsively again.

“Nonsense!” said Miranda, pleased. “I didn’t do a thing worth mentioning.
Now you jest wipe your eyes and chirk up. We’ve got to go through town an’
you don’t want folks to wonder what’s up.”

Miranda led Marcia up to the spring whose location had been known to her
all the time of course, and Marcia bathed her eyes and was soon looking
more like herself, though there was a nervous tremor to her lips now and
then. But her companion talked gaily, and tried to keep her mind from
going over the events of the morning.

When they reached the village Miranda suggested they go home by the back
street, slipping through a field of spring wheat and climbing the garden
fence. She had a mind to keep out of her grandmother’s sight for a while
longer.

“I might’s well be hung for a sheep’s a lamb,” she remarked, as she slid
in at Marcia’s kitchen door in the shadow of the morning-glory vines. “I’m
goin’ to stay here a spell an’ get you some dinner while you go upstairs
an’ lie down. You don’t need to go back to your aunt’s till near night,
an’ you can wait till dusk an’ I’ll go with you. Then you needn’t be out
alone at all. I know how you feel, but I don’t believe you need worry.
He’ll be done with you now forever, er I’ll miss my guess. Now you go lie
down till I make a cup o’ tea.”

Marcia was glad to be alone, and soon fell asleep, worn out with the
excitement, her brain too weary to go over the awful occurrences of the
morning. That would come later. Now her body demanded rest.

Miranda, coming upstairs with the tea, tiptoed in and looked at her,—one
round arm thrown over her head, and her smooth peachy cheek resting
against it. Miranda, homely, and with no hope of ever attaining any of the
beautiful things of life, loved unselfishly this girl who had what she had
not, and longed with all her heart to comfort and protect the sweet young
thing who seemed so ill-prepared to protect herself. She stooped over the
sleeper for one yearning moment, and touched her hair lightly with her
lips. She felt a great desire to kiss the soft round cheek, but was afraid
of wakening her. Then she took the cup of tea and tiptoed out again, her
eyes shining with satisfaction. She had a self-imposed task before her,
and was well pleased that Marcia slept, for it gave her plenty of
opportunity to carry out her plans.

She went quickly to David’s library, opened drawers and doors in the desk
until she found writing materials, and sat down to work. She had a letter
to write, and a letter, to Miranda, was the achievement of a lifetime. She
did not much expect to ever have to write another. She plunged into her
subject at once.

    “DEAR MR. DAVID:” (she was afraid that sounded a little stiff, but
    she felt it was almost too familiar to say “David” as he was
    always called.)

    “I ain’t much on letters, but this one has got to be writ.
    Something happened and somebody’s got to tell you about it. I’m
    most sure she wont, and nobody else knows cept me.

    “Last night ’bout dark I went out to feed the chickens, an’ I see
    that nimshi Harry Temple skulkin round your house. It was all dark
    there, an he walked in the side gate and tried to peek in the
    winders, only the shades was down an he couldn’t see a thing. I
    thought he was up to some mischief so I followed him down the
    street a piece till he turned down the old corduroy road. It was
    dark by then an I come home, but I was on the watchout this
    morning, and after Mis’ Spafford come down to the house I heard a
    horse gallopin by an I looked out an saw a boy get off an take a
    letter to the door an ride away, an pretty soon all in a hurry
    your wife come out tyin her bonnet and hurryin along lookin
    scared. I grabbed my sunbonnet an clipped after her, but she went
    so fast I didn’t get up to her till she got on the old corduroy
    road. She was awful scared lookin an she didn’t want me much I
    see, but pretty soon she up an told me she had a note sayin there
    was a messenger with news from you out to the old Green Tavern. He
    had a accident an couldn’t come no further. He wanted her to come
    alone cause the business was private, so I stayed down by the turn
    of the road till she got in an then I went cross lots an round to
    the kitchen an called on Mis’ Green a spell. She was tellin me
    about her boarders an I told her I thought mebbe one of em was a
    friend o’ Hannah Heath’s so she said I might peek through the key
    hole of the cubberd an see. She was busy so I went alone.

    “Well sir, I jest wish you’d been there. That lying nimshi was
    jest goin on the sweetest, as respectful an nice a thankin your
    wife fer comin, an excusin himself fer sendin fer her, and sayin
    he couldn’t bear to tell her what he’d come fer, an pretty soon
    when she was scared ’s death he up an told her a awful fib bout
    you an a woman called Kate, whoever she is, an he jest poured the
    words out fast so she couldn’t speak, an he said things about you
    he shouldn’t uv, an you could see he was makin it up as he went
    along, an he said he had proof. So he pointed at a pile of letters
    on the table an I eyed em good through the hole in the door.
    Pretty soon he ups and perposes that he carry her off in a
    carriage he has all ready, and takes her to a friend of his, so
    she wont be here when you come home, cause you’re so bad, and she