§ 1

Sylvia returned to New York, where she had some shopping to attend to, and where also Celeste was waiting for her, expecting to be taken to theatres, and treated to a new hat and some false curls and boxes of candy. Celeste had heard all about van Tuiver, it appeared, and was “thrilled to death”—her own phrase. There was no repressing her questions—“Is he nice, Sylvia?”—“What does he look like?”—and so on. Nor was there any concealing her surprise at Sylvia’s reticence and lack of interest in this subject.

The elder sister got a sudden realization of the extent to which she had changed during this last couple of weeks. “They will call you an Anarchist at home,” Frank had predicted; and now how worldly and hard seemed Celeste to her—how shameful and cruel her absorption in all the snobbery of Miss Abercrombie’s! Could it be that she, Sylvia, had ever been so “thrilled to death” over millionaire beaux and millionairess’ millinery? Her sister had grown so in the few months that Sylvia hardly knew her; she had grown, not merely in body but in mind. So serene she was, so self-possessed, so perfectly certain about herself and her life! Such energy she had, such determination—how her sharp, black eyes sparkled with delight in the glories of this world! Sylvia found herself stealing glances at her during the matinee, and wondering if this could be “Little Sister”?

Sylvia had dismissed her multimillionaire from her mind; but she was not to get rid of him as easily as that. (“He persists and persists,” Bates had said.) One afternoon, feeling tired, she sent her aunt forth to attend to some of the family commissions; when to her amazement there was sent up a note, written upon the hotel stationery, in the familiar square English handwriting.

“My dear Miss Castleman,” it ran. “I know that you will be angry when you see I have followed you to New York. I can only plead with you to have pity upon me. You have put upon me a burden of contempt which I can simply not bear; if I cannot somehow manage to win your respect, I cannot live. I ask only for your respect, and will promise never to ask for anything else, nor to think of anything else. However bad I may be, surely you cannot deny me the hope of becoming better!”

You see, it would have been hard for Sylvia to refuse the request. He struck the right chord when he asked for her pity, for she pitied all things that suffered—whether they deserved it or not.

She pitied him when she saw him, for his face was drawn and his look haunted. He, the man of fashion, the exemplar of good taste, stood before her like a whipped schoolboy, afraid to lift his eyes to hers.

He began, in a low voice, “It is kind of you to see me. There is something I wish to try to explain to you. I want you to know that I have thought over what you have said to me. I have hardly thought of anything else. I have tried to see things from your point of view, Miss Castleman. I know I have seemed to you monstrously egotistical—selfish, and all that. I have felt your scorn of me, like something burning me. I can’t bear it. I simply must show you that I am really not as bad as I have seemed. I want you to realize my side of it—I mean, how much I’ve had against me, how hard it was for me to be anything but what I am.”

He paused. He had his hat in his hands, and Sylvia observed to her dismay that he was twisting it, for all the world like a nervous schoolboy.

“I want to be understood,” he said, “but I don’t know if you are willing—if I bore you——”

“Pray go on, Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, in a gentler tone of voice than she had ever used to him before.

“This is the point!” he burst out. “You simply can’t know what it’s meant to be brought up as I was! I’ve come to realize why you hate me; but you must know that you’re the first who ever showed me any other viewpoint than that of money. There have been some who seemed to have other viewpoints, but they were only pretending, they always came round to the money viewpoint, they gave the money reaction. If you try things by a certain measure, and they fit it, you come to think that’s the measure they were made by. And that’s been my experience; since I was a little child, as far back as I can remember—men and women and even children, everybody I met was the same—until I met you.”

He stopped, waiting for her to give some sign. Her eyes caught his and held them. “How was I able to convince you?” she asked.

“You—” he said—and then hesitated. “You’ll be angry with me.”

“No,” she said, “go on. Let us talk frankly.”

“You refused to marry me, Miss Castleman.”

“That was the supreme test?” He shrank, but she pursued him. “You hadn’t thought that any woman would really refuse to marry you?”

He replied in a low voice: “I hadn’t.”

Sylvia sat, absorbed in thought. “What a world!” she whispered, half to herself; and then to him: “Tell me—is Mrs. Winthrop like that?”

Again he hesitated. “I—I don’t know,” he replied. “I never thought about her in that way. She already has her money.”

“If she still had to get it, then you don’t know what she’d be?”

She saw a quick look of fear. “You’re angry with me again?” he questioned. By things such as this she realized how thoroughly she had him cowed.

“No” she said, gently, “I’m really interested. I do see your side better. I have blamed you for being what you are, but you’re really only part of a world, and it’s this world that I hate.”

“Yes,” he exclaimed, with a sudden light of hope in his eyes. “Yes, that’s it exactly! And I want you to help me get out of that world—to be something better, so that you won’t have to despise me. I only ask you to be interested in me, to help me and advise me. I won’t even ask you to be my friend—you can decide that for yourself. I know I’m not worthy of you. Truly, I blush with shame when I think that I asked you to marry me!”

“You shouldn’t say that,” she smiled. “It was only so that you really came to trust me!”

But he would not jest. He had come there in one last forlorn effort, and he poured himself out in self-abasement, so that it hurt Sylvia merely to listen to him. She made haste to tell him that his boon was granted—she would think of him in a kindlier way, and would let him write to her of his struggles and his hopes. Some day, perhaps, she might even see him again and be his friend.

While they were still talking there came an interruption—a bell-boy with a telegram addressed to Sylvia. She glanced at it, tore it open and read it; and then van Tuiver saw her go white. “Oh!” she cried, as if in sudden pain. “Oh!”

She started to her feet, and the man did the same. “What is it?” he asked; but she did not seem to hear him. She stood with her hands clenched, staring before her, whispering, “Papa! Papa!”

She looked about her, distracted. “Aunt Varina’s gone!” she cried. “And I don’t know where she is! We’ll be delayed for hours!” She began to wring her hands with grief and distress.

Van Tuiver asked again, more urgently, “What is it?”

She put the telegram into his hands, and he read the message: “Come home at once. Take first train. Let nothing delay. Father.”

“He’s ill!” she cried. “I know he’s ill—maybe dead, and I’ll never see him again! Oh, Papa!” So she went on, quite oblivious to the presence of the man.

“But listen!” he protested. “I don’t understand. This telegram is signed by your father.”

“I know!” she cried. “But they’d do that—they’d sign his name, even if he were dead, so that I wouldn’t know. They’d want me home to break the news to me!”

“But,” he asked, “have you reason to think——”

“He was ill. I didn’t know just how ill, but that’s why I was going home. He must be dying, or they’d never telegraph me like that.” She gazed about her, wildly. “And don’t you see? Aunt Varina’s out. I’m helpless!”

“We’ll have to find her, Miss Castleman.”

“But I’ve no idea where she’s gone—she just said she would be shopping. So we’ll miss the four o’clock train, and then there’s none till eight, and that delays us nearly a whole day, because we have to lie over. Oh, God—I must do something. I can’t wait all that time!”

She sank on a chair by the table and buried her face in her hands, sobbing like one distracted. The man by her side was frightened, never having seen such grief.

“Miss Castleman,” he pleaded, “pray control yourself—surely it can’t be so bad. There are so many reasons why they might have telegraphed you.”

“No!” she exclaimed, “no, you don’t understand them. They’d never send me such a message unless something terrible had happened! And now I’ll miss the train.”

“Listen,” he said, quickly, “don’t think anything more about that—let me solve that problem for you. You can have a special, that will start the moment you are ready and will take you home directly.”

“A special?” she repeated.

“A private car. I’d put my own at your disposal, but it would have to be sent around by ferry, and that would take too long. I can order another in a few minutes, though.”

“But Mr. van Tuiver, I can’t let you——”

“Pray, don’t say that! Surely in an emergency like this one need not stand on ceremony. The cost will be nothing to speak of, and it will give me the greatest pleasure.”

He took her bewildered silence for consent, and stepped to the ’phone. While he was communicating with the railroad and giving the necessary orders, she sat, choking back her sobs, and trying to think. What could the message mean? Could it mean anything but death?

She came back to the man; she realized vaguely that he was a great help, cool, efficient and decisive. He phoned for a messenger, and wrote a check and an order for the train and sent it off. He had a couple of maids sent up by the hotel to do the packing. “Now,” he said, “do not give another thought to these matters—the moment your aunt comes you can step into a taxi, and the train will take you.”

“Thank you, thank you!” she said. She had a moment of wonder at his masterfulness; a special train was a luxury of which she would never have thought. She realized another of the practical aspects of Royalty—he would of course use a private car.

But then she began to pace the room again, her features working with distress. “Oh, Papa! Papa!” she kept crying.

“You really ought not to suffer like this, when it may be only a mistake,” he pleaded. “Give me the address and I will telegraph for further particulars. You can get the answer on your train, you know. And meantime I’ll try, and see if we can get your home on the long-distance ’phone.”

“Can we talk at this distance?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but at least we can relay a message.” So again she let him manage her affairs, grateful for his prompt decisiveness, which set all the machinery of civilization at work in her behalf.

“Now try to be calm,” he said, “until we can get some more definite information. People are sometimes ill without dying.”

“I’ve always known that I was going to lose my father suddenly!” she broke out. “I don’t know why—he has tragedy in his very face. If you could only see it—his dear, dear face! I love him so, I can’t tell you. I wake up in the night, sometimes, and the thought comes to me: ‘Papa has to die! Some day I’ll have to part from him.’ And then the most dreadful terror seizes me—I don’t know how I can bear it! Papa, oh, Papa!”

She began to sob again; in his sympathy he came and stood by her. “Please, please,” he murmured.

“I’ve no right to inflict this upon you,” she exclaimed.

“Don’t think of that. If I could only help you—if I could suggest anything.”

“It’s one of those cases,” she said, “where nothing can be done. Whatever it is, I’ll have to endure it, somehow. If he’ll only live until I get there, so that I can see him, speak with him again, hear his voice. I’ve never really been able to tell him how much I love him. All that he’s done for me—you see, I’ve been his favorite child, we’ve been like two playmates. I’ve tended him when he was ill, I’ve read to him—everything. So he always thinks about me. He wants me to be happy, and so he hides his troubles from me. He hides them from everybody; and you know how it is—that makes people lean on him and take advantage of him. He’s a kind of family drudge—everybody comes to him, his brothers and sisters, his nephews and nieces—anybody that needs help or advice or money. He’s so generous—too generous, and so he gets into difficulties. I’ve seen his light burning till two or three o’clock in the morning, when he was working over his accounts; and then he looks pale and haggard, and still he smiles and won’t let me know. But I always know, because he stays close to me, like a child. And now there’s been an overflow, and maybe this year’s whole crop is ruined, and that’s a terrible misfortune, and he’s been worrying about it——”

Suddenly she stopped. This was Douglas van Tuiver she was talking to—telling him her family affairs! She had a sudden thrill of fear about it—she ought not to have let him know that her father was in difficulties as to money!

It was only for a moment, however; she could not think very long of anything but her father. What floods of memories came sweeping over her! “He was always so proud of me,” she continued. “When I came out, two years ago—dear old Daddy, he wore his wedding-suit, that he’d had put away in a cedar chest in the attic. He stood beside mother, under the lilies and the bright lights, and both of them would look at me and beam.”

She had risen to her feet, and was pacing the room, talking brokenly, but eagerly, as if it were important to make her listener realize how very lovable her father was. “Just think!” she said. “He had an old purse in his hand—one that my mother had given him on their wedding journey. In it was an orange-blossom from their bridal-bouquet, and some rose leaves that she had bitten off and let fall at his feet, once when he was courting her. He had treasured them for twenty years; and now some one brushed against his hand and knocked the dead leaves to the floor, and they broke and went all to dust, and he got down on his knees and searched for them with tears in his eyes. I remember how mother scolded him for making a spectacle of himself, and he got up and went off by himself, to grieve because his bridal-flowers had turned to dust.”

Van Tuiver had listened in silence. When he spoke, his voice held a strange note. “Never mind,” he said, “you will make it up to him. You will give him flowers from your bridal wreath.”

Again Sylvia found herself uncomfortable. But they were interrupted by the telephone—the connections with her home had been established. She flew to the booth downstairs, but she could hear nothing but a buzzing noise, and so there were some torturing minutes while her questions were relayed—she talking with “Washington,” and “Washington” with “Atlanta,” and so on. What she finally got was this: No one was ill or dead, but she must come at once—nothing must delay her. They could not explain until she arrived. And of course that availed her simply nothing. She was convinced that they were hiding the truth until she was home.

When she went back to her room, she found that Aunt Varina had come. Their trunks were ready, and so they set off for the station, van Tuiver with them. He saw them settled in their car, and the girl perceived that at so much as a word from her he would have taken the long journey with her. She shook hands with him and thanked him—so gratefully that he was quite transported. As the car started and he hurried to the door and leaped off, he was a happier-looking van Tuiver than Sylvia had ever expected to see.

§ 2

By the time that Sylvia’s train reached home, she had gotten herself together. Although still anxious, she no longer showed it. Whatever the tragedy might be, she was ready to face it, not asking for help, but giving help to others. It was surely for that that they had summoned her.

She was on the car platform as the train slowed up; and there before her eyes stood her father. He was haggard, and gray, and old-looking—but alive, thank God!

She flew to his arms. “Papa! What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, my child,” he answered.

“But who is ill?”

“Nobody is ill, Sylvia.”

“Tell me the truth!”

“No one,” he insisted.

“But then, why did you send for me?”

“We wanted you home.”

“But, Papa! In this fashion—surely you wouldn’t—” She stopped, and the Major turned to greet his sister.

Sylvia got into the motor, and they started. “Is Mamma well?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And the baby?”

“Everybody is well.”

“And you, Papa?”

“I have not been so very fine, but I am better now.” Sylvia suspected he had got up from his sick-bed to come and meet her, and so her sense of dread increased. But she put no more questions—she knew she would have to wait. The Major had begun to talk about the state of the crops.

The car reached home; and there on the steps were her mother, and the baby shouting a lusty welcome, and Peggy and Maria dancing with glee—to say nothing of troops of servants, inside the house and out, grinning and waiting to be noticed. There was noise and excitement, so much that for several minutes Sylvia forgot her anxiety. Then everybody wanted to know if she had brought them presents; she had to stop and think what she had purchased, and what she had delayed to purchase, and what she had left behind in the rush of departure. Aunt Varina said something about the special train, and there were questions about that, and about Douglas van Tuiver, who had provided it. And still not a word about the mystery.

“But, Mamma,” cried Sylvia, at last, “why did you bring me home like this?”

“Hush, dear,” said “Miss Margaret.” “Not now.”

And so more delay. Aunt Nannie was expected shortly—she had said she would run over to greet the returning voyagers. Sylvia scented trouble in this, and would no longer be put off, but took her mother aside. “Mamma,” she pleaded, “please tell me what’s the matter!”

The other colored. “It isn’t time now, my child.”

“But why not, Mamma?”

“Wait, Sylvia, please. It is nothing——”

“But, Mamma, did you send me such a telegram for nothing? Don’t you realize that I have been almost beside myself? I was sure that somebody was dead.”

“Sylvia, dear,” pleaded “Miss Margaret,” “please wait—I will tell you by and by. There are people here now——”

“But there’ll always be people here. Come into the library with me.”

“I beg you to calm yourself——”

“But, Mamma, I want to know! Why should I be tormented with delay? Can’t I see by the manner of all of you that something is wrong? What is it?” She dragged her mother off to the library, and shut the door. “Now, Mamma, tell me!”

The other looked towards the door, as if she wished to make her escape. Something about her attitude reminded Sylvia of that “talk” she had had before her departure for school. “My dear Sylvia,” began the mother, “it is something—it is very difficult——”

“For heaven’s sake, go on!”

“My child, you are going to be dreadfully distressed, I fear. I wish that I could help you—oh, Sylvia, dear, I’d rather die than have to tell you this!”

Sylvia clutched her hands to her bosom in sudden fear. Her mother stretched out her arms to her. “Oh, my child,” she exclaimed, “you must believe that we love you, and you must let our love help! We tried to save you from this—from this——”

“Tell me!” cried the girl. “Tell me!”

“Oh, my poor child!” wailed “Miss Margaret” again, “Why did you have to love him? We were sure he would turn out to be bad! We——”

Sylvia sprang towards her and shook her by the arm.

“Mamma, answer me! What is it?”

“Miss Margaret” began searching in the bosom of her dress. She drew out a crumpled piece of paper—a telegram. Sylvia took it with trembling fingers, and spreading it out, read these words:

“Frank Shirley arrested in disorderly house in Boston, held to await result of assault on another student. Possibly fatal. Get Sylvia home at once. Harley.”

She stood perfectly rigid, staring at her mother. She could not realize the words, they swam before her in a maze. The paper fluttered from her fingers. “It’s false!” she cried. “Do you expect me to believe that? It’s a plot! It’s some trick they’ve played on Frank!”

Her mother, frightened by the pallor of her face, put her arms around her. “My daughter—” she began.

“What have you done about this? I mean—to find out if it is true?”

“We telegraphed Harley to write us full particulars.”

“Oh, why did you send for me?” the girl exclaimed, passionately. “If Frank is arrested, I ought to be there!”

“Sylvia!” cried her mother, aghast. “Have you read the message? Don’t you see where he was arrested?”

Yes, Sylvia had read, but what could she make of it? In her mind was a medley of emotions: horror at what Frank had done, disbelief that he had done it, shame of a subject of which she had been taught not to think, anxiety for her lover in trouble—all these contended within her.

“The wretch!” exclaimed “Miss Margaret.” “To drag my child’s name in the mire!”

“Hush!” cried Sylvia, between her teeth. “It is not true! It’s somebody trying to ruin him! It’s a horrible, horrible lie!”

“But, Sylvia! The telegram came from your cousin!”

“I don’t care! It’s some tale they’ve told to Harley!”

“But—he says Frank is arrested!”

“Oh, I ought to go to him! I ought to find out the truth! Frank is not that kind of man!”

“My child,” ventured “Miss Margaret,” “how much do you know about men?”

Sylvia stared at her mother. Vague questions trembled on her lips; but she saw there was no help in that quarter. “I have always kept my daughter innocent!” the other was saying. “He ought to be killed for coming into our home and dragging you into such shame!”

Sylvia stood silent, utterly bewildered. She knew that there were dreadful things in the world, of which she had gathered only the vaguest hints. “A disorderly house!” She had heard the name—she had heard other such names; she knew that these were unmentionable places, where wicked women lived and vile things were done; also she knew that men went there—but surely not the men she knew, surely not gentlemen, not those who ventured to ask for her love!

But why should she torment herself with such thoughts now? This charge against Frank could not be true! “How long will it be,” she demanded, “before we can have the letter from Harley?”

“At least another day, your father says.”

“And there is nothing else we can do?” She tried to think. “We might telephone to Harley.”

“Your Aunt Nannie suggested that, but your father would not have such a matter talked about over the ’phone.”

Sylvia racked her brains, but there was no other plan she could suggest. She saw that she had at least one day of torment and suspense before her. “Very well, Mamma,” she said. “Let me go to my room now. I’ll try to be calm. But don’t let anybody come, please—I want to be alone.”

She could hardly endure to go out into the hall, because of her shame, and the fear of meeting some member of the family. But there was no need of that—they all knew what was happening, and went about on tiptoe, as in a house of mourning. Everyone kept out of her way, and she went up to her room and shut herself in and locked the door. There passed twenty-four hours of agony, during which she by turns paced the floor, or lay upon the bed and wept, or sat in a chair, staring into space with unseeing eyes. They brought her food, but she would not touch it; they tempted her with wine, with coffee, but for nothing would she open the door. “Bring me Harley’s letter when it comes,” was all she would say.

On the morning of the next day her mother came to her. “Has the letter come?” asked Sylvia.

The mother hesitated, and so Sylvia knew that it had come. “Give it to me!” she cried.

“It was addressed to your father, Sylvia——”

“Where is Papa?”

She started to the door. But “Miss Margaret” stood in her way. “Your father, my child, has asked your Uncle Basil to come over.” And then, as Sylvia persisted, “Sylvia, you can’t talk of such things to your father. He thinks it is a matter which your Uncle Basil ought to attend to. Please spare your father, Sylvia—he has been ill, and this has been such a dreadful blow to him!”

“But for God’s sake, Mamma, what is in the letter?”

“It justifies our worst fears, my child. But you must be patient—it is not a thing that a young girl can deal with. Where is your modesty, Sylvia? Your father will lose respect for you if you do not calm yourself. You ought to be hating the man who has so disgraced you—who cares no more for you—”

“Hush!” cried Sylvia. “You must not say it! You don’t know that it is true!”

“But it is true! You will see that it is true. And you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to cling to a man who has been willing to—to—oh, what a shameful thing it is! Sylvia, get yourself together, I implore you—do not let your father and your uncle see you in such a state about a man—an unworthy man!”

So there was another hour of distracted waiting, until the Bishop came up, his gentle face a picture of grief. “Miss Margaret” fled, and Sylvia shut and locked the door, and turned upon her uncle. “Now, Uncle Basil, let me see the letter.”

He put it into her hands without a word. There was also a newspaper-clipping, and she glanced first at that, and went sick with horror. There was Frank’s picture, and that of another man, with the label: “Harvard student who may die as a result of injuries received in a brawl.” Sylvia’s eyes sped over the reading matter which went with the pictures; it was from one of the sensational papers, the kind which revel in personal details, and so she had the whole story. Frank had got into a fight with a man in a “resort,” and had knocked him down; in falling, the man had struck his head against a piece of furniture, and the doctors had not yet determined whether his skull was fractured. In the meantime, Frank was held in three thousand dollars bail. The account went on to say that the arrested man had been prominently mentioned as candidate for class-president, on behalf of the “Yard” against the “Gold Coast;” also that he was the son of Robert Shirley, who had died in State’s prison under sentence for embezzlement.

It seemed hardly necessary to read any more; but Sylvia turned to Harley’s letter, which gave various additional details, and some comments. There was one point in particular which etched itself upon her mind: “There need be no doubt as to the character of the place. It is one of the two or three high-class houses of prostitution in Boston which are especially patronized by college men. This is not mentioned in the newspaper accounts, of course, but I know a man who was present and saw the row, so there can be no question as to that part of the matter.”

Sylvia let the letter fall, and sinking down upon the bed, buried her face in her arms. The Bishop could see her form racked and shuddering. He came and sat by her, and put his hand upon her shoulder, waiting in silence. “My poor child!” he began in a whisper, at last. “My poor, poor child!”

He dared not let her suffer too long without trying to help her. “My dear,” he pleaded, “let me talk to you. Make an effort, hear me. Sylvia, you have to bear it. My heart bleeds for you, but there’s no help—it has to be borne. Won’t you listen to the advice of an old man, who’s had to endure terrible grief, and shame—agony almost as great as yours?”

“Well?” she demanded, suddenly. Her voice sounded strange and hard to him.

“Sylvia, dear, I tried to prove God’s words to you by logic, and I could not. God was never proved by logic, my child—men don’t believe in Him for that reason. They believe because at some awful moment they could not face life alone—because suffering and grief had broken their hearts, and they were forced to pray. Sylvia, there is only one way of help for you—and that is through prayer.”

He waited to know what effect his words were having. Suddenly he heard the strange, hard voice again. “Uncle Basil.”

“Well, my child.”

“I want you to tell me one thing. I have to understand this, but I can’t—I can’t ask anybody.”

“What is it, Sylvia?”

“I want to know—do men do such things?”

The Bishop answered, in a low tone, “Yes, my child, I am sorry to say—many of them do.”

“Oh, I hate them!” she cried, with sudden fierceness. “I hate them! I hate life! It’s a shameful, hideous world, and I wish that I could die!”

“Ah, don’t say that, my child!” he pleaded. “I beg you not to take it that way. If we let affliction harden us, instead of chastening and humbling us, then we miss all the purpose for which it is sent. Who knows, Sylvia—perhaps this is a punishment which God in His wisdom has adjudged you?”

“Punishment, Uncle Basil? What have I done?”

“You have denied His word, my child. You have presumed to set your own feeble mind against His will and doctrine. And now——”

“Oh, Uncle Basil, stop!” she exclaimed. “Your words have no meaning to me whatever!” She buried her face in the pillow, and terrible sobbing shook her, burst after burst of it, as a tempest shakes a tree. “Oh, I loved him so! I loved him so!”

The old man had tried speaking as a Bishop; now he thought that the time had come for him to speak as a Castleman. His voice became suddenly stern. “Sylvia,” he said, “the man was not worthy of your affection, and you must manage to put him from your thoughts. You are the child of a proud race, Sylvia—the daughter of pure women! You must bear this trouble with character, and with the consciousness of your purity.”

“Uncle Basil,” she answered, “please go. I can’t bear to talk to anyone now. I must be alone for a while.”

He rose and stood hesitating. “There’s no way I can help you?” he asked.

“Nobody can help me,” she answered. “Thank you, Uncle Basil, but please go.”

§ 4

And so began the second stage of Sylvia’s ordeal. For days she roamed the house like a guilt-haunted ghost. She could hardly be got to speak to any one—she avoided even people’s eyes, so great was her shame. She would not eat, and she could not sleep—at least, not until she had managed to bring herself to the point of utter exhaustion. Knowing this, she would pace the room until she sank upon the bed almost fainting. In their terror they sent for the doctors, but these could do nothing for her. The Major came several times a day, and made timid efforts to talk to her about her roses and the new plants he had got for her. But she could think about nothing but Frank, and sent him away. Once after midnight he crept to her room and found that she was gone, and discovered her in the rose-garden, pacing back and forth distractedly, bare-footed and clad only in her nightgown. He led her in, and found that her feet were cut and full of gravel and thorns; but she did not mind this, she said—the pain was good, it was the only way to distract her mind.

What made the thing so cruel to her was that element of obscenity in it, which was like an extinguisher clapped down upon her mind, making it impossible for her to talk of it, even to think of it. Sylvia had never discussed such things, and now she hated Frank for having forced them upon her. She felt herself degraded—made vile to the whole world, and to her own soul. She knew that everybody she met was thinking one dreadful thing; she felt that she could never face the world again, could never lift up her head again. She had given her heart to a man to keep, and he had taken it to a “high-class house of prostitution!”

On the third day the Major came to her room and knocked. He had a painful duty to perform, he explained. (He did not add that there had been a family council for nearly an hour past, and that he had been assigned to execute the collective decision.) There had come a letter—a letter addressed to Sylvia from Frank Shirley.

The girl sprang to her feet. “Give it to me!”

“My daughter!” exclaimed the Major, with a shocked face.

She waited, looking at him with wondering eyes. “What do you mean, Papa?”

He took the missive from his pocket, and held it in his hand as he spoke. “Do you think,” he asked, “that it would be consistent with my daughter’s dignity to read such a letter? My child, this man has dragged your name in the mire; do you think that you ought to continue in any sort of relationship with him? Is he to be able to boast that he had you so under his thumb, that even after such an outrage as he had inflicted upon you——”

The Major stopped, words failing him. “Papa,” pleaded Sylvia, “might there not be some explanation?”

“Explanation!” cried the other. “What explanation—that my daughter could read?” His voice fell low. “That is the point—I do not wish my daughter’s mind to be soiled with explanations of this subject. Sylvia, you cannot know about it!”

There was a silence. “What do you want me to do, Papa?”

“There is but one thing a proud woman can do, Sylvia. Send back this letter, with a note saying that you cannot receive communications from Mr. Shirley.”

There was a long silence. Sylvia sank down upon the bed, and he heard her sobbing softly to herself. “Sylvia!” he exclaimed, “this man had your affection—he kissed your pure young lips!” He saw her wince, and followed up his advantage—“He kissed you when you were in Boston, did he not?”

She could hardly bring herself to answer. “Yes, Papa.”

“And do you realize that two or three days later he had gone to this—this place?” He paused, while the words sank into her soul. “My daughter,” he cried, “where is your pride?”

There was something commanding in his voice. She looked up at him; his face was white, his eyes blazing. “Sylvia,” he exclaimed, “you are a Castleman! You have wept enough! Rise up, my daughter!”

She rose, like one under a spell. Yes, it was something to be a Castleman. It meant to be capable of bearing any torture for the sake of pride, of facing any danger for the sake of honor. How many tales she had heard of that Castleman honor! Had not the man who stood before her, the captain of a regiment when only a half-grown youth, marched and fought with a broken shoulder-blade, and slept in mud and rain without shelter or even a blanket, living for weeks upon an allowance of six grains of corn a day?

She drew herself up, and her face became cold and set. “Very well, Papa,” she said, “he deserves my scorn.”

“Then write as I say.” And he stood by her desk and dictated:

“Mr. Shirley: I have received the enclosed letter, but do not care to read it. All relationship between us is at an end. Sylvia Castleman.”

And to such a height of resolution had she been lifted by her Castleman pride, that she addressed an envelope, and took Frank’s letter, and folded it and put it inside, and sealed and stamped the envelope, and gave it to her father. Nor did she give a sign of pain or grief until after she had dismissed him, and closed and locked the door.

§ 5

In the days that followed, Sylvia’s longing for her sweetheart overcame her pride many times; she paced her room, tearing at the neck of her gown like one suffocating, flinging out her arms in abandonment of grief, crying under her breath (for she must not let others know that she was suffering), “Oh, Frank, Frank! How could you?” Anger would come; she hated him—she hated all men! But again the memory of his slow smile, his straight-forward gaze, his voice of sincerity. She would find herself whispering, incoherently, “My love! My love!”

For the sake of her family, she labored to repress her feelings. But she would have nightmares, and would toss and moan in her sleep, sometimes screaming aloud. Once she awakened, bathed in tears, and hearing faint sobbing, put out her hand, and found her mother, crouching in the darkness, watching, weeping.

They besought her to let her mind be diverted by others. For many days there was a regular watch kept, with family consultations daily, and some one always deputed to be with her—or at least to be near her door. Little by little, as she yielded to their persuasions, Sylvia got the views of the various members of her family upon what had occurred.

Aunt Varina put her arms about her and wept with her. “Oh, it is horrible, Sylvia,” she said—“but think how much better that you should find it out before it’s too late! Oh, dear girl, it is so awful to find it out when it’s too late.” Thus the voice of Aunt Varina’s wasted life!

Aunt Nannie came later, as tactful as could have been expected. She did not say, “I told you so,” but she managed to leave with Sylvia the idea that the outcome was within the limits of human understanding. It was a matter of “bad blood;” and “bad blood” was like murder—it would always out. Also Aunt Nannie ventured to hint that it might be that Sylvia had allowed Frank Shirley to “take liberties” with her; and this, of course, made its impression upon the girl, who persuaded herself that she must be partly to blame for her own disgrace.

She became bitter against men; she did not see how she could ever tolerate the presence of one. Her mother, discussing the subject, remarked, “The reason I married your father was that he was the one good man I knew.”

“How did you know that he was good?” demanded the girl.

“Sylvia!” exclaimed her mother, in horror.

“But how? Because he told you so?”

“Miss Margaret” answered hesitatingly, choosing her words for a difficult subject. “I had heard things. Your Aunt Lady told me—how the young men in your father’s set had tried to get him to—to live the wicked life they lived. They made fun of him—called him ‘Miss Nancy’—.” She broke off suddenly. “I cannot talk about such things to my daughter!”

Even from “Aunt Mandy,” the old “black mammy” who had been the first person to hold Sylvia in her arms, the girl now received counsel. “Aunt Mandy” served the coffee in the early morning, and stood in the bedrooms and grinned while the ladies of the family gossiped; she often took part in the conversation, having gathered stores of family wisdom in her sixty-odd years. “Honey, I’se had my cross to bear,” she said to Sylvia, and went on to discuss the depravity of the male animal. “I’se had to beat my old man wid a flatiron, when I ketched him lookin’ roun’ too much—an’ even dat didn’t help much, honey. Now I got dem boys o’ mine, what’s allus up in cou’t, makin’ de Major come to pay jail-fines. But how kin I be cross wid ’em, when I knows it’s my own fault?”

“Your fault, Mammy?” said Sylvia. “Why, you are as good a mother——”

“I know, honey, I’se tried to be good; I’se prayed to de Lord—yes, I’se took dem boys to de foot o’ de cross. But de Lord done tole me it’s my fault. ‘Mandy,’ he says, ‘Mandy—look at de daddy you give dem niggers!’ Oh, honey, take dis from yo’ ole mammy, ef you’se gwine ter bring any chillun into de worl’—be careful what kind of a daddy you gives ’em!”

The family had gathered in a solid phalanx about Sylvia. Uncle Barry, whose plantation was a hundred miles away, and who was a most hard-working and domestic giant, left his overseers and his family and came to beg her to let him give her a hunting party. Uncle Mandeville came from New Orleans to urge her to go to a house party he would give her. Uncle Mandeville it was who had assured Sylvia as a little girl that he would protect her honor with his life; and now he caused it to be known throughout Castleman County that if ever Frank Shirley returned and attempted to see his niece, he, Frank Shirley, would be “shot like a dog.” And this was not merely because Uncle Mandeville was drunk, but was something that he soberly meant, and that everybody who heard him understood and approved.

Just how tight was the cordon around her, Sylvia learned when Harriet Atkinson arrived, fresh from a honeymoon-voyage to the Mediterranean and the Nile.

“Why, Sunny, what’s this?” she demanded. “Why wouldn’t you see me?”

“See you?” echoed Sylvia. “What do you mean. I haven’t refused to see you.” It transpired that Harriet had been writing and ’phoning and calling for a week, being put off in a fashion which would have discouraged anyone but the daughter of a self-made Yankee. “I suppose,” she said, “they thought maybe I’d come from Frank Shirley.”

Sylvia’s face clouded, but Harriet went on—“My dear, you look like a perfect ghost! Really, this is horrible!” So she set to work to console her friend and drag her out of her depression. “You take it too seriously, Sunny. Beauregard says you make a lot more fuss about the thing than it deserves. If you knew men better——”

“Oh don’t, Harriet!” cried the other. “I can’t listen to such things!”

“I know,” said Harriet, “there you are—the thing I’ve always scolded you for! You’ll never be happy, Sunny, while you persist in demanding more than life will give. You say what you want men to be—and paying no attention at all to what they really are.”

“Are you happy?” asked Sylvia, trying to change the subject.

“About as I expected to be,” said the other. “I knew what I was marrying. The only trouble is that I haven’t been very well. I suppose it’s too much rambling about. I’ll be glad to settle down in my home.” She was going to Charleston to live in the old Dabney Mansion, she explained; at present she was paying a flying visit to her people.

“Well, Sunny,” she remarked, “you are going to give him up?”

“How can I do otherwise, Harriet?”

“I suppose you couldn’t—with that adamantine pride of yours. And of course it was awkward that he had to get into the papers. But Beau says these things blow over sooner than one would expect. Nobody thinks it’s half as bad as they all pretend to think it.” (Harriet, you must understand, felt rather sorry for Frank, and thought that she was pleading his cause. She did not understand that her few words would do more to damn him than all that the family had been able to say.)

But she perceived that Sylvia did not want to talk about the subject. “Well, Sunny,” she said, after a pause, “I see you’ve got a substitute ready.”

“How do you mean?” asked Sylvia, dully.

“I mean your Dutch friend.”

“My Dutch friend? Oh—you are talking about Mr. van Tuiver?”

“You are most penetrating, Sylvia!”

“You’ve heard about him?” said the other, without heeding her friend’s humor.

“Heard about him! For heaven’s sake, what else can one hear about in Castleman County just now?”

Sylvia said nothing for a while. “I suppose,” she remarked, at last, “it’s because I came in a special train.”

“My dear,” said the other, “it’s because he came in a special train.”

“He came?” repeated Sylvia, puzzled.

And her friend stared at her. “Good Lord,” she said, “I believe you really don’t know that Mr. van Tuiver’s in town!”

Sylvia started as if she had been struck. “Mr. van Tuiver in town!” she gasped.

“Why, surely, honey—he’s been here three or four days. How they must be taking care of you!”

Sylvia sprang to her feet. “How perfectly outrageous!” she cried.

“What, Sunny? That you haven’t seen him?”

“Harriet, stop joking with me!”

“But I’m not joking with you,” said Harriet, bewildered. “What in the world is the matter?”

Sylvia’s face was pale with anger. “I won’t see him! I won’t see him! He has no right to come here!”

“But Sunny—what’s the matter? What’s the man done?”

“He wants to marry me, Harriet, and he’s come here—oh, how shameful! how insulting! At such a time as this!”

“But I should think this was just the time for him to come!” said Harriet, laughing in spite of herself. “Surely, Sylvia, if you haven’t gone formally into mourning——”

“I won’t see him!” cried the other, passionately. “He must be made to understand it at once—he’ll gain nothing by coming here!”

“But, Sunny,” suggested her friend, “hadn’t you better wait until he tries to see you?”

“Where is he, Harriet?”

“He’s staying with Mrs. Chilton.”

“With Aunt Nannie!” Sylvia stood, staring at Harriet with sudden fear in her face. She saw now why van Tuiver had made no attempt to see her, why nothing had been said to her as yet! She clenched her hands tightly and exclaimed, “I won’t marry him! They sha’n’t sell me to him—they sha’n’t, they sha’n’t!”

Her friend was gazing at her in wonder, not unmixed with alarm. “Good God, Sunny,” she exclaimed, “can he be so bad that you’d refuse to marry him?”

§ 6

All this while, you must understand, there was Sylvia’s “world” outside, looking on at the drama—pitying, wondering, gossiping, speculating. Frank arrested, Frank out on bail! Frank let off with a fine, because the man did not die! Frank leaving college and coming back to his plantation! Would he try to see Sylvia, and what would Sylvia do about it? Would Mandeville Castleman carry out his threat to shoot him? How was Sylvia taking it, anyway? Would she be seen at the next club-dance? And then—interest piled upon interest—Douglas van Tuiver had come! Was it true that the Yankee Croesus wanted to marry Sylvia? Was it true that he had already asked her? Could it be that she had actually refused to see him? And what would the family do about that?—All this, you understand, most decorously, most discreetly—and yet with such thrills, such sensations!

When the audience is stirred, the actors know it; and people so sensitive and proud as the Castlemans could not fail to be aware that the world’s attention was focussed upon them. So Sylvia was not left for long to indulge her grief. As soon as her relatives had made sure of her breach with Frank, they turned their energies to persuading her to present a smiling front to “society.” “You must not let people see that you are eating your heart out over a man!”—such was their cry. There were few things worse that could happen to a woman than to have it known that she was grieving about a man. Just as a savage laughs at his enemies while they are torturing him, so must a woman wear a smile upon her face while her heart was breaking.

From the first moment, of course, her old suitors rallied to protect her—a kind of outer phalanx, auxiliary to the family. They wrote to her, they sent flowers, they called and lingered in the hope that she might see them. When the time for the club-dance came, the siege of the suitors became a general assault. A dozen times a day came her mother or Aunt Varina to plead with her, to scold her. “I don’t want to dance—I couldn’t dance!” she wailed; but it would be, “Here’s Charlie Peyton on the ’phone—he begs you to speak to him just a moment. Go, Sylvia, please—don’t let people think you are so weak!”

At last she told one man that he might call. Malcolm McCallum it was—the same who had crawled upon his knees to prove his devotion to her. She had long ago convinced him that his suit was hopeless, so now he was able to plead with her without offense. Her friends wanted so to help her—would she not give them a chance? They were indignant because of the way a scoundrel had treated her; they wanted somehow to show her their loyalty, their devotion. If only she would come—such a tribute as she would receive! And surely she was not going to give up her whole life, because of one such fellow! She had so many true friends—would she punish them all for the act of one? No, they would not have it! No, not if they had to raid the house and carry her away! The belle of Castleman Hall should not wither up and be an old maid!

Sylvia promised to think it over; and then came Aunt Nannie, to protest in the name of all her cousins against her inflicting further notoriety upon the family. For Sylvia to be exhibiting such unseemly grief over Frank Shirley was almost as bad as to be engaged to him. She must positively take up her normal life again; she must go to this dance!

Sylvia, perceiving that it would be necessary to have the matter out sooner or later, inquired, “Is Mr. van Tuiver to be there?”

She was surprised at the answer, “He is not.”

“Where is he?” she asked; and learned that the visitor had gone with two of the boys on a fishing-trip. Sylvia and her aunt exchanged looks—as two swordsmen might, while their weapons are being measured and the ground laid out for their duel. The girl could imagine what had happened, almost as well as if she had been present. Van Tuiver, with his usual crude egotism, had come post-haste to Castleman Hall; it was Aunt Nannie who had persuaded him to wait, and let her handle the affair with tact. Sylvia must first be drawn out into social life, and then it would be less easy for her to avoid van Tuiver. But although Sylvia felt sure of this, she could not say so. When she hinted the charge, her aunt had a shrewd retort ready: “I have daughters of my own—and may I not have plans of my own for so eligible a young man as Douglas van Tuiver?”

§ 7

Sylvia said that she would go to the dance; and great was the excitement, both at home and abroad. All day long, between fits of weeping, she labored to steel herself to the ordeal. When night came, she let herself be arrayed in rosy chiffon, and then went all to pieces, and fell upon the bed in a paroxysm, declaring that she could not, could not go. One by one came “Miss Margaret,” Aunt Varina, and Celeste, scolding her, beseeching her—but all in vain; until at last they sent for the Major, who, wiser than all of them, arrayed himself in his own evening finery, and put a white rosebud in his button-hole, and then went with cheerful face and breaking heart to Sylvia’s room.

“Come, little girl,” he said. “Daddy’s all ready.”

Sylvia sat up and stared at him through her tears. “You!” she exclaimed.

“Why, of course, honey,” he smiled. “Didn’t you know your old Papa was going with you?”

Sylvia had not known it, nor had anybody else known it up to a few minutes before. Her surprise (for the Major almost never went to dances) was sufficiently great to check her tears; and then came “Miss Margaret” with a glassful of steaming “hot toddy.” “My child,” she said, “drink this. You’ve had no nourishment—that’s why you go to pieces.”

So they washed her face again, and powdered it up; they straightened her hair and smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress, and got her bows and ribbons in order, and took her down stairs to where Aunt Nannie was waiting, grim and resolute—a double force of chaperones for this emergency!

You can imagine, perhaps, the excitement when they reached the club-house; how the whisper went round, and the swains crowded in the doorway to wait for her. The younger ones cheered when she entered—“Hi, yi! Whoop la! Miss Sylvia.” They came jumping and capering across the ball-room floor—one of them tearing a great palmetto-leaf from the decorations on the wall, and performing a wonderful, sprawling salaam before her. “I’m the King of the Cannibal Islands!” he proclaimed. “Will you be my Queen, Miss Sylvia?” Several others locked arms and executed a cake-walk, by way of manifesting their delight. The dance of the country-club was turned into a reception in her honor. They worshipped her for having come—it took nerve, by George, and nerve was the thing they admired. And then how lovely she was—how perfectly, unutterably lovely! Just a little more suffering like this, and she would be ready to be carried up in a chariot of fire and set among the seraphim!

Of course, in the face of such a welcome, it was unthinkable that she should not carry the thing through triumphantly. In the refreshment-room were egg-nog and champagne-punch, and she drank enough to keep her in a glow, to carry her along upon wings of excitement. One by one her old sweethearts came to claim a dance with her, and one by one they caused her to understand that hope was springing eternal in their breasts. She found herself so busy keeping them in order that life seemed quite as it had always been in Castleman County.

Save for one important circumstance. There had come a new element into its atmosphere—something marvellously stimulating, transcending and overshadowing all that had been before. Sylvia found out about it little by little; the first hint coming from old Mrs. Tagliaferro—the General’s wife, you may remember. She had come to Sylvia’s dÉbut party, hobbling with a gold-headed cane; but now, the General having died, she had thrown away her cane, and chaperoned her great-grandchildren at dances, because otherwise people would think she was getting old. She shook a sprightly finger at the belle of the evening, and demanded, “What’s this I hear, my child, about your latest conquest? I always knew you’d be satisfied with nothing less than a duke!” Sylvia’s face clouded, and the other went on her way with a knowing cackle. “Oh, you can’t fool me with your haughty looks!”

And then came Mabel Taylor, a girl who had been a hopeless wallflower in her early days, and had been saved because Sylvia took pity upon her, and compelled men to ask her to dance. Now she was Sylvia’s jealous rival; and greeting her in the dressing-room she whispered, “Sylvia, is he really in love with you?”

“When Sylvia asked, “Who?” the other replied, “Oh, it’s a secret, is it!”

The girl perceived that she must take some line at once. “Are you really going to marry him?” asked Charlie Peyton, with despair in his voice. “We can’t stand that sort of competition!” protested Harvey Richards. “We shall have to have a protective tariff, Miss Sylvia!” (Harvey, as you may recall, was a steel manufacturer.)

The thing had got upon Sylvia’s nerves. “Are you so completely awed by that man?” she demanded, in a voice of intense irritation.

“Awed by him?” echoed Harvey.

“Why don’t you at least mention his name? You are the fourth person who’s talked to me about him to-night and hasn’t dared to utter his name. I believe it’s not customary for Kings to use their family names, but they have Christian names, at least.”

“Why, Miss Sylvia!” exclaimed the other.

“Let us give him a title,” she pursued, savagely. “King Douglas the First, let us say!” And imagine the seven pairs of swift wings which that saying took unto itself! She called him a King! King Douglas the First! She referred to him as Royalty—she made fun of him as openly and recklessly as that! “What sublimity!” exclaimed her admirers. “What a pose!” retorted her rivals.

But even so, they could not but envy her the pose, and the consistency with which she adhered to it. She could not be brought to discuss the King—whether he was in love with her, whether he had asked her to marry him, whether he had come South on her account; nor did she show any particular signs of being impressed by him—as if she really did not consider him imposing, or especially elegant, or in any way unusual. Oh, but they were a haughty lot, those Castlemans—and Sylvia was the haughtiest of them all! The country-club began to revise its estimates of Knickerbocker culture, and to remember that, after all, the only real blood in America was in the South.

§ 8

The next afternoon came Harriet Atkinson, to bid Sylvia farewell, and incidentally to congratulate her upon her triumph. After they had chatted for a while, she put her hand upon her friend’s, and remarked in a serious tone, “Sunny, I’ve had a letter from Frank Shirley.”

She felt the hand quiver in hers, and she pressed it more firmly. “He wanted to explain things to me,” she said.

“What did he say?” asked Sylvia, in a faint voice.

But Harriet did not answer. “I wrote to him,” she continued, “that I declined to have anything to do with the matter.” Seeing her friend’s lip beginning to tremble, she added, “Sunny, I did it for your own good—believe me. I don’t want you to open up things with that man again.”

“Why not, Harriet?”

“After what’s happened, you ought to know that your people would never stand for it—there’d surely be some kind of a shooting-scrape. And even supposing that you got away with him—what sort of an existence would you have? Frank Shirley is no money-maker, and somehow I don’t seem to feel that you were cut out for cottage-life.”

She stopped and fixed her gaze upon her friend. “Sunny,” she said, “I want you to marry the other man.” Then, as Sylvia started—“Don’t ask me what other man. I’m no Mabel Taylor.”

Sylvia perceived that her words were being cherished these days. “Harriet,” she exclaimed in an agitated voice, “I can’t endure Douglas van Tuiver.”

“Now, Sunny, I want you to listen to me. This may be the last chance I’ll have to talk to you—I’m going off to-morrow, to settle down to domestic virtue. I want to give it to you straight—to take the place of your Aunt Lady in this crisis. You fall in love at first sight, and it brings you wonderful thrills, and you marry on the strength of it—and then in a year or two the thrills are gone, and where are you? Take my advice, Sunny, there’s a whole lot more in life than this young-love business. Try to look ahead a little and realize the truth about yourself. If ever there was a creature born to be a sky-lark, it’s you; and here’s a man who could take you out and give you a chance to spread your wings. For God’s sake, Sunny, don’t throw the chance away, and settle down to be a barnyard fowl here in Castleman County.”

“Harriet!” cried Sylvia, frantically, “I tell you I can’t endure the man!”

“I know, Sunny—but that’s just nonsense. You’re in love with one man, and of course it sets you wild to think of another. But women can get used to things; and one doesn’t have to be too intimate with one’s husband. The man is dead in love with you, and so you’d always be able to manage him. I told you that about Beau—and I can assure you I’ve found it a convenient arrangement. From what I can make out, Mr. van Tuiver isn’t a bad sort at all—he seems to have charmed everybody down here. He’s not bad-looking, and he certainly has wonderful manners. He can go anywhere in the world, and if he had you to manage him and do things with him—really, Sunny, I can’t see what more you could want! Certainly it’s what your family wants—and after all, you’ll find it’s nice to be able to please your people when you marry. I know how you despise money, and all that—but, Sylvia, there aren’t many fortunes made out of cotton planting these days, and if you could hear poor Beau tell about what his folks have been through, you’d understand that family pride without cash is like mustard without meat!”

So Harriet went on. She was a sprightly young lady, and generally able to hold her audience; but after several minutes of this exhortation, she stopped and asked, “Sunny, what are you thinking about?”

And Sylvia, her face grown suddenly old with grief, caught her by the hand. “Oh, Harriet,” she whispered, “tell me the truth—do you think I ought to hear his explanation?”

There were more dances and entertainments; and each time, of course, it was harder for Sylvia to escape. She had been to one, and so people would expect her at the next. There was always somebody who would be hurt if she refused, and there was always that dreadful phenomenon called “people”—it would say that the task had been too much for her, that she was still under the spell of the man who had flaunted her. So evening after evening Sylvia would choke back her tears, and drink more coffee, and go forth and pretend to be happy.

It was at the third of these entertainments that she met Douglas van Tuiver. No one had told her of his return—she had no warning until she saw him enter the room. She had to get herself together and choose her course of action, with the eyes of the whole company upon her. For this was the meeting about which Castleman County had been gossiping and speculating for weeks—the rising of the curtain upon the second act of the thrilling drama!

He was his usual precise and formal self; unimpeachably correct, and yet set apart by a something—a reserve, a dignity. This extended even to his costume, which tolerated no casual wrinkle, no presumptuous speck. There was always just a slight difference between van Tuiver’s attire and that of other men—and somehow you knew that this was the difference between the best and the average.

It seemed strange to Sylvia to see him here, in her old environment; strange to compare him with her own people. She realized that she would have to treat him differently now, for he was a stranger, a guest. She discovered also a difference in him. He may have been touched by the change he saw in her; at any rate he was very gentle, and very cautious. He asked for a dance, and promised that he would not ask for more. To her great surprise he kept the promise.

“Miss Sylvia,” he said, when they strolled out after the dance, “may I call you Miss Sylvia, as they all seem to here? I want to explain something, if you will let me. I’m afraid that my being here will seem to you an impertinence. I hope you will accept my apology. When I got back to Cambridge I learned from your cousin what—what the news would mean to you; and I came because I thought perhaps I might help. It was absurd, I suppose—but I didn’t know. Then, when I got here, I did not dare to ask to see you. I don’t know now if you will send me away——”

He stopped. “I am sure, Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, quietly, “you have a perfect right to stay here if you wish.”

“No right, Miss Sylvia, but the right you give me!” he exclaimed. “I won’t take refuge in quibbles. I thought that if I promised not to bother you, and really kept the promise—if I never asked to see you unless you desired it——”

It was not easy to send him away upon those terms. She did not see what good it would do him to stay, but she refrained from asking the question. He paused—perhaps to make sure that she would not ask. “Miss Sylvia,” he continued, finally, “I am afraid you will laugh at me—but I want to be near you, I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to see the world you belong in; I want to know your relatives and your friends—your home, the places you go to—everything. I want to hear people talk about you. And at the same time I’m uncomfortable, because I know you dislike me, and I’m afraid I’ll anger you, just by being here. But if you send me away—you see, I don’t know where to go——”

He stopped, and there was a long silence. “You are missing your examinations,” she said, at last.

“I don’t care anything about Harvard,” he replied. “I’ve lost all interest—I shall never go back.”

“But how about the reforms you were going to work for? Have you lost interest in them?”

He hesitated. “They’ve all—don’t you see?” He stopped, embarrassed. “The movement’s gone to pieces.”

“Oh!” said Sylvia, and felt a slow fire of shame mounting in her cheeks. It had not occurred to her to think of the plight of the would-be revolutionists of the “Yard” after their candidate had landed himself in jail.

They turned to go in, and van Tuiver asked, timidly, “You won’t send me away, Miss Sylvia?”

“I wish,” she answered, “that you would not put the burden of any such decision upon me.” And so the matter rested, van Tuiver apparently content with what he had gained. Sylvia’s next partner claimed her, and she did not see “King Douglas the First” again; a circumstance which, needless to say, was duly noted by Castleman County, to its great mystification. Could it be that rumor was mistaken—that he was not really after Sylvia at all? Could it be that her flouting of “Royalty” was a common case of “sour grapes”?

§ 10

Sylvia would not be content to drift and suffer indefinitely. It was not her nature to give up and acknowledge failure, but to make the best of things. Her thoughts turned to those in her own home, and how she could help them.

All through the tragedy she had been aware of her father, moving about the house like a ghost, silent, wrung with grief; her heart bled for the suffering she had caused him. Her chief thought was to make it up to him, to be cheerful and busy for his sake—to put him into the place in her heart which Frank Shirley had left empty. After all, he was the one man she could really trust—the one who was good and true and generous.

She sought him out one night, while the light was burning in his office. She drew up a chair and sat close to him, so that she could look into his eyes. “Papa,” she said, “I’ve been thinking hard—and I want to tell you, I’m going to try to be good.”

“You are always good, my child,” he declared.

“I have been selfish and heedless. But now I’m going to think about other people—about you most of all. I want to do the things I used to be happy doing with you. Let us begin to-morrow and take care of our roses, and have beautiful flowers again. Won’t that be nice, Daddy?”

There were tears in his eyes. “Yes, dear,” he said.

“And then I must begin and read to you. I know you are using your eyes too much, and mine are young. And Papa—this is the principal thing—I want you to let me help you with the accounts, to learn to be of some use to you in business ways. No, you must not put me off, because I know—truly I know.”

“What do you know, dear?” he asked, smiling.

“I know you work too hard, and that you have things to worry you, and that you try to hide them from me. I know how many bills there are, and how everybody wastes money, and never thinks of you. I’ve done it myself, and now it’s Celeste’s turn—she must have everything, and be spared every care, and write checks whenever she pleases. Papa, if it’s true that this year’s crop is ruined, you’ll have to borrow money—”

“My child!” he began, protestingly.

“I know—you don’t want me to ask. But see, Papa—if I married, I’d have to know about my husband’s affairs, and help him, wouldn’t I? And now that I shall never marry—yes, I mean that, Papa. I want you not to try to marry me off any more, but to let me stay at home and be a help to you and Mamma.”

The other was shrewd enough to humor her. They would get to work at the roses in the morning, and they would take up Alexander H. Stephens’ Confederate History without delay; also Sylvia might take the bills as they came in each month, and find out who had ordered what, and prevent the tradesmen from charging for the same thing twice over. But of course, he did not tell her any of his real worries, nor let her see his bank-books and accounts; nor could he quite see his way to promise that Aunt Nannie should let her alone while she settled into old-maidenhood.

Aunt Nannie came round the next morning, as it happened. Sylvia did not see her, being up to the wrists in black loam in the rose-garden; but she learned the purpose of the visit at lunchtime. “Sylvia,” said her mother, “do you think it’s decent for us to go much longer without inviting Mr. van Tuiver over here?”

“Do you think he wants to come?” asked Sylvia, with a touch of her old mischief.

“Your Aunt Nannie seems to think so,” was the reply—given quite naÏvely. “I wrote to ask him to dinner. I hope you won’t mind.”

Sylvia said that she would find some way to make the occasion tolerable. And she found a quite unique way. It was one of her times for bitterness, when she hated the world, and especially the male animals upon it, and herself for a fool for not having known about them. It chanced to be the same day of the week that she had prepared for Frank’s coming, and had introduced him to the family with so many tremblings and agonies of soul. So now, when she came to dress, she picked out the gown she had worn that evening, and had them bring her a bunch of the same kind of roses: which seemed to her a perfectly diabolical piece of cynicism—like to the celebrating of a “black mass”!

She descended, radiant and lovely, in a mood of somewhat terrible gaiety. She laughed and all but sang at the dinner-table; she joked with van Tuiver, and flouted him outrageously—and in the next breath charmed and delighted him, to the bewilderment of the family, who knew nothing about her adventures with Royalty, and the various strange moods to which its presence drove her.

In the course of that meal she told him a story—one of the wildest and most wonderful of her stories. So at least it seemed to me, who for years have been longing for a poet to take it up and make a ballad of it—a real American ballad! It is curious, but I can hear the very rhyme and rhythm of that ballad, which I cannot write. I wonder if I may not awaken in some grey dawn, and find it all complete, singing itself in my mind!

The story of the burning of “Rose Briar,” it was. “Rose Briar” was the old home of one of the Peytons, which had stood for three generations on a high bluff on the river-bank a mile or so from Sylvia’s home. It had the largest and most beautiful ball-room in the county, and was a centre of continuous hospitality. One night had come a telephone-message to the effect that it was on fire, and the neighbors gathered from miles around; on a wild night, with a gale blowing and the whole roof and upper part of the house in flames, they saw that the place was doomed.

And there was the splendid ball-room, in which they and their fathers and their grandfathers had celebrated so many festivities! “One last dance!” cried the young folks, and in they trooped. The servants were trying to get the piano out, but the master of the house himself stopped them—what was a piano in comparison to a romantic thrill? So one played, and the rest danced—danced while the fire roared deafeningly in the stories above them, and creeping veils of smoke gathered about their heads. They danced like mad creatures, laughing, singing in chorus. Eddying gusts of flame poured in at the windows, and still they sang—

And so on, until there came a crashing of rafters above them, and showers of cinders and burning wood through the windows. Then they fled, and gathered in a group upon the lawn, and watched the roof of their pleasure-house fall in, sending a burst of flame and sparks to the sky.

And here, thought Sylvia, was the roof of her pleasure-house falling in! There was something terrifying in the symbol; the house of civilization was falling in, and people were dancing, dancing! “Don’t you feel that, Mr. van Tuiver?” she asked. “It seems to me sometimes that I can see the world going to destruction before my eyes, and people don’t know about it, they don’t care about it. They are dancing, drunk with dancing! On with the dance!”

She laughed, a trifle hysterically, for her nerves were near the breaking point. Then she happened to look towards her sister Celeste, and caught a strange look in her eyes. She took in the meaning of it in an instant—Celeste was conscious of the presence of Royalty, and shocked by this display of levity upon a solemn occasion! “Sister, how dare you?” the look seemed to say; and the message gave a new fillip to the mad steeds of Sylvia’s fancy. “Never mind, Chicken!” she laughed. (“Chicken” was a childhood nickname, which, needless to say, was infuriating to a young lady soon to make her dÉbut.) “Never mind, Chicken! The roof will last till you’ve had your dance!”

And then, the meal at an end, Sylvia took her guest into the library. She put him in the same chair that Frank had occupied, and turned on the same lights upon her loveliness; she took her seat, and looked at him once, and smiled alluringly—and then suddenly looked away, and bit her lip until it bled, and sprang up and fled from the room, and rushed upstairs and flung herself upon her bed, sobbing, choking with her grief.

§ 11

There were ups and downs like this. The next day, of course, Sylvia was ashamed of her behavior; she had promised to be happy, and not to distress her people—and this was the way she kept her promise. She began to make new resolutions, and to think of ways of atoning. She took her father out into the garden, and pretended deep interest in the new cinnamon-roses. She spent a couple of hours going over his old check-stubs and receipted bills, and with evidence thus discovered went into town and made a row with a tradesman, and saved her father a couple of hundred dollars.

Then, after lunch, she took him for a drive behind the new pony which Uncle Mandeville had given her. She got him out into the country, and then opened up on him in unexpected fashion. “Papa, it isn’t possible for people like us to economize, is it?”

“Not very much, my child,” he answered smiling. “Why?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “It’s all wrong—but I don’t know what to do about it. You spent so much money on me; I didn’t want it, but I didn’t realize it till it was too late. And now comes Celeste’s turn, and you have to spend as much on her, or she’ll be jealous and angry. And Peggy and Maria will see what Celeste gets, and they will demand their turn. And the Baby—he’s smashing his toys now, and in a few years he’ll be smashing windows, and in a few more he’ll be gambling like Clive and Harley. And you can’t do anything about any of it!”

“My child,” he said, “I don’t want you to worry about such things——”

“No, you want to do all the worrying yourself. But, Papa, I have to make my life of some use. Since I can’t earn money, I’ve been thinking that perhaps the most sensible thing would be for me to marry some rich man, and then help all my family and friends.”

“Sylvia,” protested the Major, “I don’t like one of my daughters to have such thoughts in her mind. I don’t want a child of mine to marry for money—there is no need of it, there never will be!”

“Not while you can sit up all night and worry over accounts. But some day you won’t be able to, Papa. I can see that you’re under a strain, and yet I can’t get you to let me help you. If you make sacrifices for me, why shouldn’t I make them for you?”

“Not that kind of a sacrifice, my child. It’s a terrible thing for a woman to marry for money.”

“Do you really think so, Papa? So many women do it. Are they all bad, and are they all unhappy?”

Thus Sylvia—trying to do her duty, and keep her mind occupied. They got back home, and she found new diversions—Castleman Lysle had been feeding himself in the kitchen, and had been picked up black in the face with convulsions. This, you understand, was one of the features of life at Castleman Hall; one baby had been lost that way, since which time “Miss Margaret” always fainted when it occurred. As poor Aunt Varina had not the physical strength for such emergencies, Sylvia had to get a tub of hot water, and hold the child in it—while some one else held a spoon in his mouth, in order that he might not chew his tongue to pieces!

Thus the afternoon passed busily, and in the evening was the spring dance of the Young Matrons’ Cotillion Club. Sylvia absolutely had to go to that, in order to dance with Douglas van Tuiver and atone for her rudeness. She had promised it by way of pacifying Aunt Nannie; and also her father had made plans to accompany her again.

So she put on a new “cloth of silver” gown which she had bought in New York, and drank a “toddy” of the Major’s mixing, and sallied forth upon his arm. There were lights and music, happy faces, cheery greetings—so she was uplifted, dreaming of happiness again. And then came the most dreadful collapse of all.

She had strolled out upon the veranda with Stanley Pendleton. Feeling chilly, she sent her partner in for a wrap; and then suddenly came a voice—his voice!

If it had been his ghost, Sylvia could not have been more startled. She whirled about and stared, and saw him—standing in the semidarkness of the garden, close to the railing of the veranda. It had rained that day, and the roads were deep in mire, and he had ridden far. His clothing was splashed and his hair in disarray; as for his face—never had Sylvia seen such grief on a human countenance.

“Sylvia!” he whispered. “Sylvia!” She could only gaze at him, dumb. “Sylvia, give me one minute! I have come here to tell you——”

He stopped, his voice breaking with intensity of feeling. “Oh!” she gasped. “You ought not to be here!”

“I had to see you!” he exclaimed. “There was no other way——”

But he got no farther. There was a step behind Sylvia, and she turned, and at the same moment heard the terrible voice of her father—“What does this mean?”

She sprang to him with a quick cry. “Papa!” She caught his arm with her hands, trying to stop what she feared he might do. “No, Papa, no!” For one moment the Major stood staring at the apparition in the darkness.

She could feel him trembling with fury. “Sir, how dare you approach my daughter?”

“Papa, no!” exclaimed Sylvia, again.

“Sir, do you wish to make it necessary for me to shoot you?”

Then Frank answered, his voice low and vibrant with pain. “Major Castleman, I would be grateful to you.”

The other glared at him for a moment; then he said, “If you wish to die, sir, choose some way that will not drag my daughter to disgrace.”

Frank’s gaze had turned to the girl. “Sylvia,” he exclaimed, “I tell you that I went to that place——”

“Stop!” almost shouted the Major.

“Major Castleman,” said Frank, “Allow me to speak to your daughter. It has been——”

Sylvia was clutching her father in terror. She knew that he had a weapon, and was on the point of using it; she knew also that she had not the physical force to prevent him. She cried hysterically, “Go! Go away!”

And Frank looked at her—a last look, that she never forgot all the days of her life. “You mean it, Sylvia?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“I mean it!” she answered.

“Forever?”

For the smallest part of a second she hesitated. “Forever!” commanded her father; and she echoed, “Forever!” Frank turned, without another word, and was gone in the darkness; and Sylvia fell into her father’s arms, convulsed with an agony that shook her frame.

§ 12

They got her home, where her first action, in spite of her exhaustion, was to insist upon seeing her Uncle Mandeville. So determined, so vehement she was, that it was necessary to rout the worthy gentleman out from a poker-game at two o’clock in the morning. There had been other witnesses of what Frank had done, and Sylvia knew that her uncle must hear; so she told him herself, with her arms about him, clinging to him in frenzy, and beseeching him to give her his word of honor that he would not carry out his threat against Frank Shirley.

It was not an easy word to get; she would probably have failed, had it not been for the Major. He could see the force in her argument that a shooting-affair would only serve to publish the matter to the world, and make it seem more serious. After all, from the family’s point of view, the one thing to be desired was to make certain that there would be no further communication between the two. And Sylvia was willing to assure them of that, she declared. She rushed to her desk, and with trembling fingers wrote a note to “Mr. Frank Shirley,” informing him that the scene which had just occurred had been intolerable to her, and requesting him to perform her one last service—to write a note to her father to the effect that he would make no further attempt to communicate with her. The Major, after some discussion, decided that he would accept this as a settlement; and he being the elder brother, his word was law with Mandeville—at least so long as Mandeville was sober.

I remember Sylvia’s account of the state of exhaustion in which she found herself after this ordeal; how for two days she had the sensation that her mind was breaking up. Yet—a circumstance worth noting—at no time did she blame those who had put her through this ordeal. She could not blame the men of her family; if any one were at fault, it was herself, for being at the mercy of her emotions, and capable of a secret longing to have parleyings with a man who had dragged her name in the mire. You see, Sylvia believed in her heritage. She was proud of the Castlemans—and apparently you could not have rare, aristocratic virtues without also having terrifying vices. If one’s men-folk got drunk and shot people, one’s consolation was that at least they did it in a bold and striking and “high-spirited” way.

You will perhaps find yourself impatient with the girl at this stage of her story. I recall my own frantic protests while I listened. What a cruel, needless tragedy! I cried out for the evidence of some gleam of sense on the part of any one person concerned. Surely Sylvia, knowing Frank, must have come to doubt that he could have been unfaithful to her! Surely, with the hints she got at that meeting, she must have realized that there was something more to be said! Surely he, on his part, would have found some way of getting an interview with her, or at least of sending an explanation by some friend! Surely he would never have given up until he had done that!

I have claimed for Sylvia the possession of clear-sightedness. She displayed it when it was a question of revising her religion, she displayed it when it was a question of managing her family, and obtaining permission to be engaged to a convict’s son. But, if you look to see her display anything of that sort in the present emergency, you will look in vain. Sylvia could be bold in a matter of theology, she could be bold in a matter of love, but she could not possibly be bold in a matter of a house of prostitution. If I were to give you illustrations of the completeness of her ignorance upon the subject of sex, you would simply not be able to believe what I told; and not only was she ignorant, she could not conceive that it was possible for her to be other than ignorant. She could not conceive that it was possible for a pure-minded girl to talk about such a subject with any human being, man or woman.

I doubt very much, if it had come to an actual test, whether Sylvia would have been capable of marrying against her family’s will. She had opposed them vehemently, but this was because she knew that she was right, and that they, in their inmost hearts, knew it also. The Major and “Miss Margaret” were good and generous-hearted people, and they could not sincerely condemn Frank Shirley for his father’s offense. But how different it was now! In the present matter she faced the phalanx of the family, not on an open field where she could manoeuvre and outwit them—but in a place of darkness and terror, where she dared not stir a foot alone.

And let me tell you also that you mistake Frank Shirley if you count upon the mere physical fact that he could have got an explanation to Sylvia. It was not easy for him to explain about such matters to the woman he loved; and if you think it was easy, you are a modern, matter-of-fact person, not understanding the notions of an old-fashioned Southerner. The simple fact was that when Frank wrote to Harriet Atkinson, to ask her to hear his plea, he felt that he was doing something desperate and unprecedented; and when Harriet wrote, coldly refusing to have anything to do with the matter, he felt that she had rebuked him for his boldness. As for the last effort he had made to see Sylvia, it was the act of a man driven frantic by love—a man willing to sacrifice his life, and even his self-respect. I have portrayed Frank poorly if I have not made you realize that from the first hour he approached Sylvia with a sense of inferiority and of guilt; that he had remained her lover against the incessant protests of his pride. People are making money rapidly these days in the South, and so becoming like us “Yankees”; yet it will be a long time, I think, before a Southerner without money will make love to a rich woman without feeling in his heart that he is acting the knave.

§ 13

There came another long struggle for Sylvia, another climb out of the pit. For the sake of her father, she could not delay; as soon as she was able to move about, she was out among her roses again, and reading Alexander Stephens in the evenings. Within a week she had been to a card-party and a picnic, and also had received a call from Douglas van Tuiver.

Never before had Sylvia worn such an ethereal aspect; he was gentle, even reverent, in his manner to her. He had a particular reason for calling to see her, he said. He owned a yacht, considered quite a beautiful vessel; it was now in commission, but idle, and he had taken the liberty of ordering it to the Southern coast, and wished to beg her to use it to bring the color back into her cheeks. She might take her Aunt Varina, her sister—a whole party, if she chose—and cruise up the coast, to Maine and the St. Lawrence, or over in the North Sea—wherever her fancy suggested. He would go with her and take charge, if she would permit—or he would stay behind, and be happy in the knowledge that she was recovering her health.

Of course, Sylvia could not accept such a favor; she insisted that it was impossible, in spite of all his arguments and urgings. She thanked him so cordially, however, that he went away quite happy.

Then came Mrs. Chilton, and there was a conclave of the ladies. Why should she not accept the offer? It was the very thing she needed to divert her mind, and get her out of this disgraceful state.

“Aunt Nannie,” cried the girl, “how can you think of wanting me to accept such a gift from a comparative stranger? It must cost hundreds of dollars a month to run such a yacht!”

“About five thousand dollars a month, my dear,” said the other, quietly.

Sylvia was aghast; once in a while even a fiery revolutionist like herself was awe-stricken by the actuality of Royalty. “I don’t want things like that,” she said, at last. “I want to stay quietly at home and help Papa.”

“You need a change,” declared the other. “So long as you are here you are never safe from that evil man; and anyway you are surrounded by reminders of him. A yachting-trip would force you to put your mind on other things. The sea-air would do you good; and if you took Celeste with you—think what a treat for her!”

“Oh, Sylvia, please do!” cried Celeste.

Sylvia looked at her sister. “You’d like to go?”

“Oh, how can you ask?” she replied. “It would be heaven!”

Sylvia said that she would think it over. But in reality she wanted to think about something else. She waited until they left her alone with her sister, and then she said, “You like Mr. van Tuiver, don’t you?”

“How could I fail to like him?” asked Celeste.

The other tried to draw her out. Why did she like him? He had such beautiful manners, such dignity—there were no loose ends about him. He had been everywhere, met everybody of consequence; compared with him the men at home seemed like country-fellows. It was that indescribable thing called elegance, said Celeste, gravely. She could not understand her sister’s attitude at all; she thought Sylvia treated van Tuiver outrageously, and her eyes flashed a danger-signal as she said it. It was a woman’s right to reject a man’s advances if she chose to; but she ought not to humiliate him, when his only offense was admiring her to excess.

“I only wish it was you he admired,” said Sylvia, who was in a gentle mood.

“No chance of that,” remarked the other, with a touch of bitterness in her voice. “He has no eyes or ears for anybody else when you are about.”

“I’m going to try to lend him eyes and ears,” responded Sylvia. For that was the idea that had occurred to her—van Tuiver must be persuaded to transfer his interest to Celeste! Celeste would marry him; she would marry him without the least hesitation or distress; and then the elder sister might settle down with her family and her rose-gardens and her Confederate History!

§ 14

Sylvia became quite excited over this scheme. When van Tuiver asked permission to call again, she was glad to say yes; but she kept Celeste with her, guiding the conversation so as to show off her best qualities. But alas, “Little Sister” had no qualities to be shown off when van Tuiver was about! She was so much impressed by him that she trembled with stage fright. Usually a bright and vivacious girl, although somewhat hard and shallow, she was now dumb, abject, a booby! Sylvia raged at her inwardly, and when van Tuiver had taken his departure, she said, “Celeste, how can you expect to impress a man if you let him see you are afraid to breathe in his presence?”

Tears of humiliation came into her sister’s eyes. “What’s the use of talking about my impressing him? Can’t you see that he pays no more attention to me than if I were a doll?”

“Make him pay attention to you!” cried the other. “Shock him, hurt him, make him angry—do anything but put yourself under his feet!” She went on to give a lecture on that awe-inspiring phenomenon, the Harvard manner; trying to prove to her sister that it was an idol with feet of clay, which would topple if one attacked it resolutely. She told the story of her own meeting with King Douglas the First, and how she had been able to subdue him with cheap effrontery. But she soon discovered that her arguments were thrown away upon Celeste, who was simply shocked by her story, and had no more the desire than she had the power to subdue van Tuiver. At first Sylvia had thought it was mere awe of his millions, but gradually she realized that it was something far more serious—something quite tragic. Celeste had fallen in love with Royalty!

But still Sylvia could not give up the struggle. It would have been such a marvelous solution of her problem! She let van Tuiver call as often as he wanted to; but she became, all at once, a phenomenon of sisterly affection. She took Celeste horseback riding with them—and Celeste rode well. If van Tuiver asked to go automobiling, she found shrewd excuses for having Celeste go also. But in the end she had to give up—because of the “English system.” Van Tuiver did not want Celeste, and was so brutally unaware of her existence that Celeste came home with tears of humiliation in her eyes. Sylvia went off by herself and shed tears also; she hated van Tuiver and his damnable manners!

She realized suddenly to what extent he was boring her. He came the next day, and spent the better part of an hour talking to her about his experiences among the elect in various parts of the world. He had been shooting last fall upon the estates of the Duke of Something in Scotland. You went out in an automobile, and took a seat in an arm-chair, and had several score “beaters” drive tame pheasants towards you; you had two men to load your guns, and you shot the birds as they rose; but you could not shoot more than so many hundred of a morning, because the recoil of the gun gave you a headache. The Duke had a couple of guns which were something special—he valued them at a thousand guineas the pair.

“Mr. van Tuiver,” said the girl, suddenly, “there is something I want to say to you. I have been meaning to say it for some time. I think you ought not to stay here any longer.”

His face lost suddenly its expression of complacency. “Why, Miss Sylvia!” he exclaimed.

“I want to deal with you frankly. If you are here for any reason not connected with me, why all right; but if you are here on my account, I ought not to leave you under any misapprehension.”

He tried hard to recover his poise. “I had begun to hope”—he began. “You—are you sure it is true?”

“I am sure. You realize of course—it’s been obvious from the outset that my Aunt Nannie has entered into a sort of partnership with you, to help you persuade me to marry you. And of course there are others of my friends—even members of my family, perhaps—who would be glad to have me do it. Also, you must know that I’ve been trying to persuade myself.” Sylvia lowered her eyes; she could not look at him as she said this. “I thought perhaps it was my duty—the only useful thing I could do with my life—to marry a rich man, and use his money to help the people I love. So I tried to persuade myself. But it’s impossible—I could not, could not do it!”

She paused. “Miss Sylvia,” he ventured, “can you be sure—perhaps if you married me, you might——”

“No!” she cried. “Please don’t say any more. I know you ought not to stay! I could never marry you, and you are throwing away your time here. You ought to go!”

There was a silence. “Miss Sylvia,” he began, finally, “this is like a death-sentence to me.”

“I know,” she said, “and I’m sorry. But there’s no help for it. Putting off only makes it worse for you.”

“Don’t think about me,” he said. “I’ve no place to go, and nothing better I can be doing. If you’ll let me stay, and try to be of some service”—

“No,” she declared, “you can be of no service. I want to be alone, with my father and the people I love; and it is only distressing to me to see you.”

He rose, and stood looking at her, crestfallen. “That is all you have to say to me, Miss Sylvia?”

“That is all. If you wish to show your regard for me, you will go away and never think of me again.”

§ 15

Van Tuiver went away; but within a week he was back, writing Sylvia notes to say that he must see her, that he only sought her friendship. And then came Aunt Nannie, and there was a family conference—ending not altogether to Sylvia’s advantage. Aunt Nannie took the same view as Mrs. Winthrop, that one had no right to humiliate a man who carried such vast responsibilities upon his shoulders. Sylvia recurred to her old phrase “Royalty”—and was taken aback when her aunt wanted to know just what were her objections to Royalty. Had she not often heard her Uncle Mandeville say that there ought to be a king in America to counteract the influence of Yankee demagogs? That rather took the wind out of Sylvia’s sails; for she had a great respect for the political wisdom of her uncles, and really could give no reason why a king might not be a beneficent phenomenon. All she could reply was that she did not like this particular king, and would not see him. When Aunt Nannie insisted that van Tuiver had been a guest under her roof, and that Sylvia’s action had been an unheard of discourtesy, the girl said that she was willing to apologize, either to her aunt or to van Tuiver—but that nothing could induce her to let him call again.

King Douglas went off to Newport, where the family of Dorothy Cortlandt had its granite cottage; and so for two months Sylvia enjoyed peace. She read to her father, and played cards with him, and took him driving, exercising her social graces to keep him from drinking too many toddies. I could wish there were space to recite some of the comical little dramas that were played round the good Major’s efforts to cheat himself and his daughter, and exceed the number of toddies which his physician allowed to him!

Aunt Nannie being away at the coast, it was easier for the girl to avoid social engagements, especially with the excuse that her father’s health was poor, and his plantation duties engrossing. There had been an overflow in the early spring, just at planting-time, and so there was no cotton that year. Fences had been swept away, cattle drowned, and negro-cabins borne off to parts unknown. The Major had three large plantations, whose negroes must be kept over the year, just as if they were working. Also there were small farms, rented to negro tenants who had lost everything; they had to be taken care of—one must “hold on to one’s niggers.” “Why don’t you let them raise corn?” van Tuiver had inquired; to which the Major answered, “My negroes could no more raise corn than they could raise ostriches.”

So there was much money to be borrowed, and money was “tight.” Everybody wanted it from the local banks, and as this was the second bad year, the local banks were in an ungenerous mood. Worse than that, there were troubles vaguely rumored from “Wall Street.” What this meant to Sylvia was that her father sat up at night and worried over his books, and could not be got to talk of his affairs.

But what distressed her most was that there was no sign of any effort to curtail the family’s expenditure. Aunt Varina and the children were at the summer home in the mountains, and so there were two establishments to be kept going. Also Celeste was giving house parties, and ordering new things from New York, in spite of the fact that she had come home from school with several trunkloads of splendor. The Major’s family all signed his name to checks, and all these checks were like chickens which came home to roost in the pigeon-holes in the office-desk.

In the fall the Major’s health weakened under the strain, and the doctor insisted that he must go away at all hazards. Uncle Mandeville had taken a place at one of the Gulf Coast resorts, and Sylvia and her father were urged to come there—just in time for the yachting regatta, wrote the host. They came; and about two weeks later a great ocean-going yacht steamed majestically into the harbor, and the dismayed Sylvia read in the next morning’s paper that Mr. Douglas van Tuiver, who had been cruising in the Gulf with a party of friends, had come to attend the races!

“I won’t see him!” she declared; and Uncle Mandeville, who was in command here, backed her up, and offered to shoot the fellow if he molested her. This, of course, was in fun, but Uncle Mandeville was serious in his support of his niece, maintaining that the Castlemans needed no Yankee princeling to buttress their fortunes.

She fully meant not to see him. But he had brought allies to make sure of her. That afternoon an automobile drew up at the door, and Sylvia, who was on the gallery, saw a lady descending, waving a hand to her. She stared, dumb-founded. It was Mrs. Winthrop!

Mrs. Winthrop—clad in spotless white from hat to shoetips, looking sunburned and picturesque, and surprisingly festive. No one was in sight but Sylvia, and so she had a free field for her wizardry. She came slowly up the gallery-steps, and took the outstretched hands in hers, and gazed. How much she read in the pale, thin face—and what deeps of feeling welled up in her!

“Oh, let me help you!” she murmured. And nothing more.

“Thank you!” said Sylvia at last.

“My dryad!” Quick tears of sympathy started in the great lady’s eyes, and came running down her sunburned cheeks, and had to be brushed away with a tiny Irish lace handkerchief.

“Believe me, Sylvia, I too have known grief!” she began, after a minute. Sylvia was deeply touched; for what grief could be more fascinating than that which lurked in the dream-laden eyes before her? She found herself suddenly recalling an irreverent phrase of “Tubby” Bates’: “The beautiful unhappy wife of a railroad-builder!”

They sat down. “Sylvia,” said Mrs. Winthrop, “you need diversion. Come out on the yacht!”

“No,” she replied, “I don’t want to meet Mr. van Tuiver again.”

“I appreciate your motives,” said the other. “But you may surely trust to my discretion, Sylvia. Mr. van Tuiver has recovered himself, and there is no longer any need for you to avoid him.”

He was a much changed man, went on “Queen Isabella”; so chastened that his best friends hardly knew him. He had become a most fascinating figure, a sort of superior Werther; his melancholy became him. He had been really admirable in his behavior, and Sylvia owed it to him to give him a chance to show her that he could control himself, to show his friends that she had not dismissed him with contempt. There was a charming party on board the yacht; it included van Tuiver’s aunt, Mrs. Harold Cliveden, of whom Sylvia had surely heard; also her niece, Miss Vaillant, and Lord Howard Annersley, who was engaged to her. Sylvia had probably not seen the accounts of this affair, but it was most romantic. The girl pleaded that her father was ill and needed her. But he might come too, said Mrs. Winthrop; the diversion would benefit him. So at last Sylvia consented to go to lunch.

§ 16

Van Tuiver came to fetch them on the following day. He looked his new rÔle of a leisure-class Werther, and acted up to it quite touchingly. He was perfect in his attitude toward his guests, carefully omitting all reference to personal matters, and confining his conversation to the yachting-trip and the party on board—especially to Lord Howard. Sylvia said that she had never met a Lord before, and it would seem like a fairy-story to her. The other was careful to explain that Lord Howard was not a fortune-hunter, but a friend of his. So Sylvia furbished up her weapons—but put most of them away when she got on board, and found out what a very commonplace young man his lordship was.

It was necessary to extend a return invitation, so Uncle Mandeville took the party automobiling along the coast, and spread a sumptuous picnic-luncheon. Then the next day Sylvia let herself be inveigled on a moonlight sailing-trip; and so it came about that she was cornered in the bow of the boat, with van Tuiver at her side, declaring in trembling accents that he had tried to forget her, that he could not live without her, that if she did not give him some hope he would take his life.

She was intensely annoyed, and answered him in monosyllables, and took refuge with Lord Howard, who showed signs of forgetting that he was already in the midst of a romance. She vowed that she would accept no more invitations, and that van Tuiver would never deceive her in that way again. This last with angry emphasis to Mrs. Winthrop, who, perceiving that something had gone wrong, took her aside as the party was breaking up.

“Queen Isabella’s” lovely face showed intense distress. “Oh, these men!” she cried. “Sylvia, what can we do with them?” And when Sylvia, taken aback by this appeal, was silent, the other continued, pleadingly, “You must be loyal to your sex, and help me! We all have to manage men!”

“But what do you want me to do?” asked the girl. “Marry him?”

She meant this for the extreme of sarcasm; and great was her surprise when Mrs. Winthrop caught her hand and exclaimed, “My dear, I want you to do just that!”

“But then—what becomes of my fineness of spirit?” cried Sylvia, with still more withering sarcasm.

Said “Queen Isabella,” “The man loves you.”

“I know—but I don’t love him.”

“He loves you deeply, Sylvia. I think you will really have to marry him.”

“In spite of the fact that I don’t love him in the least?”

The other smiled her gentlest smile. “I want you to let me come and talk to you about these matters.”

“But, Mrs. Winthrop, I don’t want to be talked to about marrying Mr. van Tuiver!”

“I want to explain things to you, Sylvia. You must grant me that favor—please!” In the hurry of departure, Sylvia gave no reply, and the other took silence for consent.

By what device van Tuiver could have reconciled Mrs. Winthrop, Sylvia could not imagine; but when the great lady called, the next afternoon, she was as ardent on the one side as she had formerly been on the other. She painted glowing pictures of the splendors which awaited the future Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver. The courts of Europe would be open to her, her life would be one triumphal pageant. Also, taking a leaf out of “Tubby” Bates’ note-book, “Queen Isabella” discoursed upon the good that Sylvia would be able to do with her husband’s wealth.

This interview with Mrs. Winthrop was important for another reason; it was the means of setting at rest what doubts were lurking in Sylvia’s mind as to her treatment of Frank Shirley. The other evidently had the matter in mind, for Sylvia needed only to allude to it, whereupon Mrs. Winthrop proceeded, with the utmost tact and understanding, to give her exactly the information she was craving. The dreadful story was surely true—everybody at Harvard knew it. All that one heard in defense was that it was a shame the story had been spread abroad; for there were men, said Mrs. Winthrop, who did these shameful things in secret, and had no remorse save when they were found out. Without saying it in plain words, she caused Sylvia to have the impression that such evils were to be found among men of low origin and ignominious destinies: a suggestion which started in Sylvia a brand-new train of thought. Could it be that this was the basis of social discrimination—the secret reason why her parents were so careful what men she met? It threw quite a new light upon the question of college snobbery, if one pictured the club-men as selected and set apart because of their chaste lives. It made quite a difference in one’s attitude towards the “exclusiveness” of van Tuiver—if one might think of him, as Mrs. Winthrop apparently did think of him, as having been guarded from contamination, from the kind of commonness to which Frank Shirley had permitted himself to stoop.

Van Tuiver of course wrote letters of apology; but Sylvia would not answer them nor see him. As the yacht still lingered in the harbor, she became restless, and was glad when the Major decided to return home to the rose-gardens and Alexander Stephens. Soon afterwards she learned that the yachting-party had returned to New York; but in a couple of weeks “King Douglas” was at Aunt Nannie’s again, annoying her with his letters and his importunities.

By this time everybody in Castleman County knew the situation; it had become a sort of State romance—or perhaps it would be better to say a State scandal. Sylvia became aware of a new force, vaguer, but more compelling even than that of the family—the power of public opinion. It was all very well for a girl to have whims and to indulge them; to be coquettish and wayward—naturally. But to keep it up for so long a time, to carry the joke so far—well, it was unusual, and in somewhat questionable taste. It was a fact that every person in Castleman County shone by the reflected glory of Sylvia’s great opportunity; and everybody felt himself—or more especially herself—cheated of this glory by the girl’s eccentricity. You may take this for a joke, but let me tell you that public opinion is a terrible agent, which has driven mighty princes to madness, and captains of predatory finance to suicide.

All this time Sylvia was thinking—thinking. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she was debating one problem in her soul. As I don’t want anyone to misunderstand her or despise her, I must try to tell, briefly and simply, what were her thoughts.

She had come to hate life. Everything that had ever been sweet to her seemed to have turned to ashes in her mouth. The social game, for which she had been trained with so much care and at so great expense, upon which she had entered with such zest three years before—the game had become a sordid mockery to her. It was a chase after men, an elaboration of devices to gain and hold their attention. To be decked out and sent forth to perform tricks—no, it was an utterly intolerable thing.

Her whole being was one cry to stay at home with the people she loved. Here were her true friends, who would always stand by her, who would be a bulwark against the ugliness of life. A wonderful thing it was, after all, the family; a kind of army of mutual defense against a hostile, predatory world. “Life is a case of dog eat dog,” had been the words of Uncle Mandeville. “You have to eat or be eaten.” And Uncle Mandeville had seen so much of life!

So the one high duty that Sylvia could see was to stand by and maintain the family. And there were increasing signs that this family was in peril. More and more plainly was worry to be read in the face of the Major; there were even signs that his worry had infected others. Curious, incredible as it might seem, “Miss Margaret” was trying to economize! She wandered over her exquisite velvet carpets in a faded last year’s gown, and a pair of rusty last year’s slippers; nor could she be persuaded to purchase new—until the Major himself sent off an order to her costumer in New Orleans!

Also Aunt Varina had taken to fretting over the housekeeping extravagances. So many idle negroes eating their heads off in the kitchen! Such grocery and laundry bills, beyond all reason and sense! The echoes of her protest reached even to the tradesmen in the town, who heard with dismay that at Castleman Hall they were counting the supplies, and going over the bills, and refusing to pay for goods which had not been sent, or had been stolen by the negroes employed to deliver them!

“Aunt Mandy,” the black cook, had once been heard to declare that Castleman Hall was not a home, but “a free hotel.” A hotel with great airy rooms, huge four-poster beds, and quaint old “dressers” and “armours” of hand-carved mahogany! No wonder the guests came trooping! “We ought to move into one of the smaller houses on the plantation!” declared Aunt Varina; and what a horror to have such an idea mentioned in the family. Fear assailed “Miss Margaret”—what if the neighbors were to hear of it? Everybody knew that there had been droughts and floods, and somebody might suspect that these had touched the Castlemans! Mrs. Castleman decided forthwith that it would be necessary to give a big reception; and the moment this was announced came a cry from Celeste—why, if her mother could give a reception, could she not have the little “electric” for which she had begged all summer?

Celeste was going back to Miss Abercrombie’s in a week or two. Going back to Fifth Avenue and its shops—to open accounts at any of them she chose, and sign her father’s name to checks, just as Sylvia had done. It would have been a painful matter to curtail this privilege, for Sylvia was the favorite daughter, and Celeste knew it, and was bitterly resentful of every sign of favoritism. And yet the privilege was more dangerous in the case of Celeste, who was careless to the point of wickedness. You might see her step out of an expensive ball-gown at night, and leave it a crumpled ring upon the floor until the maid hung it up in the morning; you might see her kick off her tight, high-heeled slippers, and walk about the room for hours in her stockinged feet—thus wearing out a pair of new silk hose that had cost five dollars, and kicking them to one side to be carried off by the negroes. Celeste would permit nothing but silk upon her exquisite person, and was given to lounging about in oriental luxuriance, while Peggy and Maria gazed at her awe-stricken, as at some princess in a fairy-story book. Sylvia saw with bewilderment that everywhere about her it was the evil example which seemed to be prevailing.

Sylvia could not plan to stay at home and share in this plundering of her father. She must marry; yet when it came to the question of marrying, the one positive fact in her consciousness was that she could never love any man. No matter how long she might wait, no matter how much energy she might expend in hesitating and agonizing, sooner or later she would give herself in marriage to some man whom she did not love. And after all, there was very little choice among them, so far as she could see. Some were more entertaining than others; but it was true of everyone that if he touched her hand in token of desire, she shrunk from him with repugnance.

The time came when to her cool reason this shrinking wore the aspect of a weakness. When so much happiness for all those she loved depended upon the conquering of it, what folly not to conquer it! Here was the obverse of that distrust of “blind passion” which they had taught her. Whether it was an emotion towards or away from a man, was it a thing which should dominate a woman’s life? Was it not rather a thing for her to beat into whatever shape her good sense directed?

Seated one day in her mother’s room, Sylvia asked, quite casually, “Mamma, how often do women marry the men they love?”

“Why, what makes you ask that?” inquired the other.

“I don’t know, Mamma. I was just thinking.”

“Miss Margaret” considered. “Not often, my child; certainly not, if you mean their first love.” Then, after a pause, she added, “I think perhaps it’s well they don’t. Most all those I know who married their first love are unhappy now.”

“Why is that, Mamma?”

“They don’t seem able to judge wisely when they’re young and blinded by passion.” “Miss Margaret” drifted into reminiscences—beginning with the case of Aunt Varina, who was in the next room.

“It seems such a terrible thing,” said Sylvia. “Love is—well, it makes you want to trust it.”

“Something generally happens,” replied the other. “A woman has to wait, and in the end she marries for quite other reasons.”

“And yet they manage to make out!” said the girl, half to herself.

“Children come, dear. Children take their time, and they forget. I remember so well your Uncle Barry’s wife—she visited us in her courtship days, and she used to wake up in the middle of the night, and whisper to me in a trembling voice, ‘Margaret, tell me—shall I marry him?’ I think she went to the altar without really having her mind made up; and yet, you see, she’s one of the happiest women I know—they are perfectly devoted to each other.”

Sylvia went away to ponder these things. The next day Aunt Varina happened to talk about her life-tragedy, and told Sylvia of the death of her young love; and later on came Uncle Barry’s wife, traveling a hundred miles for the sake of a casual conversation upon the state of happiness vouchsafed to those who chose their husbands in accordance with reason. All of which was managed with such delicacy and tact that no one but an utterly depraved person like Sylvia would ever have suspected that it was planned.

There was one person from whom the girl hoped for an unworldly opinion; that was the Bishop. She went to see him one day, and casually brought up the subject of van Tuiver—a thing which was easy enough to do, since the man was a guest in the house.

“Sylvia,” said her uncle, at once, “why don’t you marry him?”

The girl was astounded. “Why, Uncle Basil!” she exclaimed. “Would you advise me to?”

“Nothing would make me happier than the news that you had so decided.”

Sylvia was at a loss for words. She had thought that here was one person who would surely not be influenced by Royalty. “Tell me why,” she said.

“Because, my child,” the Bishop answered, “he’s a Christian gentleman.”

“Oh! So it’s that!”

“Yes, Sylvia. You don’t know how often I have prayed that you might have a religious man for a husband.”

Sylvia said no more. Her thoughts flew back to Boston, to an incident which had caused her amusement at the time. She had told “Tubby” Bates that she would go motoring with van Tuiver on a Sunday morning; and the answer was that on Sunday mornings van Tuiver passed the collection-plate in a Very High Church. Bates went on to explain—in his irreverent fashion—that van Tuiver’s great-uncle had been of the opinion that the only hope for a young man with so much money was to turn him over to the Lord; so for his grand-nephew’s head-tutor he had engaged a clergyman recommended by an English bishop. And now here was another bishop recommending van Tuiver as an instrument for the converting of his wayward niece!

Sylvia went away, and spent more time in doubting and fearing. But there was a limit to the time she could take, because the man was practically in her home, moving heaven and earth to get a chance to see her, to urge his suit, to implore her for mercy, if for nothing more. And truly he was a pitiable object; if a woman wanted a husband whom she could twist round her finger, of whom she could be absolute mistress all her days, here surely was the husband at hand! The voice of old Lady Dee called out to her from the land of ghosts that her victory and her crown were here.

The end came suddenly, being due to a far-off cause. There was a panic in “Wall Street”; an event of which Sylvia heard vaguely, but without paying heed, not dreaming that so remote an event could concern her. One can consult the financial year-books, and learn how many business men went into bankruptcy as a result of that panic, what properties had to be sold as a result of it; but it has apparently not occurred to any compiler of statistics to record the number of daughters—daughters of poor men and daughters of rich men—who had to be sold as a result of it.

The Major came home one afternoon and shut himself in his study, and did not come to dinner. Sylvia knew, by that subtle sixth sense whereby things are known in families, that something serious had happened. But she was not allowed to see her father that day or night; and when she finally did see him, she was dumb with horror. He looked so yellow and ill—his hands trembled as if palsied, and she knew by the cigar-stumps scattered about the office, and the decanter of brandy on top of the desk, that he had been up the entire night at his books.

He would not tell her what was the matter; he insisted, as usual, that it was “nothing.” But evidently he had told his wife, for the poor lady’s eyes were red with weeping. Later on in the day Sylvia, chancing to answer the telephone, received a message from Uncle Mandeville in New Orleans, to the effect that he was “short,” and powerless to help. Then she took her mother aside and dragged the story from her. The local bank was in trouble, and had called some of the Major’s loans. The blow had almost killed him, and they were in terror as to what he might do to himself.

Mrs. Castleman saw her daughter go white, and added, “Oh, if only you were not under the spell of that dreadful man!”

“But what in the world has that to do with it?” demanded the girl.

“I curse the day that you met him!” wailed the other; and then, as Sylvia repeated her question—“What else is it that keeps you from loving a good man, and being a help to your father in this dreadful crisis?”

“Mamma!” exclaimed Sylvia. She had never expected to hear anything like this from the gentle “Miss Margaret.” “Mamma, I couldn’t stop the panic!”

“You could stop it so far as your father is concerned,” was the answer.

Sylvia said no more at this time. But later on, when Aunt Nannie came over, she heard the remark that there were a few fortunate persons who were not affected by panics; it had been the maxim of van Tuiver’s ancestors to invest in nothing but New York City real estate, and to live upon their incomes. It was possible to do this, even in New York, declared Mrs. Chilton, if one’s income was several millions a year.

“Aunt Nannie,” said the girl, gravely, “if I promised to marry Mr. van Tuiver, could I ask him to lend Papa money?”

Whereat the other laughed. “My dear niece, I assure you that to be the father of the future Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver would be an asset in the money market—an asset quite as good as a plantation.”

Sylvia made up her mind that day; and as usual, she was both clear-sighted and honest about it. She would not deceive herself, and she would not deceive van Tuiver. She sent for the young millionaire, and taking him into another room than the library, shut the door. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she began, in a voice she tried hard to keep firm, “you have been begging me to marry you. You must know that I have been trying to make up my mind.”

“Yes, Miss Sylvia?” he said, eagerly.

“I loved Frank Shirley,” she continued. “Now I can never love again. But I know I shall have to marry. My people would be unhappy if I didn’t—so unhappy that I know I couldn’t bear it. You see, the person I really love is my father.”

She hesitated again. “Yes, Miss Sylvia,” he repeated. She saw that his hands were trembling, and that he was gazing at her with feverish excitement.

“I would do anything to make my father happy,” she said. “And now—he’s in trouble—money-trouble. Of course I know that if I married you, I could help him. I’ve tried to bring myself to do it. To-day I said, ‘I will!’ But then, there is your side to be thought of.”

“My side, Miss Sylvia?”

“I have to be honest with you. I can’t pretend to be what I am not, or to feel what I don’t feel. If I were to marry you, I should try to do my duty as a wife; I should do everything in my power, honestly and sincerely. But I don’t love you, and I don’t see how I ever could love you.”

“But—Miss Sylvia—” he exclaimed, hardly able to speak for his agitation. “You mean that you would marry me?”

“I didn’t know if you would want to marry me—when I had told you that.”

He was leaning forward, clenching and unclenching his hands nervously. “I wouldn’t mind—really!” he said.

“Even if you knew—” she began.

“Miss Sylvia,” he cried, “I love you! Don’t you understand how I love you?”

“Yes, but—if I couldn’t—if I didn’t love you?”

“I would take what you could give me! I love you so much, nothing would matter. I believe that you would come to love me! If you would only give me a chance, Miss Sylvia—”

“But suppose!” she protested. “Suppose you found that I never did! Suppose—”

But he was in no mood for troublesome suppositions. Any way would do, he said. He began stammering out his happiness, he fell upon his knees before her and caught her hand, and sought to kiss it. At first she made a move to withdraw it; but then, with an inward effort, she let him have it, and sat staring before her, a mantle of scarlet stealing over her throat and cheeks and forehead.

His hands were hot and moist, and quite horrible to her. Once she looked at him, and an image of him was stamped upon her mind indelibly. It was an image quite different from his ordinary rigid and sober mask; it was the face of the man who had always got everything he wanted. Sylvia did not formulate to herself just what it was that frightened her so—except for one phrase. She said it seemed to her that he licked his lips!

He could hardly believe that the long siege was ended, that the guerdon of victory was his. She had to tell him several times that she would marry him—that she was serious about it—that would give him her word and would not take it back. And then she had to prove it to him. He was not content to clasp her hand, but sought to embrace her; and when she found that she could not stand it, she had to plead that it was not the Southern custom. “You must give me a little time to get used to the idea. I only made up my mind to-day.”

“But you will change your mind!” he exclaimed.

“No, no, I won’t do that. That would be wicked of me. I’ve decided what is right, and I mean to do it. But you must be patient with me at the beginning.”

“When will you marry me?” he asked—evidently none too confident in her resolution.

“I don’t know. It ought to be soon. I must talk with my parents about it.”

“And where will it be?”

“That’s something I meant to speak of. It can’t be here.” She hesitated. “I must tell you the truth. There would be too much to remind me. I couldn’t endure it. This may seem sentimental to you, but I’m quite determined. But I’ll have a hard time persuading my people—for you see, they’re proud, and they’ll say the world would expect you to marry me here. You must stand by me in this.”

“Very well,” he said. “I will urge them to have the wedding in New York.”

There was a pause, then Sylvia added: “Another thing, you must not breathe a word to anyone of what I’ve told you—about the state of my feelings—my reasons for deciding—”

He smiled. “I’d hardly boast about that!”

“No, but I mean you mustn’t tell your dearest friend—not Aunt Nannie, not Mrs. Winthrop. You see, I have to make my people believe that I’m quite sure of my own mind. If my father had any idea that I was thinking of him, then he’d surely forbid it. If he ever found out afterwards, he’d be wretched—and I’d have failed in what I tried to do.”

“I understand,” said van Tuiver, humbly.

“It’s not going to be easy for me,” she added. “I shall have to make everybody think I’m happy. You must sympathize with me and help me—and not mind if I seem unreasonable and full of whims.”

He said again that he understood, and would do his best. He took her hand, very gently, and held it in his; he started to kiss it, but when he saw that she had no pleasure in the ceremony he released it, parting from her with a formal little speech of thanks. And such was the manner of Sylvia’s second betrothal.

§ 20

The engagement was announced at once, the wedding to take place six weeks later in New York. Just as Sylvia had anticipated, the family made a great to-do over the place of the ceremony; but finding that both she and van Tuiver were immovable, they cast about for some pretext to make a New York wedding seem plausible to a suspicious world. They bethought themselves of an almost forgotten relative of the family, a step-sister of Lady Dee’s, who had lived in haughty poverty for half a century in the metropolis, and was now discovered in a boarding-house in Harlem, and transported to a suite of apartments in the Palace Hotel, to become responsible for Sylvia’s desertion of Castleman County. She had nothing to do but be the hostess of her “dear niece”—since Mrs. Harold Cliveden had kindly offered to see to the practical details of the ceremonial.

The thrilling news of the betrothal spread, quite literally with the speed of lightning; the next day all America read of the romance. Since the story of van Tuiver’s infatuation, his treason to the “Gold Coast” and his forsaking of college, has been the gossip of New York and Boston clubs for months, there was a delightful story for the “yellows,” of which they did not fail to make use. Of course there was nothing of that kind in the Southern papers, but they had their own way of responding to the general excitement, of gratifying the general curiosity.

Sylvia was really startled by the furore she had raised; she was as if caught up and whirled away by a hurricane. Such floods of congratulations as poured in! So many letters, from people whose names she could barely remember! Was there a single person in the county who had a right to call, who did not call to wish her joy? Even Celeste wrote from Miss Abercrombie’s—a letter which brought the tears to her sister’s eyes.

Through all these events Sylvia played her rÔle; she played it day and night—not even in the presence of her negro maid did she lay it aside! The rÔle of the blushing bride-to-be, the ten-times-over happy heroine of a romance in high-life! She must be smiling, radiant with animation decorously repressed; she must go about with the lucky bridegroom-to-be, and receive the congratulations of those she knew, and be unaware—yet not ungraciously unaware—of the interest and the stares of those she did not know. More difficult yet, she had to look the Major in the eyes, and say to him that she had come to realize that she was fond of “Mr. van Tuiver,” and that she honestly believed she would be happy with him. Since her mother and Aunt Varina were dear sentimental Southern ladies, incapable of taking a cold-blooded look at a fact, she had to pretend even to them that she was cradled in bliss.

At first van Tuiver was with her all the time, pouring out the torrents of his happiness and gratitude. But Aunt Nannie soon came to the rescue here; Sylvia must not have the inconveniences of matrimony until the knot had actually been tied. Van Tuiver was ordered off to New York, until Sylvia should come for the buying of her wedding trousseau.

The dear old Major had suspected nothing when his friend, the president of the bank, had suddenly discovered that he could “carry” the troublesome notes. So now he was completely free from care, and his daughter had a week of bliss in his company. She read history to him, and drove with him, and tended his flowers in the conservatory, and was hardly apart from him an hour in the day.

Sylvia had set out some months ago at the task of democratizing van Tuiver; even in becoming engaged she had kept some lingering hope of accomplishing this. But alas, how quickly the idea vanished before the reality of her situation! She remembered with a smile how glibly she had advised the young millionaire to step away from his shadow; and how he had labored to make plain to her that he could not help being a King. Now suddenly she found that she could sympathize with him—she who was about to be a Queen!

There were a thousand little ways in which she felt the difference. Even the manner of her friends was changed. She could not go anywhere that she was not conscious of people staring at her. It was found necessary to appoint a negro to guard the grounds, because of the number of strangers who came in the hope of getting a glimpse of her. Her mail became suddenly a flood: letters from inventors who wished to make her another fortune; letters from distressed women who implored her to save them; letters from convicts languishing in prison for crimes of which they were innocent; letters from poets with immortal, unrecognized blank-verse dramas; letters from lonely farmers’ wives who thrilled over her romance, and poured out their souls in ill-spelled blessings; letters from prophets of the class-war who frightened her with warnings of the wrath to come!

On the second day after the engagement was announced, Sylvia went out, all unsuspecting, for a horseback-ride, and had hardly mounted when a man with a black box stepped from behind a tree, and proceeded calmly to snap-shot the fair equestrienne. Sylvia cried out in indignation, and springing from the horse, rushed in to tell the Major what had happened; whereupon the Major sallied out with a cane, and there was a cross-country gallop after the intruder, ending in a violent collision between the camera and the cane. The funniest part of the matter was that the photographer spent the better part of a day trying to get a warrant for his assailant—imagining that it was possible to arrest a Castleman in Castleman County! By way of revenge he telegraphed the story to New York, where it appeared, duly worked up—with the old photograph of the “reigning beauty of the New South,” in place of the one which had died in the camera!

§ 21

Sylvia came up to New York in due course; and by the time that she had been there one day, she was able to understand the fondness of the great for traveling “incog.” She was “snapped” when she descended from the train—and this time there was no one to assault the photographer. Coming out of her hotel with van Tuiver she found a battery of cameras waiting; and being ungracious enough to put up her hand before her face, she beheld her picture the next morning with the hand held up, and beside it the “reigning beauty” picture—with the caption, “What is behind the hand!”

Van Tuiver was of course known in all the places which were patronized by the people of his sort; and Sylvia had but to be seen with him once in order to be equally known. Thereafter when she passed through a hotel-lobby, or into a tea-room, she would become aware of a sudden hush, and would know that every eye was following her. Needless to say, she could count upon the attention of all the “buttons” who caught sight of her; she lived with a vague consciousness of swarms of blue-uniformed gnomes with constantly-changing faces, who flitted about her, all but falling over one another in their zeal, and making her least action, such as sitting in a chair or passing through a doorway, into a ceremonial observance.

The most curious thing of all was to go shopping; she simply dared not order anything sent home. There would be the clerk, with pad and poised pencil—“Name, please?” She would say, “Miss Sylvia Castleman,” and the pencil would begin to write mechanically—and then stop, struck with a sudden paralysis. She would see the fingers trembling, she would be aware of a swift, wonder-stricken glance. Sometimes she would pretend to be unconscious, and the business would go on—“Palace Hotel. To be delivered this afternoon. Yes, certainly, Miss Castleman.” But sometimes human feeling would break through all routine. A young soul, hungry for life, for beauty—and confronting suddenly the greatest moment of its whole existence, touching the hem of the star-sewn garment of Romance! A young girl—possibly even a man—flushing scarlet, trembling, stammering, “Oh—why—!” Once or twice Sylvia read in the face before her something so pitiful that she was moved to put her hand upon that of her devotee; and if you are learned in the lore of ancient times, you know what miracles are wrought by the touch of Royalty!

What attitude was she to take to this new power of hers? It was impossible to pretend to be unaware of it—she had too keen a sense of humor. But was she to spend her whole life in shrinking, and feeling shame for other people’s folly? Or should she learn somehow to accept the homage as her due? She saw that the latter was what van Tuiver expected. He had chosen her among millions because she was the one supremely fitted to go through life at his side; and if she kept her promise and tried to be a faithful wife to him, she would have to take her rÔle seriously, and learn to enjoy the performances.

Meantime, you ask, What of her soul? She was trying her best to forget it—in excitements and distractions, in meeting new people, going to new places, buying thousands of dollars worth of new costumes. She would stay late at dances and supper-parties, trying to get weary enough to sleep; but then she would have nightmares, and would waken moaning and sobbing. Always her dream was one thing, in a thousand forms; she was somewhere in captivity, and some person or creature was telling her that she could not escape, that it was forever, forever, forever. Her room had been made into a bower of roses, but she had to send them away, because one horrible night when she got up and walked about, they made her think of the gardens at home, and the pacing back and forth in her nightgown, and the thorns and gravel in her feet.

As a child Sylvia had read a story of a circus-clown, who had played his part when ill and almost dying, because of his wife and child at home. Always thereafter a circus-clown had been to her the symbol of the irony of human life. But now she knew another figure, equally tragic, equally terrible to be—the heroine of a State romance. To be photographed and written about, to see people staring at you, to have to smile and look like one hearing celestial music—and all the while to have a breaking heart!

§ 22

Sylvia fought long battles with herself. “Oh, I can’t do it!” she would cry. “I can’t do it!” And then “You’ve promised to do it!” she would say to herself. And every day she spent more money, and met more of van Tuiver’s friends, and read more articles about her Romance.

Then one morning came a hall-boy with a card. She looked at it, and had a painful start. “Tubby” Bates!

He came in, cheerful, jolly, reminding her of so many things—such happy things! She had had a bad night, and now she simply could not talk; her words choked her, and she sat staring at him, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

“Why, Miss Castleman!” he exclaimed—and saw such a look upon that lovely face that his voice died away to a whisper—“You aren’t happy!”

Still for a while she could not answer. He asked her what was the matter; and then, again, in greater distress, “Why did you do it?” She responded, in a faint voice, “I did it on my father’s account.”

There was a long silence. Then with sudden energy she began, “Mr. Bates, there is something I want to talk to you about. It’s something difficult—almost impossible for me to speak of. And yet—I seem to get more and more desperate about it. I can never be happy in my life until I’ve talked to some one about it.”

“What is it, Miss Castleman?”

“It’s about Frank Shirley.”

“Oh!” he said, in surprise.

“You know that I was engaged to him, Mr. Bates?”

“Yes, I was told that.”

“And you can guess, perhaps, how I have suffered. I know only what the newspapers printed—nothing more. And now—you are a man, and you were at Harvard—you must know. Is it true that Frank—that he did something that would make it wrong for me ever to see him again?”

The blood had pressed into Sylvia’s face, but still she did not lower her eyes. She was gazing intensely at her friend. She must know the truth! The whole truth!

He considered, and then said, gravely, “No, Miss Castleman, I don’t think he did that.”

There was a pause. “But—it was a place——” she could go no further.

“I know,” he said. “But you see, Shirley had a room-mate—Jack Colton. And he was always trying to help him—to keep him out of trouble and get him home sober——”

“Oh, then that was it!” The words came in a tone that frightened Bates by their burden of anguish.

“Yes, Miss Castleman,” he said. “And as to the row—Shirley saw a woman mistreated, and he interfered, and knocked a man down. I know the man, and he’s the sort one has to knock down. The only trouble was that he hit his head as he fell.”

“I see!” whispered Sylvia.

“But even so, there wouldn’t have been any publicity, except that some of the ‘Auburn Street crowd’ were there. They saw their chance to put the candidate of the ‘Yard’ out of the running; and they did it. It was a rotten shame, because everybody knew that Frank Shirley was not that kind of man——”

Bates stopped again. He could not bear the look he saw on Sylvia’s face. She bowed her head in her arms, and silent sobbing shook her. Then she got up and began to pace back and forth distractedly. He knew very well what was going on in her thoughts.

Suddenly she turned upon him. “Mr. Bates,” she exclaimed, “you must help me! You must stay here and help me!”

“Certainly, Miss Castleman. What can I do?”

“In the first place, you must not breathe a word of this to anyone. You understand?”

“Of course.”

“Have you any idea where Frank Shirley is?”

“I heard that he had gone out to Wyoming with Jack Colton.”

“Then you must telegraph to Mr. Colton; and also you must telegraph to Frank Shirley’s home. You must say that Frank is to come to you in New York at once. He mustn’t lose an hour, you understand; my father will be here next week. Then, too, Frank will have heard of my engagement, and you can’t tell what he might do.”

Bates stared at her. “Do you know what you are doing, Miss Castleman?” he asked.

“I do,” she answered.

“Very well, then,” he said, “I will do what you ask.”

“Go, do it now,” she cried, and he went—carrying with him for the rest of his life the memory of her face of agony. He sent the telegrams, and in due course received replies—which he did not dare to bring to Sylvia himself, but sent by messenger. The first, from Frank’s home, was to the effect that his whereabouts were unknown; and the second, from Jack Colton, was to the effect that Frank had gone away a couple of weeks before, saying that he would never return.

§ 23

Sylvia wrestled this problem out with her own soul. The only person who ever knew about it was Aunt Varina, and she knew only because she happened to awaken in the small hours of the morning and hear signs of a fit of hysteria which the girl was trying to repress. She went into Sylvia’s room and found her huddled upon the bed; when she asked what was the matter, the other sobbed without lifting her face—“Oh, I can’t marry him! I can’t marry him!”

Mrs. Tuis stared at her in consternation. “Why, Sylvia!” she gasped.

“Oh, Aunt Varina,” moaned Sylvia, “I’m so unhappy! It’s so horrible!”

“But, my child! You are out of your senses! What has happened?”

“I’ve come to realize the mistake I’ve made! I’d rather die than do it!”

Poor Aunt Varina was dumb with dismay. Sylvia had played her part so well that no one had had a suspicion. Now, between her bursts of weeping, she stammered out what she had learned. Frank was innocent. He had gone away forever—perhaps he had killed himself. At any rate, his life was ruined, and Sylvia had done it.

“But, my child,” protested the other, “you couldn’t help it. How could you know?”

“I should have found out! I should have trusted Frank; I should have known that he could not do what they accused him of. I have been faithless to him—faithless to our love. And now what will become of him?”

Aunt Varina sat gazing at her, tears of sympathy running down her cheeks. “Sylvia,” she whispered, “what will you do?”

“Oh, I love Frank Shirley!” moaned the girl. “I never loved anybody else—I never will love anybody else! And I know—what I didn’t know at first—that it’s wicked, wicked to marry without love!”

“But what will you do?” repeated the other, who was dazed with horror.

For a long time there was no sound but Sylvia’s weeping. “Sylvia dear,” began Aunt Varina, at last, “you must control yourself. You must not let these thoughts get possession of you. You will destroy yourself if you do.”

“I can’t marry him!” sobbed the girl.

“I can’t let you go on talking that way!” exclaimed the other, wildly. “Do you realize what you are saying? Look at me, child, look at me!”

Sylvia looked at her, wondering a little—for never had she seen such vehemence exhibited by this gentle and submissive “poor relation.” “Listen!” Mrs. Tuis rushed on. “How can you know that what you have heard is true? You say that Frank was innocent—but your Cousin Harley investigated, and he declared he was guilty. Mrs. Winthrop told you the same—she said everybody knew. And yet you take the word of one man! And you told me at Harvard that Mr. Bates was distressed at the idea of your marrying Mr. van Tuiver. You told me he warned you against him! Isn’t that so, Sylvia?”

“Yes, Aunt Varina, but—”

“He does not like Mr. van Tuiver, and he comes here at a time like this, and puts such ideas into your thoughts. Don’t you see that was not an honorable thing to do—when you were on the verge of being married and couldn’t get out of it! When you know that your father would be utterly ruined—that your whole family would be wrecked by it!”

“Surely it can’t be so bad, Aunt Varina!”

“Think how your father has gone into debt on your account! All the clothes you have bought—the bills at this hotel—the expenses of the wedding! Thousands and thousands of dollars!”

“Oh, I didn’t want all that!” wailed Sylvia.

“But you did! You insisted on coming here to New York, where a wedding would cost several times as much as at home! You have come out before all the world as Mr. van Tuiver’s fiancÉe—and think of the scandal and the disgrace, if you were to break it off! And poor Mr. van Tuiver—what a figure he’d cut! And when he loves you so!”

Sylvia’s sobbing had ceased during this outburst. When she spoke again, her voice was hard. “He does not love me,” she said.

“Why, what in the world do you mean by that?”

“I mean just what I say. He doesn’t love me—not as Frank loves me. He isn’t capable of it.”

“But then—why—for what other reason should he be marrying you?”

“I’m beautiful, and he wants me. But it’s mainly because I offended his vanity—yes, just that! I turned him down, I ridiculed him and insulted him. I was something he couldn’t get; and the more he couldn’t get me, the more the thought of me rankled in his mind.”

“Sylvia! How can you be so cynical!”

“I’m not cynical at all. I just won’t gild things over, as other women do. I won’t make pretences, I won’t cover myself and my whole life with a cloak of shams. I know right now that I’m being sold, just as much as if I were led out to an auction-block with chains about my ankles! I’m being sold to a man—and I was meant to be sold to a man from the very beginning of my life!”

There was a silence; for Aunt Varina was paralyzed by these amazing words. She had never heard such an utterance in her life before. “Sylvia!” she cried. “What do you mean? Who is driving you?”

“I don’t know! But something is!”

“How can you say it? Can you imagine that your good, kind parents—”

“Oh, no!” interrupted Sylvia, passionately. “At least—they don’t know it!”

Mrs. Tuis sat dumfounded. “Sylvia,” she quavered, at last, “let me implore you to get yourself together before your father arrives in New York. If he should hear what you have said to me to-night, he would never get over it—truly, it would kill him!”

§ 24

An event to which Sylvia looked forward with considerable interest was a meeting with Mrs. Beauregard Dabney, who was coming to New York for a visit. Harriet, as her letters showed, was not unappreciative of the glory which had descended upon her friend, and would enjoy having some of it reflected upon herself. Thus Sylvia might be shown what emotions she ought to be feeling; possibly she might even be made to feel some of them. At any rate, she knew that Harriet would help to keep her courage screwed up.

But Sylvia’s pleasure in the visit was marred by a peculiar circumstance, which she had failed to prepare for, in spite of warnings duly given. “You must not be surprised when you see me,” Harriet wrote. “I have been ill, and I’m terribly changed.” Her reason for coming North, it appeared, was to consult specialists about a mysterious ailment which had baffled the doctors at home.

Sylvia was quite horrified when she saw her friend. Never could she have imagined such a change in anyone in six months’ time. Harriet lifted her veil, and there was an old woman with wrinkled, yellow skin. “Why, Harriet!” gasped Sylvia, unable to control herself.

“I know, Sunny,” said the other. “Isn’t it dreadful?”

“But for heaven’s sake, what is the matter?”

“That’s what I’ve come to find out. Nobody knows.”

“Why, I never heard of such a thing!” Sylvia exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

“I’m having all sorts of things done. The doctors give me medicine, but nothing seems to do any good. I’m really in despair about myself.”

“How did it begin, Harriet?”

“I don’t really know. There were so many things, and I didn’t put them together. I began having headaches a great deal; and then pains that the doctors called neuralgia. I had a bad sore throat over in Europe; I thought the climate disagreed with me, but I’ve had it again at home. And now eruptions break out; the doctors treat them with things, and they go away, but then they come back. All my hair is falling out, and I’ve got to wear a wig.”

“Why, how perfectly horrible!” cried Sylvia.

She started to embrace her friend, but was repelled. “I mustn’t kiss anyone,” said Harriet. “You see, it might be contagious—one can’t be sure.”

“But what are you going to do, Harriet?”

“I’ve almost given up hoping. I haven’t really cared so much, since the doctors told me I can never have another baby. You know, Sunny, it’s curious—I never cared about children, I thought they were nuisances. But when mine came, I cared—oh, so horribly! I wanted to have a real one.”

“A real one?” echoed Sylvia.

“Yes. I didn’t write you about it, and perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you just at this time. But you know, Sunny, he didn’t seem like a human being at all; he was a little gray mummy.”

“Harriet!”

“Just like that—a regular skeleton, his skin all loose, so that you could lift it up in folds. He was a kind of earthy color, and had no hair, and no finger nails——”

Sylvia broke out with a cry of horror, and her friend stopped. “I haven’t talked to anyone about it,” she said—“I guess I oughtn’t to, even to you.”

“How long did he live?”

“About six weeks. Nobody knew what he died of—he just seemed to fade away. You can’t imagine it, perhaps—but, Sunny, I wanted him to stay—even him! He was all I could ever have, and it seemed so cruel!” Suddenly the girl hid her face in her hands and began to sob—the first time that Sylvia had ever seen her do it in all her life.

So it was not the cheering visit that Sylvia had anticipated. It left her with much to think about, and to talk about with other people. Later on, speaking to Aunt Varina, she happened to mention something that van Tuiver had said about the matter; whereupon her aunt exclaimed, “You didn’t talk about it with Mr. van Tuiver!”

“But why not, Auntie?”

“You mustn’t do that, dear! You can’t tell.”

“Can’t tell what?”

“I mean, dear, that Harriet might have some disease that you oughtn’t to talk to Mr. van Tuiver about.” Aunt Varina hesitated, then added, in a whisper, “Some ‘bad disease’.”

Whereat Sylvia started in sudden dismay. So that was it! A “bad disease”!

You must understand how it happened that Sylvia had ideas on this subject. There was a foreign writer of plays, whose name she had heard. She had never seen his books, and would not have opened one, upon peril of her soul; but once, in a magazine picked up in a train, she had read a casual reference to an Ibsen play, which dealt with a nameless and dreadful malady. From the context it was made clear that this malady was a price men paid for evil living—and a price which was often collected from their innocent wives and children. Now and then the women of Sylvia’s family spoke in awe-stricken whispers of this mysterious taint, using the phrase “a bad disease.” Now, apparently, she was beholding the horror before her eyes!

§ 25

The problem occupied Sylvia’s mind for several days, to the exclusion of everything else. It lent a new dread to the thought of marriage. How could a woman be safe from such a thing? Beauregard Dabney was not the most perfect specimen of manhood that one could have selected, but there was nothing especial the matter with him that could be observed. Yet see what had happened to his wife and child!

Harriet came again, and this time her husband was with her. He was just as much in love with her as ever—in fact, Sylvia thought that she noted a new and pathetic clinging on his part. They had been to see a great specialist, and still there was nothing definite to be learned about the malady; the doctor, hearing that the couple had journeyed up the Nile, suggested that possibly it might be an African fever, and promised to look up the mysterious symptoms in his books. Wasn’t it extraordinary, exclaimed Harriet; but Sylvia, who could not be deceived for very long, noticed that Beauregard was not so much excited about the African theory as his wife. Suddenly the thought came to her, Could it be that the doctors really knew what the disease was, and would not tell Harriet? Could it be that Beauregard knew, and was helping in the deception? Then—horror of horrors—could it be that he had known all along, and had upon his conscience the crime of having brought the woman he loved into this state?

Sylvia’s relentless mind, once having got hold of this problem, clung to it like a bull-dog to the throat of an enemy. Of course such a disease was a loathsome thing; a woman could not very well ask questions about it—yet, what was she to do? Apparently she was dependent upon the man’s honor; and could it be that a man’s notion of honor permitted him, when he was desperately in love, to take such chances with a woman’s life? Sylvia remembered suddenly that Beauregard had made love to her. More than once she had actually permitted him to hold and fondle her hand. The mere thought made her shrink with horror.

And then came another idea. (How quickly she was putting things together!) Men got this disease by evil living. Then Beauregard must have done the sort of thing that Frank Shirley had been accused of doing! Also Jack Colton had done the same! Also—had not Bates said that there were some of the “Auburn Street crowd” in that place? Club-men, gentlemen, the aristocracy of Harvard! There came back to her the phrase from Harley’s letter: “one of the two or three high-class houses of prostitution which are especially frequented by college men!” How much Sylvia knew about this forbidden subject, when she came to put her mind to it! More, apparently, than her own parents—for had they not shown themselves willing for her to fall in love with Beauregard Dabney? More, also, than Mrs. Winthrop—for had not that lady implied that it was only low and obscure men who permitted themselves such baseness?

As you may believe, it was not long before Sylvia’s thoughts came to her own intended husband. What had been his life? What might be the chances of her being brought to such a fate as Harriet’s? Apparently nobody had any thought about it. They had been quick to avail themselves of the appearance of evil on the part of Frank Shirley; but what had they done to make sure that van Tuiver had been any better?

For three days Sylvia debated this problem; and then her mind was made up—she would do something about it. She would talk to someone. But to whom?

She began with her faithful chaperone, mentioning the African fever theory, and so bringing up the subject of “bad diseases.” Just how much did Aunt Varina know about these diseases? Not very much, it appeared. Was there any way to find out about them? There was no way that Aunt Varina could conceive—it was not a subject concerning which a young girl ought to inquire.

“But,” protested Sylvia, “a girl has to marry. And think of taking such chances! Suppose, for instance, that Mr. van Tuiver—”

“Ssh!” Aunt Varina almost leaped at her niece in her access of horror. “Sylvia! how can you suggest such a thing?”

“But, Auntie, how can I be sure?”

“You surely know that the man to whom you have given your heart is a gentleman!”

“Yes, Auntie, but then I knew that Beauregard Dabney was a gentleman—and so did you. And see what has happened!”

“But, Sylvia dear! You don’t know that it’s that!”

“I very nearly know it. And if Beauregard was willing to marry when he—”

“But he may not have known it, Sylvia!”

“Well, don’t you see, Aunt Varina? That makes it all the more serious! If Mr. van Tuiver himself can be ignorant, how can I feel safe?”

“But, Sylvia, what could you do?”

“Why, I should think he ought to go to some one who knows—a doctor—and make sure.”

The poor old lady was almost speechless with horror. What was the world coming to? “How can you say such a thing?” she exclaimed. “You, a pure girl! Who could suggest such a thing to Mr. van Tuiver?”

“Couldn’t Papa do it?”

“And pray, who is to suggest it to your father? Surely you couldn’t!”

“Why no,” said Sylvia, “perhaps not. But couldn’t Mamma?”

“Your mother would die first!” And Sylvia, remembering her “talk” with “Miss Margaret,” had to admit that this was probably true.

But still she could not give up her idea that something ought to be done. She took a couple of days more to think, and then made up her mind to write to her Uncle Basil. The family had sent him to talk with her about Frank’s misconduct, thus apparently indicating him as her proper adviser in delicate matters.

So she wrote, at some length—using most carefully veiled language, and tearing up many pages which contained words she could not endure seeing on paper. But she made her meaning clear—that she thought someone should approach her future husband on the subject.

Sylvia waited the necessary period for the Bishop’s reply, and read it with trembling fingers and flaming cheeks—although its language was even more carefully veiled than her own. The substance of it was that van Tuiver was a Christian gentleman, and this must be Sylvia’s guarantee that he would not bring any harm to the woman he so deeply revered. Surely, if Sylvia respected him enough to marry him, she could trust him in a matter like this! To approach him upon it would be to offer him a deadly insult.

Whereupon Sylvia took several days more to worry and wonder. She was not satisfied at all, and finally summoned her courage and wrote to the Bishop again. It was not merely a question of honor; if that were true, she would have to say that Beauregard Dabney was a scoundrel and she did not believe that. Might it not possibly be knowledge that was lacking? She begged her uncle to do her the favor of his life by writing to van Tuiver; and she intimated further that if he would not do it, she would have to put the matter before her father.

So there was another wait, and then came a letter from the Bishop, saying that he was writing as requested. Then, after a third wait, a letter with van Tuiver’s reply. He had taken the inquiry very magnanimously; he could understand, he said, how Sylvia had been upset by the sight of her friend’s illness. As to her own case, she might rest assured that there could be no such possibility. And so at last Sylvia’s fears were allayed, and she was free to be unhappy about other matters.

§ 26

You must not imagine that Sylvia was spending these days in moping; all her thinking had to be done in the odd moments of a strenuous career. Day and night she had to meet new people, and new people were always an irresistible stimulus to her curiosity. Not all of them were hall-boys and shop-clerks, falling instant victims to her charms; on the contrary, they were Knickerbocker “society”—people not infrequently as wealthy as her future husband, and having an equally great notion of their own importance. The tidings that Douglas van Tuiver had picked up a country girl had not thrilled them with sympathetic emotions. The details of the newspaper romance inspired them only with contempt. There had to be many a flash of Sylvia’s rapier-wit, and many a flash of Sylvia’s red-brown eyes, before these patrician plutocrats had been brought to acknowledge her an equal.

A few of these acquaintances were kindly people, whom she could imagine making into friends, if only there had been time. But she wondered how anybody ever found time for friendship in this restless and expensive and highly ornamental life. Such a whirl of dinner-parties and supper-parties, dances and luncheons and teas! Such august and imposing splendor, such dignified and even sombre dissipation! The Major had provided abundant credit for this last splurge; and van Tuiver’s aunt was also on hand, conspiring with her nephew to smother Sylvia under loads of gifts. The girl wondered sometimes, was it that van Tuiver had suspicions of her wavering, and sought to bind her by forcing these luxuries upon her? Or would she be expected always to live this kind of Arabian Nights’ existence?

There came old friends, to bask in the sunlight of her success. Miss Abercrombie came, effulgent with delight, assured of a lifetime’s prosperity by this demonstration of her system. With her came Celeste, playing her difficult part with bitter pride. Harley Chilton ran down from Boston, bringing the tidings that he had made the “Dickey” and saw his way clear to the top of the Harvard pyramid. Last of all, two or three days before the wedding came “Queen Isabella,” distributing her largess of blessings to all concerned.

First she met “Miss Margaret” and the Major, and addressed them with such mystical eloquence that the agitated pair had not a dry eye between them. After which she sought the prospective bride and bridegroom; and not even the most reverend millionaire bishop who was to perform the ceremony could have been more pontifical and impressive than our great lady in this solemn hour. We live in a cynical world, which affords but poor soil for the nurture of the finer flowers of the spirit. But Mrs. Winthrop was one really capable of experiencing the more exalted emotions, and of giving them ungrudging utterance. She was thrilled now by the vistas which she saw unfolding; not since the day of her espousal of the celebrated railroad-builder had the wings of the seraphim rustled so loudly about her head. She might have been compared to a creative artist who labors for long in solitude, and who at last, when he reveals his masterpiece, is startled by the clamor of the world’s applause.

“Sylvia,” she said, and put both her hands upon the girl’s—“Sylvia, you have before you a great career, a career of service. You will be happy—I know you must be happy, dear, when once you have come to realize what an inspiration you are to others. Such fortune as yours falls but rarely to a woman, but you will be worthy of it—I believe you will be worthy of everything that has come to you.”

“I hope so, Mrs. Winthrop,” answered Sylvia, humbly.

And then, as van Tuiver discreetly moved away, the other went on, in a low and deeply-moved voice: “Don’t imagine, dear girl, that I fail to realize all your doubts and perplexities. I know just how you feel, for I had to go through with it myself. Every woman does—but believe me, such tremors are as nothing compared to all the rest of one’s life. We learn to subordinate our personal feelings, our personal preferences. That is one of the duties of those who have greatness as their lot—who have to live what one might call public lives.”

Now, Sylvia might have her doubts as to the soundness of this doctrine, but she had none as to the genuineness of the speaker’s feelings; so she was a trifle shocked when Mrs. Winthrop went away, and she discovered that her future husband was laughing.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, “it’s all right—only when you are Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver, you will receive Isabella’s ecstasies with a trifle more reserve. You will realize that she has her own axes to grind.”

“Axes—what do you mean?”

“Social axes. You’ll understand my world bye-and-bye, Sylvia. Isabella’s trying to make an impression beyond her income, and she’s seeking alliances. What you must remember is that the need is on her side.”

There was a pause, while Sylvia sat thinking. “Tell me,” she said, at last, “why did Mrs. Winthrop change so suddenly, and begin urging me to marry you?”

“It’s the same thing,” he answered. “She couldn’t afford to displease me. When she found that I was determined to have my way, she tried to make it seem her work. Naturally, she’d want as much of the prestige of this wedding as she could get.”

Again Sylvia pondered. “Hasn’t Mrs. Winthrop’s husband enough money?” she asked.

“He has enough, but he won’t spend it. The tragedy of Isabella’s life is that her husband is really interested in railroads.”

“But I thought he adored her!” Sylvia remembered a pathetic stout gentleman she had seen wandering about on the outskirts of a throng of the great lady’s admirers.

“Oh, yes,” replied van Tuiver, with laughter. “I never saw a woman who had a man more completely bluffed. But the trouble is that he offers himself, and what she wants is his money.”

There followed a long silence. Van Tuiver had pleasant things to meditate upon; but suddenly he chanced to look at Sylvia, and exclaimed, “Why, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said, and turned away her head to conceal the tears she had failed to repress.

“But what is it?” he demanded, not without a touch of annoyance.

“There’s no use talking about it,” was Sylvia’s reply. “It’s just that you promised you would try not to think so much about money. Sometimes I can’t help being frightened, when I realize that you don’t ever believe in people—but only in money.”

She saw the old worried look come back to his face. “You know that I believe in you!” he exclaimed.

“You told me,” she answered, “that the only way I was able to make an impression upon you was by refusing to marry you. And now I have given up that prestige—so aren’t you afraid that you may come to feel about me as you do about Mrs. Winthrop?”

Major and Mrs. Castleman arrived next morning, and after that there were busy times for Sylvia. There was the wedding-gown to be shown, and the trousseau and the presents; there were plans for the future to be told of, and many blessings to be received. “Miss Margaret” was in a “state” most of the time—tears of joy and tears of sorrow pursuing each other down her generous cheeks. “Sylvia,” she exclaimed, in one breath, “I know you will be happy!” And then, in the next breath, “Sylvia, I hope you will be happy!” And then, in a third breath, “Sylvia, how will we ever get on without you? Who will dare to spank the baby?”

It was with her father that she had the really trying ordeal; her father took her into a room alone, and held her hands in his and tried to read her soul. “Tell me, my child, are you going to be happy?”

“I think so, Papa,” she answered; and had to make herself look into his eyes.

“I want you to understand me, dear Sylvia—even now, at this last hour, don’t take the step unless you believe with your best judgment that you will be happy.”

There was a moment of madness, when she had the impulse to fling herself into his arms and cry, “I love Frank Shirley!” But instead of that she hurried on, “I believe he loves me deeply, Papa.”

Said the Major, in a trembling voice, “There is no more solemn moment in a father’s life than when he sees his dearly loved daughter taking this irrevocable step. I want you to know, my darling, that I have prayed earnestly, I have done my best to judge what is right for you.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said, “I know that.”

“I want you to know that if ever I have seemed to be stern, it has been because I believed my daughter’s welfare required it.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said, again.

“I am sure, this man loves you, Sylvia; and I believe he’s a good man—he ought to make you happy. But I want you to know that if by any chance my prayers are denied—if you find that you are not happy—then your father’s home will always be open to you, his arms will always be stretched wide to clasp you.”

“Dear old Daddy!” whispered the girl. She felt the arms about her now, and she began to sob softly, with a mixture of emotions. Oh, if only she might stay for the balance of her life in the shelter of those arms, that were so strong and so dependable! If only there were not the dreadful thing called marriage—which drove her out into another pair of arms, from which she shrunk with such unconquerable aversion!

This was the heart of her difficulty—her inability to conquer her physical shrinking from the man to whom she was betrothed. Here she was, upon the very eve of her wedding, and she had made no progress whatever. Mentally and spiritually she had probed him, and felt that she knew him intimately; but physically he was still an utter stranger to her—as much so as any man she might have met upon the street. She would sit talking with him, trying to forget herself and her fears for a while; and gradually she would be conscious of his gaze upon her, his eyes traveling over her form, devouring her in thought, longing for her. Then she would go almost beside herself—she would have to spring up and break the chain of his thoughts. It seemed to her that she was like the prey of some wild beast—or a beast that was just tame enough to wait patiently, knowing that at a certain time the prey would be in its grasp.

On the evening before the wedding van Tuiver was to attend a “stag-dinner” with his friends; but he called in to see her for a few minutes, and the family discreetly left them alone. In a sudden access of longing, he clasped her in his arms, and she forced herself to submit. Then he began to kiss her, to press passionate kisses upon her cheek and throat. His breath was hot, and utterly horrible to her; she could not endure it, and cried out to him to stop, and struggled and pushed him away. Still holding her, and gazing at her with desire blazing in his eyes, he whispered, “Not yet?”

“Oh, how could you?” she cried.

“Is it not time you were beginning to learn?” he demanded; and then, wholly beside himself, “Sylvia, how much longer am I to endure this? Can’t you understand what you make me suffer? I love you—I love you to distraction, and I get nothing from you—nothing! I dare not even tell you that I love you!”

The passion in his voice made her shudder; and yet, too, she pitied him. She was ashamed of herself for the way she treated him. “What can I do?” she cried. “I can’t help it—as God is my witness, I can’t control my feelings. I ask myself, ought I to marry you so?”

“It seems to me it’s rather late to bring up that question,” he responded.

“I know, I know! I have nothing to say for myself—except that I didn’t know, I couldn’t realize. It’s something I must tell you—how I have come to feel—that I ought not to marry you, that you ought not to want me to marry you, while things are like this. You must know this, so that if I marry you, the responsibility will be yours!”

“And you think that is fair of you?” he demanded, his voice grown suddenly hard.

He meant to rebuke her, and she felt that he had a right to rebuke her; but the wave of emotion which swept her along was not to be controlled by her reason. “Oh, you are going to be angry about it!” she cried. “How horrible of you!”

He exclaimed, “Sylvia! Can you expect me not to be hurt?”

“I told you that I couldn’t help it! I told you in the very beginning that you would have to take me as I was, and be satisfied if I did my best! I told you that again and again—that I loved another man, that I love him still—”

She stopped. A spasm of pain crossed his face—followed by a look of fear. He hesitated, and then, his voice low and trembling, he began, “Sylvia, forgive me. I know that you are right—that you are trying to do your best. I will be patient. You must be patient with me also.”

She stood, her head bowed, ashamed of what she had said. Yet—she felt that he ought to have heard it. “I hate to seem unfair,” she whispered, her voice almost breaking. “I don’t want to give you pain, but I can’t help these feelings, and I know it’s my duty to tell you of them. I don’t see how you can go on—I should think you would be afraid to marry me!”

For answer he caught her hands, exclaiming, “I will take my chances! I love you, and I will never rest until you love me!”

§ 28

So far I have put together this story from the memories of Sylvia and Frank Shirley. But now I have come to the point where you may watch the events through my own eyes. I will take a paragraph or two to give you an idea of the quality of these eyes, and then proceed without further delay.

Mary Abbott, the teller of this tale, was at the age of forty a crude farmer’s wife upon a lonely pioneer homestead in Manitoba. In winter in that part of the world it begins to grow dark at three o’clock in the afternoon, and it is not fully light until nine o’clock in the morning. We were a mile from the nearest neighbor, and had often three feet of snow upon the ground, with fifty degrees below zero and a sweeping wind. I had a husband whom I feared and despised, and for whom I cooked and washed and sewed, whether I was well or ill. Under these circumstances I had raised three children to maturity. I had moved to town and seen them through high-school; and now, the girl being married, and the two boys in college, I found myself suddenly free to see the world.

You must not think of me as altogether ignorant. I had fought desperately for books, and had grown up with my children. Discovering in the town the perpetual miracle of a circulating library, I had read wildly, acquiring a strange assortment of new ideas. But that, I am ashamed to say, made very little difference when I reached the East. It is one thing to read up in the theory of Socialism, and say that you have freed yourself from bourgeois ideals; it is quite another to come from a raw pioneer community, and be suddenly hit between the eyes by all the marvels of the great New Nineveh!

I forgot my principles; I wandered about, breathless with excitement. Everything that I had ever read about, in Sunday supplements and cheap magazines—here it was before my eyes! I got myself a hall-room in a “Greenwich Village” boarding-house, and for days I went, thrusting my inquisitive country face into everything that was cheap enough. The huge shops with their amazing treasures of silks and jewels; the great hotels with their gold and stucco splendors; the dizzy, tower-like office-buildings; the newspaper offices with their whirling presses; the theatres, the museums, the parks; the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, Grant’s Tomb and the Bowery—I was the very soul of that thing which the New Yorker derisively calls the “rubber-neck wagon!” I took my place in one of these moving grand-stands, and listened to all that came out of the megaphone. Here was the home of the steel-king, which had cost three millions of dollars! Here was the home where a fifty thousand dollar chef was employed! Here was the old van Tuiver mansion, where the millionaire-baby had been brought up! Here was the Palace Hotel, where Miss Sylvia Castleman was staying!

It was the day before the wedding; and I, like all the rest of the city, was thrilling over the Romance, knowing more about the preparations than the bride herself. I had read all the papers—morning papers and afternoon papers; I had read descriptions of the wedding-gown, the trousseau, the rooms full of gift-treasures with detectives on guard. I had stared at the outside of the church, and imagined the inside. Last of all, I had wandered up to the Palace Hotel and peered about in the lobby, amusing myself by imagining that each gorgeous female creature who floated by and disappeared into a motor-car might possibly be the Princess herself!

At the boarding-house we discussed the possibility of seeing the wedding-cortege, and everybody said that I could not come within a block of the church. “I’ll fight my way,” I declared; to which the reply was that I would find out something about New York policemen that would cure me of my fighting impulses. The result of the discussion was that I set out immediately after breakfast, fired with the spirit of the discoverers of Pike’s Peak.

I must get at least a glimpse, I told myself. What a tale to be able to tell at the Women’s Club receptions at home! To say: “I saw her! She was the loveliest thing! And oh, her dress! It was cream-white satin, with four graduated flounces of exquisite point-lace!” Of course I could have got all that from the newspapers; but I wanted to be able to say it truly.

The wedding-hour was noon, but at nine there was already a respectable crowd. I established myself upon the steps of a nearby house, with a newspaper to sit on and a pair of borrowed opera-glasses in my hand-bag. In the meantime I entertained myself talking with the other watchers, who were a new type to me, well-dressed women, kept in luxury, whether legal or otherwise, who fed their empty minds upon fashion sheets and “society notes,” and had no idea in the world beyond the decking of their persons and the playing of their little part in the great game of Splurge. We talked about the van Tuiver family, its history and its present status; we talked with awe about the bride; we talked about the presents, the decorations, the costumes—there was so much to talk about!

Shortly after ten o’clock a calamity befell us—the police began to clear the steps, driving the crowd far back from the church-entrance. What agonies, what expostulations! How outrageous—when we had waited there an hour already! Sometimes the steps were our own steps, sometimes they were the steps of friends; but even that made no difference. “I’m sorry, lady, the orders are to clear everything.” They were as gentle about it as they could be, but that was none too gentle; we had the butt-ends of clubs, pressing into our stomachs, and back we went, arguing, scolding, threatening, sometimes weeping or fainting.

I was tremendously disappointed. To have to go back to the boarding-house, and admit defeat to the milliner’s assistant who sat next to me at meals! To hear “I told you so” from the “floor-walker” who sat across the way! “I won’t do it!” I said to myself.

And then suddenly came my chance. Behind me there was a commotion, angry protests—“Officer, let us through here! We have cards!” Cards—how our souls thrilled as we heard the word! Here, right close to us, were some of the chosen ones! Let us see them at least—a bit of Royalty at second hand!

They pushed their way through—three women and two men. As they neared me, I saw the engraved invitations in their hands, and it flashed over me that in my hand-bag was a milliner’s advertisement of nearly the same size and shape. I dived in, and fished it out with trembling fingers, and fell in behind the party, and pushed through the crowd past the line of police. There before me was the open space in front of the church!

I had acted on impulse, with no idea what to do next. I could scarcely hope to get in to the wedding on a milliner’s card. But fortunately my problem solved itself, for there were always the guests pushing into the entrance, and everybody was perfectly willing to push ahead of me. All I had to do was to “mark time,” and I was free to stay, inhaling delicious perfumes and feasting my ears upon scraps of the conversation of the Élite. I foresaw that the banner of the great Northwest would wave triumphantly in “Greenwich Village” that night!

§ 29

I will not stop to detail the separate thrills of this adventure. Carriage after carriage, motor after motor drew up, and released new revelations of grace and elegance. The time for the ceremony drew near, and from the stir in the throng about me I knew that the guests from the wedding-breakfast were passing. How I longed to talk to someone—to ask who was this and that and the other one! Then I might have been able to tell you how “Miss Margaret” wept, and how Aunt Varina trembled, and what “Queen Isabella” was wearing! But the only persons I could be sure of were the five lovely bridesmaids, and the bride, leaning upon the arm of a stately old white-haired gentleman. How we craned our necks, and what rapture transported us! We heard the thunder of the organ and the orchestra within, and it corresponded to the state of our souls.

There was still quite a throng at either side of the entrance—newspaper reporters, people who had come out of houses nearby, people who, like myself, had got by the police-lines upon one pretext or another. Down the street we could see a solid line of bluecoats, and behind them people crowded upon steps, leaning out of windows, clinging to railings and lamp-posts. We were in fear lest at any time we might be ordered to join this throng, so we stayed silent and very decorous, careful not to crowd or to make ourselves conspicuous.

You might have expected, perhaps, that when all the protagonists of the drama had entered the church, the crowd would have dispersed; but not a soul went. We stood, listening to the faint music, and imagining the glories that were hid from our eyes. We pictured the procession up the aisle, with the guests standing on the seats in order to get a glimpse of it. We pictured the sacred ceremony. (There were some who had prayer-books in their hands, the better to aid their imaginations.) We pictured the bride, kneeling upon a white silk cushion embroidered with gold, receiving the blessings of the millionaire bishop. We heard the wild burst of chimes which told us that the two were made one, and our pulses leaped with excitement.

All this took perhaps half an hour; and I think that about half that time had passed when I first noticed Claire. I never knew how she got there; but fate, or providence, or what you will, had set her next to me, and that strange intuition which sometimes comes to me, and puts me inside the soul of another person in less time than it takes for my eye to look them over, gave me the warning of danger from her presence.

She was a tall and striking woman, beautifully gowned, with high color and bold black eyes—a woman you would have noticed in any gathering. You would have thought at once that she was a foreigner, but you might have been puzzled as to her country, for she had none of the characteristic French traits, and her English was quite perfect. I glanced at her once, and thereafter I forgot everything else—the crowd, the ceremony, all. What was the matter with this woman?

What first made me turn was a quick motion, as of a nervous spasm. Then I saw that her hands were clenched tightly, and drawn up in front of her as if she were struggling with someone. Her lips were moving, yet I heard no sound; she was staring in front of her fixedly, but at nothing.

I must explain that it did not occur to me that she had been drinking. My country imagination was not equal to that flight. To be sure, since my arrival I had learned that the women of the New Nineveh did drink; I had peered into the “orange room,” and the “palm room,” and several other strange rooms, and had seen gorgeous peacock-creatures with little glasses of highly-colored liquids before them. But I had not got so far as to imagine any consequences; I had never thought of connecting the high color in women’s cheeks, the sparkle in women’s eyes, the animation of women’s chatter with the little glasses of highly-colored liquids. They had so many other reasons for being animated, these fortunate, victorious ones!

No, I only knew that this woman was excited; and I began forthwith to imagine most desperate and romantic things. You must remember what I said when I was first telling about Sylvia—that my ideas of the grand monde had been derived from cheap fiction in “Farm” and “Home” and “Fireside” publications. You all know the old story of the beautiful heroine who marries the dissolute duke; how the duke’s cast-off mistress attends the wedding, and does something melodramatic and thrilling—perhaps shoots at the duke, perhaps throws vitriol at the bride, perhaps hands her a letter which is worse than vitriol to her innocent young soul. I smile when I think how instantly I understood this situation, and with what desperate seriousness I made ready to play my part—watching the woman like a cat, ready to spring and seize her at the first hostile move. And yet, after all, it was no joke, for Claire was really quite capable of a murderous impulse when she was in her present condition.

Other people had begun to notice her peculiar behavior; I saw one or two women edging away from her, but I stayed all the closer. The time came when we heard the music of the Mendelssohn March, and the excitement in the crowd told us what was coming. Suddenly the doors of the church swung open—and there, in her radiant loveliness—the bride!

Her veil was thrown back, but her eyes were cast down, and she clung to the arm of her husband. Oh, what a vision she was, and what a thrill went about! For myself, however, I scarcely saw her. My eyes were on the strange woman.

She looked like a mad creature; quivering in every nerve, her fingers twisting and untwisting themselves like writhing snakes. She had crouched, as if ready to spring; and I had my hands within a foot of hers, ready to stop her. The procession moved through the passage kept clear by the police, and I literally held my breath while they passed—held it until the bride had stepped into a limousine, and the bridegroom had followed, and the door had slammed. Then suddenly the strange woman drew herself up and turned upon me, her face glaring into mine. I saw her wild eyes—and also I got a whiff of her breath. She laughed, a hysterical, hateful laugh, and muttered: “She’ll pay for what she gets!”

I whispered “Hush!” But the woman cried again, so that several people heard her: “She’ll pay for everything she gets from him!” She added a phrase in French, the meaning and import of which I learned to understand long afterwards—“Le cadeau de noce que la maitresse laisse dans la corbeille de la jeune fille!” Then suddenly I saw her sway, and I caught her and steadied her, as I know how to steady people with my big strong arms.

And that, reader, was the strange way of my coming into the life of Sylvia Castleman!

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