I.
UNFOLDINGS.

Spring was abroad in the land. No one could tell just when she had stolen into the woods and gardens, and begun her pleasant labors, but there was no question about the fact of her presence and industry. Everywhere, there were the tender green of newborn foliage, and the varied odors of opening buds and blossoms. The new leaves of the ilex trees had quietly pushed off the old ones. The hedges were thick-sown with the white stars of the Cherokee rose. The passion-vine trailed its purple garments along the fences. Houstonias spread a soft blue haze over the grass. Wild plum and cherry trees flung drifts of fragrant snow along the road side. The air was faint with perfume from the ivory censers of the magnolia, swinging dreamily overhead. Wherever a vine could cling and climb, there was a seemingly miraculous outburst of foliage and flowers; every dry stick and stem became a leafy thyrsus, every crumbling stump a green and garlanded altar.

Mrs. Lyte's great, irregular thicket of a garden was quick to feel the genial influence, and to twine and twist itself into a denser tangle than ever. Rose bushes laughed the virtue of economy to scorn, with their perfumed affluence of pink and crimson and yellow. Pomegranates burst into scarlet flames; mimosas tossed aloft feathery balls of many hues. Jessamines and honeysuckles, holding up vases of gold, to catch every sunbeam, ran hither and thither at their own sweet will. So did tiny green lizards, with scarlet throats, and swift chameleons, with curious intelligent eyes. The air was tuneful with the flight and song of bees and humming-birds, cooing doves, and shining-winged spindles. Manifold, in truth, were the garden's delights: varied sound and color and perfume, cheerful radiance and gentle gloom, unobtrusive companionship and soft seclusion, were all to be found within its pleasant compass.

And, as the days grew long and warm with the Spring's advance, Bergan now and then, growing weary of the confinement and monotony of his office, took his Blackstone, or Kent, or whatever might be the legal authority under examination, and gave himself the refreshment of an hour's reading, in one of the garden's shady, sequestered nooks. Doing this, one sultry afternoon in May, the drowsy influence of the atmosphere, and the soothing murmurousness of the insects' song, soon proved too potent for the logical connection of the learned legal thesis; there were unaccountable gaps between fact and deduction; and, going back to pick up the broken thread, Bergan lost it altogether. Sleep had stolen upon him through the dusky foliage, and she held him fast until the latest sunbeam, through a convenient aperture in the verdant walls, laid its light finger on his eyelids.

Waking suddenly, but completely, hushed voices, proceeding from a neighboring thicket, met his ear.

"Impossible, Felix."

"But, Astra,—"

Had there been danger in those low, earnest accents, Bergan could scarcely have started up more quickly and cautiously, nor have fled from them faster. As he expected and desired, the low boughs closing and rustling behind him, made what followed inaudible. He was loath to hear another word. He felt almost guilty for having heard so much. Those subdued, confidential tones, those quietly spoken Christian names, had, of themselves, been a startling revelation. For, notwithstanding her frank, easy, affable deportment toward those who came within her sphere, Astra Lyte knew well how to hedge herself round with a maidenly dignity that kept familiarity at a distance. She was not the kind of girl whose Christian name finds its way easily to unaccustomed lips. Despite his own residence, for a considerable time, under the same roof, and the frank and friendly intercourse which had grown out of it,—despite, too, the fact that Mrs. Lyte often called him her son, and Cathie was wont to spring to his arms as to those of a brother,—it had never occurred to himself to call her anything less formal than "Miss Lyte." Nor would it have done to Dr. Remy, he felt sure, without the sufficient warrant of a close and tender relation. This premise being established, the conclusion that such a relation existed was unavoidable.

And, looking back over the events of the past few weeks, Bergan was amazed to see with what an amount of corroboratory evidence he was unexpectedly furnished. Not only did numberless glances, tones, and actions, bearing directly upon the case, start suddenly into view, but, just as the landscape through which one passes presents new outlines, new features, and a new sentiment, in a backward survey, so these things assumed new faces and a new meaning, in his review of them. Once or twice, of late, it had occurred to him that Astra was scarcely at her ease, in Dr. Remy's presence; he now understood that this constraint came of affection, fearful of betraying itself, and not, as he had imagined, of some newborn distrust or dislike. Anterior to this, he had observed that the doctor's visits to Miss Lyte's studio were much more frequent than formerly, and that he was making an obvious enough attempt to commend himself to her favor by a more cordial and constant interest in her work, as well as by exercising a more careful circumspection over his conversation. His cynicism vanished, or veiled itself, before the rich glow of her enthusiasm. His satire spared her generous ambition. His scepticism, though not less frank, was less hostile and inveterate; and often it resolved itself into a kind of weary and wistful sadness, as if it were less a choice than a misfortune, and would gladly exchange itself for something better, if it only knew how. At such times, Bergan himself was sensible of a singular charm in his conversation, a kind of autumn-night splendor; chill, lustrous moonlight, mystical shadow, and vague mournfulness, blending into one, irresistible fascination. No doubt, Astra had been made to feel it still more keenly; no doubt, too, she had been led to believe that whatever was amiss in the doctor's beliefs would yield readily to her influence,—that he would prove scarcely less plastic in her hands than the clay wherewith she was wont to deal so cunningly.

Yet Bergan could not help wondering a little at the doctor's ready success. Astra's genius, he thought, should have saved her from any hasty bestowal of her affections. He did not know that, in this regard, a woman of genius differs little from the most commonplace of her sisters. She gives her affections as trustfully, and flings herself away as freely, as the silliest of them all.

Having gotten to this point in his meditations, and also to the middle of the open field, back of the garden, Bergan could not help turning and looking toward the thicket, the neighborhood of which he had so hastily quitted. His face grew troubled and anxious, as he gazed. Was Doctor Remy anywise worthy of the heart that he had won? Bergan shook his head ruefully, as he asked himself this question. Without intent or wish of his own—in spite, even, of some strenuous efforts to the contrary—a deep distrust of the doctor had rooted itself in his mind. Though it gave but scanty justification of itself to his intellect, and was not allowed to show itself in his actions; though, now and then, he made a sturdy effort to uproot it, and cast it out, as an ungenerous return for kindness, or something that looked like it; it, nevertheless, kept its ground, and quietly strengthened itself there. It did not fail, now, to thrust itself into view, as a partial answer to his question. The bright spring landscape, with its crowded leaf and bloom, and its rich promise of fruit, seemed to darken with a shadow from Astra's future, as thus revealed to him. Must the promise of seed-time and harvest fail, then, only in the moral world?

Though Bergan, driven by a nice sense of honor, had fled so precipitately from the voices and the neighborhood of the lovers, there is no reason why the reader may not return thither, and see what is to be learned from their conversation.

"I cannot think it right," said Astra, "to leave mother in ignorance any longer."

"Do you think, then," asked Doctor Remy, reproachfully, "that I would ask you to do anything wrong?"

Astra hesitated for a moment. Perhaps it then and there occurred to her, for the first time, that the doctor's standard of right was likely to differ from her own, in the same ratio as his religious faith.

Doctor Remy did not wait for the tardy answer. Putting his arm round Astra, he drew her head on to his shoulder. The movement might have been prompted by tenderness; none the less, it had the effect to take his face out of her line of vision.

"All my life long, Astra," said he, in a deep, moved tone—(it is often easier to put a desired note into the voice, than a corresponding expression into the face)—"all my life long, I have had a strange desire to be trusted,—trusted implicitly. Faith without sight—blind, unquestioning faith—is to me one of the most beautiful as well as desirable things on earth; all the more so, perhaps, that it is not given to me to feel it. But it has always been my dream, my hope, to inspire it. In my ideal picture of the woman whom I should love, it was always her consummate, irresistible charm. Must I now make up my mind to do without it?"

Astra was touched. "If it did not seem to be wrong!" she exclaimed.

The doctor shook his head. "That is not trust," said he, "at least, not the trust that I mean. Who can so order circumstances that they shall never seem to condemn him? But the faith of which I speak, having once assured itself of the integrity of its beloved, never again admits it to be an open question."

Astra was silent. The doctor heaved a heavy sigh. "I see that I am not to realize my ideal," said he. "Well, it cannot be helped. I will give you the explanation that you need. Perhaps, being satisfied, in this instance, that I have a good reason for what I do, you will be able to trust me hereafter."

"I will, indeed I will!" exclaimed Astra, eagerly.

"The worst of it is," pursued the doctor, "that you compel me to betray a trust—your mother's trust."

Astra's cheek flushed. She had been miserable at the idea of keeping anything from her mother; was she, then, the one really excluded from confidence?

"Stay," said she, proudly, "I do not wish to hear anything that my mother desires to conceal from me."

"Then," replied the doctor, "it is impossible for me to explain why our engagement must not be made known, at present, to your mother."

Astra looked bewildered, as well she might, at this apparently inscrutable complication.

Doctor Remy seemed to take pity on her perplexity. "Listen, dear," said he, "and you will soon understand. Your mother consulted me professionally, a fortnight since."

Astra's cheek grew white with sudden fear. "What is it?" she gasped.

"There is no immediate danger," said the doctor, "and may not be, for years, with due precautions. But there is a tendency to heart disease; and it is imperative, just now, that she should not be agitated. And this, Astra, is the reason why she must not hear of our engagement, for some time to come."

Astra looked down thoughtfully. "I think you are mistaken," said she. "I believe it would be a relief to her to know that my future is in such good hands."

"Doubtless, that would be the ultimate effect," replied Doctor Remy; "but there would be emotional excitement, at first, more than is good for her;—so much that I, as a physician, am bound to forbid it."

Astra could not but admit that the prohibition was just. Mrs. Lyte had seemed very fragile and feeble, of late. Astra had urged that application to Doctor Remy which, it now appeared, her mother had made, but in regard to the results of which she had chosen to keep silence,—from a loving wish, probably, to save her daughter from unavailing anxiety. Astra's heart swelled at the thought.

"Are you sure," she asked, "that there is no immediate danger?"

"As sure as one can be, in such cases—if she is kept quiet."

"And is there any probability that the disease may be eventually cured?"

"There is a possibility,—with the same indispensable condition."

Doctor Remy waited for a moment, in order that Astra might be duly impressed with this answer; then, he asked with a kind of proud humility;—

"Have I justified myself, in this matter?"

"Forgive me," said Astra, penitently. "Of course I never really distrusted your motives; I only fancied that my duty to my mother could not be affected by them."

"You see," suggested Doctor Remy, "how easy it is to be misled by appearances, even with the best intentions. The faith, of which I used to dream, would never have fallen into that error."

"I will try to have it, hereafter," said Astra.

"And yet," returned Doctor Remy, "you will doubtless insist upon a further explanation of the reason why I do not wish our engagement to be known to the outside world."

"Indeed, I shall not," returned Astra, glad of an opportunity of proving that she was neither so distrustful, nor so curious, as he believed. "Of course, the outside world must wait till mother is informed; she has the right to the first telling. If you have any other reason for keeping the matter secret, I do not seek to know it."

Could Astra have seen the look of triumph in Doctor Remy's face, she would have been startled. But he only said, quietly,—

"Thank you for so much trust." And, after a moment, he added,—"As you say, it is your mother's right to know first. Of course, then, you will not indulge in any confidences to intimate friends."

"Certainly not," said Astra, a little surprised. "Indeed, I have none,—except, perhaps, Carice Bergan."

"I would not mention it, even to her," said the doctor.

"I do not intend to," replied Astra, decidedly. "But I must go in; mother will miss me."

II.
THE FOUNDATIONS FAIL.

Astra's light form being quickly lost behind the intervening foliage, Doctor Remy turned slowly and meditatively toward his office; which, inasmuch as it had been built for the use and behoof of the late Doctor Lyte, possessed its own door of convenient communication with the garden.

Given opportunity, social equality, and a fine, unremitting tact, and it would seem that any man can marry any woman, whose affections are free. Else, it would be hard to understand how Doctor Remy could have found his way into the heart of Astra Lyte; unless indeed, as is frequently the case, their very dissimilarity should have constituted a principle of attraction; character has its own laws of effective contrast. Astra was enthusiastic, generous, affectionate, with strong religious instincts and aspirations; Doctor Remy was cold, selfish, austere, without reverential sentiment, and, in matters of faith, an utter sceptic. But these traits need not be supposed to have exhibited themselves to Astra in their naked unloveliness. To her imagination, doubtless, they took the fairer form of a calm temperament, and great force and firmness of character, allied to a keen and critical intellect; which last must needs be allowed to take its own appropriate time and road to belief (except as it seemed willing to owe something to her loving guidance). And Astra was of the age and character which are most prone to fall down and worship human intellect; failing, as yet, to understand that it is, in itself, of the earth earthy, and really noble and admirable only as it is enlightened by the spirit of God. She was dazzled and fascinated by the extent and variety of Doctor Remy's attainments, and the range and freedom of his ideas. To talk with him was like drawing the curtain and opening wide the window on a wintry evening, admitting free, frosty air, and giving a far outlook over bleak, white hills and leafless forests. Nor did it alarm her that the air was much too fresh and chill to be breathed long with comfort or safety, and the landscape drearily bare and skeleton-like, since the doctor was always ready, at her slightest sign, to drop window and curtain, and turn back with her to warmer precincts and gentler themes.

And so, it had come to pass that, as Doctor Remy walked up the shady garden walk, he had good reason to congratulate himself upon the success, thus far, of his plans. Not only was Astra won, but she had consented to keep silence about the wooing, for awhile. Thus he was saved from the awkwardness of having to account to Mrs. Lyte for his unwillingness to have the engagement made public. It would be difficult to invent a reason likely to commend itself to her judgment; yet it was out of the question to give her the real one,—namely, his reasonable doubt whether he should be altogether acceptable to Major Bergan as the future husband of that gentleman's heiress, and so, in some sense, as his heir; and his consequent fear lest the will in her favor should be set aside. Such a confession might give a mercenary tinge to his suit, in Mrs. Lyte's eyes, which he wisely deprecated. So far as he knew, neither she nor her daughter had ever heard of the Major's declaration of his gracious intentions toward the latter; or, if they had, they regarded it only as a meaningless ebullition of his rage at Bergan Arling. Such, in truth, would the doctor himself have thought it, except for certain later inquiries respecting Miss Lyte, put to himself by the Major; which seemed to show that the matter had not escaped his memory. Besides, in consideration of the Major's bitter resentment toward his brother and nephew,—extending, apparently, to everybody connected with either,—no more eligible heir to the Bergan estate was to be found, than Astra Lyte. If the Major had made his will, as he threatened, there was no one, in the whole Bergan connection, with so strong a claim upon his favorable consideration.

Here the doctor paused, for a moment, in his slow walk. "If!" he muttered, peevishly. "To think that the whole thing turns on a miserable 'if!' I must contrive some way of finding out whether that will—or any will—was ever made. There must be no defective nor missing links in this chain, nothing to invite the meddling of the cursed fate which has followed me so long. The Major must not be permitted to die, one of these days,—by the interposition of Providence and delirium tremens, or something vastly like it,—and leave me with an abortive plan and a portionless fiancÉe. To be sure, I should not be long in getting rid of the latter, but there would be no help for the former."

His soliloquy had brought him to his office door. Suddenly bethinking himself, then, that a certain patient had been overlooked in the catalogue of the day's duties, he called for his horse, and set out to make good the omission.

His road led past the Bergan estate. As he was galloping swiftly onward, absorbed in his own reflections, he heard an energetic "Halloo!" Pulling up his horse, and looking back, he beheld Major Bergan leaning over a small gate, which opened into the fields near the quarter.

"Are you deaf?" was his angry salutation, duly emphasized with an oath. "Here I've been hollering after you, till I'm black in the face. I wish I had saved myself the trouble!"

"All the fault of my horse's hoofs," replied the doctor, good-humoredly, as he turned his horse toward the gate; "they made such a clatter under me that I could not well hear anything else. How can I serve you?"

Major Bergan hesitated. Apparently his business did not come readily to his lips.

"Perhaps you are on your way to a patient," he finally observed, as if he would be well enough suited to find an excuse for not broaching it at all.

His reluctance only stimulated the doctor's curiosity. "The case is not urgent," said he, carelessly; "by and by, or even to-morrow morning, will do just as well. There is no reason why I should not be entirely at your service—as I am."

"Come in, then," returned the Major, in a tone that was far from gracious; but swinging open the gate, nevertheless, for Doctor Remy's admission.

The latter dismounted, led his horse through, and slipping the bridle over his arm, walked by the Major's side to the cottage. On the way, the latter vouchsafed a brief explanation of his wishes.

"I've been thinking a good deal of the advice that you gave me awhile ago," said he, "and—and—I've concluded to make my will. So, seeing you riding by, just as my mind was full of the subject, it occurred to me that I might as well call you in, and have the thing over with."

"And a very sensible decision," returned Doctor Remy, as quietly as if he were not filled with unexpected delight that the information which he had hoped to gain only at cost of some deep and difficult scheming, was thus placed within easy reach. "I only wonder that you have not done it before."

"I don't see why I should," replied Major Bergan, sharply; "I've always been strong and hearty,—what had I to do with making wills? And, now that I think of it, what have I to do with it now? I'm not in a decline yet, by any means."

"So much the better for your work," replied Doctor Remy, composedly. "Deathbed wills are often contested. No one will question your soundness of mind, at present."

"I should think not," said the Major, decidedly. "If he did, he wouldn't be apt to doubt the soundness of my sinews,—I'd horsewhip him into instant conviction."

"Are you provided with witnesses?" asked the Doctor, when the Major's chuckle had subsided.

"Witnesses? How many does it want?"

"Two are necessary."

The Major mused for a moment. "I can have them here by the time they are needed," said he. "My new overseer at Number Two will do for one, and I'll send for Proverb Dick for the other. Step into the cottage, and make yourself at home for a moment, while I see about it."

Doctor Remy flung himself into the first chair that presented itself, and sank into a fit of thought. A vague disquietude oppressed him, notwithstanding that events seemed to be shaping themselves so much in accordance with his wishes. He believed himself to be on the eve of victory, or at least of a certain measure of present success which would insure victory; but both religion and philosophy, he knew, were agreed in representing human expectations as of the nature of the flower of the field, in various danger from the frost, the knife, and the uprooting wind. To this general testimony he could add the special confirmation of his own experience. Like most men, Doctor Remy had the sobering privilege of looking back upon a career of which the successes were few, and the failures and disappointments many. The track of his earthly pilgrimage, thus far, he bitterly thought, was tolerably well strewn with wrecks and abortions.

A better man, trying to spell out the meaning and tendency of his life by the aid of a higher inspiration, might have found some comfort in the review, nevertheless. He might have discovered some evidences of harmony and design amid seeming discord and confusion, some solid foundations showing underneath abortive ruins, some steady inward growth of patience and strength and hope, in lieu of an outward harvest of earthly possessions. He might have discerned, with awe and humility, that sometimes he had builded better than he knew, because building in accordance with a certain overruling design, of which he now first began to catch faint and partial glimpses. But such consolation was not allowed to Doctor Remy. In his past, all was incomplete, confused, and unsatisfactory. He had not gained what he sought, and nothing better had come to him through its loss. For many years of time, and an uncommon measure of talent, he had scarce anything to show of what he considered life's highest prizes—wealth, position, influence. He set himself seriously to discover why. And, for one moment, he, too, had a chill perception of a certain unity and sequence in the debris left behind him, unperceived before; which seemed to show that, though he had served his own ends but poorly, he had none the less helped to forward some extended scheme, whereof he had known nothing at the time, and could now discern only the most fragmentary outline. But Doctor Remy quickly shook himself free of this notion, with a smile at his own absurdity.

Why, then, he asked himself, had he failed? Because of his mistakes, no doubt. Let every man bear the blame of his own acts, and not try to throw it off on his neighbors, or that convenient scapegoat, Providence. Looking back, he could discern many a point (and notably one), where he had committed a grave error. But his mistakes had been his instructors, nevertheless. He had gained from them knowledge that should stand him in good stead yet. To his former qualities of boldness, energy, perseverance, and skill, he now added the experience that could use them to better effect. It would be strange, indeed, if he could not henceforth command success.

He had just reached this conclusion when Major Bergan joined him. Ample provision of lights, paper, pens, and ink, being then placed upon the table, together with the inevitable brandy bottle, the two gentlemen sat down opposite each other, and Doctor Remy began his task of drawing up the will. He first wrote the usual legal preamble, in a clear, rapid hand, and read it aloud for Major Bergan's approval. Some small legacies followed, taken down nearly verbatim from the Major's dictation. Doctor Remy then waited, for some moments, with his pen suspended over the paper, while the Major seemed trying vainly to arrange his thoughts.

"I don't quite know how to word the next," said he, at length, "you must put it into shape yourself. I hold a mortgage of the place where Catherine Lyte lives; and I want it cancelled, at my death, in her favor, or, if she does not survive me, in favor of her daughter Astra."

"You surprise me," remarked Doctor Remy, as he began to write; "I have always understood that the place was free from incumbrance."

"You understood wrong, then," replied Major Bergan. "Though, for anything that I know, Catherine Lyte may think so herself. You see, Harvey got into difficulties eight or nine years ago, and I lent him money, and took a mortgage on the place. He kept the interest paid up until his death; and since then, nothing has been said to me about either interest or principal; from which I concluded that Catherine did not know of the fact. And as I felt sorry for her, I decided to say nothing about it myself, as long as I was not in need of the money, nor likely to be. But it will not do her any harm to know, after I am dead, that I have been kinder to her than she knew of."

Doctor Remy looked up with a smile. "I suspect," said he, "that it would not be well for her to offend you."

"I don't know about that," replied Major Bergan, complacently. "She did offend me, when she took my nephew in; and I came pretty near foreclosing then. But Maumer Rue convinced me that she could not afford to refuse a good offer for her rooms; and moreover, as Harry only had his office there, and took his meals at the hotel, she need not have much more to do with him than I did, if she did not choose."

Doctor Remy did not think it necessary to enlighten the Major in regard to Bergan's familiarity with the family of Mrs. Lyte, since such a disclosure must needs militate directly against his own ends. He silently put the Major's wish into correct legal phrase and form, and then lifted his head with the question;—

"What next?"

Major Bergan's face grew grave and troubled. Thus far, it had been easy work, merely giving away what he did not care for, and should not miss. But now that the bulk of his property, real and personal, was to come in question, he groaned inwardly at the necessity of bequeathing it to any one. Did it not represent all the hopes, energies, labors and results of his whole life? What a naked, shivering, miserable soul he would be without it! He had a feeling that he should never be quite certain of his own identity, in eternity, without the houses and the lands, the negroes and the gold, for which he had lived in time.

"Well!" said Dr. Remy, by way of reminding him that he was still waiting.

The Major frowned; nevertheless, after another moment, he resumed his dictation.

"I give and bequeath," said he, slowly, "my house known as Bergan Hall, with all the lands thereto pertaining, including the rice-plantation known as 'Number Two;' also my three houses in the town of Berganton; also my block in the city of Savannah; also my negroes, horses, mills, and plantation implements; also, my household furniture and other personal property, including all bonds, mortgages, moneys, and all other property whereof I die possessed, to——-"

Doctor Remy had written down the items of this comprehensive inventory with a delight that he could scarcely keep from shining out in his face; and he now held his pen over the paper, while the Major paused, in real enjoyment of so timely an opportunity for pleasurable recapitulation and anticipation. The pause being a long one, however, he finally raised his eyes to the rugged features opposite, and saw that they were tremulous with emotion. Words, too, soon began to break from the Major's lips, according to the habit which had grown upon him in his solitude;—he had forgotten for the time, that he was not alone.

"He is the natural heir, as Maumer Rue insists," he muttered, "and the only one justified by the old family precedents. But," he went on, as Dr. Remy began to tremble, vicariously, for Astra's prospects, "he left me without so much as saying 'good bye;' he did just what he knew I was most bitterly opposed to; and he has never come near me since. No, he shall not have it!—he never shall have it, in spite of Maumer Rue's prophecies—I'll take care of that!"

And he began to repeat slowly, "bonds, mortgages, moneys, and all other property whereof I die possessed, to—to—"

Again he paused.

"Why can't he say 'to Astra Lyte,' and done with it?" thought Dr. Remy, impatiently, as he suddenly checked his pen in the midst of the first curve of the letter A.

The Major made another effort;—"To my niece, Carice Bergan," he concluded, with a sigh.

Doctor Remy's face fell so suddenly, that it attracted the Major's attention.

"Well! what is the matter now?" he demanded, sharply.

Doctor Remy could not immediately answer. His mind was in a whirl of confusion, disappointment, and anxiety. Mechanically, he put his hand to his brow; and the gesture helped him to a plausible explanation.

"A sudden pain," said he, in a low, shaken voice; "I have felt it several times of late. Wait a minute, it will soon be over."

And covering his eyes with his hands, he addressed himself at once to the task of answering the difficult question;—

What is to be done now?

It was well for him that he was accustomed to think rapidly and clearly, in the immediate presence of danger, that he was tenacious of purpose too, and that his instinct, in the midst of overthrow and ruin, was to commence at once to rebuild. Yet, for some moments, not an available suggestion presented itself, not a shadow of help for the exigency that had so unexpectedly arisen.

"Then, suddenly, a thought came to him, and with it, a gleam of hope. He took his hands from his eyes, and looked the Major gravely in the face.

"Before we go any farther," said he, "I feel bound in honor to make a confession. If I had supposed that writing your will was going to put me in such an awkward position, I should certainly have desired you to look elsewhere for a lawyer. However, it cannot be helped now. Well, the truth is"—he stopped for a moment, as if to overcome an excessive reluctance,—"the truth is, I have long admired your niece; and now, as my practice is steadily increasing, and I think I could take care of a wife, I had made up my mind to ask permission to pay her my addresses."

Major Bergan uttered a prolonged "Whew!" and settled himself back in his chair. "That alters the case, certainly," said he, after a brief consideration of this new phase of the matter.

"I am glad to hear it," exclaimed Dr. Remy, eagerly. "Pray—if it is not too selfish in me to ask it—pray give Bergan Hall to the next most eligible claimant, and leave me Miss Carice."

The Major raised his eyebrows, and leaning forward, fixed his eyes on Doctor Remy, as if he had found a new and interesting subject of study.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, gravely, "that you would rather have Carice without Bergan Hall than with it?"

"Decidedly," replied Doctor Remy. "I prefer an equal match to an unequal one. I prefer to be credited with honorable motives, rather than mercenary ones. I don't want to be a pensioner on my wife's bounty. It is doubtful if I could ever make up my mind to address the heiress of Bergan Hall. And thus, you see, if you persist in making Miss Bergan your legatee, you are playing the mischief with my hopes and plans."

Major Bergan continued to stare, thoughtfully, at the doctor. He was beginning rather to like this disinterested suitor.

"Have you any reason to think that Carice favors you?" he asked, finally.

Doctor Remy hesitated. "I really don't know how to answer that question. If I should say 'yes,' in view of the 'trifles light as air,' from which I have ventured to draw some slight encouragement, I should seem, even to myself, to be a conceited ass; and yet, if you would only be good enough not to throw Bergan Hall into the scale against me, I should not be absolutely without hope."

Major Bergan gave a short laugh. "Who will know," he asked, "that Carice is to have Bergan Hall? I expect you to keep my counsel in this matter. That is why I asked you to do the business. I had an idea that you were closer-mouthed, both by nature and training, than those lawyers in Berganton."

"I shall know it," replied Doctor Remy, virtuously, answering the Major's question, and taking no notice of the compliment which followed it. "And I shall know, too, that the heiress of Bergan Hall, if she were aware of her position, might reasonably expect to find a better match than a mere country physician."

"On my soul," exclaimed the Major, heartily, "I think she might 'go farther and fare worse!' Go on, doctor and win her, if you can;—you have my best wishes for your success. Leave Bergan Hall out of the question; indeed, it may never come into it, after all. Carice may refuse you——"

("Little doubt of that," thought the doctor.)

"I may alter my will a dozen times, or make a new one,—"

("You will have to be in a hurry, if you do," thought the doctor again, grimly.)

"At any rate, I expect you to frame that one so that Carice's husband, whoever he may be, can have no control whatever over the property. It is to be hers, and her children's, only. So scribble away there, at your best pace, or Proverb Dick will be here before we get through."

"But your brother Godfrey,"—began Doctor Remy, in despair, racking his brains for some consideration that would be likely to shake the Major's purpose.

"My brother Godfrey," interrupted Major Bergan, sternly, "has nothing to do with this matter. I don't give the property to him, but to Carice. Perhaps, on the whole, I had better just give her a life-interest in it, and then have it go to her eldest son, who shall take the name of Bergan, and be christened Harry. Yes, that will be the better way. Write it down so."

"But"—began Doctor Remy again.

"Save your 'buts,' until we get through," broke in Major Bergan, sharply. "I tell you, Carice shall have the place. If you don't want her with it, you can let her alone. And if you can't, or won't, write my will to suit me, I'll scud for some one who can and will."

This threat effectually silenced Doctor Remy. It was essential that the matter should not be taken out of his hands, till he had satisfied himself that it could in nowise be turned to his account. "If it comes to the worst," said he to himself, "it is something to have the document in my own handwriting. That gives me a better chance to furnish a substitute, at need."

With the rigid self-control that always characterized him, therefore, he now put aside, as far as might be, his own hopes and plans, and set himself diligently to the work of completing the will, in accordance with the Major's instructions, and to his entire satisfaction. He did not even move a muscle when, in due time, the Major dictated a paragraph to the effect that if Carice should not survive him, or should die without issue, the estate should fall to a distant cousin, now in Europe, whose sole claim to his consideration appeared to be that he bore the family name. The doctor was proof against any further shocks, this evening. Fate had done her worst for him, in forcing him to write "Carice Bergan," where he had confidently expected to write "Astra Lyte," and to find his account in so doing.

At the end of an hour, three closely written sheets lay upon the table, ready for the signatures of the witnesses, whenever they should appear; and the Major, drawing a long breath of relief, to see his lugubrious business so nearly finished, applied himself to the brandy bottle for appropriate refreshment. Doctor Remy sat silent, abstractedly toying with the pen that had been making such havoc with his plans.

Suddenly he raised his eyes to Major Bergan's face with the question;—

"How did that medicine suit you?"

"Admirably," replied the Major. "I have had one attack since you were here,—a tolerably severe one, too,—but the second powder acted like a charm."

"The second powder!" thought the doctor. "I am afraid that I gave him too many! At that rate, if chance favors him, he may hold on for a year, or more."

He was opening his lips for another remark, when the door shook under a vigorous rap; and scarce waiting for the Major's invitation, Dick Causton entered.

III.
BUILDING ANEW.

The new comer opened his eyes wide at sight of Doctor Remy, and the table littered with writing materials; and looked with evident curiosity at the closely written sheets of the will, the character of which he seemed at once to discover or divine.

"I see," said he, sententiously, nodding his head,—"'Our last garment is made without pockets.'"

Major Bergan shivered as if he had felt a chill breath from the mouth of a tomb. It was hard to be so often reminded that he and his possessions must soon part, with small prospect of meeting again.

"If you must quote proverbs, Dick," he exclaimed peevishly, "pray don't quote such cold-blooded ones as that!"

"How could I help it, when 'it came to my hand like the bow o' a pint stoup?'" answered Dick Causton coolly, with his eyes fixed hungrily on the Major's brandy bottle.

The hint was successful. Bottle and glass were immediately placed within his reach, and he made haste to warm and quicken his age-frosted blood with a deep draught of the potent liquor. It was both strange and sad to see how his eye brightened, his face grew more animated, his figure became more erect, his whole frame seemed to gather vigor and energy, under its influence, while his air became, if possible, more mean and slouching than before. It was as if he felt conscious himself, and knew that any beholder would be sure to discover, that his proper strength and manhood had long since died out of him, and he was now drawing unworthy breath and life from a source of which he was thoroughly ashamed, though unable to do without it.

Major Bergan, meanwhile, briefly explained why he had sent for him, adding, in a tone that was meant to be courteous, but narrowly escaped condescension;—

"I knew that you would be glad to do a favor to an old friend like me, Dick."

"Certainly," replied Richard Causton, heartily; "especially as I suspect that I shall also be doing a favor to my young friend, Mr. Arling. 'He that loves the tree, loves the branch,' you know."

Major Bergan frowned. "I don't see what my nephew has to do with it," said he, surlily.

Dick Causton gave him a look of surprise. "De vrucht valt niet ver van den stam," said he, shaking his head. "That is to say, The fruit falls near the stem. It isn't nature for a man to leave his property away from his own blood. It isn't right, either, in my opinion."

"I am not going to leave mine away from my blood," replied Major Bergan, austerely; "though, if I were, I do not see that it is anybody's affair but my own."

"Nor I either," rejoined Dick Causton, coolly, "unless your dead ancestors should imagine it to be theirs. Os demos Á os suyos quieren,—The devils are fond of their own,—and so, doubtless, are the saints, if any such are to be found in your pedigree. It is reasonable to suppose that they would all prefer to see their earthly possessions go down in the channel marked out by nature. Anyway, I'm right glad to know that Mr. Arling is to have his rights, some day, fine fellow that he is! I've always had a kindness for him, ever since I first gave him a lift, on his way to you."

Major Bergan looked very grim. "Yes, Mr. Arling will have his rights," said he, with stern emphasis,—"I've seen to that."

Dick Causton glanced from the Major's face to the will, with an instinctive feeling that all was not right, but could make nothing of either. The one was dark and impenetrable; the other was upside down, from his point of view. Apparently, nothing invited attack but the brandy bottle. That, he was glad to see, was not yet empty.

"I am wasting words," said he, shrugging his shoulders. "A chose faite conseil pris. 'Advice after action is like medicine after death'—or brandy after one has ceased to be thirsty."

"Take another glass," said Major Bergan.

Dick obeyed with alacrity. The dram was scarcely swallowed, ere a tap at the door announced the arrival of the overseer from "Number Two,"—a tall, lank, taciturn Texan, whom the Major had recently taken into his employ, as a short cut to that avoidance of the rice fields which Doctor Remy had recommended.

The ceremonies of signing and sealing the will immediately followed. Dick Causton was greatly disappointed that the document was not read in his hearing, as he had expected.

"Never buy a pig in a poke, nor sign a paper without reading it," said he, as he took the pen into his hand. "How am I to tell what will I really signed, if I know nothing of the contents? However, it's your risk, not mine," he added, hastily, seeing that Major Bergan was beginning to look impatient. And, forthwith, he bent his energies to the task of writing his name in a large, angular, and very tremulous hand; and then shook his head dubiously over the result.

"It looks like nothing that ever I wrote before," he remarked, as he laid down the pen. "But Hund er hund om han er aldrig saa broget,—A dog, is a dog whatever be his color,—and so, a signature must be a signature though it wiggle across the paper like a tipsy eel. Perhaps I shall know it by that token, when I see it again. But I can't promise."

"I shall know mine," observed the overseer, confidently, as he lifted the pen.

Doctor Remy leaned forward with sudden interest. The name was written in commonplace fashion enough, but it was finished with an odd, complicated flourish.

"Do you always sign your name in that way?" he asked.

"Always."

"It looks very difficult; yet you seemed to do it with much ease. Let me see the process again." And he pushed a piece of paper over to the man, who, gratified to find his skill so heartily appreciated, scrawled it all over with his sign-manual, in wearisome repetition. The paper was then passed from one to another, for a brief examination, and was finally left in the hands of Doctor Remy; who first began absently to roll it round his fingers, and ended by tearing it in three or four pieces, in a fit of apparent abstraction. Nobody noticed that one of these found its way into his pocket as a thing of possible utility, in the future.

He then rose. "I am sorry to be obliged to go so soon," said he, courteously, "but a physician's time is not his own. Good evening, Major Bergan, I am always at your service, and in any capacity. Good evening, Mr. Causton, doubtless, we shall meet again."

Dick glanced at the brandy bottle, and, seeing that it was empty, was taken with a sudden fancy for the doctor's society.

"I'll walk along with you, doctor, at least as far as our road is one," said he, rising. "Good company makes short miles."

"I came in the saddle," answered Doctor Remy, "but we can be companions as far as the gate, if you like."

Nevertheless, the pair did not separate at the gate. Their conversation had become too interesting, apparently, to both; and Dick Causton continued to walk on by the side of the doctor's horse.

It was late when he reached his cabin, that night. Very suggestively, too, he reeled across the threshold, and, missing the bed, deposited himself heavily on the floor.

"Tidt meder man ei did som man vil skyde, A man does not always aim at what he means to hit,"—he muttered, resignedly, merely changing his position for a more comfortable one, and dozing off to sleep.

Somewhere, on the way—or out of it—apparently, he had found a supplementary brandy bottle, and had not left it until it was as empty as the Major's.

It was late, too, when Doctor Remy laid his head on his pillow, that night. And, perhaps, in all Berganton, there was no wearier nor sadder man than he. One apparently well-constructed plan had just gone to pieces in his hands, without note of warning. Another was now to be built up out of the fragments, pitilessly rejecting whatever had been an element of weakness in the first. Already, its outline had begun to shape itself dimly against his mental horizon. Yet he did not allow himself to linger upon it to-night. With the rigid self-control which he habitually exercised, he put aside disappointment, care, and hope, and soon slept as soundly as if no anxiety rested on his mind, no stain on his conscience.

He was early astir. With the morning light came quickness and clearness of thought. His scheme began to look more distinct and feasible. By way of getting it in hand at once, he tapped lightly at the door of Astra's studio.

He was somewhat surprised to find her before an easel, palette and brushes in hand. She smiled and blushed at his approach.

"I know what you would say," she began, apologetically,—"'A Jack at all trades,' et caetera, but I really wanted color for this subject." She pointed to her canvas. "Do you recognize it?"

"I can see that those are Miss Bergan's eyes," replied Doctor Remy;—"all else is delightfully vague and suggestive."

"And what eyes they are!" exclaimed Astra, admiringly,—-not without a pleasant perception, too, that she had succeeded wonderfully well in putting them on canvas.

Doctor Remy did not answer immediately. He was regarding the portrait with a gravity that Astra could not understand,—unless, indeed, his thoughts were elsewhere. Nevertheless, when he spoke, it was sufficiently to the point.

"Yes, they are very fine eyes," said he. "And Miss Bergan is altogether very pretty,—in an uncommon style, too. It is surprising that she has remained heartfree so long."

Astra looked at him with soft, smiling, amused eyes. "Heartfree! As much as I am," said she.

Doctor Remy gave her a questioning look.

"I am not going to tell you anything about it," said she, laughingly. "Use your eyes, sometimes, in watching your neighbors, as I do."

"Who is my neighbor?" asked Doctor Remy, smiling.

"The proper question!" laughed Astra. "In this case, you need not journey beyond this roof, to find him."

Doctor Remy's eyes lit with a sudden, strange gleam. "Do you know it is so?" he asked, quickly.

"Ho, I cannot quite say that;—I doubt if she knows it herself yet. But I believe it, all the same."

Doctor Remy watched her absently for some moments, then made a few curt, critical remarks about her work, bade her a cool good morning, and withdrew.

Astra looked after him, with a troubled, wondering expression.

"What has come over him?" she asked herself. "How have I offended him? Or was it only my fancy that he seemed so cold and strange?"

Before Doctor Remy began his professional rounds, that morning, he had sketched, in outline, the main features of a new plan for the acquisition of Bergan Hall. The minor details he wisely left to the suggestions of time and circumstance.

One of these proved to be very close at hand. As he drove mechanically through the principal street of Berganton, revolving various probabilities and possibilities in his mind, and trying to make some provision for each, he espied Miss Ferrars coming up the sidewalk,—easily recognizable, at almost any distance, by her peculiarly mincing and swaying gait. In all similar encounters with the slightly faded maiden,—whom he shrewdly suspected of designs upon his bachelor liberty,—it had been his wont to slide swiftly past, with a low and deprecatory bow, suggestive of his deep regret that the urgency of his haste denied him the pleasure of stopping to inquire after her health. On this occasion, therefore, she was agreeably surprised to see him rein his horse up to the sidewalk, with the obvious intention of speaking to her. Perhaps her heart beat a little more quickly, as she stopped to listen.

Apparently, however, he had nothing of more importance to communicate than a commonplace enough observation about the heat of the weather, and a friendly caution not to walk far in so fervid a sunshine as was flooding the town with its golden waves. Then, he gathered up his reins, as if to signify that his say was said, and he was ready to proceed. Nevertheless, he lingered a moment longer, to add, carelessly,—

"By the way, I ought to acknowledge that you were right, and I was wrong, the other day. It is not the first time that man's reason has had to admit the superior correctness, as well as quickness, of woman's intuition."

Miss Ferrars looked both pleased and puzzled. "It is very good of you to say so," she answered, simpering;—"but really, I can't think what you allude to."

"When you called at my office, a few days ago," explained the doctor, "you did me the honor to confide to me your impressions with regard to my friends, Miss Lyte and Mr. Arling. I thought you were mistaken, and told you so. It turns out, however, that the mistake was on my part, not yours. I was really blind—not wilfully so, as you had the charity to suppose. I mention the matter the more readily because it must soon be patent to everybody. Good morning."

And without waiting for a reply, Doctor Remy courteously lifted his hat, and went his way, with a curious smile on his lips.

"That last intimation ensures speed," said he to himself. "Miss Ferrars will do her best to be beforehand with the news. Before to-morrow morning, it will be known throughout the town. Then, I can easily manage so that it shall reach the Major's ears, and—by the help of my loving commentary—produce the desired effect. Astra must be gotten out of the way, for the present, at least. So must Arling; last night's business convinced me that he is more dangerous than I imagined. The Major deceives himself, but he does not deceive me; his bitterness towards his nephew is nothing more than piqued and smothered affection,—affection undergoing fermentation, as it were, and certain to work itself clear and sweet, in time. If Arling remains in the neighborhood, the Major will soon be seizing upon some pretext for a reconciliation. Failing of that, Miss Carice is certain to inherit his estate; just because he wooed—and did not win—her mother, some twenty-five or thirty years ago! No doubt, a marriage between the two would suit him exactly, if he once got hold of the idea. Yes, Arling must be gotten rid of. But how?"

He bent his brows moodily. Some expedient, apparently, soon suggested itself to him, and was immediately rejected with a shake of the head.

"No, not that way," he muttered. "I'm determined against actual, point-blank crime, so called,—except as a last resource. Besides, it is not necessary; I only want to get rid of him until the Major is dead, and Miss Carice is my wife. There must be some way to dispose of him, by lawful means, if I could only hit upon it! Really, if there were a Devil, as some people believe, he would strain a point now in my favor! At all events, I think I see my way clear with Astra."

He was silent, for an instant; his brow grew sombre with unwonted regret.

"Poor Astra!" he murmured, as he drove into the cathedral-like gloom of the far-stretching pine barren,—"I am really loath to give her up! But her chance of the Hall, I see now, is not worth a picayune. And it won't do to trust to the possibility of substituting a manufactured will for the real one, as long as I cannot find out where the latter is deposited. The Major was very close-mouthed about that matter. No, Miss Carice is my safest resort. Yet Astra would suit me much better, on the whole." And once again, looking absently up the long, columned vista of the narrow road, he murmured regretfully;—

"Poor Astra!"

IV.
A SERMON.

The next day was Sunday. It came to the earth, as it comes always, with kindly, hallowed hands full of blessings, but found not everywhere hearts and minds open to receive them. Carice Bergan, to be sure, knelt in her accustomed place, in the little church of her fathers, with a face which might almost have rivalled that of an angel in its bright peacefulness, and with all the windows of her soul plainly open to the heavenly sunshine. Bergan Arling, too, conscious that each one of these holy days had its own special gift or grace for him, its own kind and measure of spiritual food, which he could ill afford to lose, knelt in his proper place, and reverently lent his full, rich voice to swell the solemn flow of common prayer, or the harmonious burst of choral praise. And Mrs. Lyte, in her widow's weeds, looking upward in spirit, to the long peace of Paradise, and the shining faces of the redeemed, was glad to believe in "the communion of saints," and rejoiced in the day that was both a foretaste and a promise of the "life everlasting." Even Astra Lyte, though suffering from a vague and nameless depression,—a burden of which, as yet, she felt only the weight and chill, without comprehending, or daring to try to comprehend, whence it came or what it meant,—was sensible of a dim delight, and possibly a latent helpfulness, in the sweet and solemn influences of the day and the place. Here and there, moreover, a soul bowed under the weight of recent affliction, or shaken with the terrors of a newly-awakened conscience, was both awed and glad to be able to give itself audible expression in words so fit and forcible as those of the Confession and the Litany, and thankful if it might pick up so much as a crumb of pardon and peace from the Master's bountiful table.

But, to Doctor Remy, paying an unwilling tribute to public opinion by showing himself at church, on this morning, after many weeks of absence, and leaving it to be inferred that, but for his professional duties, he would be seen there regularly; to Miss Ferrars, mingling solemn words of confession and penitence with frivolous thoughts of dress and gossip; to Dick Causton, slinking shame-facedly into the rear pew, to listen to the conclusion of the sweet, old, familiar hymn, the first sounds of which had fallen enticingly upon his ear, as he was staggering up the street;—to these, and many others like them, doubtless, Sunday brought only present irksomeness and future condemnation.

The hymn being finished, Mr. Islay ascended the pulpit, and, laying his manuscript open before him, looked round on the crowded congregation, with serious, almost melancholy, eyes. Perhaps he sought, amid those upturned faces, for some sign of human sympathy, to lighten a little his heavy sense of responsibility; perhaps he wondered to which of these souls his words were now to prove a savor of life unto life, and to which, a savor of death unto death. Deep and clear, and full of a solemn music, his voice broke the silence.

"In the fifth, chapter of Proverbs, and in the twenty-second verse, it is written:

'HE SHALL BE HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS OF HIS SINS.'"

Three faces were at once alive with interest. Doctor Remy, indeed, gave a slight and almost imperceptible start, as if his intellect not only, but his memory or his conscience, had felt an awakening touch. Bergan Arling merely fixed his eyes more intently on the speaker, with the aspect of a man who was glad to find that the coming discourse was likely to link into, and carry on, some previous train of thought. As for Dick Causton, the word "Proverbs" was sufficient to command his earnest, and even critical, attention. He believed that he knew a good deal about proverbs himself; he had made a lifelong study of their characteristics and principles of interpretation; he had often declared those of Solomon—such as were strictly proverbs—to be of the best; he would stay and hear what a tyro like Mr. Islay had to say about this particular one.

This, briefly, was what the clergyman said.

"Many texts are like rosebuds. They have a simple form, and an obvious signification. But if you steep them in the dew of meditation and the sunshine of faith, they begin to unfold meaning after meaning, as the rosebud petal after petal; and in the centre there is a golden heart,—the gracious blessing of God on the fervent and prayerful spirit, and the inquiring and teachable mind. Let us pray that the text which we are considering, may prove such an one to each of us.

"A man's sin is sure to find him out. It may have been committed in secret, muffled thickly with caution, and finally buried deep under time and distance and circumstance; it may remain hidden for years; it may have been forgotten, except for an occasional dark moment, by the sinner himself; yet, some time, some day, what seems to be a chance, but is truly a providence, lifts the veil, and takes hold of the clue,—or death throws the lurid light of his inverted torch over the dark transaction,—and the liar, the thief, the adulterer, the murderer, or whatever may be the miserable man's miserable name, is brought to the bar either of human or divine justice. And there is no escape. The bands of his iniquity are around him; they bind him hand and foot; he is holden with the cords of his sins.

"This is perhaps the first and most obvious meaning of the text. It assures us that, 'though punishment be lame, it arrives.' It warns us not to make cords which are certain to be used, some day, for our own binding.

"But men are apt to think lightly of a remote evil. The present monopolizes their fears, as it does their labors. Moreover (they say), there are dozens of little, everyday sins, which entail no such fearful consequences. Let us see how our text bears upon these points.

"Sin is not a simple, but a complex, thing. It is a cord twisted of many threads, and some of them begin very far back. A man is seldom taken in the toils of a sudden, single temptation, or bound with the cords of an utterly unimagined and unpremeditated sin. He has made the way and work easy to each of them, by yielding to preliminary temptations, and carelessly allowing the binding of preparatory sins. He is holden with the cords of the evil thought to the unhallowed desire and the foul gratification. He is holden with the cords of that seemingly venial sin to this final burden of guilt and shame, by that unbridled passion to this startling, terrible crime. The slender cord draws the stout one after it: at sight of that, the man may start and shrink, but he is already half-bound, and his resistance is feeble. Having taken the first step, he is committed to the second; having admitted the premise, he is bound to the logical conclusion. Here, as before, he is holden with the cords of his sins.

"Moreover, there are few things stronger, for good or ill, than habit. And every sin, however small, may begin an evil habit, and is sure to confirm one. Round and round goes the slender cord, till it binds as strongly as a chain of iron. One part after another yields to the subtle, stealing influence; first, the will succumbs; then, the reason; finally, the conscience. Day by day, good ceases to attract, and evil to repel. Day by day, the right becomes more difficult, and the wrong easier. The habit soon becomes fixed; the man is firmly bound. To the side of evil, and the service of Satan, he is holden with the cords of his sins.

"Again: If thought be the spring of action, action is also the spring of thought. If it be true that, 'as a man thinks, he is,' so it is true that as he is, he thinks. Thought is by turns cause and effect. If a man's sins are the result of his evil thoughts, so his evil and erroneous thoughts are sometimes the result of his sins. He cannot long continue to think right if he act wrong. After breaking the Sabbath awhile, he ceases to think of it as a holy day. After committing murder, he ceases to regard life as sacred. Violating human law, it becomes a terror instead of a protection. Defying the Divine law, he soon denies its authority. Sin distorts his views, as well as his life. The truths of religion lose their clearness to his mind with their power to influence his action. Doubts, scepticism, infidelity, find an open door, and an easy road, to his heart. If a man would keep fast hold of his Christian faith, let him take care to order his actions, as far as possible, in conformity to its precepts. But, on the other hand, let him give free rein to his appetites and ambitions,—yea, even to the commission of absolute crime,—if he wishes to become a mocker and an infidel, without love of God or man, without correct views of time or clear ones of eternity. For, to all these things, he will be sure to be holden with the cords of his sins.

"Finally; All men love liberty. But sin, though it may seem, at first, to be the wildest liberty, soon proves to be the narrowest bondage. The sinner is the slave of appetites, of habits, of thoughts, that are hard task-masters; and the wages of which are every kind of death. For there are many kinds,—social, political, moral, before the final, everlasting death;—and one, or all, of these, he is sure to taste, as the reward of his faithful service of Satan. His health is undermined, or his reputation destroyed; his fortune is dissipated, or his gold corroded in the using; he is shaken with the terrors of conscience, or hardened into the semblance of stone; he is without adequate consolation in the day of trouble, and without strengthening hope in the day of death; but his slavery is abject and absolute. He neither will nor can escape. He is holden with the cords of his sins.

"Thus you will see, beloved, that our text has a word of solemn warning for the present, as well as for the future. The holding of sin is to be dreaded in life, not less than at death. One sin holds fast to another. Single sins twist together into the strong cord of habitual sin. The sinful act draws after it evil thoughts and loose opinions. Sin is a continual, daily bondage, as well as a final retribution.

"Beware then, oh, ye young! how you bind yourselves with cords of sinful thoughts, or habits, or opinions, or passions, to the exclusion of that blessed liberty which is in Christ Jesus. Beware, oh, ye adults! how you go on adding sin to sin, and cord to cord, till you are bound hand and foot, thought and will, body and soul; and are finally cast down to perdition, in bonds of your own industrious forging—holden with the cords of your sins!

"But,—do you say?—we are all sinners, we are all 'holden,' how are we to break from the cords of our sins? Go to Christ. At His feet, all bonds are broken, all slavery ends. He leads captivity captive, and His service is perfect freedom. He is our righteousness, and the man that trusteth in Him, shall no more be holden with the cords of His sins."

Such was the substance of the sermon. But in the delivery, there was a warmth and an earnestness, a happiness of expression and illustration, and a deep solemnity, that held the congregation spell-bound with interest, to the end!

Perhaps no one had listened more attentively, or humbly, than Bergan Arling. So recently had he felt the irksome holding of the cords of his sins! And he would still, no doubt, be holden to their consequences, all the days of his life, if not to their guilt.

As for Doctor Remy, there was an unusual pallor in his face, when he rose, at the singing of the last hymn. But it was quickly gone; he came out of the church with much of his usual cold, composed demeanor. His sins had held him too long to loosen their stricture at one transient quake of conscience.

Dick Causton had listened for some time with marked attention, and apparent approval. Then, a kind of haze had slowly bedimmed his sight and beclouded his brain. When the congregation came down the aisles, he was fast asleep, with his head drooping heavily on his breast. If anything could have added to the effect of the sermon, this sight ought to have done so. Most certainly, poor Dick was "holden with the cords of his sins."

When the church was empty, he was shaken rudely by the sexton, and turned out, muttering caustic proverbs by way of retaliation.

Bergan and Doctor Remy walked home from the church, as they had gone thither, side by side; yet, for a considerable time, neither spoke. If not altogether congenial spirits, they were on sufficiently easy and familiar terms, in virtue of their almost daily association, to allow each to pursue his own train of thought, on occasion, without reference to the other.

To Bergan, Mr. Islay's sermon had been interesting and effective, not only for what it contained, but for what it suggested. Naturally, therefore, his mind was now busy in following out those suggestions to the point where they bore upon his own experience, and unfolded their lessons for his own soul.

But Dr. Remy's thoughts had long since strayed away from any channel into which the sermon was calculated to lead them. There had been some brief moments, during its delivery, to be sure, when he had shrunken inwardly, iron-nerved though he were, from the deep, sharp probing of certain of its sentences; and there had been a single instant, perhaps, wherein he had been made dimly to see, or to suspect, that his own life and character—much as he had prided himself upon being the independent artificer of them both—were really the results to which he had been holden by the cords of former, half-forgotten sins. But he had made haste to shake himself free from both the idea and its effect, with one smile of scorn at his own folly, and another at what he chose to consider the weak superstition of the clergyman and his awed, interested flock. He thanked God—using the phrase in a vague, general sense which, perhaps, was only equivalent to thanking himself—that he was not as these men were. And no sooner was he in the open air than he set his busy mind to the consideration of his own projects. Some clue to its workings may perhaps be afforded by the question with which he finally broke the silence.

"Have you ever had the yellow fever, Arling?"

"No; it does not visit our western villages."

"Then, I advise you to take refuge in one of them, for the next three months. It is certain to visit Berganton ere long."

"Indeed!" said Bergan, with more curiosity than alarm. "Why do you think so?"

"From the weather, the atmosphere, the present type of disease,—a dozen indications patent to the eye of experience. Besides, I am informed by a private letter that it has already appeared in New Orleans. Its arrival here is but a question of time. And I assure you that its acquaintance is to be avoided."

"Doubtless. And I shall do my best to avoid it—except by running away."

"You might as well say," answered Doctor Remy, dryly, "that you will take every precaution against drowning—except to keep your head above water. Don't be fool-hardy, Arling. Yellow Jack has a keen appetite for strangers,—that is to say, for all who are not native born. If he spares any, it is usually the sickly and feeble, not the strong and vigorous. He would consider you a toothsome morsel. Take my advice, and go home, or go North, or take a sea-voyage,—do anything rather than remain here during the last of summer and the beginning of autumn. It will be no loss to you. After the first of next month, there will be absolutely nothing for a lawyer to do here but try to keep cool."

"And you?" asked Bergan.

"Oh, I stay, of course. An epidemic is a physician's harvest time. Besides, I have had the yellow fever."

"Then the native-born do not all escape?"

"By no means. Besides, I lost my birthright by many years' absence in Europe. It was immediately after my return that I was taken. Now I may consider myself acclimated."

"As I must be," replied Bergan, "if, as is likely, I am to spend the remainder of my life at the South. Thank you for your friendly warning, but I think I must stay."

Doctor Remy shrugged his shoulders, and said no more. He had merely tried the first and simplest expedient which occurred to him, for removing Bergan from the neighborhood. He was not surprised nor troubled that it had failed. He had expected as much. But there were other and surer means to his end, he believed, at his command.

However, he was not obliged to resort to them. Early next morning Bergan came into his office, with an open letter in his hand, and a most anxious face.

"Read that," said he, huskily, "and tell me if there is any hope."

Doctor Remy obeyed, reading the letter not once only, but twice, and looking long and meditatively at the signature. Then he lifted his eyes to Bergan's face.

"Plenty of hope, in my opinion," said he; "I do not attach as much importance as this Doctor Trubie does to your mother's fancy that she is going to die. It only argues a depressed state of mind, corresponding to a low state of body. Nevertheless, it is well to do whatever can be done to raise her spirits; and I suspect that your presence at her bedside will avail much to that end. Of course, you set out at once?"

"Certainly. Can you tell me at what hour the next train leaves Savalla?"

Doctor Remy glanced at his watch. "In an hour and a half. That gives you ample time;—fifteen minutes to throw a few things into a portmanteau, and tell me what I can do for you while you are away; five minutes for adieux, and an hour and ten minutes to reach Savalla, in the saddle, with a swift horse."

"If I can find one at such short notice," said Bergan, doubtfully.

Doctor Remy pulled a bell-wire, and Scipio's black head appeared as instantaneously as if he had been attached to the other end of it.

"Saddle the roan, and take him round to the front gate," said Doctor Remy. "Mr. Arling will ride him to Savalla, You will go after him, by the stage, this afternoon. Quick now!"

The head ducked, and disappeared.

"How can I thank you!" exclaimed Bergan, wringing the doctor's hand.

"By attending to the portmanteau business at once. I will come with you; we can talk while you work. I want to ask something about this Doctor Trubie. Does he keep up with the times,—in medicine, that is?"

"I don't know—I believe so."

"H'm; there have been some recent discoveries of great value in the treatment of typhoids, when they run long and low, as they are apt to do. Suppose I write down a few suggestions, which, if there is grave need, you can commend to Doctor Trubie's favorable consideration. Otherwise, don't interfere."

Bergan tried once more to express his gratitude, as the folded paper was put in his hand; but Doctor Remy cut him short.

"If you really want to thank me," said he, "do it by staying away until the sickly season is over; I shall have yellow fever patients enough without you. Indeed, you must; having left, it would be suicidal to come back before the first of November. Tell your mother that I said so, when she is convalescent."

"When she is convalescent," repeated Bergan, quickly. "Then you do hope!"

"Of course I do. There is every reason for it. Your mother, being a Bergan, has a sound constitution, and an almost indomitable vitality; and she is not yet old. If Trubie makes a good fight, he is sure to win. At any rate, never despair till the breath is out of the body; nor even then, till you are certain that it cannot be brought back."

Bergan could not but feel a pang of self-reproach for his long-smothered dislike and distrust of the man who was thus loading him with obligations,—help on his way to his mother, ready encouragement, and valuable professional advice. It did not occur to him that there is such a thing as doing good that evil may come!

Doctor Remy looked after him with a triumphant smile. "One out of my way already!" he exclaimed. "It would seem that the Devil (another name for Fate or Chance) has helped me!"

Bergan next sought Mrs. Lyte and Astra, for a parting word. He found the latter in her studio, sitting idly by a window, with her hands folded listlessly in her lap, and a weary, dejected face that went to his heart. Never before had he seen her otherwise than busy, bright, and earnest; never had she met his look with so faint and transient a smile.

"I am sorry that you are going," said she, sombrely; "sorrier, perhaps, than the occasion may seem to warrant. But I cannot rid myself of a suspicion that this phase of our life and friendship is finished; and who can tell what the next may be! Do you remember our first meeting under the oaks, and the red sunset light, and the dark sunset cloud? You interpreted them to mean that we were to know sunshine and shade together, did you not? Well, we have had the sunshine; now, it is time for the shade."

"You forget," said Bergan, kindly, "that the cloud was but for a moment, and the sunshine returned."

"No, I remember it well. But the cloud was very dark while it lasted, and the shine was not quite so bright afterward. It was nearer to its setting."

Bergan could scarcely believe that it was Astra who spoke. Hitherto, she had been the moral sunshine of the house, felt even where it did not directly fall. Her spirit, in its potency of cheer, resembled the sunbeam which, though it kindle but one little spot on the floor into actual brightness, diffuses its light and cheerfulness throughout a whole room. As every article of furniture, every picture, every face, in the room, is the brighter for the sunbeam, so every inmate of Mrs. Lyte's rambling old dwelling had been the happier for Astra's presence and influence. The sound of her clear, buoyant voice, the thought of her light, busy figure, just across the hall, had always served to quicken and brighten his own energies. It had been very much his wont to bring all his shadows, discouragements, and despondencies, to be dissipated by contact with her breezy activity and cheery hopefulness. What had come over her, that she met him now with such dreary premonition of ill, such persistent dwelling upon the dark side? He looked down upon her with the question in his eyes, if not on his lips.

She understood and answered it.

"It is only a dark mood," said she, passing her hand over her brow, "not an actual trouble,—at least, not yet. But forgive me for afflicting you with it now, when you are under the shadow of a real cloud. Let us hope that it will pass quickly. When you reach home, may the sunshine be already there!"

"Thank you. I shall expect to hear from you through Doctor Remy—all of you, I mean. He has promised to let me know how everything goes on here."

Astra lifted her eyes searchingly to his face. Her fine perceptions had not failed to take note of his inadvertent linking together of Doctor Remy and herself, and his quick attempt to conceal it. She divined that he knew her secret. Her eyes fell, and her face flushed.

Bergan took her hand, and lifted it, in gentle, chivalrous fashion, to his lips. "I wish you every happiness," said he, in a tone that said more than the words,—"every sunshine, and few clouds. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," she answered, withdrawing her hand, yet not without a certain lingering pressure, that seemed even sadder than her face, and that Bergan felt long afterwards. And he left her sitting where he found her.

Mrs. Lyte and Cathie followed him to the door, the one with much quiet sympathy and regret, the other with passionate tears and lamentations.

"He will not come back! He will not come back!" she screamed, wringing her hands, as he rode away; and the mournful cry followed him down the street, like a prophecy of woe.

A little farther on, he discovered that Nix was trotting quietly alongside of his horse. And so intimately had the dog been connected with all his sojourn under Mrs. Lyte's roof, that, in sending him back, he seemed to close the final page of this whole epoch of his life.

His road skirted a retired portion of the grounds of Oakstead. Suddenly, he espied Carice, standing on the bank of the creek, with her eyes thoughtfully fixed upon its rippling flow. His sad heart yearned towards her with irresistible force. Glancing at his watch, he saw that there was yet time for a brief, parting word. He flung himself from his horse, threw the bridle over a gatepost, and ran quickly towards her.

"I am so glad to find you here!" he exclaimed, as he drew near. "Otherwise, I must have gone without saying good-bye. I am sent for, in great haste; my mother is very ill, and—"

He stopped; his grave face said the rest.

"I am very, very sorry!" putting her hand in his, with quick, earnest sympathy. "When did you hear?"

"This morning. She insisted that I should be sent for, as soon as she was taken ill; she believed that she could not recover. It is the typhoid fever."

Carice's face blanched suddenly. "Ah! that has a fearful sound," she said, shiveringly. "My two brothers"—

Her voice failed, and her slight frame shook with sudden emotion. It was the first time that Bergan had heard her allude to the only sorrow which she had yet known; but the effect of which had been all the more keenly felt, doubtless, because, for her parents' sake, she had shut it resolutely into the depths of her heart, never allowing its shadow to be seen for a moment on the face wherein they now looked for consolation and cheer.

Much moved, Bergan put his arm round the slender, tremulous form. At first, it was only the blind, manly instinct of help and support that prompted him; but with the act there came a swift revelation, a great rush of tenderness, that almost took his breath away. Though he had never suspected it till now, he knew, in an instant, beyond the possibility of a doubt, not only that he loved Carice, but that he had loved her long.

Carice, on her part, was quick to feel the sudden, subtile change in the character of the support given her, and made a fluttering movement of escape. But Bergan would not let her go.

"Carice," said he, gravely, "if I should return sorrowing, will you console me?"

"If I can," she answered, simply, raising her blue eyes to his face.

"If you can!" he repeated, with a deep tender intonation,—"oh, Carice! it must be a heavy sorrow indeed that you cannot console!"

As he spoke, the day, which had hitherto been cloudy, suddenly broke into a smile, pouring a flood of golden light on the river, trickling through the boughs of the overhanging trees in great, shining drops, and flinging a yellow gleam far down their gray trunks. Wondrous sympathy of Nature with the bliss of two spirits made one,—the tender joy that keeps, throughout the musty years, the freshness and fragrance of its Eden birth! Yet, had the day still held its gloom, it would have been bright in Carice's eyes, and bright in Bergan's! Wherever Love is newly born, it creates a sunshine of the heart, which overflows upon the outward world, and fills it with celestial radiance.

Five minutes later, and Carice was alone by the river's bank, blushing to hear how persistently the little stream kept whispering and singing of what it had just seen and heard. The leaves, too, seemed to be softly talking it over among themselves; and a red bird and a gray one were gossiping merrily about it among the branches.

Still more plainly, Carice's face told the story, when she sought her parents. They saw at once that it was not the same face which had gone out from them an hour before. It had changed as an opening rosebud must have changed in the same time, under the balmy breathing of the warm south wind. Its merely girlish loveliness was over; playing about the mouth, and shining from the eyes, there was a bright and tender smile that seemed gushing from the very heart of awakening womanhood. Never had she seemed so lovely, never so radiant. Looking upon her, it was easy to divine the secret of angelic beauty. The heavenly existences are immortally beautiful because immortally happy.

"Did you engage yourself to him?" asked Mr. Bergan, almost sternly, when her brief tale was told.

"Of course not," answered Carice, opening wide her blue eyes at the unusual tone,—"not until you and mamma are consulted. Only, we know that we love each other."

At the same time, Dr. Remy stood smiling to himself, in his office,—a dark, ominous smile.

"I am sure of three months," said he. "And, in three months, tact and perseverance can accomplish a great deal."

At the same time, too, Astra rose suddenly from the chair, where Bergan had left her sitting, and began to pace up and down the room.

"I have been idle too long," she said to herself; "I have let myself dream till my world is peopled with shadows, and I cannot distinguish the false from the true. Work is what I want. Work will exorcise these phantoms, and make my brain clear and strong again."

She stopped and looked fixedly into vacancy, striving to recall a former conception that had been dazzled out of sight in the golden dawn of her love. In a moment, it rose again before her; a great, stalwart, straining figure,—a man struggling up out of the waves that had wellnigh worsted him, with a little child on his shoulders.

Quickly she improvised a kind of platform, and brought out her fertile box of clay. Nervously, she fastened her supports together; rapidly around them rose the soft, gray, plastic material in the rude, rough resemblance of a human form.

VI.
WITH A DOUBLE HEART.

Now and then, on a summer's day, the air is suddenly filled with minute, swarming insects of the genus ephemera. They come unnoticed and unheralded; the air is thick with them ere one is aware; ears, mouths, and nostrils are filled with them, despite all efforts to the contrary; they are variously regarded from the scientific, the poetic, and the moral point of view, or merely as nuisances; by and by, they are gone as they came.

In just such wise, a swarm of rumors prejudicial to the reputation of Bergan Arling suddenly filled the air of Berganton; coming no one knew whence, but quickly circulating everywhere, to be variously met with surprise, doubt, belief, regret, anger, and indifference. It was averred that he had gone home deeply in debt, at least to his good friend Doctor Remy, who certainly deserved better treatment at his hands. It was alleged that he was hopelessly the victim of a depraved appetite for strong drink, although, by the help of the same good friend, he had managed, thus far, to save himself from public exposure. It was affirmed that he had persuaded Astra Lyte into a secret engagement, perhaps for the sake of mere pastime, perhaps with a view to the ultimate possession of the roof which had so long sheltered him, or to the union of his own with Astra's chances for the future ownership of Bergan Hall. Finally, it was shrewdly suspected that, having grown weary alike of the debts, the engagement, and the measure of constraint which he had hitherto exercised over himself, he had suddenly broken away from all three, with the trumped-up excuse of his mother's illness, and taken himself off, not to return.

Coming, as has been said, no one knew from whence, and having no apparent voucher, these rumors nevertheless penetrated to counting-rooms and boudoirs, to offices and to bar-rooms, to Major Bergan on his vast estate, and Dick Causton in his narrow cabin, to Godfrey Bergan at his desk, and Carice beside her mother,—everywhere, save to the two persons most directly interested; namely, Bergan Arling on his rapid way homeward, and Astra Lyte in her studio.

Astra was hard at work now. Every hour, her clay model grew in strength or symmetry under her rapid touches. Yet her hope of finding clearness and quietness of mind in the exercise of her beloved art, had been wofully disappointed. The phantoms of doubt and anxiety which had haunted her idleness were not laid by her industry, but only held in abeyance until the inevitable moment of exhaustion, or of suspended inspiration, brought them upon her again, with tenfold power to annoy. Do what she would, she could not shut her eyes to the fact that a change had come over Doctor Remy, nor prevent herself from speculating as to its nature and cause. At first, it was only that miserable and dream-like change of look and manner which forbids one to complain, because it gives no lucid explanation of itself to the intellect, however it may disturb and depress the heart. Its effect was magical, nevertheless, in clearing Astra's vision from that soft, transfiguring haze of the imagination through which love delights to gaze at its object, and in giving her occasional glimpses into the depths and intricacies of Doctor Remy's character. Unconsciously, whenever he came near her, she fell to watching his words, his tones, his looks, even his motions and attitudes, for indications of the hidden, inner man, upon whose qualities and tendencies her happiness so largely depended. The object of this scrutiny was too keen-witted not to be aware of it, and too subtile not to avail himself of it to further his own ends. With apparent carelessness, but consummate art, he allowed more and more of his true character to come to the surface; he showed himself scornful toward religion, faithless toward mankind, indifferent and unsympathizing toward herself, in the hope of quickly transforming her affection into disgust, and forcing her to put a speedy end to their engagement. Doing this whenever he met her, he none the less took good care to make it manifest that he avoided her as far as possible.

Under these circumstances, no wonder that Astra grew pale and thin, that alternately she worked as in a fever, or stood idle as in a dream, that her old, cheery alacrity gave place to sombre restlessness, and her glow of happy spirits to pale depression, that, in short, she speedily became so unlike herself as greatly to alarm Mrs. Lyte, who finally appealed to Doctor Remy. He was only too glad to prescribe immediate change of air and scene.

Mrs. Lyte stood aghast.

"I do not see how I can manage it," said she, slowly. "My income is just sufficient for our present mode of life; there is no surplus to meet the added expense of a health trip."

Doctor Remy mused for a moment. "We will talk over this matter again," said he, at length, looking at his watch; "just now I have an engagement. But trust my assurance that wherever there is a plain necessity for a thing, there is a way to obtain it. Good morning."

Doctor Remy's engagement did not prevent him from repairing straightway to Bergan Hall, whither the rumors already alluded to had preceded him. And so artfully did he work upon Major Bergan's hasty and arbitrary temper as to induce him forthwith to warn Mrs. Lyte of the existence of the forfeited mortgage, and his intention to foreclose at an early day. Be it said, however, in the Major's behalf, that he graciously designed said warning to play somewhat of the part of a blessing in disguise. For, having first shown Mrs. Lyte how completely she was in his power, it was his generous intention to offer her the largest mercy thereafter, even to the immediate relinquishment of every claim against her estate, on the easy condition that she, and her daughter should at once break off all relations and engagements with his nephew, Bergan Arling. Thus, he would save Astra from what he was easily persuaded would turn out to be a most unhappy marriage; at the same time that he would gratify a certain odd itching in his fingers to meddle in Bergan's affairs. The whole business was arranged in less than an hour, and Doctor Remy returned homeward triumphant.

Nor was his elation at all shadowed by any thought of the suffering about to be inflicted at his instigation. Men of his naturally hard and forceful character, intensified by long culture of the intellect at the expense of the sensibilities, are apt to take a terribly straight path in one sense, if a wofully crooked one in another, to whatever end they have in view. The feelings of others, where they cannot be made to subserve their purposes, are regarded as so many obstructions in their way; to be pushed aside, or trampled under-foot, as the case may be.

Possibly, too, they do not credit others with a greater depth of feeling than they are conscious of in themselves. Certainly, Doctor Remy, knowing nothing, by experience, of the tender and sacred associations that cluster around the home of years, was not likely to concern himself about the probable grief of Mrs. Lyte, at leaving hers, except as it might hinder or prevent her departure. For, go she must,—at least, for a time,—since Astra would not be likely to go without her. His present task was so to smooth and clear the way for them, on the one hand, while he furnished the necessary degree of motive power, on the other, that they should be gone ere Major Bergan was aware, or had submitted his terms of compromise to their consideration.

In furtherance of this design, he had tapped lightly at the door of Astra's studio, ere the sound of voices from within told him that she was not alone. Carice Bergan was with her, and both were discussing Astra's statue of clay; unto the creation of which she had lately turned—with such scanty measure of success—for distraction, if not for comfort. With a slight bow and a word of greeting to Doctor Remy, Carice went on with what she was saying, in her own singularly gentle, yet frank and fearless, fashion.

"As I said just now, it is simply wonderful, in its way; but, Astra, I don't like its way at all. The Offero (for I suppose he is not to be called Saint Christopher yet,) is much too near to falling and fainting under his burden,—"

"Perhaps he may literally do so," interrupted Astra, with a sad and bitter smile. "Nay, you need not look so startled, I only mean that I fear his supports are not strong enough; I did not realize what would be the gravitation of such a huge mass of clay. The figure is certainly settling more than I like to see."

"I did not allude to material supports," replied Carice, steadily, "but to that spiritual aid which the Christ-Child would be sure to give to one who bore Him so cheerfully and bravely as Offero did, however heavily He might be pleased to burden him. There should be more of steady hope and courage, as well as of wonder at the supernatural weight of his small burden, instead of that terrible strain and agony of effort, and that dreary, dogged sort of resolve."

"You forget," said Astra, "that he does not yet understand the nature of his burden, nor wherefore it is laid upon him;—neither," she added mournfully to herself, "neither do I."

Carice shook her head. "You have forgotten," she replied, "that he is not bearing the burden for himself, but for love of that far-off, mighty King of whom he has heard; which feeling ought to strengthen his heart and his sinews, and shine out in his face."

Astra turned away her head. As she had unconsciously wrought her own wretched, despondent moods of the past week into the sensitive clay, so Carice's comments upon the result had their sidelong application to herself.

"As for the Christ-Child," continued Carice, raising her eyes from the Bearer to the Burden, "how did you ever get that look of immitigable fate into a child's rounded face? As a piece of work, it is almost miraculous; but, as a conception of the Christ-Child—I beg your pardon, Astra—it is absolutely dreadful."

"It may stand for Offero's idea of the face which he cannot see," suggested Astra, in a low voice.

"Well, perhaps it might, if he were thinking of the face, which I doubt. That is to say, the true Offero would be thinking of the King whom he was trying to serve, rather than the burthen that he was bearing. At any rate, it is just because he cannot see the face that he has such an idea of it. But to us, who can see it, it ought to show itself most benignant, most pitying, most tender and satisfying in every respect. Else, we miss the only really helpful lesson that your Offero is calculated to teach."

Astra looked at her friend half sadly, half-wonderingly. "Let no one trust your gentle, innocent look, Carice," said she; "you are a sharp-sighted critic, and as severe as you are sharp-sighted."

"On the contrary," returned Carice, "I am not criticising at all; I am merely telling you how your statue looks to me, in its unfinished condition. No doubt every stroke of that magical scraper of yours will take away something of the look which I do not like, and put in something of that which I long to see."

"I do not know," responded Astra drearily, shaking her head. "I have not your singular depth and simplicity of vision, in spiritual things."

"Nay," Carice, "you have something more than that,—the power to create; I have only the power to discern. That cherub yonder, for instance;—I am glad that I am able to see that it is lovely beyond expression, but the power to make it so, ah! that is beyond me!"

And Carice moved away to the object of her admiration, and seemed to forget herself and all around her, in contemplating it.

Doctor Remy remained, looking critically at the clay figure.

"You have not yet said what you think of it," said Astra, turning and looking him intently in the face.

"I had nothing to say—from the spiritual side," he answered, coolly. "Miss Bergan exhausted that; besides, it is not in my line. But, if you are pleased to desire my sort of criticism, here it is. That arm is too long, and that clavicle is not sufficiently raised, and this muscle is too flat. For the rest," he added, after a slight pause, "it is a sufficiently ambitious work."

There was a touch of mockery in his tone which did not escape the sensitive ear of his listener. "You think it too ambitious, perhaps," she said, quietly, yet not without a keen glance at his face.

He gave the clay figure another comprehensive look; then he turned to Astra with a gentler expression than she had seen in his eyes for many days past.

"Poor child!" said he, pityingly, "what disadvantages your genius has to labor under, in this little, remote town, where you never see a work of art, nor an artist, from month's end to month's end! Why do you not go—for awhile, at least—where you can find something for your genius to feed upon? It is a law of life that there can be no good growth without proper food."

"You know," replied Astra, very gravely, "that I cannot leave my home and my mother."

"Then," returned Doctor Remy, with equal gravity, "it would be a kindly blast—though it might not seem so, at first—that should blow you all to some point where your genius could find fuller and freer development. If such an one should ever come to you, I hope you will be able to regard it as—what Miss Bergan would doubtless call a providence."

Carice was looking towards them, now; and his last words were spoken with a smiling glance that was apparently meant to draw her into the conversation.

"And what would Doctor Remy call it?" she asked, but without any answering smile.

"Doctor Remy does not concern himself about names, but things," he replied, pleasantly.

"Things answer to names," she rejoined, quickly; "and if Doctor Remy to call a providence a chance, for instance, let him not wonder if it prove a chance—to him."

"I am afraid that I am wofully obtuse," returned the doctor, with the air of a man who asks for a further explanation.

"From the hand of Chance," she answered briefly, "one gets little good, and much harm; from the hand of Providence, only good, however disguised. The difference is in the taking and the using."

She turned towards the window as she finished, with the air of who dismisses the subject.

Astra, meanwhile, stood gazing at the doctor with a most anxious, disturbed expression. She was beginning to understand too well that under many of his seemingly most careless utterances, there lurked a deep significance and design. In the tone of his last speech to her, there had been something which caused her a vague alarm.

"What did he mean?" she asked herself, wearily putting her hand to her brow,—"What did he mean?"

VII.
OVERBURDENED.

Carice Bergan was gifted with instincts singularly quick and delicate. She had not long breathed the same atmosphere with Astra and Doctor Remy before she felt it growing heavy around her with some intensity of emotion which she neither shared nor understood. It might be sympathy, it might be aversion; in either case, its effect was to make her feel confused and constrained, in their presence. At one moment, she seemed to behold them afar off, as it were, in a sphere of their own, whither she had neither the right nor the ability to follow them; at another, she felt herself standing between them, barring their way to a free and satisfactory interchange of thought and feeling; and again, she believed that Doctor Remy alone was responsible for her discomfort, interrupting, by his presence, the cordial flow of sympathy between Astra and herself. At any rate, it would be a relief to escape from so oppressive an atmosphere; accordingly, she took her departure, leaving the lovers—if such they can be called—together.

Certainly, there was nothing lover-like in the manner with which they faced each other, a few moments after the door had closed behind her. That brief interval had been spent by both in preparation for the crisis which the one knew, and the other felt, to be approaching. Astra awaited it with a mixture of eagerness and dread; she was weary of wearing the checkered tissue of suspense and anxiety; she would be glad to know exactly what was in store for her, even though the bitter fruit of such knowledge should be mortification and anguish. Doctor Remy's face was set and hard; over it a sombre emotion, like the gray shadow of a cloud on a rock, now and then passed swiftly, taking nothing from its sternness, but adding much to its gloom. He looked like a man who, at no slight cost to himself, has braced his soul with iron for the performance of some heavy, but necessary, task. Little as he likes it, he will carry it out pitilessly to the end.

With an inauspicious frown on his brow—none the less dark because it must have been assumed—he now opened the conversation by saying, abruptly;—

"Astra, I have heard some very strange rumors, of late."

"Indeed!" she returned, with a note of disappointment, as well as of surprise, in her voice. This was but a roundabout road to explanation, she thought; it would have pleased her better had the doctor chosen a more direct one. She looked round for a chair, and sat down wearily, as if to wait his pleasure with such patience as she could command.

However, Doctor Remy was going as straight to the point—his point, at least—as could be wished. "Perhaps you will be less indifferent to these rumors," he continued, insinuatingly, "when you understand that they concern you, and your good name, much."

A slight flush rose to Astra's face, and her eyes lit; but she kept her seat, and she answered not a word, though Doctor Remy waited a moment, as if he expected her to speak. Seeing her silent, however, he went on, slowly, and with seeming reluctance; yet, to a keen and disinterested observer, it might have appeared that he was trying his best to provoke her.

"I once told you that it was not in my nature to trust," said he. "But I have trusted you, Astra, even to blindness,—else I should not have been indebted to others for the first intimations of things that I ought to have seen for myself. I should have discovered what sort of game you were playing, before the knowledge was forced upon me at the hands of public rumor. I suppose that I ought to take shame to myself for being so easily deceived;—I do,—nevertheless your shame is certainly the greater for having so deceived me."

The flame in Astra's eyes was kindling brightly now, and her breath came quick and short; nevertheless, it was in a tone of the coldest and quietest dignity that she answered;—

"I am not quick at reading riddles—be so good as to tell me, plainly, what you mean."

"As plainly as the subject allows," returned Doctor Remy, in a tone that was in itself a taunt. "I mean that the names of Astra Lyte and Bergan Arling are ringing together from one end of the town to the other, in a way which, it may readily be believed, is not pleasant to my ears. It is confidently asserted—and believed—that a secret engagement exists between them. That is to say; the lady has long admitted the gentleman to a degree of daily intimacy and familiarity, which she could not with propriety have accorded to any other than her promised husband;—some say, not even to him. Mr. Arling has been observed to be in her studio for hours together; he has been seen strolling with her in the outskirts of the town; the twain have been noticed talking earnestly together in that out-of-the-way spot known as the oak amphitheatre. On all these occasions the lady has been observed to be so much the more demonstrative of the two, as to give rise to the suspicion that the gentleman's sudden journey westward has been taken, mainly, for the purpose of freeing himself from entanglements not approved by his better judgment."

As these atrocious sentences fell, one by one, with distinct and cutting emphasis, from Doctor Remy's lips, Astra rose to her feet; the flush on either cheek settled into a vivid crimson spot, in the midst of a deadly pallor; her eyes darted fire; her lips trembled with the rush of an indignation too tumultuous, as yet, for word or action. Noting these signs, Doctor Remy congratulated himself upon the successful progress of his experiment. Already, the lioness was at bay; with a little more provocation, she would think only of vengeance.

He resumed his statement. "At first, of course, I paid no attention to these rumors; my ears and eyes were closed against them by that blind, foolish trust in you, of which I have spoken. By and by, they came thicker and faster, and in a shape to compel my consideration. I began to understand that the possible heir of Bergan Hall possessed an immense advantage over the humble physician;—although it might be well to keep a hold on the latter until the former was secure, and his inheritance certain. By way of two strings to the bow, there might be two secret engagements. I commenced an investigation. I traced the reports which I have mentioned back to their source—"

"You did!" interrupted Astra, with indignation that she could no longer repress. "Instead of sending these foul slanders back down the throats which invented them, you—" She stopped, choked by her bitter sense of indignity and wrong.

"—took the pains to verify them," rejoined Doctor Remy, coolly finishing her sentence. "Every accusation was established in the mouths of several witnesses. Arling himself had spoken frankly, as well as lightly, of his engagement, to more than one person."

"It is false, and you know it!" exclaimed Astra. "Mr. Arling is incapable of such baseness."

"Never mind defending him," said Doctor Remy, with a curl of the lip. "What have you to say for yourself?"

Astra walked to the door, and flung it wide open. "I have that to say," she replied, turning upon him with a look of ineffable scorn, and a queenly gesture of dismissal. "Go!"

Doctor Remy stood for a moment irresolute, with an unwonted flush of shame rising to his brow. The climax had not only come sooner than he anticipated, but in an unexpectedly embarrassing shape,—a shape that gave him a sudden, startling perception of the vileness of the task which he had set himself to do. Naturally, he was inclined to be angry with Astra for the action to which he owed this moment of self-recognition; yet, on the whole, it was the most bewitching thing that he had ever seen her do. Never had she attracted him so strongly as while she thus stood pointing him to the door. Her free and noble attitude, the wonderful vividness of her expression, the maidenly dignity of her tacit refusal to descend for one moment to his level, and discuss with him the points that he had raised, thrilled him with involuntary admiration. It irked him to think that he must needs give her up. Was there really no way to keep her, and at the same time win Bergan Hall? He sent his thoughts back over the road which they had trodden so often, during the past fortnight, and decided once more that the risk was too great. He must persevere in the course upon which he had entered. Nor did a little present mortification matter, in comparison with hopeful progress. Astra was only helping him forward in the way that he wished to go. How easily the affections and passions of others became the puppets of his will!

Nevertheless, it was not without a softened, almost regretful, tone that he finally said,—"If I go, Astra, you understand that our engagement is at an end."

"Our engagement!" repeated Astra, looking at him with a kind of scornful amaze. "How dare you insult me thus? I was never engaged to you,—never!"

Doctor Remy stood aghast. For one moment, he believed that her senses were taking leave of her.

"Never!" repeated Astra, with proud emphasis. "I was engaged," she went on, after a moment, in an altered and tremulous tone, "to a MAN,—a calm, wise, noble man,—not a monster, nor a piece of mechanism. I was engaged to an earnest seeker after truth, a courageous grappler with problems that other men shunned, an honest speaker of his own thoughts and moulder of his own opinions,—a man who, though he might be temporarily led astray by the very excess of his virtues of candor, boldness, and integrity, would be sure to come right in the end. He is dead,—or he never lived, except in my imagination,—requiescat in pace. But to you,—a body without a soul, an intellect without a heart, a will without a faith, a kind of human beast of prey, intent on nothing but the gratification of his own selfish ends,—to you I was never pledged. I would as soon have bound myself to a corpse, or a calculating machine."

"This is plain talk, Astra," said Dr. Remy, growing pale with anger and mortification. "If you were not a woman, it would be easier to answer it."

"It is not only plain talk, but plain sight," replied Astra. "The scales have fallen from my eyes; at last, I see you as you are. The most that can be said for you, as well as in excuse for my late infatuation (for I would not seem altogether despicable in my own eyes), is that great and rich capabilities have been miserably perverted, in your person. A grand soul has somehow been strangled within you. Some hidden canker—beginning I know not when nor where, but to which your surgeon's knowledge ought to have impelled you long ago to put the surgeon's knife—has slowly eaten out everything that was sound and good, in your moral system, and left nothing but rottenness. And it is now too late for remedy. If it were not,—if there were any hope that I could help to save you, by clinging to you,—I think I have the strength and courage to do it. As it is, I should only corrupt myself. Indeed, I fear it will be long ere I get rid of the virus of doubt and captiousness, which, I find, you have already introduced into my mind; and of which that figure" (she pointed to the statue of clay) "is the legitimate outcome. You have given a bias to my mode of thought, which has already shaken my faith to its foundations,—and might, in time (but for the scathing commentary of your life upon your opinions), have destroyed it. Leave me now. We have done with each other."

Perhaps Dr. Remy's good angel, absent from his side for many years, hovered, at that moment, above his head, with a wistful—almost a hopeful—face. For, at last, the strong man was visibly affected. Some chance word of Astra's had found a joint in his iron armor, and penetrated to the living flesh. His lip trembled,—it may have been with an unshaped prayer to Astra to make that effort to save him, of which she had declared herself capable,—it may have been with a sudden perception of the barrenness of his life, and the valuelessness of its ends, disposing him, for a moment, to try whether any richer realities were to be reaped from an unselfish human affection and an unquestioning heavenly faith.

But not thus easily and quickly was the whole bent of a life to be changed, not thus the holding of the cords of evil to be loosed! Suddenly, between him and Astra, rose a vision of Bergan Hall, with its immense revenues, its ancient and aristocratic prestige, the vast power and influence that it would impart to capable hands, the abundant means and leisure that it would allow for scientific pursuits. For, if Doctor Remy lived for anything besides himself, it was for science. He had managed to persuade himself that the interests of the two were identical. He had embodied his selfishness, as it were, in a theory; for the development, confirmation, and proclamation, of which, he believed that he desired leisure and wealth, far more than for himself; and through which he meant to be a benefactor to his race, as well as to wreathe his own name with undying laurels. On the one hand, then, was this wide prospect of wealth, freedom, usefulness, and fame; on the other, Astra, and a life of restrictions and limitations, narrowed down to the daily necessity of daily bread. Quickly he made his choice. The angel spread his white wings, and flew upward,—never to return!

Doctor Remy turned to Astra, and held out his hand. "Let us part friends," said he.

"Not so," replied Astra; "let us part—as we are to remain—strangers. No need to mock the sacred past with the commonplace civilities of ordinary intercourse. The relation that once existed between us is simply dead, not changed into something else."

"As you will," returned Doctor Remy, after a pause. "At least let me wish you a short mourning, and a bright thereafter. Adieu."

He went out as he spoke, closing the door behind him. In his excitement, he used more force than he was aware of, and it fell to with a clangor that reverberated loudly through the large, uncarpeted room, and jarred painfully upon Astra's nerves. She shivered, and her eyes fell upon the clay figure. Apparently, it was trembling with sympathetic emotion; it even bent toward her, as if suddenly endued with life; for one moment, the old fable of Pygmalion seemed coming true, in her modern experience. Then, the limbs gave way, the trunk fell forward, down went Bearer and Child together, the faces of each giving her one last, distorted look of malign meaning, ere they crushed into fragments on the platform.

"It is not the only ruin that he has left behind him," murmured Astra to herself, with a sad and bitter smile.

In another moment, she too began to sink. The long fever of suspense was ended; the excitement that had carried her through the late trying interview was over; the inevitable time of reaction and depression had come. The thought of the terrible blank left in her heart and life, of the woful loss of affection, faith, and hope, that she had suffered, of the miserable waste in her past, and of the chaotic emptiness in her future, came over her with awful force. Slowly she sank, as if an invisible weight were pressing her to the earth. Settling upon her knees, she leaned her head on the ruins of her statue, and shook with sobs of tearless agony.

She knew not how long a time went by thus; it seemed to her to stretch its slow length over an age. But it is a merciful provision that acute sorrow soon exhausts itself. The mind, like the body, has beneficent limits to its power of endurance. In due time, Astra exchanged the anguish of wretchedness for its torpor. Her sobs died away, the convulsive trembling of her frame ceased, she sat up and looked around her with a face of quiet misery. Perhaps it was a little hard, too. Her pride was coming to her aid in bearing the burden for which, she told herself, she was largely accountable, and must therefore struggle along with as best she could. It was miraculously heavy, it would tax all her strength and resolution, she saw that plainly enough; but she forgot to look into it for any sign of divine origin, or promise of divine help. The baleful effect of Doctor Remy's influence still followed her, making God an overhanging Law, instead of a surrounding Love. She could not even read aright the lesson of her own fragments of clay!

She was struggling up to her feet, when Mrs. Lyte hurriedly entered, holding an open letter in her hand, and looking both frightened and bewildered. Perhaps nothing could have been better for either mother or daughter, at that moment, than to see the other's troubled face. In both countenances, there was a quick change of expression,—something of sorrow and anxiety gone, something of loving sympathy in its place,—as each uttered the eager inquiry;—

"What is the matter?"

Fortunately, Astra was not obliged to answer. Mrs. Lyte instantly discovered the fallen statue, and connected it, though not without a degree of surprise, with her daughter's woe-begone face. For Astra had been wont to bear disaster with more fortitude! Still, this was the largest work that she had yet undertaken; besides, she had seemed so far from well, of late! Mrs. Lyte's heart thrilled with motherly sympathy.

"I am so sorry!" she said, pityingly. "Is it an utter ruin?"

"Utter," replied Astra, with dreary emphasis. "But never mind about it now. What has happened to distress you?"

Mrs. Lyte put the letter into Astra's hand. "Read that," said she, "and see what you can make of it."

It was not without difficulty, under the pressure of her own misery, that Astra made herself comprehend the purport of the document before her, through the disguise of the legal terms wherein it had duly been couched by the lawyer employed by Major Bergan. With enlightenment, however, strange to say, came a quick sense of relief. Here, at least, was a necessity for action; and the trouble which is attended by that, is never so great as one which calls only for patient endurance. Besides, how glad would she be to leave Berganton at this juncture, to escape at once from its curiosity, its sympathy, or its censure, to be spared the pain of meeting Doctor Remy's altered face, and the irksomeness of going on with the old life, in the old scene, after it had lost all the old color and substance. Her face brightened so much, as she looked up from the letter, that Mrs. Lyte gave a sigh of relief.

"Then it is not so bad as I thought," said she.

Astra's heart smote her for her selfishness. She reflected what grief it would cause her mother to be thrust out from the home endeared to her by so many and sacred associations. Her face fell, and her heart sank again. Covering her eyes with her hands, she burst into a sudden passion of tears,—a softer agony than had shaken her before, but still so plainly an agony disproportionate to the occasion, that Mrs. Lyte's eyes suddenly opened to the perception of some hitherto unsuspected sorrow. She put her arms round her daughter, and drew her head on to her bosom, as in the days of her childhood.

"What is it, darling?" she asked.

The soft tone, the affectionate touch, the motherly sympathy, were irresistible. Before she well knew what she was doing, Astra was pouring forth all her sad story.

"Oh, mother!" she moaned, as she finished, "if we could only go away,—just for a time, at least, until I have recovered myself a little! If we could only go at once, too, without explanations or farewells!"

"We will, my child," returned Mrs. Lyte, soothingly,—"that is, if I can manage it."

Then followed a long consultation.

VIII.
A BUSINESS LETTER.

From Astra's studio, Doctor Remy went to his office, and devoted an hour to the task of writing a letter; which seemed to make an unusual demand upon his skill, either of composition or penmanship. Three different sheets were defaced and destroyed, ere the work was accomplished to his mind. The epistle was addressed to Mrs. Lyte, enclosing what purported to be the amount of an old, outlawed debt to her deceased husband; of which the debtor, having recently met with a stroke of good fortune, was glad to relieve his conscience. In good time, after making a short dÉtour, it arrived at its destination; and played an important part in events, by furnishing Mrs. Lyte with an opportune sum of ready money.

Five days afterward, as Major Bergan was about to sally forth for his customary morning visit to his beloved rice fields, a letter was put into his hands. It ran as follows:

"DEAR MAJOR BERGAN: I duly received your notice of foreclosure, and I thank you for the measure of forbearance that you have hitherto exercised toward me. As you are doubtless aware, I have no means of paying off the mortgage, except by the sale of the property which it covers. As I am about to leave Berganton, for a time, on account of my daughter's health, I hereby surrender my house and grounds into your hands, to be sold, or otherwise disposed of, as you may deem best for our mutual interests. If they sell for more than the amount of the mortgage (as I hope they will), I know I may safely trust to you, as a man of honor, and a good friend of my late husband, to hold the balance subject to my order. You will find the house in charge of my old and faithful servant, Cato; whom I also venture to commend to your kind care, until I shall be able to send for him. I cannot find it in my heart to sell him; besides, he is too old to be of much value, though still quite able to earn his bread, on your plantation.

"This is not a man's way of doing business, I am well aware; it is only a woman's way of shirking responsibility, in matters that she does not understand. I know that my interests are safer in your hands than in my own. As soon as I am comfortably settled anywhere, I will let you know my address. Till then, believe me,

"Very truly yours,
"CATHERINE LYTE."

It will be seen that this epistle was a masterpiece of diplomacy, in its way. Though it proved Mrs. Lyte to be a most unbusiness-like woman, it none the less evinced her thorough knowledge of the one-sided and contradictory character of the man with whom she had to deal. Grasping and impracticable as Major Bergan would be sure to be, with a surly and obstinate debtor who met him squarely on his own ground, she believed that he would not fail to show himself scrupulously just, and even generous, to the woman who, without a word of reproach or remonstrance, quietly resigned herself and her affairs into his hands, to be dealt with according to his good pleasure.

In this conclusion, she was justified by the event. A more astonished and disgusted man than Major Bergan, after he had mastered the contents of her letter, it would be hard to find. For once, even his brandy bottle was empty of comfort. He could only partially relieve his mind, while his horse was being saddled, by pouring forth volley upon volley of curses; distributed, impartially, at first, among Mrs. Lyte, Doctor Remy, his nephew, his frightened servants, and himself. Later, his wrath began to concentrate itself on Doctor Remy. That personage had undoubtedly influenced him to the commission of the act which he now stigmatized, in his most emphatic manner, as unworthy a Bergan and a gentleman. In return, he threatened to break every bone in the doctor's body, and grimly consigned the fragments to a place of deposit always much in favor with men of his habits. Finally, he mounted his horse, and trotted rapidly toward Berganton.

His first visit was, of course, to Doctor Remy. With the most imperturbable good humor, that gentleman listened to the flow of his oaths and objurgations, until it had partially exhausted itself by its own fury. He then assured the Major that his surprise and regret at Mrs. Lyte's departure were fully equalled by his own. The thing had been managed so quietly and adroitly, that he had not suspected it, until his attention had been attracted by the deserted look of the house. At the same time, he must acknowledge that it was only a short time since he had advised Mrs. Lyte to try a change of air, both for herself and her daughter; and doubtless that had had its share in influencing her action. Besides, it was on the whole the best thing that could do to take Miss Astra out of the way, until the present cloud of gossip had blown over. Finally, he threw out a suggestion that the twain had possibly gone to join Mr. Arling.

Hereupon, Major Bergan's wrath broke out afresh. It was not in human nature—certainly not in that particular species of human nature represented by the Major—to hear with equanimity that the very measure which he had taken to prevent what he considered to be an unsuitable marriage, had possibly availed to hasten it forward. The walls of the doctor's office trembled with the oral thunderbolts launched at the offenders. In due time, however, these also subsided into the low growl of the exhausted tempest; dying away, at last, in muttered imprecations upon that curious turn of events—the grim humor of which the Major was now quite capable of appreciating—which had made him the trustee of Mrs. Lyte's affairs, and the guardian of her interests.

To the Major's credit be it spoken, that he was incapable of betraying the trust thus committed to him. Quitting Doctor Remy's office, he went in search of old Cato, put the premises in his charge during the absence of his mistress, promised him an occasional visit of inspection (and a sound thrashing if all was not found in complete order), made due provision for his maintenance, and then took himself grumblingly home, to drown the remnant of his chagrin in the Lethean glass that had already swallowed up so many of his better thoughts, impulses, and characteristics.

Of course, Mrs. Lyte's departure—or flight, as it was not infrequently termed—made the nine days' wonder of Berganton. Some few gentle, charitable souls there were, no doubt, who, judging their neighbor by themselves, saw no harm either in the fact or the manner of her going. She was ill; so was her daughter; they had neither time nor heart for leavetakings. But there were others, wise in the crooked ways of the human heart through much practice therein, who scrupled not to find motives and objects for the course of the pale-faced widow and her gifted daughter, with which it is not necessary to stain this page. There was the more room for this, inasmuch as Major Bergan, partly out of consideration for Mrs. Lyte, and partly out of shame on his own account, had taken care that the existence of the mortgage should not transpire. Yet Mrs. Lyte had depended upon the ultimate disclosure of this fact, to furnish that explanation of her departure which she had shunned to give herself, and to turn the current of popular sympathy in her favor. In yielding to Astra's morbid desire not only to leave the scene of her untoward love behind, but to do it in such swift and silent wise that neither curiosity, nor sympathy, nor malevolence, could immediately follow them, to inflict their various torture upon her sore heart, Mrs. Lyte had looked confidently forward to this forthcoming justification of her step. Her old friends, she thought, would be sure to understand the feeling that led her to flee from the sight of the sale of her lifelong home (it might be under the auctioneer's hammer), and to shut off all means of communication between herself and the painful transaction, until time had given her strength to bear it.

Next to Major Bergan, the person who felt most aggrieved at the fact and manner of her departure was Carice. Astra, to be sure, had not failed to send her friend a brief note of farewell; but it was couched in such vague terms, owing to the confusion and distress of mind in which it had been written, as to afford little satisfaction to the reader. She could only gather from it that, in one way or another, Astra's happiness was very seriously compromised; so much so as to make a change desirable, though it were only a change of pain. And, in Carice's present circumstances, this was either too much or too little. The rumors which had filled Berganton had found their way to Oakstead also; and, for the first time in their lives, parents and daughter were divided in sentiment, and alien in sympathy. Mr. and Mrs. Bergan—terrified that their idolized child should have given her heart to a man persistently held up to view as a thin mask of outward morality over an inward rottenness of intemperance, indebtedness, and unscrupulous trifling with affection—could think of no better way of correcting the mischief than by continually repeating in her unwilling ears the various dark rumors in circulation, together with such facts and theories as tended to confirm them. Carice, on her part, turned from them all with the instinctive disgust of a pure mind, and the generous faith and confidence of a true affection. And she was right. Trust, as long as it is in anywise possible, is the heart's deepest wisdom, as well as its surest instinct.

Nevertheless, it was hard to find her parents arrayed against her, with all the rest of the world. Duty, decorum, forbade her to set up her own opinion in opposition to theirs; often she had but to listen in silence to statements and inferences which she could neither admit nor disprove. She would have been glad, therefore, had Astra's note furnished one scrap of evidence in support of her own convictions; on the contrary, its testimony went quite the other way. She could only neutralize its effect upon herself by supposing that Astra had given her affections to Bergan unsought, and was now suffering from a disappointment none the less bitter that she had brought it upon herself. But Carice was too delicate and generous to breathe this suspicion aloud; at the same time she knew that it would have no weight with minds so deeply prejudiced as those of her parents.

Carice's worst trial was, however, her growing wonder why nothing was heard from Bergan. His last words to her had been a promise to write immediately, both to her father and herself,—to the former by way of frankly avowing his love, and asking for permission to address his daughter; to the latter, as a necessary sequence to that brief interview by the singing river, the thought of which was Carice's one subject of delightful contemplation. But no letter came, not so much as a word of regret or excuse for necessary delay. As time dragged its slow length along, a touching look of wistfulness, mingled with a sorrowful patience, came into the face that had lately been so serenely happy,—a look over which Mr. and Mrs. Bergan scarcely knew whether most to lament or to rejoice, it was grievous to behold it there; and yet, if Bergan would only keep silent, she must eventually give him up!

Alas for Carice! there was no doubt whatever that Bergan would keep silent—or seem to do so. Her parents' minds would have been set at rest on that point, if they could invisibly have followed Doctor Remy into the Berganton Post Office some weeks previous, and listened to his conversation with the pale, slight, weak-looking young man in charge. One month before, he had so obstinately and successfully fought death at the bedside of this young man's newly wedded wife, as to call forth an unusual amount of gratitude. To this fact he now alluded.

"Well, Jekyll," said he, "I have come to make trial of that eternal gratitude which you swore to me, not long ago."

"I am glad of it, sir," responded Jekyll, warmly. "What can I do for you?"

"The question is rather, what will you do for me?" returned the doctor, with marked emphasis.

"Anything, anything, that is not wrong," replied Jekyll.

"Right and wrong are relative terms," replied Doctor Remy, quietly. "If you had understood the nature of the drugs which I gave your wife the other night, you would have said that I was trying to poison her;—yet, you see, I saved her life. It is the motive which determines the character of the act."

"Y-e-s, sir," rejoined Jekyll, considerably bewildered; but, nevertheless, feeling quite certain that so learned a man as Doctor Remy must understand these matters a great deal better than he did.

"And so," continued the doctor, suavely, "what I am about to ask you to do, is not really wrong, though it may seem so at first sight. It is only a quiet method of averting a great deal of trouble and scandal from a very worthy family. Should you recognize this handwriting, if you were to see it again?"

Jekyll looked at the paper held towards him, and answered,—"Yes, certainly; it is—"

"Never mind whose it is," interrupted the doctor; "it is just as well not to know anything about that. Well, Jekyll, what I want you to do, is simply to keep a sharp lookout for any letters, in that handwriting, which may come to Godfrey Bergan, or his daughter, or his wife, and hand them over to me."

Jekyll opened his eyes wide with surprise and terror. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "it's a penitentiary business!"

"Not at all," replied Doctor Remy, calmly. "In the first place, no one will know anything about it but you and me. In the second, you are not doing this thing for your own advantage, but just to help me to save certain excellent people from sore sorrow and trouble."

Jekyll did not answer, but he still looked dismayed and unconvinced.

"If it will ease your scruples any," pursued the doctor, after a pause, "I don't mind telling you, in confidence, that Mr. Godfrey Bergan very much desires the suppression of these letters, though he does not want to appear in the matter himself. And you must admit that he has a right to control the correspondence of his own household.

"But why does he want his own letters stopped?" asked Jekyll.

"For the best of reasons,—he does not want to receive them. He prefers to be able to say that he hears nothing, and knows nothing. Therefore, you will readily understand that nothing is to be said, or even hinted, to him. He puts the matter in my hands, and you are responsible to me only."

It is unnecessary to trace the conversation to the end. Its results are already patent to the reader. Doctor Remy was specious and plausible; Jekyll was weak and grateful; the yielding of the pliant nature of the former to the stronger one of the latter, could only be a question of time.

IX.
SMOOTHER THAN BUTTER.

No sooner was the way made clear, by the removal of Bergan and Astra, than Doctor Remy began to visit assiduously at Oakstead; taking good care, at first, that the object of these visits should seem to be anything but Carice. He came to discuss local politics or town hygiene with Mr. Bergan; or he sought to interest his wife in some newly discovered object of charity. By and by, it was a mere matter of pleasant habit, apparently, that he stopped at Oakstead four or five times a week, as he came and went on his professional rounds.

If Carice was absent, on these occasions, he never asked for her; if she was present, he rarely addressed his conversation to her; nevertheless he weighed every word, and shaped every sentence, with artful reference to its effect upon her ear and mind. Every resource of his tact and skill was exhausted, in his effort to attract and keep the attention of the fair, silent girl, sitting in the shadow, with the drooping head, and the patient, preoccupied face.

It was long ere he could congratulate himself upon any measure of success. The little that Carice had hitherto known of Doctor Remy, she had intuitively disliked. She now acknowledged that she had scarcely done him justice in her thought; or he had changed since then. Occasionally, in his mention of his poorer patients, there peeped out traits of thoughtful kindness and generosity,—or something that looked like them,—for which she would never have given him credit. She was glad to know that he was better than he had seemed. But here the matter ended, so far as she was concerned. She did not care for him, personally; she shunned his visits, as much as possible; when compelled to be present, she oftenest sat a little apart, thinking her own thoughts over her embroidery or her drawing, and letting the brightest flow of his conversation pass by her unheeded.

But so consummate a social strategist as Doctor Remy was not thus to be baffled. One day, he took fitting occasion to bring Bergan's name into his talk,—speaking of him quietly and unconcernedly, as it was natural to speak of a man with whom he had been intimately associated for some months,—and speaking of him kindly, too, as of one for whom he entertained a real regard. Carice turned away her head, and tears sprang to her eyes. It was so long since she had heard Bergan's name spoken in a friendly tone, and unaccompanied by a disparaging commentary! When she ventured to look at Doctor Remy, it was with a soft, grateful expression, which he did not fail to detect and understand. There was a certain wistfulness, also, as of a flower which, having been refreshed by one little drop of unexpected dew, opens its petals for more. This, too, the doctor understood, and was too wise to disappoint.

"By the way," said he, turning to Mr. Bergan, "perhaps I can give you the latest news from your sister,—I had a letter from Mr. Arling this morning."

Carice's heart gave a great leap, of mingled pleasure and pain. At last she was to hear something;—yet, certainly, it ought not to be in this roundabout way.

"It will be the earliest news as well as the latest," responded Mr. Bergan, drily; "I have heard nothing, as yet."

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Doctor Remy, with well-feigned surprise; "I had no idea of that. Still, severe sickness is an engrossing guest in a house, as I often have occasion to notice; outside friends are apt to be forgotten, or rather ignored, except as they can be made useful. Probably, Arling would not have written to me, if he had not wanted something supplementary to certain medical suggestions with which I furnished him, when he left, and which seem to have been of use. Anyway, I am glad to be able to tell you that the fever has passed the crisis."

"I am glad to hear it," returned Mr. Bergan, heartily enough, yet with an evident dislike of the subject. Carice being present, he could not forget that talking of Mrs. Arling was the next thing to talking of her son.

Mrs. Bergan, however, was more alive to the demands both of kinship and of courtesy. "Is our sister out of danger, then?" she asked with interest.

"Except as there is always danger of a relapse," answered Doctor Remy. "Still, judging from Mr. Arling's letter, I should say that there is good reason to hope that his mother's convalescence will be sure and swift. In that case, we may look for him back among us, ere long."

Mr. Bergan frowned; Carice turned away her face, that her gladness might not be seen shining in her eyes. This, then, was the reason why Bergan had not written to Oakstead. At first, there had been engrossing anxiety and fear; then, finding that he should soon be able to come and plead his cause in person, he had not thought it wise to commit it to the colder advocacy of a letter. There were many advantages in a face-to-face discussion; especially where, as he doubtless suspected, prejudice was to be met and overcome! And he could not honorably write to her, until he had written to her father.

Nor would she admit, even to herself, that this explanation did not quite cover every point, that it hardly excused Bergan for subjecting her to so long a strain of expectation and suspense. She was so glad, poor child! to discern even the outline of a reasonable solution of the mystery that had so oppressed her! And, for the rest, was he not coming soon, to make everything smooth and plain? Might he not be here in a few days,—a week,—a fortnight,—at farthest? Or, suppose it should be a month:—well, no need for her heart to sink thus,—could a month ever seem long again, in comparison with that which was just past?

Perhaps it may be well to offset the foregoing scene with one or two veritable paragraphs from Bergan's letter:—

"The crisis of the fever, Doctor Trubie thinks, was passed a week ago. But my mother does not rally, in the least. We just succeed in keeping her alive—if anything so like death can be called life—by the means which you suggested. If she does live, we shall owe it, under God, to you. The great obstacle to her recovery, now, is the ulceration mentioned above; Doctor Trubie warns us that it may terminate fatally, any day. If you have any further suggestions to offer, I need not say how gratefully we shall accept them.

"Can you tell me if they are all well at Oakstead? I wrote some time ago, but have heard nothing."

The second of these paragraphs, Doctor Remy had dismissed with a single reading and a sinister smile; but, over the first, he had knitted his brows into their sternest, deepest lines of thought,—the look of a man hurling all his reserved force into the fight, and determined to wring victory from defeat.

"She must not die!" he muttered to himself,—"that would set Arling free too soon. The longer and slower her convalescence, the better,—but she must not die!"

And the return mail carried back to Mrs. Arling's bedside—where the battle seemed wellnigh over—the strong reinforcements of Doctor Remy's science and experience, to carry on the fight.

From all of which, it will easily be seen that Carice's days of suspense were not yet over. Doctor Remy had artfully lifted her a little way into the sunshine, first, as a means of commending himself to her favor, and next, in order that her lapse into the shadow should be the more complete.

In the first of these objects, he was measurably successful. Carice no longer shunned him. He was certain to see her, soon or late, whenever he came to Oakstead. With the current of feeling setting so strongly against Bergan, in every other quarter, she could not afford to lose any kindly mention of him, in this one. Though she still sat a little apart, it was plain that she lost no word of his conversation. Her face, as she listened, had the same look of patient interest, with which a solitary prisoner might watch for the flight of a bird across the small square of blue sky which is his only prospect.

Her parents noticed the change, and rejoiced in it, inasmuch as they did not suspect its cause. For it must be confessed that Doctor Remy acquitted himself marvellously well of the delicate task of mentioning Bergan in terms at once pleasant to the daughter's ears, and void of offence to those of the parents. He understood perfectly the art of constructing two-sided sentences, which gave Carice the impression that he was the young man's stanch, if undemonstrative, friend, at the same time that Mr. and Mrs. Bergan found in them abundant confirmation of their prejudices.

Of course, neither party discussed these impressions with the other. Carice, feeling the uselessness of the task, had long since ceased to defend Bergan; her parents, believing that his silence was operating more powerfully against him than any arguments of theirs could do, had ceased to attack him. Nor will it seem any paradox to say that, while they were unspeakably glad of his omission to write, it was, on the whole, his worst fault, in their eyes. They resented the slight to their daughter none the less, because it hastened the end which they ardently desired. To have sought her love was bad enough, but to have flung it aside so quickly, as a thing of no value, was a thousand times worse. Godfrey Bergan gnashed his teeth, whenever he thought of it, with an indignation for which he had no words.

One day, Doctor Remy, to his great gratification, found Carice alone in the library; and at once seized upon the opportunity to speak of Bergan, in kinder and fuller strain than he had ever yet ventured to do,—though not in a way to suggest that he was aware of any special bond between his listener and his subject. He described his first meeting with the young man, and its immediate results; he sketched various pleasant scenes and incidents that had come to pass under Mrs. Lyte's kindly roof; and he dwelt with hearty admiration upon Bergan's oratorical and intellectual gifts. Carice listened like one entranced. Her joy was too perfect to admit of any alloy, even when Doctor Remy went on to speak of Bergan as a young man whose character was still in process of formation, whose talents were, as yet, far in advance of his judgment, and whose kindly impulses often led him into error. Yet these few words, of all that had ever been spoken disparagingly of Bergan, in her hearing, were the only ones that had yet effected any lodgment in her mind. So artfully thrown in, among much that was friendly and encomiastic, as to be scarcely noticed at the moment, the time came when these words shot up, in Carice's memory, into manifold thorn-branches of suggestion.

At present, however, she was inexpressibly cheered by this hour's talk on the subject that lay nearest her heart. She greeted her parents, upon their return, with a face so much more like that which had once been the sunshine of their hearts, that they exchanged looks of surprise and delight. They were looks of questioning too. Was this pleasant change owing to Doctor Remy's influence? Was he beginning to think of Carice, in lover's wise? Was she beginning to turn unconsciously from the love that had failed her, to the calm and mature affection that was certain to stand by her? Then, by all means, let the matter so arrange itself. Though Doctor Remy was not quite the man whom they would have chosen for Carice, he was infinitely better and safer than their nephew. His reputation was fair, his talents undeniable; he was certain to win eminence in his profession; and possibly, fame beyond it, as a man of science. If he had seemed a little cold and hard, hitherto, love would soften him. Who could be otherwise than soft to Carice!

And so, Doctor Remy came and went, and unlimited opportunities were given him to talk to Carice,—of Bergan, or of anything else,—of which he failed not to make artful use, with reference both to the present and the future. In due time, she came to look upon him somewhat as Astra had once done,—as a man more wise and calm than tender, more just than genial, but a man to be greatly esteemed and trusted, nevertheless; and, certainly a true, if not an enthusiastic, friend of Bergan. Yet she never thought of him, strange to say, as a friend to herself. Her instincts were far too fine and clear for that. If ever, for a moment, she felt inclined to turn to him for sympathy, she immediately shrank back from him, as powerless to give her what she sought. It was precisely the same feeling—though she did not recognize it as such—with which she would have turned away from an image in a mirror, which, during a single illusive moment of twilight, she had mistaken for a living form.

And the days came and went, and another month drew nigh its close.

X.
A WICKED DEVICE.

Carice was strolling languidly along the bank of the creek, the heaviness of her heart easily discoverable in her absent face and languid step. Her eyes rested on the same stream, her ears were filled with the murmur of the same leaves, which had witnessed her parting with Bergan, nearly two months before, yet neither made any distinct impression on her mind; she saw and heard but the flow and murmur of her own troubled thoughts. She had noticed a singular change of tone in Doctor Remy, of late, with respect to Bergan. He no longer made the young man the subject of free and frank conversation; if obliged to mention him at all, he did it with a certain reserve and caution, an air of picking and choosing his phrases, which at first puzzled, and was now beginning to alarm, the poor girl, already worn and nervous with the long sickness of hope deferred.

Her fears, however, took a different direction from what Doctor Remy had anticipated. He had intended his alteration of manner to suggest the grave, stern reserve of a man, who, though he had himself lost confidence in his friend, is still honorably reluctant to injure him in the estimation of another. But from any such suggestion, Carice's mind was shielded by her loyal faith in her lover, as by an armor of proof. Dr. Remy's change of manner only served to strengthen her growing conviction that Bergan's failure either to write, or to appear in person, could be caused by nothing short of some great and unexpected calamity. As her eyes followed a swift cloud-shadow from object to object of the summer landscape, so her mind followed the dark shade of her fears from point to point of possible ill. Perhaps the fever, quitting his mother, had fastened upon Bergan himself; perhaps he was ill, suffering, unconscious, dying, even, or—the thought shook her like a sudden blow—dead! Gasping for breath, she leaned against a friendly tree, and closed her eyes, as if to shut out the agonizing vision, which, nevertheless, rose but the more vividly before her. Quickly opening them again, she saw Doctor Remy coming toward her from the direction of the cottage. He had espied her from the piazza, as he was taking his leave, after having spent a half-hour with her mother.

She was glad to see him. He could set her free from the intolerable chafing of suspense, though it were but to hand her over to the chill bondage of despair. He would doubtless have done so, ere this, but for some request or warning of her parents to the contrary. How far this might have let him into the secret of her relations with Bergan, she know not,—neither did she care much, just now; how far it might avail to close his lips was a much more important consideration,—still she believed that she could gather something from the expression of his face, even though he should think it right to evade her questions.

She seized upon the first opportunity, therefore, to look him, steadily in the face, though her own flushed a little, as she did so; and to ask, quietly,—"Have you heard anything from my cousin Bergan lately?"

Doctor Remy's face underwent a quick change of expression, none the less effective that it was obedient to his will. "Yes," replied he, sombrely, "I had a letter from him two or three days ago."

Carice could scarcely restrain a cry of joy; it was such a relief to know that Bergan was alive, and able to write. But her immediate perception that something was kept back, saved her self-possession.

"And my aunt," she went on, as soon as she could, command her voice, "is she quite recovered?"

"Yes,—that is, I inferred so."

Carice looked a little surprised. It would seem that Bergan's letter had made no mention of his mother. "Has the fever attacked any of the others?" she continued.

"None."

"And Bergan is quite well himself?"

"He says nothing to the contrary."

Satisfactory as were these replies, in substance, there was a degree of dryness and brevity about them which was far otherwise. Unwilling to quit the subject thus, Carice ventured another query:—"Then, I suppose he may be expected back very soon?"

Doctor Remy looked grave even to sternness. "No, I think not."

Carice's heart sank. "Did he not say when he should come?" asked she, anxiously.

Doctor Remy seemed to become suddenly aware that she really had something more than a conventional interest in the subject, and to be willing to gratify it, to the best of his ability.

"I forget exactly what he said about it," replied he, "but I think I have his letter in my pocket-book." He drew forth a closely written sheet, and glanced rapidly over it, but seemed not to find what he sought. Applying again to the envelope, he produced a separate bit of paper. "Ah, yes, here we have it, in this slip of a postscript," he went on,—"'In order to'—um—um—'I think I shall postpone my return until after Christmas.' That is all."

Carice stood as in a dream. Bergan well! Bergan silent only to her! Bergan not coming back for three months yet!—her mind utterly refused to receive three such incongruous ideas. There must be some miserable mistake,—but where? She put her hand to her brow with a piteous gesture of perplexity and bewilderment.

Doctor Remy, meanwhile, failed not to observe the effect of his words, though apparently thinking only of refolding and rearranging his papers. It was precisely what he had expected; and, feeling quite secure, for the moment, from Carice's observation, he took occasion, as he returned Bergan's letter to his pocket-book, to let the postscript drop to the ground, taking care to conceal it with his foot during the remainder of his stay, which he wisely made short.

"Can I do anything more for you?" he asked, graciously, as he put up his pocket-book.

Carice gave a slight start, and turned toward him, with an inquiring look. She had heard, but she had not understood. He repeated his question.

"No, thank you," replied Carice, letting her eyes go back to the far, dark line of the pine forest.

"Then I must leave you. I only stopped to say good morning and good-bye. I had already spent my few moments of leisure with Mrs. Bergan."

He raised his hat courteously, and was gone.

Carice remained, trying her best to reduce the confusion of her mind to order, and, especially, to discover some clue to the mystery of Bergan's doings and intentions. She gave up the difficult task, at last, with a weary little shake of the head, and a smile of pity at her own helplessness.

"It is too deep for me," she said to herself, "but Bergan will be sure to explain it all. I must just go on trusting till he comes, or writes. He shall never be able to say that my faith in him was conquered by the first difficulty!"

There was something quieting and strengthening in the mere resolve. Trust has its own special delight,—a far subtler and sweeter thing than any satisfaction of the understanding. Carice's face was almost bright, as she turned to go home.

A folded paper lay directly in her path. Mechanically she picked it up; mechanically she read it almost through, before her mind, busy with other thoughts, began, even vaguely, to grasp its meaning.

It ran thus:—

"P.S. I cannot understand how my foolish engagement to Astra Lyte should have leaked out. With all due respect for your opinion, I cannot think of fulfilling it; indeed, I wrote to break it off immediately after coming home. I should never have entered into it, but for a mistaken notion that it would advance my interests in a certain quarter. Finding that it was likely to do just the opposite, there was nothing for it but to take the shortest cut out of the scrape. Never fear for Astra, she does not belong to the Ophelia order of women, she has pride and pluck enough to carry her through a worse disappointment; besides, hearts are never broken except in novels and plays. I am much obliged to her for leaving Berganton, the affair will blow over the sooner. In order to give it time to do so, I think I shall postpone my return until after Christmas. "Yours, B.A."

Twice did Carice read the paper's contents through, before she began to understand what it was, and whence it came. She had seen Bergan's handwriting a few times, in notes addressed to her mother; and she remembered enough of its peculiarities to recognize them in the lines before her, as soon as her mind was able to grasp the fact that, in this heartless production, she beheld the postscript which she had seen in Doctor Remy's hand, and which he had doubtless dropped accidentally, while replacing his papers in his pocket-book. That it should have been deliberately forged, and designedly put in her way—a sort of moral torpedo, loaded with mischief—was a depth of wickedness, of which, in her innocence, she could never have conceived. She could scarcely make herself comprehend the evil tenor of the words before her eyes. She read them over again, with a feeling that either their form or their purport must change, if she only studied them carefully enough; it was impossible that she had read them aright.

No, they would not alter. Her efforts only served to brand them more deeply on her mind. She looked up, at last, with a kind of wonder that the earth was still firm under her feet, and the sky's arch entire above her head. It would have seemed more in keeping to have beheld the universe crashing backward into chaos.

Not that she suffered very keenly yet. She was too much stunned to realize the extent of her wounds and bruises. She picked herself up, as it were, after the fall and the shock, and walked mechanically homeward. Her strength did not give way until she found herself in her room, shutting her door behind her, and felt what a different being had gone out of it only a little while before.

An hour after, Mrs. Bergan found her lying on her bed, white and still, more like a corpse than a living, suffering girl.

"Carice!" she cried, appalled, but not without an intuitive perception of the truth,—"Carice, my child! what is the matter?"

"I don't know—don't ask me," replied Carice, turning her face to the wall.

Mrs. Bergan burst into tears, and stole softly away. Here was a grief in which even she could only intermeddle as a stranger. She could simply commend her child to tenderer, wiser hands than hers.

A day or two went by, and Carice was down-stairs again, white; still, patient; filling her old place, and doing her old tasks, with a sad composure that was more affecting than any abandonment of sorrow. Her woe seemed to take the form of torpor, rather than of anguish. It was that chill and heavy misery, that dismal realization of the actual presence and power of evil in the world, which never comes to us except through the sin of some cherished, trusted friend; standing hitherto as the representative of all that is good and true, the earthly type of the Divine perfection. Falling, he falls not alone, but drags down with him the supports of every earthly confidence, and even makes the foundation of our heavenly faith to tremble. Such grief is dumb and tearless; it coils itself round the heart in cold, serpent-like folds, chilling the blood, and oppressing the breath; but it makes no single, special wound, to call forth cries and sobs of pain.

Meanwhile, the yellow fever, as foreseen long ago by Doctor Remy, made its silent entry into Berganton. One day a single case was reported in the outskirts of the town; another week, and there was scarcely a threshold which it had not crossed, either to strike or slay. The town put on sackcloth and ashes; business was suspended, except the business of nursing the sick and burying the dead; the streets were deserted, except by hearses and doctors. Or, it would be truer to say, a doctor; for Doctor Gerrish, being unacclimated, was one of the earliest patients; and Doctor Harris, being old and infirm, quickly sank exhausted; so Doctor Remy was soon left to face the pestilence alone, and multiply himself as best he could, to meet the demands of a whole people.

Let us do him ample justice. All that an iron frame, a steady courage, admirable executive ability, profound medical skill, and deep scientific interest, could prompt or do, he did. He organized and instructed a corps of nurses, and made them do effective work; he scattered printed suggestions and directions broadcast over the town, for the behoof of sick and well; he was himself constantly in the thickest of the fight, animating the workers, cheering the sick, wellnigh raising the dead,—doing everything but comfort the mourners, for that he had neither time nor talent. The town rang with praises of his energy and skill; his presence had brought back hope to many a house whence it seemed to have flown forever, joy into many a heart that had only made itself ready for sorrow. Even Carice, as her private grief half-sank, for the time, under the great wave of public calamity, was moved to a degree of respect and admiration for the doctor, of which, two or three weeks before, she could not have believed herself capable. There was still a hero, and room for heroism, in the world!

By and by, Mr. Bergan fell ill, not of the fever, but of one of the sympathetic diseases, which often go hand in hand with it. There were a few days of intense anxiety, during which the wife and daughter lived, as it were, on the words of Doctor Remy's mouth, and the look of his eyes. After these came slow weeks of convalescence, of exacting feebleness and irritable complaint.

It was during these that Doctor Remy spoke.

Is it necessary to describe the conflict, or designate the result? On the one side were parental wisdom, love, and authority, with the strong sanction of recent danger and present feebleness; on the other, filial respect, affection, and obedience, and a great self-distrust. For Carice remembered that she had taken her own way before, and whither it had led; now, ought she not to submit to the guidance ordained of God?

October found her bound fast by a promise, held irrevocably to a day. The outward conflict was over; but the inward struggle, she found, was scarce begun! Under that, she paled and wasted; sleep and appetite forsook her; her eyes grew to have the pathetic, pleading look of a dumb animal taken in a net. Finally, worn-out nature took refuge in apathy that nothing seemed to disturb.

XI
A CLUE.

A chill November day was drawing near its close. With the evening dusk snowflakes filled the air, and began to whiten the swells and slopes of the Arling farm, and lay the foundation of future drifts beside the doorstep and under the eaves of the Arling homestead. This structure had begun life as a log cabin, but had grown, by the simple and natural process of adding on a room or a wing, as fast as it was required and could be afforded, into a large, and somewhat picturesque, cluster of roofs and gables; beneath which there might easily be not only room for the fullest, heartiest flow of domestic and social life, but also means and influences to a considerable degree of refinement and culture.

Toward it, a stout, broad-shouldered personage was making his way, through the dusk and the snow, with a cheery face and an energetic tread, that plainly minded neither. Tramp, tramp, went the brisk footfalls up the gravel walk, the bright brass knocker was made to send a note of warning through the house, and the wayfarer admitted himself into a lighted hall, through which he strode to the open door of the sitting-room at the farther end.

A pleasant family picture was before him. Bergan Arling, on one side of the crimson-covered centre-table, looked up, smiling, from the book out of which he had been reading aloud. Two of his sisters sat near him, busy with crotchet needles and bright worsteds. Still another was drawing at a side-table; and over her, giving her the benefit of his criticism, leaned her brother Hubert, scarce two years younger than Bergan, and so strikingly like him, that one was often taken for the other, outside the family circle. At one side of the fire-place sat the master of the house, a tall, noble-looking man, with eye undimmed and hair unfrosted by the snows of over sixty years. Opposite him was the home's true light and centre, the house-mother. She reclined in a large, low easy chair, the paleness on her face half concealed by the glow of the blazing fire, and her eyes shining with that tender joy and peace which convalescents sometimes bring back from the edge of the grave,—a reflection, perhaps, from the paradise that was already opening before the gaze of the half-freed spirit.

Doctor Trubie paused for a moment in the doorway, to master the details of the scene. He has changed but little since he was introduced to the reader, fourteen years ago, in his medical Alma Mater. His figure has gained in breadth and strength, and his features in character, but it is the same frank, genial face, and the same good-humored smile. No one that knew him then, could fail to recognize him now.

In a moment, he caught sight of Mrs. Arling, and hastened toward her with outstretched hand. "I don't know whether to congratulate or to scold you," he began, smiling, yet shaking his head with mild disapproval.

Hubert Arling came forward to Bergan's side. "I can settle the question for you," said he. "Congratulate her, and scold us. We brought her down, chair and all; she did not touch foot to the floor in the transit."

"Then I will save my scolding until it is needed. It seems little less than miraculous to see you here," he went on, turning to Mrs. Arling, "when I think how things seemed to be going, a few weeks ago. It has been a hard pull, and a long one."

"And a strong one, and a pull altogether," added Hubert Arling, merrily, by way of arresting the tears that he saw starting into his sisters' eyes.

"The strong pull," remarked Doctor Trubie, "came from my medical brother, down South."

"You underrate yourself," replied Mr. Arling. "Of what avail would Doctor Remy's suggestions have been, without your indefatigable vigilance, and your professional skill and knowledge to carry them out?"

"That is to say," returned Doctor Trubie, "that a good commander-in-chief can do nothing without good generals. At all events, Doctor Remy is a wonderfully talented fellow. He seems to keep not only abreast of medical science, but in advance of it. That very suggestion of his, which proved most valuable to us, was mentioned in my last medical review, as the latest discovery at Paris. There is something about his bold, yet scientific mode of reasoning which reminds me strangely of an old fellow-student. But Doctor Remy, I hope, is a better fellow than he was. By the way," he added, turning to Bergan, "I came near forgetting that I have brought you a letter from him, as I judge from the handwriting."

Bergan tore open the letter, and with an apologetic bow to the company, began eagerly to read it. Doctor Trubie seated himself by the table, picked up the rejected envelope, and gave it a critical examination.

"That's what I call a good hand," said he, "a round, clear, energetic hand, that neither tries your eyesight, nor rouses your distrust. There is no crookedness nor meanness in it; yet there is plenty of character; one can see, at a glance, that the writer is bold and sagacious as well as profound, a man of action as well as a man of science."

Bergan had finished the letter, which was short; and he now looked up with a much amused face. "I ought to tell you," said he, "that Doctor Remy possesses the rare accomplishment of being able to write with either hand; he uses the right or the left, at pleasure. But the two handwritings are entirely distinct. That address was written with his left hand, and so, I remember, were the suggestions and prescriptions that I handed over to you. But this letter was written with his right hand; see what you can make of it," and Bergan pushed the open sheet across the table.

The change in Doctor Trubie's face was startling. "This!" he exclaimed, his voice trembling with excitement, "who did you say wrote this?"

"Doctor Remy, the same man who wrote that address."

Doctor Trubie glanced back at the letter, and his eyes lit with a strange, stern joy. "At last!" he muttered through his set teeth.

Mrs. Arling leaned forward, and her face grew pale. "What is it, doctor?" she asked, trembling. "What is the matter?"

Doctor Trubie glanced at her excited face, and saw what mischief he was doing. "Nothing," he hastened to answer, "nothing, only an old sore pressed on suddenly. This handwriting reminds me of one that—I never expected to see again."

He gave the letter a long, moody look, then refolded it, and handed it back to Bergan.

Mrs. Arling looked anxiously at her son. "Does Doctor Remy give you any special news?" she asked.

"Not much. Uncle Godfrey is better, and the fever is over. Business is still dull."

"Then you will not need to hurry back?"

Bergan knelt by his mother's side. "My dear mother," he whispered, "you know it is not for the sake of my business that I am anxious to return, as soon as I may. I must see Carice, and satisfy myself that nothing is amiss."

Mrs. Arling smiled, yet she sighed, too. "Ah, yes, I remember," said she, "and you are quite right."

Doctor Trubie rose, and came to the other side of Mrs. Arling's chair. "I am glad to see that I am not wanted here any longer," he began, pleasantly;—

"But you are wanted," interrupted Mrs. Arling; "you are always wanted, as a friend."

"Thank you; but I am wanted elsewhere as a physician; so I must take my leave, for the present."

He shook hands with Mrs. Arling, and gave Bergan a meaning glance, as he did so. The young man rose. "I will walk a little way with you, if you like," said he. "I have a boyish delight in the first snow, and I did not see any last winter, you remember."

The two gentlemen were hardly outside the gate, before Doctor Trubie asked;—"What do you know of this Doctor Remy's antecedents?"

Bergan narrated the facts which he had gathered, from time to time, from Doctor Remy's conversation.

"So, he would have us believe," said Doctor Trubie, contemptuously, "that he transformed himself from a poor lawyer into a scientific physician, in a year and a half, by the help of a friendly doctor, and a course of lectures! There is falsehood on the face of it."

"He had a genius for the study," replied Bergan.

"Aye, I'll warrant! that is the saving grain of truth in the whole story. Do you remember the circumstances of your elder brother's death?"

"Not very distinctly. I was so young, at the time; and then, you know, mother could never bear to hear any allusion to them."

"You know that he was murdered?"

Bergan looked surprised. "I know there was talk of suicide," said he, "but I thought it was decided that he was poisoned by mistake."

"He was murdered," asserted Doctor Trubie, getting his teeth, "foully murdered by the man who professed to be his friend,—a man who wrote a hand as much like this Doctor Remy's as one side of your face is like the other. I charged him with it, at the time, and I have always believed that I should live to see the charge proven." And he finished by giving a succinct account of the circumstances attending Alec Arling's death.

Bergan listened attentively and critically, as became his legal training. "I do not understand why the finding of the diamond was such conclusive evidence of guilt," said he, when the doctor paused.

"Because Roath swore, at the inquest, that he did not touch either bottle or glass, and did not even go to that end of the table. That was where he overreached himself; without that, the stone in the glass would not have been such a damning circumstance. He recognized it as such himself;—else why did he fly?"

"Well, you may be right about the murder," said Bergan, after a little consideration, "but I think you have mistaken the man."

"Let us see," said Doctor Trubie. "He is about my height?"

"Yes,—perhaps a little taller."

"He stoops a little?"

"Not at all, he is uncommonly erect."

"He has dark hair?"

"It may have been so, it is prematurely gray."

Doctor Trubie looked a little discomfited. "Give me a sketch of his character," said he.

Bergan hesitated. It was a difficult thing to do, on the instant. His impressions of Doctor Remy's character had varied, as he remembered.

"On second thought," said Doctor Trubie, "I will give you one. All of him, that is not intellect, is ice. In religious matters, he is an utter sceptic. Socially, he is brilliant; but he has no intimate friends, and he makes no confidants. Men and women, to him, are subjects of study, not objects of affection. He cares for nothing but himself and his profession. And no one cares for him—much. They may admire, but they cannot love."

Bergan looked considerably startled. "Your sketch tallies well with some impressions of mine, which I did my best to rid myself of," said he. "But Doctor Remy has befriended me, from the first, and you yourself say that he has been largely the means of saving my mother's life."

"He has had his own reasons for both; Edmund Roath never did anything without a reason, and a selfish one. Has he anything to gain by keeping you out of the way?"

"Nothing, that I can imagine."

"When do you return to Berganton?"

"Mother has consented that I shall start on Monday, if she is no worse."

"She will be much better. Do not delay longer than that. I will accompany you; I want to see this Doctor Remy. Seeing is believing. But, mind, not a word of my coming, to him or any one else. Now, go back to your mother, or she will be alarmed. Good night."

Bergan walked back slowly and thoughtfully. Without being fully convinced of the truth of Doctor Trubie's suspicions, he was strangely disturbed and startled. Reaching the gate, he turned his face south-eastward, and gazed across the white meadows, toward the dim outline of the distant hills. His thoughts overleaped even that far barrier, and took an air line to Oakstead and to Carice. Her face rose vividly before him, not, strange to say, as he had seen it last, rosy and bright, but pale and piteous, and gazing toward him with a look that besought sympathy and succor, plainer than any speech. His eyes grew moist, his breath tremulous; his heart swelled with passionate love and longing.

"I will beg my mother to consent to my going at once," said he to himself. "I cannot wait another day."

The next afternoon, he was on his way to Berganton, whither Doctor Trubie was shortly to follow him.

XII.
TOO LATE.

In those days, there was a pleasant spice of uncertainty about Southern journeyings. Cars, steamboats, and stages ran in happy independence of each other and the time-table. The traveller never knew at what point of juniper swamp, or pine barren, or cotton plantation, he would be set down to while away some hours in botanical or ethnological investigations, if his mind were sufficiently at ease, or in chewing the bitter cud of impatience, if it were not. Defective machinery and lazy officials labored mightily together to miss connections, and wherever human inefficiency came short, down swept a hurricane from the skies, and strewed the roads with prostrate trunks of trees, through which the cumbrous stage coach had literally to hew its path.

More than one such delay attended Bergan's progress southward. Under their teasing friction, the shadowy anxiety with which he had set out, increased to a positive weight of alarm. Reaching Savalla on the twelfth evening, he stopped neither for rest nor refreshment, but looked up a horse, flung himself into the saddle, and set off toward Berganton at a rapid rate. Outside the city limits, however, he was forced to slacken his pace. The night was dark, no faintest gleam of moon or star tempered the black obscurity of the tree-arched and swamp-bordered road. Compelled thus to feel his way, as it were, it was near midnight when he came upon the outlying fields of Oakstead. Reluctantly he told himself that an interview with Carice, to-night, was out of the question; she and all the household were certain to be fast asleep, it was doubtful if even the faintest outline of the darkened dwelling would be discernible through the murky night. He had no choice but to ride on to Berganton.

Scarcely had he reached this conclusion, when a radiant window shone vision-like through the trees; a little farther on, and the cottage, though yet distant, came full into view through an opening in the forest, brilliantly illuminated from roof to foundation as for a festivity of no ordinary magnitude. Even the surrounding lawn was lighted up into the semblance of day; and in its remotest corner, a group of negroes, dancing to some strain of music inaudible to the wondering spectator, looked fantastic enough for the unsubstantial images of a dream.

For a moment or two, Bergan suspected his jaded senses of playing him false, as a step preparatory to taking leave of him altogether. There was something too incongruous to be real, between this gay scene of festivity and the picture presented by Doctor Remy's last letter,—a dull, silent house, its master a feeble, exacting convalescent, its mistress and daughter worn out with anxiety and watching. An intuition of some unlooked-for calamity seized him. Putting spurs to his horse, he dashed over the mile that intervened between him and the cottage, at a scarcely less furious rate than that with which Vic had borne him over the same road—how well he remembered it!—just one year ago. He did not suspect that he was now to taste the bitterest consequences of that ride.

In a very few moments, he rode through the open gates of Oakstead. Here, he found the avenue to the house encumbered with teams and saddle-horses, tied to every tree and post. The every-day aspect of these sleepy animals was like a bucket of cold water to his excited imagination. Strains of dancing music, too, came to his ear,—flutes and violins, none too well played, sent forth the notes of a popular air. Plainly, he had been a fool to connect the thought of calamity with anything so exceedingly common-place as an evening party. If Godfrey Bergan chose to call in his friends and neighbors to dance over his restoration to health, who should gainsay him? Convalescents had their fancies, and must be humored.

In this cooler frame of mind, it naturally occurred to Bergan that he was in no fit condition to face a festal throng. His appearance, thus way-worn and travel-stained, would be scarcely more timely than that of the Ancient Mariner to the wedding guest. It would look as if he, too, had a tale of horror to impart, and Carice might be unpleasantly startled,—Carice, who little imagined him so near to her! At the thought, a strange, indefinable thrill and shiver passed over him, hard to define as either pleasure or pain.

After a moment's consideration, he dismounted, and walked quietly round to the spot where the negroes still kept up their lively dance. One of them, Bruno by name, stood a little apart, a smiling spectator of the merriment that he was too old to join. It was easy to touch him on the shoulder, without attracting the notice of the rest. The negro turned, and instantly recognized Bergan; but his exclamation of surprise was cut short by the young man's significant gesture, and he silently followed him to a spot equi-distant between the cottage and the dancers.

"All well, Bruno?" was Bergan's first inquiry.

"All bery well, Massa Arling. You's welcome back, sah. But I'se sorry you's too late for de weddin'."

The wedding,—the word fell almost meaninglessly on Bergan's ear, so intent was he upon satisfying himself that his late anxieties had been groundless. "And Miss Carice," he went on, "is she quite well, too?"

Bruno smiled. "Yes, massa, I 'spec so, tho' she do look mighty pale and peaked, dese yere last weeks. But dey mostly look so, at sich times, I s'pose. She'll be better when de weddin's ober, an' all de fuss and flurry."

This second mention of "the wedding" penetrated to Bergan's understanding, and awakened a faint emotion of surprise.

"The wedding!—whose wedding?" he asked.

Bruno opened his eyes wide in astonishment. "Why, don' you know, sah? I thought you'd come on purpose. Miss Carice's weddin', to be sure."

It was Bergan's turn to look more than astonished, confounded. "Miss Carice's wedding!" he repeated, as doubting the trustworthiness of his own ears.

"Yes, sah, to Doctor Remy, sah. Dey had—"

Bruno stopped short in alarm. Bergan's face had grown deadly pale, his blank stare was that of a man who neither saw nor heard. For a few merciful moments, he was simply stunned with the suddenness and severity of the shock. Too soon his benumbed senses began to revive, he put his hand to his head, where a dull, heavy pain was beginning to make itself felt; mechanically he sat down on the grass, and his breath came hard like that of a man stricken with apoplexy.

With a delicacy not uncommon in his race, Bruno turned his eyes away. A trusted servant of the household, he had seen Bergan and Carice together enough to be able to divine something of the state of the case.

Slowly, one by one, Bergan's thoughts came out of chaos, and ranged themselves into something like order. This, then, was the reason why Doctor Remy had so persistently discouraged his earlier return to Berganton, and allayed his anxiety with plausible statements respecting Carice and her father,—that he might supplant him in her affections. But why? It must be taken as evidence that he had estimated the doctor's character more correctly than he knew, that it never once occurred to him as possible that love for Carice had been the doctor's motive; yet, considered solely as holding the reversion of the Oakstead estate, her hand was scarcely worth the labor and treachery it had cost.

There was so little to reward investigation in this direction, that Bergan's thoughts came back to his own blighted hopes, and here he was pierced with the sharpest pain that he had yet felt. The treachery of the doctor was as nothing to the faithlessness of Carice. Two months,—yea, two days ago, he would have staked all his hopes for time and eternity on her truth. Fair and delicate as was the cast of her beauty, and sweet and gentle as was her manner, there had always been a certain quiet steadfastness about her, which was one of her most potent charms. All hearts felt intuitively that they might safely trust in her. What subtle or powerful influence could have been brought to bear upon her, to make her so belie herself!

He looked up. "Bruno, how long has this been going on?"

The negro did not quite understand, but made shift to guess what was meant.

"De engagement, sah? since October, I b'lieve."

"And how long has Doctor Remy visited here?"

"Oh, a good while, 'bout eber since you went away. But after massa was took sick, he come oftener, ob course—ebery day, sometimes two, tree times a day. Massa got so—'pendent on him, like, he couldn't bear to have him out ob de house, one time."

Bergan fell into thought again. He began dimly to understand something of the sort of pressure to which Carice had been subjected, and the motives that had governed her,—not that he held her exonerated, by any means—only she was a little less culpable than she had seemed, at first. But if she had sinned, poor child! how miserably she would be punished! What a sterile soil, what a chill, unfriendly climate, awaited this delicate flower, in Doctor Remy's hands! It was as if a lily should think to root itself in a rock, or a rose expect to bud and blossom on an iceberg. Besides—why had he not thought of it before?—to-morrow, perhaps, in two or three days, at farthest, Doctor Trubie would be here, with authority, if it seemed good to him, to take this man, her husband, into custody as a murderer!

Bergan's was the fine, strong temperament, which rises to the greatness of a crisis. With the necessity of action, the chaos of his mind began to clear itself. "Bruno," he asked, suddenly, "does—Miss Carice love this man?"

Bruno looked surprised, as well he might, at the question; but there was something in Bergan's tone that made him answer at once, and frankly; "I don' know,—de servants do say she done it to please her father."

Bergan laid his hand impressively on the old negro's shoulder. "Bruno, I must see her at once. Her happiness—more than her happiness, the honor and peace of the whole family—is at stake. Find some way to let her know, quietly, that I am here, and that I must see her for one moment. Hurry! there's no time to waste."

Bruno was so thoroughly mastered by Bergan's earnestness, that he started swiftly toward the cottage, without a word. As he ascended the piazza steps, however, he began to be appalled at the difficulty of the task that he had undertaken. Looking into the window, he saw Carice standing at the farther end of the long parlor, with her bridesmaids clustered around her. He could neither get at her, nor she escape, without challenging a good deal of wondering observation. While he stood hesitating, Godfrey Bergan came out into the hall, and caught sight of his troubled face.

"Well, Bruno, what do you want?"

"I—jes' wanted to speak to Miss Carice," stammered the negro.

The request was an odd one, at that moment; still, Mr. Bergan might have been moved to grant it, as the whim of an old and faithful servant, if the negro's disturbed face and faltering tone had not excited his suspicions that something unusual was on foot. "What is the matter?" he asked. "What do you want to speak to her for?"

Bruno was wholly unprepared for this question. Vainly he racked his brains for a plausible answer, but nothing better rewarded his efforts than,—"I jes' wanted to speak to her, dat's all;"—a reply so little congruous with his frightened face and voice, that Mr. Bergan's suspicions were confirmed. He stepped out on the piazza, and closed the door behind him.

"How, Bruno," said he, sternly, "I want to know what this means. Come, no shuffling; tell the truth."

Bruno's self-possession gave way entirely. "I—I—I—it's only Mr. Arling."

Mr. Bergan started. "My nephew, Bergan Arling, do you mean?"

"Yes, massa."

"What—where?"

"Out dar, under de larches, massa."

"And he—he dared to ask for my daughter?"

Mr. Bergan's voice shook with anger. Bruno tried to explain, not very coherently.

"He didn't mean no harm, massa, I'se sartain. He said her happiness and all you'se happiness, was at de stake."

"Did he!" muttered Mr. Bergan, scornfully. "Hark you, Bruno, not a word of this to anybody—to anybody, mind you! Now, go back to your dance,—I'll see Mr. Arling."

Bergan's impatience had brought him from under the larches to a point commanding a view of the path to the cottage. He was both surprised and disappointed to see his uncle instead of Carice; nevertheless, he came frankly forward to meet him, holding out his hand.

Mr. Bergan took no notice of the friendly offer. "How dare you show yourself here?" he began, his voice quivering with rage. "How dare you insult my daughter with your presence, at this time? Have you not done harm enough already?"

"Uncle," replied Bergan, gently, "I know not what you mean. I have never harmed Carice, that I know of, and now I came here to save her, if it be not too late. Oh! uncle"—and here his calmness began to fail him, and his voice grew eager—"do not, do not let this marriage proceed,—at least, not until you have heard my story, and have satisfied yourself of the real character of this Doctor Remy!"

"What have you to say against his character?" demanded Mr. Bergan, icily.

Bergan felt the full disadvantage of his position. It was a heavy charge that he had to make against a man of Doctor Remy's standing, without documents or witnesses, nothing to substantiate it but his single assertion. Besides, to say truth, there was nothing to allege against Doctor Remy but Doctor Trubie's suspicions. He hesitated, and his hesitation was not lost upon his uncle; neither was the want of assurance with which he finally spoke.

"Uncle, there is great reason to believe—or, at least to suspect—that Doctor Remy is a—murderer,—the murderer of my brother Alec."

Godfrey Bergan stood in silent scorn. The accusation struck him as too extravagant, too baseless, to be seriously discussed. His nephew must be drunk, or mad, to make it. And, now that he looked at him more narrowly, his face was haggard and his dress disordered enough to befit either condition.

Bergan saw the impression that he had made, and a cold, sick despair crept over him. "I beg of you, uncle," he exclaimed, vehemently, "as you value your own future peace of mind, put a stop to this unhappy business, ere it be too late."

"It is too late now," said Mr. Bergan, impatiently, "Carice is already married."

"Must she, therefore, be left in the hands of a murderer? Save her, at least, from further contamination. If you will do nothing else, call her, and let her decide the matter for herself."

"Impossible," answered Mr. Bergan, decidedly. "Carice has already borne and suffered too much; her nerves are in an exceedingly sensitive state; this story would kill her, I verily believe. If you really have her happiness at heart, go away quietly, and leave her to the care of the husband she has chosen."

"Chosen?" repeated Bergan, bitterly,—"has she chosen him, or has she only been forced to wed him?"

Godfrey Bergan's eyes lit. "You forget to whom you are speaking," said he, coldly. "Enough of this, my patience is exhausted. I have listened to your drivel longer than it deserves. The quicker you take your leave, the better."

Bergan drew himself up haughtily, and his eyes flashed back an answering flame. "My patience is also exhausted," said he. "I have begged and pleaded long enough. I tell you now, uncle, that I will not go, until I have seen Carice, if I seek her out among the wedding guests."

Godfrey Bergan set his teeth hard. "Will not?" he repeated angrily. "Will not! I will have you to understand, young man, that there is neither will, nor will not, on these premises, but mine. On my soul, if you do not go, and quickly, I will call my servants, and have you put off from the place as a drunkard and a vagabond."

At this threat, the hereditary temper, scotched in Bergan's heart, but not yet killed, reared its evil head aloft, and sent its deadly poison burning through all his veins.

"Call them," he retorted, in a voice deep and low as a distant thunder peal, and lifting his clenched hand on high,—"call them, if it so pleases you! Their blood be on your head, not mine."

Godfrey Bergan was no coward, yet he might well stand aghast at the unexpected fury of the tempest that he had evoked. Moreover, to put his threat in execution, he now saw, to court that publicity which he specially desired to avoid. He stood irresolute, questioning within himself how best to deal with the emergency.

He was saved the trouble of a decision. While he still hesitated, Bergan's hand fell by his side, his eyes softened, and a spasm of anguish passed over his face. "God forgive me!" he murmured, shudderingly,—"I, too, was a murderer—in heart!"

He bowed his head on his hands. Woful was the inner conflict. Within his soul, the "black Bergan temper" was gasping out its last venomous breath, with the clutch of a firm hand on its throat. Agonizing were its death-throes. They ceased at last. It would never trouble him more.

Godfrey Bergan, standing by, saw something of the struggle, yet did not understand it in the least. "A drunkard's aimless wrath!" he said to himself,—"quenched in its own fury."

So carelessly does the world construe the deeper soul-conflicts that come under its observation!

Bergan lifted his head, and his face was ashy pale. "I go, uncle," said he, hoarsely, "since that is your wish. In all that I have said, though said never so unwisely, I assure you that I have had only Carice's happiness at heart; and I pray God that you may not have cause to rue it, to your dying day, that you did not listen to me!"

He turned and plunged into the darkness, not knowing whither he went.

XIII.
ESCAPED.

Godfrey Bergan stood motionless for some minutes. His nephew's persistency had irritated his nerves, if it had not convinced his understanding. Nor was he altogether unimpressed by the solemnity of the young man's parting words. Though he had not condescended to state the fact to Bergan, it was still true that he had exacted what he considered to be very complete and satisfactory evidence, touching the correctness of Doctor Remy's antecedents, before giving him his daughter. Yet it was only after he had recapitulated this evidence to himself, point by point, and had also taken into account the doctor's late brilliant achievements, present high standing, and promising prospects for the future, that he could rid himself of a certain chill weight of responsibility, which seemed somehow to have been flung upon his shoulders by Bergan's last sentence.

On entering the cottage, he met Carice in the hall, encircled by her bridesmaids. He was half pleased, half startled to see that the singular listlessness, amounting to a degree of apathy, which had characterized her for some weeks, had given place to a certain tremulous agitation. A round red spot burned on either cheek, where of late the bloom had been both rare and faint; and her eyes were bright and wistful almost to wildness. With a sudden impulse of tenderness, he put his arms round her, and pressed her to his heart.

"Father," she whispered, with her lips close to his ear, "am I dreaming or mad? I have heard a voice in the air—Bergan's voice. I was standing by the window, and I heard it distinctly,—no words, only tones,—pleading, pleading, until I thought they would break my heart. Then all at once, they changed to anger,—fierce, bitter anger! And they ended in despair! Father, what could it mean!"

"My child," said Godfrey Bergan, after a pause, and there was a perceptible tremor in his voice, "you are very weak and nervous, and these wedding gayeties have been too much for you. Go to rest, and sleep away your fatigues and your fancies together; joy cometh in the morning. The wife of Felix Remy will hear no voices in the air. Good-night."

He unclasped his arms, and her bridesmaids, again clustering round her, led her upstairs in triumph.

But no sooner had they freed her from her bridal garniture,—the veil's soft mistiness, the robe's heavy, satiny folds, the fragrant orange blossoms, already beginning to fade!—than she put them gently aside.

"Bid me good-night, now," she said, with quiet decision. "I am very tired, and I want to be alone for awhile. Rosa will do the rest."

There was something in her tone which forbade remonstrance; quickly the door shut out the fresh, young faces, and snowy, fluttering robes.

Was she, as she had desired to be, alone?

Alas! no. The image evoked by that "voice in the air," had followed her across the threshold, and still faced her with sad, upbraiding eyes. Instinctively, she threw herself upon her knees to exorcise it by the spell of prayer. Though no intelligible word might come to her trembling lips, though not a coherent thought might shape itself in her dizzy brain, she was, nevertheless, prostrate at the foot of the cross, and the Saviour would understand!

And so—let us not presume to doubt it—He did, and, moreover, answered. But the ways of Providence are utterly inscrutable; and the answer came in no shape that would have been likely to present itself to her mind, had she been capable of definite thought. She rose from her knees but little comforted.

For the delirious disquietude that had taken possession of her, had its physical, not less than its mental, side. The long overstraining of the delicate nerves, the long overburdening of the heart that knew its own bitterness, were fast reaching the point beyond which must needs come fever, or insanity, or death. Nature—often the wisest of physicians, when left to herself—had sought to work restoration by means of the apathy aforementioned, wrapping her mind and heart as with quilted armor; but the events of this night had pierced quite through the soft sheathing, and set every nerve quivering with pain. Unable to remain long in one position, she soon began to pace restlessly up and down the room. She was dimly aware that Rosa had come in, and was waiting her commands; but she never once looked to see with what a disturbed and doubtful face the young negress was regarding her.

Getting weary, at last, of her monotonous march to and fro, she went to the window, and leaned out to bathe her fevered temples in the cool night air. Suddenly she cried out;—

"Rosa, see! Is not that a light in the old Hall?"

"Yes, Miss Carice, it's just that," answered Rosa, impressively. "It's in Mr. Arling's room. He's here."

"Here!" Carice started, and turned round with eager, expectant eyes.

"No, no," Rosa hastened to say, "not here,—at least, not now."

"Not now," repeated Carice, wonderingly. "When was he here, then?"

Rosa hesitated for an instant, and then flung herself at her mistress's feet. "I will tell you," she cried, vehemently,—"master may kill me, if he likes, but I will tell you! Mr. Arling was here not much more than half an hour ago."

Carice smiled,—a strange, wan smile, with no spirit of mirthfulness in it, but something of gentle triumph, as well as relief. "It was no fancy, then," she murmured, softly.

Rosa went on. "I was walking down by the river—with Tom, you know—when I thought it must be getting late, and you might want me, and so I took the short cut through the larches. And who should I see standing there but Mr. Arling, and your father coming to meet him! So I slipped back behind the trees, meaning to come round the other way; but I caught a few words, and then I listened;—I couldn't help it, Miss Carice, if I'd died for it. For Mr. Arling began to beg and plead that your father wouldn't let your wedding go on, if he cared anything about your happiness. He said there was something dreadful against Doctor Remy,—oh! Miss Carice, I don't like to say it, but I think you ought to know,—he said he was a"—sinking her voice almost to a whisper—"a murderer."

Carice's eyes dilated with horror. "A murderer!" she gasped,—"oh! no, no, Rosa; you could not have heard him right!"

"Indeed I did," rejoined Rosa, firmly. "That's the very word he used,—more than once, too. At least, he said there was great reason to believe so; and he begged your father to wait until he could make sure about it. Oh! Miss Carice, I never did like Doctor Remy, but I always liked Mr. Arling, and I don't believe he'd say a word that wasn't true. Do pray wait, as he said, until you can find out the whole truth, before you have anything more to say to the doctor. Lock your door, and say you're sick—I'm sure you look as if you might be—and I'll promise to keep him out, if he were ten Doctor Remys."

And Rosa set her teeth and clenched her hands, in a way that promised much for her valor in the cause of her young mistress.

Carice put her hand to her brow, and tried to think, but merely succeeded in bewildering herself with images of horror. That frightful word, murderer, continually sounded in her ears, to the effectual hindrance of anything like connected thought. Only one idea presented itself to her confused brain with even tolerable distinctness,—Bergan was near, Bergan was in possession of knowledge that might yet relieve her, to some extent, from a burden too heavy to be borne,—a burden which she ought never to have consented to take upon herself, nor ever would have done, had she not first been bound fast with a torpor that benumbed both feeling and will. Still, having so consented, she would have tried, but for Rosa's terrible revelation, to endure it patiently. Now, it seemed to her, this was no longer possible.

Again she fixed her eyes upon the gleaming light from the old Hall; the only star of hope or suggestion that had yet risen upon her darkness. What could she do, in her mortal terror and bewilderment, but follow it?

"Rosa," she said, suddenly, "I am going to the Hall. I must see Bergan, and hear what he has to say; then I can decide what it is right to do."

"And so I would," rejoined Rosa, approvingly. "Just let me slip this dark wrapper on you, and wind this scarf round your head, and well over your face,—so;—why, your own father wouldn't know you, if he were to meet you! Now, we'll be off."

Carice hesitated. "No, Rosa, that will never do; our absence would be quickly discovered. You must stay and keep the door."

"But, Miss Carice, you can't go alone!"

"I can, and must. It is the only way to prevent discovery. Remember, no one is to be let in, upon any consideration, until I return."

"Let me alone for that," responded Rosa, emphatically. And having seen Carice safely down the steps from the upper piazza, and watched her light form till it was lost among the trees, Rosa returned to mount guard over the door of the deserted chamber.

Godfrey Bergan had been unaccountably shaken by that brief meeting and parting with his daughter, in the hall. Watching her slender form as it toiled up the staircase, with the languid step that betrays a heavy or a reluctant heart, he sighed to think with what a graceful alacrity she had used to flit upward, as if lifted on invisible wings, her happy smile seeming to make a little illuminated space about her, like the light which is seen irradiating angelic forms, in old pictures. A sudden burden of despondency fell upon his heart, whereof he understood neither the purport, nor whether it bore reference to her or himself, but only knew that it quite unfitted him for playing the part of a gay and gracious host to his guests. Seeing Miss Ferrars coming toward him, with her stereotyped smile, an impulse of flight seized him; and hastily stepping through one of the long windows, he soon found himself once more under the sighing trees, which were swaying to and fro under the first breathings of a rising wind.

The night was no longer dark. Here and there, a star looked through the broken clouds, and lighted him to the river's bank, down which he walked slowly; torturing himself, as he went, with that weary after-birth of doubts and questions, which often follows hard upon the accomplishment of a cherished purpose. Had he done well in wedding Carice to the doctor? Had he not done wrong in refusing to listen to Bergan, at least with courtesy and calmness? Was it barely possible that there could have been some small grain of truth at the bottom of the young man's turbid story? What was the meaning of that odd, wild look in Carice's eyes? Had he been thrusting himself, as it were, into the awful place of Providence, only, by reason of his human short-sightedness, to work irremediable ruin?

At that moment, a dark, slender woman's figure hurried past him, toward the ruined foot-bridge, which was near at hand. "One of my brother's servants, who has stolen over to dance with mine," he said to himself, turning idly to watch her progress.

To his utter amazement, at the further end, he seemed to see her cast herself deliberately into the water!

Godfrey Bergan was a practised swimmer, and, after the first motionless moment of astonishment, he threw off his coat, plunged into the stream, which, at this point, was neither rapid nor deep, and swam rapidly toward the spot where he had seen the body disappear. Here, the water was scarcely up to his armpits; in a few moments, he had caught the floating garments, and borne the lifeless form to land. The heavy head fell back on his arm; the scarf trailed away from the white features; he recognized Carice!

With a thick, muffled cry of horror, the father sank upon his knees, not so much of devotional intent, as crushed under the double-weight of his physical burden and mental anguish.

"Oh, God! have mercy upon us!" he ejaculated, brokenly,—"I have driven my child to suicide!"

XIV.
THE WAY STOPPED.

Bergan Arling, on quitting his uncle, had flung himself into the surrounding darkness, without aim, without hope; conscious only of an intolerable burden of grief and despair. Coming to the river, he had mechanically strode down its bank. Mechanically, too, he had crossed the foot-bridge, when it came in his way; and was scarcely aware that its last rotten plank, on the Hall end, had given away under his feet, and that he had narrowly missed being precipitated into the water. In due time, he found himself standing before the deserted mansion, looking up to its dark front with eyes just beginning to be capable of intelligent vision, and acknowledging to himself that, though his path had been but blindly chosen, it had brought him to a fitting goal.

"A ruined home, and a ruined life," he murmured, with a kind of bitter mournfulness,—"they will suit each other well!"

The door was locked, but there was a dilapidated flight of steps leading to the rotten upper piazza, and the window of his old room yielded readily to pressure. The lamp, too, was in its remembered place, and, having lighted it, he threw himself into a chair, to sum up the record of his past life, and strike the balance.

Not that he did this consciously. Although he felt intuitively that he had reached a turning-point in his path, from whence its course and circumstance, if not its aim, might well be changed, it was with the future only—the consideration of the question what to do next—that he purposed to occupy himself. But the sight of the familiar room, and the ancient furniture and ornaments wherewith he had filled it, having inevitably recalled the period of his first occupancy, and the occasion of his sudden departure, he could not fail to see how all his life since had seemed to hinge on that one deplorable incident. Had he resisted Major Bergan's will in the single particular of entering that vile tavern, or refused, first as well as last, to drink at his bidding, doubtless he would have lost his favor all the same, but he would scarcely have been so completely subjugated by his own fierce temper, he would not have commenced his career in Berganton under such a cloud, he would not have been left to drift in so inauspicious an intimacy with Doctor Remy, his Uncle Godfrey would not have become so deeply prejudiced against him,—possibly, even, the course of his love might have run smooth, despite the verdict of the immortal poet, nor yet have vitiated its claim to be a "true" one. What a pregnant commentary was all this upon that wonderful text of Mr. Islay's memorable sermon. How tightly had he been "holden with the cords of his sins" to a long and wearisome discipline, and a final mystery of retribution,—a retribution involving, alas! the innocent not less than the guilty. Poor, poor Carice! how much easier would it be to bear his own portion, if only hers could be remitted!

Hark! was not that a cry from the direction of the river? He leaned out of the window, and listened attentively; but the sound—if sound it were, and not the simple product of his own disordered fancy—was not repeated. Nothing was to be heard save the low sough of the rising wind, and the melancholy voices of the trees, as one solemn old oak-top leaned toward another, and talked mysteriously of some woful event that it had witnessed—perhaps a century ago, perhaps later—or recounted drearily the long list of human sorrows and sins and retributions stored up in its dreamy old memory. There might have been heard, too, in its further talk, if only the ear were fine enough that listened,—something of patience born of sorrow, and blessedness wrenched from the hand of suffering; of lofty hopes blossoming out of the ashes of despair, and fair, new temples, vocal with the anthem of glory to God and good will to man, built over and out of heaps of ruins. A few words, too, might have been added of love—human love—as the crowning grace and gladness of a man's life,—the delicate carving beautifying the arches, capitals, and pinnacles of the temple, the thick greenery softening its sharp outlines, and the odorous blossoms rooting themselves in its angles and hollows; but neither its strong foundations, its majestic walls, nor the upward spring of its spire,—and never, in any sense, the object of its rightful worship.

Perhaps Bergan heard something of all this; at any rate, that cry from the river, whether real or imagined, had broken the thread of his review of the past, and brought back his mind to the question of the future. What was to be done? Leave Berganton, of course. The place was not wide enough to hold Carice and himself, with comfort to either. If her marriage had been brought about in the way that he suspected, the sight of him would scarce conduce to her peace; while the sight of her, in her new relation, could only cause him useless pain. Moreover, he had seen, from the first, that Berganton afforded little scope for talent; none whatever for ambition. And, now that his life seemed likely to be limited to its public side, and to have no sweet, compensating domestic one, he felt the necessity of directing its course to some quarter where there was room for proper expansion.

Happily, the way was open. Only a short time ago, he had received a most favorable offer, which he still held under consideration,—an invitation to enter into partnership with an eminent lawyer of Savalla, beginning to succumb to the infirmities of old age, and likely, ere long, to surrender to him all the active business of the firm. Nothing could suit him better. Here was scope for all his talent, employment for all his energy. He would be near enough to Berganton, too, for any good name that he might win to reach thither, and clear away whatever prejudice against him still lingered there; yet not near enough to be necessarily brought into contact with its inhabitants.

So much for the future; what of the present?

First, he would see Mrs. Lyte and Astra, bid them farewell, and arrange for the removal of his effects. Then he would hasten to Savalla, to do the last kindness that it was in his power to do for Carice, even though it would seem to justify her father's late incredulity and contemptuous treatment,—namely, meet Doctor Trubie, and dissuade him from any further proceedings against Doctor Remy. There was still room for a doubt that the latter was the murderer of Alec Arling;—let it remain forever a doubt! No weapon should be lifted against him, that must needs fall most heavily upon Carice!

It was gray dawn when this conclusion was reached. The stars were fading from the sky, as a hint that it was time to extinguish his lamp. The East showed a broad rim of light,—only a silver one now, but with some mystic intimation of the gold to which it would soon be transmuted. Was any similar change beginning to show itself in Bergan's heart?

If so, he was in nowise conscious of it. His mind having attained to a comparative degree of composure, his body began to press its claims upon him with some pertinacity. It was twenty-four hours since he had taken food, and nearly double that time since he had slept; this, too, on the end of a long, tedious journey, and while undergoing sore anxiety and distress of mind. No wonder that his head was aching furiously at the temples, and seemed to have a ponderous weight on top, nor that he had a sensation of dizziness at times, while a blinding mist came before his eyes.

He prepared to leave Bergan Hall. That, too, was to be henceforth, so far as he was concerned, a thing of the past. It had given him needful solitude and shelter, in his hour of deep despair; it had been the fittest possible place wherein to take leave of the old life and its shattered hope; but for the new, it had nothing to offer,—except, perhaps, a warning. The stream of active, expansive, beneficent life must forever flow away from its faded splendor, its crumbling massiveness, its dusty traditions and aristocratic genealogies, and its corrupt feudal laws and customs, as well as from that moral ruin, its selfish, tyrannic, besotted master. Together, they might well be likened to a half-buried, decomposing corpse; showing still, through the overspreading mould and fungi, some faint trace of its former grace and nobility of shape and feature, but chiefly impressing the spectator with the carelessness of its exposure and the unsightliness of its decay.

And yet, how strong a hold, after all, had both master and mansion upon his heart! Some time, surely, when he should have won fame and fortune enough to be above all suspicion of self-seeking, he might come back to visit them, and see what could be done for both.

With this thought in his mind, he was about to quit the room as he had entered it, by the window, when a light knock on the door arrested his attention. Almost immediately, Rue entered, and bade him good morning.

"How did you know I was here?" was Bergan's first startled inquiry.

"I heard you when you came," she answered, quietly, "and I knew your step. I always spend this night in the old house; it is the anniversary of your mother's wedding; and she comes back to me in all her youth and beauty, and the rooms light up, and flowers sweeten the air, and there is music and dancing, and the sound of gay young voices; and then, all goes out, and I remember that earth grows dim as heaven draws near. Yes, Master Bergan, I heard you when you came, and I should have come to you at once, only that there was something in your step which told me you came with a heavy heart, and would not like to be disturbed. It is lighter now?"

"A little, maumer; though it is heavy enough yet."

"And nothing will lighten it but time,—and that means the Lord, for time is the Lord's servant, and does His will."

"You know, then,"—began Bergan, and stopped, unable to finish the sentence.

"I know much, Master Bergan; more than you think. Many voices come to whisper in the old blind woman's ear."

"Do you know," asked Bergan, suddenly, "why Doctor Remy has married Carice?"

"Certainly,—to make himself master of Bergan Hall. The more fool he! Rue could have told him it was written on the stars that it should have another and a better master; and the stars do not lie. But I am sorry for Miss Carice; I would have saved her if I could, but there the stars were silent."

"I could have helped the stars in that matter, if I had known," thought Bergan. But he only asked, doubtfully;—"How should Doctor Remy expect to get the Hall by marrying Carice?"

"Because your Uncle Harry has made his will, giving it to her. Never doubt me, Master Bergan, I know what I am talking of; and when I tell you that you shall yet own Bergan Hall, and all the gold that is hidden in it, and every foot of land that belongs to it, you may believe it as implicitly as if it were written in your Bible."

Bergan shook his head; the Hall had ceased to have any value in his eyes, as a possession of his own, or any place in the future that he proposed to himself. Apparently, Rue understood his silence as well as if he had spoken, for she did not press the subject.

She next inquired into his plans, and he explained them to her, as far as they concerned himself.

"It is well," she said, after a moment of reflection. "You could not stay here, of course,—you would be eating your heart out in this dull place. Do your duty in the path that lies so straight before you, and trust God for the rest."

As he quitted the old Hall it occurred to him how strangely events were repeating themselves. Once more, Rue stood in the doorway, in the gray light of the dawn, and promised him its future ownership; once more, he took the road to Berganton, leaving behind him one phase of his life, and entering upon a new one.

Arrived at the hotel he learned that the horse, which he had left at Oakstead on the previous evening, had been sent to the stables, with strict injunctions that he should be notified accordingly, immediately on his arrival,—the friendly act, no doubt, of old Bruno.

Here, too, he first learned the absence of Mrs. Lyte and her family; a piece of information which he received with much unmistakable surprise and wonder, that the landlord, who, like most of the Berganton folk, had suspected him of some connection with their departure, was constrained to believe him innocent.

There being now nothing to detain him in Berganton, he ordered his horse for an immediate return to Savalla. First, however, he went to the breakfast-room, but found that he was unable to eat; food was like ashes in his mouth; the most that he could do was to swallow a cup of coffee.

That ride to Savalla remained always a horrible nightmare in his memory. Sometimes he was riding through the darkness of infinite space; sometimes through whirling trees, over a road heaving as with the throes of an earthquake, and seemingly interminable. Now and then, his senses seemed slipping entirely from his grasp, and were only dragged back by the convulsive effort of an iron will. Reaching the office of the Pulaski House, where he was well known, he just managed to hold them together long enough to scratch a few lines on a sheet of paper, and give directions for its delivery. Then, with a wan smile of relief, he relaxed his hold, and let them slide swiftly away into oblivion.

Two days later, Doctor Trubie, arriving at the same hotel, according to previous agreement, was met by the information that Mr. Arling was lying dangerously ill with that fever which guards, like a flaming sword, the gates of the sunny South; and the letter was put into his hands. Tearing it open, he read:—

"I charge you, by everything that is sacred, to take no further step in the business that brings you here, until I recover, and we can consult together; and, if I die, I charge you, as you would have me rest quietly in my grave, to take none at all. BERGAN."

Doctor Trubie flung down the letter with a most disgusted face. "To think that Roath should escape me thus!" he exclaimed, discontentedly. "That is, to be sure, if Bergan does not recover. He shall recover!"

Upstairs he sprang, two steps at a time. But, once in Bergan's chamber, his heart failed him. The patient lay in a stupor that seemed very near of kin to death. Two physicians stood by the bed, and the first words that met his ear were,—"No hope."