A SOMBRE excitement reigned in Thessaly next day, when it became known that the French-Cana-dian workmen whom the rolling-mill people were importing would arrive in the village within the next few hours. They were coming through from Massachusetts, and watchful eyes at Troy had noted their temporary halt there and the time of the train they took westward. The telegraph sped forward the warning, and fully a thousand idle men in Thessaly gathered about the dÉpÔt, both inside and on the street without, to witness the unwelcome advent.

Some indefinite rumors of the sensation reached the secluded milliner’s shop on the back street, during the day. Ben Lawton drifted in to warm himself during the late forenoon, and told of the stirring scenes that were expected. He was quick to observe that Jessica was not looking well, and adjured her to be careful about the heavy cold which she said she had taken. The claims upon him of the excitement outside were too strong to be resisted, but he promised to look in during the afternoon and tell them the news.

The daylight of the November afternoon was beginning imperceptibly to wane before any further tidings of the one topic of great public interest reached the sisters. One of the better class of factory-girls came in to gossip with Lucinda, and she brought with her a veritable budget of information. The French Canadians had arrived, and with them came some Pinkerton detectives, or whatever they were called, who were said to be armed to the teeth. The crowd had fiercely hooted these newcomers and their guards, and there had been a good deal of angry hustling. For awhile it looked as if a fight must ensue; but, somehow, it did not come off. The Canadians, in a body, had gone with their escort to the row of new cottages which the company had hired for them, followed by a diminishing throng of hostile men and boys. There were numerous personal incidents to relate, and the two sisters listened with deep interest to the whole recital.

When it was finished the girl still sat about, evidently with something on her mind. At last, with a blunt “Can I speak to you for a moment?” she led Jessica out into the shop. There, in a whisper, with repeated affirmations and much detail, she imparted the confidential portion of her intelligence.

The effect of this information upon Jessica was marked and immediate. As soon as the girl had gone she hastened to the living-room, and began hurriedly putting on her boots. The effort of stooping to button them made her feverish head ache, and she was forced to call the amazed Lucinda to her assistance.

“You’re crazy to think of going out such a day as this,” protested the girl, “and you with such a cold, too.”

“It’s got to be done,” said Jessica, her eyes burning with eagerness, and her cheeks flushed. “If it killed me, it would have to be done. But I’ll bundle up warm. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.” Refusing to listen to further dissuasion she hastily put on her hat and cloak, and then with nervous rapidity wrote a note, sealed it up tightly with an envelope, and marked on it, with great plainness, the address: “Miss Kate Minster.”

“Give this to father when he comes,” she cried, “and tell him—”

Ben Lawton’s appearance at the door interrupted the directions. He was too excited about the events of the day to be surprised at seeing the daughter he had left an invalid now dressed for the street; but she curtly stopped the narrative which he began.

“We’ve heard all about it,” she said. “I want you to come with me now.”

Lucinda watched the dominant sister drag on and button her gloves with apprehension and solicitude written all over her honest face. “Now, do be careful,” she repeated more than once.

As Jessica said “I’m ready now,” and turned to join her father, the little boy came into the shop through the open door of the living-room. A swift instinct prompted the mother to go to him and stoop to kiss him on the forehead. The child smiled at her; and when she was out in the street, walking so hurriedly that her father found the gait unprecedented in his languid experience, she still dwelt curiously in her mind upon the sweetness of that infantile smile.

And this, by some strange process, suddenly brought clearness and order to her thoughts. Under the stress of this nervous tension, perhaps because of the illness which she felt in every bone, yet which seemed to clarify her senses, her mind was all at once working without confusion.

She saw now that what had depressed her, overthrown her self-control, impelled her to reject the kindness of Miss Minster, had been the humanization, so to speak, of her ideal, Reuben Tracy. The bare thought of his marrying and giving in marriage—of his being in love with the rich girl—this it was that had so strangely disturbed her. Looking at it now, it was the most foolish thing in the world. What on earth had she to do with Reuben Tracy? There could never conceivably have entered her head even the most vagrant and transient notion that he—no, she would not put that thought into form, even in her own mind. And were there two young people in all the world who had more claim to her good wishes than Reuben and Kate? She answered this heartily in the negative, and said to herself that she truly was glad that they loved each other. Yes, she was glad! She bit her lips, and insisted on repeating this to her own thoughts.

But why, then, had the discovery of this so unnerved her? She answered the question only vaguely. It must have been because the idea of their happiness made the isolation of her own life so miserably clear; because she felt that they had forgotten her and her work in their new-found concern for each other. Yes, that would be the reason. She was all over that weak folly now. She had it in her power to help them, and dim, half-formed wishes that she might give life itself to their service flitted across her mind.

She had spoken never a word to her father all this while, and had seemed to take no note either of direction or of what and whom she passed; but she stopped now in front of the doorway in Main Street which bore the law-sign of Reuben Tracy. “Wait for me here,” she said to Ben, and disappeared up the staircase.

Jessica made her way with some difficulty up the second flight. Her head burned with the exertion, and there was a novel numbness in her limbs; but she gave this only a passing thought.

The door of the office was locked. On the panel was tacked a white half-sheet of paper. It was not easy to decipher the inscription in the failing light, but she finally made it out to be:

“Called away until noon to-morrow (Friday).”

The girl leaned against the door-sill for support. In the first moment or two it seemed to her that she was going to swoon. Then resolution came back to her, and with it a new store of strength, and she went down the stairs again slowly and in terrible doubt as to what should now be done.

The memory suddenly came to her of the one other time she had been in this stairway, when she had stood in the darkness with her little boy, gathered up against the wall to allow the two Minster ladies to pass. Upon the heels of this chased the recollection—with such lack of sequence do our thoughts follow one another—of the singularly sweet smile her little boy had bestowed upon her, half an hour since, when she kissed him.

The smile had lingered in her mind as a beautiful picture. Walking down the stairs now, in the deepening shadows, the revelation dawned upon her all at once—it was his father’s smile! Yes, yes—hurriedly the fancy reared itself in her thoughts—thus the lover of her young girlhood had looked upon her. The delicate, clever face; the prettily arched lips; the soft, light curls upon the forehead; the tenderly beaming blue eyes—all were the same.

Often—alas! very often—this resemblance had forced itself upon her consciousness before. But now, lighted up by that chance babyish smile, it came to her in the guise of a novelty, and with a certain fascination in it. Her head seemed to have ceased to ache, now that this almost pleasant thought had entered it. It was passing strange, she felt, that any sense of comfort should exist for her in memories which had fed her soul upon bitterness for so long a time. Yet it was already on the instant apparent to her that when she should next have time to think, that old episode would assume less hateful aspects than it had always presented before.

But now there was no time to think.

At the street door she found her father leaning against a shutter and discussing the events of the day with the village lamplighter, who carried a ladder on his shoulder, and reported great popular agitation to exist.

Jessica beckoned Ben summarily aside, and put into his hands the letter she had written at the shop. “I want you to take this at once to Miss Minster, at her house,” she said, hurriedly. “See to it that she gets it herself. Be sure you wait for an answer. Don’t say a word to any living soul. Do just what she tells you to do. I’ve said you can be depended upon. If you show yourself a man, it may make your fortune. Now, hurry; and I do hope you will do me credit!”

Under the spur of this surprising exhortation, Ben walked away with unexampled rapidity, until he had overtaken the lamplighter, from whom he borrowed some chewing tobacco.

The girl, left to herself, began walking irresolutely down Main Street. The flaring lights in the store windows seemed to add to the confusion of her mind. It had appeared to be important to send her father away at once, but now she began to regret that she had not kept him to help her in her search. For Reuben Tracy must be found at all hazards.

How to go to work to trace him she did not know. She had no notion whatever as to who his intimate friends were. The best device she could think of would be to ask about him at the various law-offices; for she had heard that however much lawyers might pretend to fight one another in court, they were all on very good terms outside.

Some little distance down the street she came upon the door of another stairway which bore a number of lawyers’ signs. The windows all up the front of this building were lighted, and without further examination she ascended the first flight of stairs. The landing was almost completely dark, but an obscured gleam came from the dusty transoms over three or four doors close about her. She knocked on one of these at random, and in response to an inarticulate vocal sound from within, opened the door and entered.

It was a square, medium-sized room in which she found herself, with a long, paper-littered table in the centre, and tall columns of light leather-covered books rising along the walls. At the opposite end of the chamber a man sat at a desk, his back turned to her, his elbows on the desk, and his head in his hands. The shaded light in front of him made a mellow golden fringe around the outline of his hair.

A sudden bewildering tumult burst forth in the girl’s breast as she looked at this figure. Then, as suddenly, the recurring mental echoes of the voice which had bidden her enter rose above this tumult and stilled it. A gentle and comforting warmth stole through her veins. This was Horace Boyce who sat there before her—and she did not hate him!

During that instant in which she stood by the door, a whole flood of self-illumination flashed its rays into every recess of her mind. This, then, was the strange, formless opposing impulse which had warred with the other in her heart for this last miserable fortnight, and dragged her nearly to distraction. She recognized it now, and welcomed it.

The bringing home of her boy had revived for her, by occult and subtle processes, the old romance in which his father had been framed, as might a hero be by sunlit clouds. She hugged the thought to her heart, and stood looking at’ him motionless and mute.

“Well, who is it? What is wanted?” he called out, querulously, without changing his posture.

Jessica moved slowly toward him. It was as if a magic voice drew her forward in a dream—herself all rapt and dumb.

Irritably impressed by the continued silence, Horace lifted his head, and swung abruptly around in his chair. His own shadow obscured the features of his visitor. He saw only that it was a lady, and rose hesitatingly to his feet.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled, “I was busy with my thoughts, and did not know who it was.”

“Do you know now?” Jessica heard herself ask, as in a trance. The balmy warmth in her own heart told her that she was smiling.

Horace took a step or two obliquely forward, so that the light fell on her face. He peered with a confounded gaze at her for a moment, then let his arms fall limp at his sides.

“In the name of the dev—” he began, confusedly, and then bit the word short, and stared at her again. “Is it really you?” he asked at last, reassured in part by her smile.

“Are you sorry to see me?” she asked in turn. Her mind could frame nothing but these soft little meaningless queries.

The young man seemed in doubt how best to answer this question. He turned around and looked abstractedly at his desk; then with a slight detour he walked past her, opened the door, and glanced up and down the dark stairway. When he had closed the door once more, he turned the key in the lock, and then, after momentary reflection, concluded to unlock it again.

“Why, no; why should I be?” he said in a more natural voice, as he returned and stood beside her. Evidently her amiability was a more difficult surprise for him to master than her original advent, and he studied her face with increasing directness of gaze to make sure of it.

“Come and sit down here,” he said, after a few moments of this puzzled inspection, and resumed his own chair. “I want a good look at you,” he explained, as he lifted the shade from the lamp.

Jessica felt that she was blushing under this new radiance, and it required an effort to return his glance. But, when she did so, the changes in his face and expression which it revealed drove everything else from her mind. She rose from her chair upon a sudden impulse, and bent over him at a diffident distance. As she did so, she had the feeling that this bitterness in which she had encased herself for years had dropped from her on the instant like a discarded garment.

“Why, Horace, your hair is quite gray!” she said, as if the fact contained the sublimation of pathos.

“There’s been trouble enough to turn it white twenty times over! You don’t know what I’ve been through, my girl,” he said, sadly. The novel sensation of being sympathized with, welcome as it was, greatly accentuated his sense of deserving compassion.

“I am very sorry,” she said, softly. She had seated herself again, and was gradually recovering her self-possession. The whole situation was so remarkable, not to say startling, that she found herself regarding it from the outside, as if she were not a component part of it. Her pulses were no longer strongly stirred by its personal phases. Most clear of all things in her mind was that she was now perfectly independent of this or any other man. She was her own master, and need ask favors from nobody. Therefore, if it pleased her to call bygones bygones and make a friend of Horace—or even to put a bandage across her eyes and cull from those bygones only the rose leaves and violet blossoms, and make for her weary soul a bed of these—what or who was to prevent her?

Some inexplicable, unforeseen revulsion of feeling had made him pleasant in her sight again. There was no doubt about it—she had genuine satisfaction in sitting here opposite him and looking at him. Had she so many pleasures, then, that she should throw this unlooked-for boon deliberately away?

Moreover—and here the new voices called most loudly in her heart—he was worn and unhappy. The iron had palpably entered his soul too. He looked years older than he had any chronological right to look. There were heavy lines of anxiety on his face, and his blonde hair was powdered thick with silver.

“Yes, I am truly sorry,” she said again. “Is it business that has gone wrong with you?”

“Business—family—health—sleep—everything!” he groaned, bitterly. “It is literally a hell that I have been living in this last—these last few months!”

“I had no idea of that,” she said, simply. Of course it would be ridiculous to ask if there was anything she could do, but she had comfort from the thought that he must realize what was in her mind.

“So help me God, Jess!” he burst out vehemently, under the incentive of her sympathy, “I’m coming to believe that every man is a scoundrel, and every woman a fool!”

“There was a long time when I thought that,” she said with a sigh.

He looked quickly at her from under his brows, and then as swiftly turned his glance away. “Yes, I know,” he answered uneasily, tapping with his fingers on the desk.

“But we won’t talk of that,” she urged, with a little tremor of anxiety in her tone. “We needn’t talk of that at all. It was merely by accident that I came here, Horace. I wanted to ask a question, and nothing was further from my head than finding you here.”

“Let’s see—Mart Jocelyn had this place up to a couple of months ago. Was it he you came to see? I didn’t know you knew him.”

“No, you foolish boy!” she said, with a smile which had a ground tone of sadness. “I never heard of him before. It was simply any lawyer I was looking for. But what I wanted to say was that I am not angry with you any more. I’ve learned a host of bitter lessons since we were—young together, and I’m too much alone in the world to want to keep you an enemy. You don’t seem so very happy yourself, Horace. Why shouldn’t we two be friends again? I’m not talking of anything else, Horace—understand me. But it appeals to me very strongly, this idea of our being friends again.”

Horace looked meditatively at her, with softening eyes. “You’re the best of the lot, dear old Jess,” he said at last, smiling candidly. “Truly I’m glad you came—gladder than I can tell you. I was in the very slough of despond when you entered; and now—well, at least I’m going to play that I am out of it.”

Jessica rose with a beaming countenance, and laid her hand frankly on his shoulder. “I’m glad I came, too,” she said. “And very soon I want to see you again—when you are quite free—and have a long, quiet talk.”

“All right, my girl,” he answered, rising as well. The prospect seemed entirely attractive to him. He took her hand in his, and said again: “All right. And must you go now?”

“Oh, mercy, yes!” she exclaimed, with sudden recollection. “I had no business to stay so long! Perhaps you can tell me—or no—” She vaguely put together in her mind the facts that Tracy and Horace had been partners, and seemed to be so no longer. “No, you wouldn’t know.”

“Have I so poor a legal reputation as all that?” he said, lightly smiling. “Hang it all! One’s friends, at least, ought to dissemble their bad opinions.”

“No, it wasn’t about law,” she explained, stum-blingly. “It’s of no importance. I must hurry now. Good-by for the time.”

He would have drawn her to him and kissed her at this, but she gently prevented the caress, and released herself from his hands.

“Not that,” she said, with a smile in which still some sadness lingered. “I would rather not that. It is better so. And—good-by, Horace, for the time.”

He went with her to the door, lighting the hall gas that she might see her way down the stairs. When she had disappeared, he walked for a little up and down the room, whistling softly to himself. It was undeniable that the world seemed vastly brighter to him than it had only a half-hour before. Mere contact with somebody who liked him for himself was a refreshing novelty.

“A damned decent sort of girl—considering everything!” he mused aloud, as he locked up his desk for the day.