Jack Darcy's business-tour, while it had not been productive of any great financial results, had restored his healthy mental equilibrium. He found other firms were having it just as hard, and that the country was still overrun with men willing to work for any wages. Prices were certainly falling. All kinds of raw products were offered at the very lowest figure; and, labor being so cheap, manufactured goods must perforce be low. Men were not now counting on a speedy return to good times and high prices: they began to admit that the latter were the outcome of extravagant speculation. They bought what they wanted, and no more. They gave no extensive credits, and now really appeared to be anxious to reach a permanent basis.

"We shall have to sell most of our stock at cost," he said to Winston. "Lucky to get that, I suppose. And we shall come out about even—no profits for this six months. Still, we shall not run back, and that is something gained."

"We can count on the new goods, I'm pretty sure," returned Winston. "I've had some inquiries, and sent samples. Some of the fancy overcoatings are to be duplicated. That looks like business."

It did, indeed. Jack sat at his desk, ruminating upon it, and feeling as if at last they saw a light through the woods, when a step startled him, because it was not the kind of step usually heard through that hall, so he turned. It was Fred Lawrence, with a face of ashen pallor. Jack sprang up, dazed with the vision.

"I was to come and tell you—Maverick has gone to Depford Beach—Miss Barry is very ill, and they have telegraphed for him. He left word—that we were to come."

The voice had a strained, unnatural sound; and the eyes looked like those that have wept out a passionate sorrow, and are dry from despair.

"Ill—Miss Barry—not Sylvie?"

Could he speak of her in that calm tone? A passion of rage swelled in Fred's heart, and flushed his face. Only a moment, for the great throb of thankfulness that it was not Sylvie restored him.

"It is Miss Barry. You will go?"

The tone had that peculiar, wandering cadence, as if somehow the soul had dropped out of it.

"Certainly," and Jack sprang up, puzzled by something quite intangible in Fred's demeanor.

"There are just twenty minutes to catch this train. The eight-ten does not stop at Depford, you know."

"True: I will just speak to Winston"—

"I will meet you at the station," returned Fred hurriedly, turning away.

Much as he loved Jack, it seemed as if he could not walk to the station with him. A feeling of profound pity for Sylvie rose in his heart. This man, noble, generous, helpful, and affectionate, had not the finely responsive nature Sylvie Barry needed. There would be some distance or coldness, or, worse still, a fatal dissonance. One part of her nature must remain unmated: her soul would have a language in which he would not only be deaf, but wholly dumb. He could express no more than the possibilities of his nature. It was not the fine and essential difference between man and woman, but that more fatal gulf in which there would appear no certain glimpses of a royally endowed love in all its spontaneity, its glow of feeling, its variation of rich emotions. How would she, with her versatile, changeful soul, with its cycle of moods, ever live in the strong, steady prison of his heart!

If he had thought perfect honor to his friend the greatest trial of his life, what was this to be? He could not stay and see the slow, consuming inward fire that would burn her soul to ashes while it was still in the body. Thank God, he could go away, would go soon indeed, and never return! He would nerve himself for these few days of torture.

Jack waited on the platform until the last moment. The bell was ringing when Fred appeared, and the strong arm grasped him. They sat side by side, but were silent after one question as to the nature of Miss Barry's illness. Never had they been further divided in heart, for in the days when there had been no semblance of friendship the trivial repulsion was not to be compared to this wall of adamant. Fred would not have gone at all but for his mother's sake, although his heart was with Sylvie through every instant of her trial.

The house was very quiet when they reached it. Maverick came to meet them, and was as sorely puzzled as Fred by the certain composure of Darcy's face.

"It was not altogether unexpected by her or myself," Maverick explained in answer to their inquiries. "It is the result of a complication of disorders, some of long standing and incurable; and the present effect is partial paralysis. I hoped change of air and a quiet summer would delay what we knew must come before many years."

Darcy was astonished beyond measure. He would sooner have thought of his own mother dying. True, he remembered now that Miss Barry had been about less, and looked rather more delicate, and that through the summer she had kept extremely quiet. So amazed was he, that at first he quite forgot about Sylvie.

Fred Lawrence paced the floor in an agony. Would the man never ask the question that was torturing him, because he had no right to ask it first!

"How is my mother?" was his huskily tremulous inquiry, as he still went up and down like a caged lion.

"The shock was really terrible to her. Mrs. Darcy was invaluable," bowing to Jack. "But for her, Sylvie would have been in despair,"—looking furtively at the broad, slightly bowed figure.

"Poor Sylvie!" he murmured, "poor Sylvie!"

Fred turned to the door, compressing his lips over a throb of anguish.

"Of course," began Maverick, "they must all be removed as soon as possible. I think it would be well for Mrs. Lawrence and her daughter to go to-morrow. Neither is strong enough to bear any prolonged strain."

"Yes." Fred's heart swelled within him. They were all to be thrust aside as quickly as possible. This was Sylvie's sorrow—sacred to her and Jack.

He went to his mother's room. She was lying on a couch, and was still hysterical. From her he heard the story; and though, as ever, she was selfishly alive to her own sufferings, she evinced an almost motherly tenderness in her sympathy for Sylvie.

Fred spoke of the return. If it could be to-morrow; if he could settle them in their own home, and go quite away for a while! he thought.

"And leave Sylvie here alone?" said his mother reproachfully.

"I do not know what you can do for—for Miss Barry." How studiously cold and calm the tone was! "The doctor wishes to remove her as speedily as possible. I thought we would be out of the way, at least."

"It is terrible here; and if you considered it quite right—the summer is so nearly ended, and the nights are growing cool,—yes, we might go."

They settled it over their quiet supper. "Miss Barry was comfortable," Martha said, "and Miss Sylvie was lying down."

Mrs. Lawrence retired early, her nerves were so shattered by the terrible incident. Irene had disappeared; and, when Fred could stand his loneliness no longer, he went to walk upon the beach.

It was a moonless night, but with an intensely blue sky that gave the Milky Way the appearance of a luminous trail across the heavens. The murmur of the waves seemed sad and softened, and they touched the heart of the man who paced beside them. Once he had held so much in his hands! Surely he could have won the love of this woman then. Oh the blind, insensate, idiotic folly! He could have thrust his own soul down here on the sand, and trampled the very life out of it!

Hark! some one was coming with hasty strides. With the wild instinct of a wounded animal he turned to flee, and yet—whither should he go?

The hand was on his shoulder. The well-known voice uttered his name, and he turned at bay.

"Sylvie"—

"Don't repeat her name to me!" he flung out, beside himself with passionate jealousy and love. And then their eyes met, the one lurid with an emotion well-nigh beyond control, the other wondering, pitiful, amazed.

"Yes, let me go my way. I had not meant you to know it; but once—yes, I will confess it to you—I scorned you to her. God knows how I have repented; for I was beside myself then, blinded with my own folly and arrogance. And now you have won the woman I love, whom I shall always love, and it will be at once my bliss and my punishment. Take your triumph—tell her that her erring knight came back, and paid her the highest homage of his soul." Then, in a sudden, changed tone, freighted with a pain that pierced the other's heart, he cried, "Jack Darcy, I have made amends for that selfish blunder of my young manhood. For weeks I have endured such pangs, that Heaven grant you may never know! I have walked by her side with polar wastes between us; I have touched her hand with fingers that have had no more passion in them than the dead; I have watched her dewy lips ripe with kisses, and remembered they were for you; I have been true, true in word and deed and desire, but in thought I must love her to her life's end. I will go quite away"—

Up to this point his words had come with the heat and flow of a lava-torrent. Now his impassioned voice faltered, trembled, and seemed to lose itself.

Jack Darcy stood transfixed. Was it a dream? Had Fred been so blind all this while? He essayed speech; but the lines about his mouth were constricted, and his breath came in quivering gasps, as the vision of torture, suffered for honor's sake, rose up before him. Ah! if ever he had sinned,—and the temporary forgetfulness appeared such a little thing to Jack's generous soul,—he had redeemed himself nobly.

"Oh! you thought—she doesn't love me, Fred,—not in that way," and his voice had the full, throbbing inflection of a great joy. "We are friends, such as a man and a woman can truly be. Do you not understand that some people are so alike they run in parallels? there are no angles to create the intense friction of love, they are so evenly balanced that there is no desire for possessorship, they have just as wholesome an influence over each other remaining apart. There is hardly Sylvie's equal in the world. Half that I am, I owe her."

Had the night changed? Was the world flooded with a serene and tender light? Was the moaning ocean filled with the wondrous music of immortal love and longing, reaching out to glad fruition? Was that sudden rare peace, creating a reverential atmosphere about him, an earnest of days to come? He experienced a vivid lightness as if he were being borne on clouds, while fragments of delicious remembrances floated through his brain. The very refinement of his nature seemed to exalt him to that high heaven of love, whose solemn mysteries it is not lawful to utter.

"I cannot quite understand"—in a curious dreamy tone, still spelled by the mastery of impassioned emotion—"how you could miss loving Sylvie; how she, woman-like, could help adoring you for your strength and heroism. Jack, if I were a woman, your very power would compel me to worship you. I should love you, whether or no."

Jack gave a bright, cheerful laugh. "It is that kind of strength you like in Sylvie," he made answer. "She will always spur a man up to his best. Her well-trained ear is quick to detect a false note in honor, ambition, or love. She will never be any kind of dead weight, and yet she is so deliciously womanly. There was a time—don't be vexed, Fred,"—in a tender, pleading tone,—"when I thought you were not going to be worthy of her. But that is past."

"She rejected me then," Fred Lawrence said simply. "I offered her my father's wealth, the home he had made, my own folly and arrogance and self-conceit; and then, Jack, she boldly admitted that you were her hero! When I consider the sort of man my training and surroundings made me, I am filled with disgust. And yet I was no worse than hundreds of others at the present day. When I look at my mother, Irene, and myself, I feel that we were the product of the so-called culture of the day, which substitutes shallow creeds, conventional manners, and systems, for all that is pure, strong, and noble in manhood or womanhood. It is the sort of Greek temperament on which we pride our intellectual selves. We revel in a glowing, sensuous enjoyment, that intoxicates the brain, and leads us to disdain the real work of the world. We are trained to consider what society demands of us; we are polished and refined, and in too many instances left morally weak and ignorant. No wonder so many of us have not the strength to buffet across the stormy sea of hard experience, but are lost in the great whirlpool!"

Jack peered into the pale, handsome face by the faint light. Surely this man had to make a tremendous effort for salvation, when nearly every tide had been against him! He experienced a keener sympathy than he could express; he drew the arm within his, and they paced up and down again in silence, understanding dimly the sacred mysteries of each other's hearts, that needed not to be dragged to open day for inspection. In a pure friendship, faith is the highest element: with that there is supreme content; without it, distrust gnaws like a canker-worm.

They heard the little church-clock striking ten, and turned their steps toward the house. On the porch, Fred paused a moment, while an icy fear seemed to wring every pulse. He turned cold with apprehension.

"What if I have been deluding myself!" he cried with sudden intensity. "Even if you and she could not love, she may have no such regard for me as I desire. I could not endure her pity."

A warm, hopeful, generous smile illumined Jack Darcy's face. His hand thrilled with an electric force and sympathy.

"I have no fear," he answered; "but I will not dim the grace of your exquisite joy by any prediction."

They entered the quiet room. Dr. Maverick came out to meet them.

"Miss Sylvie is asleep," he said. "Miss Barry is comparatively comfortable. Hester will stay with her through the night. I have sent your mother to bed," nodding to Jack. "I do not know what we should have done without her. I shall camp down on the sofa, to be within call; and to-morrow we had better begin the process of removal."

"I had arranged to take my family," remarked Fred Lawrence, not exactly certain now that it was best.

"Your house must be opened and aired thoroughly, before any one goes into it. So must Miss Barry's. Miss Morgan will see to this, I think. I am compelled to return in the early morning train, for I have some critical cases. One of you had better remain here."

He looked at Jack as he said this, but was amazed at the frank answer,—

"Fred will remain."

He studied Jack with almost angry intentness. Had he been so mistaken in the man? Could he so calmly leave the woman he loved to bear her terrible trial alone, or did he think his mother's sympathy sufficient for her? And, although there were many admirable qualities in Fred Lawrence, the two had never fraternized with the deep cordiality that must underlie all friendships. They had not the magnetic attraction for each other that Darcy held for both.

"What do you think of Miss Barry?" the latter asked hesitatingly.

"It is the beginning of the end;" and Maverick sighed, as he thought of the impotence of human skill past a certain point. "Miss Barry consulted me a year ago, and was not in ignorance; but I hoped, nay, felt assured, with care and quiet her life might be prolonged. She may linger some months, and it may all be ended in a week. Good heavens! what a shock for Miss Sylvie!"

He took two or three turns across the floor.

"Go," he said abruptly, with an imperious wave of the hand. Then, a little scornfully, "You will both be better in bed. Lawrence looks as if I might have him for a patient to-morrow; but, Jack, are you made out of adamant?"

The thrust hurt him, but Maverick was not in a pitying mood. Indeed, just at this moment his temper was savage. He had witnessed the pain and the suffering of the woman he had begun to love, until it had been hard to refrain from taking her in his strong arms, and sheltering her from the keenest pangs.

The household remained the next morning as he had ordered. He was rather sulky all the way up in the train with Jack; but a talk with brisk, pungent Miss Morgan quite restored him.

"Open the houses, and build fires immediately," he commanded. "Burn up and blow out the confined air, that there shall be no pestilential foes to greet them on their own hearths."

He went down again that evening. If he had been annoyed before, he was puzzled now. There had been no word spoken between Fred and Sylvie; but the now, to her, sweet knowledge had come in a gesture, a glance, that could no more be described than the fine pulse of love can be dissected. She seemed to have waited breathless for just this strength and support. A hasty lover might have placed himself in the foreground. It was as if he said, "Here is my love, take it, use it, rely upon it; you cannot wear it out, you cannot wound or hurt it by any thing that may look like coldness; it is a blessed atmosphere to surround you until you stretch out your hand, and draw me into your very soul. I have been trained in patience and humility; only let me prove myself worthy in your eyes."

Three days after, they all came up to Yerbury. The evening before, Irene Lawrence had gone to Sylvie's room, and found her kneeling by the open window, her face turned heavenward in a wordless prayer for strength. She knelt beside her, she took the passive hands in hers, she even touched her own cold lips to the colder forehead of the other.

"Sylvie,"—the tone still had the awful dreariness of that utter inward living,—"Sylvie, I have been drawn to you in this your anguish by some power quite outside of myself. I think we have always liked each other in a curious way, but we were neither of us sentimental girls. I could not cry over you now, nor kiss you with effusive fondness; but I wish, oh, how passionately I wish, I could save you one pang! I wish I could die in her place! My life is of so little value"—

"I believe God is right," Sylvie answered with a great struggle. "She has used her life so well; she has garnered ripened sheaves of mercy and kindliness and good works. There is not only golden wheat, but the sweetness of rose and violet, the pungent purity and strength of heliotrope, the use, the beauty, every thing. She is ready."

"And I am not worthy to be taken even for a ransom!" said the proud, cold voice, not betraying any inward hurt.

"God does not mean that. You are to shape your life to something better. Irene, did you ever think how easy it might be to die for those we love, but oh, so hard to live for them, not ourselves!"

Irene rose, and stood there like a statue. Sylvie felt for the hand, pressed it to her lips, folded it about her chin in a softly caressing manner. How had Irene become dear to her?

"I am no heroine, Sylvie. I have been tossed up by the breakers of fortune, and am out of joint, broken, bruised, of no avail."

"You can comfort me. You can help to give me strength and sympathy. You can become a warm, living, active woman. There is always room for such in the world, and a work for them to do. God never put an idle or useless thing in the world, much more a human soul; and it must go sadly astray before it comes to despair. Irene, you will not shut your heart again, you will turn its warm side to me, you will take me in, with my great sorrow;" and she buried her face in the other's dress, with a shivering sob.

"I will do—what you wish. I am physically strong again. Let me help you—anywhere, anyhow. You were so good and patient through my dreary time."

Then she stole softly away, astonished at herself. Within was still the coldness of Alpine glaciers. But oh, if she might be warmed!

Miss Barry's journey was performed in an easy carriage. A paralysis of the lower limbs had supervened; but otherwise she had rallied a little, and her mind was clear and cheerful. There was only to be a peaceful waiting for the end, no feverish fluctuations of hope and fear. It was curious how they settled themselves to the fact. A nurse was installed for night watching and the more onerous part; and the invalid's room took on a pleasant aspect,—Christiana waiting on this side of the river.