PART I

I

“Mr. Hood will see you in the library, sir.”

George Trescot followed the servant, and when left alone began to wander about a large room which looked out on the north coast of Massachusetts Bay. Why it was called a library might well have puzzled the young man. There were few books except those of reference, but on chair and table were mill and railway reports, and newspapers in superabundance.

As the clock struck the hour of noon a woman of some twenty-seven years entered the room. Hearing the door open, Trescot turned from a brief and hopeless effort to comprehend the genealogical tree of the Hood family, which hung on the wall in much splendor of heraldic blazonry.

Miss Hood came in smiling, as if she had just been amused and was enjoying the remembrance. Her face had—what is more often found in plain women than in those to whom nature has been more bountiful—great power of expressing both kindliness and mirth. She was slight, but of admirable figure, and possessed the mysterious gift of grace. For the rest, she was unselfish, seriously religious, and perplexed at times by the comic aspect of things, hardly realizing the fact that a ready sense of humor had often been as useful in helping her to endure the lesser trials of existence as the religious faith which she held to with the simple trust of a child. Life presented itself to her in relentless simplicity, and consisted of things right and things wrong, with over-sensitive self-reproach when either seemed too amusing. She was, socially speaking, fearless, and occasionally outspoken to a degree which embarrassed others, but never Susan Hood.

“Good morning, major,” she said. “I am glad to see you. I consider myself neglected of late.”

“I shall be the best of brothers-in-law, Miss Susan.”

“Oh, that is all very well. The future does not always pay the debts of the present. You will be as good as my sister will let you be; but I am easily satisfied.”

“I ought to be,” he said. “And, by the way, I am only Mr. Trescot, not Major. These labels should have gone when the war ended; but I suppose men like titles. I shed mine long ago.”

“You are quite right,” she returned, smiling with the aid of a large and expressive mouth and show of rather irregular, very white teeth. “I see that I am just in time to save you a fall from the genealogical tree of the Hoods. I incline to think some of the limbs a trifle insecure. My uncle climbs it at least once a week, and believes in its fabulous fruit as he does in nothing else. I told him last night that it was more genial than logical. If he had understood me, I do not know what would have happened.”

Trescot laughed. “Mr. Hood explained it to me last week. I nearly fell asleep on the top branch.”

“Did you? You would never have been forgiven. It is still growing; the mustard-seed was nothing to it.” Then the further temptations offered by the comparison presented themselves to her as irreverent, and she said:

“By the way, I am sent by my uncle to entertain you, as he is just now engaged. As a matter of fact, he is engaged in settling what he will say to you. He is enjoying it, too. Sit down; you will have to put up with me for as long as he chooses to remain agreeably perplexed.”

“Perplexed?” said the young man, as he seated himself. “What is there to perplex? It seems to me very simple.”

“And to me. You have asked my sister to marry you. She desires to do so. My uncle says he is old, and that he has entitled himself to our society until he dies. I have told him that if he would kindly set a time for that event we should know what to do, and that he was pretty secure as to me. He did not like it. Nothing is simple to my uncle.”

“I suppose not,” said Trescot, laughing. “The asking him seemed to me a mere formal matter. Constance is old enough to know her own mind, and, I fancy, to have her own way. I did not ask of him any favors.”

“They should not need to be asked; but he will be sure to think you expect him to provide for Constance,—as, in fact, he ought to do.”

“I expect nothing of the kind, nor does Constance. We are prepared to wait until I can offer her a home. That may be in a year, or even two years. There is no need to discuss it.”

“Indeed! Wait until you know my uncle better. He discusses everything. He would discuss whether two and two make four. He constructs theories, as he calls them, and when it is needful to act does not always abide by them, which, I assure you, is, on the whole, rather fortunate, as I hope you may discover.”

“Well, on this subject, Miss Hood, I have also my theory, and an abiding faith in it.”

She laughed merrily and said: “Wait a bit. You have as yet seen only one side of my uncle. He can be, as you know, a pleasant, rather cynical old gentleman. Now you present yourself to him under a novel aspect, and he will be sure to construct what he calls a theory for himself and you, to fit the occasion. It will be something like this—I may as well prepare you: ‘My theory, sir, is that people never change. These young women have always had all the money they wanted; therefore, they will always want it. It must be clear to you that we shall need to discuss the matter at length—at length, sir. Money in my—sir, in my opinion, is developmental; without money,’ etc. He will be delightfully irrelevant. I wish I could overhear the interview. He really does not care about money; but he likes to talk about it. It may be he will light on something else. You will have to be patient.”

“I can be that. But as concerns money, I do not want it—or, rather, I want it very much, but not from him. I mean in time to get it myself. Confound it! Pardon me, but really—”

“Oh, that is a very mild expletive; if it applies to Uncle Rufus, it is quite unnecessary: he is just now sufficiently confounded. And, after all, if you were an old man like my uncle, would you willingly part with so delightful an inmate as my sister?”

“No,” laughed Trescot; “no, indeed.”

“Well, that is honest. You may be surprised to learn that he would object quite as much to part with me as to part with my sister. I am not malicious enough to ask you to explain that.”

Trescot was relieved from need to reply when, awaiting no answer, she continued:

“The fact is, he likes me because we disagree radically about everything, from religion to politics, and Constance because they agree about most things, except politics. There they are far apart. His opinions about the war have been to both of us a matter of real unhappiness. Had he lived in the South he would have been bitter against secession. He is always in the opposition, but he despises people who yield.”

“Then he will certainly fall in love with me. Thank you for the hint.”

“Oh, I did not mean it for that, and I suspect it was not needed. After all, it is not that you have no money that troubles my uncle; it is really far more the idea that Constance is ungrateful, and shows great lack of taste in being willing to desert him for you, or for any one. I think I hear his voice. I must go; but when you are through with uncle my sister wants to see you in the garden. If you make yourself very disagreeable you will find that Uncle Rufus will find some ingenious excuse for being reasonable. He will think it proper, after he has posed a little as a shrewd man of business, to pose as the good uncle.”

Trescot stood with her in the window recess while they talked, and now, turning, glanced at the shrewd, kind face, with its readiness of humorous comment, and said: “I should like to hear what might be the character of George Trescot you would present to Mr. Hood.”

“Would you, indeed?” she returned, looking up. It was a strong face she saw, and more serious just now than the quality of the question suggested. Yet it smiled in pleased fellowship of mirth as she answered, laughing:

“Ah, there is my uncle! I have half a mind not to tell you.”

“Perhaps I had better not insist. You are sure to be painfully honest, and I may have cause to regret.”

“But I will. I should say—well, I should say—‘Uncle Rufus, I like him.’”

“Thank you. I shall put that with what Sheridan once said to me.”

“What did he say? Do tell me.”

“Oh, he said, ‘That was well done, Major Trescot; very well done.’ I blushed like a girl.”

“What had you done?”

“What had I done? Ah,” he laughed, “you must ask Sheridan.”

“But I may never see him.” She was curious about large things, rarely about little ones or mere social trivialities. “Of course you will tell me.”

“Perhaps if, some day, on trial, you prove to be a quite perfect sister-in-law.”

“Am I not good enough now? I said I liked you. Isn’t that a form of goodness? I assure you that there are no better judges of men than old maids and sisters-in-law.”

“Indeed! But you are only a sort of brevet sister-in-law. And why—shall I dare to say—are old maids good judges of men?”

“Oh, they look down from a heaven of neutrality where there is no giving in marriage. Goodness! what am I saying?”

Hearing her uncle’s step on the stair, she turned to leave. Trescot saw with approval her trim, neat figure, and said, laughing, “The basis of opinion is not altogether secure.”

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “I am already on the family tree, my destiny predetermined,—‘Susan Hood, spinster.’ But here is Uncle Rufus. If he does not first indulge in vain genealogies I shall be surprised. Good-by! I wonder what St. Paul meant by vain genealogies?”

As she spoke, a small, very thin man of some seventy years entered, with a too obvious affectation of youthful briskness.

“I leave Mr. Trescot to your tender mercies, uncle.”

“Ah, good morning. Fine day. Sit down,” said Mr. Hood, as she left them. “Pray, sit down.” He began at once, with an air of decision, “I suppose this matter of which my niece has spoken to me appears to you very simple.”

“It did not at one time. It does now. I have asked Miss Constance to be my wife. She has done me the honor to say yes. What else is there?”

“Everything, sir; everything. I do not propose that my niece shall leave me. She owes to me the affection of a child. I am old and cannot live long. Her sense of duty should forbid her to desert me. If it does not, I must act for her, and prevent what is both criminal and foolish. I must create for her a virtue which she has not.”

“But, Mr. Hood—” said Trescot, raising a hand in appeal.

“No, sir; do not interrupt me. I object to it altogether. You have no money, and she has none. You know nothing of each other—nothing. As to waiting a year—two years—until you can provide for her, it is nonsense. When she mentioned this highly absurd proposition I told her as much. Now, sir, you have my decision, and my niece has already had it.”

“May I ask what was Miss Constance’s reply?”

“She said she meant to marry you if she had to sew for a living. By George! she can’t sew on a button. I was quite prepared for her reply. She has the obstinacy of my people.”

“Then, Mr. Hood, you may rest assured that I shall marry her. I can wait.”

“But I cannot wait. Do you suppose I mean to have a love-sick girl maundering about my house for two years? No, sir; you do not know her. From a child she has been obstinate when she wanted anything; I should have no peace.”

“I am sorry for you,” said Trescot, much amused; “but I can only repeat what I have said already. Unless Miss Constance changes her mind—”

“She never changes her mind; we never do—it is a family trait.”

“I hope not; and in that case I trust you will see this matter in a more favorable light. But in any case, to be frank, I mean to marry her.”

“I suppose, then, there is no help for it,” said the elder man, with a curious collapse of resolution. “I am old and feeble”—which was true. “The girl is ungrateful. I rely upon her for everything. Susan is wrapped up in her poor and her parson—she calls him her rector, I believe. I find it inconsistent with my sense of duty to let you go on in blind ignorance. You will discover Constance to be efficient, obstinate; and as I am told by Susan that you are what is called religious, you ought also to know that my niece and I agree in the entire absence of that adjective.”

“That,” said Trescot, coldly, “is a matter I prefer not to discuss.” He knew very well by this time that the woman he loved had, unlike himself, no distinct creed.

“Well, I desire that you should understand her. She is very like me.”

“Indeed!” he returned, much amused. “Then I shall be sure to end by liking you, Mr. Hood. I presume that I may consider it as settled.”

“No, sir; I may yield, but I will never consent; and I consider it my duty to warn you. I have said as much. This girl, this woman, is a creature of instincts. As a child her temper was terrible; under my wise rule it has been tamed. She loves and hates with animal fidelity; and once she is set on doing anything, neither saint nor devil can change her.”

“That is rather gratifying,” said Trescot, between suppressed mirth and annoyance. Certainly this was an extraordinary old man.

“She was an unreasoning Union woman, and I am of opinion that the South was altogether in the right. But neither reason nor respect for me has ever altered what she calls her views.”

“You will pardon me if I say that I am very glad to hear it.”

“Ah, well, well, that is as you please. A pity you agree. It is a theory of mine that difference of opinion is a basis of true happiness in married life; otherwise it becomes monotonous.”

Trescot sat still, studying the self-pleased face, and amused himself with thought of the mirth with which Susan would have heard her uncle giving Constance a character for her new place. He kept a respectful silence as the old man wandered on; but by what paths he reached an expression of opinion as to the constitutional rights of States and cities to secede, Trescot never could remember. At last he was given to understand that the right of States to secede was based on the undoubted right of individuals to secede from States. Here, as the old man’s voice rose to political levels of emphasis, it recalled Trescot from the dreaming mood which was taking him somewhere into the fairyland of love.

He recovered power to listen, but at last, disappointed by the absence of exhilarating difference of opinion, Mr. Hood said: “We seem to have strayed. I was about to add that my niece and I have always agreed, except as regards one subject; and, I regret to say, as concerns that matter, even the unfortunate closure of the war has in no degree abated her feeling—a child, sir, instinctive and, as I observed, obstinate. I think I have already dwelt on that peculiarity.”

“Yes, I so understood you. And now, Mr. Hood, that you have sufficiently warned and informed me, and have decided to consent—I beg pardon, yield—”

“I did nothing of the kind. I sometimes give way, but I never yield. I do not like this marriage. But I do not propose that you shall cause my niece to quarrel with me. She cannot stay here and make me uncomfortable; she cannot marry you and starve; I won’t permit it.”

“Then may I ask what you propose to do?”

“Well, first I desire to state that, although I am said to be a rich man, I do not intend to leave to my nieces more than a very small competence. I have a theory on this subject. It is interesting. At another time I shall be happy to set it before you—at length.”

Trescot rose. “I assure you, sir, that I should have been glad to feel that in case of anything going wrong with my power to provide for my wife,—such as my death, or what not,—she would be at ease. I should be a fool if I told you I do not care what you do with your money; but if you imagine, as you seem to take for granted, that it is influencing me in my relation to Miss Constance, we had better drop the matter of money altogether.”

“But,” said Hood, testily, “I am not going to be bullied into dropping it. I mean to have my own way.”

Trescot was a man not merely good-tempered, but of a certain gay sweetness of disposition which captured men and women. He began, however, to be a little impatient, and in reply said:

“I have been for a half-hour endeavoring, sir, to find out what it is you want. That I am to marry appears to be settled.”

“I suppose so. I know Constance too well to oppose it. I am told by my niece that you cannot marry at present. But if you choose to accept the position of my agent in St. Ann, Missouri, I will insure my niece an income for five years—say, two thousand dollars. You would be called upon to manage my property, and I should expect that you would eject squatters, bring suits, and otherwise care for my interests.” He fell back in his chair with an air of having settled the matter.

For a moment Trescot was silent, and regarded the feeble, shrunken old man, who sat watching him and pulling nervously at his thin gray side-whiskers. With some sense of the niece being sold to him for a consideration, he returned quietly:

“No; I do not wish to leave Boston. I am not a land agent, and, to be plain, Mr. Hood, I cannot accept your offer.”

“But you will.”

“No, I think not; I cannot. What you please to give your niece or not to give her must have no relation to any business interests you may choose to confide to me, in the very doubtful case of my considering your offer.”

“You had better talk first to Constance. I think she must know you already, for she declared that you would not accept my offer, and then she made me another.”

“Indeed!” Trescot did not like this any better.

“She says that if I give her two thousand a year, and put my affairs at St. Ann in your hands on a pure business basis, you will, perhaps, think of it.”

Trescot would have much preferred to have had the offer made directly to himself. He said he would speak to Constance about it. It was not a thing to settle without time and thought.

“But it is settled,” said the old man. “You will find that out. Constance usually knows her own mind.”

“But not mine,” returned Trescot, rising. He had had by this time as much of the uncle’s indecisions and feeble display of business sharpness as a nearly perfect temper would bear. He had learned that his own tender and respectful love had been met by a passion of affection which had seemed to take as small thought of the future as a bird might do, and yet here was a certain competence in her dealings with her uncle for which he was unprepared.

As he went away to meet her he said to himself, “It seems reasonable,” but felt again that he should have preferred to be left to arrange matters involving business and so complete a change of residence.

II

George Trescot was, like Constance, an orphan, and of the same old New England breed as the woman he loved. With slender means, he had made his way in college, unassisted, by aiding duller men as a tutor, and had passed through the law school with unusual distinction. Then the war broke out, and, enlisting in the ranks, he rose rapidly, as death cleared the way, until in the final struggle he was so wounded as partially to disable his right shoulder, which he commonly eased by carrying his hand caught in his waistcoat. Although five years had gone by, at times it gave him pain, and he felt this as he passed through the drawing-room and out into the garden. Constance’s appearance of being tall struck him as she passed across the path and disappeared behind a row of shrubs which sheltered the garden from the rough sport of the east winds. In reality, admirable symmetry was responsible, for she was not of more than full middle height.

As he turned to meet her she was joyously flushed, a glad welcome in her eyes. In a moment she was in his arms. “A whole week!” she cried.

Conscious that the embrace was as much hers as his, he cast an uneasy glance about him, fearful of profane eyes, of which she was, to appearance, heedless.

The moment was expressive. He loved her with some sense that she was a thing apart from other women. A great respect went with it—a delicate, shy tenderness which passed into delicious wonder at the deep passion which he had awakened. They had met first at a dance, where, as he crossed the room, an awkward partner in the waltz had brought her roughly against his wounded shoulder. In extreme pain he had dropped into a chair. She caught sight of his face. “Who is he?” she said. Her partner replied, “He is George Trescot, my old major in the Sixth. I must have hurt his wounded arm. Excuse me a moment.”

“No, take me to him.”

“Trescot,” said his friend, “I am sorry; I was awkward.”

“May I, too, apologize?” said she.

As they spoke, Trescot, pale with pain, looked up and tried to rise. He met a pair of violet eyes and a face of anxious interest he was never to forget.

“Pardon me,” he said; “I shall be all right in a little while. It was worth some pain to know Miss Hood.”

“Thank you. That is a great deal to say.”

He asked for a glass of wine, and, as his friend went for it, she sat down beside him.

“I am more sorry,” she said, “than I can tell you. Were you hurt in the war? I think Mr. Ware said so.”

“Yes; but pardon me, I cannot talk—not now, not just yet. But do not go.”

She had no such intention. She was silent, watching his set face, sensitively aware of some eager wish to help him.

His friend returned. Trescot took the wine and said at last, as they rose, “I am better, but I think I must go.”

She said, “My sister and I shall be glad to see you; we are always at home on Monday afternoons.”

“Thank you,” he returned; “I shall hope to be better company when we meet again.”

There was no indecision about this love-affair. In two weeks they were engaged. She had often said to herself that she would be hard to please, and that only a long acquaintance would justify a woman in giving herself to a man. She asked herself no questions as to the unreasoning passion which made easy for Trescot what so many had found hard. Their mutual attraction had the inevitability of the physical forces. From the moment of their first meeting, Constance Hood was the realization of his dream of the most stately womanhood. The impression he made on her was as sudden. He was not over her own height, slightly made, and, just then, even delicate in appearance. The look of intellect and power which a few faces show with features of great refinement gave added charm to manners which were gently formal, with some flavor of a more leisurely day when men had time to be courteous.

The contrast between his frail look and the stories men told of his fearlessness in the great war had its influence on the woman who had broken into a passion of anger and grief when the news of Sumter revealed the power of sentiment to stir her, as it stirred and energized the manhood of a great nation, presumed by those who thus challenged it to be given over to the ledger and day-book.

Susan Hood watched with surprise, anxiety, and a little amusement the progress of a love-affair which did not explain itself to one who considered marriage as a matter not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly, and who had had no personal experience to shock her with the discovery of passions in herself or another. To the very humorous, love comes with difficulty.

Very soon Constance talked to her with strange unreserve. This abandonment to love, so profound, so abrupt, shocked Susan. A man might thus exhibit affection, not a woman. Needless to say that it was for a time only the sister who thus saw and heard and wondered, dismayed at a passion as wild as that of Juliet.

* * *

When Trescot, having left her uncle, found Constance, the lovers sat down beyond the garden, before them the quiet of an unruffled sea and the eastward glow of the setting sun. The woman’s hand sought his and held it. “Has uncle told you?” she said.

“Your uncle is an amazing person, but I learned at last that you and he had settled the matter.”

She was aware at once that he was not entirely satisfied, and said:

“Oh, of course, George, it rests with you. If you accept we can be married soon, and if you say no we must wait a year, or even two years. How can I be without you so long? My uncle remains here in the country all the year, as you know; and now that I have disturbed his theory as to what my life was to be, I shall be made to suffer.”

“But we would be near, and I should see you often—very often.”

“Yes, I know; but it would be hard—oh, harder than you can know; and my uncle is never done with a subject; my life would be made intolerable. And then, after all, we should not be there—I mean at St. Ann—always; you would succeed, and some day we should come home.” She made it all seem clear, definite, and certain. Indeed, it so appeared to her.

It seemed much more vague to the young man, but the bribe she offered was too much for him to resist.

“We should go among a strange and hostile people, Constance—I a Northern officer, you with your strong feeling about the South.”

“I should learn to hold my tongue, and you would be sure to make friends.”

“Perhaps.” He remained silent a moment, and then went on. “I have rarely had doubts as to any future, dear, except as concerned whether I could make you love me. But this future of a life at St. Ann seems to me a very doubtful matter. I am to displace the present agent and—”

“But Mr. Averill—my uncle calls him, with respect, major-general—Mr. Averill desires to give up the care of uncle’s lands. He did not tell you that, I am sure.”

“No, he did not. Of course that somewhat simplifies the matter. But to act for a man like Mr. Hood may well have its difficulties.”

“I do not think so. He always backs down before a resolute man, or even an obstinate woman. You will have your own way, and we shall be so happy, George.”

“Of that I am sure, there or anywhere; and yet I am in reason, and above all because I love you, bound to think of the future. I am naturally sanguine, Constance. Even in the darkest hours of the war I was that; but in this matter I am not sanguine, and if you were to ask me why, I could not tell you. I have a feeling—” and here he paused.

“A feeling, George?”

“Yes, like that I had once on South Mountain. I was about to ride on to a hillock for a better view of the enemy’s line, when I felt for a moment a curious reluctance. I pulled up my horse, half surprised at myself—and then, with a sense of the absurdity of the thing, I rode on. As my horse moved across the space between, a shell exploded on the hillock.”

“Oh, George! But it isn’t like that—was not that a pure superstition?”

“Yes, very absurd, utterly ridiculous in its application here; I ought not to have said it.”

“It does not in the least trouble me, although, like my uncle, I have my own little thrills about thirteen at table, and all such nonsense. My uncle says—” and she stopped.

“Well, dear?”

“Oh, he says that a person may reason himself out of religious beliefs, but can never quite get rid of these little half-beliefs.”

“I think,” he returned, “that people who are really and thoughtfully religious have least of these remnants of a more ignorant day.”

“And yet, George,” she returned, laughingly, “you obeyed an impulse quite without reason; I should hardly call it a superstition.”

“No; you are right. But to go back to what is for you and me a very serious question. I believe now that I may accept your uncle’s offer. But I must think it over when those dear eyes are not looking into mine, those lips saying, ‘Come, let us go away and be all of life to each other.’ Let us drop it now and talk of other things. I have to go back to Boston by the late train. Within a day I shall write to you and to your uncle. I must talk it over with an older lawyer.”

She was satisfied, and saw, or thought she saw, that he would be of her opinion. She had her own reasons for desiring to have no such delay as he would have tranquilly accepted. He had all through life been denying himself this or that to-day in order that he might be more secure of to-morrow’s wants. Such a passion as possessed her with the power of a primal instinct was not yet in him victorious over all rational considerations. He knew little of women, and nothing of the woman who desires to absorb, so to speak, all of the thoughts and feelings of the one man, and who, as time goes on, becomes jealous of his friends, and even of his work, and, at last, of every hour not given to her. Such women are happily rare, but are now and then to be found. From the hour she first saw him, frail and pallid from suffering, a vast protecting eagerness arose in her mind. As her kinship of pity blossomed into love, the desire to be with him and watch over what seemed to her in her new anxiety a more delicate life than it really was, supplied her with a reason for early marriage. She had never asked herself why she had been so suddenly captured; but as time went on she knew that she had drawn a prize in the uncertain lottery of love, and felt that his charm of manner, his distinction, the delicacy and refinement with which he had pleaded for her love, had fully justified her choice.

After further talk he left her at twilight, and at the last moment, in haste to catch his train. She watched him as he walked swiftly away, noting the arm caught for relieving support in his waistcoat, the upright, soldierly carriage of figure, well built, but lacking flesh. She said:

“Ah! but I love you well; how well, you do not yet know, George Trescot,—but you will—you shall.”

As he turned at the garden gate to look back, she cried, as she ran toward him, “You forgot, George.”

“What?” he said.

“To kiss me again.”

Late in the afternoon of the next day she received a letter, with which she fled to the rocks above the sea. She tore it open and read:

“Dearest Constance:

“I wonder how you got that pleasantly prophetic name. You must tell me.

“Yes, I have made up my mind; my friend has urgently advised me to accept your uncle’s offer. He thinks the position affords chances I ought not to decline, and with your ever dear self thrown in—you remember the Scotch song:

“I gladly conclude to say yes. With what joy I am filled, you, I trust, know. I am not very strong as yet, but I come of a vigorous breed, and no tonic has ever helped me like the bounty of love. You have given me yourself—how can I ask more?

“Between us there lies one large gulf of difference—and only one. That some day we shall bridge it over, I hope and believe. Meanwhile, we shall trust each other’s honesty in this, life’s largest matter, and, so trusting, wait with the patience of love—”

“No,” she said, looking up, “it is not for me life’s largest matter. This human love is for me the larger. His religion, or any faith, is, compared to that, dim, misty, unsatisfying. But love! ah, that is near and sweet and real.”

“Well, well,” she mused, as she sat with the letter in her lap. “He would have me to believe as he believes. Would I wish him to change? No. He is my religion. That would shock him. To please him I could almost make believe to think as he does. To be separated in anything from him seems terrible.”

She was facing a hard question, made the more difficult by pure ignorance. Since childhood she had been in her uncle’s care. He had his own very peculiar views, and the delight in opposition which is fed by self-esteem and accounts in some degree for the ways and opinions of men who in the conduct of life depart radically from the common-sense standards of the world at large. His theories found a fair field in Constance. She was never to be punished; reasoning would do everything. How could a child accept a creed? She must be kept with a neutral mind. She had never been allowed to set foot in a church. When she grew up she might choose for herself. It shocked the elder sister, who, until the death of an aunt with whom she lived, saw Constance rarely, as they were separated by a hundred miles. When later she herself was left without a home, she gladly accepted her uncle’s invitation to live with them.

The new abode was far more luxurious than the one she had lost upon her aunt’s death. It was also very different. As time ran on, and she became more familiar with what she felt to be a rather singular household, she had an eager desire to help her young sister to escape from what seemed to Susan a bondage of the spirit. She became watchful and observant of her uncle and Constance, and saw, with something like dismay, the completeness of her sister’s isolation from all knowledge of that which seemed to her an essential part of the higher life. She was by temperament and sense of duty made unwilling to accept a neutral attitude; a growing affection added a strong motive, and she was resolute not to go on endlessly without protest. Some feeble attempts to approach the subject on which the elder sister felt so deeply were met by Constance either with indifference or mild amusement, as a thing long since disposed of, or as beneath the consideration of the larger mind. Rather than by persistence risk the loss of a growing affection, Susan ceased to speak of that which she held with such reverent faith, and could only pray that time and circumstances would afford more prosperous opportunities. With her uncle she was still less fortunate, but as he at least rested content with the situation he had created, she felt forced at last to secure for herself an opportunity to make the protest to which she felt driven by motives which left no escape possible.

He had soon become accustomed to use her for many of the little tasks which Constance disliked. She was seated with her uncle in his library after breakfast, engaged in cutting the leaves of a report on the census. He was minutely noting in his diary the state of the barometer and such reflections of his own as he considered worth preserving, and as to this he was generous.

He was not too busy to observe that, true to the habit of the born reader, she was now and then caught by some fact of interest, and ceased using the paper-cutter.

“Ah,” she exclaimed, laughing, “the census of this State embraces three millions of women—poor Mr. Census.”

“Yes, yes,” he returned, “quite remarkable,—an old joke, I believe. But I wish you would finish. I need the book. Constance has been trained to do one thing at a time.” The niece thus characterized had declined the task, and gone out to sail.

“I shall finish it, sir, in a few minutes.”

There was again silence, until at last she said: “The method of securing the number of people in the different religious sects seems to me quite absurd—just listen, Uncle Rufus.”

“I have no interest in it. It ought to be left out. The multitudinous opinions of irrelevant minds are disgraceful to the human intelligence. Negation is the proper attitude. Constance represents it to my satisfaction.”

Susan’s chance had come. She laid the book down and said earnestly: “You must pardon me if I say that I think you are wrong.”

“Well, I am always ready to hear honest opinions,—go on.”

“Do not you think that to leave a young girl without any sense of relation to God must result in her never acquiring any when grown up?”

“No, I do not. I have my views. When she is a woman and mature, she will choose.”

“But will she? She will have no interest in the matter.”

“Well, what then? Suppose that she never has.”

Susan was shocked; but after a moment replied: “Well, why not let her choose her morals? Why insist on her being, as a child, truthful, and charitable? Why insist on good manners? Let her choose her morals and her manners when she is what you call mature.”

“Nonsense; you are sophistical, and you are too clever not to know it.”

Susan was well enough aware of the difficulty in defending her statement, but she was too vexed to be logical, and said: “You have taken away from a young life one of the most imperative motives to be all that a woman ought to be.”

“I think I am a better judge of that than you. I have never missed what you call religion, nor will Constance. I have my views, and I insist that you are not to bother the girl with your superstitions.”

“I am sorry, uncle, but I can make no promise.”

“I suppose not. You are as obstinate in your folly as I am resolute in my common sense.”

“That is fine,” murmured Susan, as she returned to her work, making him no reply, and inclined for the time to abandon a useless purpose. Presently she laid the book beside him, saying:

“Is there anything else?”

“No, nothing.”

She left him and went out to the company of the flowers and the wholesomeness of a perfect day, troubled that she had made no impression, and asking herself if, after all, her argument was sophistical.

As she sat looking at the white sail of Constance’s cat-boat, rocking over an unquiet sea, she began to sum up her slowly acquired knowledge of the younger woman.

Yes, she was intelligent,—clever, accomplished, as Susan was not; an admirable musician, singularly ignorant of the great literature, but, like her uncle, unusually well informed on the history of her country. How she had come to have political opinions the reverse of her uncle’s puzzled Susan. It might be that she too loved to be in opposition, but certainly she held to her views with such passion as he was incapable of. And surely the girl was beautiful. As yet Susan could go no further in her interested analysis. Yes, she had the virtues of her caste, and great capacity for affection.

The woman concerning whom it was thus needful to digress went back to her letter.

“We will put this question aside for the time. You will let me try to help you. Your uncle made me understand that his affairs would suffer by delay, and now that I am clear in mind I see no cause to prevent us from being married whenever you can set a time. No time will be too soon for me. I have been alone in the world these many years. All that friendship could give in the army and at home I have had, but neither love of mother nor of sister, nor of any other woman has been mine. You have it all—the all that might have been others is yours, to-day and always.”

Again she paused, with the thought that to take him away even from his friends gave her a sense of such completeness of possession as filled her with joy. The rest of what he wrote was as delightful. She put the letter in her bosom and felt it move with her breathing; now and again she took it out and kissed it.

III

A month had gone by. A savage northeast wind was rocking the pines and hurling a thunderous surf on the rock-guarded coast. It was the third of March, the night before the day set for the marriage. Their uncle having as usual gone to bed early, the two sisters sat alone by a bright wood fire in the sitting-room they shared.

Susan rose and went to the window. “What a wild night!” she said, as the rain, wind driven, crashed against the panes, and the casement rattled. “The gardener said this afternoon a ship had gone ashore on Carlton’s Reef. I hope no lives were lost.”

“Yes, Uncle Rufus told me of it, and was gracious enough to observe that going to sea was like getting married—a very uncertain business.”

Susan, as she returned to the fire, remarked: “He has an unequaled capacity for saying unpleasant things, but I really believe that he does not mean to be malicious. The trouble is, he values the product of his own mind too highly to be willing to suppress any of it. I might have had the fancy that the ocean and marriage are uncertain. I should not have thought it fit or worth while to say so.”

“I do not see, Susan, how George has stood it for this last month. What with Uncle Rufus’s endless indirectness and perpetual indecision, I cannot wonder that George is puzzled to understand what he wants. I shall be more than glad to have done with it, and get half a continent between us and uncle.”

“You will never be done with it while he lives,” returned Susan; “and you may be pretty sure that he will some day appear at St. Ann and still further bother George.”

“Well, George is as obstinate as—I ought to say more resolute than—Uncle Rufus.”

“George asked me,” said Susan, “how uncle had been so fortunate in his affairs. I told him what you of course know, that uncle’s fortune was largely inherited, and that as the mills in which most of it was invested are managed by wiser men, and he is almost morbidly cautious, it is easy to see how he became rich. Those lands in and about St. Ann were one of his father’s ventures. They have been the source of constant trouble. I suspect that General Averill could not agree to do as uncle desired, and that when he gave up no one else would accept the agency.”

No sooner had she spoken than she knew that she had been unwise. Constance rose with a quick movement, and turning to her sister, said:

“Uncle said nothing like that to me or to George. Do you mean that he is using George because he could get no one else? I shall go and ask him if he has dared to do that.” As she spoke she moved quickly to the door. Susan was just in time.

“Stop, dear,” she said; “I have no authority for what I said.”

“Then you should not have spoken. You make me unhappy—and now, to-night of all nights. If your suspicion be correct, it is a thing I will not stand. Let me go.”

“No.” Susan set her back to the door. “Listen, dear. Uncle is asleep.”

“I do not care. He must wake up.”

“But you must care; and if I have been foolish or imprudent, it is too late for you to act wildly on a mere fancy of mine. Forget it, dear, and be sure that no matter what may be uncle’s little schemes, George Trescot will succeed where others have failed.”

The tall girl, still flushed, angry, and only half convinced, moved away and stood beside the fire, silent for a moment. Then, as Susan took her hand, she said:

“You are right; but, indeed, if he has put George in a false position I shall never forgive him. I shall not tell George.”

“I should not, dear. Sit down. It is really of no moment, but I was as indiscreetly anxious in George’s interest as you can be. Let us drop it. This is our last talk. What a mad storm, Conny!”

“Yes. Listen to the wind.”

“But you love storms, dear.”

“Yes, but not to-night. Oh, not to-night!”

“I hope you will have sunshine to-morrow.”

“Oh, sister, I do hope so.”

“It does not look like it, Conny; but there is sunshine enough in George Trescot. No one could help liking him; I am half in love with him myself.”

Constance laughed. “I can’t have that, I want him all to myself.”

“That you will not have,” said Susan, quietly. “I am so glad that you concluded to be married in church.”

“He wanted it, and I really did not care.”

“But you will some day, dear. You cannot live with that man year after year and fail to feel the value of the influences which guide and guard his life—and, dear, it was not your fault. I think it was cruel, wicked.”

Constance looked up. “Do you think he is really—I mean because of that—better than I am? Oh, I mean—you know what I mean.”

“I think you know, dear,” said Susan, “or ought to know. He has had a life of trial, you one of ease. Both of you are what nature and the chances of life have made you. I think you were unfairly dealt with. Before I came, and ever since, uncle has had his way.”

“Yes, I know; but, truly, Susan, I am neither religious nor non-religious; I am open-minded.”

“Are you, my dear sister? Has not your open-mindedness left you with the door of the mind very hard to open wide? Time will show. You have never yet found yourself; you have simply the conventional morals and opinions of our own social world. How they will serve you in days of strain and trouble God alone knows.”

“I think you are severe, Susan. I suppose I shall laugh or cry, and grieve or be merry, like others.”

“You are not like others. You are very unlike others.”

“Am I not?”

“No; you are too natural.”

“Too natural. Upon my word, Susan, you are quite too enigmatical for my powers of comprehension.”

“Well, dear, we won’t talk any more. I did not want to trouble you. And how am I to do without you?”

“Oh, you must come to see us after a while, when we are settled.”

“Oh, shall I not? Now to bed, to bed, dear, for a beauty sleep.”

She kissed her, and Constance went away. The elder woman remained long in thought by the fire, reflecting upon her own imprudent frankness. The younger lay awake for a time, wondering a little what Susan meant by calling her too natural. She awoke early to hear the surf and the constant rain, and the wail of the wind among the pines.

* * *

Trescot had never been his former vigorous self since he was wounded, and now, a resolute doctor insisting upon a long holiday, five happy weeks went by, much to the betterment of his health and looks. As they got out of the train at St. Ann early in April, on a Saturday afternoon, a gentleman approached them, and in the soft Southern tongue said:

“Mrs. Trescot, I believe. I am General Averill. Allow me to make you welcome to St. Ann.”

As Trescot gave him his left hand he added in a cordial way:

“Have you met with an accident? Nothing very bad, I hope.” He seemed really distressed. “And in your honeymoon, too.”

“You are very kind,” said Trescot. “I am afraid that you are in a way responsible; it was a Confederate bullet.”

“Oh, indeed? It is too late for apologies, but not for regret. So you were a soldier. Well, I am glad of that. It is not the men who fought who are making mischief now. My carriage is here. This way, madam. Here, boy,” to an aged black, and he gave some directions concerning their baggage.

“But we are going to the hotel,” said Trescot. “I wrote and arranged for rooms.”

The general laughed. “You are going to your own house, sir. My wife has been busy there, or she would have met Mrs. Trescot.”

“But we have no house,” said Constance.

“A little surprise, madam—as I understand, a wedding-gift from Mr. Hood. Mrs. Averill wrote and wished to be allowed to put it in order. Then Miss Hood came to St. Ann. Your uncle and I are old friends, as you know; and now that I see you, Mrs. Trescot, it is more than a pleasure—it is a privilege—to have been thus allowed to be of use. Ah! here is the carriage. Permit me.”

Trescot could only express formal thanks, and they chatted as they drove through the old Creole settlement, with its ill-kept gardens and new wooden houses.

Trescot was much amazed by the uncle’s sudden and secret liberality. They had been five weeks away from home, and except that Susan had written, soon after they left, that St. Ann would surprise them, they had been unprepared for what now they heard.

Unable, for the time, to discuss matters, they drove on for a half-mile through the dust of the main street; and when a little way out of the fast-growing southwestern town the general said, “This is what we call Raeburn’s addition.” Where the road began to slope to the broad river a too sanguine speculator had put up a half-dozen scattered cottages.

“This is your home, Mrs. Trescot. No, I shall leave you to enjoy it alone. Mrs. Averill has gone away, and hopes you will be pleased. You will find supper ready in an hour.”

They stood a moment on the roadside. A neat old black woman in a gay bandana head-kerchief stood at the open door; the general, hat in hand, kind, genial, courteous, a little profuse in talk. The two young people thanked him, and they were left alone.

Constance had misgivings as to what she might expect in this new home. She said nothing of the feeling she had that she should have been consulted as to the furniture. But much of what was needed had been chosen by Susan, and some simple but refined taste had presided over the rest. As she looked about her, she cried: “Oh, George, when I heard I was afraid; but it is really so very pretty and so simple; and was it not considerate to leave us alone? And wasn’t it like Susan just to go away and leave us to ourselves, and Mrs. Averill too?”

“You do not yet know the best of these Southern people, Constance. It will be both pleasant and desirable that you and I learn to like them. I am sure you will. Imagine the kindness of it, and the trouble!”

They went from room to room in the little house, looking out on the roses already in bloom, the grass slopes, and the river beyond. At last they found their way into the dining-room, and then into an apartment where were shelves and a businesslike table; but here the cases sent on by Trescot and Constance had been left unopened. Again husband and wife recognized the feeling which had left their personal belongings untouched.

One of the servants, an old woman once a slave of the Averills, conducted Constance over the kitchen, and up-stairs and down again, and was delighted when, after supper, the cooking was praised.

Then, as the shadows came, and they sat on the back porch among clustering Cherokee roses, she brought him a match, and as his pipe glowed or darkened they talked of the new life before them; she recognizing with fresh happiness the man’s gain in health and vigor; he, at moments, in thought with certain reasonable fears. Would this distinguished-looking woman, with her music, her social ties, her unchecked expenditures, her familiar Boston circle—would she be contented here in this simpler life? Would every one be as kind as Mrs. Averill? He became more and more silent as they sat in the twilight. She, too, had her less distinct doubts, but heretofore they had said little of the life which lay before them. Now she spoke, touching his brown hair as he sat on the step below her. She was strangely intuitive as concerned George Trescot.

“I know what you are thinking of, my dear, dear George.”

“Oh! What, love?”

“You are wondering whether I shall be satisfied here in this new life amid the people you fought and I hated.”

“I was; but you will not hate them. I never did.”

“And I shall not if they are good to you.”

“Oh, whether or not; and you won’t miss the ease of home, the varied life, your carriage and riding-horse?”

“I—I have you.”

“But you will not have me always as you have had for these happy weeks.”

“But you will be always thinking of me.”

“Even that may not be possible. I sometimes fancy it would have been better—”

“No, no; we did wisely, and love is my only answer.”

“Then, once and for all let us put away the past, and accept our new life with thankfulness.”

“Yes. Ah, letters! Thank you,” she said to the maid. “Let us go in, George, and read them.” As they sat down, she cried: “Gracious! oh, do listen to this, George. It is from uncle.”

“My dear Constance:

“Major-General Averill will give you the title-deeds of the house. It will, I hope, make you less discontented, for you will have to economize as you never did here. I trust also that my generosity will be an inducement to that obstinate young man to give the fullest attention to my affairs.

“Susan will, no doubt, tell you that she made me give you the house; but her religion is too vague a thing to have taught her accuracy. What she calls faith, I am happy to say I am without; it is too vague for intellectual assimilation.

“Yours affectionately, “Rufus Hood.”

“Of which has he none—faith or intellectual assimilation?” laughed Trescot. “Upon my word, Constance, what about the blind belief we call love? No one knows everything of any one. The rest we call trust, faith; and without the mystery of the unknowable in man, woman, and God, the half of the charm of life and love were gone.”

She did not answer him directly, but said: “Uncle Rufus is plain enough, and I know you, and you me.”

“No, not altogether; what you would do or be in certain contingencies of this changeful life, I do not know.”

“Am I not simple?”

“You? No, no,” he laughed. “But what does Susan say?”

She read:

“Dear Conny:

“As soon as you were engaged I set to work to make Uncle Rufus behave decently. He is not mean or ungenerous, but you were to be punished for preferring George to him, and to have a narrow income as a reminder of your iniquity. We had it about and about. He enjoyed the row and, as usual, backed down. I made him groan when the bills came in; but he had to pay, and now he tells every one about the pleasure he had in surprising you with the house. I send a few books of reference for George—the cyclopedia he wanted, and a few other books.”

She said nothing of what further she had done.

Constance looked up. “But I meant to give you that cyclopedia myself. I told her so.”

She had a childlike disappointment because of having been thus anticipated. He saw and understood.

“But I want far more—the new biographical dictionary, and how many other books I dare not tell you. To-morrow we shall see when we unpack the boxes. What else is there in your sister’s letter?”

“Nothing of moment. She wishes to know if the house, our house—isn’t that delightful—needs any other furniture.”

“I should think not,” said Trescot, faintly jealous of the liberality which had provided what in time he had hoped to give. He said, however: “I confess, dear, to being very glad that you are to be so pleasantly nested. I feared a little the long stay at an inn or in lodgings, where you would have all manner of unavoidable contacts.”

“Yes,” she said, “that would have been dreadful. To have been able all one’s life to choose or avoid, to say ‘At home’ or not, and then to be obliged to meet, all the time, the chance acquaintances of a boarding-house! I did not expect to have a house for a year at least.”

George Trescot reflected anew upon the sacrifices she had made, and on how less than little she knew of what she was saved by Susan’s persistency and self-sacrifice.

“We owe Susan a great debt,” he said; “and I am as grateful as a man ought to be; but I wish I had been able to do all this for you myself. I have been so anxious that you should be satisfied.”

Constance slipped down on to the step beside him, cast an arm around him, and laid her head on his shoulder. “You need not have been afraid, George. Life can ask nothing of me, large or small, which I would not give or be or do for you.” The voice became low and measured as she went on. “I could beg, or do anything. You will see how I shall help you. I shall make all these St. Ann people our friends—oh, whether I like them or not; but, George, I am scared sometimes when I think of how all other love has shrunk to nothing, as if it had all gone to make up one great love for you. If any one—man or woman—loves you, I shall be jealous; if any one does not, I shall hate him. Oh, I am a fine fool of love! I am half jealous of the company you find in your pipe.”

He said, “Are you, indeed?”

“Yes, I am, really. Oh, you may laugh, but I am.”

The stress of passion in her words was broken by this half-humorous reflection, and a little to the man’s relief, even if he hardly knew it. The quality of his affection was governed by temperament, and, never reaching the instinctive freedom of her passion, was nobler, in that it looked forward to being always the true lover, and also the friend who guides and counsels; for already he saw that both guidance and counsel might be needed. He smiled as he kissed her.

“Well, shall I give up my friend of many campfires, of sad days, of long night-rides?”

“What a pretty defense! No, indeed; I like it because it can comfort and cannot love.”

She rose as she spoke, and standing before him, threw up her hands with a gesture of emphatic abandonment and cried: “Oh, George, I am so happy! Come, let us walk in the garden. Isn’t it little?—but do look at the roses.”

He went with her, and they talked more quietly of the kindness of the general and his wife; of their own plans, and of his work. To his surprise, she said no word of Susan. At last he said, “It is early, but you must be tired.”

“Oh, I am never tired; but I have to unpack, and what the colored women can do I have yet to learn.”

“To-morrow will be Sunday, Constance.”

“I am going to church with you. You will have to find the places for me in your prayer-book; but I am going because—because you are going.”

“Thank you! You are very good to me, my love! Good night.”

She left him, and he lighted his pipe, and for an hour moved about in thought.

IV

As they went up the slight ascent of West Street toward the Episcopal church, Constance said to her husband: “Since we left home you have gone to church alone. I mean that you shall never do that again. But, George, do you know that this will be the first time I have ever been present at a church service?”

“It will interest you,” he said, realizing with regret how complete had been the denial of the highest opportunities to the woman he loved. Careful to show no surprise, he went on to speak of the service, and of how it had been formed and molded, until, arriving at the church, they sat down near to the door. After church they slipped away, unnoticed, except casually by General Averill. On the way homeward, Constance was silent for a time, and seeming to her husband thus inclined, he made no effort to disturb her mood.

Presently, however, she began to speak of the impression this amazing novelty of a great ritual had left with her. The congregation had been large and very devoted. She confessed to interest and something like awe—a certain wonder at it, a trained disbelief in its verities. She spoke with care, and he, on his side, listened without criticism. Certainly to her it was so strange that he found it hard to put himself in her attitude of mind, and preferred, with the patience which was part of his character, to do no more than wait for such better chances as time might bring.

The music she found good and simple. Caught by its charm, her full soprano rose in the hymns he knew so well, and added to the satisfaction he felt when she expressed her surprise at the refined faces she saw about her. He explained that the older settlers had been Virginians, and many of them gentlefolk. She was sure she would like them; and the elderly woman she saw as they came out must be Mrs. Averill. She smiled at them as the general raised his hat—a handsome couple. There was even a kind of distinction in the old-fashioned gowns and bonnets.

“I think they were all curious about us,” she added.

“There may be other reasons,” he laughed, “for looking at you, my dear. I sometimes enjoy that privilege myself.”

Sunday passed quietly in their new home, and they fully recognized the thoughtful kindness which left them thus undisturbed. In the afternoon they decided to see the little city and their neighborhood. They were about a half-mile from the court-house green, beyond which, on an upper rise, were a dozen houses, not very well cared for, but set pleasantly among trees and well-tended gardens. On the level land above the river bluff were the straggling houses and shops which, in their fresh shingles and paint, gave evidence here and there of the new material growth which had begun since the war. Below the bluff, on the shore of the great curve of the turbid river, were warehouses, cotton-presses, and rudely built piers where steamers lay. Much of the nearer water-front was occupied, and as they stood Trescot pointed out where, at the bend of the river, lay the long stretch of frontage which was in litigation, and was claimed by Mr. Hood. Descending to the water’s edge, they found a rough road which passed through low growths and the rude clearings of the squatters who had refused to vacate their lands. Beyond, the road wound along the river bank, and over the land which Trescot had pointed out as valuable on account of the deep water in front of it.

When on their homeward way they came near to their own house, the path so narrowed in front of an ill-kept garden that Trescot fell behind. A gentleman in gray clothes, and wearing an undress army-cap with Confederate buttons, moved aside into the road to make room for Mrs. Trescot to pass. He lifted his cap and showed some attentive surprise as Trescot touched his straw hat and they passed on.

“By George!” he murmured, “who can that be? What a beautiful woman!” He stared after her well-clad figure, noting the ease and grace of her walk, and then the slighter form of the man. Seeing them turn in at their own gate, he said aloud: “That must be old Hood’s new agent. He is very young.”

Meanwhile Mrs. Trescot said: “George, did you notice that gentleman?”

“Yes.”

“He looks like an Indian chief, and very unlike the people I saw to-day. He is handsome, but how dark he is!”

“Oh, there is some old Creole blood here—of French descent, very likely—a fine, big man, probably a Confederate soldier.”

* * *

The Monday morning of their first week at St. Ann found them after breakfast on the back porch of their new home. The man was gravely happy; the young wife a little excited as they began to consider what they were to do on this the first morning of their new life. Past the little garden, the grassy slopes and green maize-fields were bounded below by a fringe of oaks, beyond which the brown current of the mighty river swept onward in its march to the gulf. The Cherokee rose was all about them in red clusters, the humming-birds were busy on quivering wing, and the warmth and moisture of the Southland—April already—invited to repose and idleness.

“It is very pleasant here,” said Trescot, “but there will be many things to do, and I suppose one must begin.” As he spoke he rose. The temptations to linger were very great. But at last he compromised with sense of duty by resolving, as many a man has done, to go as soon as his pipe had gone out. Nevertheless he economically nursed the failing pipe. As he lingered Constance asked:

“What have you to do, George? I mean at once.”

“Oh, many things. I must see the general and learn all I can of your uncle’s affairs. There are unpaid rents, mortgages in arrears, taxes, and what not,—a sad tangle, I fear. Then, if I am to appear in the courts I must qualify by an examination to practise in this State.”

She was at once eager to know why.

“I could appear,” he returned, “in a United States court, but not before local tribunals. But that is all simple.” And, in fact, after a fortnight he was enabled thus to qualify for practice at St. Ann.

When at last the pipe refused to furnish excuses for delay, he left his wife to her new household duties. She found herself amply occupied, and while her husband spent a busy morning with Averill, she went about the house with the two black servants, arranging her husband’s books, and giving to the rooms that look of having been lived in, which is one of the mysterious accomplishments of certain women. Trescot heard snatches of song as he came in at midday, to meet her eager questions, and to note with satisfaction what she had done to change the house into a home.

“How hard you must have worked!” he said, seeing all of his many books in order.

“I did not unpack your law books, George.”

“No, you were right; I must have them with me. I am to have a bit of an office next to the general’s. I find that he has come into some property of late, and wants to give up part of his work—I mean chiefly your uncle’s affairs. There are, I fancy, other reasons. He was somewhat reticent. From what I gathered I fear that your uncle’s business is going to be difficult; and he has been so hard to deal with that people here say it is impossible to settle anything. However, we shall see. I suspect that the general has been indisposed to push matters, and that your uncle has been unyieldingly opposed to any compromises.”

“Very likely,” said Constance; “but if the general had been firm uncle would have given way. He always does. But for that he should be here. He is always most obstinate in his letters.”

“That is hardly consoling,” said Trescot. “And oh, Constance, I would not hang my sword here. Put it in your room.”

“I should like that,” she said, at once understanding him. “I see that you do not wear your Loyal Legion button—I suppose we are to forget?”

“Yes, and forgive, as they, too, will in time. I lost a brother and many friends in the war, but, dear, I learn that our old general lost his two sons,—his only children, Constance,—his all. They are childless.”

“Oh, George! That mother! She was here to-day, and such kindness I never could have hoped for. Now I understand her

“‘sad eyes Wherein no expectation lies.’

“Who said that, George? I forget. I wondered what gave her that look; I noticed it when I first saw her. I think Susan quoted it once. And, my dear George, she heard me singing in that absurd way in church, and would I join the choir, and they would expect us to use their pew, and there are sewing-circles, and what not. I had to say several noes; I did it sweetly, and said I must think about it. Imagine me in a sewing-circle!”

“I am sure you said just the right thing. As for the general, he, too, was more than kind. He begged me to be careful about war talk. People were still sensitive. And I ought to be made aware that your uncle, whom no one here has seen, is detested, and supposed to hinder the growth of the town by refusals to sell or improve. He wants me to see people socially, and it seems there is a little club which he thinks I had better join. I said it would be as well to wait. I do not want any needless expenses—even the smallest.”

“Oh, I shall manage, George. I have talked to Mrs. Averill. We shall have enough. It might be better to join the club.”

“I shall think of it,” he said. “But my best club is elsewhere.”

“Yes; but you would see these people there. Only, I shall be jealous of the hours I do not own.”

“You own all my hours, Constance. And, by the way, talking of jealousy, the dark gentleman you admired yesterday has some Indian and some Creole blood. I guessed well. But his name, I take it, is English—Greyhurst. He is the lawyer who has been engaged in the suit to dispossess your uncle of the water-front. I hear, also, that he is pretty deeply and personally interested in lands along the water.”

She determined to know more of this man when she saw the general. She had some vague feeling that here was a man who would be hostile; and she had not liked the smiling face with the dark, attentive eyes.

The next day being Tuesday, while Trescot was again busy with the old general, Constance dressed with care and set out to visit his wife. The sun was warm, and as she walked along the road to the town she was full of plans for a social campaign which should be of use to the man she loved. There was enough to interest in the negro huts and children, the wayside flowers, the straggling town, its blooming gardens, and the houses which war and its attendant poverty had left long uncared for. As she gained the main street, she began to see that she was the object of notice; but to this she was not unaccustomed, and did not find it unpleasing. Her looks and her power to be agreeable were a part of George’s capital. She noted the men on horseback—now and then a man in a battle-worn suit of Confederate gray; twice she observed the “C. S.” branded on the flanks of mules—and felt the nearness of that vast struggle which had left the South wrecked and impoverished.

A question or two brought her to the general’s house. It stood on a rise to the eastward and above the town—an ample brick dwelling of more pretension than those near by. The garden around it on all sides was admirably cared for, but the fence was broken and the gate lay on the ground. The hall door was open, but she looked in vain for a bell, and used the brass knocker without effect. At last she entered, and saw through the back door of the hall the gray head of Mrs. Averill in the garden, moving between tall rows of Osage orange. For a moment some inbred regard for conventional usages stayed the visitor’s steps, and then, seeing no other way, she walked through the house and down the garden path.

Mrs. Averill turned, setting down a basket of roses, and with both hands welcomed her visitor.

“Come in,” she said; “come in out of the sun.”

Her looks approved the proudly carried head, the rich red of the cheeks, the large blue eyes, and that indescribable air of caste and good-breeding which the day before, as they came out of church, had been at once and easily recognized.

Constance, too, saw that here was an older woman of her own world—a woman, as she wrote to Susan, who seemed suited to the old-fashioned garden and its familiar flowers—a delicately provincial dame, with an assured way of saying gently very positive things, and with hands and feet thin, delicate, and marvelously small.

The Southland tongue as Mrs. Averill used it, with its half-lost r’s and a certain precision in her choice of words, delighted the critical taste of Constance.

As they entered the large parlor, Mrs. Averill said: “Sit down, my dear; it is very warm. I must find my servants—nowadays they are never to be found. You shall have a glass of lemonade.”

Constance said she should be glad to have it, and was left alone. She looked after her hostess with increasing satisfaction. Mrs. Averill was exquisitely neat, from the little cap, over abundant gray hair, and wide white kerchief to the white gown and the long garden gloves. The room offered an unpleasing contrast. The wall-paper was worn and spotted, the seats of the chairs showed signs of wear. Some of them were of Colonial respectability, some with the black hair-cloth covers of a day of worse taste. The matting was much mended, and a thin-legged piano, not too free from dust, suggested indifference, or, more probably, the housekeeping troubles of which as yet Constance was happily ignorant.

On the walls were two or three portraits in the thin manner of the elder Peale, and an admirable Copley of a husband and wife. Over the fireplace hung a pair of crossed swords suspended by broad black ribbons. Below were ill-colored photographs of two young officers in Confederate uniform. “Poor mother!” said Constance. Over all, caught up in folds, hung a torn battle-flag of the rebel States, and below it the flag of a Maine regiment, also tattered and battle-scarred, evidently a captured trophy.

For a moment the young faces of the dead sons troubled her, and then the two flags sent a rush of angry blood to her face—a return of the passionate feelings the great war had so often caused her. Here before her was the record of battle and of death, of the pathos and the courage and endurance of a struggle which should have left, and did leave for the best of those who fought and won, only admiration, pity, and magnanimity. Constance had little of that greatness of soul which is the noblest factor in the large gospel of forgiveness. The personal feeling which entered so largely into her life during the war was supported by an unusually intelligent knowledge of our history, and kept angrily alive by her uncle’s attitude when, rejoicing over Confederate victories, he thus kept her irritated and on edge throughout the years of that sad struggle—ever glorious for those who won and those who lost.

Hearing Mrs. Averill’s step at the doorway, she turned quickly from the mantel to meet her, composing her face with the habitual ease of a caste accustomed to hide emotion. The little old lady, so gray, so worn, became of a sudden grave.

“Sit down here beside me,” she said. “You were looking at the flags and—the faces of my dead. Of course it troubled you—I saw that—the flags and—the rest. I won’t have you excuse yourself; it was natural. One boy fell dead on the flag he had captured; they sent it home to me. The other, a prisoner, died in the North, after having been cared for as we could not have cared for him in those terrible days. You see, I am explaining to you because we are to be friends; but some day, when you are a mother, you—”

“Please don’t,” said Constance, taking her thin hand. Both women’s eyes were full of tears.

For a moment they were silent. Then Constance said, “How did you live through it?”

“God helped me, as some day he may need to help you. It is less hard to forgive a nation than if it had been a man, and John Averill was spared to sorrow with me. Some day I shall see my boys. There, my dear, we must not talk of it any more; but we are very sore in the South, and the state of things in the Carolinas makes it impossible to forget defeat in the face of continual humiliation.”

“I know,” said Constance. “It is shameful, and no one—not even you—can feel it more than my husband. He tries to put aside the war. He never speaks of it, although his crippled arm is a sad reminder. He will not let me hang his sword where it can be seen in—” She paused, feeling that she had made one of those social slips which even the best-trained do not altogether escape. She went on quickly: “We want to make friends with the people here. You will tell us how. You know it is to be our home.”

“My dear, you will easily make friends; but sometimes you will have to be forbearing and keep silent. It may be hard, but for those who won it should not be.” Constance thought of George, and assented. “Mr. Trescot will find it less easy; but his having been in your army will help him with all but the women; we are unreasonably venomous—a few of us, not all.”

“Well, that will save me some jealousies,” said Constance, smiling.

“Ah, here is the lemonade,” said her hostess. “I was picking these flowers for you; will you care to carry the basket, or shall I send them? I was about to call again this afternoon. I thought I might help you. It must all be so strange to you.”

Constance, thanking her, rose, saying: “You will let me come again?”

“Oh, often, I hope,—often.”

She walked away through the sun and down the dusty street, carrying the roses. The men looked after her erect figure, the women made comments on gown and bonnet.

She was lost to her surroundings, thinking of the flags and the dead boys, and wondering at the peace of soul which had come to the childless mother. She could not comprehend it, and thought that such a calamity falling on herself would have left her with an undying hatred. Presently, feeling the heat, she was reminded that she had promised not to tempt its consequences through the summer months. The idea of leaving George troubled her, and she quickened her pace in order the sooner to see him.

V

The Trescots by degrees settled into a routine of life which, while it left Constance alone in the mornings, usually permitted of their being together the rest of the day, and in the evening.

A few friends or relatives of the Averills called upon them; but these visits were evidently formal or made to oblige the general’s wife, and they were left much alone.

If Trescot soon felt the social atmosphere to be cold, he excused it, and trusted to time and chance for better things. Except that Constance saw in their reception difficulties for her husband, she had small regret on account of the conditions which relieved her from being constantly on guard, and made her secure of a larger share of the society she preferred to all other.

The women she met and tried to find pleasant were chiefly interested in their households, in the difficulties caused by the emancipation of the slaves, and in the awkward subject of the misgovernment of the South. There were but few subjects which were free from peril, and such intellectual sympathies as Constance possessed awakened little interest among overburdened women whom many forms of disaster had left with too constant thought of the morrow.

What help and advice Constance required she found in the Averill house, where now and then they ate a meal and were at all times welcome guests. The older woman discovered, to her husband’s joy, a novel pleasure in Constance Trescot’s music; and it became common for the old general and his wife to appear of an evening, and while the men smoked their pipes on the porch the piano, Susan’s wedding-gift, was opened, and song after song, or the tones of the greater music, soothed and pleased the pale little lady who sat a silent listener, or pleaded for “just one more, my dear.”

Then, too, Susan sent the new books and the magazines, and these were passed on to the Averills, who formed, by degrees, an increasing attachment to the young man and his wife, and became thoughtfully busy in the difficult task of bringing them into cordial relations with what was best in the town. As far as was possible to a woman like Constance, the regard was returned. She had all her life had a singular incapacity for generous division or sharing of her affection. Once it had been wholly Susan’s. It was now George Trescot’s, and this predisposition was reinforced by a passion deep, jealous, and exacting. The man so long lonely sunned himself in the warmth of all that an intelligent and beautiful woman brought to help and glorify his life, with no mind to criticize the quality of the woman’s love.

And so the latter days of April passed, and the warmth of May and June came, while, with the all-sufficient company of books, music, and talk, time moved onward. In the evening he read to her or told her of his work, and she of what she had seen and done. Of the keen sense he had of hostility in the very air of the place he said but little. She was but too anxiously aware of it, and said as little.

On an evening early in June the general came in, and leaving Constance alone with her open piano, the two men went out on to the porch.

“I came in, Mr. Trescot, because I want to talk of the squatters. I heard to-day that there may be trouble. I wish my friend Mr. Hood were more reasonable.”

“He is not, and never will be, and there is nothing to do but to serve the usual notices on them.”

“It has already excited a good deal of feeling. The squatters will resist, or at least two of them will. The fact is that I have been unable to make up my mind in the past to turn out three old soldiers of my own regiment. One of these is a lame man, crippled in the war. Cannot you wait until the suit for the water-front has been tried?”

“It is low down on the docket, and it will be October before it can come up. But what would be gained by that—by waiting?”

The general was unprepared to reply. He was merely inclined, like most old men, to put off the disagreeable, having that faith in the helpfulness of time which is a part of the business creed of the aged.

He said at last that he was of opinion that Greyhurst was stirring them up. The eviction of a lot of old soldiers, one of them eighteen years on the ground, father and son, would further prejudice an already hostile public opinion, and make it the harder to secure a just verdict in regard to the question of title to the lands beyond them on the river.

“What I disliked to do about these men, Mr. Trescot,” he said, “will be dangerous for you to attempt. I think it right to tell you that. Their land is not valuable for steamboat landings, and for any other purpose it is useless, because the squatters never can sell it; but they won’t give up, and are utterly indifferent to law, and quite well aware that the community is on their side. Best let them alone just now. Wait a little.”

“No, I must go on.”

“It will be at the risk of your life.”

He could have said nothing better fitted to add vigor to Trescot’s resolute intention. He replied, laughing: “I presume that we have both been shot at pretty often.”

“But this is different, Trescot.”

“Yes, I know that. But am I to believe, general, that an opponent lawyer deliberately advises an assassination?”

“Oh, no, I beg you not to misunderstand me; I spoke rather too positively. Greyhurst would never do that; and, upon my word, he never did anything deliberate in his life. The man is impulsive and quick to resent, and very imprudent in talk. He is in debt, and if he can win this suit he will probably receive a large contingent fee. These men, especially that fellow named Coffin, have been to see him,—I pointed the man out to you on the street yesterday. Mr. Greyhurst has told them that you surely mean to evict them. I do not think he can have gone further.”

“If he said only that I mean to evict, that is true. I would tell them that myself. Was there anything else?”

“No; but there are ways of saying things. It was none of his business. They did not consult him as a lawyer, and he was merely making mischief. These mountain-men who are now squatted on the flats come to me like children. They were, some of them, in my company when I first went out, and they look to me for protection. It is a damned disagreeable business, sir; and none the easier for John Greyhurst’s interference and Mr. Hood’s stupid obstinacy.”

“I presume, general, that you really could not make up your mind to act on Mr. Hood’s determination to evict.”

“I must confess, Mr. Trescot, that I would not. I think I said as much. The legal right no one can dispute; but I could not come down on these poor devils with the law without being looked upon as an oppressor, and, what is worse just now, as the instrument of a Northern man. Even for me, my dear Trescot, to evict mercilessly men who have lived there five, ten, even eighteen years unmolested—even for me, sir, there might be risk.”

“And for me,” queried Trescot, smiling, “much more risk?”

“That is my belief, sir. I do not think Mr. Hood has ever taken in the situation.”

“No; it is his land. The men must go. For him it is simple,—but for me and you there are the human ties to land men have cleared and plowed, the sense of the home, and all manner of associations. Mr. Hood prides himself on being exact in business. Out of it he is generous, even lavish. He has not imagination enough to be largely charitable. I never saw a man like him.”

“Then, sir,” said the old general, grimly humorous, “he had better lavish on you a good revolver or a first-class rifle. What I could not or would not do, you will surely risk your life if you try to do. I may as well say to you that my chief reason for giving up Hood’s agency was his infernal obstinacy about these squatters. Did he tell you that I had said so, and that no reputable gentleman in St. Ann would accept the position?”

“No, he did not,” returned Trescot, somewhat surprised at this revelation of Mr. Hood’s methods.

“Well, no one here would take it on his terms, and, as I see it, he has placed you in what is a position of real danger. Even now, before you have moved legally, these men are sure they will be turned out. They are not men to wait, and the whole town is on their side. Think it over. A very little money would settle the business.”

“You are no doubt right; but what can I do? I must give up the agency or act on Mr. Hood’s orders. I came here to do so, and I mean to move in the matter. How can I hope to convince him if you failed?”

The general laid a hand on Trescot’s knee, and said very earnestly:

“Wait until I write to him again. I have known lives lost in this country for far less things, and if you are set on taking legal action I beg that you will go about armed.”

Trescot laughed. “Why, my dear general, I am half crippled, and it would be simply useless. Do you all carry revolvers?”

“I do not; but if I were bent on following out Mr. Hood’s orders I most assuredly should do so, and, too, I should be rather careful how I went out at night.”

Trescot thanked him and said: “You will do nothing with Hood; but could not we do something with these men if you and I saw them together?”

“It is worth trying. I shall go with you with pleasure. Before I leave let me say a word more about that land suit. It was first brought the year after the big flood in sixty-three. Who suggested to the Baptiste people to dispute Hood’s title I do not know. Two lawyers have had it; one died and one threw up the case. Then it came into Greyhurst’s hands, and has hung on. I had too slight evidence in Mr. Hood’s favor to want to try it, and Greyhurst evidently took it with the hope of forcing a compromise. I can’t think he believes their claim just.”

“Well, I shall urge it, and we can make him come to time. It is very much like a sort of legally disguised blackmail. What kind of man is he? I ought to know. You said he was impulsive.”

“Yes, it is as well that you should. A rather unusual person. He has had a wild life, but is not uncultivated. He certainly has a high opinion of John Greyhurst, and the most damned insecure temper I ever met with. Halloa! Talk of him another time. Listen to that!”

There was a low, mellow roll of murmurous thunder. The general rose. “We are in for one of our big thunder-storms. It will cool the air. Say good-by to Mrs. Trescot. I must hurry.” He went away around the house in haste.

As Trescot stood looking at the darkening sky a blinding splendor of violet light made bright the distant river and the march of dark masses of cloud across the star-lighted sky. “Come out,” he called to his wife. “The general has gone, Constance; come out on the porch.”

She rejoiced in a great storm, as she did in any display of the might of nature, such as the wild sea drama of a gale on her own rock-bound coast. She came out at once and they walked into the garden. The herald wind of the coming storm shook the house and brought a cool breath of freshness.

“How delicious the air is, George, and how magnificent, how glorious!”

Swift javelins of light flashed incessant, with crashes of thunder, and soon the sudden downfall of rain drove them to the shelter of the porch.

“No, I can’t go in, George. I never before saw such a storm. I love it. I should like to be once in an earthquake.”

“Not I,” he returned, laughing. “I saw one in New Mexico. I prefer to face again the worst fire I was ever under. I got out of a window on to a shed, and the house went down behind me.”

Again a vast flare of lightning made every drop of rain in the air a moment’s jewel.

“The rain blows in here; get your rain-cloak,” he said. “Wait, I shall get it—or better to go in.”