Front matter (continued 2)

"Did you really drink it, sweetheart?" asked his mother just before she tucked him in bed.

"Course," answered Peter, wide-eyed. "Mike said it made the cars go fast, so I tried it. I didn't like it much," he confessed, "but golly, how I ran! I wish Jimmy could have seen me!"

And on that, Peter fell asleep.

Diary, I am nearly asleep too. Won't Sarah scold if she catches me! So I will postpone till tomorrow my account of the Lawn Tea—and—the Utterly New Man imminent in our midst!

Now, aren't you curious?

CHAPTER V

The Very Next Day

I was so tired last night, Diary, that I couldn't sleep, and Sarah blames you! She has just said, sternly, "No more writing, Miss Mavis," and vanished from the room. Out you come, from under my pillow, in lawless defiance of the mandate. For it's raining and dull, and I can't go out of doors, and so I must have something to occupy me, must I not? But isn't it perfectly wonderful that the rain should deprive me of something? For, it was only a very short time ago that rain or sunshine meant very little to me, aside from aesthetic pleasure, and shut or open windows as the case might be! Now for a description of the Lawn Fete!

It was an early affair; three o'clock, to be exact. And very young September put on her very gayest appearance for me. Father and Sarah, Dr. Bill and Dr. Mac, constituted themselves a Committee on Decoration and Refreshments, and as a consequence we had a lawn gay with wicker chairs, hammocks, cushions, tables, flags, and flowers; and a very important table loaded with sandwiches, tiny cakes, bonbons, and all manner of cool drinkables. And—then came the crowds! I do believe everyone in Green Hill turned out, from Sammy and his Rosie-of-the-Telegraph (I wonder what happened to the messages during that afternoon? Never mind! No one would have been home to receive them!), to Peter and his small friends and old Granny Wallace, who drove up in a dilapidated buggy, and wore a new black bonnet for the occasion. I wore—and this will interest you—the mauve and turquoise negligée, with various additions. One was a bunch of the loveliest, glowingest orchids you have ever seen, which was brought to me by Mr. John Denton, who made a flying half-hour's return trip for the express purpose, he said, of kissing my hands and delivering the flowers, which he assured me came from the donor of Wiggles. A card with the orchids read, "To match a delightful costume." So Mr. Denton, the villain, has been talking! Under my laces, I wore Richard Warren's jade lucky-piece, and in honor of the occasion I decorated Wiggles, much to his disgust, with a huge purple bow. It was very becoming to his lively and brunette beauty, as all who saw him will attest.

It was a dear afternoon. Everyone was so happy for me. They fairly overwhelmed me with good wishes and affectionate, optimistic prophecies. My two medicos kept a very stern guard over me. It seemed as if I couldn't get rid of one or the other for more than a moment at a time. But I had Dr. Mac in a perfectly beautiful rage by accusing him of trying to steal the Scandinavian heart of Hildeborg, my massive masseuse. Oh yes, she was there too, marvellously gotten up, her yellow head very much in the foreground and her big voice booming out at the most inopportune moments in more than the most inopportune remarks, thereby greatly endangering the preservation of gravity in those present. Her public advice to Dr. Mac, along lines of reduction, was extremely exhilarating!

We had music, rendered slightly off key, but with all the good will in the world, by the Green Hill Musical Four, consisting of a Simpson, a Watkins, and the Jones twins, who performed respectively upon a cornet, a violin, a banjo, and a mouth-organ. It was, Diary, the very last word in successful parties. Only one thing occurred to cast any shadow over a wonderful day. And, of all people selected by an unkind Fate to sully my happiness, it was Peter who, to mix metaphors somewhat, cast the first stone. In the presence of at least six villagers, including Granny Wallace, the town gossip, he regarded my frivolity of a lace and ribbon cap, and asked, as solemnly as a mouth full to capacity with cake would permit, "Mavis, how do you set your cap?"

"How do I what?" I asked in all innocence, one hand to my headgear.

"Set it," he repeated. "Sally says that Adeline says that you are setting your cap for Doctor Denton!"

Adeline, Diary, is Sally's sister, and Dr. Denton's cook.

Several in the group about me laughed, and Granny Wallace's ears grew visibly in length.

"I can't imagine what you mean, Peterkins," I answered with well-assumed carelessness, and turned to talk volubly with Mrs. Goodrich, who was adding to the gaiety by saying audibly, "Hush, Peter!"

But Peter was not to be silenced.

"Sally says," he protested, in his clear little voice, "that Adeline says she told doctor Denton about it, your cap, you know, and that he laughed out loud and said you could for all of him!"

"What's that about Doctor Denton?" asked that individual, suddenly coming up quietly behind the group.

Talk about bombshells!

Despite Mrs. Goodrich's frantic attempt to hush her young hopeful, Peter, his hand in Doctor Denton's, obligingly repeated his story.

"An'," he concluded, turning to me wistfully, "please, Mavis, won't you set it for me? I'd like to see how you do it!"

Amid an awestruck silence, Doctor Denton swung Peter, who squealed with delight, up and up to his broad shoulder, and said, laughing but a little red,

"Nonsense, old chap, Miss Carroll won't set her cap for you for—well, about twenty years, more or less. But isn't it a pretty cap?" With a wicked laugh he turned and strode off, Peter clinging to his shock of dark hair and asking very loudly, "But does she do it like hens do, Doctor Uncle?"

I haven't the remotest idea what happened after that. I vaguely remember Granny Wallace hurrying and cackling off, and the other members of the group trying to compose their features and to re-order their conversation. That Mrs. Goodrich, before she left, bent over me and whispered, "Mavis dear, I'm so sorry!" helped matters, as far as I was concerned, not one whit. By the same evening, I am certain that the story was all over Green Hill. Even Sarah said something to me, before I went to bed....

Somehow, I should have thought my helplessness would have protected me a little....

After my guests had gone, Doctor Denton appeared on the scene.

"MacAllister and I will carry you up to your room now, Miss Carroll," he said cheerily.

I felt very tired, very cross, and behaved, I'm afraid, like a schoolgirl.

"If you'll get Doctor Mac and Father...."

He went quite white.

"Very well," he said stiffly, and turned away. I did not see him again that day, or for several days thereafter.

I wonder if he really said that I "could for all of him?"

New York City September 11th

Contrary Princess!

Do you think it kind of Your Royal Benevolence to write me the most charming note in the world to thank me for my flowers, and then to almost ruin it by a postscript, a scolding—dare I say, nagging—postscript, in which you sternly forbid me to give myself pleasure and send you "anything more, ever"! You are an—an Indian Receiver, that's what you are! And I refuse to have any dealings with your postscript! I will separate it carefully from the rest of the letter, and consign it to candle flame.

I am glad you enjoyed your lawn party. Sorry, though, that anything should have happened during your At Home day to disturb you. Although you do not tell me what it was, I have put two and two together, made a hundred and six, and deducted that some member of my blundering and heavy-footed sex stepped upon your sensibilities. But I am sure you have forgiven him by now—although far be it from me to hold any brief for an unknown and hated rival!

Please, may I come to your next party? I am sure my mother would be willing to chaperone me. I forwarded her your last note; it was addressed to her and I did not dare keep it. But I read it (yes, I did) and I do not notice that you scolded her about those rose-grey bed socks! Indeed, you seemed very glad to have them. She has been fretting, I know, that they were not finished sooner, but she was called away, as no doubt she told you in her letter, by an illness in the family.

My respects to Wiggles. I wonder if he is entirely cognizant of his good fortune?

I have told you once that everything John Denton says of me is false, unless it is particularly pleasant. And then it hardly does me justice. Now, after my repeated demands, will you tell me what he said?

Yours very truly, Richard Warren

P.S. I have found more in the business form of signature than I had dreamed existed. Let me repeat it another way,

Very truly—yours, R. W.

Under-the-Trees September 14th

Dear and Caviling Poet:

You deserved to be scolded. But we will say no more about it. And I have decided to relent and tell you what Mr. John Denton said. He said

That you were shy

That you were very blonde

That you were very impractical

That you were very generous

That you were an incorrigible dreamer

And that he thought you were in love!

What have you to reply to these six counts of his indictment?

Curiously yours, The Princess

New York City September 17th

Dear Portia:

Lies! All counts of the indictment to be immediately quashed—save the very last!

Richard Warren

Green Hill September 19

Diary, I have a two-line letter from Richard Warren which I am afraid to answer. And it's all my fault!

CHAPTER VI

Revelations and Results

Green Hill September 20

The New Young Man has arrived in our village. An embarrassment of riches! He is a college friend of that Doctor Person, a painter and a poet as well! I have graciously given my consent that he be brought to call. I wonder what he looks like? Not like his name, I hope, which is Penny! Father just came upstairs, and asked me if I would be ready to see Dr. Denton in fifteen minutes. He looked quite funny when he said it, and seemed so ill at ease. I can't imagine.... Well, Diary, although the Doctor doesn't deserve it, I fancy I shall call Sarah and tell her to get me the rose-and-grey bed jacket which is so becoming—to my room!

Three Hours Later

Diary, it's not possible! I can't believe it! I've been here half an hour alone, trying to realize all that it will mean to me, and trying to collect my thoughts. Fifteen minutes to the second after Father spoke to me about this impending and oddly formal visit of the Doctor's, he ushered that gentleman into the room, placed a low chair for him by the bed, and then, taking my hands, said very gravely, "Mavis, Dr. Denton wants to talk to you for a little while. He has something which he is very anxious to persuade you to do. I have told him that, without your consent, it is impossible. You know that I will never force you to anything. But will you listen to him, dear, and for all our sakes try to say 'Yes'?" As if he had to plead with me, my father, for whom I would do anything in the world!

Since the day I was brought home, broken, I have never seen my Father so moved. More out of nervousness than anything else, I said, "Daddy, it sounds like a proposal!"

The minute I said it I was sorry—and glad. For although Father laughed, Dr. Denton looked perfectly furious! It must be painful to turn the color he does—like a—a chameleon.

Then Father kissed me. Under his breath I heard him say, "God bless my Mavis!" and in a moment I was alone with the enemy.

The steel-blue eyes regarded me for a full moment, and then, almost sternly, he spoke.

"Miss Carroll," he said, "with your permission, and with your help, without which we can do nothing, we are going to ask you to make a series of efforts: first, to sit erect unaided; then, to stand; and, by slow degrees, to walk."

There was something so confident in his tone! Perhaps he might have gone on, but I flung out both hands to him, and he waited.

"Doctor!" I cried, "Doctor—it isn't possible! I have tried! They made me try at first, and it nearly killed me. Don't make me," I begged childishly; "don't make me go through all that horror again!"

"There will be no horror," he said deliberately. "There will be pain—yes—but comparatively slight. All through the summer I have watched your case. Little by little we have stimulated the unused muscles, as you have gained in vitality. At the time following your accident, it was naturally torture to you to be forced to submit to the hands of doctors and nurses. But eleven years have gone by, and I am convinced, and have convinced both our good friend MacAllister and your father, that the injury to your back has long since healed, and that nothing remains but the inflexibility of the muscles and, if I may term it such, a type of mental paralysis."

"You mean...." I began, not yet believing.

"I mean," he interrupted, "that your mind has persuaded your body that it will never walk again. Now, I know better. Yours is not the first case of this sort which has been brought to my attention. I have seen six cures out of eight such cases during my studies abroad. They interested me very much. It was primarily your case that brought me to Green Hill. And the cure—please believe me—rests entirely with you."

"I don't believe it!" I said flatly, staring at him. "It simply isn't possible that half a hundred doctors have been mistaken." And my eyes, although my tongue did not, said very plainly, "And who are you?"

For the first time, he smiled.

"I am sorry," he said, "if I have been unable to inspire you with so little confidence. The 'half a hundred' doctors were probably quite correct—at the time they had your case. How long has it been since you have had a specialist?"

"Six—no, seven years," I answered, and shuddered.

"I thought so," he said. And then, very suddenly, "Miss Carroll, do you want to walk again? Do you want to be a normal, active girl, instead of a semi-invalid?"

I hated his tone.

"Of course I do," I fairly shouted, "do—do you think I'm a fool?"

"Sometimes," answered the amazing creature, calmly.

I was too angry to speak.

"Look here, Miss Carroll," he said quietly, "let's get down to brass tacks. For eleven years you have lain on your back, allowing yourself to be waited on, coddled, wrapped in cotton wool. You have had the companionship of your father, who is the finest man in the world, but whose whole life is wrapped up in you, and who has sacrificed that life to your whims and your desires. Your father was never meant to be buried down here; not with that personality and fine brain. Think of the doors which should be open to him and which your illness has closed,—travel, society, the exploration of places and people, instead of a rather pretty, very narrow, Connecticut rut! You have had Sarah—sentimental to a degree under a rocky exterior, ready and anxious to work her fingers to the bone to please you. You have had an entire village at your beck and call; have dispensed justice and advice from your bed like Royalty; and you have thrived on it, my dear lady, thrived on the adoration and the sacrifice, and on your own martyrdom. Now, I am here solely to give you a chance to repay your father and all the others for their love and care and coddling. Do you realize that your father is a comparatively young man? That, by tying him to your bedside you have narrowed his life down until it consists of this room, this house, this tiny village? It's up to you to give something to your father. It may cost you pain. But I wonder if you have any idea of what you have cost him in heartache? Are you willing to make the effort, if only for his sake?"

No one in all my life had ever spoken to me like that! I was so hurt, so outraged, so bewildered, it seemed as if I just couldn't live a minute longer, with that cool, cutting voice in my ears.

"You—you—brute!" I said, choking, "It's not fair! Do you mean to tell me that I am selfish and unkind? That I don't love my father? That I am a useless, worthless hypochondriac?"

He smiled.

"Perhaps I wouldn't put it quite so strongly," he suggested courteously.

I shut my hands hard under the bedclothes and held my head very high.

"Very well," I told him, rather viciously, "I will do all you say, if Father and Doctor MacAllister are agreed."

I could feel the red spots burning on my cheeks. And in my mind I was saying, over and over, like a child, "I'll show you! I'll show you!" I think I almost hoped I should die—just to make him sorry. And it was so hard to keep the tears back. I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't.

I cried.

Suddenly, his arm was around me, and his voice, so changed, so immeasurably gentle, was saying, very close,

"You poor little kid!"

"I hate you!" I said, at that.

The arm tightened; then dropped. Dr. Denton rose.

"Good!" he said, heartily, towering above me. "That's something to work on! Well, I have your promise, and for love of your father and hate of me you'll walk yet, before the winter. And now, I will send Sarah to you with something to quiet those—outraged feelings. Tomorrow we'll begin the treatment."

Then he left the room.

And that's all Diary. I had a talk with Father. I can't set it down here. It was too beautiful and too intimate. But now that I realize all that it has meant, this long illness of mine, and all that my recovery might mean to him, I am willing to undergo any torture, any agony; willing even to endure the Cruel Magician and his Black Magic.

How I hate him, Diary! It makes me feel quite strong to hate anyone so,—I, who have always cared for people, and lived on their love.

What have I just written ... "lived on their love"...? I wonder if he is right, if I have taken everything, and given nothing in return?

Tonight, with my mind and soul in chaos, I wish more than ever that my Mother had lived.

Dear Diary, silent and loyal confidant, wish me well for tomorrow!

Green Hill September 22

Yesterday, Diary, was the most exhausting day I have ever survived! An alternate succession of massage and naps, and naps and massage! And two efforts to sit up! The first was quite unsuccessful. I was trembling all over with excitement, and perhaps fear. And at the very first attempt, fear of pain and the immediate succeeding pain itself, absolutely unnerved me. Dr. Mac, standing close beside the bed, looked across at his colleague. He didn't shake his head, but the expression in his keen old eyes was equivalent. Dr. Denton frowned.

"Will you try again, in a few minutes, Miss Carroll?" he asked, ignoring Dr. Mac, and the little hurt, despairing sound which I couldn't help making.

"I can't!" I said flatly.

He spread out his hands in an entirely foreign gesture of defeat.

"Of course, if you prefer not...." he suggested sketchily.

There was something so positively scornful in the look he bent on me that I writhed. I made my two eyes as much like swords as possible—I hope, Diary, that they were not crossed!—and snapped, "Do you mean to imply...?"

Suddenly I stopped. I was looking straight into the steel-blue eyes, and it was not until I saw their frosty expression change to something distinctly like triumph that I discovered that—I was sitting up!

Actually! But only for the fraction of a minute. It was the discovery itself, I think, that laid me flat again, with Dr. Mac's arm around me, and his disengaged hand stretched across the bed, frantically shaking Dr. Denton's.

"Laddie, 'tis mar-r-vellous!" he was saying, with a remarkable rolling of his r's.

But Dr. Denton was looking at me.

"You see," he said quietly, "that after all you can do it. It is only a matter of patience, and the will to conquer. And perhaps a certain amount of—impetus."

He was smiling, quite flushed, his eyes more brilliant than I had ever seen them.

"And now," he said, "suppose I go down and tell your father. He has been walking the floor ever since we came up, I know. We won't bother you again today, Miss Carroll. But tomorrow you're going to be perfectly amazed to see how easy it will be to repeat the performance."

After he had gone, Dr. Mac walked around my little room, loquacious for once in his life.

"Isn't he a wonder?" he kept asking me. "Lassie, it's worth living for just to meet a man like that. The born healer," he kept saying over and over, "the born healer!"

"I've no doubt," I said politely, "that Dr. Denton is a very able physician."

Dr. Mac stopped in his tracks, so suddenly that he nearly fell over.

"What's this? What's this?" he said, his bushy eyebrows drawn down over his eyes, so closely that I could not see their expression.

I repeated my remark.

One piercing glance, the suspicion of a twinkle, a deep, disconcerting chuckle. And then my old friend said cryptically,

"So that's the way the land lies, little Mavis!"

"What do you mean?" I began, irritably. I seem to be in a continual state of annoyance these days, Diary.

But he had gone, and all the way downstairs I could hear him chuckling.

Even my succeeding little thanksgiving talk with Father failed to put me in a good humor again.

I think Doctor Mac is horrid!

But if I am cured, Diary, won't I make them all "sit up!"

New York City September 22d

Dear Lady:

Have I offended you in any way?

Yours-willing-to-be-penitent-if-necessary Richard Warren

The Castle September 25th

Dear Poet:

Certainly not! But when one is slowly and forcibly being resurrected, one has little time for letter writing. Shall I tell you the program which has been laid out for me? But first of all, I must tell you that I am actually able to sit up for a few moments each day. And after I grow stronger and more daring, a chair is to be substituted for my bed, and then a wheel chair; and maybe after that a real live automobile! And finally, so I have been promised, I am to learn to walk! Fancy being such a baby! But this very morning, the Biggest, most Expensive, Busiest Specialist in the country—who knew me eleven years ago when he was not quite so big or expensive or busy—came to our little house, and after a prolonged Examination told us that there was no reason on earth why I should not recover wholly and absolutely. It will take time, he said, but it is certain. And I need undergo no knife, or painful treatment. I am only to mind, and not be in too great a hurry.

I feel as if, link by link, the fetters were falling. I hardly dare think ahead—to the day when the great round world shall be mine again. To the day when I shall go to all the places I only know from books and pictures. I want to go to the theatre. I want to see a horse race! I want to sail in a boat! And I want to walk and walk and walk! And, Poet, I want to fly!

I must never be very athletic, they say. Probably I shall never ride or skate, or even drive a car! I don't know—it doesn't matter, of course. But I do hope that I may dance! I've dreamed of dancing. You know, in my dreams, I am always strong and well.

You are happy with me and for me, I am sure. And sometimes I think that your letters and your friendship have given me courage and faith which otherwise I should not have had. It must be a beautiful world, and life must be a wonderful thing, if poets can live and make us see beauty through their clear eyes.

I am very grateful to you. And all through the perils and adventures of being reborn, I shall be glad to feel that you are thinking of me, and holding your thumbs. Will you, please?

Do you know a painter-poet named Penny? At least, that is his real name. He writes under a slightly more suitable cognomen, but I have been unable, in our brief acquaintance, to drag it from him. He seems a very nice person indeed, and made a long call on me this morning.

Wiggles wags.

Yours, in at least the fifth heaven, Me

Green Hill September 25

Diary, Dr. Denton brought the Penny-man to see me today. Perhaps as a flesh-and-blood flag of truce. At all events, it was more than an amusing experience. I was out-of-doors, propped up in my now very ambitious position, feeding Wiggles tea biscuits, and reading The Lyric Hour for the millionth time. When the two men appeared, I was declaiming aloud, slightly drunk by the most marvellously blue-hazy day, and feeling tremendously strong and happy. After the introductions,

"I've brought you good medicine, Miss Carroll," said Dr. Denton, indicating his embarrassed friend. "A real live poet! The only one in captivity! Eats out of the hand. But—I warn you he is modest. The proverbial violet is brazen compared to Wright. And he won't lionize worth a nickel, and I am sworn to silence concerning his prowess with the pen, and even his nom-de-guerre."

Mr. Penny—isn't it a dreadful name!—and combined with Wright, too!—sat down limply in the chair beside me.

"Please," he said, pleasantly and plaintively, "don't pay any attention to him."

"I never do," I said in my sugariest tones.

Dr. Denton lowered his inches to the ground, and there, sprawled like a starfish, regarded me brightly.

"She's truthful," he assured his friend. "She never does. And you've no idea how she dislikes me. That handicaps you at the start, Wright, old fellow. Doesn't it, Miss Carroll?"

I considered Mr. Penny's amiable, blonde countenance judicially.

"It might," I agreed.

"You see?" This from the Creature in a piercing stage whisper.

"But it doesn't!" I finished, smiling brilliantly at Mr. Penny, who appeared slightly confused.

Catching at a straw, which happened to be the beloved Lyric Hour, the Unknown—I simply can't call him Penny all the time—it's too ridiculous!—picked up the book, which was lying beside me, and immediately gave the most theatrical start I have ever seen. I've never seen plays, of course, but I have read them, and know stage directions when I see them in the flesh. This was a particularly good example of "confronted with the tell-tale revolver, Sebastian starts violently...."

"Richard Warren," read the Stranger aloud, with a very poor affectation of indifference.

"Yes," I said, "do you know him?"

The Penny turned a beautiful crimson.

"I've read the book," he faltered.

My back may be weak, but my eyes are good. And the glance that passed between Dr. Denton and his friend did not escape me.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, old man," said the former soothingly, "particularly as it appears to be Miss Carroll's chief literary diet."

"Is it?" asked my guest, rather excitedly, I thought.

"I adore it!" I answered, with all the schoolgirl fervor I could muster. And it rang true, Diary, for it is!

Dr. Denton looked at me keenly.

"Lucky book!" he said lightly, while Mr. Penny added almost under his breath,

"Lucky author!"

He has nice, doggie, brown eyes, and very fair hair. I smiled into the former and longed to stroke the latter; it was so very smooth and shining.

"Won't you tell me about your own work?" I asked, beguilingly.

"Yes, do," urged Dr. Denton politely.

The Unknown blushed some more.

"I—I—" he began somewhat wildly, "please, let's not. I'm very new at the game, and...."

His voice trailed off, and he sat hunched up in his chair, looking at me most pitifully. I was honestly sorry for him, although not a little intrigued; and most inexplicably suspicious.

"Here's Wiggles," I said, "let's talk about him. Isn't he a duck?"

Wiggles, very sleek and beautiful, jumped gaily into my visitor's lap and they became firm friends at once.

"Why," I said, watching them, "he acts as if he knew you!"

Mr. Penny looked up quickly.

"I've one much like him, at home," he said. "Perhaps your puppy recognizes that. All my clothes are very doggy," he added, with a perfectly charming smile.

"Wiggles," I said, "has excellent judgment—generally!"

It was impossible not to cast the smallest, swiftest glance possible at my enemy, as I said it. I had the advantage; but Dr. Denton, from the ground, deliberately grinned at me.

"She means," he explained carefully, "that Wiggles is quite partial to me. And, of course, she cannot understand it."

He reached up a long, lazy arm and removed the dog from his friend's lap; then, lying flat on his back and holding Wiggles quite close to his face, he very calmly winked at him! And believe it or not, Diary, with my own eyes I saw Wiggles solemnly and unmistakably wink back!

If that isn't Black Magic, what is it?

After that, we three chatted comfortably for the better part of an hour. Mr. Penny, gradually coming forth from his shell, proved a wholly delightful companion. And I flirted! I've read about it in books, of course, but haven't been able to practise very much. Still, I think I did very well for a beginner. I am sure Dr. Denton thought so too, for once I heard him say "Minx!" to Wiggles, quite fretfully. Anyway, he didn't seem to like it.

When they got up to go, I begged Mr. Penny to come again.

His response was very flattering.

"Indeed I will," he began. But Dr. Denton interrupted him.

"I thought you had a pressing engagement in town," he said, significantly.

Mr. Penny made a really magnificent gesture of carelessness. "I have forgotten it!" he said.

"I'm reminding you," said his "old college chum" nastily.

I put down my hand to Wiggles, who kissed it obligingly.

"Were you ever in a manger, Wiggles darling?" I asked with interest.

Wiggles barked. And Mr. Penny, who had just discovered that Dr. Denton had been lying on his hat, turned to me with an expression of bewilderment.

"I beg your pardon," he said, with his ruined headgear in his hand.

"I was just speaking to Wiggles," I assured him.

"Oh!"

I have no doubt that he thought me mad. Still, he must like a certain form of insanity, for his farewell was almost tragic.

As he left, he bent near me and said, quite low, "I'm awfully glad you like Richard Warren, Miss Carroll."

"Why?" I asked innocently. But, if he answered at all, his reply was swallowed up in Dr. Denton's laugh, an insulting cachinnation, to say the least.

And as he left, the Creature bent near me and said, quite loudly, "You don't fight fair, Adversary!"

I suppose, Diary, if I repeat how much I dislike him, you will finally cease to believe me. But I think you may safely take it for granted.

Isn't it odd that Mr. Penny should be very blond and shy? It isn't possible that...? Of course not, and yet.... Well, foolish of me or not, it will be difficult to write Richard Warren now, as long as I half suspect. There was a stiltedness about my letter to him today even. And yet.... I can't quite believe it. Probably Mr. John Denton was only drawing on his imagination, after all! Still...?

New York City September 28th

Dear Lady!

I have been out of town for a few days, and when I returned was greeted by your letter. Even the envelope looked happy! And I am so supremely glad for you. The keys of my typewriter would sing like a piano, if they could. Isn't that the most absurd sentence? But I feel absurdly gay, myself. For now, perhaps, I can persuade you to let me come to your next lawn party. You never answered my question, by the way. So, being a persistent devil, I repeat it. May I?

Honestly, I eat with a fork, and my hair is cut in accordance with the usual—rather hideous—fashion set for members of my sex.

I don't seem to remember your friend with the interesting name. Perhaps, if you could discover his pen name...? But I really know very few people of writing bent.

I've been out of town, and was delightfully entertained by a very old friend of mine. And have come back with tons of inspiration for the new book, which, by the way, is rapidly growing. Mr. Denton is anxious for an early publication, but I do not feel that I can complete the volume until Spring.

Would you care for it as a coming-out present? I should be very proud....

Dear little Lady, I am certain that these must be very trying days for you. And I am holding my thumbs hard! Our pen and ink friendship has been so dear to me, all these summer months. It has been both letter and spirit, has it not? Can you forgive the atrocious punning? And I am hoping that very soon you will make yourself known to me, and let me come where you are and tell you.... But, until you do, I cannot tell you what!

Yours always, Richard Warren

October 1st

Dear Mr. Warren:

Please, please, don't ask me to let you come! I am so afraid—of so many things! And I am certain that you would be very disillusioned. Really, I'm a most disagreeable person in the flesh! I can refer you to at least one person who sees me every day and who thinks so!

Won't you be content to allow me to remain just a small, and, I hope, sympathetic Voice out of an Unknown Darkness?

Very sincerely, Your Friend

Green Hill October 1, In-the-evening,

Diary dear, I have written Richard Warren that our acquaintance must remain a pen-and-paper one. It is so much wiser to leave things that way. Once, I would have been tempted.... But somehow, now, I am not.

Adeline, Dr. Denton's cook, arrived this morning armed with one of her inimitable chocolate cakes, and a note from her wretched employer. I received her rather coldly, I am afraid; but I have not yet recovered from the cap-setting incident. However, she is a disarming creature, and the cake, which in part graced my luncheon tray, was delicious. I can't offer you any, but I can set down for your amusement the accompanying script.

Green Hill October 1st

My dear Miss Carroll:

As I have a number of messages to deliver to you from our mutual friend, Penny, and also a matter which I wish to personally discuss with you, may I invite myself to tea this afternoon? I have ascertained, you see, that your father will be in the city!

In a professional capacity, I am able to go and come as I please. But as this call is quite unprofessional in character, and partakes somewhat of the nature of an armed truce, I do not feel that I can come without your consent.

Adeline will wait for your answer. I am, meantime, scouring the town for a white flag.

Yours very sincerely, William Denton

I must confess, Diary, to a seizure of acute curiosity. Weakly, I bade Adeline tell her master to wait on me at four, and sending for Sarah ordered extra tea with which to placate the savage appetite of my self-bidden guest. We had tea out-of-doors, for October has come in like a spring day, warm and clear and beautiful. I was in my hammock, whither Sarah and Father had conveyed me at three, just before Father's train left Green Hill, and had therefore an hour of speculation. And it was not without a certain thrill of excitement that I saw a tall, lean figure swing across the lawn towards me, and appropriate the low chair beside me and the tea table.

"Good afternoon," I said politely.

"Good afternoon," he answered, "it was nice of you to let me come."

Wiggles, a sixth doggie sense telling him I had a caller, came racing across to us from the kitchen garden, where I have no doubt he had been destructively employed, and greeted the Doctor with an exaggerated display of cordiality. When he was disposed of finally, under my visitor's chair, "Lovely day," I proffered, one hand concealing a tiny yawn.

"Lovely!" agreed Dr. Denton, enthusiastically.

Conversation languished. Died.

Finally, the silence becoming quite unbearable, I stole a look at the enemy. His lips were pursed in a noiseless whistle, his hands were informally in his pocket, and his eyes were dancing. It is disconcerting that I should have to acknowledge his extreme good looks. I never did care much for good-looking men, anyway. They're so disgustingly conceited. And Dr. Denton possesses an almost spectacular combination of features, coloring, and build.

"Did you speak?" he asked gently.

"I did not!" said I, with emphasis.

"Don't shoot," begged the Unwelcome One. "I'll come down. Or," he asked anxiously, "can you see the whites of my eyes?"

I laughed. I couldn't help it. The situation was so perfectly ridiculous. And so, we laughed together.

Sarah, beaming, appeared with tea and cookies and cake.

"Please pour," I said to Dr. Denton, "and please have some of your own cake. Thank you," I added carefully, "for sending it to us."

"Oh, I didn't send it," he answered cheerfully, manipulating china and silver with dexterity. "It was Adeline's thought. Merely, she asked my permission."

"Oh!" I said, in a small voice, and accepted a cup of tea.

Dr. Denton fed Wiggles cake, and engaged him in loud conversation.

I scalded my throat on tea, and promptly dropped the cup. This, at least, created some diversion. Dr. Denton sprang up, scattering Wiggles, cups, napkins, and spoons with equal indifference, and mopped up the deluge.

"Did you hurt yourself?" he asked, in quite an agonized tone.

"No," I replied, dripping, "but I have burned my throat most awfully. I'm afraid I shan't be able to talk for quite a while."

"May I see?" spoke the physician, with solicitude.

I put out my tongue very soberly.

Dr. Denton returned hastily to his chair.

"You spoke," I suggested, "in your note, of messages."

"Did I?" he returned, in a puzzled tone. "It must be my handwriting. No doctor writes intelligibly."

This was really too much. I beat with my fist upon the unoffending hammock, and asked, "Has your friend...?"

"Gone? Yes, very unfortunately. He had, as I reminded him, a pressing engagement in town. I, myself, took him to the train," concluded the aggravating creature proudly.

"How nice of you," I said heartily, "but you must miss him."

"Intolerably."

The duologue showed symptoms of declining again.

Finally,

"Did you want to see me?" I asked courteously.

"Not particularly," he replied, "but under the white flag, as I suggested, I wanted to make a partial treaty with you, with, of course, your consent."

"I am listening," I said cautiously.

Suddenly he moved his chair nearer, crossed his legs, and lay back, hands locked across his knees.

"Look here," he said, "isn't it time that we declared ourselves in open battle? This guerilla warfare ..." he paused, suggestively, and I waited.

"You have made it very plain," he went on, "that you do not like me. Perhaps I am putting it mildly. At all events, as your medical adviser, I am forced to inflict my presence frequently upon you. Your father likes me. Sarah likes me; Wiggles likes me. Couldn't you," he asked earnestly, "try to overcome your aversion, for the sake of the majority?"

I considered.

"I think not," I said finally.

"Very well. Having appealed to your filial respect, your better self, there is nothing to do but ask you to sign a temporary armistice. For I am beginning to find your concentrated attack rather ... wearing."

I smiled.

"I wish," said Dr. Denton carefully, "to give you every opportunity to humiliate and infuriate me. I have always believed a little aversion to be an excellent beginning to matrimony. I don't suppose," he continued hopefully, "that by way of simplifying things you would care to marry me?"

He bit into a large sugar cookie reflectively.

"Marry!" I shouted, sitting bolt upright. I can do it now, Diary, if the occasion demands.

"Marry," said he, with the utmost calmness, but with twinkling eyes.

I collapsed.

"I think you are perfectly insane," I began. And then ceased, for want of words.

Dr. Denton sighed.

"I was afraid I couldn't persuade you," he said. "Let us pass to the next point."

I was still gasping, like a fish.

"You find your throat better with your mouth open?" he asked, with interest.

I closed it with a snap. And kept it closed.

"As my wife," he remarked, "you would have ample opportunities for delicate and refined torture. However.... You have called me, perhaps rightly, a 'brute'. Am I to infer that you still continue to regard me in that unflattering light?"

I nodded. Speech, by now, was wholly beyond me.

"And I," he went on, "have intimated what I, as an honest man, think of you. It is quite plain that I do not like you any better than you like me. You have, I think, the makings of a rather nice girl. But I have never cared for ... kittens. Now that we are agreed to disagree, Miss Carroll, will you shake hands with me, and for the sake of our enforced relationship, pledge yourself neither to stab me in the back or bite me, when I am not looking? When you are quite well again, I am at your mercy. But until then, I must entreat you not to hamper your recovery, and blast my medical reputation, by consistently opposing me at every turn. Are you willing to play friends with me until such time when I can set you on your feet?"

He held out his hand and smiled. The whole thing was ridiculous, and he had been unnecessarily insulting. And yet ... it was a nice smile, Diary. I have even seen my Peterkins smile just like that, hopefully, ingratiatingly. And after all, I do owe him so much.

Silently I laid my hand in his.

"Good!" said he, gripping it. "And tomorrow you are going to sit up, in a real, substantial chair. After that, you'll be walking before you know it."

The silly tears came to my eyes.

"I am grateful...." I faltered.

"Don't be," he said cheerfully, "if you dislike the sensation. It's all in the interest of science, you know."

He snapped his fingers at Wiggles, and got up to go.

"I'm going for Sarah," he said, "you must be taken back to your room now. It's getting chilly."

Once having established me in my room, Dr. Denton bent over me.

"And," he said, very much under his breath, "won't you consider my proposal? I meant it, you know!"

And then he had gone.

I'd like to accept him, out of spite, Diary. And, never having expected a proposal, I find even this one somehow exciting.

Diary, if only you could talk!

CHAPTER VII

Green Hill October 14

Diary, it is quite two weeks since I have made an entry, but the thrills of actually sitting up, in a big chair, downstairs in front of a seasonable log fire, and the even more exciting adventure of short wheel-chair rides in the sheltered paths of a chrysanthemum garden, have for the moment entirely occupied my time and thoughts. Even to the exclusion of you! And now, Father is talking of taking me South for the winter. Just as soon as I am able to walk a little, he wants to take me—and Sarah—and Wiggles—to Florida, so that I need not undergo the trials of a Northern winter.

I am worried about Father. He does not look, and is not, at all well. The old trouble, which dates back to his Spanish-American War days, has returned, and with it, disquieting heart symptoms. I got Dr. Mac off in a corner, lately, and asked him to tell me truly what he thought of Father's condition. "He seems so tired all the time," I said. And Dr. Mac looked very grave.

"Lassie," he told me, "Your father's a sick man. And a careless one. He's not minded his own aches and pains all these years, nor spared himself. And he's not as young as he was."

When I said something to Father, he laughed at me.

"MacAllister is an old woman," he said, "fussing and fretting. I'll be all right presently, my little girl. Don't worry. The main thing is to get you on your feet, and then we'll be off to Florida for a long, long holiday. Bless that boy!" he added, and I knew that he meant Dr. Denton.

Well, I bless him too, when Sarah wheels me down the garden paths and I reach out to touch the big friendly flowers. I feel so strong, so strong! They have to watch me now, for I am like to do all manner of foolish things, with the old languor gone, and the new red blood singing through my veins.

But when Doctor Denton comes and looks at me out of those cool eyes, and asks, "Well, how are the tantrums lately, Miss Carroll?" I'm in no mood for blessing him then!

Green Hill October 20

Oh! Oh! Diary, if you ever go automobiling, you'll never be content to sit in my desk drawer again. It's too wonderful! This morning, bundled up to my eyes, I was taken from my chair, lifted into Mr. John Denton's great, grey, purring beast, and with Dr. William Denton at the wheel, and Father and Mr. Denton beside me, I was taken, quietly and smoothly, over the hill road, down the valley, and through the wide Meadow Road, on my first tour of exploration.

Eleven years! Eleven years!

Back through the village we came, after an all too short half-hour. Somehow the news had spread, and from every gate and window, hands waved and friendly faces peered. They were glad to see me, the Green Hill people.

"Is she crying?" asked Dr. Denton at the wheel, with interest.

I wanted to. I wanted to cry and laugh and shout all at once. Instead I folded my hands more tightly in Father's and said demurely, "Sorry, but she isn't."

Dr. Denton nodded, slouched down in his seat, his strong brown hands doing marvellous things to the wheel.

"Please," I asked Mr. Denton, "next time you take me riding, will you drive, and may I sit in the front seat and watch you steer?"

Everyone laughed.

"Ask Bill," answered my old friend, "I've just sold him the car."

"You may ride in the front seat—with me," announced Dr. Denton graciously, before I had time to withdraw my request, "always providing that you do not clutch my arm at inopportune moments, or scream as you did six minutes back," he added, "when that mongrel pup appeared on the horizon, a good mile away."

"I don't think," I said, "that, after all, I'd care for the front seat."

"Very well," said the chauffeur obligingly, as, with a turn and twist we rolled up smoothly before my own front door, where Sarah, apron flying in the wind, stood, the tears shining on her dear old face.

Front seat or back, I am to ride every day, as long as the good weather holds, for it has been prescribed for me by no less than two physicians in reputable professional standing; no matter what their respective dispositions. And, Diary, I love it so that, for the sake of the swift silent motion, I would cheerfully ride in any seat whatsoever, regardless of the driver. So low have I sunk in my new passion.

"Nervous?" asked Dr. Denton, as he helped carry me to my room. I am conveyed now as children are, on crossed hands with supporting arms about my back.

"Not at all!" I answered indignantly.

"That's good," said he, "for I am a fearsome driver. I have," he said, sinking his voice to an awe-inspiring whisper, "been known to kill my men in my day. And any amount of dogs. Strong men as I pass have turned pale, and women fainted on the streets!"

He and Mr. Denton laid me on my bed, and I could only look at him with scorn, from that ignominious position. Oh, when I can stand on my two feet, won't I—well, won't I just!!!!

Green Hill November 1

Diary, this day I have stood upright, and taken my first faltering step forward. Dr. Mac was there, and Dr. Denton, one on each side. And a step away, with his arms wide, my Father. Sarah, her hand on Dr. Mac's arm, took the step with me. She was quite white.

I was terribly weak, and all bendy in the middle. But I walked, Diary, I walked.

I am in bed now, after having been fussed over and made much of. I am sure Father is out sending wires! And Sarah pops in every two minutes to see if I am still alive. I am very much alive, and my whole soul is on its knees in gratitude. Now, almost for the first time, I believe that I am to be a cog in the Great Machinery again; and no longer a little broken thing, thrown out forever on the scrap heap.

I want to tell Richard Warren. But no word has come from him since my last letter. So I must wait.

Green Hill December 8

It seems a year since I last opened you, little Blue Friend. For so much has happened. I walk, as if I had always walked, and it no longer seems wonderful or blessed. For my Father is very ill. He is up and dressed and around, but I know and he knows that it may not be for very long. He has been to town, to see other doctors. And when he came back, he set his house in order.

After he had told me his exact condition, "Mavis," he said, "you are the bravest person, except your Mother, I have ever known. It may be that I shall live for years; it may be that it is only a matter of weeks or months. I don't know. The doctors hold out very little hope of my recovery. You are better fitted to help me now than ever you were. And," he said smiling, "it seems as if I had nothing more to live for, now that you are well again, and growing stronger every day."

I was on his lap, in the big still living room.

"Father, father," I said, and held his dear head close against my breast. They can't take him from me! They can't!

"Hush!" he said. "We have had many years of the most beautiful, close companionship together, my daughter. You have given me more than you know. And for a long time I have known...."

He stopped.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, fighting back the tears.

"I talked it over," he said, "with Dr. Denton, and we decided that it was not wise—as your condition stood then."

Always Dr. Denton! Ordering my life....

"If only," said Father, very low, "if only I could leave you guarded, protected. You know so little of life.... I am," he whispered to himself, "responsible to her mother...."

We were quiet a long time.

Presently he put me from him.

"There, there," he said, "I hear Peter calling you outside. Run along, dearest. And let me see you smile before you go. It may be that we will have a long time yet together. Kiss me, Mavis, and smile."

Diary, I am so terribly frightened. So alone.

Green Hill December 21

We are getting ready for Christmas. The Green Hill people have sent me, with their love, a beautiful, courageous tree. And everyone has offered to come and trim it. But we must be very quiet on this, my first real Christmas for many years. For Father is failing steadily. He does not complain, but he spends a great deal of the day in bed; and he is so white, so worn, that my heart stands still to look at him. If only I could have stayed all my life in my little rose-grey room, helpless and cared for, if by some strange twist of Fate my Father could have been spared this wasting illness.

I hate my feet; so eager to run; I hate my new sense of well-being and vitality. I hate the faint pink in my cheeks, and all my untired strength.

It is snowing today. White and soft and thick snow lies over my garden. Like a.... No, I can't write it....

Green Hill December 28

Christmas is over and done with. I had so many lovely gifts, more than ever this year, it seems. I have put them away—the books from Mr. Denton, the little gold watch from Father, even Peter's funny little hand-painted card. And all the others. I can't seem to be grateful for anything. Wonderful roses reached me from the city, Christmas morning. There is no card. But I know who sent them. Why doesn't he write? He would help, a little, I think. But I can't write to him. Not now.

Green Hill January 1

The new year.

I ran over to see Mrs. Goodrich this morning. She is terribly distressed because Mr. Goodrich's firm is sending him abroad, and he wants her to go with him. They will be travelling too much to take Peter and have decided against it. Of course I asked for him. And she will let me know. Father, when I told him, shook his head. He said nothing, but I knew what he was thinking.

Green Hill January 2

Father asked me today if I liked Dr. Denton. He asked me so wistfully and so strangely that I couldn't tell him the truth. They are great friends, I know. So I lied.

"Why, yes," I said, "I like him very much."

I felt myself grow red. Father patted my hand.

"He's a good man," he said. "I want you to trust him, Mavis. I have made John Denton your guardian—you know so little about money and the dull things of life," he added, half sighing, half smiling. "You are, after all, only a child."

I tried to change the subject, as I always do, when directly or indirectly Father speaks of leaving me. He seemed happier, when I left him, than I have seen him in many days. I am glad, Diary, that I lied to him about the Enemy.

Green Hill January 10

This morning Father was worse. I rushed to the 'phone and tried to get Dr. Mac, but he was out, making his calls. So Dr. Denton came. He sent me from the room, and was with Father a long, long time. When he came out, he called me.

"Your father wishes to see you, Miss Carroll," he said.

"Dr. Denton—" I couldn't say any more. Suddenly he took my two ice-cold hands in his firm, warm grasp.

"Remember," he said, almost sternly, "that I am at your service, always, and at his."

He dropped my hands and turned away.

"I shall be back," he told me, "in the afternoon."

Shaking all over, I laid my hand on the doorknob and prayed, over and over, just "Please, God, help him," and went in.

Father, very white, held out his hands. "Come here," he said. And when I was beside him,

"Mavis," he said, "the thought of leaving you alone—now that I feel certain that I must leave you, is unbearable. I have been talking today with Dr. Denton. He wants to marry you, my dear, and take care of you always, for me. He has been like my own son to me, that boy. He is straight and true and clean. And I think that I could go on my long journey with very few regrets, my Mavis, if I knew that you were in as safe hands as his."

Cruel! Cruel!

My heart almost stopped, and then raced on again. I couldn't speak. Father, his hand on mine, looked at me wistfully, entreatingly. I couldn't bear to have him look like that. Like a beggar. And yet, for a moment, I had absolutely no impulse of love toward him. He was a stranger to me, my own Father. It was impossible that it was his voice asking me to do this unthinkable thing.

"Mavis?"

"I can't," I said, in a whisper.

His hand loosened from mine. Dropped wearily to the bed,

"Very well, dearest," he said, "of course you shall do nothing against your will. I only thought...." he stopped, and then, "It seemed a solution," he finished.

He looked very tired. All my love for him came rushing back. I kissed him, and he held me close for an instant.

"Will you—think it over?" he asked slowly.

"Yes, Father," I said, and was rewarded by his old brilliant smile.

Once out of the room, I brushed past Sarah, hovering near the door, and went to my own room. There, lying on my bed, I "thought it over."

What was it Dr. Denton said to me,—"you owe your father something."

I have cried until I have no tears left, rebellious, sick at heart.

I can't. And yet ... if it would make him any happier....

The bell is ringing. If that is Dr. Denton, I will see him before he goes to Father.

Late at night.

I have said that I will marry William Denton.

Green Hill January 12

It is only a matter of days with Father now. Dr. Denton told me that, when we had our talk two days ago. He listened to what I had to say, very quietly, standing in front of the fire, his arms crossed, and looking down at the great chair in which I was half buried.

After he had told me about Father, "If you will marry me, Miss Carroll," he said, "I will do my best to carry out your father's wishes. I cannot make you happy—that I know—but I can make you—safe. Until such time as you do not need my protection."

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"I mean," he answered gravely, "that you are very young and that the abnormal life which your accident forced you to lead has peculiarly unfitted you for any solitary encounter with the world. If you would trust yourself to me, I promise faithfully to care for you, to watch over you, and to help you through the first bewildering time. After that—you may dispose of me as you see fit."

"You mean?" I whispered again.

He smiled, sombrely. "I am not trying to bind you to me," he said. "I am asking you for your Father's sake, to let me take care of you for a time. When you are quite strong, and quite able to look out for yourself, it will remain for me to step aside, and you will be free to do and go as you please."

Something of hope stirred faintly in me. "You will let me go then?"

"Certainly."

I laid my face against the soft cushions of the chair.

"Marriage," I said, under my breath, "I—I—"

I couldn't go on.

"It will not be," he said very gently, "a marriage, Miss Carroll. It will be a business arrangement. You may have my sacred word of honor that I will not trouble you in any way. And that as soon as possible I will take the steps to make you quite free again."

I stood up and faced him.

"You think that Father really wishes this?" I asked.

"It is, I know, his heart's desire," said Dr. Denton, "and I am tremendously honored by his faith in me."

"Very well," I said, and held out my hand.

Silently, he took it.

"Thank you, Mavis," he said quietly.

I was conscious of a longing to escape; it was as if a fine silken cord were tightening about me.

"Shall we go to Father?" I asked him.

Without another word we two walked from the room.

"Remember," he said to me at the door, "this is for your father. We must make believe for him, you and I."

I nodded.

The door closed behind us.

Green Hill January 20

I am to be married tomorrow. It is Father's wish. He is weaker, but suffers no pain, and he recognizes us all.

Twenty-four hours to my wedding. Please God that Father will never know how I dread it.

Mr. John Denton is to give me away. And we are to be married from this house, with no one but the Goodriches and Mr. Denton present at the ceremony. Ceremony! The mockery of it!

Dr. Denton has given me a ring. It was his Mother's, he said. I have never asked him about his Mother. I do not even know if he has told her.

Nothing seems to matter very much. Father.... Father....

January 21

William—he has asked me to call him that—came to me this morning, and for the first time in days we talked together for more than a moment.

"You are frightened," he said to me, "and nervous. You need not be."

"Why—why are you marrying me?" I asked him suddenly.

"Why are you marrying me?" he countered.

"Father," I said, and stopped.

He nodded.

"I, too," he said simply.

All at once I realized what a tremendous sacrifice he was making. I tried, very poorly, to tell him.

"Not at all," he assured me, "I am perfectly clear as to what I am doing. And my own motives. I shall be, after all," he added, "perfectly free—except perhaps outwardly."

There was something in his voice.... I got to my feet.

"Very well," I said, "it is understood that we are both free? Except perhaps outwardly?"

I do not think he liked it.

January 21

This afternoon, at four, I was married to Dr. William Denton, in the room next door to Father's. They let me see him right afterwards; and he put his dear thin white hand on my forehead and smiled.

William has moved over to the house to be near Father, and after the grave congratulations of our few friends, we were alone together in the quiet house. Married. And as far apart as Pole from Pole. Diary, you who have guarded my girlhood so jealously, it is Good-by now. I have come to the end of the chapter. And there will be nothing in my future life that I shall want to record. There is only this:

Uncle John brought me today a letter. From Richard Warren. I opened it ten minutes ago, alone in my room. It was a short letter. It asked if he might come to me; it said that he had loved me all these months; it was signed, "Your Lover, Richard Warren."

It came too late, dear Diary. I will lay it among your pages, with my dreams and my hopes and my sorrow.

Good-by. With a very steady hand, I, by some mysterious alchemy of the Law and the Church, Mrs. William Denton, write this last word on your pages.

Finis

CHAPTER VIII

The last word had been written in my Diary. Wearily, I stood erect and brushed the loosened hair from my eyes. The house was very still; in all my life I had never been so utterly alone. I turned from my desk, and, as I did so, caught a glimpse of my face in the wall-mirror. That was not I—that white-faced girl, with the frightened eyes and shaken mouth.

"Mavis...."

I saw the mirrored eyes grow dark, the tremulous mouth straighten into lines of control before I left my curiously impersonal scrutiny of myself and opened the door for my husband.

"Well?"

"Your father is awake," said Bill, very tall and broad-shouldered on the threshold. "I have been trying to persuade him to have a nurse, but he won't listen to me."

"Sarah is better than any hospital graduate," I answered, "and I am quite strong enough to be with him now."

"As you wish," he answered gently. "But I think you over-estimate your strength, my dear."

I walked past him into the hall.

"Sarah has prepared the guest room for you," I said. "It is next door to father."

"Thank you."

He walked with me to the door of the sick-room, stood aside and let me enter alone. Father was still conscious, he knew me, tried to raise his hand. I put mine over it and sat for the rest of the afternoon by his bed. Sometimes he seemed to sleep, and I watched him with a passion of sorrow and love unlike anything I had ever known. All his defences were down, all his barriers of reserve. He was like a child, and, I thought, quietly happy and at peace. It is difficult to set down on paper how I yearned over him as the slow hours dragged by. But when Sarah came to relieve me and I rose, stiff and cramped from long sitting, I was conscious that, somehow, I had come to grips with myself, had seen for the first time what I owed to my father, had realized fully his sacrifice and his unfailing thought of me. It was as if we had talked together, we two, a long intimate hour. And I knew then, as never before, that I owed him not duty nor obedience, for those are unloving words, but tenderness and endless gratitude. If before he left me forever, my marriage was the one thing to bring him peace, then no matter how mistaken his love for me had been in that instance, I had been more than right to do for him as he wished. The fact that in so doing I had probably ruined two lives, was of minor consideration.

Two days went by. On the evening of the second, the doctors held out very little hope that my father would live through the night. I watched with them until morning. I had no tears left. I had come to a place where no tears were, a place too deep to be stirred by emotion or even grief.

As the dawn came in, pale and cold, Dr. McAllister turned from the bed and took his hand from father's wrist. He looked old and grey—dear Doctor Mac, but his eyes were radiant.

"He'll pull through!" he said simply.

All about me was a singing darkness. Through it I heard a voice say sharply, "Look to the lassie, Bill!" and felt strong arms around me. Before I lost complete consciousness I remember putting up my hand to brush something wet from my face. Tears? Not my tears.

"Don't cry," I said childishly. "It hurts father to see people cry."

When I woke again it was bright daylight. I was in my own room on my own bed. My husband was sitting, his hands between his knees, beside me.

For a moment I stared at him. Then, as knowledge flashed through me like a terrifying tide,

"Father?" I questioned, very low.

"He's all right, Mavis," said Dr. Denton quietly. "The danger is past—thank God!"

I put out my hand, gropingly, and he took it firmly into his.

"Cry now," he said gently. "It will help."

Then, in a rush, came the healing, peace-giving tears.

It was not until ten days later, when father, marvellously recuperating, sat up for the first time and demanded his "children" about him that I faced the fact that what was done could not be undone, and that I was confronted by the finality of marriage.

"Well, you two," said father weakly, but with a tiny glimmer of mischief in his eyes, "it looks as if I had hurried you before the altar under false pretences. What are you going to do about it—now that I've fooled you by living?"

Beneath his half-laughter, I heard a note of anxiety, of doubt. And the resolution rose up strong and compelling within me that never, as long as I lived, should father know what he had done. It was the only way in which I could pay my debt.

"Play the game, Mavis," I said to myself, and smiled straight into father's eyes.

Bill, sitting beside me, drew a long breath. Was it relief? I glanced at him quickly and knew that for one moment we agreed.

"You old matchmaker," I said, "were you so afraid that I would never find a husband? Was it quite necessary to frighten us all to pieces in order that I should wear a wedding ring?"

Father laughed.

"Then," he asked, "It's all right—with you two?"

I turned to Bill and saw him nod once before I spoke.

"It's all right," I said, "and we're all happy."

"Thank God!" said father under his breath.

I could not bear the look on his face, and slipped blindly, without excuse, from the room.

It was the following week that John Denton came down to be with us, and hatched his plans with father. They called us in, Bill and me, and laid their schemes before us.

"We have decided," said father, very thin and pale in his armchair, "that children are best left alone, without old people to disturb them. I'm quite all right. In two weeks I shall be younger and better than I have been in twenty years. And I want you and Bill to go away, Mavis. It's time you had your honeymoon, cloudless and solitary, as all honeymoons should be. Old John here has been talking his camp in Canada to me, for an hour steady. And I'm persuaded. I'll get you infants out of the house, and then John and I and that marvelous man-servant of his who is cook and nurse and valet in one person will travel by easy stages and spend a month rusticating in the big woods.

"Can't we go too?" I begged, in a sudden panic.

"You can not!" said Uncle John and father in one breath.

I turned a little helplessly to my husband.

"They don't want us!" I said.

"And we don't want them!" he answered smiling. "You and I are going to Cuba. Just as soon as you can get ready. I've been talking to your father and he agrees with me that the absolute change will do you all the good in the world."

"Cuba!"

"Exactly. There is a perfectly good plantation there just waiting for us."

"But...." I said, sparring for time, "I couldn't leave Sarah."

Father laughed outright. "You baby!" he said, caressingly.

"You won't have to," said Bill. "She needs a rest as much as you do. She's coming along—and so is your friend Peter. We can't leave him behind, and Mr. Goodrich has to sail for Spain sooner than he expected. I saw him this morning."

I was too amazed for words. And over my defenceless head the affair was settled. Canada for father and Uncle John; Cuba for Sarah, Peter, Bill, and me. A thousand protests, the old rebellious anger at having my life settled and ordered for me, rushed over me again. But father's eyes were on me and I choked back my resentment.

"Cuba it is!" I said, forcing a smile.

And so, after the maze of packing, of sending Sarah to New York for summer clothes—in the dead of winter!—after the farewells and the blessings and the thought-deadening hurry and bustle—Cuba it was.

CHAPTER IX

It was decided that my husband and I should go to New York by motor, spending the night with his uncle, Peter and Sarah to join us the following day, so that the last packing could be leisurely attended to before we sailed.

I had my farewells with father alone. Dr. Denton went in first and came out looking more moved than I believed possible. If I could have liked him at all, it would have been for his devotion to my father.

I can't write about how dear father was when he told me good-by.

John Denton went up to town with us. I begged him to, and he very naturally attributed my nervousness and pallor to the long strain of my father's illness. He was very good to me.

Leaving my house, in a sense for the first time, and knowing it would be months before I saw it again, I experienced a sinking of the heart that was terrible. Not till then had I realized how much my home meant to me, how much freedom had been mine beneath it's little roof, how lovingly the friendly walls had safeguarded and sheltered me.

At the door, I clung first to Mrs. Goodrich and then, for a long, close moment, to Sarah. She seemed a rock of strength, the last familiar landmark. But strong hands drew me away from her, and presently I was in the closed car, and we were off for New York.

I had very little sensation: only a feeling of great numbness and a consciousness that if I could know any emotion it would be that of an infinite despair. I was dimly grateful that I need not go by train. In this, at least, they had humored me. All through the long ride, I sat huddled in the new furs which were Uncle John's wedding gift to me, my eyes closed, and my hand in John Denton's warm clasp. I did not hear what the two men said to one another. Possibly, when they spoke to me, I answered. I do not know.

Something of the terrifying maelstrom of the city traffic penetrated my stupor as we came smoothly into town. It was all so new ... the noise and rush and bewilderment of it. The lights were beginning to flare up all about me: faces seen in the crowds struck at me like a blow. Such hungry, restless, seeking faces.... But here and there, the happy eyes of a girl clinging to a man's arm, or walking alone with her dreams, stood out for me, and brought the tears to my eyes. Wearily I thought, if I could only cry again—for it seemed so long since I had known the release of tears.

I must have fainted when we reached the house, for the next thing I remember is waking up in a great, wide bed, in a huge, high-ceilinged room, with a kindly, round old woman fussing over me.

"You're to lie still, dearie," she said, as I tried to sit up, "and have a bite of supper on a tray. 'Tis the Doctor's orders, ma'am," and she smiled at me with a certain shy sweetness, and tucked a billowy eiderdown quilt more closely about my feet. I discovered then that I was undressed and surrounded by hot-water bottles.

I tried to thank her, but words were difficult. I was so very tired.

Someone knocked.

"It's himself, surely," said the old woman, as she hastened to open, and then stood aside, her hands beneath her apron, to let my husband come in. He thanked her, dismissed her, and came straight to my bedside, where he stood looking down at me.

I drew the clothes tight about my throat and looked at him mutely.

"How do you feel?" he asked, retrieving one of my submerged hands and placing a steady finger on the pulse.

"Tired," I answered, and then, "Oh, Doctor Denton, when will Sarah be here?"

I knew quite well: but something unreasonable in me hoped that I had slept a whole twenty-four hours away and that I would very soon hear her comforting step outside my door.

"Tomorrow," he answered, and added with a suspicion of a smile, "but I thought we were agreed that Doctor Denton, as a form of address, is taboo, under the circumstances."

"William, then," I said, with a great weariness in my heart.

"Could you manage Bill?" he asked. "I have unpleasant associations with my full name: it always reminds me of the woodshed, and my father's strong right hand."

Absurdly enough, I heard my own voice saying solemnly:

"Father called me William, Mother called me Will, Sister called me Willie, but the fellers called me Bill."

I stopped suddenly, wondering if I were going quite mad. But there was reassuring laughter in the eyes bent upon me.

"Exactly," he said, gravely.

I attempted to laugh. It was a very poor effort, and ended in tears.

Dr. Denton sat down on the bed and took me into his arms, pressing my head against his shoulder. I didn't care. I cried there very comfortably, for a long time.

"It's all right," I heard his voice saying, coming, so it seemed, from a great distance. "It's all right. You'll feel lots better for it, Mavis."

After a while, I dried my eyes and lay back against the pillows again. The intolerable burden about my heart had eased a little, in some miraculous manner.

"And now," announced my husband, "Mrs. Cardigan is going to bring you some supper. After that, she will make you comfortable for the night, and you are to drink what I send you. Uncle John sends his love and the demand that you pour his coffee for him in the morning, or, if you do not feel strong enough, you are to stay in bed, he says, and he will come up and pour yours! And I shall be next door to you, if you want anything in the night. But I am sure that you are going to sleep soundly."

He rose and looked down on me once more.

"Good night," he said. "Sleep well."

"Good night," I answered, "Dr.—B-B-Bill!"

His eyes twinkled, just for a moment.

"Good night," he responded, "Miss—M-M-Mavis!"

He opened the door for Mrs. Cardigan and her tray, stood aside, waved to me once, and was gone. All the way down the hall I heard him singing: "You are old, Father William" in a pleasant, gay baritone.

Suddenly I realized I was hungry.

I awoke the following morning feeling almost happy. There was a wonderful sense of adventure in looking out of my windows over the grey city streets, in hearing the hurrying footsteps go past me. So many people! So many sorrows and joys passing beneath my window, so many eager feet going out to meet the day! I felt very small, almost insignificant, very unimportant.

"It's like an angel you're looking today, Mrs. Denton!" said Mrs. Cardigan amiably, as she brought me my breakfast, with Uncle John following hard on her heels.

"And it's blushing she is!" added the honest creature in amazement.

Uncle John laid his hand on the shoulder of the old woman who had been nurse and housekeeper and almost-mother to him for thirty years.

"Run off with you, Mary," he said, laughing. "Mrs. Denton isn't used to blarney!"

"And her with the fine young husband!" said Mrs. Cardigan in obvious astonishment as she backed to the door.

Uncle John looked at me with laughing eyes: but I could not meet his glance.

The rest of the day is more or less of a blur to me now. Sarah came, with Peter and Wiggles. It was a matter for debate, which of the two last mentioned was the more excited. But it is certain that Peter talked more. His ideas of Cuba were wonderful and strange, and it was only by dint of dire threats of being left on the dock that we finally persuaded him to go to bed.

The following morning, February tenth, with the thermometer flirting with zero, we sailed for Cuba.

Sarah and I had connecting cabins: and I bribed a blonde, friendly steward to let me conceal Wiggles behind locked doors and thus keep him with us. On the other side of me, Dr. Denton was housed with Peter. All the cabins were full of flowers and fruit and books, and I am sure that, although I may have concealed it better, I was quite as excited as Peter and the pup.

It was, they tell me, a rough passage. Somehow, I didn't seem to mind. To lie in a deck-chair, muffled to the eyes, and to watch the ocean seemed all that I wanted in life. I never tired of it. Grey and green and blue, as the fog or the sun caught it, there was never anything as wonderful as my first sight of the sea. I was even glad of the storms that delayed us longer than usual. For, even beyond Cape Hatteras, we had wind, and snow and cold. And then came a day when, little by little, people began to crawl greenly up from their cabins, shed their sweaters, and take an interest in life. Sarah among them. Poor dear, she had succumbed almost before we left the dock! Every dip of the boat, every rising and falling swell was met by her with the gloomy announcement that she wanted to die. Once, when I peered in at her, I found my husband sitting by her berth and answering quite gravely, her innumerable questions as to how they conducted burials at sea. Were they conducted "with decent Christian rites?" she was demanding weakly.

As I walked the deck with him, braced against the salt wind, my hair flying under my fur cap,

"You shouldn't tease Sarah!" I said indignantly.

"Shouldn't I?" he asked, forcibly restraining Peter from going over the rail—shouting, "I see a mermaid, Aunt Mavis!" "Perhaps not. But to the good sailor, seasickness is always a matter, inexplicable and humorous."

"By the way, I'm glad," he continued, "that you've stood the trip so well. It would be a pity," said he pensively, "to have injected into the romance of a honeymoon the very mundane element of mal-de-mer...."

I turned on my heel to leave him, but reckoned without the tremendous wave which swung lazily up to the boat, smote it, held it suspended a breathless moment, and then let it down again with unparalleled suddenness. My husband's arm intervened between me and the rail, checking my mad career in mid-air.

"Steady on," he said. "We've not reached tropical waters yet."

There was nothing to do but take his proffered arm and walk on, in haughty silence.

We sat at the Captain's table, and for the greater part of the trip we and the Captain sat there alone. No, not quite alone, for at the Captain's right sat the prettiest girl I have ever seen. We met her the first day out, and it was not long before she had attached herself to our party. Peter, always susceptible to beauty, caused me not a few pangs of jealousy before the trip was over. And Miss Mercedes Howell, for such was her mismated name, seemed to find much in common with my husband. She had thought at first, she confided to me naïvely, that the Doctor and I must be brother and sister despite the passenger list, and at all events, we must have been married a long, long time—was it not so, dear Mrs. Denton?

On my stately assurance that I had been married less than a week, her enormous black eyes flew open to their widest. I changed the subject.

Miss Howell, so her vivacious chatter informed us, was returning to Havana after a period of college. I gathered that by the edict of the faculty she had gone through Vassar in two years instead of the prescribed four.

"Oh, but it was dull," she told us at the table, with melting, melancholy eyes. "No young men! Nothing! Just stupid books and rules—rules—rules!! It was like prison! Imagine!"

And she looked brightly about the board for sympathy. If I had a momentary sense of sympathy, it was for the faculty, but evidently my husband and the Captain felt otherwise.

Mercedes, as she insisted I should call her, extending the courtesy to the entire family, and, as a matter of course, addressing me as Mavis and the remainder of the party as Peter and Bill, was the daughter of a wealthy American, settled in Cuba with a Spanish wife. She was twenty, and on returning to Cuba, was to make her debut. I was tremendously interested by her vivid account of Cuban Society, and went to bed each night with my head a whirl of horse races, and parties and country clubs and motor trips.

Her chaperone being confined to her cabin, Mercedes found that, after I had retired it was quite providential that she should keep "Billy" pleasantly occupied on deck until such time as she should elect to go to bed. I must say that my husband advanced no serious objections. And when we parted on the docks at Havana, Mercedes escaped from her wan and weary attendant long enough to assure us all of her undying affection and to impart to us the pleasing information that Guayabal, whither we were bound, was quite near Havana, and that we could expect to see her often. I am afraid I was not very cordial. She was rather a dear, and superlatively, almost superfluously, pretty, but she made my head ache, and beside her youth and effervescence I felt curiously old.

Entering the harbor was something I shall never forget. The blue water and the sun on the white and mauve and pink houses, and the shining fortress of Morro castle rising up from the bay. Bill told me something of its history, as we leaned over the rail and watched the approach. And a sense of horror took hold of me, in the warmth and sunlight, as I thought of the torture chamber and the silenced screams of the prisoners....

And that is why, I suppose, my first impression of Cuba was one of beauty and cruelty, warmth and color and the dark, swift treachery of by-gone ages.

The landing, the inspection, the docks, passed in a blur. Sarah, pale and miserable, sat on a trunk with Peter and watched her alien surroundings with unfriendly eyes. But it was not long before we were hustled away and into a long, luxurious open car, driven by a lean, hawk-eyed person who greeted us in an unmistakable Yankee twang, bless him, and seemed unfeignedly glad to see us.

"This is Silas, Mavis," my husband informed me, "chauffeur extraordinary, Jack-of-all-trades, and overseer-in-particular to my friend, Harry Reynolds. And this, Silas," he said, quite impressively, "is Mrs. Denton!"

I shook hands and presented Sarah, who brightened visibly at the home-touch, and after we were settled, with Peter and Wiggles and innumerable bags stowed in the front seat with Silas, I drew a deep breath and watched Havana slide by, gay with color, its narrow streets crowded, under a heavenly blue sky.

We ran along the low sea-wall, and passing parks and wonderful stone edifices which seemed too fairy-like to be called houses, we were soon leaving the outskirts far behind us. Before us stretched a long, wide, white road, thick with fine, sharp dust.

"We're climbing," said my husband, "you'll notice the change of air soon, for Guayabal is in a mountain district."

I hardly heard him. I was too busy watching the various family groups as we went through the villages. It was all so incongruous: here, a marvellous house that might have belonged to some foreign Prince—there, huddled at its very gate, a cluster of huts, thatched, and sun-baked; and brown babies all over the landscape, very naked, very dirty and, from a distance at least, wholly enchanting. And then the trees! The tall, royal palms, with the afternoon wind in them!

"Oh-h!" I said, as we passed a clump of wonderful scarlet blossoms, "what is it?"

Sarah was exclaiming too, sitting perfectly upright and rigid beside me.

"Hibiscus," answered our companion. "You'll find lots of it where we are going."

The villages went by. A crimson sun was glowing over the palms, and almost before I had seen it, it was gone, and a violet after-glow was coloring distant hilltops. I clasped my hands in my lap and wondered if ever there had been anything as lovely and remote. And it was with a sense of absolute shock that I heard and saw Silas snap on the lights of the car and realized that now the after-glow had gone and that the heavy Southern night had closed in around us.

"Why, there isn't any twilight," I said, in childish disappointment.

"Not here," answered my husband, "Nature strikes suddenly and swiftly in the tropics. She has no halftones, no compromise...."

Even in the dark I could feel his glance at me. I said nothing.

When we entered the village of Guayabal and drove up the winding roadway through the gates and into the drive, the stars were shining. Very close they seemed, and tremendous—"as big as dinner plates," as Sarah put it to me afterwards, with obvious disapproval. And they were warm, almost fragrant, I fancied, unlike our cold, high, impersonal stars of the North. They frightened me....

The lights shone out from a low, long house as the car stopped under a portico. Two smiling Chinese housemen were standing, ready to take our bags, and my heart sank as I thought of what Sarah—who contributes so religiously to foreign missions—must be thinking. It was with relief, therefore, that I saw the unmistakable Hibernian face of the cook at the door. The domestic staff consisted then, of Wing and Fong and Norah; and I blessed the Reynolds, that, in assembling their household Lares and Penates, they had included something white and clean and very cordial to preside over the kitchen, for I feared for Sarah's peace of mind....

Peter, tired and perhaps somewhat frightened by the strangeness and by the yellow hands raised to lift him down from the car, whimpered a little, and my husband, jumping out, took the child in his arms and turned to me,

"Welcome," he said, with a certain dignity, "to the Palms."

It was the loveliest house. Even Sarah was moved to favorable comment, and Wiggles went quite mad. We entered through a screened, tile-floored verandah, lamp-lighted, and bright with wicker-ware, to an enormous room. The walls were panelled in dark wood, the floor red-tiled, the ceiling raftered, and it was wide and high and long beyond my wildest dreams of any room. There were tables and books and myriad comfortable chairs all about, and at the far end, a huge fireplace, wherein a little red fire burned comfortably. For as the night came, so came the sudden amazing chill after the day's heat, and I found the warmth and sight of the fire very gratifying. The room was living and dining room in one, Norah explained to me, and showed me hard by the pantry door, the table laid for two. And after my first curiosity had subsided, she took me to my room.

It was many-windowed, and all the windows were barred. Three red steps led up to the alcove where a great bed was set, under an age-old crucifix. And it was gay with chintz and dimities, while against my windows a bourginvilla vine whispered in the wind.

Peter and Sarah were next door, with a bath between, and across the way, my stranger-husband had his own room and bath, as big and odd and delightful as mine. I could hardly sit down or let Sarah brush my hair or even wash the dust of the journey from me for excitement.

Peter, soon undressed and sitting up in bed with a big bowl of bread and milk, was trying heroically to keep his eyes open. I heard his prayer, answered half a thousand questions as best I could, left him sleeping quietly, and went in search of my—host.

I found him, in a dinner jacket, at the piano, playing something very softly, and with his eyes half-closed. When he heard my step on the tiles, he jumped up.

"I didn't know you played," I said politely, glad that Sarah had persuaded me to change, and conscious of how very becoming the new mauve voile must be.

"I have a number of accomplishments," he answered irritatingly.

I stood for a moment, by the fireplace, the mantel high above my head.

"This is a wonderful house," I said, trying to make conversation. "Tell me something about it."

Dr. Denton drew two big chairs close to the fire and for half an hour told me of his friend, Harry Reynolds, and his delicate little wife, of how they had come to Cuba and built this place of dreams and sent for Silas from Vermont to come and take care of it.

"It is only about a hundred acres," said my companion, "mostly in sugar cane. But Reynolds has plenty of money and they were very happy here. When the youngest boy died of fever, Mrs. Reynolds couldn't stand it any longer. The place had too many associations. So they left, last summer, keeping the servants on, for Harry had to make several flying trips back and forth. And he was glad to let us have the house for a time, until he decided what to do with it. His wife swears she will never come here again: and yet, they are reluctant to sell it. I have spent a number of happy holidays here and so ... well, it was all most opportune and providential ... and I am convinced that the climate will be admirable for you."

He was speaking in his professional tone, and I, nervous and ill-at-ease, was glad to talk of my returning health and of other prosaic matters.

"When you are rested," he said, "in a day or two, we must go into Havana—you will want an account opened there at one of the banks."

That reminded me of something that had been troubling me.