Guest's Confession: In Two Parts: Part Second

IV.

MY situation, as I defined it to Crawford, was not purely delightful. Close upon my perception of the state of my heart followed an oppressive sense of the vanity of my pretensions. I had cut the ground from under my feet ; to offer myself to Miss Guest would be to add insult to injury. I may truly say, therefore, that, for a couple of clays, this manifest passion of mine rather saddened than exalted me. For a dismal fortyeight hours I left the two ladies unvisited. I even thought of paying a supreme tribute to delicacy and taking a summary departure. Some day, possibly, Miss Guest would learn with grief and scorn what her father had to thank me for ; and then later, as resentment melted into milder conjecture, she would read the riddle of my present conduct and do me justice, — guess that I had loved her, and that, to punish myself, I had renounced her forever. This fantastic magnanimity was followed by a wholesome reaction. I was punished enough, surely, in my regret and shame ; and I wished now not to suffer, but to act. Viewing the matter reasonably, she need never learn my secret; if by some cruel accident she should, the favor I had earned would cover that I had forfeited. I stayed, then, and tried to earn this precious favor ; but I encountered an obstacle more serious, I fancied, than even her passionate contempt would have been, — her serene and benevolent indifference. Looking back at these momentous days, I get an impression of a period of vague sentimental ferment and trouble, rather than of definite utterance and action ; though I believe that by a singular law governing human conduct In certain cases, the very modesty and humility of my passion expressed itself in a sort of florid and hyperbolical gallantry; so that, in so far as my claims were inadmissible, they might pass, partly as a kind of compensatory homage, and partly as a jest. Miss Guest refused to pay me the compliment of even being discomposed, and pretended to accept my addresses as an elaborate device for her amusement. There was a perpetual assurance in her tone of her not regarding me as a serious, much less as a dangerous, man. She could not have contrived a more effective irritant to my resolution ; and I confess there were certain impatient moods when I took a brutal glee in the thought that it was not so very long since, on a notable occasion, my presence had told. In so far as I was serious, Miss Guest frankly offered to accept me as a friend, and laughingly intimated, indeed, that with a little matronly tuition of her dispensing, I might put myself into condition to please some simple maiden in her flower. I was an excellent, honest fellow ; but I was excessively young and — as she really wished to befriend me, she would risk the admonition — I was decidedly frivolous. I lacked “ character.” I was fairly clever, but I was more clever than wise. 1 liked overmuch to listen to my own tongue. I had done nothing; I was idle; I had, by my own confession, never made an effort ; I was too rich and too indolent ; in my very good-nature there was nothing moral, no hint of principle ; in short, I was — boyish. I must forgive a woman upon whom life had forced the fatal habit of discrimination. I suffered this genial scepticism to expend itself freely, for her candor was an enchantment. It was all true enough. I had been indolent and unambitious ; I bad made no effort ; I had lived in vulgar ignorance and ease; I had in a certain frivolous fashion tried life at first hand, but my shallow gains had been in proportion to my small hazards. But I was neither so young nor so idle as she chose to fancy, and I could at any rate prove I was constant. Like a legendary suitor of old, I might even slay my dragon. A monstrous accident stood between us, and to dissipate its evil influence would be a fairly heroic feat.

Mr. Guest’s absence was prolonged from day to day, and Laura’s tone of allusion to her father tended indeed to make a sort of invincible chimera of her possible discovery of the truth. This fond filial reference only brought out the more brightly her unlikeness to him. I could as little fancy her doing an act she would need to conceal as I could fancy her arresting exposure by a concession to dishonor. If I was a friend, I insisted on being a familiar one ; and while Mrs. Beck and her cousin floated away on perilous waters, we dabbled in the placid shallows of disinterested sentiment. For myself, I sent many a longing glance toward the open sea, but Laura remained firm in her preference for the shore. I encouraged her to speak of her father, for I wished to hear all the good that could be told of him. It sometimes seemed to me that she talked of him with a kind of vehement tenderness designed to obscure, as it were, her inner vision. Better — had she said to herself?—that she should talk fond nonsense about him than that she should harbor untender suspicions. I could easily believe that the poor man was a most lovable fellow, and could imagine how, as Laura judged him in spite of herself, the sweet allowances of a mother had grown up within the daughter. One afternoon Mrs. Beck brought forth her photograph-book, to show to her cousin. Suddenly, as he was turning it over, she stayed his hand and snatched one of the pictures from its place. He tried to recover it and a little tussle followed, in the course of which she escaped, ran to Miss Guest, and thrust the photograph into her hand. “You keep it,” she cried ; “ he’s not to see it.” There was a great crying out from Crawford about Mrs. Beck’s inconstancy and his right to see the picture, which was cut short by Laura’s saying with some gravity that it was too childish a romp for a man of forty and a woman of — thirty ! Mrs. Beck allowed us no time to relish the irony of this attributive figure ; she caused herself to be pursued to the other end of the garden, where the amorous frolic was resumed over the following pages of the album. “Who is it?” I asked. Miss Guest, after a pause, handed me the card.

“ Your father ! ” I cried precipitately.

“ Ah, you ’ve seen him ? ” she asked. “ I know him by his likeness to you.”

“ You prevent my asking you, as I meant, if he does n’t look like a dear good man. I do wish he’d drop his stupid business and come back.”

I took occasion hereupon to ascertain whether she suspected his embarrassments. She confessed to a painful impression that something was wrong. He had been out of spirits for many days before his return to town ; nothing indeed but mental distress could have affected bis health, for he had a perfect constitution. “If it comes to that,” she went on, after a long silence, and looking at me with an almost intimate confidence, “ I wish he would give up business altogether. All the business in the world, for a man of his open, joyous temper, does n’t pay for an hour’s depression. I can’t bear to sit by and see him imbitiered and spoiled by this muddle of stocks and shares. Nature made him a happy man ; I insist on keeping him so. We are quite rich enough, and we need nothing more. Lie tries to persuade me that I have expensive tastes, but I ’ve never spent money but to please him. I have a lovely little dream which I mean to lay before him when he conies back ; it’s very cheap, like all dreams, and more practicable than most. He’s to give up business and take me abroad. We ’re to settle down quietly somewhere in Germany, in Italy, I don’t care where, and I ’m to study music seriously. I ’m never to marry ; but as he grows to be an old man, he’s to sit by a window, with his cigar, looking out on the Arno or the Rhine, while I play Beethoven and Rossini.”

“ It’s a very pretty programme,” I answered, “ though I can't subscribe to certain details. But do you know,” I added, touched by a forcible appeal to sympathy in her tone, “although you refuse to believe me anything better than an ingenuous fool, this liberal concession to my interest in your situation is almost a proof of respect.”

She blushed a little, to my great satisfaction. “ I surely respect you,” she said, “ if you come to that ! Otherwise we should hardly be sitting here so simply. And I think, too,” she went on, “ that 1 speak to you of my father with peculiar freedom, because — because, somehow, you remind me of him.” She looked at me as she spoke with such penetrating candor that it was my turn to blush. “ You are genial, and gentle, and essentially honest, like him ; and like him,” she added with a half-smile, “ you ’re addicted to saying a little more than it would be fair to expect you to stand to. You ought to be very good friends. You ’ll find he has your own jeunesse de cœur.”

I murmured what I might about the happiness of making his acquaintance ; and then, to give the conversation a turn, and really to test the force of this sympathetic movement of hers, I boldly mentioned my fancy that he was an admirer ot Mrs. Beck. She gave me a silent glance, almost of gratitude, as if she needed to unburden her heart. But she did so in few words. “ He does admire her,” she said. “ It’s my duty, it ’s my pleasure, to respect his illusions. But I confess to you that I hope this one will fade.” She rose from her seat and we joined our companions ; but I fancied, fora week afterwards, that she treated me with a certain gracious implication of deference. Had I ceased to seem boyish ? I struck a truce with urgency and almost relished the idea of being patient.

A day or two later, Mr. Guest’s “ illusions ” were put before me in a pathetic light. It was a Sunday ; the ladies were at church, and Crawford and I sat smoking on the piazza. “ I don’t know how things are going with you,” he said ; “you ’re either perfectly successful or desperately resigned. But unless it’s rather plainer sailing than in my case, I don’t envy you. I don’t know where I am, anyway ! She will and she won’t. She may take back her word once too often, I can tell her that ! You see, she has two strings to her bow. She likes my money, but she does n’t like me. Now, it’s all very well for a woman to relish a fortune, but I ’m not prepared to have my wife despise — my person ! ” said Crawford with feeling. “ The alternative, you know, is Mr. Guest, that girl’s father. I suppose he ’s handsome, and a wit, and a dandy; though I must say an old dandy, to my taste, is an old fool. She tells me a dozen times an hour that he’s a fascinating man. I suppose if I were to leave her alone for a week, I might seem a fascinating man. I wish to heaven she was n’t so confoundedly taking. I can’t give her up ; she amuses me too much. There was once a little actress in Galveston, but Clara beats that girl! If I could only have gone in for some simple wholesome girl who does n't need to count on her fingers to know the state of her heart! ”

That evening as we were gathered in the garden, poor Crawford approached Laura Guest with an air of desperate gallantry, as if from a desire to rest from the petty torment of Mrs. Beck’s sentimental mutations. Laura liked him, and her manner to him had always been admirable in its almost sisterly frankness and absence of provoking arts ; yet I found myself almost wondering, as they now strolled about the garden together, whether there was any danger of this sturdy architect of his own fortunes putting out my pipe. Mrs. Beck, however, left me no chance for selfish meditation. Her artless and pointless prattle never lacked a purpose ; before you knew it she was, in vulgar parlance, “ pumping ” you, trying to pick your pocket of your poor little receipt for prosperity. She took an intense delight in imaginatively bettering her condition, and one was forced to carry bricks for her castles in the air.

“ You need n’t be afraid of my cousin,” she said, laughing, as I followed his red cigar-tip along the gardenpaths. “ He admires Laura altogether too much to make love to her. There’s modesty ! Don’t you think it’s rather touching in a man with a million of dollars ? I don’t mind telling you that he has made love to me, that being no case for modesty. I suppose you ’ll say that my speaking of it is. But what’s the use of being an aged widow, if one can't tell the truth ?”

“ There’s comfort in being an aged widow,” I answered gallantly, “when one has two offers a month.”

“ I don’t know what you know about my offers ; but even two swallows don’t make a summer ! However, since you ’ve mentioned the subject, tell me frankly what you think of poor Crawford. Is be at all presentable? You see I like him, I esteem him, and I’m afraid of being blinded by my feelings. Is he so dreadfully rough ? You see I like downright simple manliness and all that ; but a little polish does no harm, even on fine gold. I do wish you’d take hold of my poor cousin and teach him a few of the amenities of life. I ’m very fond of the amenities of life ; it’s very frivolous and wicked, I suppose, but I can’t help it. I have the misfortune to be sensitive to ugly things. Can one really accept a man who wears a green cravat ? Of course you can make him take it off; but you’ll be knowing all the while that he pines for it, that lie would put it on if he could. Now that’s a symbol of that dear, kind, simple fellow, —a heart of gold, but a green cravat! I ’ve never heard a word of wisdom about that matter yet. People talk about the sympathy of souls being the foundation of happiness in marriage. It ’s pure nonsense. It’s not the great things, but the little, that we dispute about, and the chances are terribly against the people who have a different taste in colors.”

It seemed to me that, thus ardently invoked, I might hazard the observation, “ Mr. Guest would never wear a green cravat.”

“ What do you know about Mr. Guest’s cravats ? ”

“ I ’ve seen his photograph, you know.”

“ Well, you do him justice. You should see him in the life. He looks like a duke. I never saw a duke, but that’s my notion of a duke. Distinction, you know ; perfect manners and tact and wit. If I’m right about it’s being perfection in small things that assures one’s happiness, I might — well, in two words, I might be very happy with Mr. Guest ! ”

“ It’s Crawford and soul, then,” I proposed, smiling, “ or Guest and manners ! ”

She looked at me a moment, and then with a toss of her head and a tap of her fan, “ You wretch ! ” she cried, “you want to make me say something very ridiculous. I ’ll not pretend I ’m not worldly. I’m excessively worldly. I always make a point of letting people know it. Of course I know very well my cousin’s rich, and that so long as he’s good he’s none the worse for that. But in my quiet little way I ’m a critic, and I look at things from a high ground. I compare a rich man who is simply a good fellow to a perfect gentleman who has simply a nice little fortune. Mr. Guest has a nice property, a very nice property. I should n’t have to make over my old bonnets. You may ask me if I 'm not afraid of Laura. But you ’ll marry Laura and carry her off ! ”

I found nothing to reply for some moments to this little essay in “criticism ; and suddenly Mrs. Beck, fancying perhaps that she was indiscreetly committing herself, put an end to our interview. “ I ’m really very kind,” she cried, “ to be talking so graciously about a lover who leaves me alone for a month and never even drops me a line. It’s not such good manners after all. If you ’re not jealous of Mr. Crawford, I am of Miss Guest. We’ll go down and separate them.”

Miss Guest’s repose and dignity were decidedly overshadowed. I brought her the next afternoon a letter from the post-office, superscribed in a hand I knew, and wandered away while she sat in the garden and read it. When I came back she looked strangely sad. I sat down near her and drew figures in the ground with the end of her parasol, hoping that she would do me the honor to communicate her trouble. At last she rose in silence, as if to return to the house. I begged her to remain. “You ’re in distress,” I said, speaking as calmly and coldly as I could, “and I hoped it might occur to you that there is infinite sympathy close at hand. Instead of going to your own room to cry, why not stay here and talk of it with me ? ”

She gave me a brilliant, searching gaze ; I met it steadily and felt that I was turning pale with the effort not to obey the passionate impulse of selfdenunciation. She began slowly to walk away from the house, and I felt that a point was gained. “It’s your father, of course,” I said. It was all I could say. She silently handed me his unfolded letter. It ran as follows : —

MY DEAREST DAUGHTER: — I have sold the house and everything in it, except your piano and books, of course at a painful sacrifice. But I needed ready money. Forgive your poor blundering, cruel father. My old luck has left me ; but only trust me, and we shall be happy again.”

Her eyes, fortunately, were wandering while I read; for I felt myself blushing to my ears.

“ It’s not the loss of the house,” she said at last ; “ though of course we were fond of it. I grew up there, — my mother died there. It ’s the trouble it indicates. Poor dear father ! Why does lie talk of ‘luck ’ ? I detest the word ! Why does be talk of forgiving him and trusting him ? There’s a wretched tone about it all. If he would only come back and let me look at him ! ”

“ Nothing is more common in business,” I answered, “than a temporary embarrassment demanding ready money. Of course it must be met at a sacrifice. One throws a little something overboard to lighten the ship, and the ship sails ahead. As for the loss of the house, nothing could be better for going to Italy, you know. You’ve no excuse left for staying here. If your father will forgive me the interest I take in his affairs, I strongly recommend his leaving business and its sordid cares. Let him go abroad and forget it all.”

Laura walked along in silence, and I led the way out of the garden into the road. We followed it slowly till we reached the little chapel. The sexton was just leaving it, shouldering the broom with which he had been sweeping it for the morrow’s services. I hailed him and gained his permission to go in and try the organ, assuring him that we were experts. Laura said that she felt in no mood for music ; but she entered and sat down in one of the pews. I climbed into the gallery and attacked the little instrument. We had had no music since our first meeting, and I felt an irresistible need to recall the circumstances of that meeting. I played in a simple fashion, respectably enough, and fancied, at all events, that by my harmonious fingers I could best express myself. I played for an hour, in silence, choosing what I would, without comment or response from my companion. The summer twilight overtook us ; when it was getting too dark to see the keys, I rejoined Miss Guest. She rose and came into the aisle. “You play very well,” she said, simply ; “ better than I supposed.”

Her praise was sweet ; but sweeter still was a fancy of mine that I perceived in the light gloom just the glimmer of a tear. “ In this place,” I said, “your playing once moved me greatly. Try and remember the scene distinctly.”

“ It’s easily remembered,” she answered, with an air of surprise.

“ Believe, then, that when we parted, I was already in love with you.”

She turned away abruptly. “ Ah, my poor music ! ”

The next day, on my arrival, I was met by Mrs. Beck, whose pretty forehead seemed clouded with annoyance. With her own fair hand she buttonholed me. “ You apparently,” she said, “have the happiness to be in Miss Guest’s confidence. What on earth is going on in New York ? Laura received an hour ago a letter from her father. I found her sitting with it in her hand as cheerful as a Quakeress in meeting. ‘ Something’s wrong, my dear,’ I said ; ‘ I don’t know what. In any case, be assured of my sympathy.’ She gave me the most extraordinary stare. ‘ You ’ll be interested to know,’ she said, ‘ that my father has lost half his property.’ Interested to know ! I verily believe the child meant an impertinence. What is Mr. Guest’s property to me ? Has he been speculating ? Stupid man ! ” she cried, with vehemence.

I made a brief answer. I discovered Miss Guest sitting by the river, in pale contemplation of household disaster. I asked no questions. She told me of her own accord that her father was to return immediately, “ to make up a month’s sleep.” she added, glancing at his letter. We spoke of other matters, but before I left her, I returned to this one. “ I wish you to tell your father this,” I said. “ That there is a certain gentleman here, who is idle, indolent, ignorant, frivolous, selfish. That he has certain funds for which he is without present use. That he places them at Mr. Guest’s absolute disposal in the hope that they may partially relieve his embarrassment.” I looked at Laura as I spoke and watched her startled blush deepen to crimson. She was about to reply; but before she could speak, “ Don’t forget to add,”I went on, “ that he hopes his personal faults will not prejudice Mr. Guest’s acceptance of his offer, for it is prompted by the love he bears his daughter.”

“ You must excuse me,” Laura said, after a pause. “ I had rather not tell him this. He would not accept your offer.’

“ Are you sure of that ? ”

“ I should n’t allow him.”

“ And why not, pray? Don’t you, after all, like me well enough to suffer me to do you so small a service ? ”

She hesitated ; then gave me her hand with magnificent frankness. “ I like you too well to suffer you to do me just that service. We take that from les indifferents.”

V.

Before the month was out, Edgar had quarrelled with the healing waters of L——. His improvement had been most illusory ; his old symptoms had returned in force, and though he now railed bitterly at the perfidious spring and roundly denounced the place, he was too ill to be moved away. He was altogether confined to hisroom. I made a conscience of offering him my company and assistance, but he would accept no nursing of mine. He would be tended by no one whom he could not pay for his trouble and enjoy a legal right to grumble at. “ I expect a nurse to be a nurse,” he said, “and not a fine gentleman, waiting on me in gloves. It would be fine work for me, lying here, to have to think twice whether I might bid you not to breathe so hard.” Nothing had passed between us about John Guest, though the motive for silence was different on each side. For Edgar, I fancied, our interview with him was a matter too solemn for frequent allusion ; for me it was a detestable thought. But wishing now to assure myself that, as I supposed, he had paid his ugly debt, I asked Edgar, on the evening I had extorted from Miss Guest those last recorded words of happy omen, whether he had heard from our friend in New York. It was a very hot night ; poor Edgar lay sweltering under a sheet, with open windows. He looked pitifully ill, and yet somehow more intensely himself than ever. He drew a letter from under his pillow. “ This came to-day,” he said. “ Stevens writes me that Guest yesterday paid down the twenty thousand dollars in full. It’s quick work. I hope he’s not robbed Peter to pay Paul,”

“ Mr. Guest has a conscience,” I said ; and I thought bitterly of the reverse of the picture. “ I ’m afraid he has half ruined himself to do it.”

“ Well, ruin for ruin, I prefer his. I’ve no doubt his affairs have gone to the dogs. The affairs of such a man must, sooner or later ! I believe, by the way, you’ve been cultivating the young lady. What does the papa say to that ? ”

“ Of course,” I said, without heeding his question, “ you’ve already enclosed him the — the little paper.”

Edgar turned in his bed. “ Of course I’ve done no such thing ! ”

“ You mean to keep it ? ” I cried.

“ Of course I mean to keep it. Where else would be his punishment ? ”

There was something vastly grotesque in the sight of this sickly little mortal erecting himself among his pillows as a dispenser of justice, an appraiser of the wages of sin ; but I confess that his attitude struck me as more cruel even than ludicrous. I was disappointed. I had certainly not expected Edgar to be generous, but I had expected him to be just, and in the heat of his present irritation he was neither. He was angry with Guest for his excessive promptitude, which had given a sinister twist to Ids own conduct. “ Upon my word,” I cried, “you’re a veritable Shylock ! ”

“ And you ’re a veritable fool ! Is it set down in the bond that I’m to give it up to him ? The thing’s mine, to have and to hold forever. The scoundrel would be easily let off indeed ! This bit of paper in my bands is to keep him in order and prevent his being too happy. The thought will be wholesome company, — a memento mori to his vanity.”

“ He’s to go through life, then, with possible exposure staring him in the face ? ”

Edgar’s great protuberant eyes expanded without blinking. “ He has committed his fate to Providence.”

I was revolted. “ You may have the providential qualities, but you have not the gentlemanly ones, I formally protest. But, after a decent delay, he ’ll of course demand the document.”

“ Demand it ? He shall have it then, with a vengeance ! ”

“ Well, I wash my hands of further complicity ! I shall inform Mr. Guest that I count for nothing in this base negation of bis right.”

Edgar paused a moment to stare at me in my unprecedented wrath. Then making me a little ironical gesture of congratulation, “ Inform him of what you please. I hope you ’ll have a pleasant talk over it ! You made rather a bad beginning, but who knows, if you put your heads together to abuse me, you may end as bosom friends ! I’ve watched you, sir ! ” he suddenly added, propping himself forward among his pillows; “you’re in love!” I may wrong the poor fellow, but it seemed to me that in these words he discharged the bitterness of a lifetime. He too would have hoped to please, and he had lived in acrid assent to the instinct which told him such hope was vain. In one way or another a man pays his tax to manhood. “Yes, sir, you’re grossly in love! What do I know about love, you ask ? I know a drivelling lover when I see him. You’ve made a clever choice. Do you expect John Guest to give the girl away ? He’s a good-natured man, I know; but really, considering your high standard of gentlemanly conduct, you ask a good deal.”

Edgar had been guilty on this occasion of a kind of reckless moral selfexposure, which seemed to betray a sense that he should never need his reputation again. I felt as if I were standing by something very like a death-bed, and forbearingly, without rejoinder, I withdrew. He had simply expressed more brutally, however, my own oppressive belief that the father’s aversion stood darkly massed in the rear of the daughter’s indifference. I had, indeed, for the present, the consolation of believing that with Laura the day of pure indifference was over; and I tried hard to flatter myself that my position was tenable in spite of Mr. Guest The next day as I was wandering on the hotel piazza, communing thus sadly with my hopes, I met Crawford, who, with his hands in his pockets and his hat on the bridge of his nose, seemed equally a sullen probationer of fate.

“ I’m going down to join our friends,” I said ; “ I expected to find you with them.”

He gave a gloomy grin. “ My nose is out of joint,” he said ; “ Mr. Guest has come back.” I turned pale, but he was too much engaged with his own trouble to observe it. “What do you suppose my cousin is up to? She had agreed to drive with me and I had determined to come home, once for all, engaged or rejected. As soon as she heard of Guest’s arrival, she threw me overboard and tripped off to her room, to touch up her curls. Go down there now and you’ll find her shaking them at Mr. Guest. By the Lord, sir, she can whistle for me now ! If there was a decently good-looking woman in this house, I’d march straight up to her and offer myself. You ’re a happy man, my boy, not to have a d—d fool to interfere with you, and not to be in love with a d—d fool either.”

I had no present leisure to smooth the turbid waters of poor Crawford’s passion ; but I remembered a clever remark in a French book, to the effect that even the best men — and Crawford was one of the best — are subject to a momentary need not to respect what they love. I repaired alone to the house by the river, and found Laura in the little parlor which she shared with Mrs. Beck. The room was flooded with the glow of a crimson sunset, and she was looking out of the long window at two persons in the garden. In my great desire to obtain some firm assurance from her before her father’s interference should become a certainty, I lost no time. “ I’ve been able to think of nothing,” I said, “but your reply to that poor offer of mine. I ’ve been flattering myself that it really means something,—means, possibly, that if I were to speak — here — now — all that I long to speak, you would listen to me more kindly. Laura,” I cried, passionately, “ I repent of all my follies and I love you ! ”

She looked at me from head to foot with a gaze almost strange in its intensity. It betrayed trouble, but, I fancied, a grateful trouble. Then, with a smile, “ My father has come,” she said. The words set my heart a beating, and I had a horrible fancy that they were maliciously uttered. But as she went on I was reassured. “ I want him to see you, though he knows nothing of your offer.”

Somehow, by her tone, my mind was suddenly illumined with a delicious apprehension of her motive. She had heard the early murmur of that sentiment whose tender essence resents compulsion. “ Let me feel then,” I said, “ that I am not to stand or fall by his choice.”

“ He’s sure to like you,” she answered ; “ don’t you remember my telling you so ? He judges better of men than of women,” she added sadly, turning away from the window.

Mr. Guest had been advancing toward the house, side by side with Mrs. Beck. Before they reached it the latter was met by two ladies who had been ushered into the garden from the front gate, and with whom, with an air of smothered petulance, perceptible even at a distance, she retraced her steps toward the summer-house. Her companion entered our little parlor alone from the piazza. He stepped jauntily and looked surprisingly little altered by his month’s ordeal. Mrs. Beck might still have taken him for a duke, or, at least, for an earl. His daughter immediately introduced me. “ Happy to make your acquaintance, sir,” he exclaimed, in a voice which I was almost shocked to find how well I knew. He offered his hand. I met it with my own, and the next moment we were fairly face to face. I was prepared for anything. Recognition faltered for a mere instant in his eyes ; then I felt it suddenly leap forth in the tremendous wrench of his hand, “ Ah, you —you — YOU ! ”

“ Why, you know him!” exclaimed Laura.

Guest continued to wring my hand, and I felt to my cost that he was shocked. He panted a moment for breath, and then burst into a monstrous laugh. I looked askance at Laura ; her eyes were filled with wonder. I felt that for the moment anger had made her father reckless, and anything was better than that between us the edge of our secret should peep out. “ We have been introduced,” I said, trying to smile. Guest dropped my hand as if it burned him, and walked the length of the room.

“ You should have told me ! ” Laura added, in a tone of almost familiar reproach.

“ Miss Guest,” I answered, hardly knowing what I said, “the world is so wide — ”

“ Upon my soul, I think it’s damnably narrow!” cried Guest, who had turned very pale.

I determined then that he should know the worst. “ I’m here with a purpose, Mr. Guest,” I said ; “ I love your daughter.”

He stopped short, fairly glaring at me. Laura stepped toward him and laid her two hands on his arm. “ Something is wrong,” she said, “very wrong! It ’s your horrible money-matters ! Were n’t you really then so generous ? ” and she turned to me.

Guest laid his other hand on hers as they rested on his arm and patted them gently. “My daughter,” he said solemnly, “ do your poor father a favor. Dismiss him forever. Turn him out of the house,” he added, fiercely.

“ You wrong your daughter,” I cried, “ by asking her to act so blindly and cruelly.”

“ My child,” Guest went on, “ I expect you to obey ! ”

There was a silence. At last Laura turned to me, excessively pale. “ Will you do me the very great favor,” she said, with a trembling voice, “to leave us ? ”

I reflected a moment. “ I appreciate your generosity; but in the interest of your own happiness, I beg you not to listen to your father until I have had a word with him alone.”

She hesitated and looked, as if for assent, at her father. “ Great heavens, girl ! ” he cried, “you don’t mean you love him!” She blushed to her hair and rapidly left the room.

Guest took up his hat and removed a speck of dust from the ribbon by a fillip of his finger-nail. “ Young man,” he said, “you waste words ! ”

“ Not, I hope, when, with my hand on my heart, I beg your pardon.”

“ Now that you have something to gain. If you respect me, you should have protested before. If you don’t, you’ve nothing to do with me or mine.”

“ I allow for your natural resentment, but you might keep it within bounds. I religiously forget, ignore, efface the past. Meet me half-way ! When we met a month ago, I already loved your daughter. If I had dreamed of your being ever so remotely connected with her, I would have arrested that detestable scene even by force, brother of mine though your adversary was ! ”

Guest put on his hat with a gesture of implacable contempt. “That’s all very well! You don’t know me, sir, or you’d not waste your breath on ifs ! The thing’s done. Such as I stand here, I’ve been dishonored !” And two hot tears sprang into his eyes. “ Such as I stand here, I carry in my poor, sore heart the vision of your great, brutal, staring, cruel presence. And now you ask me to accept that presence as perpetual! Upon my soul, I ’m a precious fool to talk about it.”

I made an immense effort to remain calm and courteous. “ Is there nothing I can do to secure your good-will ? I ’ll make any sacrifice.”

“ Nothing but to leave me at once and forever. Fancy my living with you for an hour! Fancy, whenever I met your eyes, my seeing in them the reflection of—of that piece of business ! And your walking about looking wise and chuckling ! My precious young man,” he went on with a scorching smile, “ if you knew how I hated you, you’d give me a wide berth.”

I was silent for some moments, teaching myself the great patience which I foresaw I should need. “ This is after all but the question of our personal relations, which we might fairly leave to time. Not only am I willing to pledge myself to the most explicit respect — ”

“ Explicit respect! ” he broke out. “ I should relish that vastly ! Heaven deliver me from your explicit respect ! ”

“ I can quite believe,” I quietly continued, “ that I should get to like you. Your daughter has done me the honor to say that she believed you would like me.”

“ Perfect! You’ve talked it all over with her ? ”

“ At any rate,” I declared roundly, “ I love her, and I have reason to hope that I may render myself acceptable to her. I can only add, Mr. Guest, that much as I should value your approval of my suit, if you withhold it I shall try my fortune without it ! ”

“ Gently, impetuous youth!” And Guest laid his hand on my arm and lowered his voice. “Do you dream that if my daughter ever so faintly sus-

pected the truth, she would even look at you again ? ”

“The truth? Heaven forbid she should dream of it ! I wonder that in your position you should allude to it so freely.”

“ I was prudent once ; I shall treat myself to a little freedom now. Give it up, I advise you. She may have thought you a pretty young fellow ; I took you for one myself at first; but she ’ll keep her affection for a man with the bowels of compassion. She ’ll never love a coward, sir. Upon my soul, I’d sooner she married your beautiful brother. He, at least, had a grievance. Don’t talk to me about my own child. She and I have an older love than yours; and if she were to learn that I ’ve been weak — Heaven help me ! — she would only love me the more. She would feel only that I’ve been outraged.”

I confess that privately I flinched, but I stood to it bravely. “ Miss Guest, doubtless, is as perfect a daughter as she would be a wife. But allow me to say that a woman’s heart is not so simple a mechanism. Your daughter is a person of a very fine sense of honor, and I can imagine nothing that would give her greater pain than to be reduced to an attitude of mere compassion for her father. She likes to believe that men are strong. The sense of respect is necessary to her happiness. We both wish to assure that happiness. Let us join hands to preserve her illusions.”

I saw in his eye no concession except to angry perplexity. “ I don’t know what you mean,” he cried, “and I don’t want to know. If you wish to intimate that my daughter is so very superior a person that she ’ll despise me, you’re mistaken! She’s beyond any compliment you can pay her. You can’t frighten me now ; I don’t care for things.” He walked away a moment and then turned about with flushed face and trembling lip. “ I’m broken, I’m ruined ! I don’t want my daughter’s respect, nor any other woman’s. It’s a burden, a mockery, a snare ! What’s a woman worth who can be kind only while she believes ? Ah, ah ! ” and he began to rub his hands with a sudden air of helpless senility, “ I should never be so kissed and coddled and nursed. I can tell her what I please ; I sha’ n’t mind what I say now. I ’ve ceased to care,— all in a month ! Reputation s a farce ; a pair of tight boots, worn for vanity. I used to have a good foot, but I shall end my days in my slippers. I don’t care for anything ! ”

This mood was piteous, but it was also formidable, for I was scantily disposed to face the imputation of having reduced an amiable gentleman, in however strictly just a cause, to this state of plaintive cynicism. I could only hope that time would repair both his vanity and his charity, seriously damaged as they were. “ Well,” I said, taking my hat, “ a man in love, you know, is obstinate. Confess, yourself, that you’d not think the better of me for accepting dismissal philosophically. A single word of caution, keep cool ; don’t lose your head ; don’t speak recklessly to Laura. I protest that, for myself, I ’d rather my mistress should n’t doubt of her father.”

Guest had seated himself on the sofa with his hat on, and remained staring absently at the carpet, as if he were deaf to my words. As I turned away, Mrs. Beck crossed the piazza and stood on the threshold of the long window. Her shadow fell at Mr. Guest’s feet ; she sent a searching glance from his face to mine. He started, stared, rose, stiffened himself up, and removed his hat. Suddenly he colored to the temples, and after a second’s delay there issued from behind this ruby curtain a wondrous imitation of a smile. I turned away, reassured. “ My case is not hopeless,” I said to myself. “ You do care for something, yet.” Even had I deemed it hopeless, I might have made my farewell. Laura met me near the gate, and I remember thinking that trouble was vastly becoming to her.

“ Is your quarrel too bad to speak of? ” she asked.

“ Allow me to make an urgent request. Your father forbids me to think of you, and you, of course, to think of me. You see,” I said, mustering a smile, “ we ’re in a delightfully romantic position, persecuted by a stern parent. He will say hard things of me ; I say nothing about your believing them, I leave that to your own discretion. But don’t contradict them. Let him call me cruel, pusillanimous, false, whatever he will. Ask no questions ; they will bring you no comfort. Be patient, be a good daughter, and — wait!”

Her brow contracted painfully over her intensely lucid eyes, and she shook her head impatiently. “ Let me understand. Have you really done wrong?”

I felt that it was but a slender sacrifice to generosity to say Yes, and to add that I had repented. I even felt gratefully that whatever it might be to have a crime to confess to, it was not “ boyish.”

For a moment, I think, Laura was on the point of asking me a supreme question about her father, but she suppressed it and abruptly left me.

My step-brother’s feeble remnant of health was now so cruelly reduced that the end of his troubles seemed near. He was in constant pain, and was kept alive only by stupefying drugs. As his last hour might strike at any moment, I was careful to remain within call, and for several days saw nothing of father or daughter. I learned from Crawford that they had determined to prolong their stay into the autumn, for Mr. Guest’s “health.” “I don’t know what’s the matter with his health,” Crawford grumbled, “ For a sick man he seems uncommonly hearty, able to sit out of doors till midnight with Mrs. B., and always as spick and span as a bridegroom. I ’m the invalid of the lot,” he declared; “ the climate don’t agree with me.” Mrs. Beck, it appeared, was too fickle for patience; he would be made a fool of no more. If she wanted him, she must come and fetch him ; and if she valued her chance, she must do it without delay. He departed for New York to try the virtue of missing and being missed.

On the evening he left us, the doctor told me that Edgar could not outlast the night. At midnight, I relieved the watcher and took my place by his bed. Edgar’s soundless and motionless sleep was horribly like death. Sitting watchful by his pillow, I passed an oppressively solemn night. It seemed to me that a part of myself was dying, and that I was sitting in cold Survival of youthful innocence and of the lavish self-surrender of youth. There is a certain comfort in an ancient grievance, and as I thought of having heard for the last time the strenuous quaver of Edgar’s voice, I could have wept as for the eflfacemcnt of some revered horizonline of life. I heard his voice again, however ; he was not even to die without approving the matter. With the first flash of dawn and the earliest broken bird-note, he opened his eyes and began to murmur disconnectedly. At length he recognized me, and, with me, his situation. “ Don’t go on tiptoe, and hold your breath, and pull a long face,” he said ; “ speak up like a man. I’m doing the biggest job I ever did yet, you ’ll not interrupt me ; I’m dying. One — two, three — four; I can almost count the ebbing waves. And to think that all these years they’ve been breaking on the strand of the universe ! It’s only when the world’s din is shut out, at the last, that we hear them. I ’ll not pretend to say I’m not sorry ; I ’ve been a man of this world. It’s a great one ; there’s a vast deal to do in it, for a man of sense. I’ve not been a fool, either. Write that for my epitaph, He was no fool! — except when he went to L. I’m not satisfied yet. I might have got better, and richer. I wanted to try galvanism, and to transfer that Pennsylvania stock. Well, I’m to be transferred myself. If dying’s the end of it all, it’s as well to die worse as to die better. At any rate, while time was mine, I did n’t waste it. I went over my will, pen in hand, for the last time, only a week ago, crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s. I ’ve left you — nothing. You need nothing for comfort, and of course you expect nothing for sentiment. I’ve left twenty thousand dollars to found an infirmary for twenty indigent persons suffering from tumor in the stomach. There’s sentiment ! There will be no trouble about it, for my affairs are in perfect shape. Twenty snug little beds in my own little house in Philadelphia. They can get five into the dining-room.” He was silent awhile, as if with a kind of ecstatic vision of the five little beds in a row. “ I don’t know that there is anything else,” lie said, at last, “except a few old papers to be burned. I hate leaving rubbish behind me ; it’s enough to leave one’s mouldering carcass ! ”

At his direction I brought a large tin box from a closet and placed it on a chair by his bedside, where I drew from it a dozen useless papers and burned them one by one in the candle. At last, when but three or four were left, I laid my hand on a small sealed document labelled Guest’s Confession. My hand trembled as I held it up to him, and as he recognized it a faint flush overspread his cadaverous pallor. He frowned, as if painfully confused. “ How did it come there ? I sent it back, I sent it back,” he said. Then suddenly with a strangely erroneous recollection of our recent dispute, “ I told you so the other day, you remember ; and you said I was too generous. And what did you tell me about the daughter? You’re in love with her? Ah yes! What a muddle ! ”

I respected his confusion. “ You say you’ve left me nothing,” I answered. “ Leave me this.”

For all reply, he turned over with a groan, and relapsed into stupor. The nurse shortly afterwards came to relieve me ; but though I lay down, I was unable to sleep. The personal possession of that little scrap of paper acted altogether too potently on my nerves and my imagination. In due contravention of the doctor, Edgar outlasted the night and lived into another day. But as high noon was clashing out from the village church, and I stood with the doctor by his bedside, the latter, who had lifted his wrist a little to test his pulse, released it, not with the tenderness we render to suffering, but with a more summary reverence. Suffering was over.

By the close of the day I had finished my preparations for attending my stepbrother’s remains to burial in Philadelphia, among those of his own people ; but before my departure, I measured once more that well-trodden road to the house by the river, and requested a moment’s conversation with Mr. Guest. In spite of my attention being otherwise engaged. I had felt strangely all day that I carried a sort of magic talisman, a mystic key to fortune. I was constantly fumbling in my waistcoatpocket to see whether the talisman was really there, I wondered that, as yet, Guest should not have demanded a surrender of his note ; but I attributed his silence to shame, scorn, and defiance, and promised myself a sort of golden advantage by anticipating his claim with the cogent frankness of justice. But as soon as he entered the room I foresaw that Justice must show her sword as well as her scales. His resentment had deepened into a kind of preposterous arrogance, of a temper quite insensible to logic. He had more than recovered his native buoyancy and splendor ; there was an air of feverish impudence in his stare, his light swagger, in the very hue and fashion of his crimson necktie. He had an evil genius with blond curls and innumerable flounces.

“ I feel it to be a sort of duty,” I said, “ to inform you that my brother died this morning.”

“ Your brother ? What’s your brother to me ? He’s been dead to me these three days. Is that all you have to say ? ”

I was irritated by the man’s stupid implacability, and my purpose received a check. “ No,” I answered, “ I ’ve several things more to touch upon.”

“ In so far as they concern my daughter, you may leave them unsaid. She tells me of your offer to — to buy off my opposition. Am I to understand that it was seriously made? You’re a coarser young man than I fancied ! ”

“ She told you of my offer?” I cried.

“ O, you needn’t build upon that! Shehasn’t mentioned your name since.”

I was silent, thinking my own thoughts. I won’t answer for it, that, in spite of his caution, I did not lay an immaterial brick or two. “ You 're still irreconcilable?” I contented myself with asking.

He assumed an expression of absolutely jovial contempt. “ My dear sir, I detest the sight of you ! ”

“ Have you no question to ask, no demand to make ? ”

He looked at me a moment in silence, with just the least little twitch and tremor of mouth and eye. His vanity, I guessed on the instant, was determined stoutly to ignore that I held him at an advantage and to refuse me the satisfaction of extorting from him the least allusion to the evidence of his disgrace. He had known bitter compulsion once; he would not do it the honor to concede that it had not spent itself. “ No demand but that you will excuse my further attendance.”

My own vanity took a hand in the game. Justice herself was bound to go no more than half-way. If he was not afraid of his little paper, he might try a week or two more of bravery. I bowed to him in silence and let him depart. As I turned to go I found myself face to face with Mrs. Beck, whose pretty visage was flushed with curiosity. “ You and Mr. Guest have quarrelled,” she said roundly.

“ As you see, madam.”

“ As I see, madam ! But what is it all about ? ”

“ About — his daughter.”

“ His daughter and his ducats ! You ’re a very deep young man, in spite of those boyish looks of yours. Why did you never tell me you knew him ? You’ve quarrelled about money matters.”

“ As you say,” I answered, “ I’m very deep. Don’t tempt me to further subterfuge.”

“ He has lost money, I know. Is it much ? Tell me that.”

“ It’s an enormous sum!” I said, with mock solemnity.

“ Provoking man ! ” And she gave a little stamp of disgust.

“ He’s in trouble,” I said. “To a woman of your tender sympathies he ought to be more interesting than ever.”

She mused a moment, fixing me with her keen blue eye. “ It’s a sad responsibility to have a heart ! ” she murmured.

“ In that,” I said, “we perfectly agree.”

VI.

It was a singular fact that Edgar’s affairs turned out to be in by no means the exemplary order in which he had flattered himself he placed them. They were very much at sixes and sevens. The discovery, to me, was almost a shock. I might have drawn from it a pertinent lesson on the fallacy of human pretensions. The gentleman whom Edgar had supremely honored (as he seemed to assume in his will) by appointing his executor, responded to my innocent surprise by tapping his forehead with a peculiar smile. It was partly from curiosity as to the value of this explanation, that I helped him to look into the dense confusion which prevailed in my step-brother’s estate. It revealed certainly an odd compound of madness and method. I learned with real regret that the twenty eleemosynary beds at Philadelphia must remain a superb conception. I was horrified at every step by the broad license with which his will had to be interpreted. All profitless as I was in the case, when I thought of the comfortable credit in which he had died, I felt like some greedy kinsman of tragedy making impious havoc with a sacred bequest. These matters detained me for a week in New York, where I had joined my brother’s executor. At my earliest moment of leisure, I called upon Crawford at the office of a friend to whom he had addressed me, and learned that after three or four dismally restless days in town, he had taken a summary departure for L. A couple of days later, I was struck with a certain dramatic connection between his return and the following note from Mr. Guest, which I give verbally, in its pregnant brevity : —

SIR : — I possess a claim on your late brother’s estate which it is needless to specify. You will either satisfy it by return of mail or forfeit forever the common respect of gentlemen.

J. G.

Things had happened with the poor man rather as I hoped than as I expected. He had borrowed his recent exaggerated defiance from the transient smiles of Mrs. Beck. They had gone to his head like the fumes of wine, and he had dreamed for a day that he could afford to snap his fingers at the past. What he really desired and hoped of Mrs. Beck I was puzzled to say. In this woful disrepair of his fortunes he could hardly have meant to hold her to a pledge of matrimony extorted in brighter hours. He was infatuated, I believed, partly by a weak, spasmodic optimism which represented his troubles as momentary, and enjoined him to hold firm till something turned up, and partly by a reckless and frivolous susceptibility to the lady’s unscrupulous blandishments. While they prevailed, he lost all notion of the wholesome truth of things, and would have been capable of any egregious folly. Mrs. Beck was in love with him, in so far as she was capable of being in love; his gallantry, of all gallantries, suited her to a charm ; but she reproached herself angrily with this amiable weakness, and prudence every day won back an inch of ground. Poor Guest indeed had clumsily snuffed out his candle. He had slept in the arms of Delilah, and he had waked to find that Delilah had guessed, if not his secret, something uncomfortably like it. Crawford’s return had found Mrs. Beck with but a scanty remnant of sentiment and a large accession of prudence, which was graciously placed at his service. Guest, hereupon, as I conjectured, utterly disillusioned by the cynical frankness of her defection, had seen his horizon grow ominously dark, and begun to fancy, as I remained silent, that there was thunder in the air. His pompous waiving, in his note, of allusion both to our last meeting and to my own present claim, seemed to me equally characteristic of his weakness and of his distress. The bitter after-taste of Mrs. Beck’s coquetry had, at all events, brought him back to reality. For myself, the real fact in the matter was the image of Laura Guest, sitting pensive, like an exiled princess.

I sent him nothing by return of mail. On my arrival in New York, I had enclosed the precious document in an envelope, addressed it, and stamped it, and put it back in my pocket. I could not rid myself of a belief that by that sign I should conquer. Several times I drew it forth and laid it on the table before me, reflecting that I had but a word to say to have it dropped into the post. Cowardly, was it, to keep it? But what was it to give up one’s mistress without a battle ? Which was the uglier, my harshness or Guest’s ? In a holy cause, — and holy, you maybe sure, I had dubbed mine, — were not all arms sanctified ? Possession meant peril, and peril to a manly sense, of soul and conscience, as much as of person and fortune. Mine, at any rate, should share the danger. It was a sinister-looking talisman certainly ; but when it had failed, it would be time enough to give it up.

In these thoughts I went back to L. I had taken the morning train ; I arrived at noon, and with small delay proceeded to the quiet little house which harbored such world - vexed spirits. It was one of the first days of September, and the breath of autumn was In the air. Summer still met the casual glance ; but the infinite light of summer had found its term ; it was as if there were a leak in the crystal vault of the firmament through which the luminous ether of June was slowly stealing away.

Mr. Guest, I learned from the servant, had started on a walk, — to the mill, she thought, three miles away. I sent in my' card to Laura, and went into the garden to await her appearance — or her answer. At the end of five minutes, I saw her descend from the piazza and advance down the long path. Her light black dress swept the little box-borders, and over her head she balanced a white parasol. I met her, and she stopped, silent and grave. “ I’ve come to learn,” I said, “ that absence has not been fatal to me.”

“ You’ve hardly been absent. You left a — an influence behind, — a verypainful one. In Heaven’s name!” she cried, with vehemence, “ what horrible wrong have you done ? ”

“ I have done no horrible wrong. Do you believe me ? ” She scanned my face searchingly for a moment ; then she gave a long, gentle, irrepressible sigh of relief. “ Do you fancy that if I had, I could meet your eyes, feel the folds of your dress ? I ’ve done that which I have bitterly wished undone ; I did it in ignorance, weakness, and folly ; I ’ve repented in passion and truth. Can a man do more ?”

“ I never was afraid of the truth,” she answered slowly ; “ I don’t see that I need fear it now. I ’m not a child. Tell me the absolute truth ! ”

“ The absolute truth,” I said, “ is that your father.once saw me in a very undignified position. It made such an impression on him that he’s unable to think of me in any other. You see I was rather cynically indifferent to his observation, for I did n’t know him then as your father.”

She gazed at me with the same adventurous candor, and blushed a little as I became silent, then turned away and strolled along the path. “ It seems a miserable thing,” she said, “ that two gentle spirits like yours should have an irreparable difference. When good men hate each other, what are they to do to the bad men ? You must excuse my want of romance, but I cannot listen to a suitor of whom my father complains. Make peace ! ”

“ Shall peace with him be peace with you ? ”

“ Let me see you frankly shake hands,” she said, not directly answering. “ Be very kind ! You don’t know what he has suffered here lately.” She paused, as if to conceal a tremor in her voice.

Had she read between the lines of that brilliant improvisation of mine, or was she moved chiefly with pity for his recent sentimental tribulations, — pitying them the more that she respected them the less ? “ He has walked to the mill,” I said; “ I shall meet him, and we ’ll come back arm in arm.” I turned away, so that I might not see her face pleading for a clemency which would make me too delicate. I went down beside the river and followed the old towing-path, now grassy with disuse. Reaching the shabby wooden bridge below the mill, I stopped midway across it and leaned against the railing. Below, the yellow water swirled past the crooked piers. I took my little sealed paper out of my pocketbook and held it over the stream, almost courting the temptation to drop it; but the temptation never came. I had just put it back in my pocket when I heard a footstep on the planks behind me. Turning round, I beheld Mr. Guest. He looked tired and dusty with his walk, and had the air of a man who had been trying bv violent exercise to shake of! a moral incubus. Judging by his haggard brow and heavy eyes, he had hardly succeeded. As he recognized me, he started just perceptibly, as if he were too weary to be irritated. He was about to pass on without speaking, but I intercepted him. My movement provoked a flash in his sullen pupil. “ I came on purpose to meet you,” I said. “ I have just left your daughter, and I feel more than ever how passionately I love her. Once more, I demand that you withdraw your opposition.”

“ Is that y our answer to my letter ? ” he asked,eying me from under hisbrows.

“ Your letter puts me in a position to make my demand with force. I refuse to submit to this absurd verdict of accident. I have just seen your daughter, and I have authority to bring you to reason.”

“ My daughter has received you ? ” he cried, flushing.

“ Most kindly.”

“ You scoundrel ! ”

“ Gently, gently. Shake hands with me here where we stand, and let me keep my promise to Laura of our coming back to her arm in arm, at peace, reconciled, mutually forgiving and forgetting, or I walk straight back and put a certain little paper into her hands.”

He turned deadly pale, and a fierce oath broke from his lips. He had been beguiled, I think, by my neglect of his letter, into the belief that Edgar had not died without destroying his signature, — a belief rendered possible by an indefeasible faith he must have had in my step-brother’s probity. “ You’ve kept that tiling ! ” he cried. “The Lord be praised ! I’m as honest a man as either of you ! ”

“ Say but two words, — ‘ Take her ! ’ — and we shall be honest together again. The paper’s yours.” He turned away and leaned against the railing of the bridge, with his head in his hands, watching the river.

“ Take your time,” I continued; “I give you two hours. Go home, look at your daughter, and choose. An hour hence I ’ll join you. If I find you’ve removed your veto, I undertake to make you forget you ever offered it: if I find you’ve maintained it, I expose you.”

“ In either case you lose your mistress. Whatever Laura may think of me, there can be no doubt as to what she will think of you.”

“ I shall be forgiven. Leave that to me ! That’s my last word. In a couple of hours I shall take the liberty of coming to learn yours.”

“ O Laura, Laura ! ” cried the poor man in his bitter trouble. But I left him and walked away. I turned as I reached the farther end of the bridge, and saw him slowly resume his course. I marched along the road to the mill, so excited with having uttered this brave ultimatum that I hardly knew whither I went. But at last I bethought me of a certain shady streamside nook just hereabouts, which a little exploration soon discovered. A shallow cove, screened from the road by dense clumps of willows, stayed the current a moment in its grassy bend. I had noted it while boating, as a spot where a couple of lovers might aptly disembark and moor their idle skiff; and I was now tempted to try its influence in ardent solitude. I flung myself on the ground, and as I listened to the light gurgle of the tarrying stream and to the softer rustle of the cool gray leafage around me, I suddenly felt that I was exhausted and sickened. I lay motionless, watching the sky and resting from my anger. Little by little it melted away and left me horribly ashamed. How long I lay there I know not, nor what was the logic of my meditations, but an ineffable change stole over my spirit. There are fathomless depths in spiritual mood and motive. Opposite me, on the farther side of the stream, winding along a path through the bushes, three or four cows had come down to drink. I sat up and watched them. A young man followed them, in a red shirt, with his trousers in his boots. While they were comfortably nosing the water into ripples, he sat down on a stone and began to light his pipe. In a moment I fancied I saw the little blue thread of smoke curl up from the bowl. From beyond, just droning through the air, came the liquid rumble of the mill. There seemed to me something in this vision ineffably pastoral, peaceful, and innocent ; it smote me to my heart of hearts. I felt a nameless wave of impulse start somewhere in the innermost vitals of conscience and fill me with passionate shame. I fell back on the grass and. burst into tears.

The sun was low and the breeze had risen when I rose to my feet. I scrambled back to the road, crossed the bridge, and hurried home by the towing-path. My heart, however, beat faster than my footfalls. I passed into the garden and advanced to the house ; as I stepped upon the piazza, I was met by Mrs. Beck. “Answer me a simple question,” she cried, laying her hand on my arm.

“ I should like to hear you ask one ! ” I retorted, impatiently.

“ Has Mr. Guest lost his mind ? ”

“ For an hour ! I ’ve brought it back to him.”

“ You’ve a pretty quarrel between you. He comes up an hour ago, as I was sitting in the garden with — with Mr. Crawford, requests a moment’s interview, leads me apart and — offers himself. ‘ If you ’ll have me, take me now ; you won’t an hour hence,’ he cried. ‘ Neither now nor an hour hence, thank you,’ said I. ‘ My affections are fixed — elsewhere.’ ”

“ You’ve not lost your head, at any rate,” said I ; and, releasing myself, I went into the parlor. I had a horrible fear of being too late. The candles stood lighted on the piano, and tea had been brought in, but the kettle was singing unheeded. On the divan facing the window sat Guest, lounging back on the cushions, his hat and stick flung down beside him, his hands grasping his knees, his head thrown back, and his eyes closed. That he should have remained so for an hour, unbrushed and unfurbished, spoke volumes as to his mental state. Near him sat Laura, looking at him askance in mute anxiety. What had passed between them ? Laura’s urgent glance as I entered was full of trouble, but I fancied without reproach. He had apparently chosen neither way ; he had simply fallen there, weary, desperate, and dumb.

“ I ’m disappointed ! ” Laura said to me gravely.

Her father opened his eyes, stared at me a moment, and then closed them. I answered nothing ; but after a moment’s hesitation went and took my seat beside Guest. I laid my hand on his own with a grasp of which he felt, first the force, then. I think, the kindness ; for, after a momentary spasm of repulsion, he remained coldly passive. He must have begun to wonder. “ Be so good,” I said to Laura, “ as to bring me one of the candles.” She looked surprised ; but she complied and came toward me, holding the taper, like some pale priestess expecting a portent. I drew out the note and held it to the flame. “ Your father and I have bad a secret,” I said, “ which has been a burden to both of us. Here it goes.” Laura’s hand trembled as she held the candle, and mine as I held the paper ; but between us the vile thing blazed and was consumed. I glanced askance at Guest ; he was staring wide-eyed at the dropping cinders. When the last had dropped, I took the candle, rose, and carried it back to the piano. Laura dropped on her knees before her father, and, while my back was turned, something passed between them with which I was concerned only in its consequences.

When I looked round, Guest had risen and was passing his fingers through his hair. “ Daughter,” he said, “ when I came in, what was it I said to you ? ”

She stood for an instant with her eyes on the floor. Then, “ I ’ve forgotten ! ” she said, simply.

Mrs. Beck had passed in by the window in time to hear these last words. “ Do you know what you said to me when you came in?” she cried, mirthfully shaking a finger at Guest. He laughed nervously, picked up his bat, and stood looking, with an air of odd solemnity, at his boots. Suddenly it seemed to occur to him that he was dusty and dishevelled. He settled his shirt-collar and levelled a glance at the mirror, in which he caught my eye. He tried hard to look insensible ; but it was the glance of a man who felt more comfortable than he had done in a month. He marched stiffly to the door.

“ Are you going to dress ? ” said Mrs. Beck.

“ From head to foot!” he cried, with violence.

“ Be so good, then, if you see Mr. Crawford in the hall, as to ask him to come in and have a cup of tea.”

Laura had passed out to the piazza, where I immediately joined her. “Your father accepts me,” I said ; “ there is nothing left but for you — ”

Five minutes later, I looked back through the window to see if we were being observed. But Mrs. Beck was busy adding another lump of sugar to Crawford’s cup of tea. His eye met mine, however, and I fancied he looked sheepish.

H.James Jr.