"DEAR DOLLY:"I am just home and have your note. I am sorry not to be with you to-night to join in welcoming the Nelsons. I send all good wishes to the little company, but what I have now to tell you will explain my absence."I had already made an appointment before I learned of your arrangements for the evening. Father Pauly, the village clergyman, sleeps to-night at The Towers and I am expecting him as I write. He does not know of my intention, but before he leaves I shall ask him to receive me into the Roman Catholic Church."ROBERT."Dolly handed the note to Arthur. He asked if he should read it aloud. She nodded assent.Fritzie, next morning, crossing the lake with flowers for Alice, was kneeling at her grave when Kimberly came up. She rose hastily but could not control herself and burst into tears. Kimberly took her hands as she came to him. "Dear Fritzie," he murmured, "youhaven't forgotten.""I loved you both, Robert."They walked down the hill together. Fritzie asked questions and Kimberly met her difficulties one after another. "What great difference does it make, Fritzie, whether I work here or elsewhere? I want a year, possibly longer, of seclusion--and no one will bother me at the Islands. Meantime, in a year I shall be quite forgotten."Charles Kimberly was waiting at The Towers for a conference. The brothers lunched together and spent the afternoon in the library. Dolly came over as they were parting. "Is it true, Robert," she asked piteously, "that you are going to Molokai?""Not for weeks yet, Dolly. Much remains to be arranged here.""To the lepers?""Only for a year or two." He saw the suffering in her face and bent over her with affectionate humor. "I must go somewhere for a while, Dolly. You understand, don't you?"She shook the tears from her long lashes. "You need not tell me. Robert, you will never come back."He laughed tenderly. "My heart is divided, Dolly. Part of it is here with you who love me; part of it, you know, is with her. If I come back, I shall find you here. If I do not come back, I shall find her THERE."In a distant ocean and amid the vastness of a solitude of waters the winter sun shines warm upon a windward cliff. From the face of this gigantic shape, rising half a mile into the air, springs a tapestry of living green, prodigal with blossoms and overhanging at intervals a field of flowers.On the heights of the crumbling peak the wild goat browses in cool and leafy groves. In its grassy chimneys rabbits crouch with listening ears, and on the sheer face of the precipice a squirrel halts upon a dizzy vine. Above its crest a seabird poises in a majesty of flight, and in the blue distance a ship sails into a cloudless sky. This is Molokai.At the foot of the mountain the morning sun strikes upon a lowland, thrust like a tongue of fire into the cooling sea, and where the lava meets the wave, breakers beat restlessly.On one shore of this lowland spit, and under the brow of the cliff, a handful of white cottages cluster. On the opposite shore lies a whitewashed hamlet brightened by tropical gardens and shaded with luxuriant trees; it is the leper port. Near the sea stands a chapel surmounted by a cross. Beyond it a larger and solitary cross marks a second village--the village of the leper dead.An island steamer whistled one summer evening for the port, and a landing boat put out from the pier. It was the thirtieth of June. Three passengers made ready to disembark, two of them women, Sisters of St. Francis, who had offered themselves for the leper mission, and the third a man, a stranger, who followed them over the steamer's side and, rearranging their luggage, made a place for the two women in the stern of the weather-beaten craft.It was the close of the day and the sun flowed in a glory of gold over the sea. On one edge of the far horizon a rain cloud drifted. In the east the moon was rising full and into a clear sky. A heavy swell lifted the boat from the steamer's side. The three passengers steadied themselves as they rose on its crest, and the brown oarsmen, catching the sweep of the sea, headed for the long line of foam that crawled upon the blackened rocks.On the distant beach a black-robed figure outlined against the evening sky watched with straining eyes the sweep of the dripping oars and with arm uplifted seemed to wait with beating heart upon their stroke for him who was coming. Along the shore, cripples hastening from the village crowded the sandy paths toward the pier. In the west, the steamer was putting out again upon its course, and between the two the little boat, a speck upon the waves, made its way stoutly through the heaving sea.THE END* * * * * * * *TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LISTMay be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's listTHE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch.Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer amusement.THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls.THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham.A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is stronger than worldly success.SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett.A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet lead the young mistress into another romance.SHEILA VEDDER, By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife,"JOHN WARD, PREACHER. By Margaret Deland.The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful wife to his own narrow creed.THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard Dixon.One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original.The Master's ViolinBy MYRTLE REEDA Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to give--and his soul awakens.Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or discussed.If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, you have a double pleasure in store--for these two books show Myrtle Reed in her most delightful, fascinating vein--indeed they may be considered as masterpieces of compelling interest.The Prodigal JudgeBy VAUGHAN KESTERThis great novel--probably the most popular book in this country to-day--is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of "immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens.The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals--very exalted ones--but honors them in the breach rather than in the observance.Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon Mahaffy--fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this delightful old vagabond.The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples of American literary craftmanship.TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LISTMay be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated.A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation complicates the romance.THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate the methods.CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn and others.A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation.THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess.THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored wrapper.A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely eyes of a Frenchwoman.THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett.A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make women realize the part that politics play--even in their romances.Ask for compete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted FictionGROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKROBERT KIMBERLY***
"DEAR DOLLY:
"I am just home and have your note. I am sorry not to be with you to-night to join in welcoming the Nelsons. I send all good wishes to the little company, but what I have now to tell you will explain my absence.
"I had already made an appointment before I learned of your arrangements for the evening. Father Pauly, the village clergyman, sleeps to-night at The Towers and I am expecting him as I write. He does not know of my intention, but before he leaves I shall ask him to receive me into the Roman Catholic Church.
"ROBERT."
Dolly handed the note to Arthur. He asked if he should read it aloud. She nodded assent.
Fritzie, next morning, crossing the lake with flowers for Alice, was kneeling at her grave when Kimberly came up. She rose hastily but could not control herself and burst into tears. Kimberly took her hands as she came to him. "Dear Fritzie," he murmured, "youhaven't forgotten."
"I loved you both, Robert."
They walked down the hill together. Fritzie asked questions and Kimberly met her difficulties one after another. "What great difference does it make, Fritzie, whether I work here or elsewhere? I want a year, possibly longer, of seclusion--and no one will bother me at the Islands. Meantime, in a year I shall be quite forgotten."
Charles Kimberly was waiting at The Towers for a conference. The brothers lunched together and spent the afternoon in the library. Dolly came over as they were parting. "Is it true, Robert," she asked piteously, "that you are going to Molokai?"
"Not for weeks yet, Dolly. Much remains to be arranged here."
"To the lepers?"
"Only for a year or two." He saw the suffering in her face and bent over her with affectionate humor. "I must go somewhere for a while, Dolly. You understand, don't you?"
She shook the tears from her long lashes. "You need not tell me. Robert, you will never come back."
He laughed tenderly. "My heart is divided, Dolly. Part of it is here with you who love me; part of it, you know, is with her. If I come back, I shall find you here. If I do not come back, I shall find her THERE."
In a distant ocean and amid the vastness of a solitude of waters the winter sun shines warm upon a windward cliff. From the face of this gigantic shape, rising half a mile into the air, springs a tapestry of living green, prodigal with blossoms and overhanging at intervals a field of flowers.
On the heights of the crumbling peak the wild goat browses in cool and leafy groves. In its grassy chimneys rabbits crouch with listening ears, and on the sheer face of the precipice a squirrel halts upon a dizzy vine. Above its crest a seabird poises in a majesty of flight, and in the blue distance a ship sails into a cloudless sky. This is Molokai.
At the foot of the mountain the morning sun strikes upon a lowland, thrust like a tongue of fire into the cooling sea, and where the lava meets the wave, breakers beat restlessly.
On one shore of this lowland spit, and under the brow of the cliff, a handful of white cottages cluster. On the opposite shore lies a whitewashed hamlet brightened by tropical gardens and shaded with luxuriant trees; it is the leper port. Near the sea stands a chapel surmounted by a cross. Beyond it a larger and solitary cross marks a second village--the village of the leper dead.
An island steamer whistled one summer evening for the port, and a landing boat put out from the pier. It was the thirtieth of June. Three passengers made ready to disembark, two of them women, Sisters of St. Francis, who had offered themselves for the leper mission, and the third a man, a stranger, who followed them over the steamer's side and, rearranging their luggage, made a place for the two women in the stern of the weather-beaten craft.
It was the close of the day and the sun flowed in a glory of gold over the sea. On one edge of the far horizon a rain cloud drifted. In the east the moon was rising full and into a clear sky. A heavy swell lifted the boat from the steamer's side. The three passengers steadied themselves as they rose on its crest, and the brown oarsmen, catching the sweep of the sea, headed for the long line of foam that crawled upon the blackened rocks.
On the distant beach a black-robed figure outlined against the evening sky watched with straining eyes the sweep of the dripping oars and with arm uplifted seemed to wait with beating heart upon their stroke for him who was coming. Along the shore, cripples hastening from the village crowded the sandy paths toward the pier. In the west, the steamer was putting out again upon its course, and between the two the little boat, a speck upon the waves, made its way stoutly through the heaving sea.
THE END
* * * * * * * *
TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch.
Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer amusement.
THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.
The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls.
THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham.
A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is stronger than worldly success.
SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett.
A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet lead the young mistress into another romance.
SHEILA VEDDER, By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.
A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife,"
JOHN WARD, PREACHER. By Margaret Deland.
The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful wife to his own narrow creed.
THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard Dixon.
One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original.
The Master's Violin
By MYRTLE REED
A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to give--and his soul awakens.
Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or discussed.
If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, you have a double pleasure in store--for these two books show Myrtle Reed in her most delightful, fascinating vein--indeed they may be considered as masterpieces of compelling interest.
The Prodigal Judge
By VAUGHAN KESTER
This great novel--probably the most popular book in this country to-day--is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of "immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens.
The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals--very exalted ones--but honors them in the breach rather than in the observance.
Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon Mahaffy--fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this delightful old vagabond.
The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples of American literary craftmanship.
TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated.
A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation complicates the romance.
THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.
A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate the methods.
CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn and others.
A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation.
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess.
THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored wrapper.
A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely eyes of a Frenchwoman.
THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett.
A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make women realize the part that politics play--even in their romances.
Ask for compete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKROBERT KIMBERLY***