A YOUNG man in a dusty road-cart drawn by a sedate and comfortable looking horse, turned in between the tall whitewashed posts at the foot of Landray's Lane.

The occupant of the cart had reached that fortunate period where he was knowing the best of both youth and age, for he was, perhaps, six or eight and twenty, but so boyishly slight of figure that he might readily have passed for much younger; his apparent youth being still further accented by his smoothly-shaven face. It was in no sense a striking nor a handsome face, but it was fresh-coloured and pleasant to look at; while the frank glance of the grey eyes that lighted it, inspired confidence;and if there was a suggestion of the commonplace, there was also much good nature and not a little shrewdness.

As he turned in at the lane he permitted his grasp to loosen on the reins, and his horse, an animal of evident worth, which seemed to be instantly aware of a change of mood on the part of its driver, went slowly forward with head down, its hoofs and the wheels of the cart making scarcely any sound at all on the smooth, closely-cropped turf; now and again it paused to snatch at some tuft of tall growing grass, but this provoked its master to only the most indulgent of remonstrances.

On either hand were corn-fields. The long rows rooted in the rich, black loam of the flat bottom land were at right angles with the lane, down which ran the faint print of wheels, for it was little used. Beyond the corn-fields on the east was a low growth of willows, here and there overshadowed by the fantastically twisted top of some old sycamore; and beyond the willows and the sycamores was still another flat reach of bottom land, from which came the faint scent of freshly-cut hay.

The broad green leaves of the corn drooped and curled in the hot noon sun, or rustled softly where a breath of wind stirred them. There was intense, searching heat, and silence—the waiting, expectant silence of an August day when the long rainless skies are about to break their drought. A thin blue mist quivered in the level distance, and on the soft green undulations of the pasture land, which sloped up to the densely wooded heights of Landray's Hill, sun steeped and vivid; where the day first smote with light, and where in early spring the arbutus bloomed among the melting patches of snow. In the valley, in the old Indian fields, as the first settlers had called the open grass-land they found along the creek-bank, short shadows from the sycamores barred the rustling corn with slanting shafts of a richer, darker green. Then in a remote field was heard the first sound that disturbed the silent noon hour; and from the meadow beyond the corn-field, came the keen swish of scythes in the tall grass, and a sharp metallic ring tuned to a certain rhythmic beat and swing where a mower had paused to sharpen his blade.

The lane ended at a pair of bars near a clump of trees which clustered about a spacious brick farm-house. This was the Landray home. Back of the farm-house could be distinguished the queer, high-hipped roof of Landray's mill; and from it now, mingling with the other sounds, came the rush of water and the droning splash of wheels.

The young man in the cart glanced about him with a quick sense of pleasure. He was in the second generation away from the soil himself; his father had been a trader, and he was a lawyer; but the peace of it all, the promised plenty of the great corn-fields, the distant droves of cattle in the shaded pasture lands, the scent of the hay, stirred him to something very like envy.

“And he'll be leaving all this!” he muttered under his breath at last; then he added: “And he'll be leaving her—I cannot understand it!”

A woman emerged from a path that led off across the fields, and came down the lane toward him. He did not see her until she was quite close; but when he became aware of her presence he rose hastily from his seat in the cart, and hat in hand, sprang to the ground at her side.

“Mrs. Landray,” he said, and drew the reins forward from the bit so that he could walk beside her and lead his horse.

She was Stephen Landray's wife, and it was of her he had been thinking but the moment before, for he thought of her more often than he realized. To him she had always seemed a most majestic person, strangely mature, and with a dignity and repose of bearing that was the consequence neither of age nor any large experience.

He was vaguely aware that in actual years he must be older than she; but nevertheless on these not frequent occasions when they met, she made him feel conscious and ill at ease; he was oppressed by a sense of his youth and inexperience; and the fact that his acquaintance with life went no further than Benson, and the three abutting counties, became a thing to regret and realize even with shame. But why she, whose life had been quite as limited as his own, should seem to carry with her this breath as from a larger world, was something he could not explain, reason it out as he would.

Her beauty was of the generous Southern type. The soft waves of her hair gleamed like polished brass in the sunlight; it clustered in soft rings on her low, broad brow; her skin was like creamy satin. He allowed his eyes to rest on the masses of her hair, then on the strong beautiful face, her full round throat, and the lovely lines of her perfect figure.

“You have come to see my husband, Mr. Benson?” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Landray; he sent for me.” He hesitated an instant, for he did not wish to tell her of the nature of the business that had brought him out from the town. Then he added in a matter of fact tone: “I suppose it's something to do with this California project.”

Mrs. Landray's face flushed, then it grew very white; she paused and her foot tapped the ground nervously.

“They are two very foolish men, Mr. Benson—I mean my husband and his brother.”

“Then he has told you?” he said quickly.

“That he is going with the party—yes.”

She put out her hand and touched the reins Benson loosely held. “You can spare me a moment? I have been waiting for you.”

He bowed a trifle stiffly. To him she had always seemed, if anything, too undemonstrative, too self-reliant; but he saw now that she was shaken out of her dignity and serenity; she was struggling as her mother and her mother's mother before her had struggled, when the wilderness spoke to the men they loved; and she was knowing as they must have known, that this masculine passion which no woman could comprehend, much less share in, but against which she had set her love, was as vital as that love itself.

The lawyer put his hand in the breast pocket of his coat upon a paper there; one sentence in this paper burned in his memory: To my dearly beloved wife, Virginia Randolph Landray, and then the description of the property Stephen Landray owned and wished to pass to her in the event of his death. Benson had drawn up the will only the week before, and he was now taking it to Landray to be signed and witnessed. “I am a childless man, Benson,” Landray had said, “and should anything happen to me, I want every dollar I own on earth to go to her.” And Landray had shown no little emotion, for the moment putting aside the habitual reserve with which he cloaked any special stress of feeling.

“But what do you want with a will?” Benson had asked. “Whom have you but your wife?”

“I've got to worrying about that Californian venture of our's, and before I go I want to put my affairs in some sort of shape.”

“Then you shall go, after all?” Benson had said.

“I must; there's no help for it. What do you think of the scheme, anyhow?”

“Well, I think better of it now that I know you are going to assume the direction of it.”

“That's odd, with the knowledge you have,” said Landray, with a short laugh.

Benson had not been surprised at what Landray had told him of his intentions; indeed, the whole project, the journey overland, with its hardships and possible danger, the search for the gold when California should be reached, would be but episodes in a speculation for which he felt the Landrays were singularly fitted. They were not business men, no one knew this better than he; they had possessed large means, though the fortune which they had inherited from their father was now much impaired by bad management and the luckless ventures in which they had involved themselves.

He had felt, however, that their lack of ordinary business thrift would not be any special hindrance in such an enterprise as this; where, after all, success would come more as the result of chance, than because of shrewdness or capacity. Even when he was most critical of the brothers, not being able to quite free himself of a secret contempt, since they had started life with such exceptional opportunities, and had made such poor use of them, he admitted that under such conditions as he imagined would be found in California, their strength and courage, their physical readiness and vigour would perhaps more than compensate for the lack of those other qualities in which they had proved themselves so deficient.

“Yes, I think well of the scheme now,” said the lawyer slowly. “Much better than I did before.”

Landray laughed again carelessly.

“One would think I had a long career of success to point to, lucky ventures and the like. But, Jake, we are going to come back rich men, and then, by George! no more risks for me! I'll just potter around out at the farm, keep some trotting stock, and breed fancy cattle, and let it go at that.”

“How does Mrs. Landray feel about this?” the lawyer had asked.

“Why, you can fancy, Benson,” and Landray's handsome face wore a look of keen distress. “She does not know yet, she only suspects. Indeed, no one knows but you, and of course, the investors; they have made a point of it that Bush or I go; indeed, a good share of the money comes into the enterprise on condition that one of us takes its direction.”

A humorous twinkle lurked in the tail of the lawyer's grey eyes. He knew it was the Landray honesty rather than the Landray ability, of which the investors wished to assure themselves.

“Rogers is all right,” continued Landray. “But he is not the man to handle such a venture, and then he may give down any day; it's a question in my mind if he lives through the fall and winter here.”

“So Mrs. Landray does not know yet?”

“I don't imagine there is much left to tell her,” said Landray. “It's too bad she's going to feel it as she is. If I could I would willingly make any sacrifice to be relieved of my obligation to go—short of giving up the chance itself to make a fortune. But one of us must go, our own money and money that would not have come into the scheme but for us will be involved. Bush is quite willing to make the trip alone, but I can't let him do that.”

“I cautioned you to avoid committing yourselves,” said Benson, “for I feared this very thing would happen.”

“I know you did,” said Landray ruefully, “but what was I to do? They hung back until we let them think that we were going; it was only then money came in sight.”

And Mr. Benson, who admired a nice sense of honour, considering it the loftiest guide to human action, had concurred in this view of the case; but now, with Virginia Landray's great sad eyes fixed upon him, his ready sympathy all went out to her. He regretted that he had agreed with her husband; he felt, for a brief instant, that the reasonable thing for the latter to do was to abandon the whole project, with credit if he could, without credit if he must; for what did it matter what men said or thought, where her peace of mind was concerned?

“You are Stephen's lawyer,” Mrs. Landray said, “and I suppose he has few secrets from you; perhaps you know more of his plans than he has told me; until now he has had no secrets from me.” She bestowed upon Benson a troubled, questioning glance, then she made an imperious gesture. “You are to tell me quite honestly if he is as hopelessly committed as he thinks to this matter, and to this man, Rogers—I am not to be put off!”

“He has told you that he is going?” asked Benson, who wished to be quite sure on this point.

“Yes,” impatiently.

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. “Very well, then, I suppose I can speak plainly.”

She felt a sudden sense of jealous displeasure; by what right did he assume this attitude of intimacy with her husband; and how dared he even suggest that he might, by any chance, know more of Stephen's intentions than she did herself; but her resentment was only momentary. “You are to tell me if he is committed,” she said.

“I think he is,” said Benson slowly.

She set her lips firmly. “Then I suppose it is useless for me to object.”

“You are very much opposed to his going?” said Benson. She opened her eyes wide in wonder at the question.

“Would any woman wish the man—” she broke off abruptly, and glanced about her. “He will be leaving all this, and me; and for what?” She made a little gesture with her shapely hand and arm.

“It is rather incomprehensible, Mrs. Landray,” said the lawyer.

“But why should he wish to go? What can he gain by going? I wonder if I am to blame.” She regarded Benson with anxious, searching eyes.

“Men are restless,” he said lamely.

“But why should he be? You would not go—”

“I, no—I have wanted to, though. But it's better for me to stay. They are involved,” he went on slowly. “I warned them in the start that they must be careful or this would happen; and now they are stubborn and unwilling to abandon a venture for which they are largely responsible. Nothing would have come of this man Rogers's efforts without their help.”

“Have you taken shares in this absurd company?”

He smiled a little cynically. “No, and I scarcely think I shall.” he hesitated. “Still I admit the speculation has its fascinations. I can't quite explain even to myself what they are; but they exist. Yes, I've even wanted to go,” he went on, smiling at her, “but I've never found I could afford to give way to my impulses.”

“But in going you would leave no one who would suffer as I shall suffer if Stephen goes. I don't mean but that your friends would regret your absence—” she added hastily.

He looked at her curiously. A faint, wistful smile played about the corners of his mouth. “I haven't a wife, if that is what you mean,” he said at last.

She looked up quickly into his face.

“Do you mean—?” she hesitated.

“Mean what?” he asked.

“Do you love some one?” she coloured slightly.

“I'd hardly call it that—if by that you mean a person. Perhaps I'd better call it an idea,” he said, still smiling at her.

A sudden change came to her manner. A shade of reserve crept into it. The man was only her husband's lawyer, he was almost a stranger to her; even her husband, with the fuller democracy of American manhood, hardly counted him his equal; for he was old Jacob Benson's son, and old Jacob Benson had made his money in questionable ways no Landray had ever condescended to employ. More than this, as speculator and land owner, and afterward as member of the State Legislature he had been General Landray's rival and opponent in all matters of private concern and public enterprise. This was something no rightly constituted Landray would ever forgive. They might respect young Jacob Benson for what he had made of himself, handicapped as he was by such a parent, but they were not men to forget whose son he was.

Young Jacob Benson was, happily, wholly unconscious of the reason for her change in manner; if he noticed it at all, he attributed it to a natural feminine modesty—he spoke now with a generous wish that his words might prove of some comfort to her.

“One thing is sure, Mrs. Landray, they cannot go until spring, and who knows what may happen to change their plans.”

“They will go,” she said quietly. “I know Stephen too well not to know that.”

“I dare say, if the investors are of their present mind eight months hence—but they may withdraw.”

“That will make no difference to Stephen and his brother.”

“Even so, I don't think you need worry, Mrs. Landray. They will soon be sick enough of the venture. I fancy we shall soon see them back here. I know at first they had no intention of going; they were simply the largest shareholders in the enterprise. A more active part has been forced upon them by the other shareholders. You know almost five thousand dollars have been subscribed already, and as much more will probably be raised; and while there are any number of men offering themselves who are willing to go and dig for the gold, they are not the kind of men one would care to trust with the control of such a sum. Your husband and his brother have really been coerced into going; they would hardly admit this, but it is true, nevertheless.”

There was a long pause. At last Mrs. Landray said: “I don't speak of this matter to my husband any more.” She set her lips firmly and went on. “We do not agree on this point; but you can tell me how far their plans are made. I am quite out of his confidence; and it is just the same with Ann and Bushrod; he never tells her.” She smiled sadly. “You see this thirst for sudden riches has destroyed the peace and happiness of at least two homes. I wonder how many more are to be affected by it.”

“I suppose I am violating their confidence,” Benson said, “but I believe their present plan is to start down the Ohio in the early spring.”

Mrs. Landray turned from him abruptly; her emotion mastered her; a sob rose in her throat.

“Thank you, Mr. Benson,” she faltered with a poor attempt at self-control; and then she passed swiftly down the lane toward the house.

Benson followed her retreating figure with his glance until she passed from sight among the trees; then he climbed slowly into the cart.