Le misanthrope; a comedy by Molière

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AT LOVE'S EXTREMES

BY

MAURICE THOMPSON

Author of •' A Tallahassec Girl," " His Second Campaign,"
" Songs of Fair Wcathcr," etc., etc.

^^lenvy not ihe hetut thai iaket
Hit license in ihefield of time^
Un/ettered by the sente 0/ crime ^
Te whcm a coutcience never waÂe*,'*

— Tennvson.

NEW YORK :

CASSE LL & COMPANY Limited

1885

t

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^ junivêrsityI

LI13RARY
l DEC 31 1941 i

Copyright

Z885

By O. M. DUNHAM.

A II Rtghts Reserved,

\

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CONTENTS.

ChAPTER I. MOUNTAIN DEW.

ChAPTER II. MILLY.

ChAPTER III. MR. HAWKINS NOBLE.

ChAPTER IV. WHITE PLAYS " SEVI NO UP*'

ChAPTER V. SOME LIGHT TALK. .

ChAPTER VI. AT THE GATE.

ChAPTER VII. AN OLD PLANTATION HOUSE.

ChAPTER VIII. WITH DOG AND GUN.

ChAPTER IX. LUNCHEON AL FRESCO.

ChAPTER X. MILLY INQUIRES.

ChAPTER XI. DALLYING.

Chapter xil a bit of love MAKING.

ChAPTER Xin. AT THE RUIN.

Chapter xiv. a whisper in the cabin.
Chapter xv. a disclosure.
Chapter xvi. convalescent.

FAGB.

I

15
«S
38
48

64

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vi CONTENTS,

ChAPTER XVII. DREAMS AND PLANS. . .217

ChAPTER XVIII. REALITIES. . . .229

ChAPTER XIX. WHITHER. .... 250
ChAPTER XX. AFTER ALL. .... 260

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AT LOVE'S EXTREMES.

CHAPTER I.

MOUNTAIN DEW.

AMAN stood on the juttingshoulderof a mountaîn
overlookîng a long, narrow valley, whose scatter-
ing houses and irregular farm-plats, seen through the
clear air of that high région, appeared scarcely a gun-
shot distant, when in fact they were miles away. It
was early morning; the sun had barely cleared the
highest peaks in the east, and the landscape, albeit a
mid-winter one, was wonderfully rich in colors. On
the oak trees the leaves still clung in heavy brown,
green and russet masses ; the hickory forests, though
leafless, made bits of tender gray along the lower
valley-slopes, whilst high up toward the mountain
tops, the billowy wilderness of pines, cedars and chest-
nut trees added their variegated patch-work that grad-
ually rose and shaded off into the blue of distance. In
some places where storms, or the needs of man,
had removed the oak woods, a dense, frondous mass of

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2 AT LOVEES EXTREMES.

young pines had leaped up with a' greenness full of a
soft yellow glow. The sunshine and the wind of the
South were flowing over thîs scène, and there were fra-
grant odors and balsamic pungency in every wave.

The man, a tall, shapely fellow, was a young Englîsh-
man who had lately corne to the îron and coal regîon
of Alabama to take charge of extensîve manufacturing
and mining înterests belongîng to his famîly. Just at
présent, with a true English faîth in the value of out-
door sports, he was hunting wild turkeys, or, for that
matter, whatever other wild game mîght chance to let
him get within gun-shot of it. He had left his hôtel
at Birmingham with the first hint of dawn, and had
steadily tramped over hills and mountain spurs and
through wild ravines and beautiful glades, without
a sight of fur or feather. Now he stood on this airy
height, flushed with his healthful exercise, a little
disappointed and annoyed. But the mountain air of
the South has in it a tenderly exhilarating influence
which afifects the imagination and lulls one into pleas-
ant, though often rather vague dreams. No matter îf
Edward Moreton was an intensely practîcal-minded man
of afifairs, the kind of Englishman who îs willing to
come to America and superintend iron works and coal
mines, he was, nevertheless, not wholly impervious to
the poetry — the luUing magnetism of the climate and
the scène. For a while he leaned on his gun, a long,
heavy double-barreled pièce ; then he took from his

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MO UNTAIM DE W, 3

pocket a cigarette and match, seated himself on an old
gray stone and began smoking. In the midst of the
Valley below, ran a rivulet, winding through the woods
with a silvery shimmer, and out across the farms and
past one little mill, on into a deep gorge of the stony
hiUs.

Moreton had not found his surroundings in Birming-
ham quite satisfactory, notwithstanding the fact that he
had fallen in love, after the old time fervid fashion,
with a fair young Northern girl living there. The little
mining town, cramped between the hills, full of rough
folk, raw and new, could not be very attractive to a
man who, no matter how practical and matter of fact
in his disposition, had studied art and who still nursed
the artist*s dreams. As he sat there with his blue-gray
eyes slowly sweeping the valley, he was not as blithe-
looking as a model sportsman should be. His dog, a
small brown spaniel, sat down at his feet and eyed him
lazily. No sound, save the rustle of the wind in the
trees and a dull distant tapping of a woodpecker, was
disturbing the broad silence of the forest. The sky
was intensely blue. Suddenly a short puff of damp-
ness came from the southwest, followed by a growl
of thunder, a thing not usual in winter, even in that
latitude. Moreton arose and saw a heavy line of black
cloud overhanging some conical peaks far away on the
southwestem horizon.

" Come Nat,** he said to his dog, " we must be going

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4 • AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

back; a nasty squall is coming. We shall get our
jackets wet."

Nat answered wîth divers canine antics and the two
tumed away from the valley, the man walking with
long firm strides and the dog trotting perfunctorily at
his side. Their way led among the flanking spurs and
foot-hills of the range, now over great fragmentary
bowldêrs, now through yawning clefts and down wind-
ing défiles, sometimes on bare ridges of shale, anon
under the dark odorous brushcs of the pines. The
cloud came after them, sending in advance its gusts of
moist, fragrant air. A vast wing reached up to the
zénith and a few big drops of rain pattered down. A
morning shower in the mountains cornes at race-horse
speed. The swiftest birds are caught by it. A flock
of noisy crows went flapping across the valley, striving
in vain to outstrip the slanting flood that fell with a
broad, washing roar from that rushing cloud.

" We are in for a soaking, Nat/' grumbled Moreton,
as he plucked up the collar of his shooting jacket ; " a
deuced bad outcome for our first day's shooting in
America ! "

Nat's tail was down and so were his ears. He rel-
ished the signs of the weather no more than did his
stalwart master. A chilliness was creeping into the
air, foretellîng how disagreeable the rain was sure to
be. The very trees shivered as the sunshine was shut
off by the overlapping cloud.

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MOOHTAW ÙBW. 5

It was just as the storin was about to break that cer-
tain sharp cries peculiar to the wild turkey reached the
quîck cars of sportsman and dog. The man stopped
short and cocked his gun, as the spaniel darted away
to a short distance and then began creeping through
the low underbrushy as a setter does when about to
corne to a point. In the next instant four lai^e birds
were flushed, breaking from cover at about forty
yards, their wings making the woods resound with
their loud flapping. Almost at the same moment, the
" bang — pang ! ' • of Moreton's gun, fired rîght and left,
went echoing across the valley and battling amongst
the hills. A cock and hen were stopped short and
fell heavily. The dog sprang forward to lead his
master to the game, and then came a blinding down-
gush of rain with a roar like that of a cyclone.

Moreton with great difficulty got the birds, and,
after tying them together by the feet, slung them
across his shoulder. This additional load and the
hindering force of the rain made his further progress
quite laborious. Nat resumed his drooping, mechani-
cal jog-trot at his master's side. The young man
leaned over and almost shut his eyes as he pressed on,
catchîng quick breaths as the cold streams trickled
down his back. His shooting jacket and trowsers
were meant to be imçervious to water, but the chilling
liquid was dashed by the force of the wind against his
neck and thence found its way down to his heels. He

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6 AT LOVE' s EXTRÊMES,

did not hesitate, under such stress of ill luck, to rush
boldly against the door of a low, rambling mountain
cabin and demand admission. His knock on the
rough planks was heard by the înmates of the place,
despite the heavy roar of the rain, and the response
was immédiate.

" Kem in, kem in," spoke a rather pleasing voice,
in the peculiar accent and intonation of the mount-
aineers of the région, as the door was opened, letting
the hunter and his dog in, along with a dash of slant-
ing raîn. " Le* me take them birds, strenger, an' ye
jest git ther' by the fire. Hit's purty outdacîous rainy
ail of a suddent ; purty near drownd a feller." The
speaker was a slender, almost slight, man, near fifty
years old, flaxen-haired, thin-faced, wîth a sharp nose
and a straggling beard, still lîghter than his hair. He
took the brace of birds off Moreton's shoulder and
threw them aside on the clean white floor. "TU jest
put yer gun up fur ye," he continued, taking the
weapon and leanîng it against the wall in a corner of
the room. Then he quickly fetched à chair. " Set
down an* mek yerself at home, TU punch up the fire,
hit's got sorty low; 1*11 git some light'ood knots."

Moreton found himself in a place whose features at
once interested him. Glancing around the room he
saw two low beds, a few plaîn split-bottomed chairs, an
old queer " bureau," or chest of drawers, with glass
knobs, some rude shelves with ironstone dishes on

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8 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

The man had soon fetched wood and pine knots for
the fire, and presently a libéral flame wavered up to
the mouth of the great old chimney. Hc turned to
Moreton and said :

" Lay off yer coat, strenger, an' git yer shîrt dry ;
hît*s outdacîous onagreeable fur to hev on a wct
shirt."

Moreton smiled pleasantly.

" Thank you, I will/' he said, rîsîng and strîppîng
off the stîff jacket. " You are very kind. I am cover-
îng your floor with water."

" Shaw, that's nothîn*," replied the man, in a tone of
gentle contempt ; " ef ye'd see hit sometîmes when I
corne în ye mought talk. Them little puddles haint
nothîn* *tall. The Colonel an' me jest floods the
whole house when we gits wet."

" Wonder ef John haint a comîn', Pap ? "

This sudden inquiry came in a sweet, half-shy voice
from the girl at the window.

" She calls him John, I calls hîm Colonel/' explaîned
the man. Then turning to answer the question :

" Oh, ther's no 'countin' fur him ; he's as like to
stay out ail day and night es any way ; hit don't make
no differ'nce 'bout rain esto him, do it, Milly?"

The girl had turned her face toward the man when
she spoke, but now she averted it again, a little flush
gathering on the brown cheek.

" He don't mînd no weather, strenger, the Colonel

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MO UN TA IN DE W, 9

don't, raîn er sunshîne hît's ail the same to him,
haîn't hit, Milly?" continued the host.

" I wush he'd corne on back home," exclaîmed the
gîrl, " that's what I wush." Moreton had tumed hîs
back to the fire. He was astride of the chair and the
steam was rising vigorously from his wet garments.
Out of the corners of his eyes he kept glancing at
that lithe, plump little figure by the window. He had
the taste of an artist, and hère was a model for brush
or chisel to imitate. He was a genuine man.too, and
hère was a bit of rare féminine beauty, no matter
how coarsely clad or how hopelessly uncultured. She
had the grâce of outline common to wild things, and
there was that half-pathetic, half-glad beam in her face
that appeals to a man's love of the innocent and his
pity of the weak. Her head was small and well-poised
above plump shoulders, her bust was full, yet girlish,
giving just a hint of that early ripeness so common
in southern countries, and her waist and limbs were
perfect. At rare intervais one sees such a gîrl among
the hardy peasants of most mountain régions, but not
so often in America as elsewhere.

"Do ye ever smoke a pipe, stranger?" inquired
the host, offering Moreton a cob pipe and a twist of
tobacco.

" Thank you, yes, I will take some of your tobacco ;
I hâve a pipe," said the young man, drawing from his
Vcst pocket a small meerschaum, old and dark as

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ÎO AT LO VE S EXTREMES.

mahogany. He had heard of the excellence of thîs
mountain home-grown tobacco.

" Hit aîr purty good, ef I do say hît myself. Most
of 'em roun' here's glad to gît Tom White's 'hacker to
chaw an* smoke, hain't they, Milly ?" Mr. White thus
introduced himself and his tobacco at the same time.

At thîs point Mrs. White quît her wheel and came
into the room. She spoke to Moreton pleasantly, as îf
she had long known him, smiling cordially.

" Ef you menfolks don*t care, V\\ jest jine ye for a
whîff er two," she said, going to the chimney-jamb and
selecting a pipe.

They formed a strange group around that cabin fire.
Moreton felt the démocratie force of the situation and
enjoyed ît to the full.

" Hain't ye goin* to hâve a hand in this hère gîneral
smoke, Milly ? " said Mr. White, chuckling jocosely and
looking, under comically-drawn eyebrows, at the girl.

" Now, Pap, you know I don't smoke at ail/' she
quîckly answercd, getting up and leaving the room.
Her movement was as light and nimble as that of a
hare.

" Course she don't smoke, ye know,'* said White to
Moreton, confidentially lowering his voice ; " I wus jest
a yankîn* at her fur greens ; she knows when l'm a
greenin' of her, anVshe gits tiffy at me in a minute.
3he's es sharp es a darnin'-needle, Milly is."

•" Thomas, ye ortn't ter plague Milly so much, ye'll

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X2 AT LO VE '5 EXTREMES,

quick an interest had been generated by this gossip
about the Colonel. Certaînly this was a strange home
for a man of wealth and éducation. Possibly the Colonel
was some sport-loving gentleman from New Orléans,
Mobile or Montgomery, who had taken thèse apart-
ments in the cabin as a sort of shooting-box, he
thought, for he had heard much of the peculiarities and
extravagances of rich Southerners. But his mental dis-
cussion of this subject was eut short by a sudden move-
ment on the part of White, who sprang to his feet and
elevated his hands.

" Well, hit's jest too outdacious, Sarah/' he cried, as
îf utterly chagrined ; " jest to think, the strenger kem
in wet an' soaked an* haint hed no liquor ! "

"'Bout like sech as we'ns to furgît what we're
'bout," responded Mrs. White ; " ye'll find the dim'jon
under the tother bed behind the sack o' 'taters."

White dived under the bed in question and drew
forth a large earthen bottle.

" Hit air peach liquor," he said, advancing upon
Moreton ; " the best they air in thèse parts. Ye must
parding us, strenger, fur we clean furgot hit."

Mrs. White fetched a large, heavy tumbler and
handed it to Moreton.

" Le* me pour fur ye, stranger,** said White, uncorking
the bottle. " Ye*ll find 'at hit air liquor wo'th a-drinkin*.
Hit aîn't pizened with no revenue postage, ye may set
thet down solid."

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14 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

calls hit the mountîng jew/* said White^ glancîng fur-
tîvely at his wife. By " jew " he meant dew. The
peach brandy made in the s!y little stills, scattered
among the mountains from North Carolina to Alabama,
is sometimes locally called mountaîn dew, or rather,
" mounting jew." It îs not the drink of drunkards.
In fact the mountaineers, with now and then an excep-
tion, are remarkably temperate in the matter of tip-
pling; but the jug of "jew " is the spécial implement
of their hospitality.

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CHAPTER IL

MILLY.

THAT was a rain long to be remembered by the
dwellers in the Sand Mountain country. The
thûnder with which the storm had been heralded soon
ceased, and the niasses of black clouds spread thcm-
selves wide, softenîng into a smooth, leaden-colored
sheet from horizon to horizon, whilst the rain, driven
by a throbbing wind, trailed in a wavering flood over
the rugged landscape. Every ravine and rocky gully
became a torrent of muddy water. The noises of the
storm unîted into a wîde bellowing that throbbed
heavily around the house whose friendly shelter More-
ton was but too glad to retain.

The inmates of the place were not over-talkative,
sitting for most of the time listening with rather
solemn attention to the heavy beating of the wind
and rain.

After an hour had passed and Moreton*s clothes had
dried somewhat, hé was glad to accept his host's invi-
tation to go into the Colonel's part of the house. The
glimpse he had caught of this sumptuous-looking room
— sumptuous as compared with the rest of the uncouth,

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i6 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

scaatily furnishcd house — had set him to wondcring
what ît could mean. As he passed through the low
door-way the gîrl sprang up from a stool în front of an
easel that stood near the mîddle of the floor. Her
face was burning with the flush of one surprised in an
act of the most furtive nature. Moreton paused, feel-
ing with quîck certaînty how deeply he was embar-
rassing her. She tumed her large eyes on hîm with a
startled, momentary stare, and letting fall a charcoal
pencil, faîrly ran out of the room, carrying with her
what appeared to be a small block of drawing paper.
On the easel was an unfinished but powerful sketch of
a large pointer dog. The room was littered with évi-
dences of artistic and lîterary labor and récréation.
The walls were lined with books. In the corners
stood guns, fishing rods and other implements of sport
by flood and field. On a table was a fine microscope,
a tiny crucible and a blow-pipe. A pair of slippers sat
on the broad hearth, and a sober-looking dressing-
gown lay across a chair. Evidently the Colonel was a
man who knew how to take his ease in his inn.

Moreton passed along by the book-shelves, glancing
at the titles of the books, finding side by side the works
of Stuart Mill and the poems of André Chenicr, the
novels of George Eliot and the rhymes of Jasmin the
Troubadour, volumes of La Place, Goethe and Newton
set among the stories of Thomas Hardy and William
Black, whilst the poems of Longfellow and Tennyson

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l8 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

" Where is Mr. Reynolds?"

" The Colonel he went out a huntin' this momin*
an* he haint corne back yet. He'll be in 'fore long, a
drippin' like a ash-hopper an' es wet es a swamp,"
answered White. Then, after a moment's pause he
looked quizzically at Moreton and added :

" Ye don't hev any 'quaîntance of the Colonel, hev
ye?"

" I am not sure. The name îs that of a frîend of
mine whom I hâve not seen for years. Is he tall and
dark with deep gray eyes and — "

" Yes, sir, he air that kind of a man, an' he air fine-
lookin' an' handsome an' hes ben ail over ever' wher'
an' knows ail about most ever' thing an' ever' body.
Yes, sir, that air Colonel he air a outdacious fine man."

"Yes, yes, he is, no doubt," Moreton responded
absently, really quite unaware of what he was saying.
His memory was busy with things of the past. Was it
possible that he had thus again accidentally stumbled
upon Reynolds? Of ail the men he ever had met he
liked Reynolds best. The very name had its fascina-
tion, just as something in the man himself had its mys-
terious charm, disconnected from any social, moral or
întellectual attractiveness.

"Where did Mr. Reynolds come from whenhecame
hère ? " he demanded, coming suddenly and whoUy back
to himself and lookîng at White who had begun to
move away.

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ao AT LO VE *S EXTREME^,

body's curves and the outlines of her supple limbs. It
was her face, however, that had in ît the power of
leaving in Moreton's memory a haunting, elusîve
impression that would not go out. She did not take a
seat with her parents and their guest at the table, but
fîUed the place of serving maid, passing silently behind
their chairs, offering the dishes of ill-cooked coarse food
and anticipating with swift movements the needs of
each.

" Ef the Colonel wus hère now," said White, poisîng
a pièce of fried bacon between his plate and his mouth,
" ye'd never git him to eat this yere kind er victuals.
Nary time, sir. He'd hev br'iled chicken, er squîr'l,
an' white bread an* milk an' I don't know what ail.
The Colonel he air high tony dinktom 'bout what he
chaws, le' me tell ye. He keeps a lot o' wine in 'is
closet, 'an hit air outdacious fine liquor, too."

Moreton, whose eyes followed Milly at every faîr
opportunity, saw her lean over White's chair and heard
her say in a low, earnest tone :

" Hush, Pap, John he wudn' like hit ef ye said so
much 'bout his doîn's. I wush ye'd keep still 'bout
him ^nyhow."

It was little more than a pretense of eating with
Moreton. The corn bread, collards, sweet potatoes
and fat fried bacon, which were to be washed down with
bitter coffee, did not suit his English appetite. Then,
too, he was so busy with the thought of Reynolds and

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MILLY. 41

so troubled by the wîstful face of this strangcly beau-
tiful mountain girl, that even the choicest dinner might
not hâve tempted him.

The rain held on steadily until far along in the after-
noon. Reynolds did not come, and when Moreton saw
the clouds breaking away in the west, and heard the
swash of the shower slowly sinking into a desultory
pattering on the cabin roof, he sat down at the Colonel's
desk and wrote a short note as foUows :

" My dear Reynolds:

" If I am not mistaken, I hâve at last found you
again. If I am mistaken you will pardon my blunder. If
I were perfectiy sure that you are my old friend whom
I lost so easily and would give so much to see, I would
not go from this house without having heard your
voîce and held your hand. I am so sure that you are
the very Reynolds to whom I owe every thing and
whose friendship is the warmest spot in my life, that I
am nearly on the point of staying at a venture ; but
the rain seems over, and I hâve a very long walk and
shall go at once. I am at the Hôtel in Birming-
ham. Won't you come to see me at once? If you are
my Reynolds you know how you will be received ; if I
hâve blundered and you are not the friend I hâve
so long missed, you shall hâve the humble apolo-
gies of

"Edward Moreton."

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«2 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

When this hasty epîstle was finished, Moreton
addressed it and placed ît on the table. A few
minutes later the girl came into the room. Moreton
rose.

"Will you be kindenough," hesaîd to her, "to hand
Colonel Reynolds this letter when he comes home ? "

She Iqoked sideways at him and blushed scarlet, but
said nothing and did not move from where she had
stopped beside the door. A brîght strand of her hair
had fallen forward across her shoulder and breast.

" I shall be greatly oblîged," he contînued, turnîng
the envelope about on the table wîth his finger. " You
will be doing me a great favor. Colonel Reynolds îs a
dear friend of mine.**

Unconsciously he used a wheedling tone in speakîng
to her, as he would hâve done in trying to coax a little
child.

She moved one hand nervously, and a pallor
encroached upon the flush in her cheeks. Her sweet,
strange eyes dilated with some sudden émotion. It may
hâve been mère bashfulness and the embarrassment of
ignorance and timîdity. She appeared so helpless, so
prettily forlorn, so innocent and sweet, and yet she
seemed so vulgar, uncouth and hopelessly shallow,
withal. Moreton, despite himself, felt the infection of
her timîdity and shyness and became silent. She stood
for a time as if wavering between opposing impulses,
then in a sudden and breathless way she said :

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24 AT LO VE *S EXTREMES,

mountain generosîty stîll further, he slung the brace of
turkeys across his shoulder and led the way for more
than a mile, to put his guest into a path which was the
shortest route over the mountain to a highway lead-
îng into Birmingham. The two men shook hands
at parting on the highest swell of a heavy ridge, whence
they could see the little city, with its great columns of
coal-smoke and its shining white houses, lying farbelow
amidst the gentle undulations of the valley. A long
walk yet remained for Moreton, with no companion
save the little spaniel ; but his thoughts were of such a
nature that he scarcely noted how rough and tiresome
was the way. The clouds were now ail gone and the
sky, as night drew on, was filled with stars that, seen
through the purified air, appeared to flame and waver
like the flare of sunlight on ice. The température had
fallen several degrees, giving a keen edge to the breeze
which was now out of the north-west ; but there still
arose from the pine woods that resinous fragrance
which is a balm for every woundthatoccasional inclem-
encies of the mountain weather may give. The streams
had subsided as suddenly as they had risen, and ail
nature seemed hastening to regain that tranquil equi-
librium for which the southern winters are noted.

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26 AT LO VE 'S' EXTREMES,

any travelîng companions, perhaps a few months might
hâve sufïiced to obliterate ail regrets connectée! with it.
But the peculiar circumstances under which it had corne
about had served to fasten it with a rather fiery em-
phasis in Moreton's memory. He remembered Reynolds
as a proud, peculiarly sensitive man, given to excess of
sentiment, an extremist, running to great lengths of self-
indulgence at times, and at other times a model of
temperateness that bordered on utter self-denial. A
man with a violent conscience, prone to brood ovcr
follies and indulge gloomy regret for sins about which
most young men would unhesitatîngly hâve made
broad jokes, but yet a man given to unlimited pleasr
ures. In person he was of noble proportions, quite a
typical low-country Southerner, bearing in his high-
bred face an air of f earlessness and obvious pride touched
to a degree with something that suggested reckless-
ness. He was reckless, indeed, now and again, always,
however, suffering the extremest pangs of repentance
after each lapse into excesses.

It had seemed to surprise Reynolds in the last
degree when he discovered that Moreton had become
his rival, and surprise had quîckly blazed up into furi-
ous anger. For a time it had appeared as if there must
be a fight, but before thîs could happen Reynolds con-
trolled himself and the réaction came. Moreton
appeared to be successful, and his rival, in a fit of gloom,
disappeared from the scène. It is easy to understand

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28 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES.

of hîs quîte eventfui career. And now Reynolds had
added self-sacrîfice to heroism.

So that it will be readily understood how Moreton
easily fell înto a state of mind that rendered hîm rest-
less and self-accusîng. His great wish that he mîght
one day find his frîend again, and în some way make
réparation for the injury done hîm, was tinged with
such sentimentalîty as the situation would naturally
generate în a mînd, whîch though quîte practical and
well-balanced, was somewhat gîven to visîonary fancies.

They sat down to a good dinner, and, wîth due appré-
ciation of its qualities, paused between its courses to
let theîr conversation lightly cîrcle around the point of
their past trouble, without coming quite to ît. Rey-
nolds knew that Moreton was still a bachelor, he had
caught this much from his friend's manner and talk. It
flashed through his mind that, after ail, he had, perhaps,
done himself great wrong and Moreton no good by
acting up to a standard of duty recognized by few men.
But it was too late to consider the matter now. It was
ail over and the dead past must bury its dead. Besides,
had he not long ago dashed aside the poor bau-
ble he ]Mid once called love ! The subject could not,
would not be avoided, nevertheless, and when ît had
been reached and fully talked over, both felt relieved.

"Sheis married," said Moreton, "and is living in
Florence. Her husband is Count somebody and she
îs anjnvalid, so Ihave heard." - -

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30 AT LO VE *S EXTREMES.

hîghest type of Southerners. Nearly six feet in stature,
square shouldered, slender, compact, every inch an
athlète, he gave one an îdea of strength, both physical
and mental, which needed to be roused înto action.

" I think it deuced strange, don*t you know, that I
should hâve stumbled into your den hère in the mount-
ains,'* said Moreton. " It is like romance. They put
such things in novels,"

** It was a clever turn of luck," lightly responded
Reynolds, " or, perhaps I should say fate. No doubt
it is ordered that you and I shall yet work out together
some subtle decree of Providence. After ail, incidents
and events do not corne of haphazard."

" I never philosophize, you know," said Moreton.
" I am never expecting any thing save the very thing I
am looking and striving for. I was turkey hunting
when I found your outlandish cabin. What the -deuce
are you doing over there?*'

"That is a hard question. I hâve spent some
delightfully quiet, uneventful years in that house. I
find good shooting at times, the air is pure and sweet,
the water is excellent, the retirement is perfect."
Reynolds paused for a time and then continued : " Oh
well, I had grown tired of wandering and rather dis-
gusted with the world in gênerai and I fancied I should
enjoy being a hermit for a while. I tried it and found
it charming."

Moreton thought he detected évidence in his friend's

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32 AT LOVE' s EXTkEME^,

I tell you, Reynolds, she's agenuîne wood nymph, don't
you know, a dryad whom the satyrs hâve scared out of
her wîts. I never saw such eyes, such lips and "

"Oh corne now," saîd Reynolds, " I am not goingto
listen to such nonsense. Besides, it strîkes me as next
to brutal to thînk of dîscussing the charms of an arid,

dull, ugly little cracker girl well no, not a cracker,

either, a Sandlapper is the local phrase. The fact that
such girls exist and must become women and be moth-
ers of like beings, is to me a subject that it is a virtue
to shun. On such a thème seriousness is disheartening,
levity is diabolical."

" Every thing au sérieux^ as of old ! *' exclaimed
Moreton, " you bewildering old philanthropist ! I am
too happy to quarrel with you no\v. Wàit till the
newness of having discovered your hiding place has
somewhat rubbed off and l'il give you punch for punch
with a will. But I do say, in ail candor, that I never
was so struck with any bit of wild beauty as I was with
that queer, solemn-eyed girl of White*s. She might

make any painter's fortune as a Daphne or "

Reynolds interrupted him :

" It is only once in a century or two,'' he saîd, " that
the world's intermittent sentiment will permit a Millet
or a Burns to cast the glamor of genius over the stolid
ugliness and the immitigable emptiness of peasant life.
As for me, I hâve no sympathy with it from the stand-
point of art. There is no artistic alchemy that can

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34 AT LOVE* S EXTREMES,

between the glint of îce and the génial reflection from
a June sky. He rubbed his hands together as he came
near the table.

" Hello, Moreton," he exclaîmed, wîth the intonation
of one speaking at a téléphone, " pardon me for inter-
rupting you, but I hâve a matter of importance. Oh,
keep your seat," he hastily added, as Moreton made a
movement to rise, " it's nothing in the slightest private,
only an urgent invitation for you to join me in a most
delightful bit of field sport. General DeKay, who
owns a grand plantation and quail préserve below hère,
has sent me word to coUect a party of gentlemen and
bring them next week for a few days' shootîng. How
does that strike you ? "

"It strikes me deuced hard," answered Moreton.
" Don't you know I never did refuse a thing like that,
never."

Mr. Noble laughed. He looked like a man who
thoroughly enjoyed laughing for the sake of the gên-
erai shaking up it gave him. Reynolds could not help
wondering how this rather over-corpulent old gentle-
man could ever manage to get miich comfort out of
active field sports.

" It's bound to be a most delightful affair,'* contin-
ued Mr. Noble. " The General has some fine dogs, I
shall take mine, you yours : now where can I find one
or two more good fellows who are up to such music? "

Moreton rose.

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3* AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

felt thc fascination of the proposed sport taking hold
of him. He had been shut up in the mountaîns for so
long that the thought of a few days with jovial com-
panions in the open fields of the low country was like
a fragrant breath from the past.

** It îs very kind of you, Mr. Noble," he at length
said, " and if I can, in your opinion, add any thîng to
the success of your very attractive plan, I ought not to
refuse, especially as I am hungry for a genuîne old-
fashioned day with the quails."

** Good ! " exclaimed the banker, again dartîng hîs
soft white hand towards Reynolds, " I am delighted.
I am off now on some pressing business ; shall be glad
to give you and Mr. Moreton further détails of out
project in due time. Shall hope to hâve you both at
my house to dine before we are off for General De-
Kay's."

He bowed with amazing suppleness and walked
swîftly from the room. He Icft behind him, so to
spcak, lingering in the air, a suggestion of irrépressible
alertness, outrightness and vîm.

"There's an old boy for you," said Moreton, resuming
hîs seat at the table and motîonîng Reynolds to do
likewise. " I hâve never seen another at ail like him.
Make a friend of him, and there's no end to the good
he wîU do you. There's not a doubt that he left urgent
business to come hère and get me înto his party. Fm
delighted that you were hère, don't you know, for we'U

j rinnglp i

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CHAPTER IV.

WRITE PLAYS " SEVING UP/'

REYNOLDS spent the next few days with More-
ton, and, before he was fully aware of it, he had
accepted an invitation to dine at Mr. Noble*s house,
where he would meet " two or three charming friends,"
as the banker had declared, " without the least formality
in the world.'*

The weather had taken a delightful change, the wind
shîfting to the south and bringing from the Gulf of
Mexico, over the vast extent of pîne woods, a summer
balminess and pungency. The sky, without a cloud,
blue and dreamy bent above the gray-green hills with
a Sabbath purity that made every aspect of the land-
scape surrounding the little city one of sweet guardian-
ship and secure repose, quite at variance with certain
social conditions which rendered a considérable portion
of the city 's populace at times turbulent and danger-
ous. Many miners and operatives in the vast iron
works had fallen into the habit of coming together, at
such hours as they were unemployed, in the gaudily
tinseled liquor saloons and gambling dens with which
certain streets were liberally supplied. Hère they

WHITE PL A YS " SE VIN G UPr 39

would meet the quiet-mannered but impetuous and
bellicosc mountaineers, with whom they quarreled and
fought, sometimes with fatal results.

On an evening a day or two prior to the time set for
the dînner at Mr. Noble's, Moreton had a little adven-
ture. It chanced that some business with a foreman
of one of hîs iron establishments had kept him until
some time after dark in the office of the latter. In going
back to his hôtel he took a short route which led him
through one of the worst streets in the city. Passing
by the brilliantly lighted dens he could hear the clink
of glasses and the boisterous voîces of the drinkers and
hangers-on. Once or twice he was forced to leave the
side-walk in order to avoid groups of wrangling fellows
who appeared on the point of going înto a free-for-all
fight. It was while makîng his way around one of thèse
clumps of would-be rîoters that a voice of peculiarly
familiar accent reached his ear. It was a high ténor,
drawling as follows :

" Hit air my bottom erpînion 'at I ken whirp out the
last dad-burned one uf ye, an' 'en not dull the p'int uf
this air oie frog-stîcker nuther."

" Well, why don't ye do it ? Talk's talk, but doin' it
is another thing întirely," retorted a heavier voice with
just a trace of Irîsh in it.

" Hit ain't fur me to go to cuttin* uf ye, ef ye keeps
ofif'n me ; but 1*11 jest be b'iled up an' chawed over ef
I don't let yer back bone out in front uf ye, ef ye

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40 AT LO VE *S EXTREMES.

starts onto me. An* now yeVe heam me/* was the ten-
or*s quick response.

Moreton stopped short and glanced sharply înto the
mîdst of the group. There was White with a long
knife în one hand and a heavy stone in the other, his
wîzened face and sunken eyes full of défiance and hîs
gaunt frame rigid but ready for desperate action.

" Kem on, ye sneakin* keerd-shufflers, an* TU jest eut
ye înter striffins,** he continued; " this hère knife hit air
a eetchîn* fur yer livers an* lights, hit air ! **

Just then a pistol gleamed in the hand of the man
nearest Moreton, and the clear, keen click of the lock
was sharply audible. It was a slender, but very danger-
ous sound.

" Make shore fire with yer shootin-îron,** White added
quickly, his voice rising into a thin falsetto, ** fur ef ye
don*t hit air good-by ter you, hit air ! ** As he spoke
he prepared to rush forward.

On the instant there would hâve been deadly work,
had not Moreton interfered.

" Hère ! what does this mean ? ** he exclaimed in a
loud, authoritative way, stepping boldly into the midst
of the men.

His commanding figure, cool bearing and patrician
dress wrought an effect of which the sturdiest police-
man mîght well hâve been proud. " Corne with me,
Mr. White,** he continued, "and you fellows had bet-
ter get to your homes în quick time.**

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WHITE PLAY S '' SEVING UPr 4t

He did not pause or hesitate, but took White by th^
arm wîth a strong grip and led him away. No doubt
the very suddenness and boldness of Moreton's action
had much to do wîth the success of his endeavor to
befrîend White, but it is quite probable that the respect
for superior manners, dress and personal appearance,
which underlies the gross democracy of the mob, did
more. White himself would hâve resented, with ail a
mountaineer's well-fostered stubbornness, any man's
interférence with his luxury of a fight, had that man
been, though his best friend, one of his own or a simi-
lar class. But he promptly recognized Moreton as both
his friend and superior and so allowed himself to be
hurried away, the young man's grip on his arm remind-
îng him of a physical force fuUy proportioned to More-
ton 's rather massive stature. They soon reached a
Street where no further danger need be feared, and hère
Moreton, releasing White's arm, said :

** What sort of a beastly trouble is this you hâve
been getting into ? What was ail that quarrel about ? "

" Pa'cel o* them air dad burned gam'lers a rowin* wi*
me," replied White, rather doggedly, closîng his knife
and putting it into his pocket.

" Fleeced you, I suppose ; won ail your money. Bet-
ter let them alone, they'U always beat you," said More-
ton, his voice very naturally taking on an advisory and
cautionary ring.

** Yer calc'Iate ruther short, jest ther*, Mr. Moretîng

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42 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES,

(b'iieve thet air's yer name), fur I hev four dollars uf
them same fellers* good money inter my jeens right
now/* Whîte answered, with a chuckle of profound sat-
isfaction. ** W'en ye serpose 'at any uf them air gam'-
Icrs ken beat me a playin* uf seving up, w'y then ye air
a foolin* yerself outdacious. Es fur them tother games,
I don't know much 'bout 'em, but seving up hit air my
game, jest to a dot, an* I do s*prise some uf *cm out-
dacious a playin' uf that air small game/*

"Are you going out to your home to-night?"
inquired Moreton.

' ** Yes, an' I s'pect 'at them air weemin '11 be outda-
cious oneasy 'bout me, too, fur I promersed 'em *at l'd
be back by dinner time o' day, when I left *em this
mornin'," said White, rather dolefully.

After a moment of silence, he added in a hesitating
way:

" Hev ye seen any thing uf the Colonel fur the last
day er two? We've been kinder sorty oneasy 'bout
him, too. Milly she say 'at she most knows 'at he air
gone fur good an' 'at he ain't a comin' back no more.
But then I think he air."

" Oh, Mr. Reynolds is hère with me, don't you know,
at my hôtel. He's ail right," said Moreton. " I hope
your wife and daughter are well. Please give them my
regards. They were so kind to me that day I staid in
your house."

"Them's outdacious good weemin o' mine, Mr.

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WHITE PLA YS " SEVING UP:' 43

Moreting, 'specially Milly, she air a gai *at*s ail wool an*
a yard wide, to a dead sartinty, she air," was the reply.

Moreton was not well enough versed in the mount-
aîn lîngo to catch the full force of White's realistic
comparîson, but he understood that it was meant to
express admiration and affection of a very touching
sort, and immediately there arose in his mind a vision
of Milly, as she had stood by the door that day, with
one foot on the other and her solemnly innocent face
half averted.

The two men walked on together to a point where
they must separate if White went home.

" I hev ter go down this hère street ef I want er git
ter my lay-out,** said the mountaineer, stopping. " I
er much erbleeged to ye fur what yeVe done.**

Prompted by some impulse quite foreign to his En-
glish nature, Moreton held out his hand and said :

" Don't forget to give my kindest regards to your
wife and daughter."

" Sarting, sarting," exclaimed White, " TU do thet
air." He took Moreton's hand with a hearty grasp,
but stood as if falteringand hesitating. " Hit airkinder
foolish, but I wanter ask ye ter see ef ye can't gfit the
Colonel to kem home poorty soon. Sorter seems like
things don't june roun* jest right ef he ain't ther*."
Somewhere between his words there was a half-ex-
pressed meaning that seemed to reach and yet baffle
and élude Moreton's understanding. " Ye needn* mind

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44 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

er sayin* *at ther's trouble 'bout 'im er nothîn*/* con-
tinuée! White, ** but jest kinder git *im ter kem home
like. Milly she hain't stout, no how." There was a
tender tremor in his voice as he spoke the concluding
words.

Moreton assured him that Reynolds would corne
home within a few days, and they part éd.

White had been drinking some, but not enough to
întoxicate him beyond a certain loosening of the tongue
and a breaking of that crust of half-comical reserve
which usually covers the Sand Mountain man. What
he had said had afïected Moreton peculiarly. As he
slowly walked to the hôtel " Milly she hain't stout, no
how," kept ringing in the young man*s mind, as some
verse of a foolish song mîght hâve done, with an appeal-
îng, shadowy sort of sadness in it. He was far from
being sentimental, he had never taken any interest in
people socîally much lower than himself, he had even
been suspected of mild brutality in his feelings towards
women of the lower classes, not because the brutality
did really exist, but on account of his utter lack of
sympathy with ignorance and ugliness ; and now he was
frankly acknowledging to himself that Milly White had
touched a very sensitive chord in his nature. In some
mysterious way he was actually sympathizing with her,
as îf in an elusive and nameless trouble. The feeling
was not a deep or pervading one : it was, indeed, very
slight, a mère breath, so to speak, barely rippling the

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46 AT LO VE 'S EXTREMES.

" I wush he would côme," she murmured, and fol-
lowed her father into the cabin.

Meantîme Moreton went to his hôtel, where he met
Reynolds, to whom he gave the détails of his street
adventure.

Reynolds* face darkened a little.

" I wish I could hâve seen Whîte," he said, in a tone
that hinted of vexation. ** I suspect that he has taken
advantage of my absence by going on a spree. Are
you sure he went directly home ? **

" He said he was going, he went in that direction,"
Moreton answered. " He was inquiring about you,
and I told him you were in my care and quite
safe."

Reynolds laughed.

" Did he say that his weemin^ as he calls them, were
uneasy about me ? "

" Something of the sort, I believe, but I gave him
satisfactory assurance. He*ll report you ail right."

Reynolds laughed again, a laugh that left Moreton
in some sort of doubt. It was a laugh that seemed to
be tinged with contempt, or bitterness, or some other
élément quite foreig^ to any amused or pleasant state
of mind.

** He told me în ail serîousness,** Moreton deliber-
ately but lightly added, " that his daughter believed
you would never come back.*'

" Yes/* said Reynolds, " she always imagines somc

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WHITR PLA YS " SEVING UP^ 47

such thîng when I am away. She's a queer lîttle sim-
pleton, but I owe a good deal to her and her mother.
On that account I overlook a great many little annoy-
ances they cause me."

They went în to supper and the conversation turned
to a discussion of the préparations for General DeKay's
shooting party. But ail the time Moreton's mind kept
retuming to the mystery which he now felt was hover-
ing about hîs friend's life, a mystery he dared not
attempt to solve. It was plain to him that Reynolds^
had a secret which this lonely life in themountainswas
întended to hide from the world. It is not difficult to
discover tl>at one's friend isnot opening his whole hearf^
to one, when such is the fact. The reserve of some
heavy sorrow, or regret, or remorse may be carefully
concealed, but its very concealment is disclosed by the
sealed chamber whose door would, we know, be flung
wide open, but for the skeleton within. A slight éva-
sion, now and then, of certain careless questions, little
hints inadvertently let fall in moments of apparent
abstraction, certain abrupt changes of the drift of his
talk when the subject was his own expériences, gave
to Reynolds* conversation a quality which, to a nature
like Moreton's, was as tantalizing as it was suggestive
of some hidden trouble.

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CHAPTER V.

SOME LIGHT TALK.

MR. NOBLE'S house în Birmingham was one of
our ugly brîck-red American cottages, wîth
many sharp points to its roof, many slender chimneys,
a profusion of bay Windows and plate glass, and an air
of band-box newness, suggestive of fresh paint and
scarcely dry plastering. It stood on a slîght knoU
overlooking a quiet part of the little city, and com-
manding a view of the mountains in every direction,
as well as of the broken picturesque valley. Its ample
lawn, shaded by a few native trees, had been set with
grass, as if in défiance of Southern custom, and the
broad walks were not flanked with the conventional
parallel rows of shrubs and flowers so dear to the
heart of the old-time Southerner.

As Moreton and Reynolds passed through the low
iron gâte in front of this house, on the evening of Mn
Noble's dinner, they paused just inside the înclosure,
and turned about to take a view of the surrounding
landscape. The horizon in every direction was broken
by irregular lines of blue hills and mountains, the
higher peaks sharply defined against a soft crepuscular

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SÔME LIGHT TALIC. 49

sky, whilst the lowcr ones, seen through the thîn gray
smoke of the valley, were scarcely distinguishable
from the fragmentary clouds floating lazily in the
furthest distance. A gentle breeze, running north-
ward, with just an audible ripple, had in it, along with
îts mountain freshness and purity, a dreamy, languor-
breeding influence, suggestive of those palm-studded
islands and warm seas a little further south. Overhead
the sky was as blue and soft as that of Lombardy,
and set with fervid, flaring stars.

"This strikes me as very near the idéal climate,
don*t you know, a golden mean between the indolent,
dreamy South and the restless, over-realistic North,**
said Moreton, taking in a deep draught of the sweet,
stimulating air.

"The air is pure and wholesome,** said Reynolds,
" but the scenery is hopelessly monotonous and unin-
spiring. Six years of it will dry your enthusiasm
down to the impalpable dust of dreams. I fear I hâve
had too much of it."

" No doubt you hâve," Moreton bluntly responded,
"considering your way of taking it, crooning over
there in that remote cabin, aloof from every genuine
human influence, morbidly browsîng the weeds of your
own conscience." His tone was light and chaffîng, but
Reynolds, as if eut by some hidden meaning of the
words, started a little, then, catching his friend's
humor, said :

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50 AT LOVE* s EXTREMES,

" Well, let's go înto this palace of pleasure and per-
haps I may there get my conscience purified in thc
light of — "

" The light oif her eycs
And the dew of her lips,
Wherc the moth never flics
And the bce never sips/' —

Moreton hummed, taking his frîend's arm and moving
toward the house. The wîndows gave forth long
streams of light, and a subdued sound of voices came
from within the brilliant rooms. To the somewhat
rusted taste of Reynolds there came, along with thc
gleam of chandeliers and the polite murmur, a little
thrill, as if he were about to re-enter a long-abandoned
but much loved atmosphère. Already the old fascina-
tion was returning. He saw through an open window
thc flutter of fans and the gleam of white throats,
laces and pearls. For a single instant ail the charms
of young womanhood gayly but modestly attîred,
ready for its half-shy, half-daring little assaults upon
the masculine heart, burst upon him. As a drunkard,
after a long abstinence, feels his whole nature change
at the first sip of wine, Reynolds was at once borne off
his guard, and for the instant ail the period of his
mountain seclusion disappeared. It was as if his gay,
almost dissolute life had never been arrested. Some
one struck a few rapid chords from a grand piano and
then foUowed some airy popular song.

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felt hîmself a stranger to alL His tall, ercct figure,

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S« ~ AT LOVE' s EXTREMES,

bronzed face and graceful bearing attracted the furtive
glances of more than one woman présent. Moreton, in
bowîng low over Mrs. Noble's hand, had managed to
say to her unheard by any one else : ** Mr. Reynolds,
my frîend hère, is a misanthrope and has long been out
of Society. You will do me the greatest of favors if
you will make him the especial object of your gracious
attention this evening." •

"Certainly," she answered, in a very sweet and low
voice, " you shall see how readily I grant your every
request, Mr. Moreton. Leave your friend to me."

She kept her promise with scrupulous fidelity, and
Reynolds found himself drawn into the midst of a
charming circle, where, for a tîme, ail memory of the past
few years was drowned in the musîc of gentle voices.

Miss Cordelia Noble, the banker's daughter, with
whomhe presently found himself in conversation, was a
merry-eyed, ruby-lipped blonde, as supple and ready as
her father and at need as dig^ified and gracious as her
mother. She had just retumed with her aunt from
New York and talked in a most charming way of the
opening of the social season there, of the parties, the
opéra, the art exhibitions and ail the other features of
importance to fashîonable folk in the metropolis. Her
voice was a sincère, honest, girlish one, and her sayings
were spiced with those little grotesqueries of thought
and phrasing which stay with a bright girl for a whîle
aftcr her so-called school days are over. Reynolds had

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SOME LIGHT TALK. 53

not dreamed of how hungry he really was for even thîs
slight sort of social food, and it was well for him that
he dîd not suspect that, beforc the dinner was half over,
he had become, by force of tacit consent amongst ail
présent, the center of the evenîng's înterest.

Moreton was delighted. He had determîned to win
his friend back from hîs hermit's life, no matter what
mîght hâve been in the first place the secret reason for
his retirement to such an outlandish den as the mount-
aîneer's cabin.

" My father has told me that you are to be one of
the party going with him to General DeKay's," Miss
Noble said to Reynolds.

" Yes," he answered, " and I expect a most delight-
ful time. I hope you are going too ? "

" Yes, I could not âfford to let such an opportunîty .
pass. I hâve always greatly desired to see something
of field sports. I dote on dogs, and I really believe I
should like to shoot, and ride after the hounds in a real
fox-chase."

" I am glad you are going," he said. " Your enthu-
siasm will be a great help when birdsarescarceorwhen
we shoot poorly. Will there be other ladies ? "

" Oh, quite a number, I dare say. There will be one,
at least, the dearest, charmingest woman that ever
lived. Mrs. Ransom, a widow, but lovely, fascinating,
every thing, indeed, that's sweet and interesting. She
was married only a few months when her husband died

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54 AT LO VE *S EXTRÊMES.

— he was killed in a duel or somethingromantic, several
years ago — ^and she looks like a mère girl now.'*

Miss Noble was looking directly înto Reynolds* face,
as she delivered this girlish speech, and she saw somc-
thîng like a shadow Ait across hîs brow and eyes, as if
her words had caused him ànnoyance, but it passed
away instantly.

" If you really are fond of dogs," he said, " I shall be
proud to show you mine. I fancy I hâve two that can
not be matched in the whole world."

" What sort are they ? " she înquired with immédiate
înterest. " You see my father has made me quite a
connoisseur ; I am away up in dog-knowledgc." She
held up a little plump hand to show how high her
attainments soared.

" Are they pointers, setters or droppers ? "

Reynolds laughed. Her outright earnestness of
interest in such a subject amused him, whilst it also
made him feel justified in pursuing the thème, always a
pleasant one to a genuine sportsman.

" One is a pointer, the other a setter," he answercd.

" And do they work well together ? Do they under-
stand each other's movements, back each other, and ail
that ? " she inquired.

"In the most perfect way imaginable. They are
like perfectly drilled soldiers, their minds seem to keep
pace exactly."

" Oh, îsn't ît the most beautiful sîght ! I know ît

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SOME LIGHT TALK, 55

must be. My father bas descrîbcd ît to me so often
and I am so anxious to see something of it. I don*t
know wby I sbouldn't, do you? Mamma ratber
objects — talks of cruelty to birds, and sneers in her
sweet way, at the idea of a young lady caring for
field sports. Do you see any wrong in it? I really
think I should lîke to bave a gun."

" Wben I was in India I saw a young lady sboot
at a tiger/* said Reynolds, " but she missed it/'
- "And ever since you bave kept tbe incident in
mind as proof positive of tbe modem woman's ineffi-
ciency in tbe field of Diana," sbe quickly replied.

" Not altogetber," be said ; " Diana's field was so
broad." But Miss Noble was not scbolar enougb to
feel tbe point of bis meaning. Sbe was ready enougb,
bowever, and responded:

" Ob, yes, tbe wbole blue beaven to sail across ; I bad
forgotten tbat ber glory, after ail, was mostly moon-
sbîne."

" We poor men bave been unable to forget it since
tbe dreadful fate of Acteon and tbe drowsy expéri-
ence of Endymion; but if you will promise not to
turn tbe weapon against me I sball be glad to lét
you try a beautiful little Englisb twenty-gauge gun of
mine wben we find tbe game."

" How good of you," sbe exclaimed deligbtedly ; " it
will be cbarming. Don't tell mamnia, sbe would ridi-
cule me out of it.*'

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$6 AT LO VE 'S EXTREMES,

" Never ; I shall die with the secret, if need be. I
would not miss seeîng you fire your first shot for any
thing."

*'Now there," she exclaimed, "you can't quite be
faîr; there was something in your voice that sug-
gested a lack of confidence in my nerve and ability.
I shan't shut my^eyes and dodge and — and — squeak/'

"Of course not," said Reynolds, "I shall expect
nothîng of the kind. You will kill your bird hand-
somely» and I shall applaud you aiid give you encore
and "

" If you are goîng to make fun of me, I shall stay at
home," she exclaimed with spirit. " Fm in earnest. I
really wish to know how to shoot."

Reynolds' eyes învoluntarily ran over the outlînes of
the girl's fine form and rested for a moment on her ani-
mated face. She was indeed in earnest, and she looked
a perfect model for a Diana, so far as. strength and
symmetry went. True her bright, vivacious American
facehad nothing of the straight-cut Grecian severityof
beauty, but it was a brave, self-reliant, earnest face,
tinged with healthy blood and beaming with the spirit
of gîrlish enterprîse. It needed but a look into her eyes
for one to know that shp was as pure as a violet, with the
charm of an infinité capacity for love hoverîng like a
scparate atmosphère about her. She was a woman in
nothing but physique. Girlhood of the freshest and
charmîngest sort was apparent in ail that she saîd and

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SOME LIGHT TALK, S?

did. Reynolds felt her sweet, breeze-like influence
pass over him with the effect of a rare fragrance. He
gave hlmself up whoUy to her mood. It was like
romping in a furtive way, this light, free prattle with
one so young, so frank, so childlike and so beautiful.

" Why, if you wish to shoot you shall/* he said with
smiling earnestness. " I should be glad to show you
how. It's quite easy to learn. There*s nothing diffi-
cult or objectionable in it."

" Oh, do you really mean it ? Do you think it

quite proper? I never could see any real impropri-

ety, and somehow I hâve fancied that I hâve a genuine
passion for it. Perhaps I shall not like it after I hâve
tried it — but, yes I shall, I know I shall. Don't you
think so?"

She had a way of opening her eyes wide, as a child
does, when asking a question, and she looked straight
into his with a simple fearlessness that was far removed .
from boldness.

" I think you would like any thing that — that — you
ought to like," he said.

" I do not like that," she replied naïvely ; "it hasthe
ring of flattery. Why do men always do that ? Do
they think we like it ? "

" I don't think you do," he responded, laughing and
opening his eyes a little wider in turn. " I really didn*t
mean flattery, however : I meant to say that you are
çonstituted to enjoy real, rational pastimes and reçrea-

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S8 AT LO VE 'S EXTREMES,

tîons, that you hâve healthy, natural tastes. That îs not
flatteiy, I hope."

" You put it in the least objectionable shape, to say
the least/' she replied, " and I am willing to compro-
mise, rememberîng your promise about the gun. I
hâve an ambition that I will confide to you." She
leaned toward him a lîttle and added : " When I go to
Newport next summer I want to be able to tell my
friends about shooting quails in Alabama. It will be
so much better than theîr poor mockery of fox-chasing
— that's absurd."

" Ah, I begin to understand," said Reynolds. " You
may count on me to aid you in every possible way.
You shall hâve most interesting and realistic expéri-
ences to relate at the seaside, if you will let me be your
guide and teacher. I beg to be your abettor-in-cbief.*'

Mrs. Noble and Moreton approached, just at this
point, and the subject was dropped. In fact Moreton
at once drew Miss Cordelia away to*some other part of
the house, and managed to be near her for the rest of
the evening. But the girl left with Reynolds some-
thing that lîngered, diffusing itself throughout his con-
sciousness, with the efîect of a mildly exhilarating
potion. Strangely enough, the words of Moreton*s
little song :

**Thelightof hcreyes
And the dew of her lips,
Where the moth never Aies
And the bee never sips,"

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SOME LIGHT TALJC. 59

had ail the evenîng been tînklîng în hîs ears. Not that
Miss Noble had troubled him în the least with any
thîng like love at first sight. She was not a giri for
him to fall in love with ; but her gentle, earnest voice,
her grâce of person and manner, and her half-gîrlish,
half-womanly independence of speech had touched him
and quickened in him germs of sympathy he had
thought long since dead. He felt old dry wells of fcel-
ing bubbling afresh. He was gently moved as if by a
subtle change within him. Mrs. Noble found him
with this mood upon him, and it lent to his talk its
freshness and fascination. She was charmed, and when
she was told that for the past six years he had scarcely
left the cabin over in the mountains, the touch of mys-
tery did not lessen her interest in him.

Moreton, without thought of what sympathy he might
arouse by his peculiarly graphie manner of presenting
the subject, described to Miss Cordelia the wild,
strange prettiness of Milly White and the pathetic
ignorance in which her whole nature seemed steeped.

"Why, how romantic!*' she exclaimed, "she must
be interesting. She ought to be taught. There may
be something well worth developing behind those
wonderful, mysterious eyes of that girl."

Cordelia's school days were not yet so far in the past
that she had got rid of certain academical théories.
She still reveled in the belief that éducation might
make a king of a forg.

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6o AT LO VE'S EXTREMES.

" If she could be taught," saîd Moreton, în a reflect-
ive way ; " but I suppose such a thing îs impossible.
She cornes of such vulgar ancestry, ignorance and stu-
pidity are her héritage, don't you know, and she prob-
ably has no capacîty. Her limitations are set and
nothing can broaden them, I fear. But her beauty, if
ît may be called by that name, îs certainly remarkable.
I hâve never seen a more perfect form — petite, lithe as
a leopard's and as graceful as a fawn's, and her face has
something in it so appealingly and so hopelessly sweet
and pure. But then such vacancy, such hideous
ignorance."

Cordelia grew interested. Her vivîd imagination
took quick and strong hold on his sketch of this mount-
ain girl, fiUing in with its own lines and coloring the
spaces he had left.

"Why hasn't Mr. Reynolds taught her?** she
exclaimed, with just a trace of deprecation in her
voice. **He has been over there so long, living in the
same house. It*s a shame that he has not directed

her mînd so as to awaken some " she stopped

short and a little color flushed her cheeks.

"Oh, Reynolds sees nothing of her fine points,"
Moreton hastened to say without choice of words.
** He's a Southemer, don't you know, and considers her
poor white trash — that*s the phrase hère. He thinks it
absurd that a gentleman should look at such a girl
long enough to form any opinion as to the question of
her beauty."

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SOME LIGHT TALK, 6i

The conversation was broken in upon and ended at
this point by some trivial turn of the evening's hap-
penings, and soon after Reynolds and Moreton took
their leave.

They walked toward the hôtel, each silently revolving
in his mind that part of his expérience at the banker s
house which had chanced to most deeply împress him.
Reynolds, in fact, was scarcely conscious of his compan-
ion's présence, so full was he of many other indetermi-
nate but wholly pleasing plans for making Miss Noble
happy with his dogs and gun when they should meet
at General DeKay's plantation. Moreton had lighted
a cigarette and pulled his hat down over his eyes.

" This girl of White*s — how old is she, Reynolds ? "
he presently inquired, in a tone so abrupt that his com-
panion looked up as if startled. *'She*s scarcely a
woman yet, is she ? '*

Reynolds did not answer prcmptly, but kept his
eyes on Moreton*s face while they walked two or three
paces.

" Oh, the devil, what do I know or care about her ? "
he at length said. "You'd better go out and inter-
view her. She seems to hâve tangled your fancy.**
The words look brutal, but his voice and manner were
merely indiffèrent and light, with a touch of good-
humored raillery.

"She does stay in my head somehow," Moreton
frankly replied. " And I confess that it amazes me

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62 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES.

to know that you hâve never discovered what deuced
physical perfection she has. You needn*t try to make
me believe in your obtuseness, however ; I know you
too well, don't you know."

Reynolds laughed, and laying hîs hand on More-
ton's arm, saîd :

" You hâve happened to see her îit some exceptîonal
angle and with an artist's «ye. Poor little thing, it is
a small measure that fills her life. Hers îs a hopeless
lot. Let's choose a better subject. Now there's Miss
Noble."

Moreton did not respond promptly, but looked
rather searchingly at his friend. He almost resented
the démocratie freedom that linked so readily and inti-
mately the names of Milly White and Cordelia Noble.
Presently he said :

** Miss Noble is an exceptional American girl. She
has ail the naïveté and freshness of the country with-
out any trace of its deuced vulgarity."

"Your long résidence of two months in thîs great
country fully equips you for criticism," replied Reynolds
with mock gravity.

" I hâve lived a thousand years in America," was
Moreton's response. " Every hour has been a décade.
I never felt a genuine sentiment before I came hère.
You must pardon me if I arrogate to myself the right
to speak patronizingly to one who has only been hère
thirty or thirty-five years."

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sa ME Lie HT TA Lie. 63

" I see how ît îs," saîd Reynolds. ** The same old stoiy.
Another sweetheart. You had four in Paris, three in
Rome, two in Geneva, two în **

** Oh, corne now, none of that,** Moreton exclaîmed
with an impatient gesture. " For once and forever I
am in eamest, don't you know. I mean to marry Miss
Noble."

" I am heartily glad of it,** said Reynolds, grasping
his friend's hand. " I cordially congratulate you, More-
ton. What a sweet, bright, perfectly natural girl she
is ! I honor you ail the more for your choice."

As they walked on to the hôtel, Reynolds was think-
ing what a faîr outcome thîs marriage would be to
Moreton's rather adventuresome bachelor career. He
did not dare figure for himself any thing so happy,
but his imagination was fuU of floating, rosy fantasies.
formless as yet, but ready to take almost any shape of
beauty, grâce or passion. He felt a quicker movement
of his blood, he breathed deeper, a wider horizon seemed
open to him ail at once. He dared not try to analyze
his State of feeling, lest the test should dissipate it.
Like some mère striplîng just fallen in love, he heard
ail through his dreams that night a sweet, strange voice
singîng that lîght stanza of Moreton's song :

" The light of her eyes
And the dew of her lips,
Where the moth never Aies
And the bee never sips."

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CHAPTER VI.

AT THE GATE.

REYNOLDS started to go on foot to White's cabin
among the mountains. His immédiate purpose
vvas to arrange for sendîng his dogs down to Birming-
ham in a few days, in order that they might be ready
for the trip to General DeKay*s. He was glad of this
excuse for getting away for a time from the town, out
into the woods, where he might try to understand him-
self ; for he was in a mood very différent from any he
had experienced in the last six years, and in fact very
différent from any he ever before had realîzed. Since the
evening of Mr. Noble's dinner a change had been going
on within him. It was as if some réservoir of feeling,
hitherto sealed up, had been tapped, from which a rare
sensation had diffused itself throughout his being,
mildly thrilling his nerves and vaguely firing his blood.
He could trace this change to no definîte source, nor
could he be sure whether it tended toward some new
and brighter phase of his variable life, or toward some
lurking evil. He felt the pressure of a doubtful pre-
sentiment, as ail strongly Imaginative natures at times
do, and in the mîdst of a vivid sensé of pleasure there
hovered a dim shadow of dread.

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AT THE GATE, 65

It was in the twilight followîng an unusually warm
day, that he turned aside from the highway to follow a
trail leading over a spur of the mountain on the further
side of which stood White's cabin. The stars were
already coming out in the soft, southern sky, and a
slender moon hung half-way down the west. The air
was fragrant with the keen essence of resîn and the
balsam of pine leaves, but there was scarcely more than
a mère breath astir among the frondous groves. He
walked rapidly, unconsciously timing his strides to the
puises of bis mood. Why would the voice of Miss
Noble keep ringing in his ears, and her earnest, honest
eyes keep looking straight into his with some almost
imperceptible shadow of rebuke in them ? And why
did the poor little face of Milly White now and again
force itself upon his inner vision ? He could hardly be
called morbidly sensitive, but he had been for so long
a time shut away from the finer and sweeter social
influences. Somewhat a dreamer, too, as are ail per-
sons who dwell apart with nature and art. Since his
hermit life began he had been a contributor, under a
nom de plume y to a number of English and American pub-
lications, both as an artist and as a writer, so that he
had divided his time between the pleasures of the
sportsman and the milder excitements of the provincial
magazineist. He had fancied for a long time that he
was happy, and that ail the fascination of woman's
charms had ceased for him. Now as he strode along

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66 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

he was loth to admît, even in the secrecy of self-com-
munîon, that the old influence was taking hold again
with a zest as fresh as it was keen and deep. He stopped
at the highest point reached by the sinuous trail and
sat down upon a stone. The tall, puffy column of
black smoke from the iron furnaces rose slantingly
against the line of sky above the valley where the town
lay. In another direction, beyond a dusky gulch, some
lines of fîre were burnîng along the mountain sides, Hke
the lights of an army camp. He tried to analyze his
feelings, but the effort was futile ; he got up and went
on down to the cabin, his blood tingling as if with wine.

The moon had fallen to the western mountain-tops
and was touching a peak with its délicate horn when
he reached the rustic gâte. Milly was there, as was her
wont, to welcome him home.

" I knowed 'at ye*d come/* she said, " fur I dremp
last night at ye was dead an' *at's a sign, ye know."

Her face, uptumed to his, caught from the faint
moonlight, or from some other heavenly reflection, a
gleam of peaceful happiness that added something
which Reynolds never before had seen there, or if ever
he had seen it, it was when, a mère child, she had so
faithfully hung over him and tended him through a
long and almost fatal illness. The memory of her
untîring patience and gentleness, her quick sensé of
hîs needs and her silent but evidently deep joy at his
final recovery, now suddenly rushed upon him.

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À T THE G A TÊ. 67

" Fve ben a wushîn' ye'd corne an* Tm so glad ! " she
murmured, as she opened the gâte for him. " Hit air
so lonesome when ye'r away/'

Her lithe, plump figure was clothed in a clinging
gown of cotton stuff and a white kerchief was pinned
about her throat. Down over her shoulders in a long,
rather thin brush fell her rîmpled pale yellow hair.
Her cheeks glowed and her lips had on them the dew
of innocent and, alas, ignorant maidenhood. A flash
of récognition leaped into the mind of Reynolds,
though he was scarcely conscious of it, and Milly
White's strange beauty was no longer invisible to him.

" Ye ortn't to stay away so long," she added, not in
rebuke, but in a low, quavering voice like that of some
happy bîrd. Her mountain dialect, crabbed as it
appears in writing, added emphasis to the fresh, half
wild tenderness of her tones.

Ail around the woods and little broken fields were
dim and silent. The warm southem stars bumed over-
head and the fitful balmy air crept past with furtive
whispers. The moon slipped down behind the mount-
ain, leaving on the peak a délicate wavering ghost that
slowly vanished into the common haze of the night.
Reynolds paused in the little gateway and looked down
into Milly's lifted shining face. In that instant a tender
feeling, a subtle sensé of some obscure but immédiate
draught upon the inner sources of his passionate nature,
took complète possession of him. The touching sweet-

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68 AT LÔ VE 'S EXTREMES.

ness of her face, the wild grâce of her form, and that
charmîng expression of strength and development,
împressed hîm. He forgot the cabîn, the pînched and
sapless mountain life and ail its empty hopelessness.
For the time he saw nothing but Milly as hîs over-
stîmulated imagination lighted her face and form with
the allurements of irrésistible beauty. He stooped,
and, swiftly folding her in his arms, kissed her passion-
ately.

" Oh ! ** she crîed, her voice slippîng with sharp sweet-
ness away through the dusky woods. It was like tlie
quîck musical chirp of a glad bird. She clung to him
with strong, loving arms.

He let her go presently and said :

" It is late for you to be out ; come in now, the night
air îs begînning to be chilly and you'll catch a cold."

" Oh, no ! " she naïvely responded, " let*s us stay out
yer, theyVe a smokin* în ther, an* hit*s so nice ter be
out yer.** Her mountain dialect, as filtered through
her pure, peculiarly musical voice, lost ail its harshness
and became a fitting expression of a part of the fasci-
nating enigma of her character. "Ye*v* ben away
so long, John, an' sometimes I wus afeared to go er-
sleep 'cause ye wus gone, an* 'cause l'd dream ye wus
dead."

'* Well, come în now," he gently urged, drawing the
long pale brush of her haïr through his hand and pass-
ing on înto the cabîn.

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AT THE GATE. 69

She looked after him, the smile slowly fading out of
her face and* giving place to that half-vacant, mildly
hopeless expression which ît usually wore. She put
her rather large but finely chiseled hands on top of her
head, with the fingers laced together, and with her
elbows extended gazed listlessly at the sky. She felt
a vague sensé of disappointment blended with a deli-
cious happiness. When Reynolds entered the cabin,
White and his wife were leaning over a mère pretense
of fire and smoking their pipes, with such abandonment
to the luxury that they merely glanced at him as he
entered ; but mountain politeness overcame the tobacco
at last, and they got up, greeting him warmly. He
shook hands with them in tum^ asking about their
health, but declined to sit down, preferring after a few
commonplace inquiries, to go into his own room and
be alone.

His first sensation on entering his apartmerit was
one of disgust at its rough and uninviting aspect.
Indirectly the question was assailing him : why had he
ever been content in such a place ? A query of this
nature may arise in one*s mind without any defînite
form, impressing itself by a sort of implication and
indirect reflection from a throng of comparisons invol-
untarily and almost unconsciously made. Reynolds* ^
nature was intensely virile, his passions powerful and
his imagination tropical. It goes with the saying that
his feelings and tastes were subject to violent and sud-

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70 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

den changes. He usually had, however, perfect self-
control and an outward appearance of calmness under
the most trying cîrcumstances. But let the check-rein
once break and his fiery passions get control of the bit,
then nothing that passion demands could escape him.
He was aware of this; he knew the need of self-
restraint, for at the bottom his was a noble soûl, full
of self-sacrifice and generous, libéral manliness.

On the floor by his easel lay a scrap of white paper
wîth something scrawled upon it, He picked it up
mechanically and saw that Milly had been trying to
copy the dog-sketch that still rested on the easel. It
was a poor, crude scratch, such as a little child might
hâve accomplished, showing in its stiff, hesitatîng lines
the limitations of the girl's vague notion of art. He
smiled at this évidence of the first stirrings of culture
in a handful of almost barren soil. Art îs forever drop-
ping seeds that germinate under ail the exigencies of
weather. Few of the shootlets live to show more than
a tender point above the surface of the ground, but
their number is légion and each spike gives to the air
an infinitésimal trace of fragrance which cheers us as
we breathe.

While he stood lookîng at her work, Milly came into
the room through a doorway that led from the kitchen.
He was still smiling when he looked towards her and
said :

'' Did you draw this, Milly ? "

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AT THE GATE, ?!

She put her hands over her face and leaned against
the wall. The light from a large lamp on the table
gave to her figure the effect of a strong sketch in char-
coal. He noted her attitude with an artistes eye, and
wîth a man's eyes, too. There was a bird-like grâce
in the droop of her shoulders and in the fine curves of
her body and limbs. Her flaxen hair gave forth just a
modicum of golden light.

He did not repeat his inquiry. Something in her
appearance checked him. Ail that Moreton had said
about her came into his mind with almost startling
force. How clearly he felt now the dryad-like strength
of her figure, and the infantile purity of her face. She
had the soûl of a woman, too, for how tenderly she had
nursed him.

" Get me my slippers, please, Milly,** he presently
said, more to break up the situation than with a désire
to be served.

She let fall her hands and sprang to obey him, with
the noiseless swiftness of a kitten. She fetched his
slippers, and also his dressing gown, from a corner of
the room. Thîs done she lingered near him for awhile,
as if hoping he might need some further help. She
would not look straight at him now, but kept her
face half turned away, glancing sidewise under her
drooping eyelids, one hand fluttering idly about the
kerchief at her throat.

Some one lifted the latch of the door leading to the

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72 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

room în which White and his wîfe were smoking. At
the first click Milly darted noîselessly înto the kitchen.
It was Whîte, who hesitatingly thrust his head past the
door-post and said :

" I loaded three hunderd carterges fur the twelve-bore
gun."

" Load ahundred for the twenty-gauge, if you please,"
said Reynolds, " two and a half drams of powder and
three-quarters of an ounce of number eight shot. Put
two wads on the powder, don*t forget.**

"Ail right, sir, I air *quainted wuth jest what ye
want. Them shells '11 be fixed up jest to the dot. Ye
orter see them air dogs, they shine same like they*d
ben *iled."

" Thank you, Fm glad of that. Good night,*' said
Reynolds, anxious to get back to his thoughts.

White withdrew his head.

Milly, from the shadows of the kitchen, gazed fixedly
at Reynolds, as he stood in the mellow light of the lamp.

He was, indeed, a man pleasing to look upon, strong,
tall, nobly proportioned, with a grand head and a dark,
handsome face. His limbs were long and muscular,
his shoulders square and broad, his chest deep, his
waist rather slender, his whole bearing that of a man
by bîrth and of right a gentleman, and by reason of
health and training an athlète. Say what we may,
such a man bears about with him a power of fascina-
tion, a magnetism able to work great good or great evil

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A T THE G A TE, 73

or both. He îs a flame in which a soûl may be warmed or
burned up, according to circumstances. A girl of Milly's
ignorance and inexpérience had nothing to protect
her from such danger as his influence might bring. She
would hâve gone unhesitatingly to any length he might
hâve asked, without the slightest thrill of doubt or fear.
Hers was not a nature capable of much expansion or
împrovement. A long line of mountain ancestors had
fixed in her the hereditary simpleness, narrowness and
mental barrenness of the Sandlapper; but alongwith
thèse limitations had corne the gift of a flower-like
beauty of form and face, and a voice sweeter than any
bird*s. She had corne up in a wild, lonely way, run-
ning free in wind and sun and rain, quite illiterate,
utterly unaware of conventional proprieties,' truthful,
honest, affectionate, passionate, after a fashion, and as
independent as any deer in the woods.

It would not be making the statement too strong to
say that Reynolds came to a discovery of her striking
beauty as one cornes upon those haunting visions of
loveliness in one's dreams. Why had he not noticed it
before ? He was vaguely aware that in some way Cordelia
Noble had opened his eyes by stirrîng up the stagnant
fountains of his nature and setting old currents to flow-
ing in his veîns. Her light girlish prattle had fallen
into his ears wîth the effect that a shower produces on
parched and withered sod, and it had had the charm of
bird-songs after a long, dreary winter.

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74 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

He remaîiied at the cabîn several days before the
tîme came for going to General DeKay*s, and it was
în some way soothing and restful to hâve Milly shyly
hovering around hîm. He did not fully realize how
deeply he was absorbed în studying her face, her form,
her free, wild grâce of motion and attitude, and the
strange, crude music of her voice. She followed hîm
wherever he went, or at least whenever he would per-
mît it, content to be near- him, like some faithful ani-
mal. She had always acted thus, but he never had
noticed it before.

When at last the tîme arrived for his departure for
General DeKay's, Reynolds rose early în the morning
to get ready for the little journey. The DeKay
place was down on the Alabama river, near Mont-
gomery, and the company from Birmingham would go
by rail to the former city, where General DeKay would
hâve carnages for them. The fact is that Reynolds
had no physical préparations to make, thèse having ail
been attended to with shrewd faîthfulness by White ;
but there was a sort of îndefinable dread, or aversion,
or some other objection hovering in his mind in con-
nection with the thought of leaving his retirement, his
hermîtage, and floatîng out once more upon the open
sea of life. In the early gray of morning he crept
silently from the cabin and walked or rather climbed
to the mountain top and sat down on a stone with his
face to the east. He had spent a restless night,

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A 7' THE GATE. 75

indulgîng, between snatches of unrefreshîng sleep,
regret, remorse, repentance and other nîghtmares of
conscience. He had almost învoluntarîly sought thîs
hîgh perch overlooking ail the country round, as if
expecting to be purified by the soft rare atmosphère
and the exhilarating wildness and freshness of the
view. The east was ail aglow with the wonder of sun-
rise, whilst the valley wherein Birmingham lay was
shrouded in a mottled cloak of coal smoké from the
furnaces. The foot-hills, clothed in their bristling
pines and ragged scrub-oaks, were softened almost into
tenderness by the blueish film hovering over them. A
dewy coolness and sweetness came up on the momîng
wind as îf out of the lowest stratum of the valley, in
strong contrast with the absolute dryness of the
stony mountain top. Slowly the fire of the sunrîse
încreased in the filmy east until the great moming-
gate seemed suddenly to fly open with a wide upward
flare of flame and long, glowing spears of gold reach-
ing out across the valley and billowy foot-hills.
Reynolds was in a condition that demanded solitude,
and yet he felt no definite purpose in the mood, no
clear reason for desiring to be alone. It filled him
with a sudden annoyance when a slight sound caused
him to turn and see Milly standing close by, bare-
headed and smiling radiantly. He frowned.

"What are you hère for, Milly?*' he demanded
sternly. *' Go back immediately."

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76 AT LOVE* s EXTREMES.

The gîrl dîd not speak. The light went out of her
face and a strange grayness overspread it înstead.
She tumed about with a shrînkîng motion and
walked slowly away down the steep slope of the
mountaîn înto the straggling wood. Almost îmmedî-
ately Reynolds felt how brutal hîs act had been and
regretted ît, hated himself for it. He arose as if to
follow her, but faltered and hesitated, allowing his
eyes to wander over the grand mountain landscape
now flooded with the fuU light of the sun. What sort
of change was this that was coming into hîs life?
Something like a waming shadow had fallen into his
soûl, and yet some sweet foreboding was with it, some
tender, subtle charm luring him with a deep and sweet
fascination. He stood a while gazîng dreamîly, but .
seeing nothing, then, shaking himself as one freeing
himself from slumber, he walked rapîdly in the direc-
tion taken by Milly. Half way down the slope in a
shadowy clump of dwarf pines he found the girl sit-
ting on an old log, her face buried in her hands,
sobbing bitterly. He stopped close to her and stood
for a moment looking at her. How pitîful a picture
she made, with her drooping little fprm, almost cov-
ered by the thin gold veil of bright disheveled hair,
outlined agaînst a tangle of broken boughs ! He sat
down beside her and took one of her wet little hands
in his.

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CHAPTER VIL

AN OLD PLANTATION HOUSE.

GENERAL DeKAY^S house was on a sHght knoll
overlooking in one direction the Alabama river,
and a broad stretch of fertile cotton lands, whilst
every other view was lost in the dense shadows
of semi-tropical woods. The building was wholly
wanting in architectural beauty, yet it was picturesque
enough, with its wide vérandas and tall, heavy, stuc-
coed columns, its many-gabled roof and huge stack of
chimneys. Tall magnolia trees grew about it, vines
clambered over it, and its small-paned, many-mullioned
Windows and open halls, gave it an air of old-fashioned
conservatism and hospitality quite in a line with what
one has always read and heard of southern country
life among the wealthy planters of the Gulf States.
Spaciousness was the most marked feature of the
building. The rooms were many and large, arranged
for the comforts of unlimited light and air. When
the Windows and doors were ail thrown open, a
breeze blowing from any quarter flowed through the
house with unchecked freedom. The floors were of
ash, mostly uncarpcted, and the walls and ceilings

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78 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

were heavily paneled with oak. Wide vvinding
stâirways and huge fire-places, cumbrous chande-
liers and sconces, together with what appeared
an over-crowded amount of massive old-time furniture,
suggested a formai stateliness rather out of keeping with
that freedom of welcome which was and is the distîtict-
ive charm of southern hospitality. The mansion had
been built and fumished long before the war, in the
most prosperous and extravagant days of slavery, when
the planter knew no limit to his ability to make and
spend and when he set no bound to the number of his
guests or the length of their stay under his roof.
The dark gray stucco and weather-beaten shingles,
together with the old-time arrangement of the doors
and Windows, gave to the building a very ancient look,
as if it might hâve stood there since a time when men
lived as did the old fighting and feasting barons of
médiéval England. Bucks' antlers hung in the hall,
along with heavy rifles and fowling pièces, and a few
striking ancestral portraits looked down from the dark
walls. It had known much revelry of a thoroughly
proper sort, this grand old home of the DeKays, and
its inmates, for several générations, had exerted a
marked influence in the social and political afîairs of
the State. The présent owner had been a fighting gên-
erai in the confederate army and had won by heroic
bravery the right to his distinguished military tîtle.
Whçn the party from Birmingham reached this

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AN' OLD PLANTA TIÛN ffÔtISE, 79

charmîng old house by the river, it was late in the after-
noon. Several other guests had already arrived from
Montgomery, Pensacola and Mobile. A corps of
obsequious and élever negro servants, of both sexes and
various âges, were ready to attend ail corners. The
host, a slender man of middle height, wearing a gray
military beard, greeted every body with low bows and
profuse words of welcome, whilst his rather stout and
altogether good and motherly wife had a way that was
welcome itself.

Reynolds and Moreton were gîven rooms adjoiriing
and connected by a door, their Windows looking down
a long shining reach of the reed-bordered river. An
idéal place to sit and smoke, Moreton thought, as he
lighted a cigarette and drew a chair so that he could
watch the silvery winged kite sailing about in the dis-
tance, its forked tail and small head giving it the eflfect
of a fanciful Japanese design wavering on the back-
ground of blue-gray sky. A flock of domestic geese
were on the ry/er, floating idly, now and then lifting
their wings and flapping them rapidly and screaming
in clamorous concert. Wide fields, gently rolling, and
distinctly showing the ridged and parallel rows of cot-
ton and corn stalks, swept away almost to the horizon,
bounded on one hand by the river, and on the other by
a thick wood, where even the deciduous trees still re-
tained a trace of summer greenery. Something in the
air suggested the sea, and a sensation, as of extrême

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8o AT LO VE 'S EXTREMES,

remoteness and isolation, took possession of Moreton's
mind. It was his first expérience of life on a low-
country plantation. The idyllic simplicity, quiétude
and serenity impressed him as much as did the state-
liness and amplitude. Hère was an estate of thousands
of acres — many miles in extent — bearing on its surface
ail the marks of almost primitive modes of husbandry.
Worm fences, shallow plowing, the use of hoe and
wooden rake ; gâtes with pins and sockets instead of
latches, clap-boards instead of shingles and plank, and
so on throughout the gamut of bucolîc appurtenances
long since discarded in thrifty and progressive régions.
But beyond ail this, there was that indescribable air of
isolation from the rest of the world, as if the plantation
were an independent self-sufïîcient hereditament of the
DeKays, owîng no allegiance to any power outsîde its
boundary lines. No other house, save the small cabins
of negro tenants scattered hère and there, was visible.
The estate was too large to admit of neighbors.

When Moreton and Reynolds went down to the
drawing-room they found themselves in the midst of a
Company composed largely of gentlemen, there being
but four ladies besîdes the hostess. Miss Noble was
surrounded by a group of young sportsmen freely dîs-
cussing hunting and shootîng topics, her brîght, strong
face and Juno formshowingattheirbest. A tall young
woman, a Miss Beresford from Montgomery, whose father
had been governor of the state — and whose brother, Mr.

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AN ÛLD PLANTA TION ffOUSE. 8l

Mallory Beresford, a noted shot, was présent — stood
near a wîndow in conversation with Mr. Noble and
General DeKay. But the most striking group in the
room was composed of Mr. Mallory Beresford and two
ladies, one a quick-spoken, alert, rather faded looking
blonde, whose lips could not cover her irregular teeth,
the other a pale, sweet-faced, almost slight young
person, whose bearing, though decidedly womanly and
dignified, had a girlish charm wholly indescribable. The
blonde was speaking in a rapid manner, and her words,
sharply accentuated, reached the ears of Reynolds :

" Oh, I am really not a guest," she was saying, " I
invited myself. I came to gather material for a letter
to our paper. I begged the privilège of General
DeKay. A description of a shooting-party on a gen-
uine old Southern plantation is a rare find for a corre-
spondent. I feel that I am in grand luck." Her ges-
tures amounted to gesticulations.

" Ah, Miss Crabb, what journal do you represent ? "
inquired Mr. Beresford in a voîce modulated to the
gentlest southern inflections.

** The Ringville Star, of Ringville, Indiana. I am the
assocîate editor,** she glibly responded.

Reynolds heard this much with his eyesfîxedon the
face of the other woman whose smile had that rare
quality of sweetness suggesting sadness, and whose
large, soft blue eyes beamed with a tendemess and
truthfulness that seemed in some way touched with

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82 AT LO VÊ *S EXTREMES.

well repressed trouble. There are faces whose expres-
sion will at first sîght suggest some secret story of grief
or wrong or regret. Sometîmes a high order of beauty
will, of itself, carry with it, as the flower carries its per-
f urne, a haunting reminder, or half-reminder, of the sub-
tle ways of fate. Reynolds was aware that General
DeKay was coming across the room to meet him, but
he could not tear his gaze from the young woman's
lovely face.

" I haven't presented you to my nièce/* saîd the Gen-
eral, taking the young man's arm. " She is really my
daughter now, for I hâve made her my heir. Haven't
much left for her to inherit, however, save a good old
name."

For a moment Reynolds' hand closed overthewarm,
dainty fingers extended towards him, and he bowed
low before Mrs. Ransom — Agnes Ransom, a name that
was soon to become one of thrilling sweetness to him.

•* Oh, it's very pleasant, in many ways, to belong to
the press," Miss Crabb was saying. "One can go
every where and see every thing. The railroads gîve us
free passes and the hôtels put our rates to the lowest.
For instance, how could I everhave found my way into
this delightful house and this charming company, if I
hadn't carrîed the magie of the press with me? " She
ended with a rather musical laugh. Her question was
one that Beresford dared not attempt to answer, for, in
fact, he knew of no other way by which she could hâve

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AM OLD PLANTA TÎOM HOU SE, 83

gained an entrance to this secluded and exclusive place.
It chanced that he knew how the editor of a Mont-
gomery paper had înterested himself in Miss Crabb's
behalf and begged General DeKay to extend her the
privilège of " writing up ** the shoot.

" She seems to be an excellent young woman, and
then her paper îs hopelessly obscure. You needn't
fear you will ever hear of it again, unless shesendsyou
a copy/* the editor urged, " and I feel a sort of frater-
nal responsibility for her freedom of the country while
she's hère. We can't be too tender in our treatment of
Northern editors. Whatever we do offensive to the
least one of them will be trumpeted to the four winds
by them ail."

Beresford very much desired to talk with Mrs. Ran-
som, but the glîb représentative of the Star went on so
rapidly that he could find no chance for withdrawing
his attention. Then when Reynolds appeared on the
scène ail hope faded out.

" You are a fine shot, Mr. Beresford, I présume,"
continued Miss Crabb, " kill birds on the wing? *'

*• I believe I am a fair shot," he answered, with a
true sportsman's faith in the impressiveness of mod-
esty. " I shoot well enough to enjoy the sport."

" I saw Captain Bogardus and Dr. Carver shoot
together once," shesaid, "and itwasjust lovely. They
hit most every time — little glass balls thrown out of a
trap. It was extraordinary."

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04 AT LO VE *S EXTREMES.

Reynolds and Mrs. Ransom had moved away. It
was a great relief to Beresford when dinner was an-
nounced. At any other tîme he mîght hâve been able
to bear, and even enjoy Miss Crabb's rapid and versa-
tile conversation, but now that Agnes Ransom was
seemîngly absorbed in Jistening to this dark, handsome
stranger, he could not keep his wîts about him. Miss
Crabb had to do ail the talking, a thing she did not
seem to regard as a hardship.

" There is a véritable ruin near hère, I am told,** she
said, " a picturesque old heap, the remains of a grand
mansion, on a bluff by the river. I should very much
like to go and see it before I return to Montgomery.
Do you know any thing about it ?**

** No, I regret that I hâve not the pleasure. I believe
I hâve never heard of it,*' he answered. " General
DeKay should be able to inform you." And so he
conducted her to the host and hastened toanotherpart
of the room, conscious of having been guilty of a petty
turn.

Moreton had joîned the group of which Miss Noble
was the light, whilst Reynolds and Mrs. Ransom had
found theîr way to Miss Beresford, whose ultra Southern
face and figure were supplemented by conversational
grâces strikingly suggestive of a social era almost for-
gotten, save among the most conservatîve people of the
low country. She was tall and dark, wîth regular feat-
ures, large, rather expressionless black eyes and straight

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A M OLD PLANTA TIOJ^ ÎJO USÉ. 85

black haïr. Mrs. Ransom întroduced Reynolds, and
then dinner was announced.

" Thîs îs a gentlemen's party/* Miss Beresford saîd,
on the way to the dining-room, **and it has been
arranged that the ladies shall act as waiters, and we
beg you not to critîcîse our methods too severely — we
are not perfectly trained to the work.**

" One who has been for several years lîvîng in the
family of a mountaineer, as I hâve, should not be in a
criticisîng mood," responded Reynolds ; " how shall
such an one présume to judge whether or no you bal-
ance a tray artîstically ? '*

He spoke lightly, but the word mountaineer, as he
uttered it, called up with electrîcal swiftness, a thought
that sent a strange thrill through him. A low, pathetî-
cally plaintive voice seemed to speak to him în the
mountain dialect. He saw a little coarsely-clad form
leaning on the gâte at White's, with the pale starlight
glimmering on its upturned face.

As Miss Beresford had said ît was to be, the dinner
was served by the ladies, who passed behind the chairs
of the gentlemen, flitting nimbly back and forth, receiv-
ing the viands from the hands of negro servants at the
door of an antê-room, and presenting them to the
guests. It was a study worthy of an artist's handling,
that ample dining-room, with its curiously carved
panels of oak, its antique mahogany side-board, its
ponderous brass chandeliers and its high-backed chairs.

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86 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES,

Even Mîss Crabb, as she actîvely busied herself with
the part of the duties that fell to her share, showed to
picturesquely good effect amidst such foils to her
vivacious face and restless energy.

She was, by tempérament and éducation, a person
not likely to slight any opportunîty of furthering her
own plans, no matter how great the breach of small
proprieties involved in the act. Even as she brightly
and smartly hurried hither and thither around the
table, she was thinking of how her expériences and
observations hère at the DeKay mansion would look
in the pages of a certain magazine, if only she could
get it accepted, with a number of picturesque, ultra
Southern illustrations, and with her name appended in
full : Sara Annah Crabb. She îmagined the stir such
an event would cause in Ringville, where as yet her
genius was not especially admired. She nurséd a
dream of sudden famé quite masculine and muscular,
so to speak, which would enable her to get even with
the maie editors who had so often made sport of her
prose and verse and even of her name. She was a
' good girl, honest, conscientious and full of kindness,
but she had had a very hard struggle with life, and she
was mightily ambitious. The adroitness with which
she now and then slipped from her pocket a little
note-book and pencil and the rapidity with which she
jotted down certain memoranda of what she saw or
heard prevented much notice being given to the

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AN OLD PLANTA TION HOUSE. 87

încîvilîty by eîther host or guests. Indeed she had a
quiet, semi-furtive celerity that, coupled with what
may be called an însîgnificance of manner, neutralized
any vulgarity which otherwise would hâve been observ-
able to an offensive degree. Then, too, she talked
so rapidly and volubly that if one looked at her at ail
one must hâve been whoUy occupîed with what her
lîps were doing. It was a wonder how she could
împress one as being a very quiet person and yet be
skipping about and talking like that.

She was a révélation to Moreton. She gave him a
glimpse of American intellectual life in the crude
state exemplified from a féminine standpoint. He had
heard of and read of the strong-minded women of the
western continent, but hère was the first instance that
had come within his view. Strange to say, he rather
liked her. Her freedom was racy of the West, the
breezy, broad, grassy, fertile West, where, as he
îmagined, the buffaloes ventured into the outskirts of
the cities and where the men took their guns with
them to church. Perhaps lie did not imagine this,
after ail, but the spirit of it was in his thoughts. She
sèemed to him a fair exponent of society molded by
such surrounding. He felt with aesthetic nicety how,
turning from Miss Crabb*s harmless inquisitiveness,
chic and crude vim, the lines of féminine force and
beauty, by comparîson, were graded through a thousand
changes to reach such perfection as he perceived in

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S8 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

Miss Noble. He even found himself chivalrously
attacking providence for showing such a différence in
bestowing gifts upon the two giris. Why should Miss
Crabb be so tall and ang^lar and sallow, so lacking in
the Unes of grâce, so sharp-voiced and ugly? Why
could she not hâve been rich, at least? Poor girl!
she must carry so much while Miss Noble had beauty,
health, grâce, riches.

The Windows were open, allowing a gentle ripple of
air through the room, charged with a woodsy freshness
and that grateful balm always présent on warm winter
evenings in the south. Once when Mrs. Ransom leaned
over Reynolds* shoulder in performing some needed
service, the loose end of a simple ribbon at her throat
was blown lightly against his cheek and he caught the
merest waft of violet perfume from the flowers on her
breast. It was a slight thing, but it was to him the
sweetest part of the dinner.

Women appear to be little aware, as a rule, of the
powerful influence they may wield over men by their
sweet négative qualities as well as by their sweet posi-
tive ones. For instance, the absence of a high harsh
voîce is next in value to the présence of a gentle and
low one. A quiet, modest shyness of manner may be
apparent from the total absence of any angular self-
assertion rather than from the actual existence of the
manner itself. Hence it is that most women who fancy
tbemselves strik;ingly attractive to men, are really quitc

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AN OLD PLANTA TION HO USE, 89

the reverse, whiist ît is oftén the case that the shy, sen-
sitive woman who shrinks from self-display, wins
admiration from the other sex without possessing any
positive qualities especially charming. With the
approach of Mrs. Ransom, a half-formed sensé of satis-
faction and subtie delight crept into Reynolds* bosom,
as if with the fragrance of the flowers she wore he
breathed in a rarer and more precious élément exhaled
by her own flower-lîke nature. It is good for a man to be
able to keep undulled his susceptibleness to such déli-
cate influences, for thereby his nature enriches and
sweetens itself. The crucial test of virility of the high-
est order is that of its sensitiveness to the finest and
purest demands of woman's nature. The man's souI
has lost its morning freshness whose nerves do not
tingle response to the least touch of the most ethereal
breath of féminine sweetness, sincerity and beauty, and
he is a brute who pauses to trace his susceptibility to
some gross origin.

" It is quite charming to dine under such ministra-
tîon," said Reynolds, while receiving some délicate
dish from the steady little hand, "but I should **

" No," she interrupted with a grave, sweet smile, ** do
not say the rest. We think it quite fitting. My uncle
at fîrst refused to hâve any ladies included in the
party; but I insisted on having one or two of my
dearest friends, and it is agreed that we are not to be
considered as forming any part of the company."

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90 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES.

She passed on, without givîng him any chance for
further words. Beresford, who sat opposite, begrudged
every syllable she had uttered.

Ali around the table the conversation was of field
sports, adventures with dog and gun and prospects for
the morrow's shooting. General DeKay and Mr.
Noble, as vétérans, led the discussions, the banker
giving fluent and graphie accounts of his expériences in
the Maine and Michigan woods, the General respond-
ing with racy bits of adventure in the game régions of
Louisiana and Florida. M en who like field sports are,
as a rule, eamest, healthy, vivacious fellows, fond of
good cheer, with a decided leaning towards making the
best of every thing. Such company as that around the
board at the DeKay mansîon, was, therefore, one to
enjoy to the full the superb feast and ail its attendant
freedom from formality. The ladies retired when the
cigars came in, leaving General DeKay and Mr. Noble
to test some old brandy, whîle the younger men sipped
a milder beverage, under the white wreaths of Cuban
tobacco smoke. Two or three negro men-servants had
quickly cleared the table, and now moved noiselessly
about, or stood like white-aproned ebon statues,
gazing thirstily upon the sparkling glasses.

Meanwhile the ladies were having theîr own pleasant
dinner in the breakfast room. Miss Crabb entertaining
them with a vîvid account of some of her expériences
as a correspondent and editor. Her sketches had a

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AN OLD PLANTA TION HOUSE, çi

breadth and freedom, ail the more fascinating to the
Southern part of her audience, on account of the
impressions they gave of a field of woman's labor
unknown in the dreamy land of cotton and sugar-
cane, magnolias and mocking-birds. Miss Crabb was
very earnest and sincère, deeply impressed with the
importance and influence of her profession, and her
straight forward manner of talking, along with a per-
fectly évident good-heartedness, won a peculiarly
qualified admiration and respect from the majority of
her listeners. Her effect with Miss Noble was quite
différent. The shrewd, wide-awake Northern gîrl knew
very well how purely a matter of business Miss Crabb
was making of the whole affair, and how like a dissect-
îng-knife her pen would be. She sympathized with the
young joumalist, however, and silently hoped that she
might make a success of her bold effort to penetrate to
the inner heart of this old, exclusive Southern social
circle, the picturesque charm of whîch seemed to hover
like an atmosphère in the quaint, dingy, airy room.

AU the doors and Windows were open and the
night breathed through the house, bearing the pun-
gency of the men's tobacco in faint traces to the
breakfast room, and presently the sound of a banjo
along with the mellow, barbarie voîce of a negro
singer, fiUed the place. There was almost uproarious
applause from many manly mouths. Uncle Mono was
ending up the feast with his favorite song:

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92 AT LO VE *S EXTREMES.

" De raccoon am a cunnin' ting»
He rammel in de dahk,
Wid nuffin* 'tall fo' to '8tu*b he mind»
Tell he yer my 'coon-dog bahk ! "

He was a jolly-faced, jet black old fellow, wîth a
great shock of grizzly wool on his head, a comîcally
flexible mouth, and dusky eyes that danced to the
rapid time of his music.

It , was the merest chance that suggested Uncle
Mono and his banjo, but if îî had been pre-arranged,
as in a play, that his two or three humorous songs
and his one pathetic love-ditty should close the even-
îng s festivities, it would hâve been in accord wîth
the highest art. The almost rude yet wholly fascinât-
ing carvîngs on the time-stained panels of the dining-
room, seemed to especially favor the effect of such
lyrical savageness and grotesquerie.

The impression upon Moreton's mînd was strange,
almost weîrd. When ail was over and he was alone
in his room, he leaned back in a chair, with his feet
thrust out of the open window, and gazed into the soft
sky with a haunting sensé of how suddenly and far he
had been removed from the glare and show and polite
tumult of his own world. It was ail very fascinating,
this isolation and decay, thèse soft-tongued women,
thèse knightly, half-grave, half-hilarîous men, this
strain of music from Dahomey.

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CHAPTER VIII.

WITH DOG AND GUN.

" A westerly wind and a cloudy sky,
Proclaim it a hunting moming/'

SANG some one of the merry sportsmen, as the dogs
were loosed în a gently rolHng field, where, on one
hand, the stiff, stragglîng rows of dry cotton stalks ran
down to the river bank, and on the other a dreary fal-
low plat, overgrown with yellow sedge and clumps of
bushes, spread away to a dense wood. There was, în
fact, a gentle breeze from the west, and a thîn veil
of fleece clouds covered the sky. The morning
appeared propitious, every one was în hîgh spîrîts.

The ladies, în an ample sprîng wagon, had been
driven to an elevated point whence they could hâve a
sweeping view of the grounds to be shot over. A
field glass or two had been furnîshed them, so that dis-
tance need not trouble their observations.

The men, in a long lîne and distant from each other
not less than twenty yards, walked slowly with the
dogs runnîng to and fro ahead of them.

The morning was balmy and warm, but not hot,
with just a hint of dampness in the s^îr» Along thç

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94 AT LO VE 'S EXTREMES.

river a low-hanging line of .gray fog was slowly fading
away.

The ladîes alighted from the wagon, with the help
of the colored driver, and disposed themselves in pic-
turesque attitudes, their broad hats thrown back and
the wind fluttering their ribbons. Miss Noble and
Miss Crabb were the most interested, the latter
making swift notes in a little red book.

Reynolds had quite forgotten his promise to Miss
Noble about teaching her how to shoot. He had, in
fact, forgotten her as well. Moreton was on one side of
him, Beresford on the other, He felt the responsibility
of having to shoot between too such marksmen ; but
he was also keenly alive to the opportunity it would
give him for a display of his finest abilities as a sports-
man. He had resolved to lead the field if possible and
he could scarcely hâve told why. Mrs. Ransom had
said something just before starting about Beresford
being considered the best shot présent. This may hâve
served as a stimulus. She had not meant to be over-
heard by any gentleman of the party, her words being
for Miss Crabb's ear ; but Reynolds did hear. Her voice
had a way of getting to him, as if it sought him of its
own account. It was a v^ry sweet and musical voice,
suggesting a reserve of strength and depth, with just a
suspicion in it of that vague sadness which lurked in
her face.

Some hampers containing luncheon had been

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WITH ÙOG AND CUN. 9S

deposited under a tree by a little spring near where the
ladies were posted, and hère, at the sound of a horn
blown by the negro attendant, ail were to corne at hîgh
noon.

The shootîng began early, the first birds beîng poînted
by one of General DeKay's dogs. It was a fine strong
bevy, ilushed in a weedy swale. Mr. Noble and the
General both fired right and left, getting but one bird
each. The dogs dropped to shot and the game, well
scattered, was marked down in some low sedge two
hundred yards further on. Two of the dogs were now
sent to retrîeve the dead birds, which was scarcely donc
when another covey was flushed by some of the party,
the birds taking almost the same flight as the first.
This was enough to warm the blood in any sportsman's
veins. The dogs fairly trembled with eagerness. The
Une was lengthened, the shooters getting further apart
so as to coyer a wide territory. Beresford's pointer
was first to stand, Reynolds* setter, a noble dog,
promptly backing, and two birds were flushed.
It was a fine chance for a double shot, but Beres-
ford missed with his first barrel and kîlled with his
second. Reynolds eut down the missed bird with his
right and killed another that flushed in front of him
with his left. The shooting was now begun in eamest,
Beresford making a very diffîcult double a few steps
farther on, whilst Morpton distinguished himself by
three straight misses. General DeKay and Mr. Noble

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90 AT LÔ VE *S EXTREMES.

were apparently the most excîted menînthefield. The
banker was too ready, shooting as soon as hîs bîrd
showed above cover, and the General was rather slow,
poking hîs gun after his game until it had flown out of
certain range.

As fresh bevies were flushed and the birds scattered
themselves over a wide area, the sportsmen became
separated, or hunted în twos and threes.

Miss Noble and MissCrabb watched this eager skirm-
îsh line through théir glasses, keepîng up, meantîme, a
running discussion of the incidents as they occurred,
with true féminine lapses, now and then, into critîcîsm
of whatever chanced to offend their notions of how a
shoot should be conducted.

" I hope Mr. Reynolds will get outrageously beaten,"
exclaimed Miss Noble, " I really do."

" Why ? " asked the editor.

" Because I do/' was the response so perfectly intel-
ligible and satisfactory to ail women.

" Oh," said Miss Crabb, " you hâve a grudge, hâve
you?"

" He promised me he would teach me how to shoot,"
Cordelia laughingly responded, "and, like ail men, he
has not kept his word."

" There ! did you see that ? " crîed Miss Crabb still
întently surveying the distant shooters.

" No, what was it ? "

•* Mr. Reynolds killed a bird that Mr. Beresford had

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WITH DOG AND GUN. 97

missed and then turned and killed one that the English
gentleman — what's his name ? — had failed on ! It was
lovely— I like that!'*

" Mr. Moreton appears not to be having good luck/'
said Cordelia, " but I fancy he's quite as good a shot
as any of them. My father says that any one wîll hâve
unlucky days, no matter how good a shot he may be/*

" Mr. Reynolds hasn't missed yet, so far as I hâve
observed," saîd Miss Crabb. " There went down two
more birds before his gun. I think he has the best dog
of any of them : it seems to know just what he
wants."

"How is my brother succeeding?" inquired Miss
Beresford from her seat on a wagon-cushion whîch she
had laid on the ground and covered with a gay shawl.

" Very fînely, indeed," was Miss Crabb's ready re-
sponse. "The honors seem to lie between him and
Mr. Reynolds. They easily lead the rest."

" My brother never has been beaten, I believe/* Miss
Beresford went on. " He is said to be the best shot in
the state.*'

" Begging your pardon," Miss Crabb responded, " it
really looks as if Mr. Reynolds would beat ; he hasn't
missed a shot yet, and I don't think he's going to.**

Miss Beresford smiled rather incredulously, as if her
faith in her brother*s superiority could not so easily
be shaken.

" But they are ail getting so far away that I can not

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98 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES.

be sure any longer/' continued the observant editor in
an apologizing tone.

Mrs. Ransom was seated some distance apart from
the rest, busying herself with pinning a wreath of bay
leaves from material gathered off some small trees by
the spring.

The firing, scattered far and wide, came to the ears
of thèse listeners, softened down to a mère desultory
booming, with now and then the quick répétition that
told of a double shot. Even Miss Crabb ceased her
efforts to foUow the course of the merry sportsmen.
She fell to work at her note-book as if venting a bitter
spite upon it and for a time her tongue rested from its
almost incessant labors.

Cordelia went to where Mrs. Ransom was busy with
the bay leaves and sat down on the dry ground beside
her.

" A victor's crown/' she said gayly. " So you are
going to reward the winner? "

" Oh no, I hâve been playing little girl. When I
was a child I used to make wreaths like this, only I
hâve lost the ready knack I had then."

" It's such a delightful thing to be a little girl," said
Cordelia, impulsively laying her hand on Mrs. Ran-
som's arm and fîxing her frank eyes upon her face.
" I wish I could hâve always staid about thirteen —
that's the golden âge, I think, don't you ? "

'* I was a very happy little girl," replied Mrs. Ran-

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WITH DOG AND GUN, 99

som. The evasîveness în her voîce and the far away
look that came for a moment into her large blue eyes,
were not observed by Cordelia, who, with a buoyant,
rétrospective ring in her voice, exclaimed —

" Oh, so was I, ever so happy. There never was any
one who had so delightf ul a time. It was so easy to be
happy then."

"You don*t look very sad, even now," said Mrs. Ran-
som, wholly recovering her sweet, half-sad smile.

Cordelia laughed merrily.

" One can't always tell what a world of trouble a face
like mine may mask/* she replied in her lightest way,
but it gave her a real pang the next moment, recollect-
îng Mrs. Ransom's bitter expérience. She picked up
the wreath, which was now finished, and put it on her
head. It gave to her plump, joyous face an air so free,
fresh and almost rustic, that one might hâve mistaken
her for a Western f armeras daughter. Mrs. Ransom
looked at her for a moment, and then on a sudden im-
pulse, put a hand on either glowing cheek, and drawing
her forward, kissed her again and again.

" I hope your dear, sweet face will never be more of
a mask than it is now," she said. " You blush as if my
kiss had been *'

" Had been sour ! " interrupted Cordelia with a ring-
ing laugh.

Meantime the men were havîng what is called glo-
rious sport. The dogs, now thoroughly warmed with

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lôô AT LO VE '5 EXTREMES.

theîr work, were behaving their best. It was a pleasing
thîng to see them conscîously competing with each
other, carefully beatîng back and forth in front of theîr
masters, allowing no spot of ground to go unexamîned,
promptiy standing or backîng or dropping to shot,
eagerly watching each other*s movements and taking
quick advantage of every favoring accident of ground-
surface or of cover. Each dog took évident delight in
seeing a bird, flushed from his point, killed by his mas-
ter. A missed quail brought as much chagrin to dog as
to sportsman.

Some of the party, in foUowing the flight of the
bevîes, reached a country eut up by shallow ravines
and guiches leading down to the river and filled with a
dense tangle of small trees and matted vînes. Hère
the shooting was quite difficult and exciting, and both
sportsmen and dogs were taxed to the utmost of their
skill ; for it was impossible to know where a bird would
flush or what direction its flight would take. Mr. Noble
was peculiarly suited to this sort of thing. He was in
his élément where the cover was thickest and the swift-
est action required. He displayed his nimbleness and
readiness to good effect snap-shooting, as the birds
whirred out of the dense cover to tum into it again,
showîng themselves for the merest point of time. He
and Reynolds chanced to get together towards noon în
a place where to kill a bird required almost electrical
quickness. Reynolds rarely refused a shot and always

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WlTH DOC AI^D Gl/I^. tôt

kîUed. His movements dîd not appear surprîsîngfly
swift, but the gun always got to his shoulder in time.
He did not snap-shoot, as the word goes : his aim was
obtained with the promptness, celerity and certainty of
a mechanical effect. Only four times during the sport
did he fail to bring down his game, and every bird of
fifty shot at was hit. But as a true sportsman, he was
ready to yield the palm to the highest achievement, and
while he felt a secret satisfaction in knowing that he
had beaten Beresford, he took even keener pleasure in
the victory of his dog. The noble animal had per-
formed a feat in the présence of Beresford, Mr. Noble,
Moreton and General DeKay, that proved him a king
of dogs.

" ru give you a thousand dollars cash for him ! "
exclaimed the banker excitedly.

The entire party broke forth with hearty applause.

It came about as follows : The dog had been sent
înto some weeds by Moreton to retrieve a dead bird,
whîch he promptly did. It was as he was retuming,
with the game in his mouth, and leaping clear above the
weed-tops, as was his habit, that he suddenly, at the
highest point of a bound, turned his head half about,
and stiffened himself in mid-air, on the scent of another
bird. He struck the ground standing staunchly, his
eyes fixed, his feet slightly spread, his back and tail on
a line. The sportsmen could hardly believe it a genu-
îne point ; but when the bird was flushed and kîlled,

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I02 A T LOVE' S EXTREMES,

they stood for a moment lookîng at the sensitive thor-
ough-bred, with that flawless admiration whîch men
reserve for beautiful women and sure-nosed dogs ; then
they ail applalided.

Beresford felt defeated at every point, and in his
heart a prémonition of failure began to ferment. A
few days ago he had met Agnes Ransom at his father's
house in Montgomery, and had fallen . a prey to her
gentle voice and grave, sweet face. Since then she
had been constantly in his mind, her influence growing
upon him by force of memory, some new grâce adding
itself to the impression, as each hour recalled a word,
a smile or a glance unconsciously treasured by him.
Now it ail seemed slipping away. It is one of the most
natural of mental opérations, this swift reaching for-
ward to grasp an evil before it is more than vaguely
threatened. We call it foreboding : it may be the last
refinement of logic. Beresford kept to himself the rest
of the morning, rather gloomily borrowing of the
future. Something told him that Agnes Ransom and
Reynolds were going to be lovers. His enthusiasm
flagged and he shot with less than his usual care. On
the contrary, Reynolds seemed to be attended by the
god of good luck ; every chance seemed to favor him.
His self-confidenee never once deserted him. He too
was borrowing of the future, and what heborrowed was
very sweet. Deep in his heart nestled the precious
belief that Mrs. Ransom had involuntarily — nay,iincon-

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WITH DOG AND GUN. 103

sciously — responded to his interest in her. This gave
him nerve and alertness and force. When he would
flush a bîrd, the loud hum of its wings an<J the buUet-
like rapidîty of its flight did not disturb h^s thought or
his vision. He threw up his gun with a promptness and
self-possession that insured a perfect aim. When he
fired the resuit was a thoroughly fine, clean shot, stop-
ping the game dead in mid-air, so that it fell without a
flutter. Yet ail the time his dream went on.

At about half-past twelve the horn blew loud and
long from the place where the ladies had been sta-
tioned with the luncheon. Most of the shooters were
loth to leave off the excitîng sport, even though the
stirrings of hunger began to bc importunate. The
mellow notes of invitation fancifully executed by the
negro "bugler" had nothing very insistent in them.
It was a long while before the party began to straggle
back. Reynolds was first to reach the little grove
above the spring near where the ladies had been wait-
îng and watching. He strode swiftly along with his
gun across his shoulder, his dogs following at his heels.
A small, fancifully twisted tuft of mistletoe that he bore
in his left hand was heavy with milk-white berries and
waxen green leaves. His broad-brimmed hat was far
back on his head, leaving his swarthy face unshaded.
He had almost touched Mrs. Ransom before he saw
her where she sat under a little pine tree with herhands
listlessly crossed in her lap, her head uncovered and her

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I04 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

dark hair gleaming in strong contrast with the almost
colorless faimess of her face. He started perceptîbly
on discovering her, but a smile came over his face, as he
bowed and said :

" A charmingly aîiy place you hâve : may I join you ?
I am really quite tired."

" Certainly, there's ample room," she half-hesitatîngly
replied, a little color slowly warmîng hercheeks, "but I
believe the luncheon is spread and you must be hungry."

" No, Fd rather rest. The party is scattered in every
direction ; it will be some time before ail are in.
What a wide view from hère — could you see us shoot-
ing?"

" Yes, that is Miss Crabb and Miss Noble could — but
really I did not look. It frightens me to see a gun
fired. It is a silly weakness that I can't overcome."

He had thrown aside upon the ground his old-fash-
îoned game-bag stuffed with the dead birds, and laid
his gun across it. He sat down a little way from her,
în a half-reclining position, resting the weight of his
heavy shoulders on one elbow.

" I never before saw quails so numerous, I believe,*'
he said, twirling the spray of mistletoe and looking at
his favorite dog which had crouched panting before
him. " We hâve had a fine morning's shoot."

" I am very glad. My uncle would hâve been so dis-
appoînted if you had failed to find birds," she responded,
her voice, so sweet, so peculiarly artless and tender.

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WITH DOG AND GUN, 105

" He is a fervent sportsman/' she continued, " and
sets great store by his annual shooting party. Last
year the rain interfered and he was terribly put out
about ît."

" He certainly knows how to manage an affair like
thîs/' Reynolds said. " I never saw any thing so per-
fectly planned and executed. We found the birds at
once and hâve been shooting ever since. Nothing
could hâve been better."

He carelessly took up her hat, whîch lay within easy
reach of hîm, and thrust the stem of the mistletoe
spray behind the broad band of ribbon that encîrcled
the crown. It was a cold looking cluster.

" Not a bad bit of décoration, is it ? " he smilingly
inquired. " It is the most peculiar and beautiful sprig
of mistletoe I ever saw. See how the smaller stems
hâve grown around each other in fanciful twists."

She made a quick, suddenly-arrested movement, as
îf to snatch away the frigid-looking winter cluster, then
glancing up into his face, simply said :

" The hat is not of a kind to bear much embellish-
ment."

He appeared not to hear her. In fact he did not
hear her, or if he did it was merely her voice, not her
words. The relaxation from the physîcal exercise and
mental excîtement of the sport was so sweetly supple-
mented by the influence of Mrs. Ransom's gentle
présence that he fell înto a mood as dreamy and

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Io6 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

tender as the air and sunshine around him. Some
vague stimulus was affecting his nerves and blood,
suffusing his brain with a happiness as precious as ît
was undefinable. Like the effect of rare wîne, thîs
sudden mood seemed to be connected in some way
with evil, as if it were too delicious not to hâve some
after-taste of the hidden poison it contained. He
knew and he did not know what it was that, like a
skulking serpent, shadowy and hideously menacîng on
account of its uncertaîn proportions as well as on
account of its venomous nature, darted now and again
through his dream. Mrs. Ransom, as if in some way
touched with the subtile essence of his mood, looked
at him and felt a little prémonition of some new
expérience in store for her. At this moment she and
Reynolds were as detached from ail the rest of the
world as if they had been the only inhabitants of an
undiscovered island. They were aware of this and for
a few moments reveled in the fascination of the expéri-
ence. Somewhere in the conscience of each an ill-
defined protest against the future stirred uneasily.

Reynolds was first to recover himself. Clearing
his mind, as if with a wave of the hand, he held the hat
towards her with a careless movement.

" Put it on and let me see how it will look," he saîd.
'* I pride myself in my ability to trim hats."

If she had a mind to be offended she quickly changed.
His smile was so frank and his eyes so bold and honest

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WITH DOG AND GUN, 107

that it was impossible for her to suspect him or to
refuse his light request. But she could not keep a pink
flush from rising into her cheeks, and her lips glowed
like cherries. He looked calmly at her for a moment,
then in a perfectly earnest way said :

" I like it, it becomes you : please let it stay, will you ?
You are lovely when you look like that."

His eyes were fixed upon hers with a deep and ten-
der meaning. Despite herself her heart leaped vio-
lently and she grew pale. In her confusion she arose.
He saw the change come over her face and sprang
hastily to his feet.

** I hope I hâve not offended you, you are not "

he earnest ly began.

She interrupted him with a little laugh.

" Nothing so serious as that," she lightly exclaimed,
waving one fair hand. " It is time for us to be looking
after the luncheon."

She stooped and patted the head of one of the dogs.
The rest of the sportsmen came straggling up the incline
from the fields, one of them singing a gay hunting carol.

Reynolds picked up his bag and gun. There was a
glow in his eyes and a hot tingle in his veins. He
looked at the lithe, graceful form, and sweet, earnest
face of the young woman, as at an inestimable treasure.
The flush had returned to her cheeks and lips, though
she had struggled hard to overcome this incompréhen-
sible émotion.

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io8 AT LO VE*S EXTREMES.

** Why can't we stay hère a lîttle longer? " he asked,
almost with véhémence. " I was enjoyîng ît so much.
There's no dire necessity for going, just at this moment,
îsthere?"

She fixed her eyes on hîs for a second, then lowered
them and turned half âway. It was a mère glance, a
flash, but it was an involuntary confession that she
understood his feelings and did not dare to give them
opportunity, What further meaning it conveyed he
could only wish he knew.

" Yonder îs uncle," she murmured. " Poor old man, I
know he's tired ! " and she almost ran to meet General
DeKay.

Reynolds watched her go tripping down the gentle
slope, through the stunted wire grass and tufts of sedge,
wearing on her hat his spray of mistletoe. She looked
like a mère girl, slim and sve/t, whose movements were
as light and free as the wind. She had won over his
dog and it trotted away beside her, looking up into her
face. He felt his heart throbbing heavily, and some-
thing like a tender mist gathered in his eyes. An
almost uncontrollable désire to go swiftly after her and
clasp her in his arms took possession of him. Would
he ever get so near her again ? Would she ever again
give him a look like that which was now pictured so
vividly in his memory? Ah, those serious, tender,
eamest eyes, that low, gentle, haunting voice ! Would
those sweet, half-sad lips ever meet his with a kiss of

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WITH DOG AND GUN. 109

unquenchable love? He stood there actually trem-
blîng wîth the stress of hîs suddenly-generated émo-
tions, an underglow of passion showing in his bronzed
face.

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CHAPTER IX.
LUNCHEON AL FRESCO.

1T îs one of the distinctive features of lîfe în our
Southern States, this keen pursuît and enjoyment
of field sports. The climate favors every thîng of the
sort, and the tastes of the people, as well as the leisure
whîch has always been theîr inheritance, keep alive a
zest for out-door accomplishments, amongst which
shootîng is accorded the chief place. It has sometimes
been hinted that, so zealous are they in this direction,
if small game chances to be scarce, they will on occa-
sion shoot at each other, in order not to fail of diligent
pràctice ; but no man who has ever enjoyed the cordial
hospîtalîty and generous freedom of a low-country
plantation in the quail season, will be likely to recall
any but the charmingest recollections of the occasion.
The open season for small game comes there in the
most delîghtful part of the year, when to be out of
doors is, of itself, as exhifewating as a surf-bath în sum-
mer. From the old, wide-winged, aîry plantation
house and its profuse cheer and comfort, one goes forth
into fields, basking in more than Indian-summer dreami-
ness and warmth, The air is fresh and pungent, the

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Z UNCHEON AL FRESCO. m

ground fs dry, the prospect îs libéral and invîting.
There is no sensé of lîmîtatîon to the ramblcr's opéra-
tions ; he feels that, Hkc the poet's brook, he can go on
forever.

By gentlemen of robust tastes, such cntcrtaînmcnt as
that afforded by General DeKay's shootîng-party îs of
a kind greatly enjoyed and rarely obtaînable. The
gamehad been carefuUy preserved and the shootîng
area was practîcally unlimited, whîch, wîthout the aîd
of perfect weather and a rare hospîtalîty, would hâve
made the mère lîberty to shoot joy enough for the
enthusîastic sportsmen. But General DeKay and hîs
wife knew how to entertaîn in that off-hand, natural
way which is peculiarly gratifying to men bent on such
vigorous pleasures as field-sports give. Substantial
viands, good wine, fine tobacco and freedom from con-
ventional absurdities around the board were supple-
mented by such cordial watchfulncss of their needs as
made the guests feel " at home " indeed.

The luncheon spread on a smooth plat by the spring
and presided over by Mrs. Ransom was discussed in
no mincing mood by the quail-shooters, while they
talked over the excellent sport of the moming with
fréquent eulogies of their host's superior manner of
planning and directing it.

Reynolds* shooting was heartily praised, and Ruby,
his dog, got such éloquent tributes as never before fell
to an unsuspecting setter. Miss Crabb could not

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112 AT LOVEES EXTREMES.

refrain from openly makîng notes, nor could she rcpress
a désire to ask questions. She was embarrassed with
the riches of material that fell about her. She had vis-
ions of a letter that should make both her and her
paper famous.

Physically as well as mentally, Miss Crabb was in
strong contrast with the rest of the company; her
voice, too, her pronunciation, her method of intona-
tion, and, indeed, ail the salients of her personality,
eut with an almost barbarie éclat through this smooth
social atmosphère. At every turn she made herself
felt as a foreign quantity. She was obviously busy ;
she had a purpose, an ulterior object ; she was plying
a trade, and a trade, by the way, of which she was very
proud. So nearly as words may express it, she was
pleasingly disagreeable. Her companions were aware
that she aroused in them a dual sentiment wherein
pity was scarcely separated from a low grade of
admiration. That she was a novice in newspaper work
could be detected by the most unskillful observer, and
like ail novices, she was an enthusiast. Evidently she
regarded gathering notes as the chief purpose of life
for which she would make any sacrifice. She was
nervous and fussy, quick, keen, ready, anxious to
make every thing serve her a turn. Hearing the
gentlemen discussing the interesting features of the
morning*s sport, she plied them with such a voUey of
questions as taxed their agility to answer. Meantime

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L UNCHEON AL FRESCO. , 113

her pencil danced recklessly over the pages of the
little red book. The prospect of doing somethîng
unique intoxicated her and made her enunciation
still more rapid. Reynolds' shooting and the splendid
achîevement of his dog were to be the chief points of
her report and she spared no pains to get the détails
in fulL She looked upon men and men's doings as of
much more importance and interest than women and
women's acts ; she was not quite sure that even dogs
were not rated by the world as rather more noticeable
than women. Secretly she harbored an ambition to
show the world what a woman could do if once she
had got clear of the meshes of féminine restraints.
Why shouldn't she report a quail-shoot just as well as
a man ? At ail events, she was bound to try, and so
she went nimbly at the task.

" It*s unusual, isn*t it ? " she inquired of Mr. Tom
Boardman, a merry youth just graduated from a Ten-
nessee collège, and brim full of sport-lingo, " It*s unus-
ual, isn't it, for a dog to stiffen in the air on a point
with a bird in its mouth ? "

She said this ail so glîbly and eamestly, with a
slîght sideways turn of her head, that the youth
came near choking over his effort to smother a wild
laugh.

" Very unusual," he answered în a suffering tone,
" very."

She made some rapid notes in the red book. Then

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114 AT LOVE* S EXTREMES.

looking up, with the end of the pencil against her tceth,
said:

*' And he struck the ground, stanch on his nose, at
a half-turn ; is that right ? **

Mr. Tom Boardman's eyes suddenly wîdened and
then his nerve faîled him. He laughed uproariously
in spite of himself ; but to his great relief Miss Crabb
dîd not take offense. She joined him quite heartily in
his merriment at her own expense.

" It*s very înteresting," she added, " and I must get
it right. Give it to me slowly in technical language,
so that I can take it down. I guess I got some of the
terms mixed — absurdly, too, didn't I ? "

He caught a glimpse, so to speak, of the girl's charm-
îng kindness of heart and évident sincerity of purpose,
which instantly won upon him. He changed without
appearing to change and took great pains to give her the
information she desired, volunteering besides to détail a
number of the most striking incidents of the morning.

" Why shouldn't you try writing a novel and weave
înto it something of this sort ?** he asked. " It seems
to me that you might make a lively story of such
materials as you are gathering."

** And if I should wrîteone," she answered, her face
growing serious, " I couldn't get it printed."

"Why?"

" Oh, the publishers don't want provincial storîes,
they are not in vogue now."

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L UNCHEON AL FRESCO. 1 1 5

" Ah, well, but make it so f resh and true to life and
so breczy and interesting generally, that the publishers
couldn*t refuse. I know you could."

"That's a kînd compliment, but Tm too welI posted
to be carried away. A novel, now-a-days, must be

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î l6 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

" Fd gîve your story a genuîne indorsement of author-
îty."

" No, you wouldn't/' she responded, " You're a man
and you'd do as the rest. You'd say : Poor gfîrl, she'd
better be washîng dîshes or teaching school."

Boardman laughed.

Beresford saw the mistletoe spray in Mrs. Ransom's
hat, and, not dreaming of any one else than herself hav-
îng put ît there, asked where she had got ît.

"Mr. Reynolds brought ît from somewhere în hîs
rambles thîs mornîng,** she said. She took off her hat
and plucked out the sprig, but after hesitating a
moment, put it back again.

Beresford receîved the blow bravely, and, lîke the
true gentleman that he was, accepted the situation
without apparent embarrassment. Love at first sight
îs a fruit of warm climates, and passionate souIs seize
ît rapturously ; but love, even under a Southern sky,
sometimes turns to ashes before the swiftest lips may
reach ît.

" Mr. Reynolds has won the vîctory to-day,** he said,
" and under the ancient ruies has the rîght to choose
where he will hâve the crown rest. You wear ît lîke a
queen."

There was something behind hîs lîght manner and
lighter words that touched her. She did not rîghtly
construe him, guessing that he was simply striving to
hide the chagrin of hîs first defeat în the field.

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Z UNCHEON AL FRESCO. 1 1 7

"Victor to-day, vanquished to-morrow," was her
quîck rejoinder ; " there is a good deal of merc chance
in such things, I suppose. No doubt to-day was one of
your unlucky days."

" Yes, but I must admît that I never hâve equaled
Mr. Reynolds* score of this morning, so I can not get
any comfort out of your gracîous suggestion," he
frankly exclaimed. ** He is a better shot than I — the
best I ever saw/'

" My uncle says so too," she responded, " and he is
enthusîastic about the dog, the one that did the fine act."
" Superb, superb ! " he rejoîned with emphasîs. " I
would put that dog against the whole world of dogs."
He found a sort of comfort in praising hîs rival and his
rivales dog. It was a specîes of self-torture that dead-
ened for the time the pain of his defeat.

Miss Beresford, who was so situated that she could
not avoid hearîng this conversation, glanced at her
brother with a repressed resentment in her eyes. She
felt that he was not doing himself justice ; that he was,
in fact, failing to assert himself as a true Beresford, a
name that had never before tamely accepted and
acknowledged defeat.

" Give me your score, Mr. Beresford, please," saîd

Miss Crabb, coming forward with her book and pencil.

" Thîrty-three," he promptly answered. His sîster's

face flushed with anger. She tumed to him and said

under her breath :

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Il8 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

" She shall not do that — she shall not publish
it!"

" Pshaw ! " he almost whîspered, " don't allow your-
self to show any feeling. Don't make a scène. Can*t
you feel the delîcacy of my situation? Be quiet,
there's a good gîrl."

Miss Crabb had hurried awaytowhere Reynolds was
seated. She was intent upon getting the précise status
of things.

" Oh, you are way ahead," she exclaimed, in her clear
high tones. Then she seized the wreath of bay leaves
twined by Mrs. Ransom and forthwith laid it upon his
head.

"To the Victor belongs the crown!" she added,
laughing merrily. " See, Mrs. Ransom, Fve put your
handiwork to noble use ! "

She was so innocently playful in her manner, that no
one could deem her act a rude one. It seemed almost
fitting, at least permissible, in view of the freedom of
this little out-door convocation. But Reynolds lightly
doffed the circlet.

" I am too earnest a democrat to wear a crown of any
sort with due dignity," he laughingly said ; " besides,"
he added, " my dog is the hero, not I."

" Truth, every word of it ! " cried Moreton, balanc-
îng a glass of wine on the tips of his fingers. " Your
tastes are most commendably plebeian and proper. If
Miss Crabb will but let me describe your mountain

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L UNCHEON AL FRESCO, 1 1 9

hermitage she can fully appreciate your sturdy democ-
racy.

" Don't do that, Moreton, if you love me ; my cabin
îs my castle and my sanctuary," Reynolds answered in
mock earnestness.

It was an unlucky tum in the thoughtless conversa-
tion, for it sent a current of uneasiness through the
mind of Reynolds that made it very hard for him to
keep up his spirits to the level of the occasion. The
mère mention of those six years of mountain seclusion
was enough to awaken a whole world of distressing
memories. Things known only to himself came up to
darken his mind. Miss Crabb's restless energy and
joumalistic enterprise would not, however, allow him
long to grope among his carefully hidden secrets.

" Now a thought strikes me/* she exclaimed, as if
addressing the entire company; "can any one hère
sketch the least bit in the world ? What a fresh and
charming illustrated paperthe material I am collecting
would make for one of the magazines, if I could get
some truthful and spirited sketches from which an illus-
trator could take his eue ! " She rolled the end of her
pencil in her mouth and awaited an answer.

" Mr. Reynolds is an artist," said Moreton with a
sîdelong glance at his friend.

"Oh, Tm so glad! Won't you help me, Mr. Rey-
nolds ? Just a half dozen or so of striking local tran-
scripts — a view of General DeKay's house, a scène

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1 20 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES,

or two from the quail shoot, some character studies
and "

" You overwhelm me," saîd Reynolds, hîs face actu-
ally showîng the truth of hîs assertion. " I never could
trust myself to undertake such a commission ; and
besides," he added with a tone of suddenly discovered
relief, " I hâve no sketching materials with me."

Miss Crabb became thoughtful, tapping her forehead
with the back of her note-book. Mrs. Ransom came
to the rescue with a request for her to help pass coffee
to the gentlemen. The negro attendant had brewed a
pot of Java, the aromatic fragrance of which had been
for some minutes on the air.

It would, indeed, hâve been worth while for an artist
to hâve caught the impression of the scène just then.
The men carelessly standing or sitting, with the young
women ministerîng and the dogs lounging idly around
the outskirts of the group ; the soft atmosphère, the
broad, airy landscape with the green-fringed silvery
river wînding through the middie distance, the slum-
berous quiétude and the deep, dark forest rising yonder
like a wall.

After coffee the gentlemen went asîde to light pipes
and cigars. The afternoon was well advanced before
General DeKay proposed going to the field again.
Now and then a quail had been heard whistling in the
distance that far-reaching, energetic call of a straggler
to his scattered companions. A momentarily freshen-

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. L UNCHEON AL FRESCO, 1 2 1

ing breeze was fast brushing from the sky the film of
fleece clouds.

The ladies voted that they were satîsfiied wîth what
they had seen, wished the sportsmen a merry afternoon
and were driven back across the rustling scdgefields to
the old mansion.

Reynolds turned, after hehad walked some'dîstance,
and looked back. The wagon contaînîng the ladies
was slowly trundling over a little swell in the field.
Mrs. Ransom's face was, he thought, turned toward
him. Involuntarily he took off his hat and waved it in
the air. Then he saw, or imagined he saw, something
white flutter a response from the group in the wagon.
This little incident cost him quite dear, for he failed to
note, on turning about, that his dogs had corne to a
stand in the weeds near by. A quail sprang up from
his very toes and whirred away quartering to his right,
going like a bullet. He fired and missed. Moreton
took the bird on a cross shot, stopping it beautifully.

Reynolds* dogs looked at him with a sneaking leer
in their eyes, as if they felt the disgrâce of their mas-
ter.

" That's one debt paîd ! " Moreton cried. " Crédit
me, will you ? "

Reynolds felt no interest in the sport. His vision
was introverted, his ears were full of sweet sounds, his
heart was beating time to the melody of hîsday-dream.
He went down by the river and lay upon an old mossy

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122 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

drift log, agaînst one end of which the lîght current
rippled sweetly. There was a windy rustle in the reeds
and a broad, washing murmur came from the water.
He could see but a little distance along the river surf ace
either way, owing to a short bend, and the tall brakes
on the banks shut out ail else save an occasional report
from the guns of his more enthusiastic companions.
His dogs came and lay down near hîm, licking their
muscular legs and glossy sides, or nibbling at an occa-
sional burr in their hair. So ail the rest of the after-
noon he did not fire a shot. It was nearly sundown
when he again climbed up the river-bank and turned
towards the house, with not a bird to show for the two
or three hours spent with dogs and gun. But what to
him were the poor trophies of a quail-shoot, now that
his passionate nature was stirred to its depths with a
love whose fullness and intensity left no room for
another feeling or thought ? To be near Agnes Ran-
som, to hear her voice, to gaze into her eyes, to bring
the whole force of his will and the fuUest power of his
éloquence to bear upon her, to win her, to take her,
to triumphantly hold her as his own, thèse were the
desires, the purposes surging about in his breast. He
walked slowly back towards the DeKay mansion, taking
no heed of the beauties of earth or sky. It was noth-
ing to him that the low-hanging sun flung a glory over
the distant wood and touched the roof of the old house
as if with a flame.

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CHAPTER X.

MILLY INQUIRES.

ONE day în the time of Reynolds' absence at Gen-
eral DeKay's, White came down to Birmingham
in his cart and Milly insisted so strenuously on accom-
panying him, that she had her way. This led to an
adventure of a sort lîkely to impress itself deeply in the
mind of an unsophisticated girl of the mountains. She
had given no especial reason for wishing to visit the
city, but White shrewdly guessed that her désire to
know something of the whereabouts of Reynolds was
the motive impelling her to so unusual an undertaking,
for heretofore she had always been very averse to going
into Birmingham.

When they reached town White gave Milly a pit-
tance of money and said :

" You go ter some store, Milly, an' buy ye some
candy er a apple er somethin' er other. When ye git
tired er foolin* eround ye kin go back ter the cyart an'
stay ther' tell I come."

She took the small pièces of silver without a word
and allowed her father to désert her. She suspected
that he meant to deceive her and go off to some gam-

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1 24 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES,

blîng den ; but she dîd not care. Her désires ail cen-
tered in finding Reynolds or hearîng somethîng about
him.

She stroUed about from place to place în the street,
innocently staring into men's faces and quite as inno-
cently receiving, without shrînking, such brutal leers
and wînks as certain of the bejeweled and over-dressed
loafers bestowed in return. She went into a store dow
and then, but, înstead of asking for any article of mer-
chandise, she invariably propounded the question :

" I wanted ter ax ef ye hed seed any thing o' John
Reynolds *bout this yer town ? "

She spoke with such confiding earnestness of manner
and with such an appealing light in her eyes and such
music in her voice, that she attracted immédiate atten-
tion from whomever she addressed. She received
respectf ul answers from the tradesmen. None of them
knew any thing about Reynolds, but some of them,
touched in a sweet, indefinite way by the inexpressible
half-lisp of her childish voice, and feeling the influence
of her strange, yearning face and graceful form, tried
to draw her into conversation only to discover that she
became dumb so soon as she learned that they could
not give her what she sought. She turned solemniy
away from each one and left him to struggle out of the
bewilderment she had unconsciously cast over his
mind.

With absolutely no knowledge of the différence

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MILL Y JNQ UIRES. 1 25

between a reputable business street and a row of dives,
she drifted hère and there until finally she met a man
whom she at once recognîzed as Moreton, although in
fact he was a drummer for a wholesale liquor house of
Atlanta. She placed herself resolutely in his way, as
he was about to pass her, and said : .

" Air ye the feller 'at corne to our house thet day ? "

The man, a tall fellow, not unlike Moreton physi-
cally, looked down at thîs pleasing apparition, and for
want of better response, said :

"Whatday?"

" Thet air day *at hit rained so, an* ye tuck dinner,
an* staid ail day. Don't ye *member?"

" Can't recollect you, sis : seems like I ought to
though, by George. What's your name?" He took
hold of the brim of her coarse hat and lifting it a little
peeped under at her face, now suddenly pink with
blushing.

" Ye know — Fm Mr. White*s girl, up ther' wher* ye
fotch the turkeys thet air rainy day.'*

" Oh, yes, I do recollect mighty well now, certainly.
I fetched th^.turkeys, yes. You are White's girl. Tm
real glad to sèe you. How's the folks ? ** said he, glibly.

" We're ail well," responded Milly. " I wushed to
ax ye ef yeVe seed John Reynolds lately."

" John Reynolds — John Reynolds, which John Rey-
nolds do you mean ? " he inquired, with a deceptive
show of having a dozen men of that name in his mind.

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126 A 7' LO VL S EXTREMES.

" Ilit air Colonel Reynolds, es pap calls 'im, an' he
lîves at our house, an* ye know ye said he wer* yer bes*
frien* an' *at he wor' a grand fellcr. Don*t ye *member ?
Well, I wush to see him."

" Any thing of a furious rush about seeing him right
off — eh ? *' He stooped low enough to look into her
strange beautiful eyes. " What do you want to see
him about?"

She shrank uneasîly and madc no answer. Her pink
lîps quivered slightjy, as a flovver's petals do when one
breathes upon them. The man*s breath was foui with
the fumes of whisky.

" Oh, if it*s private — if it's a secret between you,"
he resumed, " why, of course, I don*t întend to pry
in ; but as Reynolds and I are chums, I don*t see why
you won't tell me/'

" I wushed to see *im, that's ail," she responded in a
plaintive, hesitating voice, putting a finger in her
mouth and scraping the toe of one coarse shoe back
and forth on the ground.

** Oh, I guess that he's rather keeping sort o' shady
from you, just now," said the man with a brutal smile.
^* He's got him another girl now, he's riot caring about
seeing you very soon. I know what he's up to."

She shot a quick, almost wild look into his face,
stared at him a moment and then slowly inquired :

" What air yer name ? "

He actually reddened with confusion, and was at a

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mi.L y ÎI^QUJRES, 1 27

loss what to answer. He saw that she had discovered
his deceit.

" I was just joking/' he managed to say. " Never
mind my jokes. If you'll corne with me TU take you
to Reynolds. He's just down hère a lîttle ways.
Corne on, TU show you."

" YeV not thet man— yeV* "

** Oh, that's nothing : I was just fooling with you.
Don't get mad. If you get mad you'U not hâve any
luck. Corne on if you want to see Reynolds."

Her eyes had assumed a vague, distressed look and
her lips quivered again.

" I wush ye*d go tell *im 'at I wush he'd corne on
home," she said, glancing uneasily around, as if afraid
that some one would approach.

" Guess you'd better go see him and surprise hîm like.
He won't be expecting you. He's just down hère a
little pièce. Come on, if you are going, I can't fool
around ail day," the man urged, an ugly gleam getting
into his eyes and his face showing its coarsest lines.

** John wouldn't like hit ef Td go ther' wher' he is,"
she responded. " I hain't got no business a goin*
down ther'. l'd be erbleeged ef ye'd tell *im "

" Tell hîm nothing," gruffly rejoined the man. *' Come
along, it's not far, he*ll be ail right ; he's a good fellow
and not going to make any fuss — come on. TU stand
between you and ail danger — come on."

" I don't wanter go, an' I haint er goin*, an' ye mought

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128 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES,

as well quit er talkin'/' she almost doggedly replîed,
takîng a step or two back from him. He foUowed
her with a devilish leer în hîs eyes.

The Street was a dîsreputable one and there was a
narrow alley near where they stood.

** He*s not caring any thing about you now ; you
needn't be so shy, Fm not going to do you any harm.
Vm the best friend youVe got."

Her strange, troubled face brîghtened a lîttle.

" Then, ef yeV* my friend," she quickly said, ** go an'
tell *im at I wush he'd please kem home."

The man laughed, looked at her quizzîcally for a time,
and then in a tone, half of vexation and half of amuse-
ment, said :

" Well, if you aren't the dangedest curiosity I ever
saw ! You ought to travel with Barnum."

He gazed at her intently from head to foot, his face
softening.

" YouVe no business trotting around loose in thèse
suburbs," he muttered, more to himself than to her,
then quite solus he added : " She*s cracked : she's an
idiot."

Her vague troubled look now appealed to the other
side of the man's nature. " Do you know where you
are ? This is no place for you ; where do you live ? "
He put his inquîrîes in a voice so différent from that
half-wheedling, half brutal one hitherto used, that she
instantly looked up with a gleam of trust in her eyes.

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MILL V INQ UIRËS. 1 2 9

** Where îs your home ? " he contînued.

" Over to the tother sîde o' the mountîng, at Mr.
Whîte's/* she frankly answered.

" Well, what are you doing down hère among thèse
saloons and dives ? Why don't you go home and stay

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I30 AT LOVE* S EXTREMES,

she could gaze up through the tree-tops at the bright
blue sky. A breeze, cool and sweet, was stealing down
from the mountains rustling the few dry leaves that still
clung to the branches overhead. She sang, in a thin
childish falsetto, snatches of the simple hymn-tunes
she hadcaught from her parents ; but shegot the words
together in a meaningless confusion. Her conception
of a song of any sort rose no higher than a con-
sciousness of the pleasing sounds of the voice sing-
îng it.

For a long while she waited patiently, now and then
glancing down the unkempt street to see if her father
had yet come in sight ; then she stood up in the cart
and looked. It was growing late. The sun was slip-
ping down behind the mountains and a cooler breath
crept through the valley.

" Well, Ben, hit air no use er stayin* yer any longer,
I *spec' at pap he air drunk. Git erp ther*, Ben ! **

She had gathered up the rope guiding line and the
gad that lay in the box, and as she finished speaking
she tapped the ox and drove away, heading for the
road that led homeward. The thought that her father
was drunk seemed not to affect her in any way. She
soon resumed hersinging,and heraimless, wistful gazing
at the splendid Southern sky.

It was long after night-fall, but the moon was shining
brightly, when Milly drove up to the little front gâte at
home, and freeing Ben from his yoke and shaf ts, turned

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MILL y INQUIRES, Î3Î

him loose to browse on the mountain-side. Her mother
met her at the door.

** Wher* air yer pap ? " was the laconic înquiry.

" Drunk, I 'spec*/* was the answer.

" An* er playîn' of keerds,** suggested Mrs. White.

"Yes, I 'spec'."

" Well, ef hit air seving up 'at he air a playin* ther'
air sensé to hit, fer he gin'rally wa'ms their low down
gam'lin' hides fer 'em, w'en hit air seving up 'at he
plays ; but ef he goes in on ter any er them tother
games, he'll corne home 'ithout ary cent inter his
pockets, mind what I tell ye/*

** I wush John *d come home, that's what I wush,"
murmurçd Milly, opening the door of Reynolds' room
and going in to wander listlessly about among his
things. She touched his books, his pencils, his brushes,
his pen, and lingered about the easel upon which the
dog sketch still rested unfinished.

It was nearly midnight when White came in good-
humoredly drunk, boasting of another victory at " sev-
ing up with them air gam'lers." His wife had gone to
bed, but Milly met him with her usual quiet welcome
and the formula expressing her prédominant " wush."

" Ye needn't er be 'spectin' the Colonel home for a
week, Milly," he said, as he lighted his pipe for asober-
ing smoke before retiring ; ** fer he's gone away down
on the Al'bam* River to Gen'l DeKay's to a huntin'
frolic with banker Noble an' his darter."

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tj^ AT LOVE* s EXTJiEAfES.

Nothing save the very unusual amounf of whisky he
had been taking could hâve induced White to say that
and în such a tone. Milly looked at hîm in a dazed,
stupid way, her cherry underlip falling as îf from the
weight of the information she had received.

" Do he go wuth them air fine folks? '* she presently
înquired, in a dry, doleful voice.

" Ye'd think so ef ye*d see 'im," he answered. " He
air high dinky davy along of the best of 'em, I tell
ye. Him an* that feller Moreting what wer* hère that
rainy day do scoot aroun* wîth them air silks an' rib-
bons an' jew'lry alarmin' to the saints."

Milly put her hands together and rested them on her
head with their fingers intertwined. She appeared to
be considering some troublesome proposition.

" Do ye s'pose them folks '11 make fun of we-uns to
'im?"

White chuckled.

" I don't keer airy dam ef they do," he said, con-
temptuously snapping his thumb and finger. " Let 'em
sail in."

" Well I wush *at they wouldn't. 'Tain't none er
the'r business 'bout how we-uns looks, no how," she
quickly replied. She looked over her faded cotton
dress as she spoke, with a hurried, dissatisfied glance.
She had seen some wonderful dresses in Birmingham.

" No, hit tain't the'r business, thet's a fac', Milly,"
he responded, rammîng his pipe with his finger and

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wagging hîs head. " Tain't store clo's, an* jew'ls an*
sich *at meks folks honest an* *spectable, hits in yer,
Milly, in yer,'* tapping his breast. " We*r* jest as good
as any body, hain't we, Milly ? **

" Spec* so ; dunno,** she said, lookîng dully at him,
" I wush he had er staîd yer an* kep* away f'om down
ther*.*'

" Hit air p'int blank no use er wushin' thet, Milly,*'
he slowly and firmly declared, " fur he air dead sot onto
'em an* he air a goin* wi' 'em. In fac*, he air them sort
er folks his own self, he air, Milly."

The girl's eyes slowly brîmmçd wîth big tears, and
without further words she crept off to bed. White sat
and smoked in a gloomy way for a long while, his
face showing more than usually gaunt and wrînkled
in the dim light of the flickering pine knots on the
hearth. He shook his head from time to time, as if
dissatisfied with such results as his thoughts produced.
Once he spoke out rather fiercely.

" Hit air a dern shame ! " he exclaimed, in a voice so
fierce and bitter that it awoke his wife. And yet he
was too simple-minded to dream of the worst. With
the queer pride of the mountaineer, he was viewingthe
predicament simply from a social standpoint.

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CHAPTER XL

DALLYING.

THE quail-shoot, after the enthusiastic contest of
the first day, abated to a sort of desultory
skirmish, each sportsman going intô the field as best
suited his mood. The weather bred a languor, pecul-
îarly Southern and dreamy, which was aided by the
quiétude and isolation of the place. The bustle and
activity with which the sport had begun became irreg-
ularly intermittent. Day after day the sky was serene
and cloudless, tinted with that cool, bird-egg blue, ten-
der, délicate, transparent, against which the lines of
wood came out with a peculiar semi-tropical effect.
Nearly ail the time there was a breeze, not the rollick-
ing Northern wind that whisks things about, but a
fitful breath that palpitated lazily in the tops of the
duU old trees and stirred the vines and plants and dry,
thin grass in a fashion whoUy indefinite and aimless.
It was a luxury to idle around in the shadowy nooks
and corners of DeKay Place, where the spirit of old
times hovered like a vague, fascinating perfume. Lifè
lost its rough angles hère, its outlines softening down
to harmonize with the monotonous equipoise of its
surroundings. The river had the charm of ail low-

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DALLYING, 13S

côuntry streams, a warm, slow, laggîng motion, a look
of lapsing away into some strange, silent, unexplored
région ; its murmur was a lingering, never quite ended
gooJ-by.

To Reynolds those were days of deep and sweet
excitement into which now and then darted a pang
like a stab in the heart. He was with Agnes Ran-
som a great deal. Shy and strangely limited in con-
versation as she was, he yet found her monosyllables
and simplest phrases quite enough to hold him to her
side. She had not read a great deal of art and litera-
ture, she had but fragmentary glimpses of knowledge,
her round of life had been confined to a small compass :
still she seemed to hâve gathered a great deal, and a
depth rather than a width of expérience was in some
subtle way suggested by her words and looks.

Moreton was unreservedly happy. Born sportsman
as he was, it must hâve been a genuine old-time love
that made him prefer sitting on the véranda or on one
of the rustic benches with Miss Noble to foUowing the
pointers and setters afield under the cloudless sky and
over-warm beams of this waning, low-country winter.
He also allowed himself to become interested to a
certain extent in the plans of Miss Crabb. From his
English point of view, this eager, outspoken, persistent
young woman, with her mingled air of freshness, alert-
ness and strangely hindered ambition, was a very novel
and interesting study. He recognized and respected

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1 36 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

the worthîness and purîty of her aîms, whiist he could
not keep from regarding her doings with a curiosity
little short of that with whîch he would hâve observed
the gambols of a rare species of monkey. He
had not been long enough in America to become
indiffèrent to the oddities and sharp salients of Ameri-
can character and our social contrasts and discords,
nor had hîs tastes resigned themselves to such breezy,
démocratie familiarity as Miss Crabb insisted upbn ;
but he was a good hâter of shams, and her genuine-
ness appealed to him in its spirit if not in its manner.
He wralked with her an hour back and forth on one of
the long vérandas, scarcely aware how much he was
promising when he agreed to make some sketches for
her. He had been, as the reader knows, an art-student
once, but had lacked either talent or industry or both,
getting on no further than to become a clever sketcher.
Miss Crabb told him ail she knew touching every sub-
ject she could think of, even going so far as to give
the détails of the distressing tragic circumstances
under which Mrs. Ransom had been made a widow.
It was a sad story of a mère girl marrying a hand-
some, dashing, rather reckless youth, who led her a
romantic life for a time and finally deserted her, going
away to Texas where he had been killed in a street
fight with a desperado at San Antonio. Such stories
were rather common in the South at one time. The
first décade after the close of the war was, in the Gulf

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DALLYING. 137

States, one of humiliation, nervousness, doubt— a
décade that soured and vitiated many young lives,
makîng almost outlaws of youths who, under a milder
influence would hâve been good citizens, or at least,
harmless ones. Sudden poverty, the stagnation of
agriculture and trade, the ebbing of ail commercial
tides, the swîft leveling of social eminences, and the
desperation that followed dire defeat, were supple-
mented and aggravated by political annoyances of the
most grievous nature. But the one demoralizing
élément most active and potent was the préjudice,
deep-seated and woven into the very tissues of the
Southern youth, against gaining à livelihood by manual
labor in plebeian employments. Of course it is no
wonder that this préjudice existed, indeed it would
hâve been amazing if it had not existed ; but the resuit
was the destruction of many young men who really had
in them the qualities that go, under ordinary circum-
stances, to make up valuable citizens.

Herbert Ransom came of an honorable and once
wealthy family at Pensacola, Florida. He was one of
what has been rather familiarly termed the ** first crop
of young men since the war," which means that during
the war he was too young to be a soldier, and became
a man soon after its close. He was bright, handsome,
vain, unprincîpled, and yet he passed current in society
and married Agnes DeKay, à beautiful girl scarcely six-
teen, whose father, a brother of General DeKay, was

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138 A T LOVE' S EXTREMES,

very poor, very proud and very old. For a time the
young people lived a sweet, idyllic sort of life on an
old plantation near Mariana, Florida; but Ransom's
restless, rollicking nature would not be confined to mère
domestic quiétude. He tried spéculation in cotton
with just enough success to lead him swiftly to finan-
cîal ruin. The plantation was sold at a great sacrifice
and Ag^es had to return to her father, while Ransom
went to western Texas with the avowed purpose of
looking after some wild lands belonging to his father's
estate, but really with no hope of ever again seeing
his wife. He had been gone nearly a year when the
news of his tragic death in a street fight in San
Antonio reached his relations in Pensacola. Soon
after this Agnes* parents died and she was left with an
income barely sufficient to support her. She had no
children, and, with a widowed aunt, she lived in the old
family homestead at Pensacola, until General DeKay
came and persuaded her to become his adopted daugh-
ter. This meager outline of what seemed to Moreton
a most pathetic story, fell glibly from the lips of Miss
Crabb, along with sundry shrewd strictures upon social
laws that render women so powerless to struggle with
adversity and neglect.

"When a woman gets married,'' she observed, "she
becomes helpless. She plunges into the gulf of mat-
rimony with a mill-stone at her neck, so that she may
be sure to disappear utterly. If she ever again comes

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DALLYING, 139

to the surface ît îs but to aîr troubles for which thcre îs
no cure.**

" If that îs the case,*' saîd Moreton, " îf I wcre a
woman I should try and not marry.**

Miss Crabb laughed.

" Oh, I présume there wîll always be a majorîty of
fools among us,** she replied. "Silly giris and restless
spînsters, ready to be martyred for the mère romance
of the thing; but you know, as well as I, that thîs îs
an awfully one-sided world.**

" Yes, but you women make ît so, don't you know,
by decoyîng us over to your sîde, thus destroyîng the
equilibrium. If we were the antipodes of cach other,
now, thîs would be a glorîously balanced world ! AU
the sorrow-making material on one side and ail the
joy-bringers on the other ! *'

** You are like the rest — you won't condescend to
sensîbly argue a question wîth a woman. You must
go off înto badînage, as îf a woman could not under-
stand and enjoy cogent reasonîng. I don*t like insin-
cerîty, Mr. Moreton.'*

" I beg a thousand pardons," he exclaîmcd. " I dîd
not mean to be însincere — indeed. Miss Crabb, I was
under the impression that I was making myself quite
entertaining, don't you know, I "

She laughed again, a clear, honest, prairie laugh,
throwing back her head and holding up one hand as îf
to ward off something.

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I40 AT LO VE'S EXTREMES.

" Oh, ît's the same thîng over and over. Wherever
I go men look upon me as a sort of monstrosity at
large by some accident, because I travel alone, just as
a man may, and because I attend to my business, just
as a man does. It's really f unny sometîmes ; I overhear
what thcy say. They comment on me. * A cheeky
old gîrl,' * a newspaper crank,* * a stiff-mînded female,*
and ' a meddling nuisance,' are the délicate and friendly
epîthets applîed to me by men. One fellow at the
Cincinnati convention called me * a bag of gimlets * to
my face."

" But then your absolute knowledge that the man
was mistaken must hâve ruined the point of his
remark,** said Moreton. " Conscious innocence is an
impénétrable shield."

She looked up at him with a flash of momentary
anger in her eyes, then laughing again she said :

"Oh, go on, l'm used to it, and, besîdes, I can't
afford to quarrel with you until I hâve your sketches
in hand ; you must make the sketches, Mr. Moreton :
they will be invaluable to me. I want to get on in
literature, and the only way in which I can do that is
to get into the great illustrated magazines: they are
the highways to famé.*' There was a hungry, almost
greedy ring to her voice, as if her longing for literary
récognition were rooted in her heart. Moreton fan-
cied that her lips quîvered as she spoke. Her manner
touched his sympathy.

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DALLYING. 141

" You*ll get on fast enough, Miss Crabb," he quickly
saîd; "your energy and persistence ànd your capacity
for work will take you through, never fear.** It was
the best he could think of, though he felt its utter
inadequacy to her fancied needs. As he looked down
upon her his rather heavy, thoroughly English face
wore a very kindly expression.

" But you don*t know, Mr. Moreton, you can*t imagine
what a hard time I hâve ; how many ugly obstacles men
put in my way, simply because I am awoman. I don't
see why they do, but they do. It*s awfui sometimes.*'

"They are brutes, they ought to be punched, don*t
you know," he blurted ; " they deserve no récognition
by gentlemen.**

" Yes, but they ^(7 get récognition,'* she replied, half-
mournfully. " They drink and smoke and swear them-
selves into prominence in every walk of life — intp
famé, fortune, and **

" Oh, not so bad as that, I hope,** he interposed.
"Don*t be discouraged. George Eliot and Georges
Sand and **

"They are not American women,** she interrupted
in turn, " and they hâve never tried editing a country
newspaper or writing for a New York magazine. They
were rich, or had influential friends, or made people
believe they were men.**

" Well, suppose you try adopting a masculine pseu-
donym, you mîght "

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142 AT LOVE '5 EXTREMES.

" Never ! " she exclaîmed, with a little stamp of the
foot. " Never ! I shall wîn my way as a woman or not
at ail."

Moreton was beginning to comprehend, in a measure,
the really pathetîc hopelessness of Miss Crabb's intel-
lectual predicament. To his mind she appeared a
heroine with a self-imposed task quite as great as that
of Joan of Arc. Like Joan, she must at last be man*s
vîctim. He could see the stake set and the fagots
heaped for her already. It now seemed a mighty
blessing of providence that she was not beautiful, that
she was positively ugly and not at ail likely to attract
men. He had the English admiration for pluck and
he felt a great désire to help her ; but there was no
way. Evidently she did not possess any genius and
was only gifted with a shrewd, quick mind and a
hungry imagination. She was mistaking notoriety for
just famé and was deluding herself with the belief
that her burning désire for success was proof positive
of her power to succeed. Nevertheless her attitude
was heroic and he wished her a better fate than was
sure to befall her.

" But you must not commit the folly of setting your-
self against men/* he presently said, his voice taking
on a persuasive tone ; " you must recognize their power
and the necessity of winning their confidence and
help."

" I hâve trîed that tum," she replied with a short

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DALLYING. 143

laugh that had a ring of derisîon in it, " and ît*s no
use. A woman must hâve beauty before she can
influence men. AU the wisdom of Minerva could not
hâve compassed what Cieopatra's *'

" Hold," cried Moreton, with an affectation of lîght-
ness which he did not feel, "you are slandering my
sex, or, at least, I am an exception. Not that I don't
admit the power of beauty, but you put the rule too
savagely, don't you know. Why, you really frighten
me with your suggestion of masculine depravity ! *'

She iaughed and changed the subject. They con-
tinued walking to and fro and chatting in a broken
way with the sough of the wind and the swash of the
river filling up the spaces.

"Some day,** she said, recurring to the subject
always uppermost in her mind, and tuming to ieave
him, " some day my ship will come in/'

Moreton breathed freer when she was gone. Her
State of ferment, of restless effort, tired him.

Two or three hours later when he and Reynolds sat
by a window of the latter's room, smoking cigars, he
said:

*' Miss Crabb told me something a while ago that
surprised and touched me."

" Well, what was it ? *' inquired Reynolds, gazing
dreamily out into the brîUiant, moonlit night. He
had just been for an hour talking with Mrs. Ransom
and was now mentally going over again every word of

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144 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

the charmîng conversation. He was în love, he knew
it, and was reveling in the luxury of it. Her sweet
face and low, rich voîce, her quiet grâce of manner, her
slender, supple form and that indescribable, mysterîous
half-sadness in her eyes and smile, had fired his imagi-
nation and filled his blood with a gentle tumult.
Never before had the moon and stars and the grand
expanse of heaven looked so lovely to him ; never had
the world seemed so good ; never had life seemed so
precious. Being in love is a trite thing, and may be
going out of fashion, but it is worth experîencing
once, at least, in every lifetime, as a test of the imagi-
nation, if for nothing else.

" She gave me an " account of Mrs. Ransom's
troubles," said Moreton. "It seems that hers has
been a rather rough cruise.**

Reynolds clamped his cigar between his teeth and
looked up.

" I know, I know," he said, în a half-impatient voice.
" Her husband deserted her."

"And was murdered out on the Texas border,"
added Moreton.

" Murdered," said Reynolds, as if weighîng the
Word. " There has been a great deal of that sort of
thing în Texas."

" In this instance," Moreton went on, " I fancy that
the murder was ail for the best. Poor little woman,
how she must hâve suffered under such treatment as

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DALLVIMÙ. Î4S

that young vîllaîn gave her. Pîty that ail such fellows
don't go to Texas and get a hole bored through
them!"

Reynolds smoked quite rapidly for a few seconds,
with hîs eyelids nearly shut together, a barely percept-
ible grayîsh pallor spreadîng over hîs cheeks. Pres-
ently, in an even and steady, but very strange voîce,
he saîd :

" She is a lovely little woman, Moreton, a sweet,
warm-hearted, true and noble little woman. I love
her, Moreton. l'm going to marry her, if I can."

"Good!" exclaimed Moreton. "Tm glad to hear
that. She will just suit you, make you a charming
wife. I hope you'U find your way clear, old fellow.*'

For a time they both were silent, each thinking of
his own love, and gazing out into the almost blue-black
depths of the star-sprinkled sky. A gentle swashîng
Sound came from the river along with the fragrance of
pine-needles and the odor of turpentine. Somewhere,
seemingly at a vast distance, an owl now and then
laughed, as if from a sepulcher.

"My way seems clear enough,'' Reynolds at last
said, " if I can understand her ; but she îs an elusîve
little woman, shy and incompréhensible at times."

Moreton laughed.

"They ail are that way — it's a part of woman 's
nature to be inexplicable, don't you know, deuced
inexplicable. Now there's that Miss Crabb : I never

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146 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

saw such an enigma. She's a man and a woman and a
little school-giri, ail in one."

Reynolds got up from his chair and began walkîng
to and fro, his head thrown back, his hands clasped
behind him. He frowned and pressed his lips over his
cigar so that deep furrows came on each side of his
mouth.

"Beîng in love appears to render you gloomy/'
Moreton lightly exclaimed, as he glanced into his
friend's face. " Love is like wine, it makes some men
surly whilst it makes others merry. Now I "

Reynolds waved his hand impatiently and said
almost abruptly :

" If she really loved her husband, in the first place,
it must hâve been a dreadful ordeal she went
through."

" Oh, she must hâve been very young, scarcely more
than a child," said Moreton, as if hurrying to relîeve
Reynolds, if he could; ''and I should think she has
outgrown it in a great degree, by this time. She
seems quite cheerful and in superb health."

Reynolds tumed as he came near the middle of the
room, and facing Moreton, appeared on the point of
saying some momentous thing. A gloomy cloud of
excitement had settled on his countenance. His lips
faltered at the point of speech, and with a strange
smile he resumed his pacing to and fro. Moreton's
eyes followed him with a look of puzzled interest.

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DALLYING, î47

Presently he laughed outrîght and exclaîmed chaff-
îngly :

" You make me thînk of that Httle girl of White's
when you look like that, Reynolds. Your eyes are for
ail the world like hers, with those mysterious sad
shadows in them. What the deuce is the matter ? "

Reynolds' countenance changed abruptly; he essayed
to laugh, but there was no sincerity in the effort. He
shook his head and answered :

" My head is ail in a whirl and I believe I am excîted ;
but you must remember that I am hard hit and awfully
in earnest.** His attempt at making light of his show
of feeling was not more successf ul than his laughter had
been. He saw that Moreton felt its hollowness, and he
made haste to add : " It has always been thus with me.
I am a créature of extrêmes, a straw in the currents of
passion.**^

From Moreton's rather phlegmatic point of vîew, this
excitement was something inexplicable. He saw no
reasonable cause for it in the situation, and his mind at
once reverted to certain indications of a secret trouble
observable in Reynolds ever since their first meeting
in Birmingham. Naturally enough the rather strange
home chosen by Reynolds amid the stérile mountains
and among the rude, uninteresting mountaineers, came
up to emphasize Moreton's suspicion that ail was not
well with his friend.

"What especial current of passion is tossîng you

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14* AT LOVE *S EXTREMES,

just now, to render you so restless and moody?**
Moreton demanded. " One would think you were
meditating something as dark as suicide or assassina-
tîon."

" Oh, Fm ail rîght ; I don't mean to do any thîng
diabolical, Tm too happy for that ; give me another
cigar, mine are locked up in my bag/* He pulled him-
self together as he spoke, and laughed in a way so
careless and natural that Moreton felt a sensé of disap-
pointmeht at having inwardly to acknowledge himself
baffled, if not mistaken.

They smoked and talked until late, enjoying the
lulling coolness of the night air coming in at the open
Windows. Reynolds was exceedingly cheerful, and
when they separated for the night he said :

"If you hâve as sweet dreams as I expect to îndulge
în to-nîght, tell me in the morning, will you ? Good
night."

But Moreton, who siept lightly, awokc now and
then, and heard him walking to and fro ail the rest of
the night.

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CHAPTER XII.

A BIT OF LOVE MAKING.

THE party at General DeKay's broke up gradually.
some of the sportsmen going away on the morn-
ing of the day followîng the quail shoot, the rest taking
their departure in groups or singly, as business necessi-
tated or a sensé of propriety dictated. At last the
Nobles, the Beresfords, Miss Crabb, Reynolds and
Moreton were the favored remnant, lingerîng at the
old plantation to enjoy, as long as possible, the sweets
of its almost arcadian life.

Notwithstanding the great change wrought by the
war, the DeKays had been able to hold on to a pîctur-
esque residuum of their former wealth and to keep up
a fair show of that hospitality whîch had once been
almost unlimited. The guests of the mansîon felt the
perfect freedom given them, and so the days went by
without a circumstance to hinder their enjoyment of
every moment.

Uncle Mono was a source of great amusement to
every body ; his banjo, his songs, his stories, his pecul-
îar philosophy and that individuality of thought and
expression, so often exhibîted by old negroes, making
him especially interesting to Moreton and Miss Crabb.

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IJO AT LOVE *S EXTREMES,

His lîfe had been so saturated wîth slavery's influ-
ences that freedom, coming to hîm after he had passed
the meridian of life, had not been able to change hîm
muçh.

Along with hîs other gifts, Uncle Mono was a for-
tune-teller whose famé held the admiration and the
awe of ail the negroes at hîghest strain. He could tell
when it was going to rain and when the wind was
going to change as well as he could predict the kind
of sweetheart the future would bring to the inquiring
youth or maiden. In fact he was the seventh son of a
seventh son, and not a drop of white-man*s blood ran
in his veins.

" Ts pyo* blood dahky fom away back," he was
fond of saying. " None yo* yaller niggah *bout me.
Nuffin* I *spises mo* *n one o* dese yer no* 'count clay-
faced merlatters. Steal ! Dey des steal de sole of 'm
yo' shoes ! No sah, Fs pyo* blood dahky.*'

Sometimes, when the evening air chanced to be
warm enough, the guests and the household would
assemble on one of the wide vérandas and send for
Uncle Mono to play for them while the gentlemen
smoked their pipes and cigars and the ladies prome-
naded back and forth to the brisk tinkling of the
banjo. They ail enjoyed the touch of old-time custom
when a number of the plantation negroes, young and
old, crept up to within a respectful distance, looking
on and listening.

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A BIT OF LOVE MAKING, 151

The nîghts weré superb, the splendor of stars or
moon and sky adding an almost weird sheen to the
gray fields and silvery river. The pronounced atmos-
phère of isolation whîch broods over ail those large
low-country plantations gave to the guests at DeKay
Place a comforting sensé of liberty, as if the restraints
of conventional life had been dissolved and dissipated,
or had never corne hère.

Some swings had been made of huge muscadine
vînes brought from the woods and suspended from
the trees on the lawn. The young women, especially
Miss Noble and Miss Crabb, found swinging most
exhilarating sport. Moreton watched Cordelia as she
oscillated, like a gay pendulum, in the soft night-light
under the dusky boughs, until his heart timed its beat-
ing with her movements. He enjoyed every phase of
this delightful subtropical épisode in his life. It did
him good to see Reynolds retuming to something like
his old-time youthful enthusîasm and cheerfulness.

Among them ail it was silently noted how Mrs.
Ransom and Reynolds were drawn towards each other.

" Dunno 'bout dat big, dahk young ge'man flyin*
roun* de young missus no how/* muttered Uncle Mono
to his colored companions; "seem lak mebbe she
better look shap 'bout 'im. He sort o' 'sterious
lookin* young man anyhow."

Miss Crabb for some reason failed to win favor with
the negroes. She was very much interested in them

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152 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES.

and trîed hard to study them ; but her înquîring man-
ner and insistent tones of voice did not touch their
warm African hearts. On the other hand, Miss Noble
was a prime favorite with them ail.

" Bress dat sweet chile/' saîd Uncle Mono, " she
jes* iak de ripe peach on de eend ob a limb, she sort o'
glimmer an' look too good fo* to pull off an' too ripe
fo' to let erlone."

" Dat same Iak what de young boss f'om way off
fink, I 'spec," ventured a colored listener. " He look
at 'er 'mazin' sof an' hongry Iak."

"Wha' yo' know 'bout it?" stormed Uncle Mono.
" Wha' business yo' got fo' to be a watchin* dem whi'
folks ? Fust ting yo' know yo' git yo* backbone wa'med
up wid a stick ! Better not be peekin' 'roun', / tell yo*."

" Ef yo' Iak what yo' call peekin*,** replied the other,
with a comical grin, "jes' cas' yo' eye on dat young
leddy dat's got de leetle book an' pencil; she kin*
peek fo' de Lor' sake ! **

Miss Crabb was pretty well aware of the delicacy of
her situation, or, to put it fairly, the indelîcacy of it ;
but she had gone too far to retreat. She must brave
it through to the end.

It chanced that Moreton discovered Miss Noble's
pique at Reynolds because of his neglect to fulfill his
promise to teach her the art of handlîng a gun. This
gave him a most excellent excuse for offering himself
as her instructor. He borrowed Reynolds* little gun

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A BIT OF LOVE MAKING. 153

and made the most of hîs opportunîtîes. His patience
was unbounded and Miss Noble's zeal unflaggîng, so
that between them they squandered a great deal of
time down on a little open plat between the house
and the river, bangîng away at an improvised target.
As for Reynolds, his promise to Miss Noble was
entirely forgotten by him. His love for Agnes Ransom
had crowded every lighter thing from his consciousness.
General DeKay and Mr. Noble remained faithful to
the object of the occasion, pursuing the birds with
dogs and guns each day with unremitting ardor.
Young Beresford and his sister, after a most commend-
able effort to stem, with a show of good natured indif-
férence, the tide setting against the passion of one and
the pride of the other, went away, taking with them,
much against theîr will, the unflaggîng Miss'Crabb,
whose pencil had filled the little red book with pot-
hook notes of what she had seen and heard.

Miss Crabb had failed, however, to get any sketches
from Moreton. He had, at last, begged her to release
him from the obligation of his hasty promise.

" I did not think,** he said to her ; ** I did not once
think of the — the — the propriety of the thing, don't
you know, when we were talking about it ; but it would
offend every one hère. Thèse people are peculiarly
exclusive — very proud people, Miss Crabb, and they
would takc it as a gross breach of hospitality. I am
very sorry, and I hope you will not — not -"

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IS4 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

" Oh, no, certaînly, I see," she exclaimed, în confuscd
haste. " It's ail right, Mr. Beresford — Moreton I mean,
it's ail right, I assure yoii ; but do you thînk they'li
care for my writing them up ? I don't see how I can
afford to waste ail this materîal. It'U work up so
charmîngly."

" I don't prétend to advise as to that," Moreton
evasively answered. "You needn't send them any
copy of your paper. It takes any thing new a century
to get hère, if it isn't especially sent. Use your own
good editorial judgment. Miss Crabb."

" Yes, of course," she responded, thoughtfully adjust-
ing her gloves, ** it is a matter of business, a matter of
bread and butter with me. I must make every edge
eut." She was silent for a moment. Presently she
looked up quickly and keenly, adding in a thin voice :
" If ône writes for the public one must write what is of
interest. One can't afford to stand on small proprieties.
I can't, at least : Fm poor."

Moreton had ready no response. He felt an impulse
toward putting his hand into his pocket to gîve her
some money ; but of course he did not do it. Never
before had a look conveyed to him so sudden a dis-
covery of the hard Unes of the life of a woman who is
thrown upon her own resources for earning a livelihood.
It suggested to him a phase of human struggle hitherto
quite shut out of his imagination, however familiar to
Americans.

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A BIT OF LOVE MAKING, 155

" Well, good-by," she presently said, with an almost
cheerful smile. " I wish I could stay hère always : this
is pretty near my idéal of what a home should be."
She cast a slow glance around her, letting her eyes
linger on the pîcturesque old mansion and its embow-
ering trees. Moreton fancied that her face betrayed a
feeling of weariness and failure, as if her enthusiasm
had suddenly vanished.

" Good-by, Miss Crabb, I wish you great success," he
responded, cordially taking her hand. It was the best
he could do.

" Thank you/' she quickly replied. " I am determined
to deserve success, at least ; but it is a long way off, I
sometimes fear.*' She turned to go to the waiting car-
riage, but faced him again and added : " This has been a
most charming expérience to me* What a sweet, rest-
ful life it must be living hère. I almost envy — I almost

covet Mrs. Ransom's lot. I hâve had such a hard ,"

but she did not finish the sentence. " Good-by," she
repeated, and went away.

Moreton felt a pang of sympathy for this poor girl,
though he had no very definite îdea of what her strug-
gles, her hopes and her failures might be. It was
enough for him to know that she was good and
honest and earnest, and that she felt the hardship of
some galling limitations.

" Will she ever come to any thing ? Is there really
any chance for a person like her in this country?'* he

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IS6 Ar LOVEES EXTREMES,

inquîred of Miss Noble a little later, as he sat by her
side on a rustic seat under some trees by the river.

" She may make a hit, as it is termed," was the
answer. " Some of them do, and then, if she will make
the most of it, she may get to where life is easier ; but
at best she can not hope for much.**

"It seems queer and pitiful to me," he said, after a
moment of thoughtfulness, ** that so good and kind a
giri as she evidently is should hâve to do such things.
Her situation has deeply touched me."

"That is because you haven't been used to ît.
Young ladies probably do not report for the press în
England," replied Cordelia. " It îs a very common
thing for them to do it hère."

Moreton smiled, as one who gives up a sentiment
rather reluctantly is apt to do, and said :

" Still I would rather not see it ; she appeared out of
place, somehow."

"She was quite out of place hère; but she has
become so used to overcoming such obstacles that she
easily evaded any sensé of the improprîety of invading
the privacy of General DeKay's "

" No, I beg your pardon," hastîly spoke up Moreton.
" You do her wrong. She did feel very keenly that she
was de trop, that she wasn't just free and welcome, don't
you know. I saw ît — she almost acknowledged it to me,
in fact, and I felt downrîght sorry for her."

" Poor thing ! " exclaimed Cordelia, her voîce soften-

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A BIT OF LOVE MAKING, 157

ing with the sudden change in her quick sympathy.
" Poor gîrl ! and we didn't try to help her or to make
her feel easy. I hâte myself for ît. I see how mean I
hâve been. It would hâve been so easy to hâve
smoothed things for her, too ! "

Moreton feit a temptatîon to seize this warm-hearted,
impulsive girl and preas her close tohis breast. Indeed
he had a right to be sorely tempted, for she was a
strong, lîthe, blooming maiden, whose steadfast honesty
and purity glowed in her eyes and on her lips. Then
there was the dreamy sunshine and the checkered shade
and the softiy rippling breeze to add to his mood, and
yonder was the slumberous river lapsing away between
îts brakes. But he satisfied himself with simply look-
ing at her and allowing her beauty to freshen and
sweeten his heart.

"I suppose it is selfish and narrow," he presently
saîd; '* but I am heartily glad that ail of them are gone
— that we are left alone together, aren't you ? "

She laughed, but she blushed as well, and looked
away from him as she answered in what she meant for
a very careless tone :

" Oh, I like Company and brîght talk and the excite-
ment of numbers ; it exhilarates me. This will be a
dull old place, now that the party has dwindled down
to four or five. I hope my father has almost run the
gamut of his cartridges."

" Not a dull place," he said with a peculiar emphasîs,

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158 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

" a dreamy, fascînating place, rather. The river yon-
der, see how it glimmers, and thîs breeze ; I never was
so happy at any place as I am hère and now. Thereis
a sort of mystery in the influence of thîngs around us."

She looked at him with a quick inquiry in her clear
eyes, as if to dîscover whether or not he was jesting.
Somethîng in his bold yet tender gaze parried her
glanée and her lids dropped. She drooped her head
and shoulders a little, too, as if under some suddenly
imposed burden.

" Aren't you very happy hère? " he went on, leanîng
a little toward her. " I want you to be very happy."

" Oh, yes, Fm always happy. I never was unhappy
in my life," she answered with a show of véhémence,
instead of the careless lightness that she intended
should appear. " l'm never serious enough to become
sad."

Moreton looked at her with tender fervor, the power
of love full upon him, and yet the silly rhyme kept
ringing in his brain :

** The light of her eyes.
And the dew of her lips,
Where the moth never Aies
And the bee never sips."

Truly love-making has ail of human nature in it,
from the grandeur of extrême exaltation down to the
mère piping of sheerest nonsense ; but the nonsense for
the time, is just as sweet as any part, so mucb does it

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A BIT OF LOVE MAKING, 159

borrow of the rapture of the occasion. There îs
comedy of a slender sort în it, whiçh it seems a sacrilège
to separate from the sacred part, and yet we ail are
tempted into poking quiet fun at the big, strong men
who awkwardly dabble in love's sweet stream. So few
of them can corne boldly down to the current and at
once arrest it and hâve their will of it outrîght.

" What woiild you do if you were poor, like Miss
Crabb, and had to face the world and struggle for life?"
he asked with an absurd inconséquence in his manner
and voice.

" I can't imagine such a thîng," she quickly answered,
" I really can't. It would be very, very hard, no
doubt. But I sometimes think I might be of more use,
that my life is quite empty of real value. I shouldn't
know how to do any useful thing."

" You might make some one happy. That would be
good."

" I hâve no knack ; I am selfish, f rivolous, intent
upon my own happiness," she said, looking up with a
brîght smile.

" Just a Word, sometimes, îs better than any other
alms," he continued.

" Eleemosynary cheerfulness and breath of charity,
as our good minister is fond of calling it," she responded
with a gay little laugh. " I do sometimes try to be
agreeable and bright, just to please people."

" That's mère social clap-trap, it doesn't mean any

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l6o AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

thîng. It must be genuîne, don't you know — corne rîght
out from the heart. You must really desîre to make
some one happy."

There was something în the véhémence of hîs voîce
and manner that caused her to look into hîs eyes with
a quîck change from her careless levîty to a puzzled
gravîty of expression, that would hâve amused a disîn-
terested observer.

" How much would you do to make me very happy ?"
he went on, speaking as if the question mîght be one of
lîfe and death. " You would like to make me happy,
wouldn't you ? *'

" Why do you ask that — ^what " Her eyes had

drooped and she made an unavailing effort to lift them
agaîn to his face. Hère was his opportunity.

" Because I love you, love you better than ail the
world, Cordelia," came his hurrîed response. His arms
made a quick initial movement, instantly arrested, for
the place was not just suited to any violent démon-
strations ; then he added, breathlessly :

" Do you love me, Cordelia ? "

She glanced rapidly around, as if expecting to fînd
în the landscape some relief from the embarrassment
that flooded her cheeks with blushes. Just then, Rey-
nolds and Mrs. Ransom passed down the pathway
leading from the mansion to a little landîng on the
river, where a small boat lay moored. They were toc
much absorbed in conversation to notice the lovers.

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A BIT OF LOVE MAKING. l6l

though they could almost hâve touched them as they
went by. Miss Noble remaîned sîlent, watchîng Rey-
nolds assîst hîs graceful companion înto the boat and
draw in the little paînter. Suddenly she looked up and
very demurely said :

" They're goîng for a row on the river : why dîdn*t
we thînk of that? I delîght in goîng out on the
water."

" You would take a profound delîght în any thîng just
now that would help you to avoîd answerîng my ques-
tion, wouldn't you ? " he grumbled. " YouVe f orgotten
what ît was I înquîred about, haven't you ? "

She laughed în a low, clear way. Reynolds and Mrs.
Ransom, lightly startled by the sound, tumed theîr
faces quîckly and waved a greetîng, as they glided
out upon the placîd stream. They appeared very
happy.

" I shall not be put asîde so lîghtly," he went on ; " I
can't bear ît. You must answer me, Cordelîa."

" Answer you what ? "

He sprang to hîs feet, and stood gazîng down at her
wîth hîs face actually pale wîth emotîon.

" You don't mean ît ? You can't mean to drive me
from you în thîs way ? " he crîed, hîs voîce a lîttle
husky.

" Sît down, do, theyVe lookîng at us — they'll know
what ît îs," she murmured, makîng a deprecatory ges-
turewîth her hand.

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l62 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES,

He obeyed, sayîng rather ungracîously as he dîd
so:

" What îf they do know ? We needn't care, they're no
better. Reynolds is nearly crazy about her ; he means to
propose to her as soon as theyVe round the curve."
He could not help laughing a little at his own absurd-
ity. But Cordelia pretended to pout.

" You should not say such things about Agnes ; she
doesn't deserve your levity."

"I didn't sayany harm of her," he hastened to reply.
" I spoke of Reynolds : he is very much in love. You
do not blâme him for thînkîng a great deal of her — I
don't blâme him at ail. I think it is deuced clever of
him, don't you know."

She rose as if to go away.

" Come, now, tum about is fair : you made me sit
down again when I got up," he saîd, catching her hand
and gently puUing her down beside him.

What further was said between them has never been
gathered from the sweet wind that bore their fragmen-
tary murmurings away among the old trees and down
the silvery windings of the river. I présume that, no
matter how much the circumstances of courtship may
differ, true love, in the hey-day of youth, or in the vig-
orous prime of life, has certain constant quantities by
which it may readily be known ; and one of thèse is so
sweet that, to one not personally interested, it narrowly
misses being entirely too sweet for deliberate discus-

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A BIT OF LOVE MAKING. 163

sîon. John Ruskin has, I believe, more than suggested
an amendment to the ordînaiy methods of love-mak-
îng, but lovers seem înclined to follow the old, familiar
rose-scented plan, no matter how silly ît may appear to
superannuated phîlosophers and art critîcs.

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CHAPTER XIIL

AT THE RUIN.

REYNOLDS had been shut away from socîety for
so long a tîme that he had returned, în a degree,
to the susceptîbility and receptîvîty of extrême youth.
We grow like what we contemplate, îs a very trîte
truth, and he had absorbed much of the outright
sîmplicîty of the mountaîneers, without losing any of
the character he had long ago formed. Self-knowledge
may be very valuable, but self-study does not tend
always toward happiness. One mîght almost venture
to say that, în a vast majorîty of cases, serious self-
analysis amounts to remorse if nothing worse. More-
over, one usually chooses solitude în whîch to erect
one's fumace and laboratory of self-crîtîcîsm, where
one may make the heat as hîgh and protracted as one
pleases. The resuit îs usually a mass of unsîghtly
slag înstead of the fine and precîous métal one has
hoped to tum out. Hence ît îs that a hermît retumîng
to the world after years of seclusîon and self-delusîon
finds ît a paradîse when he had expected to see ît a
hell. Men and women are so much purer and stronger
and nobler than he had pîctured them, and ail the

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AT THE RUm. l6S

ways of human social life are so much sweeter and
fresher than his diseased brain had remembered them
to be, that he sloughs his crust, like a serpent, and
cornes out a new man.

The doctrine that evil expériences are ever of value,
or rather that a baptîsm in sîn ever worked a positive
good to the récipient, is too dangerous to be receîved ;
but it sometimes appears that there is an annealing
influence exerted on character by the intense heat of
uncontrollable passions, tempering it at last to the
highest degree of sensitiveness and susceptibility.
Reynolds was aware, in a vague way, of the change so
rapidly going on within him. It was as if his nature
were putting forth a tremendous spurt of power with
which to eject from its tissue the evil of the old life.
What a mystery there is in remorse and repentance
and reform ! But how much greater the mystery of
evil, that terrible, invisible acid, combining with ail
the bases of human nature and disintegrating every
crystal of beauty! How shall the stream of a life,
once defiled, be purified ? The simplest reagent will
disclose the présence of sin, but what process will
elimînate it ?

The Hand that made the mirror must remove the
spots of tarnish.

Love is always the gateway of a new life. When its
purple mists and its wafts of heavenly perfumes come
upon its victim his whole nature feels as if the ultimate

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l66 AT LO VE'S EXTREMES.

sources of impulse had been cleansed, sweetened and
electrified. New needs, new aspirations, fresh hopes
and the dewy vîgor of momîng leap into the heart.
Ah, then how bitter îs the memory of misdeeds ! Just
then if Satan would get behind and forever disappear,
what a relief ! What a joy if ail the past could be
wiped out, as with a sponge, and existence be left to
date from the advent of love !

The meeting of Reynolds and Mrs. Ransom was
much more than the ordinary contact of life with life,
whereby the spark of passion is generated ; it was
significant of a blending of their past expériences as
well as of the création of a new life for both. Even oii
the instant when a mutual interest was awakened, their
minds flashed back over the past. No doubt love
ought to be prospective always ; but it can not often
be so.

Agnes Ransom could not realize that she was a
widow. It was more as if a very sweet romance of her
expérience had ended in sorrow and dîsappointment.
She looked back upon the short space of her wedded
life with a vision dimmed by mists and shadows. She
was half aware that her nature had gained much and
lost little by the expérience. It ail seemed very sad
to her, and yet she felt that the sadness was rather an
atmosphère of the past than of the présent. It hovered
somewhere behind her, it did not affect the future.
Still there was a protest somewhere, gentle and weak,

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AT THE RUIN. 167

but quîte troublesome, agaînst this new, strong, imperî-
ous, wayward love, now rising in her bosom and anon
sinking away almost into the depths out of whîch it
had corne. She trembled sometimes with a great fear,
at other times she abandoned herself to it with a serene
fullness of content.

Close to the river's bank, ail overgrown with wild
vines and darkly shadowed by clustering trees, there
stood, distant about a mile from the DeKay place,
an almost shapeless pile of brick and stucco, the ruins
of a once stately Southern mansîon. It had been
burned, whether by accident or the work of an incen-
diary is not known. Some tragic legend was con-
nected with its hîstory — a vague story of hereditary
feud, bloody encounter, the gloom of crime and the
solemn hush that follows after violent death. It was not
a story ever told by a DeKay, for it affected thehistory
of the family a génération or two ago. The very oldest
negroes on the plantation knew something of the dark
outlines of the tragedy ; but they had learned not to
more than vaguely hint the extent of their knowledge
by equivocal allusions and dubious generalities. The
affair dated back to the early Alabama days, when
slavery was in its most prosperous state in a financial
way, and when chivalry, so-called, was at its zénith,
The ruin, with its pîcturesque walls overgrown with
vmes, was a fitting monument of the decay of médiéval
customs in the South as well as of the downfall of

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l68 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

a once proud and in many ways brave and generous
family.

It was towards thîs pathetîc pile that Reynolds pulled
with vigorous oar-strokes, as he and Mrs. Ransom set
out upon the river from the little landing at DeKay
Place. Unconsciously and with the ease that cornes
of great nervous and muscular force, made ready by
his récent years of healthfui habits and out-door train-
ing, he put such impulse into the little craft as made it
leap like a skîpping fish, leaving a whirling wake behind
it, gleaming and darkling in sun and shade. He had
not yet spoken of love. Indeed his heart was so full
of this new and sweetly stormy passion that he could
not master it sufficiently to clothe it in words. He
was ever at the point of speaking and ever faltering
and holding back his voice. So he found a relief in
great muscular exertion. It was love thrilling along his
nerves and sinews that made his arms tireless. He felt
as if each long, strong sweep of the oars were bearing
Agnes and him away from ail the rest of the world,
away from the past and into a sweet, shadowy solitude
like that which the imagination has, in ail âges, seen
swimming on .the furthest horizon, and towards which
ail lovers hâve hopefully but vainly steered their dream-
ladened barks.

A sensé of unworthiness repressed and almost
smothered, a strong conscience bound down and envel-
oped in the fire of passion, thèse would make them-

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AT THE RUIN, 169

selves felt in a dull, heavy, indefinîte way. He could
not shake off for long at a tîme a conscîousness that ail
thîs deep, sweet, strong happîness flooding his soûl to
bursting, was ephemeral, and would vanish at the touch
of the first smxsttx faux pas by whîch the past mîght
be uncovered.

Mrs. Ransom, în the after part of the boat, sat facing
Reynolds, her lissome figure in an attitude of almost
childish carelessness and grâce. She was, apparently,
as unaware of her rare charm of person as was he of his
immense physical power. It is one of the wholesomest
of out-door influences that éliminâtes, for the time, the
frivolous conventionalities of social life, and establishes
în their stead something of the freedom of the wind
and the transparent freshness of running water. Nature,
by some occult process, reaches our hearts and sponges
off the sédiment of artificial sentiment, so that the
simpler éléments of life are set to work in us without
any hindrance. Given a boat, a calm, clear river, fine
weather, a man and a woman, youth, strength, health,
and what an infinitude of happîness may be expected !
It is often the case that human expérience is, under
such circumstances, condensed to the last dcgree of
denseness, or expanded to an ethereal tenuity never
dreamed of in the hot-house narrowness of city life.
Out-door realities are so strong and dreams are so wide
and fair where the sun shines and the air is fuU of balm
and the water flows with such a libéral, far-going mur-

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1 70 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

mur. Tragedy has a broader and deeper sîgnîficance
enacted without any stage limitations, and comedy
catches a sparkle f rom the brooks and the daylight and
the starlight, never reflected from gas jets and painted
backgrounds.

Very little was said between Mrs. Ransom and
Reynolds in the time it took to reach a place where
they could land near the ruin, their conversation con-
fining itself to observations on such little incidents as
happened during their quick flîght. Once a flock of
wood-ducks sprang in a rapid whirl from the water near
them and winged their way up the stream, their bright
colors shining with a peculiar twinkle, as far as the eye
could follow them. Little shadowy sandpipers ran
along the sandy margins, hère and there, or flew across
from bank to bank with their comical jerky motion.
In some places the reeds gre^V down to the water's edge
in dense brakes wherein the hermit thrush and the cat-
bird could be seen by fitful glimpses. The rapid
movement of the boat kept changing the point of vîew,
and at each change some new arrangement of the trees,
the cane, the tall dry stalks of water g^rass or of the
bold banks of the river attracted the eye.

Reynolds felt the stimulus of his passion tingling în
his blood. His bronzed cheeks wore a faint flush and
his eyes were fuU of earnest, tender light. He stranded
the prow of the boat on a little crescent of sand at the
foot of the bluff and helped Mrs. Ransom out, Shc

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AT THE RUIN. 171

had dîrected him where to land, and now he turaed to
her and asked :

" Now, how shall we get up to the top of the bluff ? "

" There is a sort of stairway yonder by that old tree,"
she answered, pointing with her hand. " It îs badly
dilapîdated, but we can climb it easily."

Somewhere, not very far away, they heard the
boomîng of General DeKay's and Mr. Noble's guns.
The sport must hâve been fine, for the shooting was
rapid.

They found the staîr — z. zig-zag flîght of crazy steps,
leading up to the plateau above. In order to reach îts
foot, they had to stoop and creep under the low-hang-
îng boughs of a tree. Reynolds took hold of her arm
to help her. On a sudden impulse she freed herself
from him. A thrill had come with his touch, and
something like fear took momentary possession of her.
She fled nimbly up the steps ahead of him, as if she
meantto escape him entirely. He scarcely noticed her
start and her haste, for some vines and tangled branches
hindered him and disturbed his vision. When she
emerged into the sunlight of the level space on the
bluff, Mrs. Ransom stopped, ashamed of her foolish
flight, and tumed about just in time to look straight
into the eyes of Reynolds, as he was surmounting the
topmost steps.

" I beat you climbing," she exclaimed, her voice
shaking a little from the effect of her exertion.

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17» AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

" I feared you had left me for good and ail," he
replied ; " but how pale you are ! Was your effort too
violent ? Are you îU ? "

"Not at ail," she responded, the négative phrase
peculiar to the Southern people falling with a sort of
breathless readînçss from her lîps. "Am I really
pale?"

** Perhaps not," he said, seeing the rosy light coming
into her cheeks again. " I only imagined it ; but it îs a
difficult place to climb, and you came up like a bird.
You shouldn't take such risks : it is dangerous."

He looked about for the ruîn. A tall, heavy chim-
ney-stack rising above a tangled mass of wild vines
and trees answered his inquiry.

" Come this way," she said, leading on ; ** there îs a
path, further up the slope, that goes round to the
entrance."

He foUowed her quick movements, and soon she
stopped before an arched doorway in the old semi-cir-
cular transom of which a few pièces of stained glass
still remained. On either hand stood fragments of
stuccoed pillars ail festooned with vines. She paused
but for a moment, then went under the arch and passed
from rooflessroom to roofless room with the swift, certain
step of one quîte familîar with the place. Every where
the ivy and wild grape vines had draped the crumblîng
walls and heaps of rubbish, so that, in places, bowers
as fanciful as those of fairy-land, made a sweet crepus-

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AT THE RUIN. 173

cular gloom, though the folîage was mostly gone. He
trîed to reach her side, but her quick turns and elusive
movements kept her ail the time just ahead of him,
and her sweet voîce came back to him, as if tossed to
him over her shoulder, luring him on and on, in and
out through the labyrinth of rooms. Once she stopped
for the merest moment to look out, through a ragged
opening which had once been a window, down upon
the placid face of the river. He came close to her and
bent low to gaze over her shoulder. She felt his
breath on her neck.

" How lovely ! " he murmured, in that deep, rich
voice which always vibrated so strangely in her ears.
His moment had come.

" Lovely," she echoed, and slipped away, like some
shy, wild thîng afeard of its own voice.

Reynolds was burning with a désire to speak to her
of his love, and she, hardly knowing why, felt a sweet
dread of him. She tripped along through what had
been a broad hall and tumed into an open space where
some of the walls had crumbled into a great heap
around the base of the stack of chimneys. Hère it
was that suddenly a man, wild-eyed, shaggy-headed,
ragged and gaunt, sprang up before her in a menacing
attitude with a heavy pistol in his hand. She gave one
little chirruping scream, threw up her arms and sank in
a crumpled heap to the ground. Reynolds sprang for-
ward with a loud ejaculation. His movement had ail

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174 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

the appearance of a furious attack upon the startied
ruffian, who, in sheer self-defense, as he thought, raised
the pîstol and fired. Reynolds felt the blow and the
duU pang of the bullet in his right shoulder. The man
did not fire again, but turned and fled through the
nearest opening. It was ail so sudden, the whole thing
happening wîthîn the space of half a minute, that no
one of the actors had time to get more than a glimpse
of the situation before the act was ended. The ruffian,
as was afterward ascertained, was a condemned mur-
derer who had escaped from jail just the nîght before
he was to hâve been hanged. No doubt he was lying
asleep when the approach of Mrs. Ransom startied him,
and thinking it was an attempt to recapture him, he
had fired and fled. The sound of the shot roused Mrs.
Ransom from her half swoon and she leaped to her
feet. Reynolds put forth his hand and touched her on
the arm.

" Be calm — don't get scared, I can protect you," he
saîd, but he could not see her. A cloud was in his
eyes and a reelîng sensation in his brain.

She looked up into his face and saw how deathly
white it was.

" Are you hurt ? " she quaveringly asked, taking a
step nearer him.

He mumbled some unintelligible answer, felt blindly
about in the air with his hands, staggered, gasped
hoarsely, and fell at fuU length upon the ground, face-

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AT THE ^UIN, 175

downward, arms outspread, and lay quite stîU. Sud-
denly, to Mrs. Ransom, the silence of the place became
awful, dense, impénétrable. She screamed, but her
voice seemed not to go a yard from her lips. She
stood for a moment with clenched hands, her face
piriched and thin, her eyes fixed upon the prostrate
form of Reynolds ; then she threw herself down besîde
him and tried with ail her mîght to turn him so that
she could see his features ; but he was so heavy and
she so weak that her effort was vain. She called for
help untîl her voice became thick with hoarseness.

"Oh, is hedead?" she wailed, "is he dead? Oh,
won't some one come ! Must he die now ! Oh, and I
love him so — love him so ! "

It was as if her grieving words called him back from
lifelessness, for he moaned, sîghed deeply, and by a
violent struggle tumed himself on his side with his face
toward her. He opened his eyes and looked înquir-
îngly at her for a time, then he closed them with a
weak, tremulous motion of the lids. She clasped his
head in her arms, and summoning ail her strength, lifted
ît upon her lap. The blood was beginning to ooze
through his saturated clothes and trickle on the ground
beside him. It almost crazed her to see this, but she
was as powerless as a child to help him. She could
but bend over him, and, brushing the dark heavy hair
back from his forehead, where cold beads of sweat had
risen, kiss him again and again in the ecstasy of her

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176 A 7' LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

excîtement. He was not unconscious now, but he
was limp and nerveless, hîs immense vîtality slowly
gathering îtself for the effort to recover equilibrium.
Faînt almost unto death as he was, he felt the thrill
her kîsses sent throughout hîs frame, and he dîd not
note the pain of hîs ugly wound.

" Oh, you must not die, you must not die ! " she
waîled, în a sobbing voice. " Open your eyes for my
sake, John — for my sake, do you hear, for I love
you so!"

He heard every word, but he could not open his eyes
or move hîs lîps, though slowly and surely his strength
was coming back, despite the rapid loss of blood.

The pîstol bail was a very large one and ît had made
a bad, almost fatal wound, having passed through hîs
shoulder and a part of his chest, barely missing the
lung, The shock had had a paralyzîng effect, causing
the însensibilîty from which he was rallyîng.

It was a striking picture they made grouped against
the dark back-ground of the old wall, with the dîm
light falling over them. If a broken spear and a cloven
helmet had rested hard by, it would hâve served well
for a tableau of médiéval days, a lady nursing the
head of her fallen knight within the crumblîng ruins
of some battered castle.

"Why â?/â?we ever come hère! Oh, love, my own
love, open your eyes ! Speak to me : say you will not
die, you will not die ! "

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AT THE RUIN. 177

Her words, so insistent, so despairîng and so pas-
sionate, fiUed his consciousness wîth an all-satisfying
sensé of happiness. He could scarcely understand why
she should not be willing to let him lie quietly and
lîsten to her, for he had not recovered himself suf-
fîcîently to be able to grasp the reality of her suffering
or of his own condition.

" Speak to me, speak to me," she kept reiterating,
until at last, like one freeing himself reluctantly from
a sweet dream, he moved his lips, making no sound at
first, but presently saying :

" Where are you, Agnes ? "

His voice was so strange and so low that she could
not catch his words. She bowed her head so that her
face almost touched his.

" What is it — what did you say ? " she tenderly asked.

He put up his left hand and swept it over her cheek
and down along her shoulder. Then, as his wound
began to pain him, he groaned in a suppressed way.

" What ails me? What — ah, the shot — he hit me, I
know — I remember now," he said, beginning to gather
strength. " Let me sit up."

With a strong effort he raised himself to a sitting
posture and smiled feebly.

"I hâve called and called, but no one will come.
What shall we do?" she cried, wringing her hands and
gazing helplessly at him. " Oh, why did we ever come
hère?"

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178 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES.

" Be calm, darling," he saîd, looking fondly at her,
the wan smîle on his face growing more intense. " I
wîU show you that I am a man worthy of your love."
Then he arose and stood up, tall and beautiful in his
strength, before her, seeming to defy his wound and its
pain, though his face was pale as death.

" Corne," he added, " let us go to the boat and retum
to the house. Corne, I am strong now, and I love you,
Agnes, my own little woman — come with me."

He caught her with his unhurt arm and drew her
hard against his side. With a swift, firm tread he went
with her down to the landing, never faltering or waver-
ing until he had fixed himself in the stem of the boat
and directed her how to paddle out to the middle of
the stream.

AU this time he had been losing blood and his pain
had been excruciating. He had made a grand effort,
and now the reaction came with a power that he could
not resist. He sank back with his head resting on his
arm and lay there as white and lifeless as if dead. She
thought hîm dead, and sat there numb and motionless,
letting the boat drift with the gentle current. Every
thing about her appeared shadowy, misty, unreal. Her
heart scarcely beat. Why was it that, in the midst of
this awful trial, there came to her mînd a vivid memory
of the short romance of her married life down on the
old plantation by Mariana ? Some of those days were
dreamily happy ones with her wild boy husband — the

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AT THE RUIN. 179

days before dîscontent and trouble came. Why would
the reckless blue eyes and curling, yellow haïr waver
before her, between the strong, pallid features of thîs
man whom she now loved with such f ervor ?

Slowly the boat drifted on in the sunlight, between
the reed-covered banks, bearing îts strange load down
toward the DeKay place. It was a dark touch with
which to end so charming an idyl as the past few days
had been ; but life in the South favors the tragic and
the melodramatic : it is the life of passion and of sudden
changes.

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CHAPTER XIV.

A WHISPER IN THE CABIN.

ONE day, while Reynolds was gone to General
Dekay's, White came home from Birmingham
perfectly sober and with no gambling story to tell.
Milly met him at the gâte, as usual, with the same pitî-
ful look of patient inquiry in her eyes. He chucked
her under the chîn and in an uncommonly cheery voice
said :

" He air comin' home right away soon, Milly, I hev
heam from *im straight. Go an' drive up the steer fer
me, won't ye ? I want er haul er jag er pine-knots
purty soon." ,

•* I don't b'iieve he air a comin', no sich a thing. I '

dremp he wer' married, an' thet's a sign o' death. How
d'ye know he air a comin* ? " She spoke almost pet- J

tishly, looking fixedly at her father, whose pale eyes
wandered aimlessly from object to object.

" I seed Mr. Noble, thet banker down ther' : he hev i

come back. He said ter me, says he, * The Colonel, he ' ' -^
an' Mr. Moreting air comin' nex' week,' thet's what he
says ter me."

Milly let her eyes fall and began dîggîng în the
ground with the toe of one of her shoes.

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A WHISPER IN THE CABIN. l8l

" Thet young lady, thet Miss Noble down ther*, hes
she kem back ? " she presently asked.

" La, yes, she hev," quickly replîed Whîte. " Bless
yer life, yes, she kem with 'er pap. Oh, yes, she kem
too, she did."

*' What meks John stay so long ? "

" Oh, him ? w'y he's a havîn* a stavîn' oie tîme er
shootin' quails an' a drinkin' er fine liquor an* er smokîn'
good seegaîrs. Don't yer go to blamîn' hîm fer stayîn*
awhile down ther' : hit air a good place ter be at, yer
better think."

" Seems lîke he mought never corne," she murmured,
and there were tears in her eyes as she started to go
and fetch the ox.

Whîte went into the house and shut the door.

" I hev a bad secret to tell ye," he saîd to hîs wîfe,
" an' I don't wan't yer ter let Milly know aîry breath
about ît, nuther."

" Well, less yer what ît aîn"

"Yewon'ttellMîlly?"

"Naîry word."

" Sartîng an' sure ? "

"Yes."

" Well, the Colonel he aîr shot."

"Shot?"

" He aîr.-

"Shot?"

" He aîr, sartîng."

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i82 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES,

" Goodness ! an* who tôle ye ? "

" Thet banker, down ther* at town, Mr. Noble, he tôle
me. Hit wer* a feller 'at broke jaîl 'at done hit, a out-
dacîous murderer, down yer at some other town, 'at
wer a goîn' ter be hung, an' some friend of hîs'n helped
'îm ter break jaîl an* gîve *im a pîstol, an* he put out
through the country. Hit seems, f*om what thet
banker down yer says, *at the Colonel were a galîvantîn*
off to some lonesome oie house wî* a wîdder *oman, *an
thet feller he wer in ther an' jes' shot 'îm down."

" Goodness alîve ! Hît dîdn't kîU *îm ? The Colo-
nel he haîn't dead ? "

" No, not dead, but he air bad off. He aîr laîd up
în bed. He hev got a hole through 'îm."

Mrs. Whîte began fillîng her pîpe wîth great energy,
her husband foUowîng her example. There was a space
of sîlence, then he saîd :

"We hev got ter lîe ter Milly fer ail thet's out.
Hît'U never do fer her ter know ît *at the Colonel's hurt.
She'd go 'stracted.'*

" She mought jest as well. Hît aîr no use er foolin*,
he*s not goîn' ter hev 'er."

"Hev her! Hev her! w'at upon the aîrth are ye
talkîn"bout?"

"She loves *îm."

"MîUy? 5;i^love? Shelov^ him?''

" Ye-es, she-e lo-ove hî-îm ! '* drawled Mrs. Whîte în
a hîgh key, waggîng her head wîth each word.

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A WHISPER IN THE CABIN. 183

Whîte looked at her in utter consternation.

" Thet leetle silly gai love him ? W'y she air no
more'n a tom-tit er a hominy-bird ter be à lovin' the
Colonel. Shorely she hain't gone an* been no sîch a
dang f ool es thet ! "

"Shehev."

"Howd'yeknow?"

" Hain't I got no eyes, ner years ? "

** Ye hev, sarting, an' a tongue."

" Now, smarty ! Ye think yeVe said somethin' ! "

" Beg parding. But this yer stuff 'bout love, hit air
a bad thing. I commence ter see into some er Milly's
cur'us notions, ef thet air's the case. But dang ef I
b'iieve sech a thing."

'• Well, hit air the case, an' there's more ter corne. Ye
hain't heam the wo'st part."

"An' what d'ye mean by thet ? "

" I mean a heap, thet's w'at I mean."

"A heap er what?"

" Ef ye'U promerse me on yer wordy honor ter keep
still tell I say at ye may go free, FU tell yer w'at."

" I promerse, sarting."

" On yer wordy honor ? "

"Yes."

" Fm erfeard ye'U go ter bein' a fool an' makîn* a fuss
'fore I whant ye to. 'Cause ye see, hit mayn't be es
bad es it mought."

As Mrs. White said this, White looked searchingly

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1 84 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES.

înto her face, and what he saw there caused hîm to
move uneasîly and puff his tobacco smoke nervously.

" What îs thîs yer what yer a hîntin' at, anyhow?"
he demanded, almost fiercely.

" I haîn't erbleeged ter tell ye, an' TU jest never do
hît er tall, ef yer a goin' to be er fool an' high-rantin'
aroun' lîke er eejet er somethîn'."

" Didn't I promerse ye ? Hain't thet enough ? Ef
hît taîn't, what d'ye want me to do?"

" W'y I whant ye ter never say er word ter nobody
'bout w'at I tell ye, tell I say so, not a single word, nor
do a thîng 'bout hît of any kînd. Do ye promerse? "

"Yes."

" On yer sacurd wordy honor? "

" Yes, dang ît ail, go on ! "

" Now l'r a goin' ter tell ye somethîn' at aîr orful, an'
I don't know w'at to do erbout hît. But 'member, yer
promersed me." ^^

"Yes."

" Ye'U keep right stîll, an' never say a word, er do a
sîngle thîng erbout hît ? "

" Yes, I tôle ye thet, long ago, 'bout a dozen tîmes.
Go on, an' say what yer a goîn* to."

They were lookîng at each other, as people do who
are about to expérience some grave domestîc crîsîs.
Mrs. Whîte's sallow face had suddenly taken on a hot
flush, and her eyes looked worrîed and hollow.

**I d'know hardly how ter say hît wîth my mouth,"

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leis

A WHISPER'IN THE CABIN, 185

she falteringly began. " I wush I never hed a been
born'd, no how ! "

Tears came înto her eyes and her lîps quîvered.

Whîte leaned over close to her, takîng the pipe from
hîs mouth, and saîd in a low, hoarse voice :

" What air the matter, wife ? "

" Oh, a heap, a heap air the matter ! " she sobbed.

White put his hand on her shoulder and brought his
ear close to her lips.

" Tell me now, I want er know," he gently and
gfravely urged.

She whispered something in a rapid, sobbing way.
Not more than a dozen words, but White's face shriv-
eled as if with a great heat. He drew back from her
and glared like a wild beast. Not a sound came from
his writhing lips. His thin jaws quivered.

" 'Member yer sacurd wordy honor," said the woman.
" Ye promersed me, ye know."

He got up and tramped aimlessly around the room.
Presently he took down his long flint-lock rifle from its
rack over the door, and blew into its muzzle.

" Ye'U not brek yer wordy honor ? " she insisted.

He put the gun back and came and sat down by her
again. Just then Milly opened the door and entered
the room carrying her coarse sun-bonnet in her hand.
The exercise of fetching the ox down from his brows-
ing place on the mountain side had put a bright color
in her çheeks, and the wînd had bçen tossing her pale,

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l86 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

straw-gold haïr so that it hung in elfish tangles about
her neck and shoulders. She scarcely glanced at her
father and mother.

" I hîtched *îm out ther*," she saîd, referrîng to the
ox, and passîng on înto the kîtchen, went by that
round-about way înto Reynolds' room. She was very
sly, but they heard her movîng about, and knew she
was once more re-arrangîng his things.

They looked at each other wîth somethîng of that
hopeless, dazed expression often observed in the eyes
of the lower animais when hurt to death. Mîlly had
left the outer door open and the cool mountain air
poured in, rustling vaguely such loose articles as its
current could stir.

Lîttle more was said between the man and his wife,
for there seemed nothing to say, A cloud had settled
over their compressed, barren lives. Nothing in theîr
natures was ready or flexible. They stared at fate, as
they stared at each other, with the hopelessness of utter
bewilderment.

Days went by, days of that languid, cloudless weather
which comes to those mountains in early February, and
the little household of the cabin went through the dry,
spiritless round of duties, as if some spell had fallen
upon them. True there was no marked visible change
in their way of life ; that was impossible. The limita-
tions of human action nowhere else are set with such
rigid immutability as they are, and perhaps always will

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A WHISPER IN THE CABIN, 187

be, in those cramped, unfertile, almost barren mountaîn
régions of the South. No advance, no retrogrcssîon (save
where hère and there a raîlroad brings îts little whisky
centers), ail is stagnant, dull, dry, hopeless poverty.
lUiteracy, sterility, and that stubborn conservatîsm
which is born of them, rest like an atmosphère around
those poor people. They move and breathe and are
stolidly content.

When a month had passed and Reynolds had not
corne, Milly, who had been kept in ignorance of the
true State of affairs, began to show stronger signs of
disappointment. She was restless and anxious, wan-
dering about the house or leaning upan the gâte, silent,
sad-eyed, expectant and hopeless by tums, a source of
deep trouble to her parents.

Now and then White attempted to cheer her up, but
the words seemed to corne dead and meaningless from
his dry lips when he would say :

" He air a havin* a outdacious good tîme down
ther*, he air, an' he don't like ter quit off yet. Jest ye
wait a day er two an' 'en ye'll see 'm a comin* up yer,

Milly, a comin* up yer " his voice would most

usually fail him, but he would go on : " Yes, he air
comin' back purty soon, when he hev hed ail the
shootin* he ken git."

Such statements, reiterated so oftcn, lost a large part
of theîr reassuring power, but Milly liked to hear them,
and they were the best thàt he could do.

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CHAPTER XV.

A DISCLOSURE.

THE day folio wîng that on whîch Reynolds receîved
hîs wound brought letters to Moreton from his
home în England, with intelligence of the sudden
death of his father, and a request for him to corne at
once. This summons was so urgent and peremptory
that nothing short of immédiate departure could be
thought of. So he went ; but not without Cordelîa's
promise to become his wife, and not before he had
reached a full understanding with Mr. Noble on the
subject. It was hard for him to break away from the
sweet meshes in which he was entangled, and hard for
him to leave Reynolds lying there pale and emaciated,
with little more than the breath of life în him ; but
he could not stay. He promised to come back within
two months, little thinking at the time that he would
never see Birmingham again, or at best for some years
to come. But so it was. When he reached England he
found that the best interests of his father's estate
required the sale of the American property, and that
he would hâve to give hîs entire attention to the
home affaîrs.

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A DISCLOSURE, 189

Soon after Moreton's departure Mr. Noble, followîng
the fashion of thrifty Americans, seized upon a most
favorable offer and changed his place of abode to New
York City, where he became the chîef of a strong
banking establishment in which he had hitherto held a
subordinate interest. So that by the time that Rey-
nolds was begînning to gather strength and to forge
well past the point of danger from his hurt, he was
left alone with the DeKay household. No invalid ever
had more careful nursing or had thrown around him
more charming influences. General DeKay gave his
•entire time and attention to ministering to the needs
of his guest, appearing to feel that, in some way, as a
host, he had been careless and thus to blâme for the
almost fatal misfortune to one of his party. He had
formed a great liking for Reynolds, beginning no doubt
with the young man's excellent shooting in the first
day's sport, and made stronger by the manly qualities
and magnetic influence he possessed in a marked
degree ; and this liking shaped itself during Reynolds*
îllness into an attachment very rarely engendered
between men.

Mrs. Ransom, after the first great shock of the adven-
ture had spent its force, exhibited a quiet courage and
fortitude in strong contrast to her girlish weakness up at
the ruin. She was tireless in her efforts, hopeful, even
when the doctors doubted, and cheerful when every
one else appcared ready to despair. She seemed to

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IÇO A 7^ LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

rely, with perfect confidence, on Reynolds* power to
overcome the effect of the hurt, and when hîs enor-
mous vitality began to assert itself, she went about
the house with a gentle smile on her lips and a serene
h'ght in her beautifui eyes that told how her heart
rejoiced. To know that he was under the same roof
with her and that he loved her and that he was
getting well, filled her with a contentment little short
of perfect happiness. She was not an intellectual
woman, as the phrase goes ; she knew little of the
world's philosophies and sophistries, but she was a true
woman, full of féminine sentiment, cleverness and
earncstness : shy, wary, elusive, and yet outright and
artless, at times, as any child. Her beauty was of that
rarer Southern type which is the opposite, in most
features, of the fiery, passionate, voluptuous, tropical
model which has been unjustly copied into art and
literature as the représentative one.

Beauty that shrinks from self-advertisement and
delights in blooming in a sheltered place where the
light is never over-strong, secrètes such essence and
fragrance, takes on such modest and délicate color, and
holds about it an atmosphère so subtly individual, tKat
it is not within the power of brush or pen to portray it
so easily and effectually as it may that other and
coarser and possibly more vital sort. It is this beauty
that a pink ribbon to-day or a bunch of violets to-mor-
row, or any other simple bit of adbrnmcnt, scems sa

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A DISCLOSURE. îÇI

perfectly suited to as to appear a part of the wearer.
If Agnes Ransom was rather below the best womanly
stature, the casual observer would not hâve notîced it,
for her bearing was high and her development strik-
îngly balanced, or rather, so evenly balanced as not to.
be striking, and her movements had the sraoothness
and rhythm of a perfect lyric. She was a woman whose
love would be of lasting value to a true man, and to
love whom would generate nothing lawless or short-
lived in the masculine nature. If Cleopatra stands as
one type of eastern beauty and passion, Ruth stands as
another. A woman like Agnès Ransom may be taken
as representing very fairly a certain class of Southern
women who carry about with them, even in old âge, a
girlishness and simplicity, combined with a shyness and
exclusiveness often mistaken for either prudery or un-
friendliness. Plantation life is, to an extent, a lonely
one in a climate where it is possible and pleasing to
spend much time out of doors, and where ail the influ-
ences of out-door nature tend to generate repose. One
can not but observe what seems to be the effect of thèse
influences in determining the physical and mental
contour of the Southern girl. She is slender, well
developcd, lithe, graceful, rather inclined to repose,
not strikingly intellectual, has strong domestic inclina-
tions and bears about with her an air of provincial inno-
cency and naïveté that has a marked flavorof the isola-
tion and the freedom of the plantation. Mrs. Ransom

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!9^ V< T LOVE' S EXTREMES,

had been very little in city society ; a winter în New
Orléans and a few visits to Savannah limiting her
expérience beyond that obtained from a résidence in
the dreamy, isolated little old place of her birth, Pensa-
cola. She was not a Catholic, but the rudiments of her
éducation had been obtained in a convent, and some-
thing of that demure quietness and quaintness of man-
ner characteristic of the nun had remained with her.
No doubt her short and trying married expérience had
modified her charms of person and character to an in-
teresting extent, adding an inexpressible value to her
beauty. A trace of lingering sadness, slight but always
présent, gave a mild emphasis to the purity of her face
and the low music of her voice. Such a woman could
not fail to touch the heart of a fervid and passionate
man like Reynolds, whose whole nature had been
introverted for years, and whose life had been so long
repressed and stagnant.

During the half delirium of hîs fever,while theinflam-
mation of his wound was at îts worst, he lay and
watched her corne and go, his heated vision making an
angel of her about whose ethereally lovely form halos
and rainbow colors played fantastic tricks. Sometimes
the apparition was double, and then one of the angels
took the form of poor little Milly White, whose haunt-
îng, hungry face flashed with a heavenly light. But as
he grew stronger and the fever left him, it was Agnes
Ransom, the pale, sweet, earnest little woman, that

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A DISCLOSURE, 193

controlled his every thought. He was content to lie
there and patiently wait on naturels slow work so long
as she hovered near. He felt securely fixed in her
love. Every word, that în the stress of agony, she had
uttered'up there în the ruin, lay like some divine germ
in his heart, growing and strengthenîng with every
moment. He did not seek to hâve her say more and
he said little himself. When she fetched flowers from the
out-door conservatory, grand cream-white and blush
camellîas, roses, jasmîne and violets, and arranged them
on the odd little mahogany table by his bcdside, he
would whisper some tender phrase of thanks and love,
and then she would sit by the window and read aloud
to him some forgotten romance, such as is to be found
în every ancient Southern library. Happy invalid ! to
hâve such balm for his wound ! And so the days of
his convalescence drew by, not in pain and fretfulness
and impatience, but freîghted with the rîchest gifts of
love. He was like one in some favored nook of fairy
land, realizing the tenderest visions of dreams.

One day, near the first of March, when he had grown
able to sit propped up on a sofa by a window, whence
he could look out over the broad landscape to where
the sky came down to the tufted woods, or turn his
eyes upon short sîlvery bits of the river, he said to her:

" I shall soon be able to go away. I feel my strength
comîng back with every breath."

She looked up from the needlework that she chanced

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194 A T LOVE' S EXTREMES,

just then to hâve în hand, and, wîth one of her slow,
sweet smiles, shook her head.

"You must not begin to hurry. You must be
patient, ever so patient. A moment of haste mîght
cause a month of trouble. You can not afford to run
any risks."

"Oh, I am patient,*' he replied. " I really find myself
dreading to get well, selfish wretch that I am. Do you
observe that I never take into considération the
immense trouble I am causing ail of you ? I think of
nothing but the charmed life I am living — the sweet
comforts I am receiving."

"I really believe you are getting well," she saîd.
"Whenyoutalk in that straîn I know you are but
trying to hide a longing for your mountain air and the
freedom of your hermitage."

" You do me wrong," he responded, with an eamest
résonance în his voice. " I am so content to be as I
am that when I go to sieep I do not even dream of
being well."

" I am glad of it, for the doctor says that a quiet
mind is the best salve for a healing wound."

" You had better not convince me that the doctor is
rîght, for I mîght be tempted to get restless în order
to prolong my period of delîcious convalescence.
Beware, if you don't want me lollîng in easy chairs or
proppcd on cushions and pillows for you to minister to
ail the season."

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A DISCLOSURE, IÇS

" Oh I shall Icnow it if you begin to take on the aîr
of a professional invalid, and shall discharge you at
once," she exclaimed, with a light laugh. *• You won't
be interesting as a — a sham ! I hâte shams and deceits
and hîdden things of every sort/'

He looked at her with such a sudden, though barcly
noticeable change of expression in his eyes, that her
quick intuition told her of some serious thought that
had leaped, unbidden and unwelcome, into his mind.

" Hîdden things," he said, with a peculiar smile.
" Hidden things are often much better hidden than dis-
closed, and it is a mercy to the world that secretive-
ness is one of the strongest éléments of human
nature."

** Perhaps so," she said, growing grave and thought-
ful. " But it would be so much better if there were
never any need to exercise one*s secretive faculties."

** Oh, a dormant faculty would be contrary to the
economy of nature. Even confession catches a precious
fragrance from the transgression long hidden away.
Conscience would not even be ornamental, much less
useful, if it bore no treasure of sins known to it only."
He spoke in an airy, îdle manner, but thêre went with
his tones a ring of somethîng not quite pleasîng.

"You shock me," she exclaimed, in perfect camest-
ness, a cloud gathering in her eyes. " I hope you do
not believe in such ugly and dangerous doctrines."

Immediately he gathered in his strayîng thoughts

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196 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES.

and crushed down the memory that was naggîng at hîs
consciousness. He felt wîth sudden clearness how
easîly he mîght turn away from hîm the confiding earn-
estness of this sensitive woman, and attract from her în-
stead the înterest born of a doubtfui sort of fascination.

" I don't believe in them/* he smilingly answered.
" I was merely givîng rein to an idle whîm of the
moment. On the contrary, I believe in perfect frank-
ness in ail things. Confession and forgiveness are
together the safety-valve of society, as they are chîef
among the Christian virtues."

" Yes," she said, with a sort of relief in her tone.
"There is as much to ask as to grant in that law. I
could not quite respect myself if I should deceive any
one, and I should feel it a triumph of duty over the
strongest bias of my nature if I should thoroughly for-
give one who had willfully deceived me."

"But you would forgive such an oné/' he hastily
exclàimed, looking almost eagerly into her eyes.

" I should feel it incumbent upon me to try with ail
my might/' she responded.

"One who would deceive you in a matter of any
moment/* he observed, with a warmth and véhémence
that fairly startled her, " would deserve never to know
forgiveness. He would be a monster outside the limi-
tations of the Christian code."

" You shouldn't say that/' she replied, a pink spot
appearing on eîther cheek. " It would be a great deal

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A ÙÎSCLOSURË. Î97

worse to deceîve some one more ignorant and much
weaker than I. I hâve had many opportunities, denied
to a large number of young women. I ought to know
better how to évade the evils of falsehood and
deceit."

Reynolds did not speak for some minutes. A swell
of the fragrant south wînd came through the window,
and the first mocking bird of the season was singing in
a magnolia tree at the further angle of the house. The
drowsy charm of spring*s earlîest stirrings hovered in
the sky, the air, the far-spreading fields and the shim-
mering glîmpses of water. Somet^ing like the warn-
ing of a distant, scarcely audible voice was ringing in
his ears. Below his dreamy happiness he could feel the
beginnings of a vague uneasiness.

" I know, I know,** he presently said, and he did not
realize the almost brutal directness of his words,
" yours was a bitter and burning disappointment. You
deserved every thing that you hoped for, nothing that
you received.'*

Her face grew pale and flushed at once, so that the
spot on either cheek shone like carminé on a milk-white
ground. She looked helplessly at him with her lips
slightly parted and her eyes beaming, as if through a
haze.

*' Oh, I hâve pained you ! *' he exclaimed, with such
a pénitent and sorrowful intonation that she made a
weak effort to smile. '* Forgive me," he went on rap-

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19^ A T LOVE *S EXTREMES,

îdly. " I seem in an unfortunate groove to-day. You
know I would not wound you for the world."

" It relieves me that you hâve said what you hâve/'
she replied, after a pause, " for it tells me that you
know my past. I wanted you to know, and I could not
tell you. I did not see how I ever could begin or
how "

" Let it pass, let it go by like the wind," he mur-
mured ; " the future is ail ours, we wîU make it as pure
and lovely as the sky yonder, won't we, love ? **

She crossed her hands in her lap and smiled on hîm
with tears in her eyes. How grand and beautîful he
appeared to her, reclinîng there, with his stalwart limbs
outstretched and his manly face beamîng with love.
It was a quîck, uncontrollable impulse that caused her
to say, with a tender tremor in her voîce :

" I wanted you to know that I loved him and that if
he were alive now I would still love him, notwîthstand-
ing ail that has happened."

"Yes, yes, that is ail rîght, ail right," he quickly
responded. " It is sweet of you to fecl so ; but he is —
he is not alive, you know, and—"

" Sometimes I hâve dreamed that it is not true — ^that
he is not dead, but may be living yet. I never could
get the particulars, the country was in such turmoil and
he was so far away. Somehow the thought has haunted
me that some day he will come back."

A strange grim look settled on Reynolds' face.

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A DISCLOSURE. 199

" He will never corne b^tck/' he said.

" No," she replied, " I know he will not. It is fool-
îsh for me to allow the thought to enter my mind, but
it will, and I can not drive it out/'

" You must, Agnes, you must,*' he exclaimed wîth a
rush of passion, " for my sake, love, for my sake."

She sat for a moment in silence, and then, as the
tears welled up afresh in her tender eyes, she replied :

" You know how gladly I would, but I can not. It
grows upon me since — sînce I hâve known you, and it
will not be banished. Sometîmes I find myself actually
going to the door to look — "

" Hush ! Oh, Agnes, I can not bear it,'* he cried, his
face growing pale witb extrême excitement. " My
God ! I shall hâve to tell you ail."

'*Tell me ail?" she plaintively, inquiringly mur-
mured, looking wonderingly at him, for something in
his voice, his face, his manner had given to his words
a mysterious power.

" Yes, I will tell you, though it drive me from you
forever. I see that I jnust, that it is my duty." He
paused and hesitated. " I know," he went on, " that I
am rushing into the dark, but I trust you, Agnes, and
I know you will do right — you will do no hasty thing.
Remember, oh, remember how I love you."

" I can not understand — what is it you mean ? —
what— "

" No, you can not understand, but you will ; ît

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200 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

requires but a sentence." Agaîn he faltered, and wîth
his eyes fixed upon hers in a way that almost terrified
her, seemed to be rapîdly choosing his words before
continuîng.

" I am the man who fought wîth your husband, and — "

" No, no, no ! '* she exclaîmed, holding her hands eut
toward hîm, her face ghastly.

" Yes," he resumed, "yes, it is so. He was to blâme.
He forced ît upon me. I could not escape him. He
would hâve killed me."

She let her hand fall in her lap and sat in a helpless,
horrîfied attitude.

" You will hâte me now, Agnes, but I hâve disclosed
my secret and my dreadful duty is done. For the sake
of my great love, say no bitter word."

She did not speak. How could she? Such a dis-
closure coming so suddenly and unexpectedly and from
his lips, crushed her into that silence which is next to
the silence of death.

He trembled now and his voice broke as he said :

" Do you see how hard it is ? I ref used to fight with
him, because I did not believe in the practice (rf duel-
îng, and then he forced an encounter in the street of
San Antonio. I did every thing to avoid him, but I
could not. I had to — to do what I did. Can you'
comprehend, Agnes ? "

Still she remaîned speechless, motionless, bowed
down and awfully pale.

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A DISCLOSURE. 201

" I don't want to make any unmanly excuses — I
would spare him for your sake ; but he was ail în the
wrong, and it would be "

She stopped hîm wîth a quick gesture.

" I can not hear this now — I am too weak and ex-
cited. I must go. Excuse me. I must go." She arose
almost wîth a spring and passed swîftly out of the room.

A feeling of désolation swept, like a breath of noisome
air, through the breast of Reynolds. It was as if the
whole world had become a désert and his life a dreary,
void waste. And yet there was a sensé of relief, as if
a great load had been cast aside. A lôad indeed, but
not ail the load he carried. He tried in vain to feel
that his whole duty was done. He hid his face in his
hands,but he could not shut out the truth. His whole
past life lay like a fiercely illuminated panorama under
his inward gaze. Ah, by what a zig-zag path, through
what torments, had been his course ! And how he had
always panted for happiness ! Must it end hère ? He
raised his head and smiled in a way that would hâve
been terrible to see. He clenched his hands, his eyes
flamed. Ail the melodramatic fierceness and fervor of
the old South had come upon hîm. He was ready
with desperate courage to fight ail the world.

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CHAPTER XVI.

CONVALESCENT.

MRS. RANSOM kept her room for several days.
The shock she had received from Reynolds' con-
fession carried with it something more than the pre-
dicament might at first view imply. She had loved
her husband with ail that romantic fervor characteristic
of girlhood in a warm climate. He was a handsome
youth, bright, impulsive, brave, passionate, reckless,
holding her to him by that strange fascination, which
we ail know but can not account for, exerted by the
bad over the good. When he had appeared to désert
her she was not surprised, and the news of his death by
murder saddened without shocking her beyond endur-
ance. With the lapse of time the effect of her trouble
had softened and faded ; but she had never ceased to
remember with a warmth of dévotion, more of the
imagination than of the heart, perhaps, the lover and
the husband of her romantic girlhood. To be sure it
had grown to seem no more than a tender dream, that
period of love and happiness ending in gloom, but its
memory haunted her.

Reynolds had in some way thrilled her life with

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CONVALESCENT, 203

something more potent than that girlish adoration with
which she had honored her boyish husband. H îs influ-
ence over her was so strange and so new to her expéri-
ence, so sweet and yet so masterful, so overwhelming.
His love had shown her how little she had ever krtown
of love before, love in its highest and perfectest devel-
opment.

But this dreadful discovery — this dark, strange ton-
fession, fell upon her just at the time when it could
hâve the effect of darkening as with the shadow of both
crime and death the whole of her life. It seemed a
stroke of fate so malignant, so merciless, so far-reach-
ing, so unutterably terrible.

Reynolds sufïered, but not as she did, He was
gloomy, impatient, restless, but his wound continued to
heal rapidly and his bodîly strength hourly increased.
His physical constitution was so elastic and vigorous
that nothing, it seemed, could long disturb its equilib-
rium. Mentally, however, he was a man of extrêmes,
surging to the furthest stretch of the tether in whatever
direction impelled. Now he was in the deepest pît
of despondency. The whole light of life had gone
out.

As if to render his state more dreary by contrast,
the weather waxed with sudden fervor into ail the
golden splendor of a semi-tropical spring. A sprink-
ling of pale green tassels and tender leaflets appeared
on certain decîduous trees, and the grasses peculiar to

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1

a04 AT LOVE' S EX THEMES,

the région began to shoot up brîght spîkes în the
warmer spots of the brown fallow fields. A daînty
woody odor pervaded the air and the mocking birds
and brown thrushes sang gayly in the old trees about
the mansion. The sky assumed a hue of such rîch,
tender azuré as is observed nowhere save in the low
country in especially favorable weather. And the river
(what stream is more beautiful than the Alabama?)
seemed to go by with some rhythrrtic impulse but half
repressed in its broad, alniost silent current.

Left much alone during thèse days, Reynolds natu-
rally enough indulged in retrospection ; but his thoughts
rarely went further back than to that tragedy in the far
West which had let fall upon his life the almpst insuf-
ferable shadow — a shadow rendered doubly dense by its
effect upon his présent prospects. Often his gloomy
reflections stopped at the mountain cabin and lingered
with its inmates. The face and form of Milly White,
once so meaningless to him, were rapidly assuming a
significance that would not be ignored. Even his deep
passion for Agnes Ransom and the brooding dread of
its hopélessness now, could not shutaway the accusing,
vaguely insistent eyes of the little mountain girl. The
isolation of that lonely plantation house gave him no
sensé of séparation f rom the sources of his trouble.

One day, it was quite early in the morning, Uncle
Mono, the old negro musicîan, came along in the plat
below the window of the room in which Reynolds sat^

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CONVALESCENT. 205

and chancîng to glance up, doffed hîs dilapidated hat
and said :

*' Mo'nin', boss, how's ye comîn* on dîs mo'nîn',
sah?"

*' Oh, very well, Uncle Mono, thank you," responded
Reynolds, smîlîng mechanîcally down on the black,
wrinkled face so queerly omamented with its shocks of
almost snow-whîte wool. " How is Uncle Mono ? **

" Po*ly, boss, po*ly. Got some *flictîons in de spine
ob de back, an' los* my ap'tite some. Ole dahkey no
'count no mo* no how. Done see ail my bes* days long
'go, boss."

Mono had a long-handled hoe on his shoulder. He
was a sturdy, well-fed looking old fellow, with any thing
but unhappiness in his shrewd, deep-set eyes.

"What are you up to this moming, Mono?** Rey-
nolds idly inquired, leaning at ease on the window-sîll.

" Gwine ter plant some watermillions, boss ; got some
pow'ful good seed yah, got 'em outer a watermillion
what wus a million fo* sho*. I allus hab a fine patch,
boss, kase I neber plants no po' seed. Yo 'member
de book say : * Yo* reaps what yo' sow, an* ef yo* sows
de win* yo* reaps de whirlwin* sho*.* *'

"That isa true saying, Mono,** said Reynolds. " It
holds good in the matter of ail kinds of crops.**

" Now yo*s a gittin' ter de marrer ob de subjec*, boss.
*Taîn*t many young men see it dat way, do*. Dey
mos*ly sow a little ob de win' jes* fo* ter see how it

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206 A T LO VE *S EXTREMES,

wo*k ; but de way dey cotches hell fo* it at de end ob de
row am cunnin* ter see. I knows ail *bout ît, boss ; l's
ben dah, / bas. 'Spec' you's ben poo'ty rapîd, too,
boss, yo* got de gallopîn' eut o* de eye. I knows a
rus'ler w'en I see *im. Yo* no slow-goin* creeter, boss,
yah ! y ah ! yah ! yah-h-h ! *' The old wretch chuckled
and guffawed, as if hîs sayings had stirred his feelings
boisterously. The active wrinkles in his face made it
ludicrously expressive. Reynolds made no response.

" I kin tell w*en I see a young feller, whedder he like
de spo*t er sowin' a leetle win' an' kinder hanker fo* de
'citement ob de whirlwin*. Yo* no spring chicken,
boss, yo's "

" Be off, you old vagabond ! ** stormed General
DeKay's military voice from somewhere among the
shrubbery.

" Vag'bon', vag'bon', Fs no vag*bon, no mo* 'n some
white folks I knows ob," Uncle Mono muttered, very
careful that the gênerai should not hear him, and then
shuffled away to plant his melon seeds.

The sort of flattery intended to be conveyed by the
old negro's expressions fell with a peculiarly disagree-
able effect upon the mind of Reynolds. It seemed
quite devoid of the humor which Mono by hîs nods
and winks and grimaces had meant to enforce. It had
corne like a direct, malignant, personal accusation, ail
the more disagreeable on account of its source. He
gazed out across the lîttle plat and through the tree-

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CONVALESCENT, 207

tops beyond toward the patches of blue sky, without
: - noting any of the softness and beauty of the view. It

:: chafed him immeasurably that he could see no escape

c: from his tormentîng situation. What was the use of

z:. struggling against the pressure? He felt ail the verve

:.: and force of life slipping out. He was not weaker

rV than most men whose passions are deep and turbulent

j:: and whose imagination is fervid and flexible. He

5 passed easily from one extrême to another. He could

:^ not dally on the middle ground. Looking back now,

; he saw no good in ail his past life, and looking forward

^^ he felt no expectation of good in the future. With his

arm resting along the window-sill and his head droop-
ing across it, he did not hear the light foot-fall on the
floor. A hand was passed over his hair. When he
turned Mrs. Ransom stood near him, with her sweet
blue eyes bent with a measureless meaning of love
upon him. He almost shrank from her at first, then
he would hâve clasped her, but she eluded him and sat
down in a chair beyond his reach.

" You are appearing so much better,'* she said, with
a little constraint in her voice, but not disclosing any
excitement. Her beautiful face was a trifle pale and
there were faint, dusky lines under her eyes.

" Yes, I am nearly well, I hope," he replied, abetting
her in the effort to make the occasion hâve a common-
place appearance.

" It îs such sweet weather. Do you hear my mock-

:rr.

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2o8 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

ingbirds?" she înquired, tiying to smile. "They
hâve been having a stormy concert."

"Yes, they hâve had a real war of song ail the
morning," he answered.

A long space of silence ensued, during which they
heard Uncle Mono chantîng an African ditty to a
lagging. melancholy tune, while he worked in his patch
some distance away. Presently Reynolds almost
abruptly said :

" You hâve been îll, your aunt says. I am so glad
you are with me again. I hâve been lonely and — and
sad. I was afraid you were worse than your aunt
would acknowledge."

"It is ail over •now," she replied with a short,
repressed sîgh. '* Do you feel strong enough to walk
out ? The morning is very inviting."

" It is a happy thought,'* he almost cheerily re-
sponded, rising and taking up his hat ; " let us go out
at once. I am tired of being indoors, despite the good
nursing I hâve had."

They passed into the broad hall, where she took
from a table her hat, on which the twisted sprig of
mistletoe still remained, just as he had fixed it on the
day of the shoot, and thence they went forth among
the magnolia trees on the front lawn.

" One can never quite lose sight of the river hère,"
said Reynolds ; " see how it shînes under the boughs
yonder. Isn't it fine ? "

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CONVALESCENT. 209

" Have you notîced that the gentle roar ît had some
weeks ago is almost silenced ? '* she asked.

** I had not, but I do now/* he answered ; " what is
the causé ? "

" It has fallen so low that îts current îs too sluggîsh,
I suppose; but Uncle Mono and the rest of the
negroes have a pretty sayîng that the river sings till
the mocking birds begin, and then it becomes silent in
order to listen to their voices/'

" That is a poetical idea."

" They have a more grotesque one about the moon
Crossing the river.*'

"What is that?"

" They claim that if one takes a skiff and goes to
the middle of the river, exactly at midnight when the
moon is full, one may see the moon in the water mak-
ing ail sorts of wry faces at the moon in the sky."

" I have observed that myself," said Reynolds, very
gravely.

"The moon makîng faces?" she exclaimed with a
little smile, looking inquiringly up into his face.

" Yes, the skiff or the wind breaks the surface of the
water into ripples which cause the reflection of the
moon to appear to do ail manner of fantastic things."

" Oh, I understand it now. I had never thought of
that."

" But," she added, after a moment of silence, " it
would be cruel toexplain away Uncle Mono's fanciful

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2 lO AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

legend or myth of the Alabama and the moon. Don't
you thînk so?"

" The old scamp îs not so ignorant," saîd Reynolds.
"It would not be so easy as you might imagine
to destroy hîs stories. He would hâve plenty of
expédients for evading the démonstrations of natural
philosophy/'

" I should hope he would," she saîd, " for there îs
something fascinating in ail his grotesqueries. They
seem to hâve a smack of genuine African wildness of
poetry în them."

They sat down on a low wooden bench, mossy wîth
âge and exposure to the weathef, under a grand mag-
nolia tree. Hère they were in the full tide of the
breeze with ail the freshness and fragrance of the
mornîng around them. The dingy old house, so large
and plain and yet so picturesquely Southern, was just
sufficiently removed to be nearly lost in its vines and
trees. Reynolds felt some sort of dread lest their con-
versation should fall away from the lightness wîth
which it had begun — a dread almost betrayed when he
saîd :

"Can'tyou thînk of another negro conceît ? I am
sorry I spoîled the one about the moon."

"They hâve a story of the owl and the magnolia
bloom," she answered, after a pause. " They say that
the big laughîng owl comes, în his wisdom, every
sprîng, when the buds of the magnolias are just on the

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CONVALESCENT, 2ïî

point of openîng, and says to the tree : ' Hold fast,
hold fast ; if you speak now you'U lose your influence
for a whole year,* but the tree does not heed the wise
counseL It opens its lips (the petals of its flowers) and
spills its perfume. Then the owl laughs dismally and
the tree has no more perfume for a year."

" That doesn't sound much like a thought of savage
origîn. It has a weak touch of cîvilization in it some-
where/'

" Oh, the negroes hâve gathered lîberally from us,
no doubt," she said, reflectively stirring some dry leaves
with the toe of her tiny boot.

It vexed hîm that this action reminded him of Milly
White. He rubbed his forehead to try to dissipate the
thought. Perhaps there was, scarcely known to him-
self, a deeper reason for his irritation in the conscious-
ness that they both were beating against the wind to
reach some common ground from which they mîght
banish forever any allusion to what they felt must
always remain a dreary memory. After a long silence,
Mrs. Ransom, with the outright courage of her
womanly sensé of what was for the best, did not hesi-
tate to approach the point.

" This thing, that you told me of the other day, must
be our secret. The world has no right to it. I hâve
considered it from every point of view possible to me,
and I can see no other safe or proper course. Am I
right?"

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« I « AT LOVE* s EXTREMES.

Reynolds was startled by the steadîness and firmness
of her voice and manner, but he clutched eagerly at
the comfort of her suggestion, so like an écho of his
own thought.

"I am glad to hear you say that/' he replîed. "I
was on the point of saying it myself. Let us bury the
subject forever. It îs one of the inscrutable tums of
fate over which- we never had control. It is in the
past Let ît stay there.*'

" I thought at first that I could not bear it, but ît
came to me, after the first shock, that you are the one
most burdened and that I ought to help you," she
responded, with an infinité tendemess in her voice. " I
know you were not to blâme."

" God knows how true that is, and how I love you,"
said he, in a husky accent, his cheeks pale with intense
feeling, his eyes buming strangely.

Her face was tumed somewhat from him, and as he
looked at its fine profile and gentle grâce of expression,
he upbraided fate with unutterable rebuke because he
had not been allowed to see and know her before any
ill had befallen her. How little he understood the
value that trouble and sorrow had added to her charms.
He thought of nothing but the pathetic aspect of her
expériences and the effect of her past and his upon the
présent and the future. He chafed under the convic-
tion that this secret which they now held between them
would never fall back among those cast aside things

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that form the rubbish of the past, but would stay close
to them ready to corne înto vîew at any unguarded
moment. In fact, would they not hâve to keep always
this common burden well in view in order not to allow
the cover to fall from ît ?

" Does your shoulder pain you ? ** she asked ; but she
knew that it was an older and more dangerous huit
that caused the pallor in hîs cheeks.

" No, it is coming along finely," he answered, with
an effort at cheerfulness. " I shall be going away in a
few days/*

" Not so very few ; you are not strong yet."
'* Oh, yes, I am beginning to feel quite like myself,
and my wound îs almost healed/'

" I shall miss you when you are gone," she saîd,
with a little smile. "You hâve been my patient so
long/'

"Do you imagine that I can stay a\vay? Don't you
know that I will be back surprisingly soon ? How can
I live where you are not, Agnes?'*

Just a hint of color suffused her cheeks. She dropped
her eyes in a charming way, with that gîrlish air dis-
closing itself in her outlines, and yet some indefinable
expression of great trouble remained.

"You will find the mountains delîghtful at this time
of the year," she said. " The spring is very forward.
The wild-flowers will be out and the mountain-slopes
will be growing green."

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« T4 AT LO VE'S EXTREMES,

" But there îs nothing left for me up there. More-
ton is gone, the Nobles are gone: it will be very
lonely."

" Then why go at ail ? Stay wîth us as long as you
can/* she said, with ail the old naïveté in her voice.
" The bass-fîshing is beginning, uncle says, and you and
he can enjoy ît together. The spring fishing îs very
fine hère."

" That will însure my retum/' he said, wîth the first
laugh. " But I shall hâve to go up to Birmingham and
look after some affairs. They are running a coal-swîtch
into some of my lands, and I must see to leasing some
of the best veins."

" Such lands must be quite valuable. Hâve you a
large amount?" she asked, but she could not hâve
told why.

" I hâve a great many acres, but the extent of the
coal deposits remains to be ascertaîned. I hâve been
ofîered a large sum for the estate, however."

" I can*t visit Birmingham any more, now that Cor-
delia is gone. I wish she could hâve staid. She is a
charming friend," she said, with that inconséquence
which is so apparent in written conversation, but which
runs unnoticed through the oral intercourse of èven
the best talkers.

" A few days — ^a week, at furthest — will set ail my
things to rîghts," he contînued. '" And then, if I may, I
will come back to — to try the bass with General DeKay.''

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CONVALESCENT, 215

It îs by such bridges of straw that many a guif îs
spanned ; but who can successfuUy laugh at the struc-
ture, no matter how fragile, if it is able to serve the
purpose for which it is built ? Happy is he who can
at will bind together or hold apart the incidents of life
with the almost imperceptible gossamer threads of
tact.

At the end of an hour they had managed to forget
themselves somewhat, and it was with a feeling closely
akin to annoyance that Mrs. Ransom read on a card
brought to her by a servant — " Mallory Beresford.*'

" Mr. Beresford has corne," she said, a decided flush
coming into her cheeks, *' and wishes to see me. I
shall hâve to go, I suppose. Will you return to the
house now ? "

" No, I will get some more air. You will come back,
won't you, when he is gone ? "

" Yes; that is, if he doesn*t stay too long," answered
she with a bright smile.

Reynolds let his eyes foUow her lithe and supple
form as she walked briskly toward the house. She
was carrying her hat in her hand and there was a bit
of bright ribbon fluttering back' over one shoulder and
down her back, under her dark coîl of hair. Touches
of the Southern, the warm, the dusky, the dreamy, filled
în the spaces of the picture beyond and around and
over her. The light b'rush of her feet, in the crisp,
fallen leaves and tufts of grass, came back to him, and

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2l6 AT LOVEES EXTREMES.

along wîth ît a thrîU sweeter and more mournful than
any chord of the iEolîan harp. He shook hîmself,
drew his hand across his face, arose and stroUed idiy
about under the trees.

" It îs worth a great effort," he was thînkîng, ** and I
shall succeed. . Lîfe g^ves up its measure of happiness
at last to the brave and earnest. The past shall not
mold my future and hers. I will take her and go
abroad. She shall forget, among the beautîes and
înterestîng changes of travel, ail this foolîsh panorama
that our imaginations hâve made out of the coïnci-
dents and calamities for which neither of us is to blâme.
Oh, we shall be happy yet ! " He held his head high
and his eyes flashed with mingled hope and défiance.

When he thought of Milly White he added: "I
shall not forget to repay her for ail her faithfulness
and childish affection."

Faithfulness and childish affection! Faithfulness
and childish affection ! the écho went ringing away into
the remotest nooks of his consciousness. For a time he
struggled hard and finally he hurled memory aside to
give himself wholly up to forming plans for the future.
But no one îs vigilant enough to keep unwelcome
guests long out of the chamber of his brain. They
Ait in so swîftly at any chance opening. How giant
strong and yet how furtive and silent they are !

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CHAPTER XVII.

DREAMS AND PLANS.

REYNOLDS lingered in the pleasant shadows of
the magnolia trees, now slowly walking to and
fro, now restîng on some one of the old lichen-grown
seats, his thoughts oscillating between the past and
the future. He was aware, but not vividly, of how
aimless and cowardly his lîfe until now had been, and
he was not quite sure that, no matter how strong might
be his présent purpose, the cowardice did not still
linger with hîm. One thing he did realize perfectly :
that he had not told the whole truth to Agnes Ran-
som. He might hâve avoided killing her husband
had he been prompted by the hîghest moral motives.
If before the act he had been as willing to fly from San
Antonio and go bury himself in the lonely depths of
Sand Mountain as he was after the blood was on his
hands, he could to-day look up into the bright sweet
sky and fj;el no load on his heart. But then, Heaven
forgive the thought, Agnes could not hâve been his !
It was with a dull, almost stolid sensé of the gloom
2^nd hopelessness of his situation that he çit the sçimç

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2 1 8 AT LOVE' s EXTREMES,

time pondered the possibilîties of the future. Through-
out hîs consciousness, too, independent of the past or
the future, the présent fact of Agnes Ransom's love
for him difîused itself with constantly increasing- power,
warmer, more vitalizing, more glorifying than sunshine
and spring-tide and virile health combined. He knew
and he did not know that he was tryîng to deceive
himself and the woman he loved. He was aware and
he was not aware that ail his reasoning regarding the
future was sophistry and that the things of the past
were not dead. He smiled there under the dusky
trees as if he were a guileless youth in the sweet
wonder of his first love. He held his head hîgh. Had
he not flung ail weights of memory behind him and set
his eyes on a faîr and calm future ? Yes, he was goîng
to be happy. He was already happy. He would take
Agnes far away, beyond the sea, where no hint of the
past could ever comç. At length he caught a distant
glimpse of Beresford going away, and then a little thrill
of pity stole into his bosom. The man looked lonely,
even at that distance, and moved as if bearing a burden
of trouble, or so at least Reynolds' imagination colored
the apparition.

Mrs. Ransom did not come forth immediately. She
had borne the interview with firmness, and had tried
to soften with such art as she could command the
wound she was forced to inflict. Beresford was a
gentleman as well as a man, and whilst he had urged

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DREAMS AND PLANS, 2 1 9

hîs plea wîth ail the passion of a strong nature, he had
taken his final dismissal with the dignity of a courage-
ous, if not lofty soûl.

When he was gone, the reaction upon Mrs. Ransom's
sensitive and already sorely taxed nerves was more
than she had expected, and she went to her room and
cried. It seemed so bitter a thing to do to one so
earnest and honorable and gentle.

Reynolds saw the traces of tears on her face, when
at last she did corne out to look for hîm, but he avoîded
saying anything to call up an explanation. She told
him the story, however, in her straîghtforward, simple
way, acknowledging her regret and her tears, and end-
îng with some outright praise of Beresford's worthi-
ness.

" I am sorry he came," said Reynolds. " I felt for
him when I saw bim going away ; but what else could
you do?"

" Did he look sad ? " she inquired with perfect
naïveté, a sweet sorrowfulness in her voice.

" Oh, I couidn't tell, he was too far off," answered
Reynolds. '* It will ail come right. We will not allow
our imaginations to follow him. I must tell you my
plans. I hope they will be your plans too."

She lifted her eyes to his but did not speak.

" First of ail, Agnes," he went on, " will you be my
wife?" The words fell dryly, strangely on her ear.

They were standing close to a tree and she was

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2 20 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

lightly îeanîng agaînst the bole. She felt a quick but
vague sensé of fear, or somethîng akîn to it, strike
coldly înto her heart.

It was inexplicable, an almost irrésistible impulse
toward flight took hold of her. She could not speak.
Something forbade it.

" Answer me, Agnes : you will marry me, won't you,
love ? ** His voice was low and appealing.

Her trépidation and weakness were but momentary.
She mastered herself by a strong effort, and, with a
brave, earnest smile, put both her hands in his.

" Yes, I will marry you," she said.

He lifted the hands swiftly and kissed them, then he
led her to one of the seats.

" I hâve been planning such a delightful life for us,"
he began, and with passionate éloquence went on to
disclose his idea of their going abroad, for a time at
least, to live in Italy or Switzerland or France, together,
for each other, the blissful life of love.

Her imagination responded readily to his éloquent
descriptions, and her face was soon aglow with enthusi-
astic interest. She had always dreamed of foreign
tr^vel, and the subject was one into which she could
cast herself with ail the abandon of a child. He saw
with delight how his proposition pleased her, and he
talked with a freedom and earnestness that were irre-
sistible. They were now very happy lovers îndeed,
and the time sped on golden wings untîl a servant

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DREAMS AND PLANS, 221

came to call them to luncheon. They had slîpped
away from the troubles that had haunted them into
the true realm of the young — the rosy région of
dreams.

The mîd-day meal at the DeKay place was not, as
is, perhaps, the prevailing custom on plantations, the
principal one. Dinner came on early in the evening
and was ail the more enjoyable on account of the
delightful température of the hour throughout most
of the year.

Late in the afternoon a young gentleman from an
adjoining plantation came down the river in a little boat
to make a f riendly visit. He had been one of the guests
on the day of the shoot, a dapper, talkative youth whose
fund of good spirits made him welcome at ail times.
He liked wine and tobacco, was somewhat of a horse-
man and never tired of discussing questions of angling
and field sports. Of course General DeKay, who cared
for nothing so much as such companionshîp, would not
let him return until after dinner. His name was Lap-
ham. The Laphams were a fine old family — nearly ail
the Alabama families below the mountains are reported
to be fine and old — and hç retained in his speech and
manner much that was ultra old and Southern, along
with certain strong traces of quite modem " slang and
snap," as it is called.

He sat next to Mrs. Ransom at table, entertaining
her and the rest with an account of sQme récent races

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aaa AT LOVE '5 EXTREMES.

at New Orléans, or Tuscaloosa, or somewhere, that he
had been to see. There had been a row among some
sports ending în one being killed.

" It was a mean murder," he remarked, " the man was
gîven no show. I hope the law will be swift, as în the
case of your man, Colonel Reynolds."

Reynolds looked at hîm with quîck înquîry and
Mrs. Ransom's face showed the shrinkîng of her feel-
îngs.

" Oh, they got hîm below Selma and hanged hîm,"
added Lapham in answer to the question in Reynolds'
eyes. " They made short work of ît : caught him and
strung hîm up to the first tree."

" I haven't read the papers for several days," saîd
General DeKay. " They lynched him, did they ? Hang-
îng îs the popular thing now."

" Yes," answered Lapham. " He deserved it, I believe.
It was a bad case. Killed a young fellow who had just
been married. Loved the girl hîmself, it îs said, and
did the deed out of sheer revenge, because she took
the young man în préférence to hîmself. The cîrcum-
stances were atrocîous. The young wîfe îs reported to
hâve lost her reason on account of the affair.*'

There came a depressîng silence over the lîttle group
at the table. Mrs. DeKay made haste to change the
topic of conversation to one she was sure would interest
the gentlemen.

" Hâve you trî.çd the trout sîncc thîs fine wcatbçr bas

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DREAMS AND PLANS. 223

corne ? ** she asked, addressing Lapham. " I should thirik
the angling might be good now."

The mention of . trout (bass are called trout în the
South) set the yôung man in the midst of one of his
favorite éléments. He began at once to tell how he
had killed a four-pounder that very morning. He always
killed four-pounders. " It was the gamiest fish I ever
hooked, I think, — a regular savage. I toiled with it a fuU
half hour before I could land it. At one tîme it had
out nearly a hundred yards of Une and I thought I
never should get it checked up. If it had gone a little
further my rod or my line — one would hâve suffered.
It was joUy sport."

" I must rig up my tackle and try the river to-mor-
row," said the General. " Are you strong enough to
join me, Colonel Reynolds ? Of course you will come
down, Mr. Lapham ? "

" I am sorry," answered Reynolds, " but I fear my
shoulder is too tender. I am quîte anxîous to get well,
and to that end must heed my doctor's advice."

" I will join you, General," said Lapham with eager
readiness. " This morning's taste has made me raven-
ous for another round with the finny beauties."

" What Aies are best hère ? " inquired Reynolds,
thinking of somethîng else.

"Oh, we use minnows," said Lapham, "though I
hâve had success with a bob of deer-tail hairs and red
feathers. The trout won't rise to a regular fly."

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224 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

" Up în the mountains I find the ' Doctor ' and the
brown hackle very killing/* said Reynolds. ** I hâve had
rare sport în the smaller streams. The bass there are
qui te as game as brook trout.*'

" The mountaîn fish are like the mountain crackers :
game but not over wîse/' Lapham quîckly responded,
wîth an intonation meant as a guaranty of the origî-
nality of his humor.

" Neither would be easily handled by a novice, I grant
you," said Reynolds wîth a peculîar smîle.

Lapham laughed merrîly. The retort pleased hîm
better than his own venture.

" I was up in the mountains last wînter deer hunting,"
he said, " and there's one thîng I can testify to in behalf
of those crackers : they are very hospîtable and oblîg-
îng ; they seem to thînk they can't do too much for
one. But the women ! It kept me in a state of chronic
melancholy to see the poor thîngs."

" Theîr life is a lonely, dreary, hopeless one," replied
Reynolds, " but they are good, and as true as steel.*'

" Yes, no doubt they are good. I know they are
kind, and ail that. Theyasked me tosmoke wîth them
and called me sonny ! "

" Dîd you go when they called you ? " the General
asked, with the ready familiarity of old acquaîntance.

" Yes," said Lapham, " I recognîze the fitness of the
appellation."

Reynolds was thînkîng of Mîlly Whîte. She was, în

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DREAMS AND PLANS, 225

hîs mînd, unseparable from any îdea of the mountaîns
and their people. He felt an impulse to resent, as Per-
sonal to her, every suggestion made at the expense of
the mountaîneers. He could see her now, standing by
the little gâte gazing down the crooked, stony road,
patîently watching for hîs return. He strove to brush
asîde the reflections that began to crowd into hîs brain,
and with the help of Lapham's skipping levîty and thé
unusual Volubîlity of General DeKay's talk, he at last
succeeded in hîdîng hîs uneasiness and lack of sympathy
with the quiet merriment of the occasion.

Mrs. Ransom appeared to be lighter-hearted than at
any other tîme since the adventure at the ruin. Her
face was touched with a charming color and she fol-
lowed Lapham's shallow chatter with smilîng atten-
tion. It was from her that Reynolds finally caught
the ability to forget himself and to fall into the spirit
that ruled the rest of the Company. Once engaged,
he put forth his powers with good effect. For Lap-
ham's benefit he described the Derby and the Grand
Prixy a pigeon shoot in England where the stake was
a thousand pounds, angling in Scotland and some
huntîng adventures in Algiers. From sport he easily
drifted to art and from art into the ever wonderful and
fascinating scenery of Swîtzerland and Italy. It was
Agnes who led him on to speak of Paris and Rome,
the two cities of every young woman's dream. She
was full of the thought of going with him to the old

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226 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES,

world. It was întoxicating her. How far away ît
would be — that life beyond the sea — from the dreary,
sorrowful pool of her narrow and bitter expérience !
That nîght in the quiet of her chamber she thought ît
ail over, and she was dreaming of it when next mom-
ing the mockîng-birds awoke her. Reynolds, too,
went to his room wîth an almost Hght heart. From
his window he saw Lapham, with a little sail set, go up
the river before the night breeze, in the light of a cres-
cent moon that hung over in the west.

" I will retum to Birmingham to-morrow," he thought.
He was in haste to get his affairs ail arranged and then
come back and persuade Agnes to name the earliest
day possible for their marrîage. He felt a mîghty
impatience, as if each moment endangered the cup of
happiness now bubbling at his lips.

But the thought of going back to the mountains
chilled him. Why need he go at ail ? Why should
any sordid considération enter into the discussion of
his plans ? Had he not already shut out of his life
the dreamy hermîtage and ail that pertained to it?
He tried to imagine a line drawn across the past at a
point on this side of ail his unprofitable expériences, a
line over which he would teach his memory not to
cross. Could he not, by a suprême effort of will, tear
whoUy away from his old self, as from a chrysalîs
sheath, purify hîmself and spend the rest of his days
în the summer atmosphère of a calm and peaceful

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DREAMS AND PLANS, 227

lîfe? How ît tormented him to perceîve hîs lack of
genuîne courage and sincerity in thîs exacting crisis !
He trîed not to know that his new hopes and desires
were not borne up by an underswell of true repentance.
The selfishness of mère regret and remorse taunted
him insidiously, whiist the happiness that beckoned
him on was tricked in sensuous tinsel-tints, the expo-
nents of a very low power of good. He struggled
fiercely, silently, fighting down in détail the troops of
phantoms that beset him. Finally he cheated himself
into believing, or feigning to believe, that he had
gaîned the victory. The field is clear, he thought, I
am a man once more.

Strangely enough hîs mental struggle ended in con-
firmîng instead of rejecting the thought of returning to
Birmingham at once and closing out his interests there.
After ail, why should he hesitate? What possible
objection existed? How could he be afîected? He
brushed ît ail aside as sheer sentîmentality unworthy
of considération. He could not assume to be responsî-
ble for every body who had chanced to come within
the radius of his life. What is a man hère for, save to
forge his own way to happiness ?

And so he rushed from one extrême to the other,
whoUy unable to see the fine straight line of right,
whoUy unwîUing bravely to assume the responsibility
of lifting the burden his own hands had packed and
bound. Not see the right! Yes, he saw ît at last.

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t a8 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

clearly enough he thought. Réparation, réparation.
He would right ail the wrongs he had donc. He would
do good ail the rest of hîs life. Kîndliness, charity,
blessings. He would Icave a traîl of good deeds
behînd hîm wherever he should go. The poor should
remember him and the afflîcted should feel the touch
of his tendemess. Wîth Agnes besîde him, wîth her
pure soûl to influence and encourage him, to what a
height of unselfishness he might rise. He smiled and
felt reassured. AU was well.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

REALITIES.

THERE îs no phase oî lîfe so steadfast and at the
same time so tricksy and variable as what is called
being în love : the current îs ail one way and yet îts
force appears to act in every direction. Love sets
for itself impossible tasks with a perfect confidence,
attempts any height, and, alas, too often is willing to
delve in the mire and dregs of things with the hope of
finding one glittering grain of its désire. No doubt
suprême passion and suprême happiness lie far apart.
Form, color, sound, perfume and whatever appeals
through them, may constitute, we know not to what
extent, the values of passion. Happiness is not so
clothed that its substance is covered or îts footing
invisible. It appeals to the conscience more than to
the sensés. One may say: I am happy, and go
delîghtedly through the giddy rounds of the little
whirlwinds of pleasurable émotion, but he îs ail the
time conscious of the vacuum and lack of equilîbrium
that hâve caused the unusual excitement. He îs vague-
ly or otherwîse mindful of the fact that he îs îndulgîng
a delusîon. His conscience argues that steadfastness,
poise, evenness and certaînty are the foundation stones

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2SO AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

of happiness. Too often thèse foundation stones
seem to lie far away, so that, like the old poet, one cries
out : " Oh, had I the wings of a dove ! ** Reynolds and
Agnes had fixed their eyes on this distant place where,
amid new scènes and strange people, the temple of
their love mîght become the dwelling-place of îmmeas-
urable happiness. And why should they not realîze
this dream? They were young, strong and lovîng.
He had weaith sufficient for a life of reasonable luxury,
and was not their secret their own ? Over and over
agaîn the argument was made and the pleasîng con-
clusion reached.

It was a comfort to them both to reiterate their
expressions of confidence in the future; for ail the
time there lurked a doubt somewhere on the outer
boundary of their field of thought, a doubt each hoped
the other did not know of. Not that either questioned
the purity or perfectness of the other's love, that was
impossible, but this dark secret of the past seemed to
link them together on an insecure footing which might
give way at any time, plunging them înto an abyss of
irrémédiable suffering. It mattered not how far away
or how shadowy this doubt was, or how often it seemed
to be utterly driven ofî, the lésion it caused to the
tissue of their love-dreams was incurable and there-
fore dreadful, notwithstanding its obscurity. It mîght
be forgotten for a time, even for a long time, but ît
could not be put away wholly and forever.

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REALITIES, 231

However, love takes ail risks, braves ail dangers,
attacks every obstacle. There was no longer hésita-
tion, even i£ the doubt would linger. They were
impatient to embark upon their voyage to love's land,
as they imagined it, somewhere beyond the sea. They
laughed, they sang, they exchanged sweet, airy utter-
ances of passion, as did the birds in the green mazes of
the tree-tops above them. They made the most of
the moments.

" 'Clar' ter goodness ! " muttered Uncle Mono, whose
eyes were not so old that he failed to note the wooing.
" 'Clar* ter goodness ! Ef de young boss haint a rus'ler
den I dunno nuffin*. W y he done kotch de pore
leetle missus, same Iak er hawk ketch um bird. She
not hab time ter squeak 'fore she gone ! Mebbe it turn
out de bes' kin*, I dunno, but seem Iak dar's somefin*
'sterious sorter bodderin* my min' 'bout it. Wha' dat
boss corne f om, anyhow ? an' wha' he gwîne ter go to,
l'd Iak ter know ? But he's er rus'ler, sho's you bo'n,
^^is!"

General DeKay and his wife saw how matters were
drifting, too, and they discussed the probable outcome
with mariy doubts and misgivings. They were not
persons fond of borrowing trouble, however, and they
did not know of any objection to Reynolds. In fact,
the General had grown to like him very much. More-
ton had told them that Reynolds was wealthy and of
a good family, and had let fall a great many apparently

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23a A T LOVEES EXTREMES.

accidentai références to hîs frîend*s good qualitîes.
Thefe seemed to be no foundation upon which to base
an objection, no plausible reason for interférence, se
the love-passage was left to be worked out to its end-
îng, whatever that mîght be.

Reynolds got ready to go to Birmingham. The De-
Kay place was about two hours* drive from Montgom-
ery over a level country highway. So on the mornîng
set for his departure a carriage stood ready at the gâte
in front of the lawn. He had taken formai leave of
General DeKay early in the morning when that sport-
loving planter was on the point of joining Lapham in
an excursion for bass. The General had warmly urged
him to return soon, so as to test the qualities of the
fish in the Alabama, and he had readily accepted the
invitation. Now he was lîngering on the véranda with
Agnes, who, dressed in a pale blue morning gown and
flushed with the sweet émotions that filled her breast,
was looking her loveliest. Her blue eyes had lost for
the time ail traces of the quiet sadness they had so
long harbored, and were beaming with a tender, happy
light. She stood up erect and strong, her siender
figure, with its softiy rounded outlines, poîsed with
such grâce as always suggests a reserve of abundant
elasticity and youthf ul alertness. Whoever had studied
her face at that time would hâve declared that its
expression was in every way witchingly girlish, sîmply
and charmîngly beautiful, full of truth and eamest faith

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REALITIES, 233

in the right ; but he would not hâve called ît an întel-
lectual face, or one îndexîng a strongly developed
character. She would make a good wife, he mîght
hâve saîd, a trustîng, gentle, ever-lovîng, ever-faithfui
companîon, the comfort of a strong man, the sweet
light of a home ; but she could never be any thing
more.

" A week, love, and then — *' said Reynolds, pausing
to look fondly down into her eyes.

" And then you wîU corne back to me,** she quickly
replied, "I know you will, and I shall wait for you
and think of you every minute of the time.**

" Oh, you must not worry about me, or be impatient.
The days will soon slip by. Take good care of your-
self and- — **

"You are the one who needs that advice,** she
urged, " for your wound is not entirely well, you know.
Do be very, very careful, for, for — you are very dear to
somebody now ! **

He would hâve kissed her then, but Uncle Mono
very unopportunely made hîs appearance around the
corner of the véranda. Mono was old and wise. He
knew that the departure of a guest from the house was
the golden moment for a servant possessing his libéral
oppprtunitîes. The lifting force of émancipation from
slavery had not raised his pride above the level of
those trîcks which, în his days of bondage, had served
to soothe his palm with pièces of sîlver, and even of

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234 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

gold sometîmes, tossed from the lavish, careless hands
of vîsîtors whom he had waited upon. He came
shambling along with his old hat in his hand, bowing
very low and grinning the grîn of the trîckster who îs
sure that his trick must win. As he came near he
said:

" Berry sorry yo' gfwine away, boss, beny sony.
Hope yo* not fo'get oie Mono when yo' done gone.
*CessfuI jouraey to yo*, boss."

" Thank you, Uncle Mono, I can never forget you.
Did you ever play base-bail. Mono ? " said Reynolds.

" Nah, sah, do*n know nuffin* 'bout dat," answered
the old man, shaking his head and executing some
ludicrous grimaces. " I nebber plays nuffin* *cep'n*
de fîddle an* de banjer, an* Tse gettin* so oie an*
*flicted dat I can't play dem to no good. Old Mono
mos* run he ye*thly co*se, boss.**

" You*re not springy and active, then, Mono. You've
lost the use of yourself pretty nearly, I suppose ? "

"Dat*s it, boss, dat*s it. Ole man ail cripple up
wid *fliction an* oie âge. No 'count any mo*. He
done los' ail he sperit.**

" Well, Mono,** said Reynolds very gravely, taking
some pièces of money from his pocket, " if you*ll catch
this dollar when I throw it to you, 1*11 gfive you
another.**

Mono prepared to use his hat.

** No, no,** exclaimed Reynolds, laughing, "1*11 not

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REALITIES, 235

have that ! Put down your hat and use your hands.
Now, hère ît cornes."

No cat, leapîng out of the summer grass to catch a
low-flying sparrow, ever displayed more nimbleness
and adroîtness than dîd old Mono in catching that
dollar. It fell upon his dusky palm with a clear slap
and îmmediately found its way înto his trowsers
pocket.

" Yah, yah, yah ! let de oder 'n corne, boss, l's ready
for *m ! " shouted the old fellow in great delight.

" You're an intolérable fraud, Mono/* said Reynolds,
tossing hîm another dollar, " your afflictions are of the
kind the good people sing about, that 'are oft in
mercy sent;* a few more of the same sort would
make a famous acrobat of you.**

" Fanky, boss, fanky ; tôle yo* dat yo' wus a rus'ler,
did'n* I? Goo'by, boss, 'cessful joumey to yo*, sah.**

" Good-by, Mono, we'U go a fishing when I come
back," Reynolds called after hîm, as he rapidly
retreated.

"AU right, boss, I go wîdyo*. 1 show yo* wha* dey
îs, sho's yo' bo*n. Goo'by ! "

The morning breeze was sîngîng in the vines that
clothed the heavy columns of the tall véranda, and its
gentle current tossed some loose tresses across Mrs.
Ransom's happy face. It was time for Reynolds to
be on his road, but he faltered whenever he undertook
to say the word of parting. Yet a minute or two, he

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»3^ AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

would thînk : I wîll make up for the lost tîme when I gct
started. She had never appeared so beautiful as now,
never so happy, never so lovîng.

** Walk down to the gâte with me," he presently
saîd : " it will give me a happy send-off on my journey,
to look back and see you standing there watching me as I
am goîngout of sîght among the shadows of the wood.**

They spent a long time passîng over the space
between the véranda and the gâte. Hère they paused
to dally besîde a bed of hyacinth or there to note how
wonderfully large the violets were. A touch of childish-
ness, or thoughtlessness (or was ît that artlessness
which cornes of complète self-forgetfulness?) made
their actions amusingly interesting to Mrs. DeKay,
who watched them from the window.

The colored driver was perched upon hîs hîgh seat
in front of the DeKay landau and the team of chestnut
mares was ready for the road. There was plenty of
time left in which to reach Montgomery so as to takc
the north bound train.

** Agnes/* Reynolds murmured, " you must be ready
to set an early day for our marriage by the time of my
retum. We shall want to sail as early in June as pos-
sible. I hâve not yet spoken to your uncle and aunt,
but I shall as soon as I return."

She was silent, but it was a silence just as satisfactoiy
to her lover as any words could hâve been.

The barbarie imagination, always a part of the negro,

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REALITIES, 237

must have been aroused in the driver as he lounged in
hîs seat and gazed at the beautîful woman and the tall,
strong man straying down the walk. Their figures
were boldly relieved against the duU gray background
of the old house, and framed in with vines and mag-
nolia boughs. He had a vivid though savagely crude
sensé o£ the warmth and tenderness and fresh-
ness of the picture. His indolent, half-closed eyes
and shining, jet black face were expressive of that
dreamy phase of delight which is generated by
mère passive receptivity. The délicate blue of Mrs.
Ransom's dress, the charming bloom of her face and
the supple grâce and strength of her slender figure
were to him as a star is to a poet, a mystery, a focus
of unapproachable glory, never to be any nearer or
any further away. He felt, without knowing it, ail the
aesthetic values of the scène before him ; the cloudless,
tender sky, the rich green of the magnolias, the wind-
beaten and rain-stained old mansion ail wrapped in
semi-tropical vines, the flare of the sunlight and the
soft glooms of the shade, and, beyond the house and
the trees, the sheeny reeds and the broad, winding
river, ail thèse with the fresh perfumes and delicious
sprîng wind, touched him and

" Passed like a glorious roll of drums
Through the triumph of his dream."
He saw, he felt, he enjoyed — what more could his lazy,
baskîng nature cravç?

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238 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

The parting was commonplace enough, a mère clasp-
îng of hands, strong, hopeful smiles and good-by. It
could not be less, it might outwardly hâve been more,
if the driver had not been there.

" You will corne soon."

" Very soon — in a few days."

The carnage, a sort of open landau, began to move,
and Reynolds sittîng in the rear tumed and furtively
flung back a kiss.

She was aiready begînning to grow pale, but she
touched her Hps wîth her fingers and waved him adieu
wîth a bright smile.

He kept his eyes upon her, as the distance gradually
grew, and, so absorbed was he, it startled him when
the vehicle suddenly came to a stand-still.

" Wha' do Gin'l DeKay lib ? " called out the driver
of a carriage whose way lay opposite to theirs.

" Jîs back ya* leetle ways,'* answered Reynolds*
driver.

"AU rîght, I fought so; much 'bleeged.**

Both carriages moved agaîn. In passîng Reynolds
saw a slender, pîcturesque lookîng man, whose yellow-
ish hair fell in profuse curls about his neck and shoul-
ders. He wore a broad-brimmed, light colored hat
and a close-fittîng semi-military suit of gray.

It was a most irrîtating thing that thîs man and his
vehicle should whisk into the line of Reynolds' vision
and entirely hide Agnes from him. He craned his

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REALITIES. 239

neck and trîed to look over or past that wîde slouch
hat and those slender, curl-covered shoulders, but ît
was impossible.

" Damn the fellow ! ** he muttered. " Stop a
moment, Dan," he called to the driver.

The mares were drawn up and the carrîage came to
a stand-stîU in a moment. Reynolds waited impa-
tîently, hoping that some slight swerve in the road
would gîve hîm one more glîmpse of the blue dress
and shinîng face, He felt that he could not thus
abruptiy and unauspîciously lose sîght of her. But
the road was straight and the vehicle kept well in the
mîddle of it untîl it neared the gâte of DeKay Place,
where it tumed and stopped.

Mrs. Ransom was there, with her face toward hîm.
He snatched out his handkerchief and waved it rapîdly
to and fro, but before he could get any response from
her, the young man had got out of his carriage and
placed himself in front of her, so that she was com-
pletely eclipsed.

Reynolds uttered some phrase expressive of bîtter
disappointment. His driver turned a surreptitious look
of wonder and inquiry upon him, but dared not speak
when he saw that Reynolds was looking at what was
goîng on at the gâte. Naturally enough the negro
shrewdly suspected that hère was a little play of rivalry
between two gentlemen, and that he had better not
interfère.

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240 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

As Reynolds leaned over the back of the seat artd
looked, there was a sudden movement made by the
stranger that for a moment left Agnes în plaîn vîew,
and he saw her throw up both hands and heard her
cry out. Then the man clasped her and held her în
his arms. Somethîng în thîs scène startled Reynolds
strangely, he hardly knew why, and he hurrîedly com-
manded the driver to drive back to the gâte.

" Quick, Dan, make the horses go ; hurry, I say ! *'
he added în a voice rough with excîtement. There
was a cold feeling în his breast, as îf a damp, chîllîng
breath had blown through it, and a heavy weight
seemed pressing on his brain.

In less than a minute the gâte was reached and Rey-
nolds had leaped to the ground. The man had let
Mrs. Ransom go, and the two were standing facîng
each other. Both looked excited. She was very pale,
but showed no sign of weakness, holding herself erect
and steady. She tumed her eyes upon Reynolds, as
he came near, and made a movement with her lips, as
îf speakîng, without emittîng any sound. The man,
who appeared to be an invalid, trembled a lîttle and
did not take his eyes off her face, even for an instant,
but gazed at her with such yearning în his expression
as would hâve touched the coldest observer. He had
taken off his sombrero, holding ît în his hand, and the
light wînd was tossîng his long rînglets about hîs neck
and cheeks. There was that peculîar droop to one of

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REALITIES, 241

hîs shoulders, together wîth a hollowness of hîs chest
on that sîde, whîch indîcated that at some time in his
life he had been desperately wounded.

"Agnes, Agnes, what îs the matter?*' Reynolds
exclaîmed în that startled, rasping voîce whîch îs com-
mon to ail rneii when confronted by an overwhelmîng
trouble. He asked thîs question învoluntarily, aim-
lessly, for he well understood what ail thîs quîet, terri-
ble scène was about. He knew thîs man now. It was
hard to comprehend how such a thîng could be ; but
thîs was Ransom standing hère, Ransom alîve and con-
frontîng hîs wîfe. Agnes made two or three fruîtless
efforts before she was able to exclaîm :

" Oh, John — Mr. Reynolds, go away ! Go away !
Thîs îs — thîs îs my husband ! " She dîd not say thîs
demonstratîvely or noîsîly — her voîce was low and quîte
calm, save that she seemed to falter a lîttle. " Oh, I
hâve always thought you were not dead and that you
would corne back ! ** she added, turnîng toward the
man wîth sômethîng like a shudder în her tones.

" Ransom, îs thîs îndeed you ? " demanded Reynolds,
gatherîng enough force to crush down hîs bewîlder-
ment.

The man tumed hîs eyes upon hîs înterrogator for a
second. Hîs stare had în ît a mînglîng of surprise
and Insolent bravado. Then wîth a slîght start he
ejaculated :

" Reynolds I **

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342 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

Mrs. Ransom clasped herhands and looked helplessly
and beseechîngly from one to the other. Her lips
quîvered pitifully.

The two men stared at each other as îf unwîlling to
accept the situation and yet unable to escape ît.
Each seemed waitîng for the other to explain why he
was there. It did not once occur to Reynolds that thîs
man had the légal right to Agnes, and that henceforth
she must be as lost as if dead. He went no further
than to recognize that hère was a mystery and a
trouble. The catastrophe had been so peculîar and
sudden, so lacking in those melodramatic features com-
mon to such scènes, that it had a duUing, numbing
effect upon hîs faculties. Ransom was not so bewil-
dered. It surprised hîm to see Reynolds and it dîs-
pleased hîm as well, but he had prepared hîmself,
before comîng, for any kînd of a scène with his wife ;
therefore, although excited, he was quite deliberate
after the fîrst little start of récognition had spent its
force.

" I was not expecting to steyou,*' he saîd with pecu-
liar emphasis. "Nor you me, I suppose."

The man's whole manner was sinister and crafty,
and yet, at the same time, there was something sub-
dued, something suggestive of long suffering and
unmerited injury, in the expression of his face and the
attitude of his person. He appeared to Re)molds*
startled and distorted vision an incarnate accusation.

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REALITIES. 243

The situation might hâve had a touch of the super-
natural in it, if its realism had not been so peculiarly
pTonounced and unmistakable. The whole affair was
a cold, dull, immîtîgable affair. It did not even rise to
the level of romance. It had corne as death cornes, a
stark, overpowering, répulsive resuit of perfectly inex-
plicable causes, bearing down before it every thought
of résistance or escape.

Reynolds had ready no response. The predicament
was one which seemed to him malîgn in its whole bear.
îng, with no rbom for words of inquiry or of explana-
tion. A sensé of suffocation assailed him, as if ail those
dreams and hopes and delightfur anticipations that he
had been so luxuriating in lately, had fallen dead in a
wilted heap upon his heart.

Ransom was a strangely handsome man, with a dash
of devil-may-care blended with melancholy in his face.
His features were clearly and finely eut, délicate but
not effemînate, showing strong traces of suffering, with
something of that cool nervousness (if one may so
express it) in thèir play, so often noticed in the faces
of gamblers and outlaws.^ He was rather above the
médium stature, well-knît and graceful, erect (saving
that slight peculiar droop of one shoulder), alert and
well-poised. He turned from Reynolds to Agnes and
with the utmost tenderness saîd :

" Come, little wife, IVe a long story to tell you — a
strange story. I hâve not been so bad as you think. I

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344 AT LOVE' S EXTREMES,

have been just the same as dead, four years in a Mexi-
can prison."

It was not what he said but the way in which he saîd
it, that made his appeal so veiy affecting. Reynolds
felt a vague thrill of pîty. At the same tîme there
came upon him the first shock of genuine realization
of the situation. The phrase " little wife," as used by
Ransom, enforced its deep significance at once. It
struck with a directness that gave no chance for
évasion.

" Oh, Herbert, Herbert ! " cried Agnes, suddenly
making a step forward and casting her arms around
Ransom's neck. " Oh, is it really, really you ! "

The lithe little figure in its rustling blue gown shrank
close to him and quivered in his embrace. He bent his
head and kissed her again and again, his long bright
curls falling across her uptumed face.

Reynolds recoiled as if he had received a blow, then,
steadying himself, he looked upon them as one might
look into one's own grave. Ransom's voîce, murmuring
ail manner of caressing phrases, was infinitely musical
and sweet, but there was ttiat in it which betrayed a
weaknessnot whollyphysical,a suggestion of irresponsi-
bîlîty and insincerity.

It may have been the effect of long imprisonment,
the nature of his wound and protracted mental worry,
or it may have been altogether owing to the inter-
prétation he had instantly g^ven to the relationship

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REALITIES, 245

between Agnes and Reynolds ; but from whatever
cause, hîs face was luminous with a pale glow express-
ive of the most pathetic mîsery blended wîth exult-
ation.

Reynolds stood lîke a bronze statue, his eyes bum-
ing with a duU fire and his face seamed and shriveled.

Ransom clung to his wife, stroking her hair and
kîssing her cheek. His ecstasy was genuine, but it
lacked the force of lofty passion.

Presently Agnes freed herself from his embrace, quite
as suddenly as she had sought it, as if some révulsion
of feelîng or some strong conviction of the improprîety
of such extrême action had mastered her. She looked
at Reynolds, and meeting his gloomy, despairing gaze,
let fall her eyes, a quick blush covering her cheeks. In
that moment ail the force of her surroundings rushed
furiously upon her. The blush gave place to a deadly
paleness that appeared to affect her face as a white
heat. She put up one hand quîckly, as if to touch
her forehead, but lowered it again, staggered and
felj. Both men sprang to her assistance. Reynolds
brushed the other aside, as he mîght hâve brushed
asîde some insect. Then lifting Agnes in hîs arms
he bore her to the house. He did this in a mood
that elimînated from his thought, for the tîme, ail
else save the woman he loved. He carried her wîth-
out at ail feeling her weight, and hîs movement
was so swîft that Ransom did not try to keep pace

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246 AT LOVE *S EXTREMES.

wîth hîm ; but followed hîm with slow, feeble steps into
the hall and thence into the parlor. But it had not
been a swoon, only a mère vanishing from her of
strength sufficient to stand. She raised herself to a
sîttîng posture, so soon as Reynolds put her on a sofa,
and looked at hîm with an immédiate understanding of
what had happened. Ransom had not yet come in.

" Where is he — Herbert, my husband — where îs he ? "
she asked.

" Oh, Agnes ! Agnes ! " cried Reynolds, taking her
agaîn in his arms. " It can not be so ! you can not,
you wîU not, you shall not give me up for him ! "

She sprang away from him and stood up pale and
firm before him.

" Do not touch me again,** she exclaîmed, in a way
that sent the blood in upon his heart, "You hâve no
right, He îs my husband. You saîd he was dead.
You saîd — ^you — you deceived me — told me a falsehood
-you—"

" For heaven's sake, Agnes, hold — don't say that ! I
told you true. I thought he was dead — I thought I
killed him — I did not dream of his being alive ! "

Ransom was standing by now glancing keenly from
one to the other. When he spoke ît was dîrectly to
Reynolds.

" If my wife wishes to talk longer wîth you, well and
good, sir, but if not, you must see the propriety of
leaving her to me." His manner was suave, but there

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REALITIES. 247

"was a mîghty meaning în hîs voice and a steely glitter
în his eyes.

" Leave her to you ! " saîd Reynolds in a white heat
of fury, " never ! "

"You must leave me, and at once^' said Agnes
firmly.

He looked înto her eyes as if tryîng to read the
lowest lines of their meaning, but he found nothing
to aid him. The love-light had faded and in its stead
the cold beam of loveless duty shone out clear and
strong. He saw that she was as hopelessly gone from
him as if she lay dead in her grave. He stretched out
his arms tpward her, but quickly withdrew them, not,
however, on account of a swift, facile movement of
Ransom's hand to the place where a pîstol is usually
concealed by a man who carries one, for he did not
see it, but bepause her eyes repelled him. There was
nothing for him to do but to go away forever. He
rushed from the room and from the house. Half way
to the gâte he stopped and turned about, fixing upon
the weather-stained old building a gaze that it would
hâve been awful to contemplate, so intense, so wild,
so malignant. His hands were clenched, his lips, so
compressed that they seemed welded, were cold and
purple. For a mère point of tîme he was a murderer ;
but, despite the intervening wall of the house, he could
see Agnes clinging to her husband and the mood was
flung aside. Her husband ! What right had he to

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«4^ AT LO VE *S EXTREMES.

survive that well-aimed shot ? What right had he to
escape from a Mexican prison and drag his wrecked
body and withered soûl back hère to crush eut such a
love as that whîch but an hour ago had lighted up the
whole world ?

It was but a flash of desperate passion, that came
and went in an instant, leaving Reynolds ail the more
helplessly bewildered. What could he do? He stood
there rigid, breathless, choking in the impotence of
utter irrésolution.

Again he turned towards the carriage. Far and near
in the tender foliage of the trees the mocking birds
sang with lusty fervor. The sweet South breathed upon
him the warm, odorous breath of love*s own clime.

Dan the driver, from hIs seat on the carriage, had
watched this melodramatic scène from first to last, so
far at least as it was not shut out from his vision, with
ail the open-mouthed wonder characteristic of a negro
under such circumstances. Hc well knew that the
predicament was one of no ordinary sort, and that
weighty interests were involved. He had expected
every moment to see knîves or pistols gleam and flash,
but he had beeh so dazed and scared that he could not
hâve moved to save his Hfe. He sat there gripping
the lines and leaning forward in an attitude of painful
rigîdity, his shoulders elevated and his chin thrust out,
lost to every thing but the excitement that had taken
possession of bîm.

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REALITIES. 249

Uncle Mono, in blissful ignorance of the drama, was
down in the little plat of ground devoted to his melon
vînes, stirring the sandy loam with a hoe and singing
a lively camp-meeting song. The two sîlver dollars
gfiven to him by Reynolds had made him very happy
îndeed.

Reynolds took no note of any thîng around him.
The sunshine, the bird-songs, the voîce of the merry
old freedman and the dying rustle of the now almost
motionless air did not reach his sensés. Again and
again he stopped as if to rush back, his arms twitch-
ing, his face rigid, but ail the time he was half aware
that fate was binding him more firmly each moment.
Already the sweet life of the past month had receded
înto the far, hazy distance, as if îts sphère had whirled
away to the remotest région of space, almost beyond
the reach of his vision, and with it ail the best of his
nature, leaving him groveling and baffled, a clod on a
barren field.

" Drive me to Montgomery as fast as you can go.
Dan," he saîd to the driver as he reached the gâte and
enfered the landau.

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CHAPTER XIX.

WHITHER ?

r\RIVE fast, Dan, I am în a great hurry,"

\J saîd Reynolds, as the mares again moved
gently along the road in the direction of Mont-
gomery,

The negro waved 'his whîp above the backs of the
spîrited animais, starting them into a rapîd trot. The
wheels made little noise on the light sandy surface over
which they whirled. Reynolds sat boit upright, look-
ing neither to the right nor to the left, his vision intro-
verted. He was calm as marble, so far as outward
appearance went, and inwardly there was no commo-
tion, but a cold, dull, smothering sensé of defeat and
despair.

The woods on either side of the road were dull and
soundless, save that, where the tall clumps of pines
shot above the rest of the trees, their tops let fall a
mellow roar which the slightest breeze has power to
awaken in their frondous meshes.

The negro presently began to sing, in a strangely
melodious undertone, an old, old Alabama ditty :

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WHITHER? 251

" Oh, poor Lucy Neal,
Oh, poor Lucy Neal,
And if I had you by my sidc,
How happy I would feel ! "

Reynolds started, clenched his hands and began to
breathe hard.

" Dan/* he crîed, " drive back, drive back, I can't
bearit!"

Dan puUed up the mares and turned round in his
seat:

"What yo* say, boss?** he înquired, touching his
hat and but half repressîng his surprise.

" Turn round and drive back, Be quick, make them
go : do you hear ? **

" Yah, sah," answered Dan. A flush had sprung into
Reynolds' cheeks in response to his sudden résolve.
How could he ever hâve thought of abandoning her in
this cowardly way ? She is mine, he thought, she loves
me, he has no right to her now: I will go back and claîm
my own with a force that shall be irrésistible.

" Drive faster. Dan, do you hear, drive faster ! "

"Yah, sah, boss."

The mares put themselves f orth to theîr utmost, gladly
reaching back toward home. For a minute or two
Reynolds was wholly in the power of this new mood.
But it passed as suddenly as it had corne, and
again, with* redoubled weight, the load of despair
retumed.

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2S2 A T LOVE' s EXTREMES,

"Holdup, Dan, holdup!"

"Yah, sah.** Dan once more brought the équipage to
a standstill.

Flickerîng expressions of hesitancy, faltering and
giving up of hope, played for a brief space of time on
Reynolds' face, before he could say :

" Turn again : drive to Montgomery/*

" By jiffs ! " muttered Dan, soiio voce, " is de boss done
gone 'stracted ?"

He obeyed the order, however, not caring to riskthe
conséquences of any open symptoms of dîsapproval.
He was well aware that a storm was- pent up in
Reynolds' bosom, and he dreaded lest the slîghtest slip
should turn its blasts and buffets loose upon him.

" Faster, can't you, Dan ? " urged the heavy raspîng
voîce behind him, and the half-frightened negro
touched the spirited team with the whip. Away they
flew, at what horsemen call a three-minute pace, flash-
îng through the spaces of sunshine and sweeping over
the long stretches of shade, until the open country was
again reached, where, between straggling worm fences,
the road eut across vast fertile plantations.

At length in the distance, crowninga swell of billowy,
irregular land, Montgomery appeared, with its clay-red
streets slanting up between long lines of gnarled trees
and its house-roofs and church-spires struggling through
the greenery of vines and orchards, and the gloom of
old dusky groves. On the highest point the grayîsh

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WHITHERf 253

white, rectangular capîtol, wîth its heavy columns and
diminutive Windows, gleamed bare and almost barn-like,
în contrast with the embowered and pîcturesque rési-
dences surroundingît.

Just before they entered a street of the city, they
met Beresford and another gentleman going toward
the country in an open road wagon. They had their
guns and dogs. Beresford bowed and lifted his hat.
Reynolds returned the salute, rather from force of
habit than from any real notice given to the courtesy,
but the incident took his thoughts back past the drear
defeat of to-day, to the sweet victory of that short
period now glimmering as if on the uttermost horizon
of memory.

" Drive directly to the railroad dépôt, Dan,** he said,
and ail the way through the city he sat calmly erect,
like some thoughtful professional man going to his
office.

It was some time past noon when they reached the
station and there was no train until after nightfall,

Reynolds gave Dan a libéral reward in money.

" Good-by, Dan," he said, " don*t drive the mares so
fast going back : they appear tired."

"Pow*ful hard on 'em, boss, a rushin* 'em dis way an*
dat way an* a makin* *em go der bes* licks ail de way,
up hill an* down. By jiffs, but Ts erfeared dey*d drap
afo* dey got yer, boss ! **

Reynolds turned away and began walkîng back and

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aS4 AT LO VE'S EXTREMES,

forth on the station platform. A beautîful reach of
the Alabama river lay in full vîew, under high bluffs of
chocolate-colored clay, and the breeze came over the
water sweet and cool.

Dan mounted to his seat and prepared to drive up
into the cîty, where he intended to get something to
eat for himself and horses.

" Hold a moment/* called Reynolds, taking a pencil
and a small memorandum-book from his pocket, " wait
till I Write a few words.** He began rapîdly writing,
then stopped and tore up the leaf, loôked aimlessly
about for a time and tumed abruptly off, saying in a
strangely dry voîce :

" Never mînd : good-by. Dan."

The carrîage rolled away, the sound of îts wheels on
the Street coming back to his ears in gradually dimin-
îshing clacks, reminding him that the last fragile lînk
that had connected him with the old plantation was
broken. He walked across the railroad tracks and sat
down on a breezy point of the bluff overhanging the
river. There was something in the river, there was
something in the wind, the water, the sky and the wide
horizon that cooled the fever in his blood for the time
and set his brain to work with less confusion. His long
years of hermit life had developed in him the habit of
self-communion to such an extent that it required soli-
tude to reduce his distracted faculties to something near
their normal relations. We who view from the mère

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WHITHER f «55

artîst*s standpoînt the opérations of those influences
that control the destinies of men, sometimes see a
hideous stroke of humor in the doings of fate. Tragedy
and comedy lie so close to each other, that a mère
change of intonation in the reading of a line may déter-
mine the différence between them. So, in reality, what
under one light is incomparably tragic may, under
another, appear trivial and almost comic. Beresford's
failure with Agnes Ransom, though just as final and
conclusive, seems a small thing besîde the overwhelm-
ing disaster that fell upon Reynolds in the same field,
and yet one might say : failure can go no further than
failure : Beresford lost ail, — how could Reynolds losé
more? Is it really a more hopeless and tragic thing
to love and be loved and lose than to love and not be
loved and lose ? Was it the différence between the
men, or the circumstances, that enabled Beresford to
take pleasure in a friend, his dogs and his gun, whilst
Reynolds sat dreary-hearted, wretched, unconsolable,
with folded hands and bowed head, alone by the river ?
This set of questions may not be solved by any artistic
analysis. The solution is in the bold impression of
the facts caught at a glance by every one who has any
considérable reach of human sympathy.

When at last Reynolds grew calm enough to exam-
ine the situation somewhat in the light of cold reason,
he saw that Agnes, not himself, must bear the heaviest
load of any one connected therewith. He knew that

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2S6 AT LOVE *S EXTREAfES,

she loved hîm and that, lovîng him, she would dévote
the rest of her life to one whom she could not love,
but to whom the laws of man and of duty, and every
dictate of a pure conscience, bound her. Vîewing it
thus, hîs life seemed to end in a cul-de-sac. It had
been a barren life, for the most part, so far, even worse
than barren ; it had been evil in no small degree.
Conscience leaped upon him and shook him as a wild
beast shakes and worries its prey. He felt its fangs
and welcomed the agony they inflicted, as a relief from
the terrible numbness that had taken possession of him
and beside which any pain was pleasure.

It was almost dark when he went back to the station
and entered the little waiting-room, where Dan had
deposited his traveling-bag, and sat down on a bench
to wait for the train. Several persons were there,
impatient to be going, as travelers by rail usually are,
but Reynolds was not in sympathy with their mood.
He felt no concern about the train, whether ten min-
utes or ten hours late. Why should he not be just as
content while waiting for a train as while doîng any
thing else ? What more interest was it to him to be
going than it was to be staying ? The thought of the
cabin and its household, of White's oddities and
humorous absurdities, and of Milly's faithful patience
and plebeian sweetness and sîncerity, did not draw hîm :
în fact it repelled him. Why go back there at ail ?
Why not go to England and join Moreton, or to Egypt

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WHITHERf 257

and engage with Doctor Blank (another frîend of his)
în hîs scîentific explorations? Then again came con-
science, with wavîng mane and flamîng eyes, roaring
and baring its fangs. He could see no promise of escaj/e
from the torment. But why should he struggle ? He
got up and walked to and fro, as did the ôther restless
waîters for the train. Strange what tricks the brain
plays under every sort of strain and torture. The
turmoil of his thoughts, like some tempest-tumbled sea,
kept tossîng lîghtly on its surface as the sea might hâve
tossed a cork, those simple rhymes about

" The light of her eyes
And the dew of her lips,
Where the moth never Aies
And the bee never sips."

He could not help ît, any more than he could calm the
awful underswell of despair. He was far from feeling
any présence of good in ail this agony. No sensé of
a comîng purification, as a resuit of the heat to which
his soûl was subjected. That his nature was giving
way before the intense blast of the furnace, he may
hâve known, but he had no thought of any séparation
of the lîttle gold of good from the mass of evil. How
could he ever again think of trying to do good ? What
a life of heavenly happiness he had just mîssed ! He
clung desperately to the sensuous picture his memory
kept before hîm, reveling în the torture it generated.

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as8 AT LOVE 'S EXTREMES.

No thought of the future entered hîs mînd, uniess
the form of poor little Milly, which now and again
appeared to him, might be called a thought. From
the outlines of her supple figure and haunting face he
shrank with an înward shudder. Then suddenly, by
some obscure cérébral opération, a glimpse, momentary
but thrillingly sharp and clear, disclosed to him that
other extrême of his situation, What a vast arc
between the two confines of oscillation ! Agnes Ran-
som, Milly White ! Now, at last, he felt himself
shriveling and wasting in the fire, as the blast from the
tuyères of God's furnace was doubled and trebled.
He began to imagine how it ail was to end, while some
strange, thrilling whisper suggested the outlines of
duty. Duty ! what did he care for duty ! Why
should he, whose sweetest hopes had been dissipated
by this breath of providence, hâve any care for the
happîness of others ? But his rébellion was weak. He
arose, as the cars came crashing up to the station, and
prepared himself for he knew not what. Almost any
thing would be welcome. There seemed to be no
place for him save the barren, dreary cabin in the
mountains. As he realized this, once more his old
arrogant nature flared up. " I will not go there,** he
thought, and his cheeks flushed. " I will not be the
dupe of circumstance. I will go to the ends of the
earth first.** Nevertheless, he went aboard the train
and took his seat in a car which was well filled with

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WHITHERf 259

happy tourists retuming to theîr Northern homes.
The first person upon whom his eyes chanced to fall
was Miss Crabb. She was busy with her note-book
and pencîl, her chin drawn down and her brow con
tracted with intense thought. He shrank from her, as
from something unbearable, and forthwith slipped
away înto another car.

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CHAPTER XX.

AFTER ALL.

WHITE'S cabîn was better than the average Sand-
Mountain house, but its surroundings were not
so inviting as those where considérable farms, with
orchards and garden plats, gave an air of frugal thrift,
almost of comfort to the scène, at some points in the
lower valleys. It was built of pine logs, split into
halves, the flat side tumed in, and the apertures
between covered with long clap-boards of pine, rove
with the grain, and smoothed with a drawing-knife.
The chimneys, which were spacious, consisted of pens
of split sticks, built from the ground to a little above
the roof, and heavily daubed with red clay. An arid
little clearing whose stumpy, rain-washed fields lay as
if on edge, leaning against the mountain-side, showed
that a light crop of tobacco or a doubtful yield of
maize " nubbins *' would be the best return that labor
might hope for from the soilless clay and the dry,
lifeless monotony of the mountain sumrners. This
clearing was ail on one side of the cabin, reaching down
toward the little valley, whilst on the other three sides
the forest was unbroken, saving that, further up the

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AFTER ALL. 261

mountaîn, wînd and fire had donc theîr work for âges.
The fences about the place were old and neglected,
grown over by vînes and shrubs of varîous kinds, and
the little gâte in front, made of wattled boards, hung
askew on rude hinges of hickory wîthes. Just outside
of thîs gâte, between it and the road, was a small space
whîch for many years, ever sînce the cabin was built,
in fact, had been used for piling up, cutting and split-
ting the wood and pîne knots used by the household,
and upon which a moldy mass of chips, bark and
woody fragments had slowly accumulated. Ail the
native trees near the cabin had long ago been felled, and
a few gnarled peach trees now grew in their stead.
Standing on the rotten door-sill and looking out across
the lower valley, one could hâve a fine view, over ill-
shaped farm-plats and variegated woods, of the broken
masses of mountains, near and far, with their beetling
cliffs, their clustered foot-hills and their bare stony
peakSi ail over-canopied with a serene blue sky. But
the scène was not one to inspire the beholder with any
broad îdeas of nature or of human life. It was a dry,
cramped, desolate landscape, even in the first fresh
colors of spring, when the tassels were on the trees and
the wild flowers fairly carpeted the ground, for it lacked
fertility, suggestion, promise.

Hère Milly White had been born and hère she had
lived to grow from babyhood to womanhood, a wild
growth, like that of the native trees, plants and birds.

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26a A T LOVE' S EXTREMES.

Physically she was beautiful to look upon, if in looking
one could separate the physical from the other form of
human beauty ; but she was strictly a product of Sand
Mountain, the last refinement of its productive forces,
no doubt, approaching as near the perfect as nature,
working within such limitations and under such hope-
less restrictions, could get. It would be impossible to
give in words any fair idea of her beauty or of her
ignorance; to attempt either would appear like
exaggeration. The painter would succeed no better,
for his représentation could reach no further than
pathetic caricature. Her life, her condition and her
surroundings composed an instance not far out of the
common in Sand Mountain existence. Her beauty, it
is true, was exceptional, as beauty is in ail cases, her
ignorance was somewhat denser than the average, and
her expérience on Reynolds* account, had compassed
its utmost possibîlity of disturbing force. In so far as
her vision could go, she peered înto the paradise
coveted by ail girls, and dreamed the dreams of unself-
ish love. Every evening she went down to the little
gâte and leaned upon it, watchîng long and patiently
for the coming of a man, as other women do, and
every morning she renewed the vigil for a tîme, and
the evening and the morning were a day. She had but
a vague understanding of things too vaguely under-
stood by ail girls, and she made of Reynolds no more
a god than most young women do of the men they

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AFTER ALL, 263

love. She could not realize her danger and she felt
but îndefinitely how much she was risking. As days
and weeks dragged by and John did not corne, she
showed signs of nervous restlessness ; but she said
little. Her health, instead of failing, as mîght hâve
been expected, seemed to improve. Her face filled
out to full womanly proportions, her cheeks gathering
rîch tînts of rose and carminé, her eyes softening and
dilating as if with the wonder of some sweet, strange
discovery. She hovered, as a butterfly about a flower,
over the things in Reynolds' room. For hours she would
sit before the sketch on the easel and gaze dream'ily,
half forlomly at it. She arranged and re-arranged the
books, the chairs, the little worn foot-stool, the slippers,
the dressîng-gown, creeping about as noiselessly as if
she feared the least sound might break her rêverie.
She was lonely, despondent and nervous at times, but
she did not complain. White exhausted over and over
again his stock of ingenuity in inventing excuses for
" thet ther Colonel," who, he insisted, was " a hevîn'. of
sech a roarin' oie time, a shootîn' of birds an' a
drinkin* of liquor an' a playin' of them ther new-
fangled games of keerds." White himself had grown
strangely uneasy in his manner and his eyês had lost
somcwhat of their humorous light. It was beginning
to confirm itself in his mind that his idol had clay feet.
He gave up his confidence in Reynolds inch by înch,
so to speak, clînging to it* with the dogged stubborn-
ness of his narrow nature.

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264 AT LO VKS EXTREMES.

Spring fell upon the mountaîns sortie weeks earlîer
than usual. The old peach-trees were loaded with pale
pink bloom and along the ragged ravines a tender
green ran in wavîng veîns. Day after day was cloud-
less and warm, followed by nîghts of such starry splen-
dor as are seen nowhere save în the Southern mountain
régions.

One evening Milly was at thé gâte, as usual, leaning
over îts uneven slats, gazîng down the stony road.
Her father came out of the cabin, bare-headed, pipe in
mouth, with hîs hands thrust into his trowsers pockets.

" Think he air a comin* to-night, do ye, Milly? ** he
asked, standing near her and looking aimlessly about.
" I shedn't be s'prised ef he'd drop along one of thèse
yer days purty soon. Hit air a gittin* most time for
the bird-shootin' ter stop, anyhow/*

'* I dremp las* night *at he wer* dead, an* *at*s a sign,
ye know, ** she answered, without looking up. ** I jes*
know 'at he air a comin* purty soon."

" Ef ye do see 'im a comin* down the road ther*,
Milly, an* ye*ve a min* ter jump over thet gâte ther',
w*y I shed *vise ye ter git back yer a leetle an* take a
runnin* start so*s to be shore not to trip er nothin*.*'
White chuckled dryly at the end of his speech, as if
enjoying the scène it suggested ; but receiving no reply
from the girl his face resumed its look of stolid repose,
albeît hîs eyes wandered restlessly without seeming
tp see any thing.

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AFTER ALL. 26$

The sun was down, an hour ago, and the stîllness of
night had fallen on the wîde, rugged landscape. There
was scarcely wînd enough to bear away the lîght jets
of tobacco smoke puffed sharply now and then from
the man's mouth.

"I dremp las* night, too, 'at the Colonel he wer'
dead, Mîlly," he presently saîd ; but he dîd not add
that he dreamed that the Colonel had been killed, and
by his hand.

" l'm jest a lookin' for *im now, an' a *spectîn' 'îm
ever* minute," she replied, her voice quavering sweetly,
her lîmbs tremblîng.

White swallowed, as if somethîng hurt his throat,
and pressed a finger vîgorously înto his pipe. The
muscles of his face twitched convulsively.

" Oh, I consider 'at we'd better go inter the house,
Milly,** he urged, " for hit air not 'tall s'posible 'at the
Colonel he 'Il corne to-night ; but he air comin' shore
ter-morrer, that's es sarting es gun's îron, Milly."

" Lis'n, pap, I yer somethîn' like he wer' a walkîn'
up the road this yer way : lis'n ! " She shook her hand
at him in token of silence, but did not turn her head,
leaning far over the gâte.

" Hit ain't him, Milly, he'd be cr singin* er song, ef
hit wer' him. Don't ye 'member how he used ter
warble them cur'us chunes when he wer' a comin' ? "

" Keep still, I tell ye, pap, for I know 'at I jest do
yer 'im a comin' down ther'."

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266 AT LO VKS EXTREMES,

" Mebbe yc do, s'pcc ye do/' said White wîth a shake
of his head, " but hit air ter-morrer *at yc yer 'im a
comin*. He air dead shore to roU in ter-morrer. Don't
ye fret, he air a comin' 'fore long, Mîlly."

" He air a comin' right now : oh ! " she cricd, and
flinging open the gâte, she slipped through like a bird
and ran down the road.

"I knowed 'at ye'd come, John, oh, John! John!"
White heard her say, her voice cutting wîth shrill
sweetness through the still evening air.

He wcnt through the gateway, and, stumbling over
the wood-pile, walked rapidly after her. Sure enough,
there was Reynolds in the middle of the road, wîth
Mîlly clinging to hîm. They were in a place where the
strong star-lîght dimly outlined them. White stopped
short and actually reeled like a drunken man. He
wcnt no nearer to them, but tumed and staggered
rather than walked back into the cabîn. *

" Hit air ail right, mother," he said to his wife as he
entered. " He air out ther' — the Colonel air."

She looked up wîth a start, for his voice was thîck
wîth excîtement.

" She — she — Mîlly '11 be ail right now. She won't go
erstracted now, mother," he added, dropping into a
chair and begînning to refiU his pipe.

THE END.

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J

HAVE YOU READ

The New American Novel

TRAJAN.

The History of a Sentimental Young Man,

with some Episodes in the Comedy of

many Lives Errors.

By HENRY F. KEENAN.

The story is of international interest. The scène is laid in Paris
during the exciting days that ushered in the Commune, and while
many real persons figure among the characters, the plot hovers
round a group of Americans, thrown together by the vicissitudes
of the hour.

** Among the new novels of the season,
Mr. Henry F. Keenan^s * Trajan ' must
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peared for years in the English or any
other langnage.*' — Phila. Evening Bul-
letin.

^^* Trajan' is a classic. a real gem
plucked from the mass of rubbish with
which the bookstores are crowded.'*—
Boston Times.

" Every careful bibliographer of the
3oth century ought to mention ^ Trajan *
as a novel to be read for scènes of the
igth century in Paris and New York.** —
Hartford Post.

E. C.Stedman pronounces* 'Trajan*' :
"Graphie and spinted. . . . Which
no one can read without interest, and
which renders a welcome certain for the
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characterization . **

H. H. Purness, the famous Shakes-
pearean scholar, says : " I like * Trajan,*
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has given the very atmosphère of that
May af temoon in Paris ! Its sights are
in my eyes ; its sounds are in mv ears,
and its very smells are in my nostrils. No
picture of Meissonier*s can be more
faithful.'*

1 Vol., 12mo. 650 Pages. Price, $1.50,

Cassell & Company, Limited,

'mSi'JAi BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
Bty FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

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I

FOR SUMMER READING.

RED RYVINGTON.

By WILLIAM WESTALL.

A$ttAcr of LARRY LOHENGRIN;' '' THE OLD FACTORY;^ Etc., Etc.

1 VoL, 12mo., Oloth, New Style. Price, $1.00.

There is more of incident and adventure in this story than in
many a volume five times its size. The first chapter opens with
an adventure, or rather a séries of adventures. that are enough to
take the breath away, though they are perfectly natural and might
well hâve happened to any adventurous young man. The hero.
Red Ryvington, saves the life of the heroine in the first chapter
almost by a miracle. The early scènes of t"his romance are laid in
the Alps. There is much shifting after that, which lends variety
and color to the story.

Mr. Westall is a new author to American readers, but once
known, they will want to continue the acquaintance, for he is a
novelist witn a story to tell, and who believes in plot, and plenty
of it.

POVERTY CORNER.

{''A LITTLE WORLDr)
A CITY STORY,

By G. MANVILLE FENN,

Author of " The Vicar's Peopie^" *' Sweet Mace^'' '* My Patients,'* Etc., Etc.

1 VoL, 12mo., Oloth, New Style. Price, $1.00.

There are touches of description in " Poverty Corner,** as well
as entire characters, which the author of " A Christmas Carol "
need not hâve been ashamed to own amongst his happiest efforts ;
whilst as a story the book hardly could hâve been improved.
There is plenty of incident, and that of the most exciting nature,
without any exaggeration or straining after effect ; the language is
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tremely spontaneous, and the several characters are well and dis-
tinctly drawn.

FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited,

739 & 741 BROADWAY, NEW YORK,

. J

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