Chapter XXXVI - The Goad

It was at last borne in upon me that I must leave without any word from Ellen. She was hedged about by all the stern and cold machinery of an Army Post, out of whose calculations I was left as much as though I belonged to a different world. I cannot express what this meant for me. For weeks now, for months, indeed, we two had been together each hour of the day. I had come to expect her greeting in the morning, to turn to her a thousand times in the day with some query or answer. I had made no plan from which she was absent. I had come to accept myself, with her, as fit part of an appointed and happy scheme. Now, in a twinkling, all that had been subverted. I was robbed of her exquisite dependence upon me, of those tender defects of nature that rendered her most dear. I was to miss now her fineness, her weakness and trustfulness, which had been a continual delight. I could no longer see her eyes nor touch her hands, nor sit silent at her feet, dreaming of days to come. Her voice was gone from my listening ears. Always I waited to hear her footstep, but it came no longer, rustling in the grasses. It seemed to me that by some hard decree I had been deprived of all my senses; for not one was left which did not crave and cry aloud for her.

It was thus that I, dulled, bereft; I, having lived, now dead; I, late free, now bound again, turned away sullenly, and began my journey back to the life I had known before I met her.

As I passed East by the Denver stage, I met hurrying throngs always coming westward, a wavelike migration of population now even denser than it had been the preceding spring. It was as Colonel Meriwether said, the wagons almost touched from the Platte to the Rockies. They came on, a vast, continuous stream of hope, confidence and youth. I, who stemmed that current, alone was unlike it in all ways.

One thing only quickened my laggard heart, and that was the all prevalent talk of war. The debates of Lincoln and Douglas, the consequences of Lincoln's possible election, the growing dissensions in the Army over Buchanan's practically overt acts of war—these made the sole topics of conversation. I heard my own section, my own State, criticised bitterly, and all Southerners called traitors to that flag I had seen flying over the frontiers of the West. At times, I say, these things caused my blood to stir once more, though perhaps it was not all through patriotism.

At last, after weeks of travel across a disturbed country, I finally reached the angry hive of political dissension at Washington. Here I was near home, but did not tarry, and passed thence by stage to Leesburg, in Virginia; and so finally came back into our little valley and the quiet town of Wallingford. I had gone away the victim of misfortune; I returned home with a broken word and an unfinished promise and a shaken heart. That was my return.

I got me a horse at Wallingford barns, and rode out to Cowles' Farms. At the gate I halted and looked in over the wide lawns. It seemed to me I noted a change in them as in myself. The grass was unkempt, the flower beds showed little attention. The very seats upon the distant gallery seemed unfamiliar, as though arranged by some careless hand. I opened the gate for myself, rode up to the old stoop and dismounted, for the first time in my life there without a boy to take my horse. I walked slowly up the steps to the great front door of the old house. No servant came to meet me, grinning. I, grandson of the man who built that house, my father's home and mine, lifted the brazen knocker of the door and heard no footstep anticipate my knock. The place sounded empty.

Finally there came a shuffling footfall and the door was opened, but there stood before me no one that I recognized. It was a smallish, oldish, grayish man who opened the door and smiled in query at me.

"I am John Cowles, sir," I said, hesitating. "Yourself I do not seem to know—"

"My name is Halliday, Mr. Cowles," he replied. A flush of humiliation came to my face.

"I should know you. You were my father's creditor."

"Yes, sir, my firm was the holder of certain obligations at the time of your father's death. You have been gone very long without word to us. Meantime, pending any action—"

"You have moved in!"

"I have ventured to take possession, Mr. Cowles. That was as your mother wished. She waived all her rights and surrendered everything, said all the debts must be paid—"

"Of course—"

"And all we could prevail upon her to do was to take up her quarters there in one of the little houses."

He pointed with this euphemism toward our old servants' quarters. So there was my mother, a woman gently reared, tenderly cared for all her life, living in a cabin where once slaves had lived. And I had come back to her, to tell a story such as mine!

"I hope," said he, hesitating, "that all these matters may presently be adjusted. But first I ask you to influence your mother to come back into the place and take up her residence."

I smiled slowly. "You hardly understand her," I said. "I doubt if my influence will suffice for that. But I shall meet you again." I was turning away.

"Your mother, I believe, is not here—she went over to Wallingford. I think it is the day when she goes to the little church—"

"Yes, I know. If you will excuse me I shall ride over to see if I can find her." He bowed. Presently I was hurrying down the road again. It seemed to me that I could never tolerate the sight of a stranger as master at Cowles' Farms.

Chapter XXXVII - The Furrow

I Found her at the churchyard of the old meetinghouse. She was just turning toward the gate in the low sandstone wall which surrounded the burying ground and separated it from the space immediately about the little stone church. It was a beautiful spot, here where the sun came through the great oaks that had never known an ax, resting upon blue grass that had never known a plow—a spot virgin as it was before old Lord Fairfax ever claimed it hi his loose ownership. Everything about it spoke of quiet and gentleness.

I knew what it was that she looked upon as she turned back toward that spot—it was one more low mound, simple, unpretentious, added to the many which had been placed there this last century and a half; one more little gray sandstone head-mark, cut simply with the name and dates of him who rested there, last in a long roll of our others. The slight figure in the dove-colored gown looked back lingeringly. It gave a new ache to my heart to see her there.

She did not notice me as I slipped down from my saddle and fastened my horse at the long rack. But when I called she turned and came to me with open arms.

"Jack!" she cried. "My son, how I have missed thee! Now thee has come back to thy mother." She put her forehead on my shoulder, but presently took up a mother's scrutiny. Her hand stroked my hair, my unshaven beard, took in each line of my face.

"Thee has a button from thy coat," she said, reprovingly. "And what is this scar on thy neck—thee did not tell me when thee wrote, Jack, what ails thee?" She looked at me closely. "Thee is changed. Thee is older—what has come to thee, my son?"

"Come," I said to her at length, and led her toward the steps of the little church.

Then I broke out bitterly and railed against our ill-fortune, and cursed at the man who would allow her to live in servants' quarters—indeed, railed at all of life.

"Thee must learn to subdue thyself, my son," she said. "It is only so that strength comes to us—when we bend the back to the furrow God sets for us. I am quite content in my little rooms. I have made them very clean; and I have with me a few things of my own—a few, not many."

"But your neighbors, mother, the Sheratons—"

"Oh, certainly, they asked me to live with them. But I was not moved to do that. You see, I know each rose bush and each apple tree on our old place. I did not like to leave them.

"Besides, as to the Sheratons, Jack," she began again—"I do not wish to say one word to hurt thy feelings, but Miss Grace—"

"What about Miss Grace?"

"Mr. Orme, the gentleman who once stopped with us a few days—"

"Oh, Orme! Is he here again? He was all through the West with me—I met him everywhere there. Now I meet him here!"

"He returned last summer, and for most of his time has been living at the Sheratons'. He and Colonel Sheraton agree very well. And he and Miss Grace—I do not like to say these things to thee, my son, but they also seem to agree."

"Go on," I demanded, bitterly.

"Whether Miss Grace's fancy has changed, I do not know, but thy mother ought to tell thee this, so that if she should jilt thee, why, then—"

"Yes," said I, slowly, "it would be hard for me to speak the first word as to a release."

"But if she does not love thee, surely she will speak that word. So then say good-by to her and set about thy business."

I could not at that moment find it in my heart to speak further. We rose and walked down to the street of the little town, and at the tavern barn I secured a conveyance which took us both back to what had once been our home. It was my mother's hands which, at a blackened old fireplace, in a former slave's cabin, prepared what we ate that evening. Then, as the sun sank in a warm glow beyond the old Blue Ridge, and our little valley lay there warm and peaceful as of old, I drew her to the rude porch of the whitewashed cabin, and we looked out, and talked of things which must be mentioned. I told her—told her all my sad and bitter story, from end to end.

"This, then," I concluded, more than an hour after I had begun, "is what I have brought back to you—failure, failure, nothing but failure."

We sat in silence, looking out into the starry night, how long I do not know. Then I heard her pray, openly, as was not the custom of her people. "Lord, this is not my will. Is this Thy will?"

After a time she put her hand upon mine. "My son, now let us reason what is the law. From the law no man may escape. Let us see who is the criminal. And if that be thee, then let my son have his punishment."

I allowed the edge of her gentle words to bite into my soul, but I could not speak.

"But one thing I know," she concluded, "thee is John Cowles, the son of my husband, John; and thee at the last will do what is right, what thy heart says to thee is right."

She kissed me on the cheek and so arose. All that night I felt her prayers.

Chapter XXXVIII - Hearts Hypothecated

The next morning at the proper hour I started for the Sheraton mansion. This time it was not my old horse Satan that I rode. My mother told me that Satan had been given over under the blanket chattel mortgage, and sold at the town livery stable to some purchaser, whom she did not know, who had taken the horse out of the country. I reflected bitterly upon the changes in my fortunes since the last time I rode this way.

At least I was not so much coward as to turn about. So presently I rode up the little pitch from the trough road and pulled the gate latch with my riding crop. And then, as though it were by appointment, precisely as I saw her that morning last spring—a hundred years ago it seemed to me—I saw Grace Sheraton coming down the walk toward me, tall, thin. Alas! she did not fill my eye. She was elegantly clad, as usual. I had liefer seen dress of skins. Her dainty boots clicked on the gravel. A moccasin would not.

I threw my rein over the hook at the iron arm of the stone gate pillar and, hat in hand, I went to meet her. I was an older man now. I was done with roystering and fighting, and the kissing of country girls all across the land. I did not prison Grace Sheraton against the stone gate pillar now, and kiss her against her will until she became willing. All I did was to lift her hand and kiss her finger tips.

She was changed. I felt that rather than saw it. If anything, she was thinner, her face had a deeper olive tint, her eyes were darker. Her expression was gay, feverish, yet not natural, as she approached. What was it that sat upon her face—melancholy, or fear, or sorrow, or resentment? I was never very bright of mind. I do not know.

"I am glad to see you," she said to me at length, awkwardly.

"And I to see you, of course." I misdoubt we both lied.

"It is very sad, your home-coming thus," she added; at which clue I caught gladly.

"Yes, matters could hardly be worse for us."

"Your mother would not come to us. We asked her. We feel deeply mortified. But now—we hope you both will come."

"We are beggars now, Miss Grace," I said. "I need time to look around, to hit upon some plan of life. I must make another home for myself, and for—"

"For me?" She faced me squarely now, eye to eye. A smile was on her lips, and it seemed to me a bitter one, but I could not guess what was hidden in her mind. I saw her cheek flush slowly, deeper than was usual with a Sheraton girl.

"For my wife, as soon as that may be," I answered, as red as she.

"I learn that you did not see Colonel Meriwether," she went on politely.

"How did you know it?"

"Through Captain Orme."

"Yes," said I, quietly, "I have heard of Captain Orme—much of him—very much." Still I could not read her face.

"He was with us a long time this summer," she resumed, presently. "Some two weeks ago he left, for Charleston, I think. He has much business about the country."

"Much business," I assented, "in many parts of the country. But most of all with men of the Army. So Captain Orme—since we must call him Captain and not minister—was so good as to inform you of my private matters."

"Yes." Again she looked at me squarely, with defiance. "I know all about it. I know all about that girl."

So there it was! But I kept myself under whip hand still. "I am very glad. It will save me telling you of myself. It is not always that one has the good fortune of such early messengers."

"Go on," she said bitterly, "tell me about her."

"I have no praises to sound for her. I do not wish to speak of this, if you prefer to hear it from others than myself."

She only smiled enigmatically, her mouth crooking in some confidence she held with herself, but not with me. "It was natural," she said at last, slowly. "Doubtless I would have done as she did. Doubtless any other man would have done precisely as you did. That is the way with men. After all, I suppose the world is the world, and that we are as we are. The girl who is closest to a man has the best chance with him. Opportunity is much, very much. Secrecy is everything."

I found nothing which suited me to say; but presently she went on, again leaning on the ivy-covered stone pillar of the gate, her hat held by its strings at her side, her body not imprisoned by my arms.

"Why should you not both have done so?" she resumed, bitterly. "We are all human."

"Why should we not have done what—what is it that you mean?" I demanded of her.

"Why, there was she, engaged to Mr. Belknap, as I am told; and there were you, engaged to a certain young lady by the name of Grace Sheraton, very far away. And you were conveniently lost—very conveniently—and you found each other's society agreeable. You kept away for some weeks or months, both of you forgetting. It was idyllic—ideal. You were not precisely babes in the woods. You were a man and a woman. I presume you enjoyed yourselves, after a very possible little fashion—I do not blame you—I say I might have done the same. I should like to know it for a time myself—freedom! I do not blame you. Only," she said slowly, "in society we do not have freedom. Here it is different. I suppose different laws apply, different customs!"

"Miss Grace," said I, "I do not in the least understand you. You are not the same girl I left."

"No, I am not. But that is not my fault. Can not a woman be free as much as a man? Have I not right as much as you? Have you not been free?"

"One thing only I want to say," I rejoined, "and it is this, which I ought not to say at all. If you mean anything regarding Ellen Meriwether, I have to tell you, or any one, that she is clean—mind, body, soul, heart—as clean as when I saw her first."

"Do you know, I like you for saying that!" she retorted. "I would never marry a man who knew nothing of other women—I don't want a milksop; and I would not marry a man who would not lie for the sake of a sweetheart. You lie beautifully! Do you know, Jack, I believe you are a bit of a gentleman, after all!

"But tell me, when is the wedding to be?" This last with obvious effort.

"You have not advised me."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. I meant your marriage with Ellen Meriwether. I supposed of course you had quite forgotten me!"

"Ellen Meriwether is already married," I said to her, with a calmness which surprised myself. But what surprised me most was the change which came upon her face at the words—the flush—the gleam of triumph, of satisfaction. I guessed this much and no more—that she had had certain plans, and that now she had other plans, changed with lightning swiftness, and by reason of my words.

"Lieutenant Lawrence Belknap and Miss Ellen Meriwether were married, I presume, some time after I started for the East," I went on. "But they were never engaged before our return to the settlements. It was all very suddenly arranged."

"How like a story-book! So he forgot her little incidents with you—all summer—side by side—day and night! How romantic! I don't know that I could have done so much, had I been a man, and myself not guilty of the same incidents. At least, he kept his promise."

"There had never been any promise at all between them."

"Then Captain Orme was quite mistaken?"

"Captain Orme does not trouble himself always to be accurate."

"At least, then, you are unmarried, Jack?"

"Yes, and likely to be for some years."

Now her face changed once more. Whether by plan of her own or not, I cannot say, but it softened to a more gentle—shall I say a more beseeching look? Was it that I again was at her side, that old associations awakened? Or was it because she was keen, shrewd and in control of herself, able to make plans to her own advantage? I cannot tell as to that. But I saw her face soften, and her voice was gentle when she spoke.

"What do you mean, Jack?" she asked.

If there was not love and caress in her tones, then I could not detect the counterfeit. I reiterate, if I should live a thousand years, I should know nothing of women, nothing. We men are but toys with them. As in life and in sex man is in nature's plan no master, no chooser, but merely an incident; so, indeed, I believe that he is thus always with a woman—only an incident. With women we are toys. They play with us. We never read them. They are the mystery of the world. When they would deceive us it is beyond all our art to read them. Never shall man, even the wisest, fathom the shallowest depths of a woman's heart. Their superiors? God! we are their slaves, and the stronger we are as men, the more are we enslaved.

Had it been left to my judgment to pronounce, I should have called her emotion now a genuine one. Mocking, cynical, contemptuous she might have been, and it would have suited my own mood. But what was it now on the face of Grace Sheraton, girl of a proud family, woman I once had kissed here at this very place until she blushed—kissed until she warmed—until she—

But now I know she changed once again, and I know that this time I read her look aright. It was pathos on her face, and terror. Her eye was that of the stricken antelope in dread of the pursuer.

"Jack," she whispered, "don't leave me! Jack, I shall need you!"

Before I could resolve any questions in my mind, I heard behind us the sound of approaching hoofs, and there rode up to the gate her brother, Harry Sheraton, who dismounted and hitched his horse near mine, saluting me as he pushed open the great gate. It was the first time I had seen him since my return.

"Am I intruding?" he asked. "I'm awfully glad to see you, Cowles—I heard below you were home. You've had a long journey."

"Yes," I answered, "longer than I had planned, by many weeks. And now I am glad to be back once more. No—" in answer to his turning toward his horse as though he would leave us. "You are looking well, Harry. Indeed, everything in old Virginia is good to see again."

"Wish I could be as polite with you. Have you been sick? And, I say, you did meet the savages, didn't you?"

I knew he meant the scar on the side of my neck, which still was rather evident, but I did not care to repeat the old story again. "Yes," I answered a bit shortly, "rather a near thing of it. I presume Captain Orme told you?" I turned to Miss Grace, who then admitted that she had heard something of the surgery which had thus left its mark. Harry seemed puzzled, so I saw it was news to him. Miss Grace relieved the situation somewhat by turning toward the house.

"I am sure you will want to talk with Jack," she said to him. "And listen, Harry, you must have him and Mrs. Cowles over here this very evening—we cannot think of her living alone at the old place. I shall send Cato down with, the carriage directly, and you may drive over after Mrs. Cowles." She held out her hand to me. "At dinner to-night, then?"

I bowed, saying that we would be very happy, by which I meant that we would be very miserable.

This, then, was all that had been determined by my visit. I was still an engaged man. Evidently nothing otherwise had been discussed in the Sheraton family councils, if any such had been held. If never suitor in Old Virginia rode up in sorrier case than mine that morning, as I came to call upon my fiancée, certainly did never one depart in more uncertain frame of mind than mine at this very moment. I presume that young Sheraton felt something of this, for he began awkwardly to speak of matters related thereto.

"It's awfully hard," he began, "to see strangers there in your own house—I know it must be hard. But I say, your father must have plunged heavily on those lands over West in the mountains. I've heard they're very rich in coal, and that all that was necessary was simply cash or credit enough to tide the deal over till next year's crops."

"My father always said there was a great fortune in the lands," I replied. "Yes, I think another year would have seen him through; but that year was not to come for him."

"But couldn't funds be raised somehow, even yet?"

I shook my head. "It is going to be hard in these times to raise funds in any way. Values are bad now, and if the Republican party elects Lincoln next month, there will be no such things as values left in Virginia. I don't see how anything can save our property."

"Well, I'm not so sure," he went on, embarrassed. "My father and I have been talking over these matters, and we concluded to ask you if we might not take a hand in this. At least, we have agreed all along that—in this case you know—you and my sister—we have planned definitely that you should live in your old place. We're going to take that over. The redemption time has plenty of margin, and we can't allow those people to come in here and steal one of the old Virginia places in that way. We are going to arrange to hold that for you and my sister, and we thought that perhaps in time something could be worked out of the rest of the property in the same way. That is, unless Colonel Meriwether, your father's partner, shall offer some better solution. I suppose you talked it over with him?"

"I did not talk with him about it at all," said I, dully. For many reasons I did not care to repeat all of my story to him. I had told it often enough already. "None the less, it seems very generous of you and your father to take this interest in me. It would be very churlish of me if I did not appreciate it. But I trust nothing has been done as yet—"

"You trust not? Why, Cowles, you speak as though you did not want us to do it."

"I do not," said I.

"Oh, then—"

"You know our family well enough."

"That's true. But you won't be offended if I suggest to you that there are two sides to this, and two prides. All the country knows of your engagement, and now that you have returned, it will be expected that my sister will set the day before long. Of course, we shouldn't want my sister to begin too far down—oh, damn it, Cowles, you know what I mean."

"I presume so," said I to him, slowly. "But suppose that your sister should offer to her friends the explanation that the change in my fortunes no longer leaves desirable this alliance with my family?"

"Do you suggest that?"

"I have not done so."

"Has she suggested it?"

"We have not talked of it, yet it might be hard for your sister to share a lot so humble and so uncertain."

"That I presume will be for her to decide," he said slowly. "I admit it is a hard question all around. But, of course, in a matter of this kind, the man has to carry the heavy end of the log if there is one. If that falls to you, we know you will not complain."

"No," said I, "I hope not."

His forehead still remained furrowed with the old Sheraton wrinkles. He seemed uneasy. "By Jove," he broke out at length, flushing as he turned to me, "it is hard for a fellow to tell sometimes what's right, isn't it? Jack, you remember Jennie Williams, across under Catoctin?"

I nodded. "I thought you two were going to make a match of it sometime," I said.

"Prettiest girl in the valley," he assented; "but her family is hardly what we would call the best, you know." I looked at him very hard.

"Then why did you go there so often all last year?" I asked him. "Might she not think—"

He flushed still more, his mouth twitching now. "Jack," he said, "it's all through. I want to ask you. I ought to marry Jennie Williams, but—"

Now I looked at him full and hard, and guessed. Perhaps my face was grave. I was beginning to wonder whether there was one clean thing in all the world.

"Oh, she can marry," went on Harry. "No difficulty about that. She has another beau who loves her to distraction, and who doesn't in the least suspect—a decent sort of a fellow, a young farmer of her own class."

"And, in your belief, that wedding should go on?"

He shifted uneasily.

"When is this wedding to be?" I asked.

"Oh, naturally, very soon," he answered. "I am doing as handsome a thing as I know how by her. Sometimes it's mighty hard to do the handsome thing—even mighty hard to know what is the handsome thing itself."

"Yes," said I. But who was I that I should judge him?

"If you were just where I am," asked Harry Sheraton, slowly, "what would you do? I'd like to do what is right, you know."

"Oh no, you don't, Harry," I broke out. "You want to do what is easiest. If you wanted to do what is right, you'd never ask me nor any one else. Don't ask me, because I don't know. Suppose you were in the case of that other young man who loves her? Suppose he did not know—or suppose he did know. What would be right for him?"

"Heavy end of the log for him," admitted he, grimly. "That's true, sure as you're born."

"When one does not love a girl, and sees no happiness in the thought of living with her all his life, what squares that, Harry, in your opinion?"

"I've just asked you," he rejoined. "Why do you ask me? You say one ought to know what is right in his own case without any such asking, and I say that isn't always true. Oh, damn it all, anyway. Why are we made the way we are?"

"If only the girl in each case would be content by having the handsome thing done by her!" said I, bitterly.

Chapter XXXIX - The Uncovering Of Gordon Orme

It is not necessary for me to state that dinner in the Sheraton hall, with its dull mahogany and its shining silver and glass, was barely better than a nightmare to me, who should have been most happy. At least there remained the topic of politics and war; and never was I more glad to plunge into such matters than upon that evening. In some way the dinner hour passed. Miss Grace pleaded a headache and left us; my mother asked leave; and presently our hostess and host departed. Harry and I remained to stare at each other moodily. I admit I was glad when finally he announced his intention of retiring.

A servant showed me my own room, and some time before midnight I went up, hoping that I might sleep. My long life in the open air had made all rooms and roofs seem confining and distasteful to me, and I slept badly in the best of beds. Now my restlessness so grew upon me that, some time past midnight, not having made any attempt to prepare for sleep, I arose, went quietly down the stair and out at the front door, to see if I could find more peace in the open air. I sat down on the grass with my back against one of the big oaks, and so continued brooding moodily over my affairs, confused as they had now become.

By this time every one of the household had retired. I was surprised, therefore, when I saw a faint streak of light from one of the windows flash out across the lawn. Not wishing to intrude, I rose quietly and changed my position, passing around the tree. Almost at that instant I saw the figure of a man appear from the shrubbery and walk directly toward the house, apparently headed for the window from which emerged the light.

I watched him advance, and when I saw him reach the heavily barred trellis which ran up to the second gallery, I felt confirmed in my suspicion that he was a burglar. Approaching carefully in the shadow, I made a rapid run at him, and as his head was turned at the time, managed to catch him about the neck by an arm. His face, thus thrown back, was illuminated by the flare of light. I saw him plainly. It was Gordon Orme!

The light disappeared. There was no cry from above. The great house, lying dark and silent, heard no alarm. I did not stop to reason about this, but tightened my grip upon him in so fell a fashion that all his arts in wrestling could avail him nothing. I had caught him from behind, and now I held him with a hand on each of his arms above the elbow. No man could escape me when I had that hold.

He did not speak, but struggled silently with all his power. At length he relaxed a trifle. I stood close to him, slipped my left arm under his left along his back, and caught his right arm in my left hand. Then I took from his pocket a pistol, which I put into my own. I felt in his clothing, and finally discovered a knife, hidden in a scabbard at the back of his neck. I drew it out—a long-bladed, ivory thing I found it later, with gold let into the hilt and woven into the steel.

He eased himself in my grip as much as he could, waiting; as I knew, for his chance to twist and grapple with me. I could feel him breathing deeply and easily, resting, waiting for his time, using his brains to aid his body with perfect deliberation.

"It's no use, Orme," I said to him, finally. "I can wring your neck, or break your back, or twist your arms off, and by God! I've a notion to do them all. If you make any attempt to get away I'm going to kill you. Now come along."

I shoved him ahead of me, his arms pinioned, until we found a seat far away in a dark portion of the great front yard. Here I pushed him down and took the other end of the seat, covering him with his own pistol.

"Now," I demanded, "tell me what you are doing here."

"You have your privilege at guessing," he sneered, in his easy, mocking way. "Have you never taken a little adventure of this sort yourself?"

"Ah, some servant girl—at your host's house. Excellent adventure. But this is your last one," I said to him.

"Is it so," he sneered. "Then let me make my prayers!" He mocked at me, and had no fear of me whatever.

"In Virginia we keep the shotgun for men who prowl around houses at night. What are you doing here?"

"You have no right to ask. It is not your house."

"There was a light," said I. "For that reason I have a right to ask. I am a guest, and a guest has duties as well as a host."

A certain change in mood seized him. "If I give you parole," he asked, "will you believe me, and let us talk freely?"

"Yes," said I at length, slowly. "You are a liar; but I do not think you will break parole."

"You gauge me with perfect accuracy," he answered. "That is why I wish to talk."

I threw the pistol on the seat between us. "What is it you want to know," I asked. "And again I ask you, why are you here, when you are supposed to be in South Carolina?"

"I have business here. You cost me my chance out there in the West," he answered, slowly. "In turn I cost you your chance there. I shall cost you other things here. I said you should pay my debt." He motioned toward my neck with his slim finger.

"Yes, you saved my life," I said, "and I have hated you for that ever since."

"Will you make me one promise?" he asked.

"Perhaps, but not in advance."

"And will you keep it?"

"If I make it."

"Will you promise me to do one thing you have already promised to do?"

"Orme, I am in no mood to sit here and gossip like an old woman."

"Oh, don't cut up ugly. You're done out of it all around, in any case. Belknap, it seems, was to beat both you and me. Then why should not you and I try to forget? But now as to this little promise. I was only going to ask you to do as much as Belknap, or less."

"Very well, then."

"I want you to promise to marry Grace Sheraton."

I laughed in his face. "I thought you knew me better than that, Orme. I'll attend to my own matters for myself. I shall not even ask you why you want so puerile a promise. I am much of a mind to shoot you. Tell me, who are you, and what are you, and what are you doing in this country?"

"Do you really want to know?" he smiled.

"Assuredly I do. I demand it."

"I believe I will tell you, then," he said quietly. He mused for a time before he raised his head and went on.

"I am Charles Gordon Orme, Marquis of Bute and Rayne. Once I lived in England. For good reasons I have since lived elsewhere. I am what is known as a black sheep—a very, very black one."

"Yes, you are a retrograde, a renegade, a blackguard and a murderer," I said to him, calmly.

"All of those things, and much more," he admitted, cheerfully and calmly. "I am two persons, or more than two. I can't in the least make all this plain to you in your grade of intelligence. Perhaps you have heard of exchangeable personalities?"

"I have heard of double personalities, and double lives," I said, "but I have never admired them."

"We will waive your admiration. Let me say that I can exchange my personality. The Jews used to say that men of certain mentality were possessed of a devil. I only say that I was a student in India. One phrase is good as another. The Swami Hamadata was my teacher."

"It would have been far better for you had you never known him, and better for many others," was my answer to his astonishing discourse.

"Perhaps; but I am only explaining as you have requested. I am a Raja Yogi. I have taken the eight mystic steps. For years, even here in this country, I have kept up the sacred exercises of breath, of posture, of thought."

"All that means nothing to me," I admitted simply.

"No, it means nothing for me to tell you that I have learned Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dyhana and Samadhi! Yes, I was something of an adept once. I learned calm, meditation, contemplation, introspection, super-conscious reasoning—how to cast my own mind to a distance, how to bring other minds close up to me. But,"—he smiled with all his old mockery—"mostly I failed on Pratyahara, which says the senses must be quelled, subdued and set aside! All religions are alike to me, but they must not intrude on my own religion. I'd liefer die than not enjoy. My religion, I say, is to play the great games—to adventure, and above all, to enjoy! That is why I am in this country, also why I am in these grounds to-night."

"You are playing some deeper game than I know?"

"I always am! How could you be expected to understand what it took me years to learn? But I suppose in your case you need a few practical and concrete proofs. Let me show you a few things. Here, put your hand on my heart."

I obeyed. "You feel it beat?" he said. "Now it stops beating, does it not?" And as I live, it had slopped!

"Feel on the opposite side," he commanded. I did so, and there was his heart, clear across his body, and beating as before! "Now I shall stop it again," he remarked, calmly. And I swear it did stop, and resumed when he liked!

"Put your hand upon my abdomen," he said. I did so. All at once his body seemed thin and empty, as a spent cocoon.

"I draw all the organs into the thorax," he explained. "When one has studied under the Swami, as I have, he gains control over all his different muscles, voluntary and involuntary. He can, to a great extent, cut off or increase the nerve force in any muscle. Simple tricks in magic become easy to him. He gains, as you may suppose, a certain influence over men, and more especially over women, if that be a part of his religion. It was not with the Swami. It is with me!"

"You are a strange man, Orme," I said, drawing a long breath. "The most dangerous man, the most singular, the most immoral I ever knew."

"No," he said, reaching for his cigar case, "I was only born without what you call morals. They are not necessary in abstruse thought. Yet in some ways I retain the old influences of my own country. For instance, I lie as readily as I speak the truth, because it is more convenient; but though I am a liar, I do not break my word of honor. I am a renegade, but I am still an English officer! You have caught that distinction."

"Yes, I would trust you," I said, "if you gave me your word of honor."

He turned full upon me. "By Jove, old chap," he said, with a queer note in his voice, "you touch me awfully close. You're like men of my own family—you stir something in me that I used to know. The word of a fighting man—that's the same for yours and mine; and that's why I've always admired you. That's the sort of man that wins with the best sort of women."

"You were not worth the best sort of woman," I said to him. "You had no chance with Ellen Meriwether."

"No, but at least every fellow is worth his own fight with himself. I wanted to be a gentleman once more. Oh, a man may mate with a woman of any color—he does, all over the world. He may find a mistress in any nationality of his own color, or a wife in any class similar to his own—he does, all over the world. But a sweetheart, and a wife, and a woman—when a fellow even like myself finds himself honestly gone like that—when he begins to fight inside himself, old India against old England, renegade against gentleman—say, that's awfully bitter—when he sees the other fellow win. You won—"

"No," said I, "I did not win. You know that perfectly well. There is no way in the world that I can win. All I can do is to keep parole—well, with myself, I suppose."

"You touch me awfully close," he mused again. "You play big and fair. You're a fighting man and a gentleman and—excuse me, but it's true—an awful ass all in one. You're such an ass I almost hesitate to play the game with you."

"Thank you," said I. "But now take a very stupid fellow's advice. Leave this country, and don't be seen about here again, for if so, you will be killed."

"Precisely," he admitted. "In fact, I was just intending to arrange a permanent departure. That was why I was asking you to promise me to—in short, to keep your own promise. There's going to be war next spring. The dreams of this strange new man Lincoln, out in the West, are going to come true—there will be catastrophies here. That is why I am here. War, one of the great games, is something that one must sometimes cross the globe to play. I will be here to have a hand in this one."

"You have had much of a hand in it already," I hazarded. He smiled frankly.

"Yes," he said, "one must live. I admit I have been what you call a secret agent. There is much money behind me, big politics, big commercial interests. I love the big games, and my game and my task—my duty to my masters, has been to split this country along a clean line from east to west, from ocean to ocean—to make two countries of it! You will see that happen, my friend."

"No one will ever see it happen," I said to him, soberly.

"Under which flag, then, for you?" he asked quickly.

"The flag you saw on the frontier, Orme," I answered him. "That is the flag of America, and will be. The frontier is free. It will make America free forever."

"Oh, well," he said, "the argument will be obvious enough by next spring—in April, I should guess. And whatever you or I may think, the game will be big, very big—the biggest until you have your real war between black and white, and your yet bigger one between yellow and white. I imagine old England will be in that with you, or with one of you, if you make two countries here. But I may be a wandering Jew on some other planet before that time."

He sat for a time, his chin dropped on his breast. Finally he reached me his hand.

"Let me go," he said. "I promise you to leave."

"To leave the State?"

"No, I will not promise that."

"To leave the County?"

"Yes, unless war should bring me here in the course of my duty. But I will promise to leave this town, this residence—this girl—in short, I must do that. And you are such an ass that I was going to ask you to promise to keep your promise—up there." He motioned toward the window where the light lately had been.

"You do not ask that now?" I queried.

"You are a fighting man," he said, suddenly. "Let all these questions answer themselves when their time comes. After all, I suppose a woman is a woman in the greatest of the Barnes, and one takes one's chances. Suppose we leave the debt unsettled until we meet some time? You know, you may be claiming debt of me."

"Will you be ready?" I asked him.

"Always. You know that. Now, may I go? Is my parole ended?"

"It ends at the gate," I said to him, and handed him his pistol. The knife I retained, forgetfully; but when I turned to offer it to him he was gone.

Chapter XL - A Confusion In Covenants

During the next morning Harry Sheraton galloped down to the village after the morning's mail. On his return he handed me two letters. One was from Captain Matthew Stevenson, dated at Fort Henry, and informed me that he had been transferred to the East from Jefferson Barracks, in company with other officers. He hinted at many changes in the disposition of the Army of late. His present purpose in writing, as he explained, was to promise us that, in case he came our way, he would certainly look us up.

This letter I put aside quickly, for the other seemed to me to have a more immediate importance. I glanced it over, and presently found occasion to request a word or so with Colonel Sheraton. We withdrew to his library, and then I handed him the letter.

"This," I explained, "is from Jennings & Jennings, my father's agents at Huntington, on whose advice he went into his coal speculations."

"I see. Their advice seems to have been rather disastrous."

"At first it seemed so," I answered, "but now they advise me by no means to allow foreclosure to be completed if it can be avoided. The lands are worth many times the price paid for them."

"I see—and they have some sort of an offer as well—eh?"

"A half loaf is better than no bread," I assented. "I think I ought to go out there and examine all this in detail."

"But one thing I don't understand about this," began Colonel Sheraton, "your father's partner, Colonel Meriwether, was on joint paper with him. What did he say to you when you saw him?"

"Nothing," I replied. "We did not discuss the matter."

"What? That was the sole reason why you went out to see him!"

"Other matters came up," said I. "This was not brought up at all between us."

Colonel Sheraton looked at me keenly. "I must admit, Mr. Cowles," said he, slowly weighing his words, that of late certain things have seemed more than a little strange to me. If you will allow me so to express myself, there is in my own house, since you came, a sort of atmosphere of indefiniteness. Now, why was it you did not take up these matters with Colonel Meriwether? Certainly they were important to you; and under the circumstances they have a certain interest to myself. What are you trying to cover up?"

"Nothing from you of a business nature, sir; and nothing from Miss Grace of any nature which I think she ought to know."

He turned on me swiftly. "Young man, what do you propose to do in regard to my daughter? I confess I have contemplated certain plans in your benefit. I feel it is time to mention these matters with you."

On His Way Back Home John Finds His Mother And Grace, Who Have Come To Meet Him

On His Way Back Home John Finds His Mother And Grace, Who Have Come To Meet Him

John's Mother Hears That His Mission Has Been A Failure "I've Failed. Mother!"

John's Mother Hears That His Mission Has Been A Failure "I've Failed. Mother!"

"It is time," I answered. "But if you please, it seems to me Miss Grace and I should first take them up together. Has she spoken to you in any way that might lead you to think she would prefer our engagement to be broken?"

"No, sir. There has only been a vagueness and indefiniteness which I did not like."

"Had my affairs not mended, Colonel Sheraton, I could not have blamed any of you for breaking the engagement. If conditions prove to be practically the same now as then, it is she who must decide her course and mine."

"That is perfectly honorable. I have no criticism to offer. I have only her happiness at heart."

"Then, if you please, sir, since I am rather awkwardly situated here, I should like very much to see Miss Grace this morning."

He bowed in his lofty way and left me. Within a half hour a servant brought me word that Miss Grace would see me in the drawing-room.

She was seated in a wide, low chair near the sunny window, half hid by the leafy plants that grew in the boxes there. She was clad in loose morning wear over ample crinoline, her dark hair drawn in broad bands over the temples, half confined by a broad gold comb, save two long curls which hung down her neck at either side. It seemed to me she was very thin—thinner and darker than ever. Under her wide eyes were heavy circles. She held out her hand to me, and it lay cold and lifeless in my own. I made some pleasant talk of small matters as I might, and soon as I could arrived at the business of the letter I had received.

"Perhaps I have been a little hurried, after all, in classing myself as an absolute pauper," I explained as she read. "You see, I must go out there and look into these things."

"Going away again?" She looked up at me, startled.

"For a couple of weeks. And when I come back, Miss Grace—"

So now I was up to the verge of that same old, definite question.

She sat up in the chair as though pulling herself together in some sudden resolve, and looked me straight in the face.

"Jack," she said, "why should we wait?"

"To be sure," said I. "Only I do not want you to marry a pauper if any act of my own can make him better than a pauper in the meantime."

"You temporize," she said, bitterly. "You are not glad. Yet you came to me only last spring, and you—"

"I come to you now, Miss Grace," I said.

"Ah, what a difference between then and now!" she sighed.

For a time we could find nothing fit to say. At last I was forced to bring up one thing I did not like to mention.

"Miss Grace," said I, seating myself beside her, "last night, or rather this morning, after midnight, I found a man prowling around in the yard."

She sprang up as though shocked, her face gray, her eyes full of terror.

"You have told!" she exclaimed, "My father knows that Captain Orme—"

It was my own turn to feel surprise, which perhaps I showed.

"I have told no one. It seemed to me that first I ought to come to you and ask you about this. Why was Orme there?"

She stared at me. "He told me he would come back some time," she admitted at length. All the while she was fighting with herself, striving, exactly as Orme had done, to husband her powers for an impending struggle. "You see," she added, "he has secret business all over the country—I will own I believe him to be in the secret service of the inner circle of a number of Southern congressmen and business men. He is in with the Southern circle—of New Orleans, of Charleston—Washington. For this reason he could not always choose his hours of going and coming."

"Does your father know of his peculiar hours?"

"I presume so, of course."

"I saw a light at a window," I began, "whose window I do not know, doubtless some servant's. It could not have been a signal?"

"A signal? What do you mean? Do you suspect me of putting out a beacon light for a cheap night adventure with some man? Do you expect me to tolerate that sort of thing from you?"

"I ask you to tolerate nothing," I said. "I am not in the habit of suspecting ladies. But I ask you if you can explain the light on that side of the house."

"Jack," she said, flinging out a hand, "forgive me. I admit that Captain Orme and I carried on a bit of a flirtation, after he came back—after he had told me about you. But why should that—why, he did not know you were here."

"No," said I, dryly, "I don't think he did. I am glad to know that you found something to amuse you in my absence."

"Let us not speak of amusements in the absence of each other," she said bitterly. "Think of your own. But when you came back, it was all as it was last spring. I could love no other man but you, Jack, and you know it. After all, if we are quits, let us stay quits, and forgive, and forget—let us forget, Jack."

I sat looking at her as she turned to me, pleading, imploring in her face, her gesture.

"Jack," she went on, "a woman needs some one to take care of her, to love her. I want you to take care of me—you wouldn't throw me over for just a little thing—when all the time you yourself—"

"The light shone for miles across the valley," said I.

"Precisely, and that was how he happened to come up, I do not doubt. He thought we were still up about the place. My father has always told him to make this his home, and not to go to the tavern. They are friends politically, in many ways, as you know."

"The light then was that of some servant?"

"Certainly it was. I know nothing of it. It was an accident, and yet you blame me as though—why, it was all accident that you met Captain Orme. Tell me, Jack, did you quarrel? What did he tell you?"

"Many things. He is no fit man for you to know, nor for any woman."

"Do I not know that? I will never see him again."

"No, he will never come back here again, that is fairly sure. He has promised that; and he asked me to promise one thing, by the way."

"What was that?"

"To keep my promise with you. He asked me to marry you! Why?"

Infinite wit of woman! What chance have we men against such weapons? It was coquetry she forced to her face, and nothing else, when she answered: "So, then, he was hard hit, after all! I did not know that. How tender of him, to wish me married to another than himself! The conceit of you men is something wondrous."

"Mr. Orme was so kind as to inform me that I was a gentleman, and likewise a very great ass."

"Did you promise him to keep your promise, Jack?" She put both her hands on mine as it lay on the chair arm. Her eyes looked into mine straight and full. It would have taken more imagination than mine to suspect the slightest flickering in their lids. "Jack," she murmured over and over again. "I love you! I have never loved any other man."

"So now," I resumed, "I have come to you to tell you of all these things, and to decide definitely and finally in regard to our next plans."

"But you believe me, Jack? You do promise to keep your promise? You do love me?"

"I doubt no woman whom I wed," I answered. "I shall be gone for two or three weeks. As matters are at this moment it would be folly for either of us to do more than let everything stand precisely as it is until we have had time to think. I shall come back, Miss Grace, and I shall ask your answer."

"Jack, I'm sure of that," she murmured. "It is a grand thing for a woman to have the promise of a man who knows what a promise is."

I winced at this, as I had winced a thousand times at similar thrusts unconsciously delivered by so many. "No," said I, "I think Orme is right. I am only a very stupid ass."

She reached out her hand. I felt her fingers close cold and hard on mine, as though loth to let me go. I kissed her fingers and withdrew, myself at least very glad to be away.

I retired presently to my room to arrange my portmanteaus for an early journey. And there, filling up one-half of the greater valise, was a roll of hide, ragged about its edge. I drew it out, and spread it flat upon the bed before me, whitened and roughened with bone, reddened with blood, written on with rude stylus, bearing certain words which all the time, day and night, rang, yes, and sang, in my brain.

"I, John Cowles—I, Ellen Meriwether—take thee, for better, for worse—till death—" I saw her name, E-l-l-e-n.