Kildares of Storm

The older Kate, looking from her eyrie at that other self of hers as at some stranger she had once known and pitied, saw a girl who wore her secret in her face, careless of who might read. Indeed she rather hoped the world would read; she had no shame of loving.

The negroes, sensitive as devoted dogs to the mood of their mistress, vied with each other in serving her, and whispered uneasily behind her back. Several times the mulatto nurse, Mahaly, more often with her than the others, seemed about to speak to her of something, but lost courage.

Kate did not notice. She noticed very little that went on around her in those days. Sometimes, indeed, she caught the hard, shallow gaze of her husband fixed upon her, curiously. But if he drew his own conclusions from her pallor, her starry eyes, her long fits of brooding, he at least did not trouble her with questions. Which perhaps was just as well. She would have answered them.

For a while she went about in a sort of daze, living over again what had passed in the ravine, wondering what she and Jacques would say to each other when he came to her. Then she began to wonder why he did not come to her. A week passed—two weeks. She grew troubled, frightened; for the first time a little ashamed. What if it were not love with him? The girl had learned in a hard school the difference between love and the thing that is called love.

She spent hours out under the juniper tree, listening for the pit-a-patter of a racking horse. She heard it often, but it did not stop. The baby playing near heard it, too; and when it passed she murmured with a tragic droop of the little mouth: "Aw—gone—by-by, Muddy! Aw—gone—by-by!"

Presently Kate lost all sense of shame; ordered out a saddle-horse in defiance of doctor's advice, and took to haunting the crossroads and the village on the chance of meeting him alone. This never happened. Fate, rather late in the day, seemed to have taken her good name into its keeping. They met, of course, but under the furtive, curious gaze of others. Usually, too, Jacques had his boy beside him. It was as if he were afraid to go alone.

So Kate had nothing to feed her heart upon but an occasional grave "Good morning," or a meeting of eyes that were instantly wrenched apart. It was enough for her, however. This was no mere emotion she had stirred. The man's face was worn as by a long illness. The least touch of his eyes was a caress.

She grew to pity him more than herself. "Poor Jacques!" she thought tenderly. "Poor, miserable, foolish Jacques!—" and longed to comfort, to reassure him. She felt in herself the strength for two.

At last she wrote to him:

It was her custom to send her baby once or twice in the week to visit the invalid, Mrs. Benoix. She gave her note to the nurse to carry.

"It is to ask the doctor for a prescription," she explained. "If he is not there, it will not be necessary to leave the note. You understand?"

It was her first lie, and she told it badly, flushing and stammering. Mahaly understood only too well. The woman seemed oddly reluctant; tried once again to say what she had to say, and failed.

When she had gone, Kate felt in the reaction as if her heart had been released from some heavy weight. "Why haven't I written before?" she thought. "Shyness, pride between people who love—what a silly thing! He shall see how strong I am; how much better and truer a friend, now that we know."

To prove the purely friendly nature of her intentions, she donned her most becoming dress, in case he chose to bring his answer in person.

Mahaly brought the answer, however, written across a leaf of a prescription-pad:

It was her one love-letter from Jacques Benoix. She wore it out with reading.

Some days later the bomb fell. Her husband said casually, at the supper-table, "I bought the Benoix place to-day, Kate."

"Bought—the Benoix place?"

"Yes; not that I could afford it! God knows I'm land-poor enough as it is. But they needed the money, and I knew you would like me to help them, my dear. They're such friends of yours."

Kate moistened her lips. "Of yours, too, Basil. But—why do they need money?"

He looked at her. "Oh, haven't you heard?" He spoke slowly, as if the words were pleasant to him. "Has Jacques not told you that they are going away to live, to the mountains? Mrs. Benoix' health; lungs, you know."

The room was whirling; around her. Clutching the tablecloth to steady herself, she was aware of Mahaly behind her master's chair, looking at her sharply, warningly. "Isn't it rather foolish of Jacques?" she heard herself asking, evenly, "to give up his practice a second time?"

Kildare laughed. "Not much practice to give up, my dear! Old Jones is good enough for us—he's not a d——d Frenchman, at least," he said with sudden savagery. "In fact," he added, smoothly again, "it was I who advised Jacques to try the mountains. He has worn out his welcome here."

At last Kate understood. Her husband had seen. He meant to guard what he did not value. He had forced Benoix to sell his home, and to give up his means of livelihood. He was driving him out of the neighborhood because he was her lover.

She rose, and walked steadily from the room. The girl Mahaly followed.

"Tek keer, tek keer!" she muttered, in a low voice. "He's watchin' you, Miss Kate!"

"He is always watching me," said Kate, dully.

"Yas 'm. I done tried to warn you. Hit were de letter. Ef you jes' hadn't 'a' sent de letter!"

"My husband saw that?"

"Yas 'm. I don gib it to him."

Kate recoiled, staring at her. "You! You gave it?" she whispered. "You whom I have trusted! My own servant!"

The mulatto woman's expression was a queer mixture of malice, and triumph, and pity.

"I was his servant first," said Mahaly.

Several months later, news came of the death of Mrs. Benoix in the mountains.

But it found Kate oddly indifferent. She was lingering, then, upon a certain dark threshold which she would have crossed very gladly but for voices that held her back; the prattle of a child, the thin, helpless whimper of a baby. She had just given birth to her third daughter.

Basil Kildare did not trouble himself to inspect his new property. Servants brought him word of its sex and its soundness.

"Good gad, another female?" he cried; and went off down the hill at a gallop.

Kate heard him go, and retreated a step from the dark threshold.

There was peace in the room.

Presently it seemed to her as if some one were near, a dear familiar presence she had learned to associate with that threshold; a strength to lean her weakness on; a hand gripping hers; eyes that held her with their tenderness, would not let her go.

By a great effort she raised her lids. The vision held. A voice said steadily: "Quiet, Kate. Remember your baby."

But she had no thought of excitement. It seemed too natural to have him there. "I knew—you would come—if you could—" she whispered.

He knelt beside her. She drew his head down to her breast, just above where the baby lay. So they stayed a while without speaking.

There was some sort of commotion downstairs; a cry, instantly hushed. The old doctor entered the room in haste, and paused, staring. After a moment he went out softly, clearing his throat. A mulatto-girl, curiously gray of face, was mounting fierce guard over the door, and would allow no others to enter.

Then came a sound of trampling feet in the road, as of men bearing some heavy burden.

Benoix began to speak, in a low and rapid whisper: "Whatever comes now, you will remember how I have loved you. From the very first, when I saw you riding to me—There is for every man one woman, only we are fools and do not wait. Wherever I am, my love shall reach you. They cannot keep my love from going to you, and you will know. For me there is only you in the world. The other things are shadows. You will remember—whatever happens, you will remember?"

She smiled: there was no need to answer.

She asked, incuriously: "What are those feet in the hall? What are they carrying?"

He answered, "Basil Kildare."

"Basil? He is hurt?"

"He is dead," said Benoix.

After a moment she began to laugh—but very softly, so that the sleeping baby on her breast might not be disturbed: "Oh, thank God, thank God! God is good to us, Jacques!"

He stopped the terrible words on her lips with his own. There were feet on the stairs. He tried to speak to her once more from the door, but he could not. He closed the door behind him.

The peace of that quiet time with her lover remained with Kate through the days that followed, even as he had intended it should, guarding her like an armor from the seething excitement of the world beyond her door. Wailing servants, friends arriving from far and near, people filling the house with lamentations (for the kindly magic of Death had transformed Kildare for the moment into the noblest of mortals)—all this stopped at the door of the quiet room where Mahaly mounted guard over the mistress she had betrayed.

None entered that room save the old doctor, and later Kate's mother, become suddenly an old woman, broken by the terrible rumors which had penetrated her peaceful Bluegrass home. She was shocked beyond words to find her newly widowed daughter serene as some Madonna out of a painting, wrapped in a rose-colored dressing-gown that would better have suited a bride.

"Whatever comes, you will remember how I love you," Benoix had said. Kate was remembering.

She lay dreaming of the future, thinking sometimes of her husband, not unkindly, but with pity, as one thinks of poor, blundering people who have gone through life unloving and unloved. Of his death she thought not at all. It was what he would have chosen, painless and quick, a fall from his horse within sight of his own house. So her mother found her, calm and very beautiful, placidly nursing her child.

Only once was the agitated lady able to prick her serenity. It was when she began to babble of Kildare's will. This stipulated that in case of re-marriage, Kate and her children were to be deprived of any interest in the estate save only that provided by law, in which event Storm was to become an endowed home for crippled children.

At this news, indeed, Kate winced. Her husband had managed to strike at her one last time from his grave, and in a vulnerable spot—her maternity. He was forcing her to rob her children.

But she regained her calm. Surely such a father as Jacques Benoix was a better gift to her children than houses and lands and cattle!

"I can't understand it," her bewildered mother moaned. "It's a cruel will, almost an insulting will, daughter! It is almost as if he—suspected you of something. What was Mr. Kildare thinking of? You are so young, you have a right to re-marry! Surely he could have had no—reason?"

Kate told her mother the reason; partly out of justice to her husband, partly because her love was a thing she wished to confess.

The other rose to her feet, staggered, gasping: "Then they are true, those dreadful rumors! You with a lover—you a married woman! Ah, my little girl—my little girl! Such things do not happen in our family. They do not! A scandal—a murder? Thank Heaven your father died in time!"

It was Kate who comforted her mother. But in the midst of her soothing caresses, a sudden trembling seized her. The color fled out of her cheeks.

"Mother! What was that you said—A murder—?"

So at last the truth came, the truth which Mahaly and the few who loved Kate had tried to keep out of that peaceful chamber. Jacques Benoix had gone from her side to prison for the killing of her husband.

As soon as she was strong enough to travel—indeed before she was strong enough to travel—Kate went to her lover in prison; saw him for ten minutes alone.

She wasted not a moment in preliminaries; there had already developed in her that ability for affairs that was later to make her one of the foremost women of her State.

"I have engaged the best lawyers to be had for money," she said. "You will never go to the penitentiary, Jacques!"

He shook his head, his eyes roaming over her hungrily, imprinting every detail of her beauty on his memory to stay. "It is of no use, my dear one."

She blenched a little. "You mean—you did kill Basil? But no! I don't believe it. You kill a man?" she laughed. "Why, you could not kill a fox, a rabbit!"

"Nevertheless," he said, "I fear that I did kill Basil."

She caught at the doubt in his words. "You 'fear'—you do not know, Jacques?"

"I know only that I tried."

He told her the story then. Others had wished to tell her, but she would listen to nobody, saying proudly, "Jacques shall explain to me...."

He had been waiting at the foot of Storm hill, watching her window, desperate for news of how she did, when Kildare came galloping down the road. Before Benoix could speak, he had reined in his horse, crying out; "You, is it? I thought I'd catch you skulking around. You'll find a new brat at the house; female, of course. If it's yours, you're welcome to it—damn you!"

Benoix, blind with sudden fury, tried to drag him from his horse. Kildare struck with his whip, broke away, jeering back over his shoulder. Then Benoix found to his hand a jagged piece of rock, and flung it straight at the grinning face that mocked him. Kildare's horse reared, toppled...

A negro who had seen it all came trembling out of the hedge and found the French doctor striving to staunch a wound in Kildare's temple, from which blood and brains oozed together.

Benoix finished with Kate's face hidden on his breast "Oh, Jacques, Jacques!" she shuddered. "It was for me, then—you tried to defend me! But—perhaps the fall killed him, not your stone?"

"Perhaps," said her lover, soothing her.

In a moment she lifted her head. "Now," she cried, "we will face this thing together!" She proposed that he should marry her at once.

He knew nothing of Kildare's will; but he refused, would not listen, hid his eyes with his hand so that the pleading of her face would not weaken him.

"I've dragged you low enough without that, my Kate. Remember your children," he bade her, sternly, "Remember my boy. We have more than ourselves to consider."

She could not move him, neither with tears nor with kisses. The jailor came.

As they led him away, her voice followed him so that the grim place rang with it! "Your boy shall be mine till you come for us both. Jacques, I'll wait, I'll wait!"

Benoix was right. The best lawyers to be had could not keep him from the penitentiary. The judge, a just and troubled man who had known Kildare from boyhood, laid what emphasis he could on the uncertainty of the case, the probability that Benoix had fought in self-defense. The jury would have none of it. Popular prejudice had transformed the master of Storm into a hero, a martyr to the unwritten law, who had given his life to defend the sanctity of his home. It did not help the accused that he was a stranger in the State, reputed to be an atheist, had not even a decent, pronounceable English name, was—of all things!—a Frenchman.

"A Creole American," corrected the accused, quietly. It was his one word in his own behalf.

Kate was in the courtroom when the jury brought in its verdict. She rose to receive it as if she were the accused, and more than one member of the jury, glancing at her, pursed virtuous lips.

The sentence was a life term in the penitentiary.

Mrs. Kildare, now famous and infamous throughout the country, made one more public appearance, this time in the church where she had been christened, confirmed, and married. She did not wear mourning, but her face was like marble against the bright color of her dress. The congregation began to whisper. She had brought her two children to be christened.

She was not quite alone. Two friends entered with her and stood at her side: her mother, and a young man named Thorpe, who had been the least among her girlhood adorers, and was the first to offer his support in her disgrace. It was he, as godfather, who spoke the children's names: "Jemima" for the elder, and for the younger, "Jacqueline Benoix."

At this there was a rustle throughout the church. Was it possible that she was actually naming her child for the condemned lover? The old minister's voice faltered, almost stopped, in his dismay. Afterwards, she had to brave the blank, frozen glances of people who had known her since her birth, and who now, it seemed, knew her no longer.

Not until that moment did Kate realize what interpretation the world might put upon her act of public loyalty to the man who had gone for her sake into a living death.

She had, indeed, her answer for the world; but it was an answer that must wait many years, until the baby Jacqueline was old enough to marry Benoix' son.

On the gallery at Storm stood two anxious girls with eyes fixed upon the big juniper-tree less patiently than the eyes of the waiting dogs. Their mother was invisible, but the presence of the dogs betrayed her.

"We'll have to do it, Jack," murmured the elder of the girls. "I hate to disturb her, but—there they come!"

She pointed to the road immediately below, along which an object that looked like a large black beetle was rattling and panting and honking its leisurely way toward Storm.

"The voice of the Ark will arouse her—just wait," advised Jacqueline. "It would arouse anything. Professor Jimsy must have bought the original trial machine made by the inventor, Blossom. How did he come to see mother before there were automobiles?"

"I don't remember—but you may be sure he came. Regularly every Friday night, and again Sunday, if encouraged. There! Mother must be stirring. Look at the dogs."

Mrs. Kildare appeared from the other side of the great tree, moving rather dazedly, as people move who have just awakened from sleep. The dogs leaped and gamboled around her, and she put them down with vague, kind gestures.

"There, Beauty! Never mind! No muddy feet, please, Jock! So, boys, so—"

"Mother, do hurry," called Jemima, with some impatience.

Mrs. Kildare hurried. It had long been her habit to obey her eldest child, who made her feel at times quite immature and thoughtless.

"What's up, girlies?" she asked.

"Company," they said together.

"Oh, yes. Jim Thorpe's night for supper. But why so much excitement about it?"

"Only that the automobile is now at the foot of the hill, and your hair is coming down, and he's going to catch you in an old, faded gingham. What am I going to do with such a mother?" sighed Jemima. "I don't believe you ever notice what you put on!"

"I don't," admitted her parent, humbly.

"And you think it's highmindedness, whereas it's just pure vanity. You know that no matter what you wear, you're more beautiful than everybody else!" The girl's voice was sternly accusing.

Kate laughed and kissed them both. "You spoil me, dears," she said; but Jemima's shrewdness made her wince, as it often did.

It was quite true that clothes existed for Kate Kildare only as more or less comfortable covering for her body; but of that body itself, the fine, satin skin, the hands, the lustrous hair, she took a care that she would have scorned to use in the days of her bellehood. She was aware of her comeliness, and she treasured it; not, however, for herself. She was a woman of one idea. Never for a moment, despite many failures, had she relinquished the hope of securing Jacques Benoix' release.

She asked meekly, "What dress am I to wear this evening, please, Blossom? Dear me! It seems to me you two have made yourselves rather gorgeous for a mere godfather. He'll be quite dazzled."

Both girls looked down consciously at their pretty frocks. They exchanged glances.

"It isn't exactly for Professor Jimsy," murmured Jacqueline. "He never looks at any one but you, anyway. It's—you tell her, Jemmy!"

"No, you!"

In the end, they told her together. "It's a party!"

Kate looked at them in surprise. Suddenly their eagerness, their excitement, struck her as being pathetic. What had they known of parties, of the gay, pleasure-seeking life usual to girls of their class?

The county of which Storm was the chief estate occupied toward its more aristocratic neighbor, the Bluegrass, the relative position of an unpretentious side-street toward the fashionable residence district of a city. It had a social life of its own—what portion of the hospitable, gregarious, pleasure-loving State has not? There were many simple gaieties, dances, picnics, and the like, which took no account of distance or other obstacles to the natural coming together of young men and girls, and of older folk who have exchanged gallantry for gossip. In this life, the mistress of Storm held a certain place. No farmers' dinner, no fair, or barbecue, was complete without the presence of the county's one great landowner.

But her daughters were creatures apart, young princesses among admiring vassals. The country people looked with awe upon their tutors and dancing-masters and singing-teachers, their books, their clothes from the city. It had never occurred to them to include the little heiresses of Storm in their humble amusements; they belonged so palpably to a different world. The fact that this world was closed to them, because of the unforgotten scandal connected with their mother, left Jemima and Jacqueline singularly friendless; princesses, perhaps, but lonely princesses in their castle.

For the first time Kate realized this. Hitherto she had felt that they three were all sufficient unto themselves, with Philip Benoix, and James Thorpe, and one or two others who came regularly to Storm. Now she said to herself with a sharp pang, "My poor babies! My little hidden, lovely girls!"

Aloud she said, "A party?—that is splendid! Who are coming to the party? Some neighbor boys and girls?"

"Hardly," replied Jemima, with a superior smile. "The party is coming from Lexington."

Kate's face changed. She asked in quick dread, "Who are they?" It was not often that she met people from Lexington, except in the way of business, and then it was an ordeal to her.

"We don't know. Isn't it exciting? Professor Thorpe is bringing them."

Then Kate smiled. They would not be people who knew her. She could trust James Thorpe.

"I must make myself presentable," she murmured, moving toward the stairs.

The two girls heaved sighs of relief. It was evident that they had entertained doubts as to her reception of the party. Jacqueline walked beside her, rubbing a caressing cheek against her shoulder—a trick she had learned from the horses among whom she spent much of her time.

"You see, Mummy, Blossom thought it was high time for us to be having some beaux."

"Good Heavens—not yet!" murmured Kate.

"At my age, you had several babies," Jemima reminded her, firmly; and Kate could not deny it.

"So we consulted our godfather," continued Jacqueline. "It seemed to us we had at last found a use for a godfather—besides candy, and birthday presents, and things like that, which don't really count. We asked him if he couldn't find us some nice young professors at the university—attractive, dancing ones, you know, not old fossils like him."

"Pleasant for James," murmured Kate. "He must be very little over forty!"

"But imagine him dancing," cried Jacqueline, and dismissed him from her world with a gesture. "So Jemima suggested to him that the surest way of having you alone, the next time he came, was to bring some young professors to amuse us. And," she finished dramatically, "here he comes, the Ark simply bursting with young professors!"

There was a loud honk at the door.

Mrs. Kildare fled up the stairs. Jemima, following her, said in a low voice, "You don't really mind, then—about the party?"

Something odd in the girl's voice arrested her. "Mind? Why should I mind, dear?"

"I don't know. I thought perhaps—you see you never do have any of your old friends here, and—and sometimes that seems to me queer. You must have had so many friends there, in Lexington, a woman like you. Or were they all beaux?"

Kate's heart beat hard. It was not the first time the girl's observant intelligence had frightened her, nor did the wistfulness of the query escape notice.

"Yes, I had many friends, and beaux, too—just as you will have, dear," she said steadily. "But you see I have been too busy with the farm and such things, since your father died, to keep up with people. That is all."

Jemima looked immeasurably relieved. "I knew you would give us friends some day, Mother, just as you have given us everything else. Only, I—I got a little tired of waiting."

"Did you, dear?" said her mother sadly. "I thought you were quite happy."

"We are, of course. But you see, we've got to get married some day, Jackie and I, and—there's no use waiting too long."

"I see."

Despite her dismay, Kate's lips twitched. It was so like this capable child of hers to be arranging the future, at nineteen, ready to be a mother to herself in case her natural mother failed her. But as she got quickly into the dress laid out for her, her hands shook a little. It is disconcerting to discover that one is no longer the parent of children, but of women grown.

She had the weary, bruised feeling of one who has traveled too far—and indeed it was a long journey she had made that day, from her own wistful and eager young womanhood to that of her daughters. She brushed her hands across her eyes to clear them of memories and dreams alike.

Introspection is always a difficult matter to direct and simple natures, such as Kate Kildare's, but she forced herself to it now. Had she in any way failed her children, as Jemima seemed to imply? Was it possible that in her absorption in a fixed idea she had neglected them, taken their welfare too much for granted? Was there anything she might have done for them that she had not done?

Conscience answered, No. It was for their sakes, far more than her own, that she had isolated herself with them, hidden them away from a world which she had found unkind. It was for their interests that she had worked harder than any man of her acquaintance, experimenting, studying, managing, until she was recognized as one of the greatest agriculturists of the State, and the unproductive property left by Basil Kildare had become a stock and dairy farm which netted her an income that ran well into five figures. More than wealth, she had given them education, bringing to Storm the best tutors and governesses to be had in the country. She had shared with them, too, her own practical knowledge and experience, the wisdom not to be found in books.

Every step of the way she had walked beside them. She who could not give them friends, had given them instead herself. Busy woman that she was, she was far closer to them than mothers and daughters usually find themselves, sentiment to the contrary notwithstanding. Between them, she believed, were none of the unfortunate reticences usual in that relation, no questions that might not be asked, nor answers given. Kate would have said that she knew her daughters truly "by heart."

And yet already and without warning the time was upon her which she dreaded—the time when she might no longer walk beside them, watchfully, but only behind, and far behind. She knew—she had always known—that only the childhood of her girls could belong to her. Their womanhood, their future, they must face unaided.

It is a bitter moment for all mothers, but more especially for Kate Kildare, who knew better than most what pitfalls lie in wait for young and hurrying feet, and whose nightmare was inheritance.

Then a consoling thought came to her; came in the shape of Jacques Benoix' son, Philip, with the steady eyes, and the great, tender heart of his father. Inheritance is not always a nightmare. The future of little Jacqueline, at least, was secure. (Thus Kate to herself, with a characteristic self-confidence which took no account of chance or choice, or other obstacle to her intent.)

As for Jemima—once more her lips twitched. Jemima was certainly very capable.

Mrs. Kildare went down to meet her guests somewhat heartened.

"This," murmured a voice into the ear of Professor Thorpe, "is the real thing at last! Everything so far has been a rather crude imitation of New York. I am disappointed in Lexington. But there's character here, distinction, local color. My dear uncle, why have you not brought me to this house before?"

"I did not bring you this time, as it happens," commented Professor Thorpe somewhat acidly. "You came."

"Thanks to a firm character and a discerning eye. What, miss a chance of seeing the Kildare on her native heath? Certainly not!"

The other turned and looked at him. "Suppose," he murmured, "that hereafter you speak of my friend and your hostess as 'Mrs. Kildare.'"

The younger man made a smiling gesture of apology. "What, ho! A tendresse here—I had forgotten," he said to himself; and added aloud, "Of course, you know, one does speak of famous women without adding handles to their names. The Duse, for instance, or Bernhardt—it would be ridiculous to call them 'Madame.'"

"Mrs. Kildare is not an actress," said the Professor, primly.

His nephew's smile grew broader. He sometimes found his uncle amusing. "I yearn to see the lady, by whatever name," he murmured. "Here she comes now. Jove, what a woman!"

His voice quite lost its drawling note. Percival Channing was a sincere admirer of beauty in all its forms, and he had without doubt a right to his claim of a discerning eye. There was something that set him apart from the other young men who had come with Professor Thorpe to Storm, aside from his English-cut clothes and a certain ease and finish which they lacked. It was an effect of keenness, of aliveness to the zest of the passing moment. He spoke of himself sometimes as a collector of impressions; and it was a true characterization. His slight, casual glance invariably took in more than the stare of other people; his nostrils quivered constantly, like those of a hound, as if they, too, were busy gathering impressions. It was a rather interesting face; a little vague in drawing about the chin and lips, but mobile, sensitive, vivid; distinctly the face of an artist.

He gazed at Kate Kildare approaching down the long stairway with the appreciation of a connoisseur. Beside her moved a slender sprite of a girl, whose hair gleamed like spun gold above a dress of apple-green. But his glance for her was merely cursory, and returned at once to the older woman. Of this Jemima was quite aware. It had happened to her before. Her lips straightened, where another girl's would have drooped, but the sensation was the same. Jemima, not for the first time, was a little jealous of her mother.

Kate greeted her guests with a gracious courtesy that was almost regal in its simplicity. Channing in particular she welcomed warmly.

"What, Jim's nephew! And you have been with him for some time? Then why has he never brought you to us before?"

"Just what I have been asking him," murmured Channing, bending over her hand. His manner reminded her sharply of Jacques Benoix.

She asked, on an unconsidered impulse, "You have lived in France?"

"For many years. Have you?"

The group around them was silent, listening. Kate went rather pale. "No. But my greatest friend happens to be a Frenchman, a Creole," she said, steadily, and turned to the others.

Channing, who knew her story, guessed at once the identity of that "greatest friend." He gazed after her in renewed admiration. It was not often in his native land that he had come across a perfect type of the grande amoureuse.

He contrasted her with the setting in which he found her—a distinctly masculine setting. The hall was enormous, rough and simple; skins on the floor, rather wooden portraits of dead Kildares on the wall, together with antlers and fox-brushes, and the stuffed head of the horse running his race with Death. The huge fireplace of field-boulders might have roasted oxen in its time. There were some modern comforts; a piano, many books, a table heaped with periodicals; even that indispensable adjunct of American homes, the graphophone; but no curtains, nor cushions, nor draperies, none of the little touches that speak of feminine habitation. In twenty years, Kate had made few changes in the house; she regarded Basil Kildare's home as merely a temporary abode until Jacques came to claim her and her children.

"I'm in luck!" thought the collector of impressions. "This is the setting for my new novel."

Here was the Kentucky, the America, he had hitherto sought in vain, with its suggestion of the backwoods of civilization, the pioneer, the primitive. And to emphasize and give the suggestion point, here was an example of the finest feminine beauty left to this degenerating world, beauty such as the Greeks knew, large-limbed, deep-bosomed, clear-eyed, product of a vigorous past, full of splendid augury for the future.

"What sons the woman must have!" he mused, stirred; and then remembered, with quite a sense of personal injury, that there were no sons.

He looked again with new interest at the daughter: but she disappointed him. She was too dainty, too petite, with a pink-and-white Dresden prettiness that was almost insignificant. (He missed, as people often did, the shrewd gray gleam behind those infantile lashes.) He hoped that the second daughter might prove truer to type.

Jacqueline, meanwhile, had made an unobtrusive appearance through a door just behind Professor Thorpe, and manifested her presence by a pinch on his arm.

He said "Ouch!" and dropped his eye-glass.

"Hush!" she admonished him, replacing it on his nose in motherly fashion. "I want to look them over and choose a victim before they see me. Why, you old duck of a godparent! Four of them—and all so young and beautiful. Two apiece. I hope they can dance?"

"Warranted to give perfect satisfaction in the ballroom, or money returned," he murmured. "But they aren't professors, my dear. None of ours seemed young and beautiful enough for your purposes."

She gave his arm an ecstatic squeeze. "I knew it! I simply knew the one in gray, with the haughty nose, couldn't be a professor."

"He's worse," warned Thorpe. "He's an author."

She gave a little squeal. "An author! But where did you get him, Goddy?" (Such was her rather irreverent abbreviation of "godfather," employed to signify especial approbation.)

"I didn't. He got me. It is my famous nephew from Boston—'from Boston and Paris,' I believe he subscribes himself."

James Thorpe spoke with a certain fortitude which Jacqueline was quick to observe. He was a small, ugly man, with the scholar's stoop and the scholar's near-sighted, peering gaze—the sort of man who has never been really young and will never be old, looking at forty-five much as he looked at twenty, a little grayer, perhaps, a little more round-shouldered and ineffectual, but no more mature. His most marked characteristic was a certain shy amiability, which endeared him to his classes and his friends, even while it failed to command their respect. Beneath this surface manner, however, were certain qualities which Kate had had long occasion to test—dogged faithfulness, and an infinite capacity for devotion. He was a very welcome guest at Storm, their one connection with the outside world. Indeed, Kate's enemies were in the habit of referring to James Thorpe as the third man whom she had ruined. His learning and his abilities were wasted on the little college where he chose to remain in order to be near her.

It was Jacqueline's custom to treat the Professor as if he were a cross between a child and a pet dog,—a favorite pet dog. She murmured now, sympathetically, "Doesn't it like its famous nephew, then? I wonder why? He does look rather snippy. Is he so famous as all that? In the magazines and everything?"

"Pooh! He would scorn the magazines. Novels are his vehicle. Large novels, bound in purple Russia leather, my dear."

"But you've never sent us any of them."

"Heaven forbid!" murmured James Thorpe.

"Oho!" Jacqueline rounded her eyes. "They're that sort, are they? Asterisks in the critical spots?"

The Professor blushed. "Well, er—no. No asterisks whatever, anywhere. He belongs to what is called the er—decadent school."

Jacqueline gazed around him at the author with increased respect. "What's his name, Goddy?"

"James Percival Channing. 'James' is for me. Calls himself 'J. Percival,' however. He would."

"What?—not the Channing? Why, Goddy, of course I've heard of him! I had no idea you had any one belonging to you like that."

"I don't often brag of it," he murmured.

"But what is he doing here?"

"Getting next to Nature, I believe. Collecting specimens, dialect, local color, animals in their habitat, you know. Take care, or he'll be collecting you."

Her eyes twinkled. "Wouldn't it be gorgeous to be in a book! Professor Jimsy, don't you think we ought to give him a little local color at once? Some native habits, for instance. Dare me to? Come, be a sport and dare me to! Then if Mother or Jemmy scolds me, I can blame it all on you."

She stroked his hand persuasively. There was no resisting Jacqueline's blandishments. He dared her to, albeit with misgivings. Ever since her infancy, when hearing his voice in the hall she had escaped from her nurse and her bath simultaneously and arrived, slippery with wet soap, to welcome him, Jacqueline had been the source of an uneasy fascination for her godfather. She represented, in his rather humdrum life, the element of the unexpected.

Some moments later the group gathered about Mrs. Kildare—and incidentally Jemima—were startled by the appearance of a vision in pink at the head of the stairs, who casually straddled the banister and arrived in their midst with the swoop of a rocket.

"Jacqueline!" gasped her sister.

Kate shook her head reprovingly, and smiled. After all, one of her children was still a child. No need to trouble about the future yet!

Channing was the first of the guests to collect his wits, and he assisted the newcomer to alight from the newel-post with gallantry.

"What an effective entrance, Miss—ah, Jacqueline," he commented. "An idea for musical comedy, all the chorus sliding down on to the stage in a procession. I must suggest it to my friend Cohan."

The girl suddenly felt very small, but she concealed her embarrassment beneath an excessive nonchalance. "Why, in Boston don't people use their banisters? We find them so convenient, so time-saving."

"Unfortunately, in Boston," he replied blandly, "very few women seem to have such decorative legs to exhibit."

There was a shocked pause. Thorpe and Mrs. Kildare had moved out of hearing. The three other young men rushed into the breach with small talk, casting furious looks at Channing, much to his amusement.

He made a mental note: "In rural Kentucky the leg may be seen but not heard."

Later Jacqueline whispered to her sister, "What was wrong with that compliment? Why did everybody look so queer?"

Their education had not included a course in the lesser feminine proprieties. But Jemima was not one to be caught napping. Conventions came to her by instinct.

"He should have said 'limbs,'" she answered promptly. "And he should not have seen them at all!"

Jacqueline inspected her slim ankles with approval. "I don't see how he could have helped it. They're very pretty. Blossom, what's wrong with legs anyway?"

But for once Jemima was unable to enlighten her.

The collector of impressions had several occasions to congratulate himself, during the course of that evening. He ceased to trust his memory, and commenced a series of surreptitious notes on his cuff, to the acute discomfort of his uncle. Among them appeared items such as the following: "7 vegetables and no soup." "Pancakes are called bread." "The butler has bare feet."

The butler was one of the stable-boys disguised for the occasion in a white coat and apron, who partially concealed himself behind the dining-room door and announced in a tremulous roar, "White folks, yo' supper's dished!"—stage-fright having conquered recent instructions.

Mrs. Kildare, who was usually served by an elderly housewoman, gazed at this innovation in frank astonishment; but it was only the first of her surprises. The table was frivolously alight with pink candles, and in the center stood a decoration consisting of a scalloped watermelon filled with flowers, leashed to a little fleet of flower-filled canteloupes, by pink ribbons.

Jacqueline could not dissemble her admiration of this effect. "Isn't it artistic?" she demanded of the company at large. "Jemmy saw a table like this in the ladies' page of a magazine, and she copied it exactly."

"So helpful, those ladies' pages," murmured the author. "Once I got an idea out of them for turning a disused cook-stove into a dressing-table, with the aid of cretonne and a little white paint."

Jemima gave him a glance that was swift and sharp as the gleam of a knife, but she said nothing. She was too preoccupied at the moment to decide whether he was laughing at her or not. Temporarily, she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Weighty matters were on her mind that night. While Mrs. Kildare, as usual, sat at the head of her table, it was Jemima who ably and quite visibly conducted affairs.

From the pantry came suppressed guffaws, the shuffling of many feet, the steady fusillade of rattling china.

"It is a regiment preparing to charge!" thought Channing.

But when it charged, the author forgot his note-making and was content to eat. All day Jemima had been busy in the kitchen with Big Liza; both notable cooks in a country where cookery is justly regarded as one of the fine arts.

At one time Mrs. Kildare counted no less than five unaccustomed servitors, white-coated and barefooted, shuffling about the table, with fresh relays of waffles, biscuits, fried chicken. They ranged in size from the coachman's youngest to Big Liza herself, queen of the kitchen; a monumental figure whose apron-strings barely met about her blue-gingham waist, and whose giggles threatened momentarily to overcome her.

"Well, old woman, this is a surprise!" murmured her mistress. "What brings you into the dining-room?"

Big Liza shook like the aspic she was carrying. "Laws, Miss Kate, honey, I allus did have a eye fo' de gentlemen," she said coyly. "I des 'bleeged ter have a peep at de beaux. Mighty long time sense we-all's had a party at Sto'm!"

Jemima cast a reproachful glance at her mother; but the "beaux," accustomed from infancy to the ways of servants like Big Liza, responded cheerfully to the old woman's advances, bantering and teasing her till she retired to her kitchen in high delight, tossing her head.

Channing listened in sheer amaze. "Primitive? Why, it's patriarchal! Positively Biblical in its simplicity!" he thought.

Jemima was as pink as her decorations.

"Judging from the Apple Blossom's expression," murmured Thorpe to Mrs. Kildare, "you have committed a hopeless social error in conversing with your cook."

"I know! It was too bad of me. She takes her little party very seriously," said the other, remorsefully. "Don't you dare laugh at her, Jim! It is her first, and she's done it all by herself!"

"If she made this puff-paste herself, no man in the world will think of laughing at her," he said heartily. "But—their social instincts are awaking, Kate. They come by them very naturally. It is time for your girls to have their chance."

She winced. "What shall I do about it? How can I manage? I have no friends now. There is nobody I can count on to help them."

He leaned toward her, his lined face for the moment almost beautiful.

"There is always me, Kate. Hasn't the time come to let me help you, for their sakes? As Mrs. Thorpe—" he paused, and continued quietly, with a rather set look about his jaw, "As Mrs. Thorpe I think I can promise you a few friends, at least. And a—protector—though I may not look like one," he finished, wistfully.

She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. She always avoided, when she could, these offers of help, knowing that when he grew tired of making them she would miss him. But she had not the courage to send him away, to break with him entirely. She was not consciously selfish. If it had been suggested to her that she was interfering with her friend's career, she would have been shocked and grieved beyond measure. Thorpe's devotion was a thing so complete, so perfect in its unobtrusiveness, that it defeated its own purpose. She simply took it for granted.

He made no protest now; even smiled at her reassuringly, knowing that it troubled her to hurt him. Only the eagerness that had for the moment beautified his face died away, and Jacqueline, happening to glance across at him, thought, "Poor Goddy! How old and out of it all he looks!"

She drew him into the conversation. "I was just telling the author, Professor Jimsy, that he inherits his patrician nose from you," she said (somewhat to the author's embarrassment). "And he says one doesn't inherit from uncles. That's nonsense! If property, why not noses? And character?" she added wickedly. "Oh, I see lots of resemblances between you!"

"Do you?" murmured the Professor, rather grimly.

"For instance, you both go in for psychology—only you don't publish yours in large purple novels."

"I do not," said the Professor.

Channing looked at her with surprise. Was it possible that this backwoods hoyden—Bouncing Bet of the Banister, he had named her to himself, with a taste for alliteration—was it possible that she had read any of his books? She was hardly more than a child. The hair hung down her back in a thick, gleaming rope, her merry gamin's face lacked as yet all those subtleties, those nuances of expression which fascinated him in such faces as her mother's. Channing was still young enough to prefer the finished product. But if she read his books....

Doubtless Mrs. Kildare was not a woman to be very particular about her young daughters' reading. The standards of a well-bred world would not prevail in this strange household. He thought suddenly of the girl's dangerous inheritance—the father, notorious even in a community that is not puritanical about the morals of its men; the mother, fought over like some hunted female of the lower creatures, yet faithful always to the lover who had done away with the husband.... Truly, the future career of young Jacqueline Kildare might be well worth watching. Despite her crude youth, there was a certain warm sweetness about her which, he noticed, drew and kept the attention of every man at the table—a caressing voice, hands that must always touch the thing that pleased her, above all a mouth of dewy scarlet, curving into deep dimples at the corner.

"Undoubtedly a mouth meant for kissing," mused Channing, the connoisseur.

He let his imagination go a little. It was a pampered imagination, that led him occasionally into indiscretions which he afterwards regretted—not too deeply, however, for after all, one owes something to one's art. "Psychological experiments," he named these indiscretions. He suspected that he was on the verge of one now, and tasted in advance some of the thrills of the pioneer.

And then, quite suddenly, he became aware of Jemima's cool, appraising, gray-green gaze fastened upon his face; not quite meeting his eyes, but placed somewhere in the region of the mouth and chin, those features which Channing euphoniously spoke of to himself as "mobile." The author started. He resisted an impulse to put a hand up over his betraying mouth.

"What ho! The pink-and-white one's been making notes on her own account," he thought.

It was a privilege he usually reserved for himself.

After dinner the phonograph was promptly started, Jacqueline explaining that the young men were going to teach them to dance.

"Teach you?" exclaimed her mother. "Why, you both dance beautifully."

She had taught them herself from earliest childhood, lessons supplemented by the best dancing-masters that money could bring to Storm. Perhaps the prettiest memory the rough old hall held was that of two tiny girls hopping about together, yellow heads bobbing, short skirts a-flutter, their baby faces earnest with endeavor.

"Pooh, two-steps and waltzes, Mummy! They're as dead as the polka. Besides, you can't really dance with another girl."

"Can't you?" Kate sighed. She exchanged a rueful glance with Thorpe, "Jim, tell me, did you know the polka was dead?"

"I haven't danced since your wedding."

They settled themselves to look on, Kate murmuring, "I hope all this noise isn't keeping Mag Henderson awake. We've got a new baby upstairs, did you know it? A poor creature who had no one to look after her at home."

"So you brought her here—of course! Kate, Kate, isn't it enough that you take in every derelict dog in the county, without taking in the derelict infants and mothers as well?"

"I take in the dogs as a sort of atonement to poor old Juno and her mongrel pups," she said, soberly. "I feel as if Storm owed something to mongrels. As for this baby, it's a good experience for Jemima and Jacqueline. I want to teach them all I can, while I can."

"Humph! Where's the woman's husband!"

"There never was any."

"What? My dear Kate! And that's the type of woman you think will be a good experience for your young daughters?"

"Jim, you psychologists have a stupid way of dividing people into types. I regard them as individuals. My girls will do Mag Henderson more good than she can do them harm," she said, with a quiet dignity which ended discussion. "Good Heavens! What sort of dance is that?"

The dancing that is called "new" was just making its triumphal progress westward into the homes of the land.

"That, I believe, is a highly fashionable performance called the Turkey Trot."

"Looks it," she commented disapprovingly, even while her feet beat time to the infectious measure.

The voice of Jacqueline rang out, "But this isn't new at all! It's just ragging, like they do at the quarters, only not so limber. We've known how to rag for ever so long, haven't we, Blossom? Watch us!"

She caught her sister around the waist and went strutting down the long hall, hips and shoulders swinging, pretty feet prancing, laughing back over her shoulder with unconscious provocation, until a delighted old negro voice at the window cried, "Dat's de style, Miss Jack! Dat's de way to git 'em, honey!"

With the first note of the phonograph, the entire domestic force had transformed itself into an unseen audience.

When Philip Benoix came to the top of the Storm road, he jerked up his horse in sheer amaze. It was a scene such as he had never expected to find in that grim old fortress-home. Past the lighted windows couples stepped rapidly to the titivating strains of "Trop Moutarde"; while on the lawn outside the entire population of the quarters pranced and capered in much the same fashion, somewhat hampered by the excited dogs. Kate Kildare stood in the open doorway, gazing from the dancers within to the dancers without, and laughing until she held her sides.

Philip's grave face warmed with sympathy. "It is good to see her laugh like that. I won't tell her to-night," he thought; and would have turned away, but that the dogs suddenly became aware of him and gave tongue.

"Heah comes Pahson to jine de high jinks!" cried the erstwhile butler, running hospitably to take his horse. It was too late for retreat.

Kate stepped down into the porch with outstretched hands. "I am so glad it is you, Phil dear. You must have felt me wishing for you. Come, come in, boy! You don't have half enough of 'high jinks'!"

He shook his head silently.

She made a little grimace. "I forgot—the Cloth does not dance. But surely the Cloth may look on?"

"From afar off, perhaps, out of the way of temptation."

He spoke smilingly, but she reproached herself for thoughtlessness. Philip was very careful not to present himself anywhere that his presence might cause restraint or embarrassment, he never forgot, no matter if others forgot, that he was the son of a convict.

"Then I shall sit out here with you." As she drew closer to him, she saw his face clearly in the light that streamed from the open doorway. It was very pale. "Oh!" she cried. "What is the matter, Philip?"

"My father—"

Her hand went to her heart.

"Not bad news," he said quickly. "Good news. To-day I had a letter from the Governor."

The newly elected Governor of the State had been the presiding judge at Jacques Benoix' trial.

"The Governor! Well? Well?"

"He said—it was a personal letter, you understand, nothing official. He said that he had always entertained grave doubts as to the justice of father's sentence, and that if I could secure the signature of certain men in the State, he would be glad to consider a petition for pardon."

In the house, James Thorpe, waiting for Mrs. Kildare's return, after some time became aware that he was not the only person in the room not dancing. A girl in apple-green sat, with a rather fixed smile on her lips, watching three of the young men teaching Jacqueline a new step, while Percival Channing produced upon the piano a tune too recent for the resources of the graphophone. It occurred to him that Jemima's party might leave something to be desired on the part of its instigator. He crossed the room.

Jemima withdrew her eyes from the dancers with an effort. She had evidently forgotten his existence. "But what have you done with mother?" she demanded. "I thought you were having such a nice time with her all to yourself."

He explained.

"Oh, Philip, of course! Mother does spoil Philip dreadfully, poor fellow! She was a great friend of his mother's, you know, and his father is—but of course you know about his father. Phil simply worships mother, and I think she likes it. Any woman does," said Jemima, with the air of elderly wisdom which always amused Professor Thorpe. "Still, it's too bad of her to go off with him to-night, when I'd promised you a whole evening with her alone."

He winced. He was beginning to realize that evenings alone profited him no more than evenings in company.

"Since you've broken your promise," he said severely, "I think you will have to make me some reparation. This new dancing, now"—he mastered a certain trepidation—"it looks easy, if unbeautiful. Do you think you could teach it to me?"

She rose with alacrity. "Of course I could! I always learn things much quicker than Jacky. You see it's taking three of them to teach her—two to dance for her and one to dance with her—and I know the steps already. Professor Jim," she said irrelevantly, with a faint sigh, "do you think it pays to be clever?"

If Mrs. Kildare had noticed, she would have been more than a little astonished by the vision of shy and awkward James Thorpe, one of the leading psychologists of the country, capering nimbly in a lady's chamber under the guidance of her eldest child. But she did not notice.

"Do you know what this means?" she said, after a long silence. "It means that we have won, my dear. The very judge who tried him!"

Philip nodded, without speaking.

Her hand groped for his and clung to it. As the sisters of Lazarus must have felt when he who was dead came to them out of the tomb in his cere-cloths, so these two felt now. After seventeen years, the thing they had vainly hoped and striven for was about to be granted—not justice (it was too late for that), but mercy, freedom. And after seventeen years, what was a man to do with freedom?

"I am—frightened, a little," Philip said at last, turning to her. "What am I to do with father?"

"You are to bring him straight to me. No, I will go with you and bring him home myself."

"Home? To Basil Kildare's house?"

She lifted her head, "What matter whose house? We shall be married at once."

He said in a low voice, "Have you forgotten—the will?"

"Forgotten it?" she laughed. "Do you think that likely? Why do you suppose I have worked as I have, scheming, saving, paring corners—done my own selling and buying and overseeing, driven my men and myself to the limit of endurance, got for myself the reputation of a female Shylock? Because I like that sort of thing? Because I enjoy making money? No, my dear. When I rob my girls of their inheritance, as rob them I must, I shall be able to give them each a little fortune to take its place. I am a rich woman now, aside from the Storm property. Basil Kildare had the right, perhaps, to do as he chose with his property. Thank God he cannot lay a finger on mine!"

She stared out straight in the direction of the little cornfield graveyard, as if defying some ghostly presence there to do its worst.

Philip lifted the hand he held to his lips. When he spoke there was trouble in his voice. "Do you think that when my father hears the terms of Kildare's will, he will consent to such a sacrifice?"

She turned on him sharply. "He does not know about the will, and he must not, certainly until after we are married. Who would tell him—you, Philip?" Her eyes met his. "Philip! What do you mean?"

"Suppose," he said very low, "it were a matter of my conscience?"

"Then I ask you not to listen to your conscience, but to me!" She put her hands on his shoulders. "If, as you say, you owe me anything—if you value my friendship—if you love me, Philip—promise that you will never tell your father!"

It was a great temptation through which he passed at that moment; a temptation all the more subtle in that he could tell himself truly it was for her sake he hesitated. One word to Jacques Benoix, and the thing he dreaded, the thing suddenly so near, would never come to pass.

"Don't you know it will hurt you to give up Storm?" His voice was hoarse. "It has been your life so long. You love the land, every stick and stone of it."

"And every twig and grass-blade. But," she said quietly, "I love Jacques more. Promise, dear."

He promised.

The silence fell again. Across Kate's face a moonbeam strayed and rested, and the young man sitting in the shadow a little behind her could not take his eyes away. He had the strange feeling that he was looking for the last time on the woman he loved, who belonged now irrevocably to his father. It was a glowing face, with eyes as lovely, and lips as tremulous, as those of a dreaming bride. Before Philip she made no attempt to conceal her thoughts. They had been confidantes too long.

It came to him that his father must be a remarkable man to have held through years of absence such a love as this.

"I wish I knew him better," he said, thinking aloud. "To me he is almost a stranger."

"A stranger!" She smiled incredulously. "I should think you would find it difficult to write those long weekly letters of yours to a 'stranger.'"

Philip had never found it difficult, because from the first the subject of those letters had been herself.

At the last meeting between Jacques and his son, the man in his extremity had turned to the boy for aid, pleading with the terrified, bewildered little fellow as if with a man who understood. And Philip, already old beyond his years, born with the instinct of the priest and confessor, had understood.

"You will tell me of her?" Jacques had pleaded. "I have no friend but you, boy. You will take care of her? You will write me how she does?"

Philip had not failed his father. Every detail of Kate's life was known to the man in prison, her comings and goings, her daily habits, her work, her successes and failures, the very color of the gowns she wore. There had been from the first a sort of glamour about her, to the imagination of a lonely, dreaming boy. Even at fourteen he had been a little in love with Kate Kildare, as a page may be in love with a queen. With the passing years, more of Philip's self than he knew had crept into those weekly letters to his father; so that if Jacques Benoix was a stranger to him now, he was no stranger to his father.

"It is queer, though," he mused, still thinking aloud. "Often as I write to him, he rarely answers. Once a year, on my birthday, and again at Christmas. It is as if he wanted me to forget him!"

"I think he does," she said. "That is why he never writes to me at all. I have had only one letter, begging me never to come there, nor to allow you to come there. He even asked me not to write to him, and I have not written. But—forget Jacques!" She smiled proudly. "He does not know us, does he? Nor himself. Why, there is not a man or woman in the county who has forgotten him!"