To live in the same house, to meet not only at the accepted times, but in all the little passing ways—on the stairs, coming in and out of the door; to meet also in all the little unpremeditated ways that are really premeditated—the going to the library for a book, the searching over this, that, and the other, with all its pretended inconsequence and surprise; the abstraction of two people from the same room at the same time on different pretexts; the lingerings while the minutes grew toward the hour, the sudden hurried partings at a foot-step, the reunion for just a moment more when the foot-step did not come that way—all this unnoticed and casual intercourse with its half-secrecy and hint of the forbidden becomes a large factor in its relation to after-events, when the participants are a man and a woman. There is no influence so little regarded for the young by those in authority as the tremendous influence of propinquity.

Among all the social comings and goings at the Leverichs’, the excitement of Lawson’s presence held its place with Dosia. The sudden sight of his olive profile and his lithe figure, his cool, appraising gaze, his “Well, young lady?” with its ironic tone that yet conveyed a subtle kindness, his lazy, caressing expostulation, “Why not, when we are friends?”—these things made heart-beats that Dosia took pains to assure herself were of a purely Platonic nature, when she stopped at rare occasions to take tally of her emotions, though there was a continual unacknowledged inner protest, in spite of her yielding, which made her resolve each day to withdraw a little on the next. But they never talked of love; they talked only of goodness, or art, or music, or about the way you felt about different subjects, or little teasing things, like why she drew her mouth down at the corners when he looked at her, or why she had seemed to disapprove the night before. They were bound together by the hope of higher things. She met him always in the morning with the bright uplifting smile that said, “I know you will repay my confidence—for I believe in you!”

“I really wish Lawson would go away,” said Mrs. Leverich, one day, as the two sat over their afternoon tea together.

“Why?” asked Dosia, with the suddenly concentrated composure his name always brought her outwardly. “I thought you said last week that he had improved so much.”

“Oh, yes, he’s had one of his good streaks lately; and he is a sweet fellow when he’s nice—he was the dearest little boy! Lawson can twist me around his little finger when he wants to; he knows that he can get money out of me every time, even when he oughtn’t to have it. But he can’t keep up this sort of thing long, you know, he is so restless; there’s bound to be a breakdown afterwards. I dread it; the breakdowns get worse, now, every time.”

“Perhaps there will be no breakdown, after all,” said Dosia, in an even voice, but with that sudden deep sensation of disenchantment which his sister’s words always brought to her, and which lay upon her spirit like a living thing, dragging her fancy in chains. It was not alone Mrs. Leverich’s words, either, that had this power; when anyone spoke of Lawson it brought the same displeasing uneasiness, followed by the wonted eager remorsefulness later, when she saw him. But through each phase one foundational sense held good—he was not at all the kind of man she would ever want to marry; the whole attraction of the situation was in the fact that one could be so nobly intimate, and still keep off the danger-ground. Once or twice he had seemed to be infringing on it, and then she had turned him aside with sweet solemnity and additional inner excitement.

These were days indeed! It was Lent, but there were all the minor pleasures of luncheons and card-parties, and little evening entertainments held at Mrs. Leverich’s hospitable mansion. It mattered not whether there was anything going on in the town or not; society focused at her house, with Dosia for the central point. When she thought of going back again to Lois it was with a blank shiver.

Lois, indeed, had not been well lately; the children were out of quarantine, but she had a sore throat, and kept her room under the care of a trained nurse. Dosia had not seen her, but only Justin, who looked tired and older. Dosia was not to return now until after Easter and after the ball—Mrs. Leverich was going to give a ball for Dosia; it was to be, in a sense, her “coming out.”

She had by this time become quite used to her position as daughter of the house, accepted luxuries as a matter of course, and even suggested improvements, when she found that it pleased Mrs. Leverich to have her do so. She received that lady’s embraces gracefully, brought newspapers unasked for Mr. Leverich, and gave orders to the maids for her hostess. She had grown accustomed to being waited on, petted, made much of, and given presents, and blossomed like the rose under this vernal shower of kindness; her dress, her manner, her very expression, betrayed the ease of elegance. She did not like to own, even to herself, that long conversations with Mrs. Leverich were somewhat tiresome when the subject was neither Lawson nor herself, and she learned to get out of the way of too many tÊte-À-tÊtes. This did not keep her from having a fervent gratitude for all the blessings of the situation, and a real love for the dispenser of them. Now, when the time of her stay was narrowing to a close, she clung to each day as if it neared the end of life; every pleasure was doubly dear in that it was the last of its kind. To be sure, the fairy prince had not arrived as yet—Bailey Girard, who had come to the house while she was still a stranger to it, had been half across the Continent since. It is one of the shabby jests that life is always playing us, that two who have met once as wayfarers on the same road, with the memory of that one meeting so curiously vivid and intimate that it seems as if the fate of the next turning must bring them within touch again, are yet kept out of sight or sound of each other for miles by the slight accidents of travel. Fate, when we count upon her, is apt to be extraordinarily slow in working out her fulfillments.

Dosia hailed with delight a proposition made by Mrs. Leverich to get up a party and drive over one evening to a neighboring town to hear a lecture given there by a friend. The lecture was nothing, the friend not a very great attraction, but the expedition in itself gave an excuse for a drive, and a supper on the return to the Leverich mansion. It was early April, but the weather was unseasonably warm, and there was a golden moon. They were to go in a “barge”—the local name for a long, low, uncovered wagon, with two lateral seats, holding about thirty people. Mrs. Leverich had insisted on plenty of lap-robes and extra wrappings and even umbrellas, in spite of remonstrances. She herself could not go, but there were plenty of chaperons, little Mrs. Snow having been pressed into service as a substitute at the last moment, with every promise of mild evening weather especially beneficial to rheumatism.

Some one had a bugle that woke the echoes as the caravan drew up at each door to gather the different segments of the party. Dosia felt wild with glee as she bundled into the barge, amid merry shrieks and laughter, and found herself seated by Mr. William Snow, while Lawson took the place on the other side of her. Ada and Mr. Sutton were farther down, with Mrs. Snow near them. Opposite Dosia was a chaperon of the chaperons.

Dosia hardly knew what she was saying as she laughed and talked with the crowd, while Lawson conversed across with Mrs. Malcolmson, but the sense of his nearness never left her. Billy at last got a chance to say to her in a low, intense voice:

“Why are you always listening for what he says?”

Her glance followed his, and her color rose.

“Dear little Billy is rude; Billy must learn manners,” she retorted gayly, but with a sharpness below the gayety.

“I don’t care whether it’s rude or not. Here I’m sitting by you for the first time this week, and you don’t seem to hear a word I say. I’ve been trying to talk to you, and you don’t pay the slightest attention.”

“Oh, you poor child!” said Dosia. “Would it like some candy?”

“It’s no use talking to me like that,” returned William stubbornly. “I know you’re a year older than I am——”

“Two,” interpolated Dosia.

“It’s seventeen months and three days—but that’s nothing to do with it. It’s no use your trying the grandmother act—I could marry you, just the same, if I am younger. Mrs. Stanford is two years older than her husband, and Mrs. Taylor is five years older than hers. Lots of people do it—but that’s not the point now. I’m miles older than you in everything but years. I’ve had experience of the world, and you haven’t.” His belligerent tone softened, and he looked at her tenderly as he towered above her, his blue eyes alight. “You need somebody to take care of you. I don’t care whether you believe it or not, I know what I’m talking about. I wish you’d drop that fellow.”

“Why?” asked Dosia, with dangerous calm.

“Why? Because—you ought to know. He isn’t a gentleman; he’s no good. He isn’t fit. If he was, don’t you think he’d look out for you, and not take advantage the way he does? If he had a decent spark in him, he’d never let you be seen with him; he knows it, if you don’t. Why, there have been times I’ve seen him when you wouldn’t pick him up off the road with a pair of tongs.”

“Mr. Barr, will you fasten this cloak around me?” said Dosia, in a clear voice.

She turned with her back to William and leaned a little closer to Lawson, after he had helped her arrange the garment. Lawson had made every resolution to take no advantage of his position, but he was not proof against this alluring moment; his warm hand with its long, tapering fingers sought hers under cover of the lap-robe, and held it while he still talked with apparent unconcern to his matronly vis-À-vis. Once he looked around at Dosia with those teasing eyes full of laughter, and yet of something more. She could not drag her hand away without betraying the struggle, as his closed more tightly over it, though her riotous heart beat so that she feared it must get into her voice, and there was an odd feeling as if she were doing some one a wrong. Her fluttering was intoxication to Lawson.

They drove for five miles with the early spring moonlight shining silverly through the last rosy haze of the sunset, the air sweet with the scent of green grass and dewy blossomings.

Lawson did not look at Dosia as he helped her out of the wagon, nor did he come in to listen to the lecture, through which she sat pulsating at the thought of the drive home, desiring yet fearing it. Would he be near her then? Her question was answered. He helped to put everyone else in the wagon, and they two came last. This time their opposite neighbors were a young couple engrossed in each other. Dosia’s quick eye took in the situation at once. She was determined not to speak first, and they rode for a while in silence; then he moved nearer, and asked in a low tone:

“Why don’t you look at me?”

“Why did you—hold my hand?” She spoke in a whisper that he had to bend his head to hear.

“I might tell you a good many reasons—but one will do. I am going away for good.”

“What?” She turned breathlessly, with a quick pang. The night had grown very dark, but she could see the gleam of his eyes and the outline of his olive face as it leaned over her. “Why?”

“Because—” He stopped, and his quizzical look changed into something deeper. “I believe I ought to. I’ve had a sort of an offer out West, and it’s time I made a change.”

“Is it to lead a new life?” asked Dosia, with deep and tender solemnity. Mrs. Leverich’s words came back to her; this, then, had been all planned.

“Oh, let us always hope so!” said Lawson lightly. “Who knows? Perhaps I’ll turn into a highly respectable individual and make money. You can’t be respectable without money, I’ve tried it, and I know. I had a sort of an opening in Central Africa which my dear brother-in-law pressed upon me, but I decided against it.”

“Central Africa!”

“Yes. I appreciated Leverich’s feelings in the plan—you can’t get back easily from Central Africa, if you get back at all. So I’m going, for good or bad, to a nice little mining-camp in Nevada, where you get your mail every six weeks or so, and where you can go down into your grave any way you please without scandalizing your friends. I’ll be really quite out of the way.”

“Out of the way!” Her heart leaped with pride in him. How little William knew of this man!

“Yes, out of everybody’s way—and yours, dear little girl. I’m not good enough for much, but perhaps I’m good enough for that.”

“Oh,” said Dosia, distressed and fascinated by his tone of real feeling. “But why—oh, I shall miss you so much—and think of you—so much!” Her voice broke. “I can’t bear to think of your going off in this way—so lonely.”

There was a shriek from farther down the barge. “It’s beginning to rain, it’s beginning to rain!” A wild scramble ensued for cloaks and umbrellas. A furious shower was descending almost with the words, and the whole party slid off the two long seats into the straw on the bottom of the barge, and cowered under the carriage-robes pulled up around them for a shelter, showing only a mass of umbrellas above.

Lawson’s quick movements had insured Dosia’s protection.

“You are not getting wet at all?” He bent over her tenderly under the enveloping umbrella.

“Not at all,” she whispered.

It was as if everything were a confidence now. She reverted to the subject of their conversation:

“Oh, do you think you will really not come back?”

He laughed. “Yes, I mean it—now. Of course, you know that’s my chief fault—my resolutions are too frequently writ on sand.” He spoke of his own weakness with the bitter yet facile contempt which too often enervates still more instead of strengthening. “Yes, I mean it. Do you wonder I took your hand? Are you sorry I’m going—? is my little friend sorry? She mustn’t be sorry; you know, nobody is sorry—she must be glad to get rid of inc. Speak—and say it.”

“No,” whispered Dosia.

He pressed her arm close to him, as he held her hand and pulled the wraps around her, shifting the umbrella as the wind changed. One of the men in front lighted a lantern and held it out in the rain at arm’s length, to glimmer ahead in the pitchy darkness and show the road to the driver, who held the horses at a walk. The wagon lurched and tipped in mud-holes and unexpected ridges and depressions, running up once on the edge of a bank, while the couples on the floor of it screamed and laughed. There were muttered rolls of thunder in the distance. Rain in the night had always brought back the scene of the disaster to Dosia, but she only thought now that she could not think. All of her that lived was living at this moment here.

“Why are you so silent?” he murmured headily, after an interval.

“I don’t know.”

“Is there anything else that you want to tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, yes, you do.” His voice had grown dangerously tender. “What is it?” He waited again, bending nearer. “Don’t you want me to leave you—is that it? Don’t you want me to leave you?”

“No,” whispered Dosia.

“Then I’ll stay!”

His arm slid exultingly around her waist, and his hand pressed her head down upon his shoulder, while she submitted passively, a thing of suffocating heart-beats and burning blushes, captive to she knew not what. “You oughtn’t to have said that, you know, for now I’ll never go. I’ll stay with you. Hush—keep still!” He held her firmly as some one spoke from the front, and he answered in a loud tone:

“Yes, Mrs. Malcolmson, it’s the right road. Swing the lantern a little further around, Billy. Yes, that’s the old white house; we turn there—it’s all right.”

He kept his attitude of attention for a few minutes, looking from under the cover of his umbrella at the huddled heaps and the umbrellas in front of him. Then Dosia felt that he was coming back to her. She tried desperately to rally her forces, to think if this was the man with whom she wanted to spend her life, her husband for all her days. Alas, she could not think! Some giant, unknown force had sapped her power of thought. She weakly took his two hands and tried to push his arm from around her waist and to raise her head from his shoulder. His arm did not move; her head sank back again. His lips were on hers—which no man had ever touched before,—and those lips now were Lawson’s.

“There was one girl kissed to-night,” announced Mrs. Snow, as she took off her numerous layers of shawls and worsted head-coverings in household conclave after her return from the Leverichs’.

“It was perfectly disgraceful! Is there any hot water on the stove, Bertha? I want a glassful to drink. I hope you left a piece of stale bread in the oven for me, I feel a little need of something. Oh, yes, of course there was a supper, we had lobster Newburg and champagne, but I didn’t take any; a cup of beef-tea or a little cereal would have suited me much better. It’s a mercy if I haven’t taken my death of cold. It was Dosia Linden’s goings-on that I was speaking of; she’s a bold sort of a piece, evidently, quite different from what I thought. Sh—William’s gone up-stairs, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Snow dropped her voice mysteriously. “My dear, she and Lawson Barr sat hidden under an umbrella all the way home, and never spoke a word. You can’t tell me! Never said a word that anyone could hear. When she came into the dining-room at the Leverichs’, her face was scarlet, and she couldn’t even look at anyone, though she talked enough for ten while he played some queer thing on the piano. You can just ask Ada.”

Miss Bertha had preserved an immovable countenance throughout the monologue, but her eye now sought her sister’s and received a swift glance of confirmation from that silent and discreet damsel. The confirmation brought a shock to Miss Bertha—fond of the trivial and unimportant in gossip, the scandal which hurt the young devolved a hurt on her, too. As mothers who have lost children feel a tenderness for those who do not belong to them, so Miss Bertha, who had lost her youth, felt toward the youth in others. Her mother’s small mind yet had an uncanny power of partial divination, gained from years of experience and espial, that irritated while it impressed.

“Her face was probably red from the wind and the rain,” said Miss Bertha, in a matter-of-fact tone, regardless of her mother’s contemptuous sniff. “What kind of a time did you have, Ada? Did you see anything of Mr. Sutton?”

“Just a little,” replied Ada temperately.

This time it was the mother’s and Miss Bertha’s eyes that telegraphed. “Ada, my dear, you may take my shawls up-stairs. She was with him all the time. I hope he saw enough of Dosia Linden’s bold actions to disgust him, at any rate. Yes, my dear, everything was managed very beautifully at the Leverichs’, and it was all very elegant; but she is a little common—Mrs. Leverich, I mean. She was really quite put out because we hadn’t driven back faster. There was a Mr. Girard who had come out from the city, and she wanted Miss Dosia to meet him before he left—he had just come back from somewhere in the West. She really made quite a time about it. And there’s a sort of vulgar display about her that I don’t care for; you can see she’s Lawson’s brother. Oh, well, don’t take me up so, Bertha; you know what I mean, well enough. You have such a sharp way with you sometimes, like your dear father’s family. William—Wil-liam!”

“Yes, mother.”

“I want you to come down and put the cat out and lock up at once,—oh, you did, did you?—and kissed me good night, too, you say? I didn’t notice it. And did you empty the water-pan under the ice-box, and bank up the fire, and water the big palm? Oh, very well. Then, William—Wil-liam! I want you to come down again, now, and take a rhinitis tablet, after the dampness of to-night.”

There was an emphatic sound from above.

“He’s shut his door,” said Miss Bertha.

Ah, what does a girl think who has given up all her bright anticipations for a man whom she knows is not worthy? Lawson had pressed Dosia’s hand only when he said good night,—there were others around,—but he had looked at her lips. She knew how his felt upon them; their touch—more than all the murmured elusive questions and answers—had made her his.

She knelt down by the big chair in her room, and buried her hot face in the cushions, to try and think at last, with a suddenly sinking heart that feared when it should have rejoiced. He had told her that no one could make him go, now that she loved him; he would stay here. “And work for me?” she had asked, and he had answered, “Yes, and work for you.” She should be so happy now, so happy! The perspective down which she had always seen her future was suddenly shortened; this was the end. Lawson Barr, the man she had been playing with at a delightful, enthralling, forbidden game, he was the man with whom she had promised to spend her life, her husband for all her days; that which was to have been her uplifting was instead something for her to carry. Suppose that she had more of those awful, clear-sighted moments which had disenchanted her when his sister spoke? No, no; that must not happen, that must not! Dosia had acquiesced in what was said about him, with the large-eyed uncomprehension of the girl who pretends that she understands what everyone expects her to; it meant something—she was afraid to have anyone tell her what; she pretended to understand, because she was afraid some one would let her know of half-divined, unmentionable things. He was not—good; he drank—people despised him: but he clung to her, and she had let him kiss her, oh, not only once or twice, but many, many times. She knew in her heart, she knew, that he was what they said; but it was to be her work to help him always. When she had been with him hitherto, there had always been the excitement of feeling that the claim was temporary, to hold or not, at will, a mere pretense of a claim. Now it was real. She was bound forever!

Was the moment of disenchantment upon her now? She did not deceive herself—too late she owned the truth. What was the worst? He was weak—then she must be strong. She thought of herself in years to come. People said you couldn’t reform a man who drank—her father had been very strong on this point. She had thought of it all before, to be sure; but now—now it came home. She imagined herself keeping his house for him, getting his meals—perhaps with children; waiting, listening suspiciously for his returning footsteps; trying to keep him “straight,”—perhaps not succeeding. Yes, she must succeed! People looked down on him—so they would look down on her. And while her clear and pure nature reasserted itself, and thought and tried pathetically to find out truth alone, her cheeks still burned, her senses owned his sway. Those intoxicating moments forced themselves upon her, whether she would or no. But the truth—the truth below that, the truth was that she did not love him. You can carry any burden if you have the strong wings of love, but she had them not. What was to have been the crowning of her maidenhood had come to this—a sacrifice to the baser, and without love. Nay, not that, not quite that! The maternal spirit in Dosia rose and yearned over this outcast, whom nobody loved, with a tenderness which owned no thought of self; she must never think of herself any more, but only what was best for him. She was to be his wife. The word brought a choking feeling, with its thrill of mystery. She was so young—so young! Could she keep up a sacrifice always? Why had she not been able to think in this way until now? The answer came clearly in her search for truth: because she would not let herself do so. She had been warned—she had been warned.

“Pray—it helps.” That was what she had said to him. Ah, yes! She slid to her knees; her only real help was in Heaven. She must keep her promise! She must always love him whom nobody loved, and trust him whom nobody trusted. Perhaps—perhaps when he kissed her again—She put the thought away, so that she, a child, might speak straight to God. And while she prayed Lawson was coming down-stairs with his hat on.

“You are not going out?” His sister barred the way, in a purple velvet gown, and laid a plump jeweled hand on his sleeve. The lights were already out in the drawing-room, and, beyond, the servants were removing the last traces of the supper.

He did not answer for a moment, looking at her with hard eyes, void of expression save for a certain tenseness. It was a look she knew. Then he answered roughly:

“I’m going in on the twelve-o’clock train with some of the boys. It’s no good to talk.”

“Lawson! not now.” Her tone was angry. “Go up-stairs—to bed.”

“Well, I guess—not!” said Lawson. He swept her hand from his arm, and was out of the door and running quickly down the steps before she turned.

Dosia, on her knees, heard his step; it set her heart beating with a rush of emotions that drowned her prayer. She was his, though she had been warned.

Warned—yes; and left carelessly to her fate in a world of chaperons and parents and guardians and people who knew!