"LONDON, May 6, 19--"MY DEAR MISS CAROLINA:--You have rejected my suit so often, when I had no inducement to offer you except a heart which beats for you alone, which seems to be no temptation to you, that I shall not pay you the poor compliment of offering myself to you again when, as you must have heard, I have become the owner of Guildford."But, having heard of your great misfortune and of your change of religion, and knowing that you love the old home so ardently that its atmosphere might effect a cure when all else failed, I beg you to accept Guildford as it stands, as a gift from your father's old friend,"WAYNE YANCEY."Carolina's first impulse, having read the letter twice, was one of the cold fury she used to feel when a child, and she turned pale with a rage which was unspeakable in its violence.Too well she saw through the malice of the whole affair. Colonel Yancey knew that, after her first impact of anger had passed, her next thought would be to wish she could buy the estate back, and these terms he intended to make prohibitive. Carolina wondered if he expected to wear out her patience, and so force her to marry him, or what? She could not hope to follow with accuracy the tortuous windings of a mind as intricate as Colonel Yancey's, and she despaired of ever realizing that the labyrinth could untwist into the straight and narrow way to which she was accustomed. But, so far from crushing her, this letter simply roused in her the valiant spirit of the Lees. So far from feeling downhearted, she began to sing.But it was not a worldly courage which was sustaining her. It was the spirit which had grown out of her afternoon of work.She deliberately took her cane with her as she went down to dinner, although she felt that she could walk without it. She knew that Kate wanted the surprise to be complete.With this end in view, she sat at the table until the footman announced Doctor Colfax, and then she allowed all the others to precede her."N-now wait until we have all had time to shake hands, and a-ask him how he enjoyed himself, and give him a chance to be disappointed or g-gloating, just as he feels, because y-you aren't down. Then y-you skate in and w-watch him drop! We'll have him a Christian Science practitioner b-before we are done with him!"Carolina obeyed.They were all there,--Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Kate, Cousin Lois, Doctor Colfax, and Noel St. Quentin, and all were under the impression that Carolina would never be able to walk without some slight support. So that, when she walked slowly through the door, taking her steps with great care, that she might more gloriously reflect the Light, a hush fell upon them all. They did not greet her. They rose to their feet and stood watching her in perfect silence, and it was not until Kate sobbed in her excitement that the spell was broken.Noel St. Quentin bit his lips, and Doctor Colfax's face went from red to white in an emotion which no one could fathom. Was he chagrined to see the woman he loved cured? Did he grudge her healing at other hands than his?They all began to speak at once. Only Mr. Howard, Kate's father, sat back and watched and listened.Roscoe Howard was a remarkable man in many ways. He possessed a critical mind, large wealth, great depth of character, and a sureness and quickness of perception, which had all contributed to his success in life. He was a student, above all, of human nature, and he had insisted upon Kate's willing hospitality to her friend, partly from affection to the daughter of his old friend, Winchester Lee, and partly to see what effect such an avalanche of misfortunes would have upon the proud spirit and high-strung nature of Carolina. When he heard of her embrace of Christian Science, he became still more interested. He had once gone in to sit with her when her arm was bandaged from wounds from her own teeth in one of her fits of despairing rage.Therefore, when he learned from his daughter that this was to be the girl's first appearance before her old friends, he could imagine the ordeal it would prove to her, and in his own mind he said: "Carolina will show us to-night whether she is The Lady or The Tiger!"At first they all tried to be polite and remember that they were civilized, but soon that curious unable-to-let-it-alone spirit which Christian Science invariably stirs in mortal mind began to manifest itself in hints and covert remarks and side glances and meaning silences, until Carolina calmly looked them in the eyes and said, in her gentlest manner: "I am perfectly willing to talk about it."Kate clutched her mother's arm."I-isn't Carolina a d-dandy?" she whispered. "Takes every hurdle without even stopping to measure it with her eye!""Well, doctor, since Carolina has given us permission to discuss it, what have you to say about it?" asked Mrs. Howard."I can simply say this," said Doctor Colfax. "I don't understand it. But, then," he added frankly, "I don't understand the Bible, either.""Then that is why you don't understand my cure, doctor," said Carolina, quietly, "for it is founded on the promises which Christ explicitly made to His disciples.""To His disciples,--yes," replied Doctor Colfax, quickly, "but not to us. We are not His disciples.""If you are a thorough Bible student," said Carolina, "please tell me the exact words of His promise.""I am not. You have me there, Miss Lee.""Well," persisted Carolina, "where did He limit the power He gave, and which you admit existed at one time, to His disciples? Did He ever say, 'I will give it to you and to no other?' or 'I will give it to you during my lifetime, but after my ascension it will return unto me, because you will no longer have need of it?'""No, I can't remember any such passages," admitted Doctor Colfax."W-well, He never s-said anything of the kind," put in Kate. "I don't know much, but I know that!""What did He say, Carolina?" asked St. Quentin. "Do you remember the exact words?""Yes, I do. In one place He said: 'He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my father.' And at another time He said: 'Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely ye have received. Freely give.' Now when did the time limit to those commands end?""Oh, nonsense, Carolina!" said Mrs. Howard, with the amused toleration of the already saved. "How can you bring up such absurd speculations? All those questions have been settled for us by the heads of the Churches years and years before we were born.""They were settled, dear Mrs. Howard, for all who choose to accept such decisions, but how about those of us who have questioned all our lives and never found an answer which satisfied? I can remember, as a little girl in Paris, I used to come home from the convent and ply my father with this very question: 'Why can't priests and preachers heal in these days the way Jesus commanded?'""Well, does Mrs. Eddy have the nerve to assert that she rediscovered the way to perform Christ's miracles?" asked Doctor Colfax."Mrs. Eddy asserts that in 1866 she discovered the Christ Science, or the power of healing disease as Jesus healed it, by a mental process which is so simple that to all Christian Scientists Christ's so-called miracles are not miracles at all, but as simple and natural as any other mental phenomenon which has become common by reason of its frequency.""That sounds like sacrilege," said St. Quentin."It sounds like tommy-rot!" said Kate."And yet," put in Mr. Howard, "we must all admit that Carolina has been miraculously healed. Do you not admit that, doctor?"Doctor Colfax's face became suffused. He bit his lip, then said, with quiet distinctness:"If I had cut off a man's leg with my own hands, and Mrs. Eddy, under my very eyes, caused a new leg to grow in the place of the old one, I would not believe in her or in anything she taught!"Expressions of varying emotions swept over the faces of his listeners at this sincere statement of unbelief,--some were triumphant, some incredulous, some surprised, and one contemptuous."But, doctor, when you see Christian Science enrolling the names of the most brilliant minds; when you see the loveliest women forsaking a life of ease and pleasure and becoming practitioners,--Christian Science doctors just as selfless and single-minded as you--""If you are referring to that depraved woman who claims to have cured you, Miss Lee, that morphine fiend, that drunkard, that reformed character, I beg that you will not name her as a physician in any sense of the word. The medical profession is too noble to be degraded in such a manner!""Oh, doctor," cried Carolina, reproachfully, "if you could only hear the beautiful way in which she speaks of you!""Oh, doctor, aren't you a little severe?" asked Mrs. Winchester.Noel St. Quentin smothered an amused laugh."Pooh!" cried Kate. "Why pay any attention to him? He's o-only a man, and men are always wrong! H-he's talking through his h-hat, that's w-what he's doing. He's jealous."She was sitting near St. Quentin, and, turning to him under cover of the conversation, she murmured:"What are you laughing at behind your hand?""I was simply remarking a phenomenon that I have often remarked before, and that is, that Christian Science seems to possess a peculiar power--""Oh, oh! are you going over to the enemy?" asked Kate."You didn't let me finish. I was going to say that it possesses a peculiar power of making well-bred people forget what is due a civilized community. I have never, I think, heard so much rudeness, such rank inelegance, such brutal prejudice expressed on any subject which polite society discusses. It takes Christian Science every time to make people absolutely insulting to their best friends.""Funny, isn't it? I don't mind it so much since Carolina got into it; she is so honest and so brave about answering it, b-but I used to hate it so it c-cankered the roof of my mouth j-just to speak the name of it.""Another curious thing I have noticed," said St. Quentin, speaking for Kate's ear only, "is that those who hate it most violently at first generally end by adopting it, so look out!""You don't mean it!" cried Kate, in such a horror-stricken voice that every one heard her. "D-don't ask me what we are t-talking about, because it is not f-fit for you to hear," she cried."Carolina," said Mr. Howard, tactfully, "please tell us what you have found in Christian Science. I have always had a great respect for your intelligence, and I am not prepared to find it befogged in this instance, or that you have been deceived."He never forgot the luminous gratitude of her look."Thank you, dear Mr. Howard. Let me see if I can tell you what it is and what it has done for me. It is the theory of mind over matter, put in practice and lived up to. It teaches us to understand before we are called upon to believe. It is the study of Christian metaphysics, or metaphysics spiritualized. It takes all the impossible out of the Scriptures, and makes them understandable, not to a fool, but to the wise man,--the man capable of understanding a great matter. Having done this for the brain, it teaches so absolutely a God of Love, a God who is both father and mother in the love and yearning tenderness of His thought toward us, that it eliminates all fear from our lives. All fear! Can you take that in at once? It makes the ninety-first psalm a personal talk between a father and his dearly loved child. To me it sounds just as if daddy were talking to me from the Beyond. That would be just his attitude toward me if he possessed God's power. And if you believe it,--if you can once let yourself believe it, it makes this earth instantly into heaven.""Yes, yes, I can see that it would," said Mr. Howard. "But do not Scientists believe that it also prospers you in a worldly sense?""Are you giving Kate everything that heart could wish now, and are you going to leave her all your money when you die?" asked Carolina."That knocked his eye out," murmured Kate, in an aside to St. Quentin, but he observed that she looked singularly pleased when Carolina scored a point.Mr. Howard waved his hand in a slightly deprecatory way."Ah, that is just it!" cried Carolina. "You are thinking, 'Oh, but, Carolina, I am Kate's own father, and God is just God!' Heavenly Father doesn't mean a thing to most Christians. Christian Scientists can't shirk their beliefs. If they do, they are just as they were before,--pretending or rather trying to believe what they feel that they ought to believe, but getting no satisfaction and no comfort from it. A Scientist who does not put his belief into practice can neither heal his own body nor others. So he is literally forced to be honest.""Well," said St. Quentin, "I can easily see where the supreme and slightly irritating happiness of Christian Scientists comes in. I could be supremely happy myself if I could believe in it.""So could I," declared Kate. "A-and I suppose it is sheer envy on my part, when I see their Cheshire-cat grins, to want to slap their faces for being happier than I am!""But what makes them so happy?" asked Mrs. Winchester, plaintively. "Why should they be any happier than we are? We both have the same Bible, and I flatter myself that I am just as capable of understanding it as any self-styled priestess of a new religion.""Butdoyou understand it, Cousin Lois?" asked Carolina, gently."I understand all that is good for me, dear child. I understand all that our Lord wants me to, or He would have made me Mrs. Eddy and made Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Winchester. We are fulfilling God's will.""I d-don't believe that, either," whispered Kate to St. Quentin. "I--I have to admit that Carolina's God is a more consistent Being than Mrs. Winchester's.""But you have not answered my question, Carolina," said Cousin Lois."What makes us so happy? Well, I wonder if I can tell you. In the first place, it is the relief of dropping all anxiety. We don't have to worry about a single solitary thing. We put all responsibility off on God. You know it says 'Cast thy burdens on the Lord!'""But how can you?" cried Kate. "I--I'm sure I'd like to, but I c-can't get my own consent.""That's exactly it. Well, we do it. Then, having put all fear out of our lives, what is there left to make one unhappy? If you are no longer afraid of losing your health or your money or of dying or of being maimed or injured in accidents by land or sea, or of old age or any misfortune coming to any of your dear ones, so that it leaves you perfectly free to come and go as you please, to eat at all hours things which used to produce indigestion, to eat lobster and ice-cream together, drink strong coffee late at night and drop off to sleep like a baby, and, if it eliminates all dread of the unseen and the unknowable, what more is there left to fret about, I'd like to know?""How about waking up in the middle of the night to worry about your debts?" asked St. Quentin."The answer to that is that, at first you begin by remembering that as God is the Source of all supply, if you are consistent, the way will be opened to pay your debts. And, after you once master that comforting fact, it is easy to see that the next thing will be that you won't wake up in the night to worry or even to think.""Carolina!" exclaimed Mrs. Winchester, "do you mean to tell me that you, who used to lie awake hours and hours every night of your life, can sleep through till morning?""I do, Cousin Lois. Often actually without turning over. And with no bad dreams. Can you believe me?"Doctor Colfax rose abruptly, as if he could bear no more, and when, with a little more leave-taking, St. Quentin had offered to drive Mrs. Winchester back to Sherman's in his new motor-car, and the Howards and Carolina were left alone, Mr. Howard turned to Carolina and said:"Carol, I have heard a great deal, here and there, about your interest in Guildford and your wish to restore the place. Would you mind telling me your plans?""Not in the least, Mr. Howard. The place has been sold under its mortgage, as you doubtless know, but it is of no more value to its present owner than any of the land surrounding it, which is equally arable. Its only value to us was because it was our ancestral estate. It has a water-front, and, having been left intact for over two hundred years, its timber is enormously valuable. If I owned it, and had a little working capital, I could pay off the mortgage and restore the house with the timber alone.""Why, how is that, Carolina? Is it so extensive as all that?""It is only about two thousand acres,--a mere handful of land to a Northern millionaire, who buys land along the Hudson and in the Catskills and Adirondacks of ten times that amount, but that is a very decent size for a Southern plantation. But the value is in the kind of timber. It is long-leaf yellow pine, which produces turpentine and rosin first, by the orchard process, then what is left is suitable for the lumber men, and the fallen trees and stumps for the new process of making turpentine. My plan was to sell the turpentine rights to the orchard people for, say, three years, then sell the timber, and afterward sell the stumpage and refuse to the patent people, or perhaps erect a plant myself. There is a tremendous profit in turpentine and a constant and ready market."Mr. Howard sat in a large armchair, with his finger-tips together and his head bent forward, looking at the girl from under his heavy eyebrows. He was amazed at her statement of Guildford's possibilities. Hitherto he had regarded her unknown plan as probably only a woman's sentimental idea, and doubtless wild and impracticable."You say that the timber has been untouched for two hundred years?""Practically untouched. We had it examined four years ago, and I have heard of nothing since.""Is any of this land suitable for cotton?""Yes, for both cotton and rice, and I should raise both. There is no reason to my mind why a Southerner should not be as thrifty with every acre of ground as the Northerner is, nor why every inch should not be made to yield in America as it does in France.""Right! right! And the Southerners will accept such incendiary sentiments from you, because you are one of them, but, when I ventured something on the same order, but much more mild, I was called 'a damned Yankee,' who wanted to 'make truck-farmers out of gentlemen.'""Oh, oh!" laughed Carolina, merrily. "How like them that sounds! You know, dear Mr. Howard, they think we have no gentlemen in the North.""T-they aren't far from it," cried Kate. "There are f-few gentlemen anywhere in the world, according to m-my definition of one.""You say Guildford is sold?" said Mr. Howard."Yes, Sherman was obliged to mortgage it, but he did so without knowing how dearly I loved it. Then some one bought the mortgage and foreclosed it.""Why, who could have done such a thing? There must have been a motive. Has coal been discovered on any of the surrounding property?""Not that I know of," said Carolina, in a guarded tone."Then there must have been some motive in the mind of the purchaser," said Mr. Howard, decisively.Carolina was silent."Can you throw any light on the subject, Carol?" he persisted, but his manner was so kindly that Carolina could not take offence.Her reticence arose from two causes. One, her natural wish not to bruit her private affairs abroad, and the other that Mrs. Goddard had enjoined strict silence on her. "Nothing can be lost in Truth," Mrs. Goddard had said, "nor are the channels of God's affluence ever clogged, but mortal mind makes laws which we are obliged to overcome. Therefore, the fewer people who know about it, the easier our work will be."However, something in Mr. Howard's manner led Carolina to suspect that he was not seeking to be informed out of idle curiosity, and her heart gave a bound at the thought that perhaps Divine Love might be using him as a channel.Noticing her momentary hesitation, he said:"You need not fear to confide in me, Carol. Perhaps I can be of some help to you."Again she hesitated. She knew that the Howard family knew of Colonel Yancey's attentions to her. Still she felt that she must venture."The present owner of Guildford is Colonel Yancey," she said, in a low voice."Colonel Yancey!""Colonel Yancey!""Colonel Yancey!"And so occupied was each listener with his own thoughts and mental processes that each regarded that exclamation as an original remark.Carolina looked from one to the other of them anxiously, in the short silence which followed."I understand," said Mr. Howard, slowly. "I think--I--understand!""And this afternoon," Carolina went on, "I received a most extraordinary letter from him, dated at London, making me a present of Guildford.""Making you a p-present of it!" cried Kate. "What g-gigantic impudence!""He did it to irritate her into taking some notice of him!" declared Mrs. Howard."H-he did it to show her how h-helpless she is!" cried Kate. "He knows she has n-no money. But I think I see him hanging around until he wears Carolina out. That is his g-game! A n-nice step-m-mother you w-would make to those two children of his,--and the l-little one a cripple!""Children!" cried Carolina, turning white. "I never knew that there were any! He never mentioned them.""Oh, h-he didn't want to d-discourage you t-too much," cried Kate."And one of them--the little one--a cripple, did you say?"The eager pity in Carolina's voice frightened Kate. She looked at Carolina in wonder. The girl was leaning forward in her chair, her lips parted, her eyes shining, her cheeks blazing. Kate felt physically sick as the thought flashed through her mind that perhaps this altruistic pity might rush her friend into the marriage with Colonel Yancey, which even Guildford had been unable to do."Where is the child?" asked Carolina."She is at the Exmoor Hospital. Her aunt, Sue Yancey, brought here there last week for an examination. They are trying to gain Colonel Yancey's consent to an operation.""How do you know all this?" asked Kate's mother."I went there to take some flowers to-day, and I saw this child,--she is a little beauty,--and I asked Doctor Shourds who she was and he told me. The trouble is with her ankles. Her feet are perfectly formed, but they turn in and she can't bear her weight upon them, nor walk a step.""Shecanwalk!" said Carolina, in a low, earnest voice. "God, in His Divine Love, never made a crippled baby!"Something smarted in Mr. Howard's eyes. He, was no believer in Christian Science, but he loved little children, and Carolina's tone of deep and quiet conviction wrenched his heart."Carol, Carol!" wailed Kate, wringing her nose and mopping her eyes, with utter disregard of their redness, "you do make me howl so!""Carolina," said Mr. Howard, suddenly, "you know that I do not personally subscribe to the teachings of your new religion, but I am an observer of human nature, and I know the hall-marks of real Christianity. I have seen you to-night keep your temper under trying circumstances, defend your faith with spirit, and exemplify the command to love your enemies, and I want to tell you that if there is anything I can do toward financing a plan to buy Guildford from Colonel Yancey, and installing you there to pursue your life-work, you can count on me."Carolina made an attempt to speak, but her eyes swam in tears, and she buried her face in her arm."Oh, daddy! daddy! D-dear old daddy!" cried Kate, dancing up and down in her excitement. "I knew y-you were up to something! Y-you may not care for C-Christian Science, b-but, when you s-see a good thing, you know enough to p-push it along!"CHAPTER X.CROSS PURPOSES"Noel must take me for a f-fool if he thinks I don't see through him!" said Kate, angrily, to her own image in the glass.It was about three months after Mr. Howard had offered to help Carolina to regain Guildford."H-he wants to p-pump me," she went on, adjusting her motor veil. "I d-don't mind trying his automobile, b-but I hate to t-think he takes me for a s-sucker!"She rummaged viciously in her top drawer for her goggles."I wonder if he th-thinks I don't know he asked Carol first. Men are s-such fools! But j-just wait! He wants m-me to tell him things. M-maybe I won't g-give him a run for his money!"But, as she ran down the steps and jumped into the powerful new racing machine, all outward trace of vexation was gone, and St. Quentin was quite as excusable as most men who believe they can outwit a clever woman.Not that St. Quentin was particularly noticeable for his conceit. He seemed like the majority of men, who are merely self-absorbed. Yet in many respects he was quite different.For example, he was interested in other things besides his motor-cars. He read, thought even, and was somewhat interested in other people's mental processes,--a thing which Kate quite overlooked in her flash of jealousy, for Kate had been obliged to admit to herself that, if the signs spoke truly and Noel were really in love with Carolina, it would be a melancholy thing for her to face."But I'm game!" she often said to herself. "I won't give up the fight until I have to. Then, if I get left, I won't howl."There were several things in Kate's favour. First, Carolina showed no symptoms of being in love with Noel, although she must know that she could have him if she wanted him. Second, but this thought gave her almost the same discomfort as if Carolina should fancy St. Quentin, Carolina was in a fair way to become violently interested in another man,--Colonel Yancey.The thought of how this news would stir Noel brought such a colour into Kate's cheeks that Noel, turning his eyes for the fraction of a second from the wheel, said:"Motoring becomes you, Kate.""I-it's more than I can s-say for y-you, then," she answered. "You look like a burglar in that mask.""Now sit tight," said St. Quentin, "I'm going to let her out a little here."Noel's idea of letting her out a little was more than Kate's nerves could stand. She touched Noel's arm imploringly and he obediently slowed up. Kate could hardly get her breath."Wasn't that fine?" asked St. Quentin."It was s-simply devilish. I'd rather travel in a wheelbarrow. It g-gives you more time for the scenery.""You are just like Carolina. She hates racing. She likes to jog along about like this."Kate leaned over and looked at the speedometer. They were going at the rate of thirty miles an hour."P-poor Carolina!" said Kate, mockingly. "How old-fashioned we both are!"Noel laughed and slowed up a little more."There, is that better?" he asked, with the toleration a man shows when he is fond of a woman."Yes, now I can tell the trees from the telegraph-poles. A m-moment ago I thought the r-road was fenced.""What is Carolina up to these days? I haven't seen her for over a fortnight," said St. Quentin.Kate reluctantly admired him for being so honest about it. Most men would have tried to come at it from around the corner. Nevertheless, she wanted to carry out her original purpose."She goes to the hospital every day.""The hospital? What for?""Oh, haven't you heard? Then I have some news for you."Kate smiled with wicked enjoyment. Noel was now about to receive a dose of his own medicine, and she was to administer it. She viciously hoped it was in her power to make him as uncomfortable over Colonel Yancey as he made her about Carolina."Well, soon after--why, it was the very night you were at our house--after you and Doctor Colfax had gone, we still kept on talking, a-and it came out that Colonel Yancey had never told Carolina that he had children, whereas he has t-two,--the dearest little creatures,--b-but the little one, Gladys, is a hopeless cripple."St. Quentin turned with a start."Yes, that's just the way it struck me. Of course you g-get the vista. Carolina instantly investigated her c-case, and she and Mrs. Goddard got it out of the doctors that there was only about one chance in ten of the operation being successful, whereas--well, N-Noel, I am not sentimental, but I thank God I--I am human, and when I s-saw the frightened look in the b-blue eyes of that l-little child--that b-baby--she's only six--when she found out th-they were going to cut her, I c-could have screamed. As it w-was, I c-called them criminals and b-burst out crying, and I b-begged Carol to c-cable Colonel Yancey for p-permission to try Christian Science.""You did just right," said St. Quentin. "It seems to me that the legitimate and proper place for Christian Science is in a desperate case like that, when doctors agree that they are practically powerless.""I--I think so, too. And especially when time cuts no i-ice,--not like a fever, you know, which must b-be checked at once. Well, Carol cabled, and Colonel Yancey answered in these very words, 'Have no faith, but must respect your intelligence. Do as you think best.'""By Jove!""You see? Oh, Noel, it's s-such a comfort to t-talk to you. Y-you're so clever. Most men are f-fools. But do you s-see the diabolical flattery of the cablegram? Do you also see that it puts Carolina in the p-place of the c-child's mother? Oh, when I saw the c-colour come into her face, as she read that cablegram, and that s-sort of d-dewy mother-look she s-sometimes gets in her eyes, I--I could have s-slapped Colonel Yancey's face for him!""I know," said Noel, in a low, strained tone which woke Kate from her enthusiasm to a sense of her own folly. Her face flamed."Well, I'll be switched!" she said to herself. "If N-Noel took me for a s-sucker, he didn't half state the case.""Why don't you go on?" asked St. Quentin. He looked at her flushed face and quivering lips in surprise. "Why, I didn't think she had it in her to show such feeling!" he said to himself."I am the m-more afraid," she went on, looking straight before her, "b-because Carol doesn't care for any other m-man, so she is f-free to fall in l-love with Colonel Yancey, if she wants to. He is only a little over forty, is quite the most fascinating man I ever m-met, and he owns Guildford."If Kate expected St. Quentin to betray any violent emotion on hearing these statements, she was doomed to disappointment. However, she seemed satisfied at Noel's utter silence. A smile quivered at the corners of her mouth."Well?" said St. Quentin at last."C-can't you picture the rest? Can't you see Carol and Mrs. Goddard going there d-day after day, until Mrs. Goddard got permission to move Gladys to her house? I b-believe they were to t-take her there this morning.""Is there any improvement in the child?" asked St. Quentin."A little. She is old enough to understand and help herself, and she knows she is g-going to get well, or as she puts it, 'I know that I am well.' Her ankles have become flexible and her little feet can b-be put straight with the hand, b-but, as yet, they don't stay straight. S-she has not gained c-control over them.""Can she stand at all?""J-just barely. But she s-sinks right down.""Do you believe she will be cured?""I s-suppose you will think I am f-foolish, but I do.""Not at all, Kate. I am not sure but that I believe it myself.""Why, Noel S-St. Quentin! And you a Roman Catholic!""Well, why not? Wouldn't I be an acceptable convert if I should decide to join their ranks?""I-indeed you would not!" cried Kate, delighted to be able to administer a stinging rebuff. "I have an idea that they would refuse even to instruct you without a w-written permission from your priest. Ah, ha! Can't you j-just see your confessor g-giving up a l-little white w-woolly lamb like you? Y-ye are of more value than many s-sparrows."St. Quentin accelerated the speed of the machine so suddenly that the motor seemed to leap into the air."Oh, Lord, Noel! D-don't do that again! The m-machine can't feel it! N-now if you had struck your horse--"St. Quentin turned on her savagely, but said nothing."T-that's right, Noel. D-don't speak. There's a good deal in being a g-gentleman, after all. If you h-hadn't been, you would have said, 'S-shut up, Kate!'""If your husband," said St. Quentin, slowly, "ever goes to jail for wife-beating, I shall bail him out.""I-it's strange how men agree with one another," said Kate, pensively. "M-my cousin has always said that a g-good beating with a bed-slat would about fit my c-case.""Bright boy!" said St. Quentin. "He ought to get on in the world.""Hadn't we better turn back, Noel? I have an engagement at five.""Do you have to go home to dress, or shall I drop you anywhere?""I was just going to see Gladys for half an hour. You may drop me at Mrs. Goddard's if you will.""Will Carolina be there?" asked St. Quentin."Yes, I think so. Do you want to see her?" asked Kate, innocently."Well, I'd rather like to see her with the child. Will you let me come in with you?""By all means. I should be delighted.""Then I can bring you home afterward.""Most thoughtful of you," murmured Kate."I say, Kate," said St. Quentin, after a pause, "keep your eye open for a toy shop, will you? One oughtn't to call on a child without some little present, ought one?""You won't find one up in this part of the country, such as you want," said Kate. "Let her out a little and we will have time to go down to Twenty-third Street."When they came out of the shop, even Kate, extravagant as she was, was aghast."Noel, it's w-wicked to spend money like that. Why, that child is only a b-baby. She can't appreciate all those hand-made clothes for that doll. And real lace! It's absurd!""Kate," said St. Quentin, slowly, "if you were that crippled baby, I'd have bought you everything in that whole shop!"A lump came into Kate's throat so suddenly that it choked her.When they arrived at Mrs. Goddard's, there was no need to ask the butler if the ladies were at home, for, instead of the formal household Mrs. Goddard used to boast, the house seemed now to have become a home. Even the butler looked human, as laughter and childish screams of delight floated down the hall from the second floor."Perkins, what is it?" asked Kate, pausing suddenly."Little Miss Gladys finds that she can stand alone, Miss Howard, and we are so delighted none of the servants can be got to do their work. They just stand around and gape at her and clap their hands."But Perkins himself was smiling as Kate rushed past him up the stairs."Here, Perkins, my man," said St. Quentin, "lend a hand with this, will you, and send a footman out to the motor for the rest of those parcels."The sight which met the eye was enough to make any one's heart leap, as Kate flung open the door and joined the group.There were Mrs. Goddard, Rosemary, Miss Sue Yancey, Carolina, and the two children, Emmeline and Gladys. Gladys was standing in the corner, partly supporting herself by leaning in the angle of the walls, but standing, nevertheless, bearing her entire weight upon her slender, beautiful little feet, which never before had been of any use to her, nor, in their distorted position, even sightly. Now they were in a normal position and actually bearing her weight, and so excited was everybody that no one turned even to give the newcomers a greeting. Rosemary and Carolina were kneeling on the floor in front of the child, while Mrs. Goddard was audibly affirming that Gladys could walk. Gladys alone looked up at Kate and St. Quentin, and smiled a welcome."Thee, Katie!" she lisped, "Gladyth can thtand alone!""Gladys can walk," affirmed Mrs. Goddard, and, as they saw the child cautiously begin to remove her hands from the supporting walls and evidently intend to attempt a step, Kate snatched the huge box from Noel's hands, and, hastily unfastening it, silently held up before her a gorgeously beautiful French doll, in a long baby dress, frilled and trimmed with cobweb lace, and calculated not only to set a child crazy, but to turn the heads of the grown-ups, for such a doll is not often seen.No one saw it at first. Then Gladys, looking up for encouragement, glanced at Kate, and, as her eyes rested on the baby doll, with one delighted mother-cry of "Baby, baby!" she started forward and fluttered across the floor, light as any thistle-down, until she clasped the doll in her arms, and Kate seized her little swaying body to keep her from falling."See what Divine Love has wrought!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard, in a voice so filled with gratitude and a reverent exultation that it sounded like a prayer.There were tense exclamations, excited laughter which ended in sudden tears, quivering smiles and murmurs of thanksgiving, until Carolina, turning to Noel, said:"Noel, I am sure that doll was your doing," when error again claimed Kate for its own, for the look of gratitude Noel sent in return."Lord, but this Christian Science does make me t-tired," murmured Kate to herself, as she released Gladys, and the two children, in a fever of excitement, sat down on the floor to undress the doll. "F-first we go up, up, up, and th-then we go down, down, down! J-just as surely as I have an up feeling, I g-get it in the neck inside of the next thirty seconds. A-at any rate, there's no m-monotony about it. It k-keeps you guessing where it will hit you n-next."Kate unconsciously made such a wry face as she murmured these words under her breath that Rosemary leaned over and whispered:"What's the matter, Kate?""I th-think I've got an attack of what you call Error, but it cramps me most cruel. Or d-do you think I could have caught cholera infantum from holding that d-doll baby?""Kate, you are so funny!" laughed Rosemary."I s-spend a good deal of v-valuable time amusing m-myself," said Kate. "I sorta have to, in a way. Everybody else seems o-occupied."As Kate made this indiscreet remark about error, Rosemary looked back at the other groups in the room, and surprised Noel looking at Carolina with an expression in his eyes he gave to no other, and again a spasm of pain crossed Kate's face. At once Rosemary understood, and Kate saw that she did. Kate's face flamed. She pushed Rosemary into the window-seat, thrust her violently down, and pulled the thick crimson curtains together, shutting them in."It's n-not so!" she whispered, excitedly. "I know w-what you think, b-but it's not true. He loves C-Carolina, and in time, no doubt, she'll l-love him. I d-don't see how she can help it. I d-don't care.""Oh, Kate, that is not true! I certainly hope Carolina will not fall in love with him. He is not suited to her, she doesn't want him, and he is suited to you. You can't deny it.""I do d-deny it!" cried Kate, but the look that swept over her face at Rosemary's remark belied her words. "And you are to t-think no more about it. And Rosemary Goddard, if you go to t-treating the situation, as if N-Noel and I were a couple of hunchbacks or yellow fevers or s-snake-bites, I'll h-half kill you! I--I'm no subject for p-prayer, let me tell you that now.""Kate, I wouldn't think of such a thing!" cried Rosemary, biting her lips. "Now go on. There's Noel calling for you to go home!""As if she could mislead me," said Rosemary to herself. "She wouldn't even try if she could have seen her own face when I said, on purpose to try her, 'There's Noel calling you to go home.' Well, bless her dear heart! I hope her love-affair will turn out as luckily as mine has, and without all my misery. Good-bye, all!"
"LONDON, May 6, 19--
"MY DEAR MISS CAROLINA:--You have rejected my suit so often, when I had no inducement to offer you except a heart which beats for you alone, which seems to be no temptation to you, that I shall not pay you the poor compliment of offering myself to you again when, as you must have heard, I have become the owner of Guildford.
"But, having heard of your great misfortune and of your change of religion, and knowing that you love the old home so ardently that its atmosphere might effect a cure when all else failed, I beg you to accept Guildford as it stands, as a gift from your father's old friend,
"WAYNE YANCEY."
Carolina's first impulse, having read the letter twice, was one of the cold fury she used to feel when a child, and she turned pale with a rage which was unspeakable in its violence.
Too well she saw through the malice of the whole affair. Colonel Yancey knew that, after her first impact of anger had passed, her next thought would be to wish she could buy the estate back, and these terms he intended to make prohibitive. Carolina wondered if he expected to wear out her patience, and so force her to marry him, or what? She could not hope to follow with accuracy the tortuous windings of a mind as intricate as Colonel Yancey's, and she despaired of ever realizing that the labyrinth could untwist into the straight and narrow way to which she was accustomed. But, so far from crushing her, this letter simply roused in her the valiant spirit of the Lees. So far from feeling downhearted, she began to sing.
But it was not a worldly courage which was sustaining her. It was the spirit which had grown out of her afternoon of work.
She deliberately took her cane with her as she went down to dinner, although she felt that she could walk without it. She knew that Kate wanted the surprise to be complete.
With this end in view, she sat at the table until the footman announced Doctor Colfax, and then she allowed all the others to precede her.
"N-now wait until we have all had time to shake hands, and a-ask him how he enjoyed himself, and give him a chance to be disappointed or g-gloating, just as he feels, because y-you aren't down. Then y-you skate in and w-watch him drop! We'll have him a Christian Science practitioner b-before we are done with him!"
Carolina obeyed.
They were all there,--Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Kate, Cousin Lois, Doctor Colfax, and Noel St. Quentin, and all were under the impression that Carolina would never be able to walk without some slight support. So that, when she walked slowly through the door, taking her steps with great care, that she might more gloriously reflect the Light, a hush fell upon them all. They did not greet her. They rose to their feet and stood watching her in perfect silence, and it was not until Kate sobbed in her excitement that the spell was broken.
Noel St. Quentin bit his lips, and Doctor Colfax's face went from red to white in an emotion which no one could fathom. Was he chagrined to see the woman he loved cured? Did he grudge her healing at other hands than his?
They all began to speak at once. Only Mr. Howard, Kate's father, sat back and watched and listened.
Roscoe Howard was a remarkable man in many ways. He possessed a critical mind, large wealth, great depth of character, and a sureness and quickness of perception, which had all contributed to his success in life. He was a student, above all, of human nature, and he had insisted upon Kate's willing hospitality to her friend, partly from affection to the daughter of his old friend, Winchester Lee, and partly to see what effect such an avalanche of misfortunes would have upon the proud spirit and high-strung nature of Carolina. When he heard of her embrace of Christian Science, he became still more interested. He had once gone in to sit with her when her arm was bandaged from wounds from her own teeth in one of her fits of despairing rage.
Therefore, when he learned from his daughter that this was to be the girl's first appearance before her old friends, he could imagine the ordeal it would prove to her, and in his own mind he said: "Carolina will show us to-night whether she is The Lady or The Tiger!"
At first they all tried to be polite and remember that they were civilized, but soon that curious unable-to-let-it-alone spirit which Christian Science invariably stirs in mortal mind began to manifest itself in hints and covert remarks and side glances and meaning silences, until Carolina calmly looked them in the eyes and said, in her gentlest manner: "I am perfectly willing to talk about it."
Kate clutched her mother's arm.
"I-isn't Carolina a d-dandy?" she whispered. "Takes every hurdle without even stopping to measure it with her eye!"
"Well, doctor, since Carolina has given us permission to discuss it, what have you to say about it?" asked Mrs. Howard.
"I can simply say this," said Doctor Colfax. "I don't understand it. But, then," he added frankly, "I don't understand the Bible, either."
"Then that is why you don't understand my cure, doctor," said Carolina, quietly, "for it is founded on the promises which Christ explicitly made to His disciples."
"To His disciples,--yes," replied Doctor Colfax, quickly, "but not to us. We are not His disciples."
"If you are a thorough Bible student," said Carolina, "please tell me the exact words of His promise."
"I am not. You have me there, Miss Lee."
"Well," persisted Carolina, "where did He limit the power He gave, and which you admit existed at one time, to His disciples? Did He ever say, 'I will give it to you and to no other?' or 'I will give it to you during my lifetime, but after my ascension it will return unto me, because you will no longer have need of it?'"
"No, I can't remember any such passages," admitted Doctor Colfax.
"W-well, He never s-said anything of the kind," put in Kate. "I don't know much, but I know that!"
"What did He say, Carolina?" asked St. Quentin. "Do you remember the exact words?"
"Yes, I do. In one place He said: 'He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my father.' And at another time He said: 'Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely ye have received. Freely give.' Now when did the time limit to those commands end?"
"Oh, nonsense, Carolina!" said Mrs. Howard, with the amused toleration of the already saved. "How can you bring up such absurd speculations? All those questions have been settled for us by the heads of the Churches years and years before we were born."
"They were settled, dear Mrs. Howard, for all who choose to accept such decisions, but how about those of us who have questioned all our lives and never found an answer which satisfied? I can remember, as a little girl in Paris, I used to come home from the convent and ply my father with this very question: 'Why can't priests and preachers heal in these days the way Jesus commanded?'"
"Well, does Mrs. Eddy have the nerve to assert that she rediscovered the way to perform Christ's miracles?" asked Doctor Colfax.
"Mrs. Eddy asserts that in 1866 she discovered the Christ Science, or the power of healing disease as Jesus healed it, by a mental process which is so simple that to all Christian Scientists Christ's so-called miracles are not miracles at all, but as simple and natural as any other mental phenomenon which has become common by reason of its frequency."
"That sounds like sacrilege," said St. Quentin.
"It sounds like tommy-rot!" said Kate.
"And yet," put in Mr. Howard, "we must all admit that Carolina has been miraculously healed. Do you not admit that, doctor?"
Doctor Colfax's face became suffused. He bit his lip, then said, with quiet distinctness:
"If I had cut off a man's leg with my own hands, and Mrs. Eddy, under my very eyes, caused a new leg to grow in the place of the old one, I would not believe in her or in anything she taught!"
Expressions of varying emotions swept over the faces of his listeners at this sincere statement of unbelief,--some were triumphant, some incredulous, some surprised, and one contemptuous.
"But, doctor, when you see Christian Science enrolling the names of the most brilliant minds; when you see the loveliest women forsaking a life of ease and pleasure and becoming practitioners,--Christian Science doctors just as selfless and single-minded as you--"
"If you are referring to that depraved woman who claims to have cured you, Miss Lee, that morphine fiend, that drunkard, that reformed character, I beg that you will not name her as a physician in any sense of the word. The medical profession is too noble to be degraded in such a manner!"
"Oh, doctor," cried Carolina, reproachfully, "if you could only hear the beautiful way in which she speaks of you!"
"Oh, doctor, aren't you a little severe?" asked Mrs. Winchester.
Noel St. Quentin smothered an amused laugh.
"Pooh!" cried Kate. "Why pay any attention to him? He's o-only a man, and men are always wrong! H-he's talking through his h-hat, that's w-what he's doing. He's jealous."
She was sitting near St. Quentin, and, turning to him under cover of the conversation, she murmured:
"What are you laughing at behind your hand?"
"I was simply remarking a phenomenon that I have often remarked before, and that is, that Christian Science seems to possess a peculiar power--"
"Oh, oh! are you going over to the enemy?" asked Kate.
"You didn't let me finish. I was going to say that it possesses a peculiar power of making well-bred people forget what is due a civilized community. I have never, I think, heard so much rudeness, such rank inelegance, such brutal prejudice expressed on any subject which polite society discusses. It takes Christian Science every time to make people absolutely insulting to their best friends."
"Funny, isn't it? I don't mind it so much since Carolina got into it; she is so honest and so brave about answering it, b-but I used to hate it so it c-cankered the roof of my mouth j-just to speak the name of it."
"Another curious thing I have noticed," said St. Quentin, speaking for Kate's ear only, "is that those who hate it most violently at first generally end by adopting it, so look out!"
"You don't mean it!" cried Kate, in such a horror-stricken voice that every one heard her. "D-don't ask me what we are t-talking about, because it is not f-fit for you to hear," she cried.
"Carolina," said Mr. Howard, tactfully, "please tell us what you have found in Christian Science. I have always had a great respect for your intelligence, and I am not prepared to find it befogged in this instance, or that you have been deceived."
He never forgot the luminous gratitude of her look.
"Thank you, dear Mr. Howard. Let me see if I can tell you what it is and what it has done for me. It is the theory of mind over matter, put in practice and lived up to. It teaches us to understand before we are called upon to believe. It is the study of Christian metaphysics, or metaphysics spiritualized. It takes all the impossible out of the Scriptures, and makes them understandable, not to a fool, but to the wise man,--the man capable of understanding a great matter. Having done this for the brain, it teaches so absolutely a God of Love, a God who is both father and mother in the love and yearning tenderness of His thought toward us, that it eliminates all fear from our lives. All fear! Can you take that in at once? It makes the ninety-first psalm a personal talk between a father and his dearly loved child. To me it sounds just as if daddy were talking to me from the Beyond. That would be just his attitude toward me if he possessed God's power. And if you believe it,--if you can once let yourself believe it, it makes this earth instantly into heaven."
"Yes, yes, I can see that it would," said Mr. Howard. "But do not Scientists believe that it also prospers you in a worldly sense?"
"Are you giving Kate everything that heart could wish now, and are you going to leave her all your money when you die?" asked Carolina.
"That knocked his eye out," murmured Kate, in an aside to St. Quentin, but he observed that she looked singularly pleased when Carolina scored a point.
Mr. Howard waved his hand in a slightly deprecatory way.
"Ah, that is just it!" cried Carolina. "You are thinking, 'Oh, but, Carolina, I am Kate's own father, and God is just God!' Heavenly Father doesn't mean a thing to most Christians. Christian Scientists can't shirk their beliefs. If they do, they are just as they were before,--pretending or rather trying to believe what they feel that they ought to believe, but getting no satisfaction and no comfort from it. A Scientist who does not put his belief into practice can neither heal his own body nor others. So he is literally forced to be honest."
"Well," said St. Quentin, "I can easily see where the supreme and slightly irritating happiness of Christian Scientists comes in. I could be supremely happy myself if I could believe in it."
"So could I," declared Kate. "A-and I suppose it is sheer envy on my part, when I see their Cheshire-cat grins, to want to slap their faces for being happier than I am!"
"But what makes them so happy?" asked Mrs. Winchester, plaintively. "Why should they be any happier than we are? We both have the same Bible, and I flatter myself that I am just as capable of understanding it as any self-styled priestess of a new religion."
"Butdoyou understand it, Cousin Lois?" asked Carolina, gently.
"I understand all that is good for me, dear child. I understand all that our Lord wants me to, or He would have made me Mrs. Eddy and made Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Winchester. We are fulfilling God's will."
"I d-don't believe that, either," whispered Kate to St. Quentin. "I--I have to admit that Carolina's God is a more consistent Being than Mrs. Winchester's."
"But you have not answered my question, Carolina," said Cousin Lois.
"What makes us so happy? Well, I wonder if I can tell you. In the first place, it is the relief of dropping all anxiety. We don't have to worry about a single solitary thing. We put all responsibility off on God. You know it says 'Cast thy burdens on the Lord!'"
"But how can you?" cried Kate. "I--I'm sure I'd like to, but I c-can't get my own consent."
"That's exactly it. Well, we do it. Then, having put all fear out of our lives, what is there left to make one unhappy? If you are no longer afraid of losing your health or your money or of dying or of being maimed or injured in accidents by land or sea, or of old age or any misfortune coming to any of your dear ones, so that it leaves you perfectly free to come and go as you please, to eat at all hours things which used to produce indigestion, to eat lobster and ice-cream together, drink strong coffee late at night and drop off to sleep like a baby, and, if it eliminates all dread of the unseen and the unknowable, what more is there left to fret about, I'd like to know?"
"How about waking up in the middle of the night to worry about your debts?" asked St. Quentin.
"The answer to that is that, at first you begin by remembering that as God is the Source of all supply, if you are consistent, the way will be opened to pay your debts. And, after you once master that comforting fact, it is easy to see that the next thing will be that you won't wake up in the night to worry or even to think."
"Carolina!" exclaimed Mrs. Winchester, "do you mean to tell me that you, who used to lie awake hours and hours every night of your life, can sleep through till morning?"
"I do, Cousin Lois. Often actually without turning over. And with no bad dreams. Can you believe me?"
Doctor Colfax rose abruptly, as if he could bear no more, and when, with a little more leave-taking, St. Quentin had offered to drive Mrs. Winchester back to Sherman's in his new motor-car, and the Howards and Carolina were left alone, Mr. Howard turned to Carolina and said:
"Carol, I have heard a great deal, here and there, about your interest in Guildford and your wish to restore the place. Would you mind telling me your plans?"
"Not in the least, Mr. Howard. The place has been sold under its mortgage, as you doubtless know, but it is of no more value to its present owner than any of the land surrounding it, which is equally arable. Its only value to us was because it was our ancestral estate. It has a water-front, and, having been left intact for over two hundred years, its timber is enormously valuable. If I owned it, and had a little working capital, I could pay off the mortgage and restore the house with the timber alone."
"Why, how is that, Carolina? Is it so extensive as all that?"
"It is only about two thousand acres,--a mere handful of land to a Northern millionaire, who buys land along the Hudson and in the Catskills and Adirondacks of ten times that amount, but that is a very decent size for a Southern plantation. But the value is in the kind of timber. It is long-leaf yellow pine, which produces turpentine and rosin first, by the orchard process, then what is left is suitable for the lumber men, and the fallen trees and stumps for the new process of making turpentine. My plan was to sell the turpentine rights to the orchard people for, say, three years, then sell the timber, and afterward sell the stumpage and refuse to the patent people, or perhaps erect a plant myself. There is a tremendous profit in turpentine and a constant and ready market."
Mr. Howard sat in a large armchair, with his finger-tips together and his head bent forward, looking at the girl from under his heavy eyebrows. He was amazed at her statement of Guildford's possibilities. Hitherto he had regarded her unknown plan as probably only a woman's sentimental idea, and doubtless wild and impracticable.
"You say that the timber has been untouched for two hundred years?"
"Practically untouched. We had it examined four years ago, and I have heard of nothing since."
"Is any of this land suitable for cotton?"
"Yes, for both cotton and rice, and I should raise both. There is no reason to my mind why a Southerner should not be as thrifty with every acre of ground as the Northerner is, nor why every inch should not be made to yield in America as it does in France."
"Right! right! And the Southerners will accept such incendiary sentiments from you, because you are one of them, but, when I ventured something on the same order, but much more mild, I was called 'a damned Yankee,' who wanted to 'make truck-farmers out of gentlemen.'"
"Oh, oh!" laughed Carolina, merrily. "How like them that sounds! You know, dear Mr. Howard, they think we have no gentlemen in the North."
"T-they aren't far from it," cried Kate. "There are f-few gentlemen anywhere in the world, according to m-my definition of one."
"You say Guildford is sold?" said Mr. Howard.
"Yes, Sherman was obliged to mortgage it, but he did so without knowing how dearly I loved it. Then some one bought the mortgage and foreclosed it."
"Why, who could have done such a thing? There must have been a motive. Has coal been discovered on any of the surrounding property?"
"Not that I know of," said Carolina, in a guarded tone.
"Then there must have been some motive in the mind of the purchaser," said Mr. Howard, decisively.
Carolina was silent.
"Can you throw any light on the subject, Carol?" he persisted, but his manner was so kindly that Carolina could not take offence.
Her reticence arose from two causes. One, her natural wish not to bruit her private affairs abroad, and the other that Mrs. Goddard had enjoined strict silence on her. "Nothing can be lost in Truth," Mrs. Goddard had said, "nor are the channels of God's affluence ever clogged, but mortal mind makes laws which we are obliged to overcome. Therefore, the fewer people who know about it, the easier our work will be."
However, something in Mr. Howard's manner led Carolina to suspect that he was not seeking to be informed out of idle curiosity, and her heart gave a bound at the thought that perhaps Divine Love might be using him as a channel.
Noticing her momentary hesitation, he said:
"You need not fear to confide in me, Carol. Perhaps I can be of some help to you."
Again she hesitated. She knew that the Howard family knew of Colonel Yancey's attentions to her. Still she felt that she must venture.
"The present owner of Guildford is Colonel Yancey," she said, in a low voice.
"Colonel Yancey!"
"Colonel Yancey!"
"Colonel Yancey!"
And so occupied was each listener with his own thoughts and mental processes that each regarded that exclamation as an original remark.
Carolina looked from one to the other of them anxiously, in the short silence which followed.
"I understand," said Mr. Howard, slowly. "I think--I--understand!"
"And this afternoon," Carolina went on, "I received a most extraordinary letter from him, dated at London, making me a present of Guildford."
"Making you a p-present of it!" cried Kate. "What g-gigantic impudence!"
"He did it to irritate her into taking some notice of him!" declared Mrs. Howard.
"H-he did it to show her how h-helpless she is!" cried Kate. "He knows she has n-no money. But I think I see him hanging around until he wears Carolina out. That is his g-game! A n-nice step-m-mother you w-would make to those two children of his,--and the l-little one a cripple!"
"Children!" cried Carolina, turning white. "I never knew that there were any! He never mentioned them."
"Oh, h-he didn't want to d-discourage you t-too much," cried Kate.
"And one of them--the little one--a cripple, did you say?"
The eager pity in Carolina's voice frightened Kate. She looked at Carolina in wonder. The girl was leaning forward in her chair, her lips parted, her eyes shining, her cheeks blazing. Kate felt physically sick as the thought flashed through her mind that perhaps this altruistic pity might rush her friend into the marriage with Colonel Yancey, which even Guildford had been unable to do.
"Where is the child?" asked Carolina.
"She is at the Exmoor Hospital. Her aunt, Sue Yancey, brought here there last week for an examination. They are trying to gain Colonel Yancey's consent to an operation."
"How do you know all this?" asked Kate's mother.
"I went there to take some flowers to-day, and I saw this child,--she is a little beauty,--and I asked Doctor Shourds who she was and he told me. The trouble is with her ankles. Her feet are perfectly formed, but they turn in and she can't bear her weight upon them, nor walk a step."
"Shecanwalk!" said Carolina, in a low, earnest voice. "God, in His Divine Love, never made a crippled baby!"
Something smarted in Mr. Howard's eyes. He, was no believer in Christian Science, but he loved little children, and Carolina's tone of deep and quiet conviction wrenched his heart.
"Carol, Carol!" wailed Kate, wringing her nose and mopping her eyes, with utter disregard of their redness, "you do make me howl so!"
"Carolina," said Mr. Howard, suddenly, "you know that I do not personally subscribe to the teachings of your new religion, but I am an observer of human nature, and I know the hall-marks of real Christianity. I have seen you to-night keep your temper under trying circumstances, defend your faith with spirit, and exemplify the command to love your enemies, and I want to tell you that if there is anything I can do toward financing a plan to buy Guildford from Colonel Yancey, and installing you there to pursue your life-work, you can count on me."
Carolina made an attempt to speak, but her eyes swam in tears, and she buried her face in her arm.
"Oh, daddy! daddy! D-dear old daddy!" cried Kate, dancing up and down in her excitement. "I knew y-you were up to something! Y-you may not care for C-Christian Science, b-but, when you s-see a good thing, you know enough to p-push it along!"
CHAPTER X.
CROSS PURPOSES
"Noel must take me for a f-fool if he thinks I don't see through him!" said Kate, angrily, to her own image in the glass.
It was about three months after Mr. Howard had offered to help Carolina to regain Guildford.
"H-he wants to p-pump me," she went on, adjusting her motor veil. "I d-don't mind trying his automobile, b-but I hate to t-think he takes me for a s-sucker!"
She rummaged viciously in her top drawer for her goggles.
"I wonder if he th-thinks I don't know he asked Carol first. Men are s-such fools! But j-just wait! He wants m-me to tell him things. M-maybe I won't g-give him a run for his money!"
But, as she ran down the steps and jumped into the powerful new racing machine, all outward trace of vexation was gone, and St. Quentin was quite as excusable as most men who believe they can outwit a clever woman.
Not that St. Quentin was particularly noticeable for his conceit. He seemed like the majority of men, who are merely self-absorbed. Yet in many respects he was quite different.
For example, he was interested in other things besides his motor-cars. He read, thought even, and was somewhat interested in other people's mental processes,--a thing which Kate quite overlooked in her flash of jealousy, for Kate had been obliged to admit to herself that, if the signs spoke truly and Noel were really in love with Carolina, it would be a melancholy thing for her to face.
"But I'm game!" she often said to herself. "I won't give up the fight until I have to. Then, if I get left, I won't howl."
There were several things in Kate's favour. First, Carolina showed no symptoms of being in love with Noel, although she must know that she could have him if she wanted him. Second, but this thought gave her almost the same discomfort as if Carolina should fancy St. Quentin, Carolina was in a fair way to become violently interested in another man,--Colonel Yancey.
The thought of how this news would stir Noel brought such a colour into Kate's cheeks that Noel, turning his eyes for the fraction of a second from the wheel, said:
"Motoring becomes you, Kate."
"I-it's more than I can s-say for y-you, then," she answered. "You look like a burglar in that mask."
"Now sit tight," said St. Quentin, "I'm going to let her out a little here."
Noel's idea of letting her out a little was more than Kate's nerves could stand. She touched Noel's arm imploringly and he obediently slowed up. Kate could hardly get her breath.
"Wasn't that fine?" asked St. Quentin.
"It was s-simply devilish. I'd rather travel in a wheelbarrow. It g-gives you more time for the scenery."
"You are just like Carolina. She hates racing. She likes to jog along about like this."
Kate leaned over and looked at the speedometer. They were going at the rate of thirty miles an hour.
"P-poor Carolina!" said Kate, mockingly. "How old-fashioned we both are!"
Noel laughed and slowed up a little more.
"There, is that better?" he asked, with the toleration a man shows when he is fond of a woman.
"Yes, now I can tell the trees from the telegraph-poles. A m-moment ago I thought the r-road was fenced."
"What is Carolina up to these days? I haven't seen her for over a fortnight," said St. Quentin.
Kate reluctantly admired him for being so honest about it. Most men would have tried to come at it from around the corner. Nevertheless, she wanted to carry out her original purpose.
"She goes to the hospital every day."
"The hospital? What for?"
"Oh, haven't you heard? Then I have some news for you."
Kate smiled with wicked enjoyment. Noel was now about to receive a dose of his own medicine, and she was to administer it. She viciously hoped it was in her power to make him as uncomfortable over Colonel Yancey as he made her about Carolina.
"Well, soon after--why, it was the very night you were at our house--after you and Doctor Colfax had gone, we still kept on talking, a-and it came out that Colonel Yancey had never told Carolina that he had children, whereas he has t-two,--the dearest little creatures,--b-but the little one, Gladys, is a hopeless cripple."
St. Quentin turned with a start.
"Yes, that's just the way it struck me. Of course you g-get the vista. Carolina instantly investigated her c-case, and she and Mrs. Goddard got it out of the doctors that there was only about one chance in ten of the operation being successful, whereas--well, N-Noel, I am not sentimental, but I thank God I--I am human, and when I s-saw the frightened look in the b-blue eyes of that l-little child--that b-baby--she's only six--when she found out th-they were going to cut her, I c-could have screamed. As it w-was, I c-called them criminals and b-burst out crying, and I b-begged Carol to c-cable Colonel Yancey for p-permission to try Christian Science."
"You did just right," said St. Quentin. "It seems to me that the legitimate and proper place for Christian Science is in a desperate case like that, when doctors agree that they are practically powerless."
"I--I think so, too. And especially when time cuts no i-ice,--not like a fever, you know, which must b-be checked at once. Well, Carol cabled, and Colonel Yancey answered in these very words, 'Have no faith, but must respect your intelligence. Do as you think best.'"
"By Jove!"
"You see? Oh, Noel, it's s-such a comfort to t-talk to you. Y-you're so clever. Most men are f-fools. But do you s-see the diabolical flattery of the cablegram? Do you also see that it puts Carolina in the p-place of the c-child's mother? Oh, when I saw the c-colour come into her face, as she read that cablegram, and that s-sort of d-dewy mother-look she s-sometimes gets in her eyes, I--I could have s-slapped Colonel Yancey's face for him!"
"I know," said Noel, in a low, strained tone which woke Kate from her enthusiasm to a sense of her own folly. Her face flamed.
"Well, I'll be switched!" she said to herself. "If N-Noel took me for a s-sucker, he didn't half state the case."
"Why don't you go on?" asked St. Quentin. He looked at her flushed face and quivering lips in surprise. "Why, I didn't think she had it in her to show such feeling!" he said to himself.
"I am the m-more afraid," she went on, looking straight before her, "b-because Carol doesn't care for any other m-man, so she is f-free to fall in l-love with Colonel Yancey, if she wants to. He is only a little over forty, is quite the most fascinating man I ever m-met, and he owns Guildford."
If Kate expected St. Quentin to betray any violent emotion on hearing these statements, she was doomed to disappointment. However, she seemed satisfied at Noel's utter silence. A smile quivered at the corners of her mouth.
"Well?" said St. Quentin at last.
"C-can't you picture the rest? Can't you see Carol and Mrs. Goddard going there d-day after day, until Mrs. Goddard got permission to move Gladys to her house? I b-believe they were to t-take her there this morning."
"Is there any improvement in the child?" asked St. Quentin.
"A little. She is old enough to understand and help herself, and she knows she is g-going to get well, or as she puts it, 'I know that I am well.' Her ankles have become flexible and her little feet can b-be put straight with the hand, b-but, as yet, they don't stay straight. S-she has not gained c-control over them."
"Can she stand at all?"
"J-just barely. But she s-sinks right down."
"Do you believe she will be cured?"
"I s-suppose you will think I am f-foolish, but I do."
"Not at all, Kate. I am not sure but that I believe it myself."
"Why, Noel S-St. Quentin! And you a Roman Catholic!"
"Well, why not? Wouldn't I be an acceptable convert if I should decide to join their ranks?"
"I-indeed you would not!" cried Kate, delighted to be able to administer a stinging rebuff. "I have an idea that they would refuse even to instruct you without a w-written permission from your priest. Ah, ha! Can't you j-just see your confessor g-giving up a l-little white w-woolly lamb like you? Y-ye are of more value than many s-sparrows."
St. Quentin accelerated the speed of the machine so suddenly that the motor seemed to leap into the air.
"Oh, Lord, Noel! D-don't do that again! The m-machine can't feel it! N-now if you had struck your horse--"
St. Quentin turned on her savagely, but said nothing.
"T-that's right, Noel. D-don't speak. There's a good deal in being a g-gentleman, after all. If you h-hadn't been, you would have said, 'S-shut up, Kate!'"
"If your husband," said St. Quentin, slowly, "ever goes to jail for wife-beating, I shall bail him out."
"I-it's strange how men agree with one another," said Kate, pensively. "M-my cousin has always said that a g-good beating with a bed-slat would about fit my c-case."
"Bright boy!" said St. Quentin. "He ought to get on in the world."
"Hadn't we better turn back, Noel? I have an engagement at five."
"Do you have to go home to dress, or shall I drop you anywhere?"
"I was just going to see Gladys for half an hour. You may drop me at Mrs. Goddard's if you will."
"Will Carolina be there?" asked St. Quentin.
"Yes, I think so. Do you want to see her?" asked Kate, innocently.
"Well, I'd rather like to see her with the child. Will you let me come in with you?"
"By all means. I should be delighted."
"Then I can bring you home afterward."
"Most thoughtful of you," murmured Kate.
"I say, Kate," said St. Quentin, after a pause, "keep your eye open for a toy shop, will you? One oughtn't to call on a child without some little present, ought one?"
"You won't find one up in this part of the country, such as you want," said Kate. "Let her out a little and we will have time to go down to Twenty-third Street."
When they came out of the shop, even Kate, extravagant as she was, was aghast.
"Noel, it's w-wicked to spend money like that. Why, that child is only a b-baby. She can't appreciate all those hand-made clothes for that doll. And real lace! It's absurd!"
"Kate," said St. Quentin, slowly, "if you were that crippled baby, I'd have bought you everything in that whole shop!"
A lump came into Kate's throat so suddenly that it choked her.
When they arrived at Mrs. Goddard's, there was no need to ask the butler if the ladies were at home, for, instead of the formal household Mrs. Goddard used to boast, the house seemed now to have become a home. Even the butler looked human, as laughter and childish screams of delight floated down the hall from the second floor.
"Perkins, what is it?" asked Kate, pausing suddenly.
"Little Miss Gladys finds that she can stand alone, Miss Howard, and we are so delighted none of the servants can be got to do their work. They just stand around and gape at her and clap their hands."
But Perkins himself was smiling as Kate rushed past him up the stairs.
"Here, Perkins, my man," said St. Quentin, "lend a hand with this, will you, and send a footman out to the motor for the rest of those parcels."
The sight which met the eye was enough to make any one's heart leap, as Kate flung open the door and joined the group.
There were Mrs. Goddard, Rosemary, Miss Sue Yancey, Carolina, and the two children, Emmeline and Gladys. Gladys was standing in the corner, partly supporting herself by leaning in the angle of the walls, but standing, nevertheless, bearing her entire weight upon her slender, beautiful little feet, which never before had been of any use to her, nor, in their distorted position, even sightly. Now they were in a normal position and actually bearing her weight, and so excited was everybody that no one turned even to give the newcomers a greeting. Rosemary and Carolina were kneeling on the floor in front of the child, while Mrs. Goddard was audibly affirming that Gladys could walk. Gladys alone looked up at Kate and St. Quentin, and smiled a welcome.
"Thee, Katie!" she lisped, "Gladyth can thtand alone!"
"Gladys can walk," affirmed Mrs. Goddard, and, as they saw the child cautiously begin to remove her hands from the supporting walls and evidently intend to attempt a step, Kate snatched the huge box from Noel's hands, and, hastily unfastening it, silently held up before her a gorgeously beautiful French doll, in a long baby dress, frilled and trimmed with cobweb lace, and calculated not only to set a child crazy, but to turn the heads of the grown-ups, for such a doll is not often seen.
No one saw it at first. Then Gladys, looking up for encouragement, glanced at Kate, and, as her eyes rested on the baby doll, with one delighted mother-cry of "Baby, baby!" she started forward and fluttered across the floor, light as any thistle-down, until she clasped the doll in her arms, and Kate seized her little swaying body to keep her from falling.
"See what Divine Love has wrought!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard, in a voice so filled with gratitude and a reverent exultation that it sounded like a prayer.
There were tense exclamations, excited laughter which ended in sudden tears, quivering smiles and murmurs of thanksgiving, until Carolina, turning to Noel, said:
"Noel, I am sure that doll was your doing," when error again claimed Kate for its own, for the look of gratitude Noel sent in return.
"Lord, but this Christian Science does make me t-tired," murmured Kate to herself, as she released Gladys, and the two children, in a fever of excitement, sat down on the floor to undress the doll. "F-first we go up, up, up, and th-then we go down, down, down! J-just as surely as I have an up feeling, I g-get it in the neck inside of the next thirty seconds. A-at any rate, there's no m-monotony about it. It k-keeps you guessing where it will hit you n-next."
Kate unconsciously made such a wry face as she murmured these words under her breath that Rosemary leaned over and whispered:
"What's the matter, Kate?"
"I th-think I've got an attack of what you call Error, but it cramps me most cruel. Or d-do you think I could have caught cholera infantum from holding that d-doll baby?"
"Kate, you are so funny!" laughed Rosemary.
"I s-spend a good deal of v-valuable time amusing m-myself," said Kate. "I sorta have to, in a way. Everybody else seems o-occupied."
As Kate made this indiscreet remark about error, Rosemary looked back at the other groups in the room, and surprised Noel looking at Carolina with an expression in his eyes he gave to no other, and again a spasm of pain crossed Kate's face. At once Rosemary understood, and Kate saw that she did. Kate's face flamed. She pushed Rosemary into the window-seat, thrust her violently down, and pulled the thick crimson curtains together, shutting them in.
"It's n-not so!" she whispered, excitedly. "I know w-what you think, b-but it's not true. He loves C-Carolina, and in time, no doubt, she'll l-love him. I d-don't see how she can help it. I d-don't care."
"Oh, Kate, that is not true! I certainly hope Carolina will not fall in love with him. He is not suited to her, she doesn't want him, and he is suited to you. You can't deny it."
"I do d-deny it!" cried Kate, but the look that swept over her face at Rosemary's remark belied her words. "And you are to t-think no more about it. And Rosemary Goddard, if you go to t-treating the situation, as if N-Noel and I were a couple of hunchbacks or yellow fevers or s-snake-bites, I'll h-half kill you! I--I'm no subject for p-prayer, let me tell you that now."
"Kate, I wouldn't think of such a thing!" cried Rosemary, biting her lips. "Now go on. There's Noel calling for you to go home!"
"As if she could mislead me," said Rosemary to herself. "She wouldn't even try if she could have seen her own face when I said, on purpose to try her, 'There's Noel calling you to go home.' Well, bless her dear heart! I hope her love-affair will turn out as luckily as mine has, and without all my misery. Good-bye, all!"