"A DOZEN OR MORE NESTS WERE FOUND""A DOZEN OR MORE NESTS WERE FOUND"Time passed and all went well until one afternoon, looking through the one small opening to the glade which gave a view of the distant hillside field, I saw distinctly the form of a man. He was chopping, and something about the figure and its movements reminded me irresistibly of our hired man, Eben Westbrook. What could it mean?Happy am I to turn to a subject more exhilarating—to a novel incident in our forest life. One day Chickum and the twins went berrying in the direction of our former home, venturing—as we rarely did—even as far as the wooded lot. They were in the midst of the hazel and blackberry bushes when there was a sudden cackle and flutter in the undergrowth, and a cry from Jörgensen which brought Chickum hurriedly to the scene. What he saw caused the impetuous youth to shout with joy. There, beneath a bush,was the nest of a hen,Gallina Americana, and in it were no less than seven eggs. Berrying was suspended promptly, and all the eggs save one were transferred to the pail, and then began a wild search for more. It was well rewarded. A dozen or more nests were found, the spoil of which was added to that already secured. It was a great discovery.A prouder trio than entered Hemlock Castle that evening, bringing their burden of eggs, could not be conceived by any sort of person, nor could any imagine a more enthusiastic reception than was accorded them. Not only were we now relieved from immediate danger of a food famine, but the variation in diet was good for all of us. There was a most riotous consumption of eggs for days, until a startling tendency toward biliousness, exhibited by little Krag, induced me to counsel greater moderation. So many eggs, coupled with Abyssinia's bread, were necessarily trying to the system. It was now that Chickum developed a great idea. He proposed to capture a number of the fowls, bring them to Haven Glade, and there establish a hennery.The proposition was received with general approbation, and next day the construction ofthe hennery was begun. It was not a difficult task which faced us. Since the fowls must have gravel and water, it was decided that the hennery should extend a little into the creek, and close beside its sloping bank the structure was erected. There but remained the capture of the fowls, and Chickum was riotous over the prospect. He announced his ability to catch a dozen chickens in a single day, and with the assistance of Krag and Jörgensen he made good his boast, the three running down into the bushes and bringing home just the number of hens he had promised.Our life continued in its placid way until one night, when a tremendous commotion in the chicken-house caused both Chickum and me to rush out to the rescue. Chickum had seized the carving-knife as usual, and I a handy bludgeon. As we neared the place some dark-colored animal clambered hurriedly up the side of the enclosure, and as its head appeared through a hole in the roof I dealt it a heavy blow and it fell stunned. Chickum descended through an opening in the roof and the animal was put out of its misery. It resembled a miniature bear, save that its color was grayish and that it possessed a long and remarkably ringed tail. I at once recognized thecommon raccoon,Procyon lotor, and made an address to the others upon its many curious traits and habits of life. One of the hens was found killed. A day or two later there entered from the water side an enemy which we saw on two or three occasions but could not destroy nor capture. It proved to be the fur-producing animal known as a mink,Putorius vison. Within a week we had not a single fowl alive. All had fallen before the rapacity of this bloodthirsty creature. Hunger stared us in the face!How nearly am I approaching now to the end of this narrative of trial and adventure! How vividly recall themselves to me the scenes of one fateful afternoon! There had not been a storm since before our occupancy of Hemlock Castle, and almost a drought prevailed throughout the country. But a change was near at hand. There came an afternoon, airless, close and heavy until near evening. Then white clouds appeared in the west, growing rapidly into woolly mountains. Soon these assumed a darker hue, and a great wind arose before which the sturdiest trees were bent, while an awful roar resounded through the forest. A darkness came upon everything, and we huddled in the shelter of Hemlock Castle, even Chickum alarmed,Abyssinia crying, and the twins in an agony of terror. The rain began to fall in such torrents as I had never known before. Now the wind increased almost to a hurricane, and a sudden blast carried away the roof of our house as if it had been a thing of paper. In a moment we were wetted to the skin. The creek became a spreading torrent which swept away the ruins of our house just as we had barely escaped from it. In the darkness we clambered blindly toward the ridge, when I heard a loud shout near us and recognized the voice of Eben Westbrook. Never did human voice sound sweeter! "Hurry!" he shouted, "Hurry home!" and came rushing up to seize the hands of Krag and Jörgensen and take the lead. Wet and bedraggled we hurried on, over the ridge, into the open, across the hazel country, across the Wooded Pasture, across the creek, up through the kitchen garden, and into the house by way of the kitchen door. A fateful moment had arrived.I felt something in my throat, but I did not shrink. I had decided what I would say. I would naught extenuate, but would fall back upon the theory of the sacredness of human rights. My address was not to receive a hearing.Our parents were about sitting down to theevening meal, and, to my surprise, our plates lay all in their accustomed places, as if we had not been absent for a day. My father looked up and nodded cheerfully and mother only said: "You'd better all go up and get dry clothes on before you eat." The hired girl peeked in from a side of the kitchen door and drew her head back suddenly with a gulp. Eben Westbrook maintained what I have heard called in relation to others an impassive countenance. We went up, changed our clothes, and all came downstairs together. What a meal it was! There was not much conversation, though father mentioned something about the beginning of the school term. How Krag and Jörgensen did eat! But oh, the incomprehensible apathy of Parents!CHAPTER XXVTHE LOWRY-TURCK ENTANGLEMENTThe interesting story of "The Swiss Family Robertson" told and the usual comment made, the Colonel, still beaming, turned to the Young Lady."Will you please tell us something?" he said.And her reply to him was very simple and graceful;"I can at least tell you about the 'Lowry-Turck Entanglement,' for I was familiar with the circumstances." Then she continued:THE LOWRY-TURCK ENTANGLEMENTApropos of the affair of Harvey Lowry and Angeline Turck, as also apropos of many other affairs of similar nature, it is very much to be feared that one of the proverbs is unreliable. "Necessity is the mother of invention" comes off the tongue glibly enough, but why "mother"? What rules the camp, the court, the grove, and what makes the world go around? Whatbut love, and is not Love, when personified, a male? And has he not been the cause of more inventions than have all others combined? Certainly it was he who suggested an invention of the Lowry-Turck love affair. He is Necessity disguised; and he is not a mother.Of course Love need not grumble. He is no worse off than are other fathers. If a boy becomes famous in the world the fact is attributed to his noble mother; if he becomes infamous, the community says, "Like father, like son"—which is hardly fair. Fathers are useful. Not only did every person who ever invented anything have a father, but without the father romance would be robbed of one of its most useful and steadfast figures. These remarks, prefacing a love story, may be didactic and ponderous and prosy, but they are true.It is true, as well, that, though this is a love story pure and simple, Mr. Turck, the father in the case, may, in a sense, be looked upon as among the characters who belong to the world of romance, for he was the very personification of one accepted type of parent in love stories, being perverse, tyrannical and hard-hearted, looking upon lovers as the ranchman does on wolves, and resolved to keep hisdaughter to himself indefinitely. He had a red face, tufts of side whiskers which grew out nearly at right angles, and a bellowing voice which would have made his fortune as skipper of a sailing craft in noisy seas. It was, perhaps, such men as Mr. Turck who brought the father into disrepute before the first romance was written, and there is little doubt, too, that it has been such daughters as Angeline Turck who have innocently aggravated the father's already uncertain temper and thus made his name the byword it has become—in fiction.Angeline, at the time this affair began, was seventeen and completely sovereign over the heart of Harvey Lowry—to quote from one of the young gentleman's letters to the young lady herself. They had been in love six months, according to Angeline's computation, seven, according to that of Harvey; but naturally, he had been first to feel and feed the flame. Harvey, though successful in his suit, was not, in personal appearance, the ideal lover for a girl of Angeline's age—that is, he was not tall, nor dark, nor haughty of mien. On the contrary, he was short, fair and round-faced, and had a thoroughly business-like demeanor. He looked like a young man whosesoul was all in the profit on a next shipment of barrel-hoops, or something, when, in truth, he had endless romantic fancies. In his sentiment lay his charm, and it was to this quality that, as she came to know him well, the fair Angeline had completely yielded. There had been a declaration of love and no refusal, but as yet no formal engagement existed. That, it was mutually understood, must come later, the delay being attributable to certain obstacles of a financial nature. Meanwhile the time passed most pleasantly. There were meetings where Harvey said things calculated to touch the heart, and there was much letter-writing. It was this last which wrecked the air-castle.One evening when Angeline's parents were alone, Mr. Turck startled his wife by demanding suddenly:"What's that young Lowry coming here so much for? I don't like it!"Mrs. Turck replied mildly that she supposed Mr. Lowry came chiefly to see Angeline. She saw nothing very wrong in that. He was said to be a steady young man, and, of course, Angeline must have harmless company occasionally."I don't care whether he's steady or not. He's coming here too much. Don't tell me anything about 'harmless company!' He's after Angeline, and I won't have it! I'll look into this thing!" And Mr. Turck gave utterance to a sound which may be indifferently described as a determined snort. Mrs. Turck understood it, and looked for trouble of some sort in the near future. She had reason.The evening before, Harvey, after leaving the house, had kissed Angeline's hand at the garden gate. It had been at this electrical moment that Mr. Turck looked out of the sitting-room window, instead of attending to his newspaper as he should have done, and noted the two forms showing dimly through the gathering shade. He did not distinctly see the kiss, but something in the movement was vaguely reminiscent to him. His suspicions were aroused. He had called harshly to Angeline to come in and go to her mother, and she had obeyed, while Harvey melted away into the summer night, after the manner of lovers who have attracted the paternal eye. Neither of the two was much disturbed. There was a glow in the heart of each, a glow too deep to be affected by an ominousword or two. Yet this episode had led to Mr. Turck's outbreak before his wife.The first blow fell early. Before two more days had passed Mr. Turck had broken out at the breakfast table and had forbidden Angeline to have any further relations of any sort with Harvey Lowry. She must not speak to him. There were tears and quite a scene. Even the subdued Mrs. Turck ventured to say a word, and asked what Angeline could do when meeting Harvey on the street? To this only the curt reply was given that "a dignified bow" was enough. It was rather hard. The old gentleman did not know it, his meek wife did not suspect it, and Angeline would never have believed it, but the truth is, if Angeline's life had depended on the making of a dignified bow, it would have been short shrift for her. It must be regretfully admitted that in the village of Willow Bend the bow, as practiced by maids alike, was such a casual bob of the head as conveyed not the remotest conception of any dignity. It may have been a fact that this Arcadian bob was subject to modification among the elders, but that does not matter. The father, looking upon Angeline's meek face and recognizing the accustomed submission in hiswife's eyes, felt that he had done a fit and becoming morning's work, and drank his coffee calmly, while Angeline trifled sadly with her spoon and looked dumbly out of the nearest window.That evening Lowry called, and was told by the servant maid who met him at the door that he could not enter. The young man understood well enough that this was under Mr. Turck's direction, and went away less dispirited than he might have been. The next day Mrs. Turck, who feared to do otherwise, brought to the lord of the house a tinted piece of folded paper, which proved to be a letter from Harvey to the again suspiciously rosy Angeline. This dangerous piece of Love's fighting gear had been detected by Mrs. Turck's eagle eye among the trifles on her daughter's work table. A charge direct, tears, expostulations, confession, and the delivery of the missive over to the enemy had followed swiftly. The hair stood upon the paternal head in disapproval as Mr. Turck held the pink letter between his thumb and forefinger and read it stridently aloud. After all, there was little in it to excite either anger or apprehension, for it was only an expression of hope that the writer could see Angeline thatevening at a little party at the home of a mutual friend, but, as with venomous insects, its sting was in its tail, for it was signed solely with these three letters: "I. L. Y."Now, even Mr. Turck did not need to be told what the letters he described as "those infamous characters" signified. The world knows them. His wife, too, flushed when he showed them to her, and then, for once bridling a little at the "infamous," she reminded him that there was a time when Mr. Turck himself, as a matter of custom and daily habit, wrote those very characters at the end of all his letters; but, though for a moment embarrassed by this allusion, the husband only sniffed.Angeline had a bad half hour over the "I. L. Y.," and the end was submission almost abject, for Mr. Turck would brook no half-way measures. The girl promised neither to write to nor read any letters from the young man so disapproved. In a sharp communication from Mr. Turck, Harvey Lowry was made to know the unpopularity of his epistolary efforts in the Turck household, and for a day or two apparently bowed his head to the paternal will. But who may comprehend the ways of a lover? One morning not a week after the "I. L. Y." affair, Mr. Turck saw anothersuspicious-looking envelope in the bundle of letters he carried home from the post-office at luncheon time. He looked hard at Angeline's face when she opened the letter at the table and noted there was an expression of confusion and surprise. Without a word, he stretched out an authoritative hand, and, without a word, Angeline gave him the small, open sheet of heavy cream colored paper. This is what he saw, drawn with pen and ink, on the fair page:Only that and nothing more.It was now that Angeline's persecutions began in earnest. She was questioned, and threatened, and bullied, and coaxed, but she would not tell the meaning of those four lines drawn upon that virgin page, and sent to her in an envelope addressed in the handwriting of Harvey Lowry. In truth, the poor girl did not know, and could not guess, what the thing meant, herself. Denial tears, supplication—all were of no avail. Mr. Turck would not believe his daughter. He held the drawing upside down, sideways, and then almost horizontal, as one does in reading where the letters are purposely made tall and thin, but he could make nothing of it, and raged the more at his incompetence. "It looks a little like a side plan of a room," he muttered to himself, "butit isn't complete. Have the fools arranged to run away and are they planning a house already?" The idea was too much for him. He seized his hat and went forth for advice.Mr. Turck was in the office of Baldison, a contractor and builder, within five minutes. "Here, Baldison," he bellowed as he came in, "what is this? Is it part of a plan of a house, or, if not, what is it?"Mr. Baldison was a cautious man, and, taking the paper, he examined the connected lines long and deliberately. His comment, when he made it, was not entirely satisfying."It might be part of a side plan of one story," he said, "but it ain't finished. There's only one brace in, and the cross beam is lacking. If it wasn't for the left-hand upright, I should say it was part of a swing-crane, but the pulley isn't strung. I don't know what it is. Who made it?"But Mr. Turck did not go into particulars. He left Baldison's place and studied out the problem in his own office; he went out again and asked in vain the opinion of a dozen men, and he went home that evening baffled and in a frame of mind of which the less said the better. Within twenty-four hours Angeline was packed off to the Misses Cutlet's boarding-school indistant Belleville, to be "finished," as her mother described it. The irate father used other and far less becoming words.This shifting of the scene when, to her, so much of importance was involved, was a most serious thing to Angeline. But it might have been much worse than it proved at the school. Plump Bessey Payton, another girl from Willow Bend, was there, and it was easily so arranged that the two occupied adjoining rooms. They had been friends for years, and the renewed companionship was much for Angeline. It aided in partial distraction.And now this story, which has been—from an ordinary point of view—little more than a comedy, develops into something very like a tragedy. It was so to a young girl, at least. The Misses Cutlet had been instructed to keep a sharp eye open, and report, as well as they might, upon the quantity of Angeline's correspondence. They had little to tell. Angeline received few letters, and none frequently from any one person, so far as could be learned from the envelopes addressed to her. The parents were content.And Angeline really had no correspondence with Harvey Lowry. She was a young woman who would keep her word, and she did notwrite to him, while from him came no message save an occasional envelope containing only a slip of paper upon which appeared the mysterious symbol. But was not that enough? Did it not indicate that she was still in his heart, and that he would be always hers? Those lines must have a meaning, and though she could not translate them, she felt it was only because Harvey had forgotten that he had never given her the key. What of that? She knew instinctively that the story they told was one of faith and faithfulness. How delicate of him, and how thoughtful that such loving reminder should come at times, and how wonderful it was that he should have invented such a thing for her dear sake alone! Her love grew with the months, and so, unfortunately, despite the letters with the reassuring figure, did her unhappiness.It is perhaps unreasonable that we should laugh at the loves of the young, at what we call "calf love" in the male, and a "schoolgirl's fancy" in the maiden, for the springs of the heart do not always deepen with the years. Well for youth is it that it owns such wonderfully recuperative forces of mind and body; sad would it be to the elders if, withoutsuch recuperative powers, their feelings were given such abandonment. Youth's hurts are sometimes serious. Angeline was growing from the subjugated girl into the suffering woman. Other young women, she reasoned, were allowed to love and to marry the men of their choice. Why should she be made so cruel an exception? She idealized the absent, as the loving, so often do. In her mind, Harvey Lowry had grown from one for whom she cared more than for others into a hero without a flaw, one thoughtful, considerate, self-denying and altogether noble. The sentimental vein in her nature broadened and deepened, and she placed a greater value on the sweet reminder of the mysterious figures in the letters. And all for her! How constant he was, and how hard the lot of both of them! She became feverish and impatient. Her studies lost all interest, her cheeks became paler, thinner, her manner more languid. It could not last.So the months went by until the end of the scholastic year was close at hand. Angeline would soon be in Willow Bend again and with her parents. She would meet Harvey Lowry again—that was inevitable. What would the near vacation bring to her? she asked herself.She was growing stubborn now. The portentous figure of her father no longer loomed so highly in her eyes as formerly, and she was the decided woman, with a woman's heart and will, and a woman's rights. What might be the summer's history!Accidents—as thoughtful people are much given to remark—have sometimes great effect on the affairs of human beings.One day as Angeline, visiting her friend, stood looking at her still agreeable image in Bess' mirror, she saw, stuck in the frame, among cards, notes and photographs, a square of yellowish paper. The coloring seemed to have come from age, but of that Angeline made no note. All she saw or knew was that the paper bore this mystic sign upon it:For a moment or two the girl stood motionless. Power of speech and movement were gone. Then, "Bess," she called tremblingly; "what is this?" and she held out the paper for inspection."That? Oh, that is from Harvey Lowry," said Bess composedly."But, oh, Bess," cried the girl excitedly, "what does it mean?""Can't you guess?" was the reply."No, I can't," was the slow answer, "and—and I've seen it before."The careless Bess was aroused now, and there was a flash in her black eyes. "How dare Harvey Lowry have sent one of those to any one else?" she broke out impetuously, but her excitement was only momentary. She began to laugh. "Well, it was a good while ago, after all." And so her anger vanished.Angeline was recovering herself, though with an effort. "But tell me—tell me what it means," she demanded."Why, you stupid girl!" was the reply. "I guessed it in the first ten minutes—and once we signed all our letters with it. Now, see here," and she took paper and pencil and drew a perpendicular mark, thus:"That is 'I' isn't it? Well then, I'll put on this mark," and she added a line horizontally, making this figure:"That's an 'L' you see. Next, to make your 'Y,' you put on this"—she made two added marks—"and you have this:"There's your 'I. L. Y.' sign!"Angeline was stunned. Never was a dreamdispelled so suddenly and harshly. Not for her had that mystic figure been devised, but for another, and it had been utilized a second time, as if there were no sacredness to such things! It mattered not how much Harvey Lowry might be interested in her now, she was but a sort of second-hand girl. Anger took the place of her unhappiness. "Delicate and thoughtful," indeed! To send those reassuring notes to her was now but a cheap impertinence! She had been accustomed, in her pity of herself, to quote something from Shakespeare which seemed to her to have a peculiarly sad and fitting application: "Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep which thou owed'st yesterday!"Here were poppy and mandragora and syrups enough, all administered in one rude prescription, as to the efficacy of which there could be no shadow of a doubt!Somehow the brooding and disappointed woman seemed to melt away now, and there reappeared the impulsive girl again. It was an angry girl, though. Her first grief over—and it lasted but for a day—she resolved upon an epistolary feat of her own. She wrote threeletters. The first was to Harvey Lowry. It was not quite, but nearly, as school-girlish as she might have written a year earlier, being distinctly of the "'tis better thus" variety and "coldly dissecting," as she afterwards said in confidence to a bosom friend. In it she bade her admirer an eternal farewell, notwithstanding the fact that they must inevitably see each other every day in the week as soon as she returned to Willow Bend. This labored epistle she placed in another, of a meek and lowly tenor, to her father. Both of these she inclosed in a letter to her mother.It is needless to say that upon receipt of these letters in Willow Bend the Turck family fairly glowed. The old gentleman sent Angeline's letter to Harvey, accompanied by a stiff one of his own, and sent to Belleville a substantial addition to his daughter's quarterly allowance.As to Harvey Lowry, who has been much neglected, his own story deserves some attention now. When he had read the two letters he was a most perplexed young man. It had never occurred to him that to use his "I. L. Y." device a second time, or rather with a second girl, was anything out of the way, for, with allhis sentiment, Harvey was not insistent upon the finer shadings in the affairs of life, even when appertaining to the heart. He had really cared for Angeline, but he did not become a soured and disappointed man. Despite the "dissecting" letter, he and Angeline often met and spoke in later times, and when, finally, she married, and married well, there was none more gratified than he. Time tells in the village as much as it does elsewhere. Nothing could extract quite all the romance from the ingenious Harvey. After fluttering around the village beauties for a time he ended by marrying a sweet-tempered, freckled country girl, with whom he lives in great content in a small house, crowded now with jolly, freckled boys and girls. And here comes relation of something which shows how hard it is to eliminate the once implanted sentimental tendency. To this day, when the father of the freckled family has occasion to write to the mother, he invariably signs his letters:CHAPTER XXVITHE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRINGThe Young Lady was much applauded. Colonel Livingstone looked into Stafford's eyes, and was hesitant. Yet he still had something of the old masterly way about him, and he spoke out openly and very frankly. There is something about the United States army officer that is worth while. He rose to the occasion. The manner in which he rose to it was worthy of his occupation and rank. He said:"You have done things, my boy. You have bossed this train. You have brought to us a great engineering and overbearing quality."And the Colonel almost blushed in an affectionate sort of lapse. "And yet it may be that you expect to get away from me, Mr. Stafford. You have got to tell your own story before we escape from here through this soon to be open road that you have largely made for us. Tell us the story, Mr. Stafford."There are times when a strong man may be crushed, but it is rarely, save by thought of aa woman. Stafford looked slantwise up the aisle, and then with a look that was tell-tale in his eyes as he cast them toward Her, where she was sitting three or four seats away. He told the story ofTHE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRINGThis is not really more the story of the Pale Peacock and the Purple Herring than it is of John and Agnes, but that does not matter much, for the first account encompasses the second, in a way. What is chiefly curious is the difference, in point of view, between the Peacock and Herring, and the other two.Once there was a peacock. Never before was so beautiful a peacock as she. She was snow-white except as to her head and tail. Her appearance was something wonderful. From her head down to her shoulders the hues blended and flashed in iridescent green. Whenever she moved herself in the slightest degree there appeared a lighting in color passionately vivid. From about her neck and breast there shone what is known as a lambent flame which at times became tempestuous. So the neck and shoulders melted into the snow-white of the body, a restless glimmering ebbing into a milky way. It was just so with the tail.Well, this peacock was unlike other peacocks. She was not—eh?—she was not morbid, but she was solitary and reflective and intensely emotional and sentimental. Of course she had two feet and had a voice, but the less said of them the better. She would wander up and down by the lakeside and think of all that might be. She scarcely dreamed that there was to come to her what was her secret heart's desire, but in time it came. She met the Purple Herring. With each of them it was a case of infatuation at first sight.Now the Purple Herring was almost as much of an exceptional case as the Pale Peacock. He was the only purple herring in all the great lakes, and was practically the King of the Herrings, and was respected as such. Personally, he had in his nature many of the traits of the Pale Peacock. He, too, was emotional, faithful, and impassioned. They loved.Here was a most unfortunate situation. Naturally, the Purple Herring could not get along very well upon the land, and, naturally too, the Peacock could not flourish in the water. It was not exactly a case of Platonic love; it was a case of hopeless love, in a way, and yet, not altogether hopeless, for they were happy. Itcame to this, that they made the best of things, and that the Peacock, day after day, would wander along upon the sands which the water lapped, while the Herring would swim along beside her, and they would exchange tender confidences, and that, to amuse her, he would tell her tales, many tales, of the wonders of the vasty deep of the lake. He told her why the fish flies came in autumn and smeared the windows and made slippery the sidewalks of the great city; of how they lay in the mud at the bottom of the lake, like little short sticks, and then finally burst open and came to the surface and floated away into town. He told her of his talk with Mrs. Whitefish, and of how she did not think the spawn was getting along as well as usual. He told her of a thousand things, and they were happy.They often talked too, this united yet effectually separated pair, of what they saw upon the shores of the placid lake, whose creamy sands, outside the city, sloped down to the water's edge from green fields and waving groves.Many people walked along the sands, and children played and romped there all day. At sunset the Purple Herring began to look with special interest for the lovers who came in pairsand sat until late, talking, and sometimes in blissful silence while they listened to the soft lapping of the waves upon the shore.One day the Purple Herring told the Pale Peacock about one of these pairs of lovers, the only pair, he said, which were not happy."And I can't imagine why they are not, either," said the Purple Herring."Nor can I, although I have not yet heard all you know about them," said the Pale Peacock. "How two lovers who may live together forever, who are not kept from each other by such a fate as separates you and me—how men and women who love each other can be unhappy, is more than I can conjure up by any stretch of fancy!""Her name is Agnes," began the Purple Herring, "and when I first saw her she was walking slowly along the shore, back and forth, on a stretch of beach bordering the great park at the head of the lake. The sky was red after sunset, and in the southwest hung the new moon, with a great star over it. She was a beautiful lady, but she looked perplexed and a little sad even on that first evening. I did not notice the perplexity and sorrow on her sweet face at the time, but afterward I remembered it."Suddenly her face was all lighted up bysome light that was not of the western sky, nor of the little bent moon, nor the great star. Her eyes shone, her cheeks became pink like the inside of a pink shell, and I looked where her eyes were turned. I saw a man walking rapidly toward her, and I thought, 'Only another pair of lovers!'"But this was no common pair; I could not leave them, they were so strangely attractive. Their voices thrilled me as I heard them. I could feel all around the vibrations of deep emotion, electrical, disturbing, and enchanting. The lady began their conversation:"'The day has been so long!' she said. 'And our time together is so short!' the man replied."They did not touch each other. They did not even take each other's hands. They only walked slowly along the shore, side by side, yet I and all the world had but to see them to know that they were lovers."'Agnes,' the man said, 'how happy the men and women are who have a home together! I would not care how humble the roof was that sheltered you and me. How glad I would be to work for you, to plan, and in every way live for you—even now I live only for you!—but what a joy it would be if it could all be with you!'"'Do not speak of it, John,' the woman said, and her voice trembled."'How many there are,' the man continued, passionately, 'how many there are who are chained together, straining both at the chain! They would be free, and cannot. Their dwelling-place is no home. They fret and sting each other, while you and I—""'John!' the lady interrupted him."'Forgive me!' he said, his tone suddenly changing. 'I can see you but for a few minutes, and I proceed to make you miserable! Forgive me! Tell me about yourself—what you are thinking, what you are reading. Has the white rose blossomed in your garden? How is my friend Rex, and why didn't you bring him with you?'"She answered first about the dog, Rex, and then their talk grew uninteresting, or it grew late, so that I became sleepy; I don't know which, but soon they parted, and, would you believe it? the man didn't even kiss her once, nor touch her hand!"I saw this strange couple many times again during that clear bright June weather, and sometimes I heard their talk. There was always something about it that made me think of heat-lightning, with a mystery of earnestness even in their light banter and play of talk."You must have observed that these human creatures often mean things they do not say, and yet contrive that the sense shall show through their misleading words. These two often talked lightly and laughed together, but there was ever an undercurrent of feeling of such deepness and power as I could not comprehend; its mystery almost irritated me."One day—it was at night—not a living soul was to be seen on the sands as the two came walking toward me. They came swiftly as if they would walk into the water, but stopped there at its edge—and I listened, fascinated by their tense faces, and deep low voices."'We must do what is right,' the man was saying. 'Honor binds you, and it binds me. We must not play with fire. I have taken the step which parts us.'"'So soon!' said she."'None too soon!' the man protested. Then he burst out, as if he could not keep what came like a torrent from his lips."'Help me! help me! We must decide and act together! I cannot leave you without your help!'"The lady turned her face from him for a moment. She looked away across the water, and the tears which had started to her eyes seemed as if commanded not to fall. Pale she was, pale was her face, and with the look of ice with snow upon it. Her voice, when she turned to him again, did not seem like her voice—the sound of it made him start."'You are right,' she said, 'Good-bye. God bless you!'"'Agnes!' the man cried, as she turned away."'Go,' she answered."The man looked at her as if to fix her image upon his soul forever, and said, repeating her words: 'Good-bye, God bless you!'"Then he walked quickly off into the park, and away, never looking back. The lady sank down on a seat by the water's edge. For a long time I watched her, and she did not move. When, finally, she arose and walked away, I felt that I was seeing her, and I also had seen the man, for the last time. And so it was. I have watched for them in vain. The man has gone to the ends of the earth. That I know by the look on his face and hers. She will never see him again, nor will she walk by these waters where she used towalk with him. But why? That is what puzzles me!""What fools these mortals be!" said the Pale Peacock, without the least idea that any one else had ever before made that remark.Pale Death with even tread knocks at the threshold of rich and poor. "Pallida mors æquam pulsat," etc. One day the Purple Herring died, and the Pale Peacock suffered as suffer those who love and are bereaved. Little cared she for longer life, and she wanted to pine away. She went to a policeman on the corner, and said: "Tell me how to pine.""What now! What now!" said the policeman and he gave her no assistance.But she must pine. She wanted to pine away. She wandered on and met the Cream-Colored Cat, and to her she told her tale. Now, the Cream-Colored Cat had herself learned to pine, having lost her loving mistress, and, being of an affable and affectionate nature, she at once revealed the secret of pining to the Pale Peacock, and they joined forces and pined together. And they pined, and they pined, and they pined. They pined until they became a Sublimated Substance—(just what a Sublimated Substance is does not matter in thisstory)—and they pined along until they became something so intangible they were almost like a little fog; that is, they were like a young fog, for as a fog gets older and begins to dissipate, it gets thinner, so that the younger a fog is, the thicker it is. Finally it becomes a vapor. And they became what may be called an Evanescent Vapor, until all was lost in the Empyrean. And the souls of the Pale Peacock and the Purple Herring were at last commingled.Perhaps it was so in the end with the souls of John and Agnes.CHAPTER XXVIITHE RELEASEAs Stafford concluded his fanciful, dreamy but, seemingly, from his manner, most earnest story, the Far Away Lady gave him a single appealing glance and then arose and departed for her own car. As she passed he saw that there were tears in her eyes. They did not speak nor did they meet again that day, but he was resolved to breakfast with her in the morning.Morning opened brilliantly and as he entered the dining car, at the time he knew she would be there, he saw that the sun which had but just climbed lazily above the mountain tops, was engaged in the task of gilding her hair. He advanced with more courage than he had on the first occasion."Good morning, the world is in a good humor to-day, is it not," was his comment as he took his seat. "Have you noticed that the sun, whose business it is to indicate the world's moods, has leaped through the window and isplaying with your head when he isn't dancing on the table-cloth?"She looked up smilingly, but before she could answer, there came an interruption. The door of the car opened and there stalked up to them the big conductor, owner of the stubby red moustache, with a look in his eyes which indicated that he had swift remarks to make. He broke out promptly: "Mr. Stafford, you are wanted at the wire, and, you bet, there's something doing."Pleasant to the looker-on, as to them, are the relations and understandings regarding the little side issues and incidents of life between a man and woman of intelligence and education when they are in love with each other, even though that love must be repressed and unexpressed. The interjection of the conductor was delightful to the woman in this case, because it was an involuntary compliment to the man opposite her at the table. It was the breaking in of a fine hireling upon the man of brains and accomplishments, the call upon him for aid in this time of casual need. Stafford's heart danced as he caught the look, because he recognized its full significance.And then as he rose he grinned, because he saw that the conductor was evidently in trouble. His face indicated that. There was one appreciative look into the face of the smiling woman and then he went out to deal as he might with the existing condition of affairs. He rather enjoyed these frequent interviews with the coming saviors. They had a smart operator at the other end of the wire and, as he had learned, the boss of the rescuing train was assuredly a railroad man of might and much acuteness. They had, as already told, indulged in a verbal brush or two. Connection was made and the first thing Stafford got was:"Can't you chumps do anything over there?""Do anything!" was Stafford's reply. "Do anything! We are a dead train, lying helpless, with our nose stuck into four hundred thousand million feet of packed snow! What are you doing, yourselves, with all the engines you want and a snow-plow, and all the men you want? It strikes me that as butters-in you are about the worst existing."And then from the boss of the rescuing train Stafford listened to clicked language the recollection of which was ever afterward among the delights of his life. It referred to his personalcharacter and to his ancestry and to a large variety of things besides. It was an admirable effort, an oration trimmed with red exclusively.And Stafford, understanding that something would, naturally, be expected of him in return, cut loose with his own store of expletives. His four years' absence from the country had left him somewhat deficient in modern Americanisms, but, during that time, as became a man handling lazy coolies, he had acquired a stock of Orientalisms that were not altogether without merit, and these he launched at the gentleman with whom he was engaged in conversation.Evidently the man at the other end was delighted, for this was his reply:"I don't know who you are who appear to be running things over there, but you seem to have some stuff in you.""That's all right," said Stafford, "but we've got some curiosity over here. What have you got for a snow-plow, anyhow—a mowing-machine, or a reaper?""We'll show you, my child! Oh, we'll show you! And I've got some mighty good news for you. Things are doing. We've thrown away the trinket we've been trying to use, becausewe've just got a new snow-plow from the East. She's a monster, and a beauty of the new style. Why, she just lives on snow—wants a mountain of it for breakfast, two for dinner, another for supper, throws away what she doesn't eat, and throws it a mile! She's eating her way toward you now, and she's eating mighty fast. She was hungrier than usual to-day. Watch our smoke, that is if you can see it above the snow she throws, and we're making lots of smoke, too. We'll save your sinful bodies, if we can't your souls, this very day. Get ready for moving. We'll be with you somewhere between one and four o'clock. Good-by."Stafford gave a whoop—he couldn't help it—and imparted the good news to those about him. In no time it was all over the train, and then, to the accompaniment of satisfied exclamations, there was bustle and a gathering together of things everywhere, for during the long wait there had been much scattering of personal belongings. This was a business soon accomplished, to be followed by a period of excited waiting.It was almost precisely three o'clock when the prisoners, listening like those at Lucknow, heard, faint and far beyond the snowdrifts,something like the piper's blast. It was the distant triumphant whoop of a locomotive. Nearer and more loudly it approached and, presently, in the distance, could be perceived dimly a column of smoke. The advance was not rapid, as a matter of course, but neither was it very slow, and, at last, the whooping monster was in sight, or, rather, not the monster itself, but a cloud of smoke in front of which, swirling, and dense, was a roaring snowstorm. The end was nearly reached. The relief train, its engineers still overworking their whistles, came on, the snow-plow still doing its fierce work, until the two trains stood there close together, the nozzle of the locomotive resting against the snow-plow lovingly.There was a scramble of people from the train so long imprisoned as there was also from the rescuing train, and there followed a general time of hand-shaking and congratulation. Stafford had the pleasure of meeting the train boss with whom he had been talking in the morning, and took a fancy to that rugged and accomplished civil engineer and railroad man at once, as evidently did the other man to him. Then came business. The boss explained the situation:"You are in our way. We have work to do in behind you, and we can't pass you. We've got to get you back to the siding, about ten miles from here. We'll have to haul you, I suppose. Have you any coal?""Not ten pounds," was the answer of the engineer of the rescued train. "Used it all up, and mighty carefully, too, for heat. Been using bushes for wood. Another day and there'd have been trouble. Lucky it hasn't been very cold.""Yes, we expected that, and can supply you. We've a flat car load along. We'll haul you back to the siding and get the coal on there. It's the only way."The coupling was made, the slow retreat of the rescuing train to the siding, taking over an hour, accomplished, as was the transfer of coal and water, with great difficulty and much work of trainmen, and, at last, the train from San Francisco was itself again. It moved forward, its passengers cheering the train on the side track which was also pulling out, but toward the West. The episode was over. Upon the rear platform of the last car as the train drew eastward stood, all alone, the big blonde porter.The train was whirling toward Denver.There was a great reunion after supper, presided over by Colonel Livingston, of course, to celebrate, as the Young Lady expressed it, their providential escape from the largest island of Juan Fernandez in the world, but the Far Away Lady was not present. Stafford wondered, and was restless and disappointed. As time wore on, he could not endure it very well, and, withdrawing quietly, went forward to her car, adjoining. What he saw as he entered—and the sight gladdened him, for he feared that she had retired—was the lady sitting alone by the window, still, and apparently dreaming. He advanced and seated himself beside her. She looked at him and smiled, but said nothing."Why are you not in the Cassowary with all the rest?" he asked. "They are rejoicing."She made no answer to his question: "I hope you are happy, John," she said gently. "I heard of your marriage to the American girl at the legation in St. Petersburg, and I prayed that"—but she never finished the sentence."Wh-a-t!" gasped Stafford, "Married! I—What the—"—and he almost forgot himself, this man fresh from handling coolies—then more gently and most sadly: "Agnes, youshould have known better! Oh, you should have known better! There was a Stafford married there, it is true, a relation of mine, a cousin. It was through him I made my Russian connection—but, Agnes, how could you! Did you think there was room in my heart for another woman, and so soon? But women are strange creatures," he concluded bitterly.She could not answer him at first, though the light which came into her face should have represented courage; she could but murmur brokenly:"Forgive me. You must do that—but, oh, John, what could I think? It all seemed so assured. And I was half insane, and doubting all the world. And now, now you have made me very happy. I cannot tell you"—and she failed, weakly, for words.Every thought and impulse of the man changed on the moment. A great wave of tenderness swept over him:"Forgive you? Of course I do," he said impetuously, "I can understand. Poor girl, you must have suffered. Who wouldn't at the unveiling of such a man?" Then came the more regardful thought:
"A DOZEN OR MORE NESTS WERE FOUND"
"A DOZEN OR MORE NESTS WERE FOUND"
Time passed and all went well until one afternoon, looking through the one small opening to the glade which gave a view of the distant hillside field, I saw distinctly the form of a man. He was chopping, and something about the figure and its movements reminded me irresistibly of our hired man, Eben Westbrook. What could it mean?
Happy am I to turn to a subject more exhilarating—to a novel incident in our forest life. One day Chickum and the twins went berrying in the direction of our former home, venturing—as we rarely did—even as far as the wooded lot. They were in the midst of the hazel and blackberry bushes when there was a sudden cackle and flutter in the undergrowth, and a cry from Jörgensen which brought Chickum hurriedly to the scene. What he saw caused the impetuous youth to shout with joy. There, beneath a bush,was the nest of a hen,Gallina Americana, and in it were no less than seven eggs. Berrying was suspended promptly, and all the eggs save one were transferred to the pail, and then began a wild search for more. It was well rewarded. A dozen or more nests were found, the spoil of which was added to that already secured. It was a great discovery.
A prouder trio than entered Hemlock Castle that evening, bringing their burden of eggs, could not be conceived by any sort of person, nor could any imagine a more enthusiastic reception than was accorded them. Not only were we now relieved from immediate danger of a food famine, but the variation in diet was good for all of us. There was a most riotous consumption of eggs for days, until a startling tendency toward biliousness, exhibited by little Krag, induced me to counsel greater moderation. So many eggs, coupled with Abyssinia's bread, were necessarily trying to the system. It was now that Chickum developed a great idea. He proposed to capture a number of the fowls, bring them to Haven Glade, and there establish a hennery.
The proposition was received with general approbation, and next day the construction ofthe hennery was begun. It was not a difficult task which faced us. Since the fowls must have gravel and water, it was decided that the hennery should extend a little into the creek, and close beside its sloping bank the structure was erected. There but remained the capture of the fowls, and Chickum was riotous over the prospect. He announced his ability to catch a dozen chickens in a single day, and with the assistance of Krag and Jörgensen he made good his boast, the three running down into the bushes and bringing home just the number of hens he had promised.
Our life continued in its placid way until one night, when a tremendous commotion in the chicken-house caused both Chickum and me to rush out to the rescue. Chickum had seized the carving-knife as usual, and I a handy bludgeon. As we neared the place some dark-colored animal clambered hurriedly up the side of the enclosure, and as its head appeared through a hole in the roof I dealt it a heavy blow and it fell stunned. Chickum descended through an opening in the roof and the animal was put out of its misery. It resembled a miniature bear, save that its color was grayish and that it possessed a long and remarkably ringed tail. I at once recognized thecommon raccoon,Procyon lotor, and made an address to the others upon its many curious traits and habits of life. One of the hens was found killed. A day or two later there entered from the water side an enemy which we saw on two or three occasions but could not destroy nor capture. It proved to be the fur-producing animal known as a mink,Putorius vison. Within a week we had not a single fowl alive. All had fallen before the rapacity of this bloodthirsty creature. Hunger stared us in the face!
How nearly am I approaching now to the end of this narrative of trial and adventure! How vividly recall themselves to me the scenes of one fateful afternoon! There had not been a storm since before our occupancy of Hemlock Castle, and almost a drought prevailed throughout the country. But a change was near at hand. There came an afternoon, airless, close and heavy until near evening. Then white clouds appeared in the west, growing rapidly into woolly mountains. Soon these assumed a darker hue, and a great wind arose before which the sturdiest trees were bent, while an awful roar resounded through the forest. A darkness came upon everything, and we huddled in the shelter of Hemlock Castle, even Chickum alarmed,Abyssinia crying, and the twins in an agony of terror. The rain began to fall in such torrents as I had never known before. Now the wind increased almost to a hurricane, and a sudden blast carried away the roof of our house as if it had been a thing of paper. In a moment we were wetted to the skin. The creek became a spreading torrent which swept away the ruins of our house just as we had barely escaped from it. In the darkness we clambered blindly toward the ridge, when I heard a loud shout near us and recognized the voice of Eben Westbrook. Never did human voice sound sweeter! "Hurry!" he shouted, "Hurry home!" and came rushing up to seize the hands of Krag and Jörgensen and take the lead. Wet and bedraggled we hurried on, over the ridge, into the open, across the hazel country, across the Wooded Pasture, across the creek, up through the kitchen garden, and into the house by way of the kitchen door. A fateful moment had arrived.
I felt something in my throat, but I did not shrink. I had decided what I would say. I would naught extenuate, but would fall back upon the theory of the sacredness of human rights. My address was not to receive a hearing.
Our parents were about sitting down to theevening meal, and, to my surprise, our plates lay all in their accustomed places, as if we had not been absent for a day. My father looked up and nodded cheerfully and mother only said: "You'd better all go up and get dry clothes on before you eat." The hired girl peeked in from a side of the kitchen door and drew her head back suddenly with a gulp. Eben Westbrook maintained what I have heard called in relation to others an impassive countenance. We went up, changed our clothes, and all came downstairs together. What a meal it was! There was not much conversation, though father mentioned something about the beginning of the school term. How Krag and Jörgensen did eat! But oh, the incomprehensible apathy of Parents!
THE LOWRY-TURCK ENTANGLEMENT
The interesting story of "The Swiss Family Robertson" told and the usual comment made, the Colonel, still beaming, turned to the Young Lady.
"Will you please tell us something?" he said.
And her reply to him was very simple and graceful;
"I can at least tell you about the 'Lowry-Turck Entanglement,' for I was familiar with the circumstances." Then she continued:
THE LOWRY-TURCK ENTANGLEMENT
Apropos of the affair of Harvey Lowry and Angeline Turck, as also apropos of many other affairs of similar nature, it is very much to be feared that one of the proverbs is unreliable. "Necessity is the mother of invention" comes off the tongue glibly enough, but why "mother"? What rules the camp, the court, the grove, and what makes the world go around? Whatbut love, and is not Love, when personified, a male? And has he not been the cause of more inventions than have all others combined? Certainly it was he who suggested an invention of the Lowry-Turck love affair. He is Necessity disguised; and he is not a mother.
Of course Love need not grumble. He is no worse off than are other fathers. If a boy becomes famous in the world the fact is attributed to his noble mother; if he becomes infamous, the community says, "Like father, like son"—which is hardly fair. Fathers are useful. Not only did every person who ever invented anything have a father, but without the father romance would be robbed of one of its most useful and steadfast figures. These remarks, prefacing a love story, may be didactic and ponderous and prosy, but they are true.
It is true, as well, that, though this is a love story pure and simple, Mr. Turck, the father in the case, may, in a sense, be looked upon as among the characters who belong to the world of romance, for he was the very personification of one accepted type of parent in love stories, being perverse, tyrannical and hard-hearted, looking upon lovers as the ranchman does on wolves, and resolved to keep hisdaughter to himself indefinitely. He had a red face, tufts of side whiskers which grew out nearly at right angles, and a bellowing voice which would have made his fortune as skipper of a sailing craft in noisy seas. It was, perhaps, such men as Mr. Turck who brought the father into disrepute before the first romance was written, and there is little doubt, too, that it has been such daughters as Angeline Turck who have innocently aggravated the father's already uncertain temper and thus made his name the byword it has become—in fiction.
Angeline, at the time this affair began, was seventeen and completely sovereign over the heart of Harvey Lowry—to quote from one of the young gentleman's letters to the young lady herself. They had been in love six months, according to Angeline's computation, seven, according to that of Harvey; but naturally, he had been first to feel and feed the flame. Harvey, though successful in his suit, was not, in personal appearance, the ideal lover for a girl of Angeline's age—that is, he was not tall, nor dark, nor haughty of mien. On the contrary, he was short, fair and round-faced, and had a thoroughly business-like demeanor. He looked like a young man whosesoul was all in the profit on a next shipment of barrel-hoops, or something, when, in truth, he had endless romantic fancies. In his sentiment lay his charm, and it was to this quality that, as she came to know him well, the fair Angeline had completely yielded. There had been a declaration of love and no refusal, but as yet no formal engagement existed. That, it was mutually understood, must come later, the delay being attributable to certain obstacles of a financial nature. Meanwhile the time passed most pleasantly. There were meetings where Harvey said things calculated to touch the heart, and there was much letter-writing. It was this last which wrecked the air-castle.
One evening when Angeline's parents were alone, Mr. Turck startled his wife by demanding suddenly:
"What's that young Lowry coming here so much for? I don't like it!"
Mrs. Turck replied mildly that she supposed Mr. Lowry came chiefly to see Angeline. She saw nothing very wrong in that. He was said to be a steady young man, and, of course, Angeline must have harmless company occasionally.
"I don't care whether he's steady or not. He's coming here too much. Don't tell me anything about 'harmless company!' He's after Angeline, and I won't have it! I'll look into this thing!" And Mr. Turck gave utterance to a sound which may be indifferently described as a determined snort. Mrs. Turck understood it, and looked for trouble of some sort in the near future. She had reason.
The evening before, Harvey, after leaving the house, had kissed Angeline's hand at the garden gate. It had been at this electrical moment that Mr. Turck looked out of the sitting-room window, instead of attending to his newspaper as he should have done, and noted the two forms showing dimly through the gathering shade. He did not distinctly see the kiss, but something in the movement was vaguely reminiscent to him. His suspicions were aroused. He had called harshly to Angeline to come in and go to her mother, and she had obeyed, while Harvey melted away into the summer night, after the manner of lovers who have attracted the paternal eye. Neither of the two was much disturbed. There was a glow in the heart of each, a glow too deep to be affected by an ominousword or two. Yet this episode had led to Mr. Turck's outbreak before his wife.
The first blow fell early. Before two more days had passed Mr. Turck had broken out at the breakfast table and had forbidden Angeline to have any further relations of any sort with Harvey Lowry. She must not speak to him. There were tears and quite a scene. Even the subdued Mrs. Turck ventured to say a word, and asked what Angeline could do when meeting Harvey on the street? To this only the curt reply was given that "a dignified bow" was enough. It was rather hard. The old gentleman did not know it, his meek wife did not suspect it, and Angeline would never have believed it, but the truth is, if Angeline's life had depended on the making of a dignified bow, it would have been short shrift for her. It must be regretfully admitted that in the village of Willow Bend the bow, as practiced by maids alike, was such a casual bob of the head as conveyed not the remotest conception of any dignity. It may have been a fact that this Arcadian bob was subject to modification among the elders, but that does not matter. The father, looking upon Angeline's meek face and recognizing the accustomed submission in hiswife's eyes, felt that he had done a fit and becoming morning's work, and drank his coffee calmly, while Angeline trifled sadly with her spoon and looked dumbly out of the nearest window.
That evening Lowry called, and was told by the servant maid who met him at the door that he could not enter. The young man understood well enough that this was under Mr. Turck's direction, and went away less dispirited than he might have been. The next day Mrs. Turck, who feared to do otherwise, brought to the lord of the house a tinted piece of folded paper, which proved to be a letter from Harvey to the again suspiciously rosy Angeline. This dangerous piece of Love's fighting gear had been detected by Mrs. Turck's eagle eye among the trifles on her daughter's work table. A charge direct, tears, expostulations, confession, and the delivery of the missive over to the enemy had followed swiftly. The hair stood upon the paternal head in disapproval as Mr. Turck held the pink letter between his thumb and forefinger and read it stridently aloud. After all, there was little in it to excite either anger or apprehension, for it was only an expression of hope that the writer could see Angeline thatevening at a little party at the home of a mutual friend, but, as with venomous insects, its sting was in its tail, for it was signed solely with these three letters: "I. L. Y."
Now, even Mr. Turck did not need to be told what the letters he described as "those infamous characters" signified. The world knows them. His wife, too, flushed when he showed them to her, and then, for once bridling a little at the "infamous," she reminded him that there was a time when Mr. Turck himself, as a matter of custom and daily habit, wrote those very characters at the end of all his letters; but, though for a moment embarrassed by this allusion, the husband only sniffed.
Angeline had a bad half hour over the "I. L. Y.," and the end was submission almost abject, for Mr. Turck would brook no half-way measures. The girl promised neither to write to nor read any letters from the young man so disapproved. In a sharp communication from Mr. Turck, Harvey Lowry was made to know the unpopularity of his epistolary efforts in the Turck household, and for a day or two apparently bowed his head to the paternal will. But who may comprehend the ways of a lover? One morning not a week after the "I. L. Y." affair, Mr. Turck saw anothersuspicious-looking envelope in the bundle of letters he carried home from the post-office at luncheon time. He looked hard at Angeline's face when she opened the letter at the table and noted there was an expression of confusion and surprise. Without a word, he stretched out an authoritative hand, and, without a word, Angeline gave him the small, open sheet of heavy cream colored paper. This is what he saw, drawn with pen and ink, on the fair page:
Only that and nothing more.
It was now that Angeline's persecutions began in earnest. She was questioned, and threatened, and bullied, and coaxed, but she would not tell the meaning of those four lines drawn upon that virgin page, and sent to her in an envelope addressed in the handwriting of Harvey Lowry. In truth, the poor girl did not know, and could not guess, what the thing meant, herself. Denial tears, supplication—all were of no avail. Mr. Turck would not believe his daughter. He held the drawing upside down, sideways, and then almost horizontal, as one does in reading where the letters are purposely made tall and thin, but he could make nothing of it, and raged the more at his incompetence. "It looks a little like a side plan of a room," he muttered to himself, "butit isn't complete. Have the fools arranged to run away and are they planning a house already?" The idea was too much for him. He seized his hat and went forth for advice.
Mr. Turck was in the office of Baldison, a contractor and builder, within five minutes. "Here, Baldison," he bellowed as he came in, "what is this? Is it part of a plan of a house, or, if not, what is it?"
Mr. Baldison was a cautious man, and, taking the paper, he examined the connected lines long and deliberately. His comment, when he made it, was not entirely satisfying.
"It might be part of a side plan of one story," he said, "but it ain't finished. There's only one brace in, and the cross beam is lacking. If it wasn't for the left-hand upright, I should say it was part of a swing-crane, but the pulley isn't strung. I don't know what it is. Who made it?"
But Mr. Turck did not go into particulars. He left Baldison's place and studied out the problem in his own office; he went out again and asked in vain the opinion of a dozen men, and he went home that evening baffled and in a frame of mind of which the less said the better. Within twenty-four hours Angeline was packed off to the Misses Cutlet's boarding-school indistant Belleville, to be "finished," as her mother described it. The irate father used other and far less becoming words.
This shifting of the scene when, to her, so much of importance was involved, was a most serious thing to Angeline. But it might have been much worse than it proved at the school. Plump Bessey Payton, another girl from Willow Bend, was there, and it was easily so arranged that the two occupied adjoining rooms. They had been friends for years, and the renewed companionship was much for Angeline. It aided in partial distraction.
And now this story, which has been—from an ordinary point of view—little more than a comedy, develops into something very like a tragedy. It was so to a young girl, at least. The Misses Cutlet had been instructed to keep a sharp eye open, and report, as well as they might, upon the quantity of Angeline's correspondence. They had little to tell. Angeline received few letters, and none frequently from any one person, so far as could be learned from the envelopes addressed to her. The parents were content.
And Angeline really had no correspondence with Harvey Lowry. She was a young woman who would keep her word, and she did notwrite to him, while from him came no message save an occasional envelope containing only a slip of paper upon which appeared the mysterious symbol. But was not that enough? Did it not indicate that she was still in his heart, and that he would be always hers? Those lines must have a meaning, and though she could not translate them, she felt it was only because Harvey had forgotten that he had never given her the key. What of that? She knew instinctively that the story they told was one of faith and faithfulness. How delicate of him, and how thoughtful that such loving reminder should come at times, and how wonderful it was that he should have invented such a thing for her dear sake alone! Her love grew with the months, and so, unfortunately, despite the letters with the reassuring figure, did her unhappiness.
It is perhaps unreasonable that we should laugh at the loves of the young, at what we call "calf love" in the male, and a "schoolgirl's fancy" in the maiden, for the springs of the heart do not always deepen with the years. Well for youth is it that it owns such wonderfully recuperative forces of mind and body; sad would it be to the elders if, withoutsuch recuperative powers, their feelings were given such abandonment. Youth's hurts are sometimes serious. Angeline was growing from the subjugated girl into the suffering woman. Other young women, she reasoned, were allowed to love and to marry the men of their choice. Why should she be made so cruel an exception? She idealized the absent, as the loving, so often do. In her mind, Harvey Lowry had grown from one for whom she cared more than for others into a hero without a flaw, one thoughtful, considerate, self-denying and altogether noble. The sentimental vein in her nature broadened and deepened, and she placed a greater value on the sweet reminder of the mysterious figures in the letters. And all for her! How constant he was, and how hard the lot of both of them! She became feverish and impatient. Her studies lost all interest, her cheeks became paler, thinner, her manner more languid. It could not last.
So the months went by until the end of the scholastic year was close at hand. Angeline would soon be in Willow Bend again and with her parents. She would meet Harvey Lowry again—that was inevitable. What would the near vacation bring to her? she asked herself.She was growing stubborn now. The portentous figure of her father no longer loomed so highly in her eyes as formerly, and she was the decided woman, with a woman's heart and will, and a woman's rights. What might be the summer's history!
Accidents—as thoughtful people are much given to remark—have sometimes great effect on the affairs of human beings.
One day as Angeline, visiting her friend, stood looking at her still agreeable image in Bess' mirror, she saw, stuck in the frame, among cards, notes and photographs, a square of yellowish paper. The coloring seemed to have come from age, but of that Angeline made no note. All she saw or knew was that the paper bore this mystic sign upon it:
For a moment or two the girl stood motionless. Power of speech and movement were gone. Then, "Bess," she called tremblingly; "what is this?" and she held out the paper for inspection.
"That? Oh, that is from Harvey Lowry," said Bess composedly.
"But, oh, Bess," cried the girl excitedly, "what does it mean?"
"Can't you guess?" was the reply.
"No, I can't," was the slow answer, "and—and I've seen it before."
The careless Bess was aroused now, and there was a flash in her black eyes. "How dare Harvey Lowry have sent one of those to any one else?" she broke out impetuously, but her excitement was only momentary. She began to laugh. "Well, it was a good while ago, after all." And so her anger vanished.
Angeline was recovering herself, though with an effort. "But tell me—tell me what it means," she demanded.
"Why, you stupid girl!" was the reply. "I guessed it in the first ten minutes—and once we signed all our letters with it. Now, see here," and she took paper and pencil and drew a perpendicular mark, thus:
"That is 'I' isn't it? Well then, I'll put on this mark," and she added a line horizontally, making this figure:
"That's an 'L' you see. Next, to make your 'Y,' you put on this"—she made two added marks—"and you have this:
"There's your 'I. L. Y.' sign!"
Angeline was stunned. Never was a dreamdispelled so suddenly and harshly. Not for her had that mystic figure been devised, but for another, and it had been utilized a second time, as if there were no sacredness to such things! It mattered not how much Harvey Lowry might be interested in her now, she was but a sort of second-hand girl. Anger took the place of her unhappiness. "Delicate and thoughtful," indeed! To send those reassuring notes to her was now but a cheap impertinence! She had been accustomed, in her pity of herself, to quote something from Shakespeare which seemed to her to have a peculiarly sad and fitting application: "Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep which thou owed'st yesterday!"
Here were poppy and mandragora and syrups enough, all administered in one rude prescription, as to the efficacy of which there could be no shadow of a doubt!
Somehow the brooding and disappointed woman seemed to melt away now, and there reappeared the impulsive girl again. It was an angry girl, though. Her first grief over—and it lasted but for a day—she resolved upon an epistolary feat of her own. She wrote threeletters. The first was to Harvey Lowry. It was not quite, but nearly, as school-girlish as she might have written a year earlier, being distinctly of the "'tis better thus" variety and "coldly dissecting," as she afterwards said in confidence to a bosom friend. In it she bade her admirer an eternal farewell, notwithstanding the fact that they must inevitably see each other every day in the week as soon as she returned to Willow Bend. This labored epistle she placed in another, of a meek and lowly tenor, to her father. Both of these she inclosed in a letter to her mother.
It is needless to say that upon receipt of these letters in Willow Bend the Turck family fairly glowed. The old gentleman sent Angeline's letter to Harvey, accompanied by a stiff one of his own, and sent to Belleville a substantial addition to his daughter's quarterly allowance.
As to Harvey Lowry, who has been much neglected, his own story deserves some attention now. When he had read the two letters he was a most perplexed young man. It had never occurred to him that to use his "I. L. Y." device a second time, or rather with a second girl, was anything out of the way, for, with allhis sentiment, Harvey was not insistent upon the finer shadings in the affairs of life, even when appertaining to the heart. He had really cared for Angeline, but he did not become a soured and disappointed man. Despite the "dissecting" letter, he and Angeline often met and spoke in later times, and when, finally, she married, and married well, there was none more gratified than he. Time tells in the village as much as it does elsewhere. Nothing could extract quite all the romance from the ingenious Harvey. After fluttering around the village beauties for a time he ended by marrying a sweet-tempered, freckled country girl, with whom he lives in great content in a small house, crowded now with jolly, freckled boys and girls. And here comes relation of something which shows how hard it is to eliminate the once implanted sentimental tendency. To this day, when the father of the freckled family has occasion to write to the mother, he invariably signs his letters:
THE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRING
The Young Lady was much applauded. Colonel Livingstone looked into Stafford's eyes, and was hesitant. Yet he still had something of the old masterly way about him, and he spoke out openly and very frankly. There is something about the United States army officer that is worth while. He rose to the occasion. The manner in which he rose to it was worthy of his occupation and rank. He said:
"You have done things, my boy. You have bossed this train. You have brought to us a great engineering and overbearing quality."
And the Colonel almost blushed in an affectionate sort of lapse. "And yet it may be that you expect to get away from me, Mr. Stafford. You have got to tell your own story before we escape from here through this soon to be open road that you have largely made for us. Tell us the story, Mr. Stafford."
There are times when a strong man may be crushed, but it is rarely, save by thought of aa woman. Stafford looked slantwise up the aisle, and then with a look that was tell-tale in his eyes as he cast them toward Her, where she was sitting three or four seats away. He told the story of
THE PALE PEACOCK AND THE PURPLE HERRING
This is not really more the story of the Pale Peacock and the Purple Herring than it is of John and Agnes, but that does not matter much, for the first account encompasses the second, in a way. What is chiefly curious is the difference, in point of view, between the Peacock and Herring, and the other two.
Once there was a peacock. Never before was so beautiful a peacock as she. She was snow-white except as to her head and tail. Her appearance was something wonderful. From her head down to her shoulders the hues blended and flashed in iridescent green. Whenever she moved herself in the slightest degree there appeared a lighting in color passionately vivid. From about her neck and breast there shone what is known as a lambent flame which at times became tempestuous. So the neck and shoulders melted into the snow-white of the body, a restless glimmering ebbing into a milky way. It was just so with the tail.
Well, this peacock was unlike other peacocks. She was not—eh?—she was not morbid, but she was solitary and reflective and intensely emotional and sentimental. Of course she had two feet and had a voice, but the less said of them the better. She would wander up and down by the lakeside and think of all that might be. She scarcely dreamed that there was to come to her what was her secret heart's desire, but in time it came. She met the Purple Herring. With each of them it was a case of infatuation at first sight.
Now the Purple Herring was almost as much of an exceptional case as the Pale Peacock. He was the only purple herring in all the great lakes, and was practically the King of the Herrings, and was respected as such. Personally, he had in his nature many of the traits of the Pale Peacock. He, too, was emotional, faithful, and impassioned. They loved.
Here was a most unfortunate situation. Naturally, the Purple Herring could not get along very well upon the land, and, naturally too, the Peacock could not flourish in the water. It was not exactly a case of Platonic love; it was a case of hopeless love, in a way, and yet, not altogether hopeless, for they were happy. Itcame to this, that they made the best of things, and that the Peacock, day after day, would wander along upon the sands which the water lapped, while the Herring would swim along beside her, and they would exchange tender confidences, and that, to amuse her, he would tell her tales, many tales, of the wonders of the vasty deep of the lake. He told her why the fish flies came in autumn and smeared the windows and made slippery the sidewalks of the great city; of how they lay in the mud at the bottom of the lake, like little short sticks, and then finally burst open and came to the surface and floated away into town. He told her of his talk with Mrs. Whitefish, and of how she did not think the spawn was getting along as well as usual. He told her of a thousand things, and they were happy.
They often talked too, this united yet effectually separated pair, of what they saw upon the shores of the placid lake, whose creamy sands, outside the city, sloped down to the water's edge from green fields and waving groves.
Many people walked along the sands, and children played and romped there all day. At sunset the Purple Herring began to look with special interest for the lovers who came in pairsand sat until late, talking, and sometimes in blissful silence while they listened to the soft lapping of the waves upon the shore.
One day the Purple Herring told the Pale Peacock about one of these pairs of lovers, the only pair, he said, which were not happy.
"And I can't imagine why they are not, either," said the Purple Herring.
"Nor can I, although I have not yet heard all you know about them," said the Pale Peacock. "How two lovers who may live together forever, who are not kept from each other by such a fate as separates you and me—how men and women who love each other can be unhappy, is more than I can conjure up by any stretch of fancy!"
"Her name is Agnes," began the Purple Herring, "and when I first saw her she was walking slowly along the shore, back and forth, on a stretch of beach bordering the great park at the head of the lake. The sky was red after sunset, and in the southwest hung the new moon, with a great star over it. She was a beautiful lady, but she looked perplexed and a little sad even on that first evening. I did not notice the perplexity and sorrow on her sweet face at the time, but afterward I remembered it.
"Suddenly her face was all lighted up bysome light that was not of the western sky, nor of the little bent moon, nor the great star. Her eyes shone, her cheeks became pink like the inside of a pink shell, and I looked where her eyes were turned. I saw a man walking rapidly toward her, and I thought, 'Only another pair of lovers!'
"But this was no common pair; I could not leave them, they were so strangely attractive. Their voices thrilled me as I heard them. I could feel all around the vibrations of deep emotion, electrical, disturbing, and enchanting. The lady began their conversation:
"'The day has been so long!' she said. 'And our time together is so short!' the man replied.
"They did not touch each other. They did not even take each other's hands. They only walked slowly along the shore, side by side, yet I and all the world had but to see them to know that they were lovers.
"'Agnes,' the man said, 'how happy the men and women are who have a home together! I would not care how humble the roof was that sheltered you and me. How glad I would be to work for you, to plan, and in every way live for you—even now I live only for you!—but what a joy it would be if it could all be with you!'
"'Do not speak of it, John,' the woman said, and her voice trembled.
"'How many there are,' the man continued, passionately, 'how many there are who are chained together, straining both at the chain! They would be free, and cannot. Their dwelling-place is no home. They fret and sting each other, while you and I—"
"'John!' the lady interrupted him.
"'Forgive me!' he said, his tone suddenly changing. 'I can see you but for a few minutes, and I proceed to make you miserable! Forgive me! Tell me about yourself—what you are thinking, what you are reading. Has the white rose blossomed in your garden? How is my friend Rex, and why didn't you bring him with you?'
"She answered first about the dog, Rex, and then their talk grew uninteresting, or it grew late, so that I became sleepy; I don't know which, but soon they parted, and, would you believe it? the man didn't even kiss her once, nor touch her hand!
"I saw this strange couple many times again during that clear bright June weather, and sometimes I heard their talk. There was always something about it that made me think of heat-lightning, with a mystery of earnestness even in their light banter and play of talk.
"You must have observed that these human creatures often mean things they do not say, and yet contrive that the sense shall show through their misleading words. These two often talked lightly and laughed together, but there was ever an undercurrent of feeling of such deepness and power as I could not comprehend; its mystery almost irritated me.
"One day—it was at night—not a living soul was to be seen on the sands as the two came walking toward me. They came swiftly as if they would walk into the water, but stopped there at its edge—and I listened, fascinated by their tense faces, and deep low voices.
"'We must do what is right,' the man was saying. 'Honor binds you, and it binds me. We must not play with fire. I have taken the step which parts us.'
"'So soon!' said she.
"'None too soon!' the man protested. Then he burst out, as if he could not keep what came like a torrent from his lips.
"'Help me! help me! We must decide and act together! I cannot leave you without your help!'
"The lady turned her face from him for a moment. She looked away across the water, and the tears which had started to her eyes seemed as if commanded not to fall. Pale she was, pale was her face, and with the look of ice with snow upon it. Her voice, when she turned to him again, did not seem like her voice—the sound of it made him start.
"'You are right,' she said, 'Good-bye. God bless you!'
"'Agnes!' the man cried, as she turned away.
"'Go,' she answered.
"The man looked at her as if to fix her image upon his soul forever, and said, repeating her words: 'Good-bye, God bless you!'
"Then he walked quickly off into the park, and away, never looking back. The lady sank down on a seat by the water's edge. For a long time I watched her, and she did not move. When, finally, she arose and walked away, I felt that I was seeing her, and I also had seen the man, for the last time. And so it was. I have watched for them in vain. The man has gone to the ends of the earth. That I know by the look on his face and hers. She will never see him again, nor will she walk by these waters where she used towalk with him. But why? That is what puzzles me!"
"What fools these mortals be!" said the Pale Peacock, without the least idea that any one else had ever before made that remark.
Pale Death with even tread knocks at the threshold of rich and poor. "Pallida mors æquam pulsat," etc. One day the Purple Herring died, and the Pale Peacock suffered as suffer those who love and are bereaved. Little cared she for longer life, and she wanted to pine away. She went to a policeman on the corner, and said: "Tell me how to pine."
"What now! What now!" said the policeman and he gave her no assistance.
But she must pine. She wanted to pine away. She wandered on and met the Cream-Colored Cat, and to her she told her tale. Now, the Cream-Colored Cat had herself learned to pine, having lost her loving mistress, and, being of an affable and affectionate nature, she at once revealed the secret of pining to the Pale Peacock, and they joined forces and pined together. And they pined, and they pined, and they pined. They pined until they became a Sublimated Substance—(just what a Sublimated Substance is does not matter in thisstory)—and they pined along until they became something so intangible they were almost like a little fog; that is, they were like a young fog, for as a fog gets older and begins to dissipate, it gets thinner, so that the younger a fog is, the thicker it is. Finally it becomes a vapor. And they became what may be called an Evanescent Vapor, until all was lost in the Empyrean. And the souls of the Pale Peacock and the Purple Herring were at last commingled.
Perhaps it was so in the end with the souls of John and Agnes.
THE RELEASE
As Stafford concluded his fanciful, dreamy but, seemingly, from his manner, most earnest story, the Far Away Lady gave him a single appealing glance and then arose and departed for her own car. As she passed he saw that there were tears in her eyes. They did not speak nor did they meet again that day, but he was resolved to breakfast with her in the morning.
Morning opened brilliantly and as he entered the dining car, at the time he knew she would be there, he saw that the sun which had but just climbed lazily above the mountain tops, was engaged in the task of gilding her hair. He advanced with more courage than he had on the first occasion.
"Good morning, the world is in a good humor to-day, is it not," was his comment as he took his seat. "Have you noticed that the sun, whose business it is to indicate the world's moods, has leaped through the window and isplaying with your head when he isn't dancing on the table-cloth?"
She looked up smilingly, but before she could answer, there came an interruption. The door of the car opened and there stalked up to them the big conductor, owner of the stubby red moustache, with a look in his eyes which indicated that he had swift remarks to make. He broke out promptly: "Mr. Stafford, you are wanted at the wire, and, you bet, there's something doing."
Pleasant to the looker-on, as to them, are the relations and understandings regarding the little side issues and incidents of life between a man and woman of intelligence and education when they are in love with each other, even though that love must be repressed and unexpressed. The interjection of the conductor was delightful to the woman in this case, because it was an involuntary compliment to the man opposite her at the table. It was the breaking in of a fine hireling upon the man of brains and accomplishments, the call upon him for aid in this time of casual need. Stafford's heart danced as he caught the look, because he recognized its full significance.
And then as he rose he grinned, because he saw that the conductor was evidently in trouble. His face indicated that. There was one appreciative look into the face of the smiling woman and then he went out to deal as he might with the existing condition of affairs. He rather enjoyed these frequent interviews with the coming saviors. They had a smart operator at the other end of the wire and, as he had learned, the boss of the rescuing train was assuredly a railroad man of might and much acuteness. They had, as already told, indulged in a verbal brush or two. Connection was made and the first thing Stafford got was:
"Can't you chumps do anything over there?"
"Do anything!" was Stafford's reply. "Do anything! We are a dead train, lying helpless, with our nose stuck into four hundred thousand million feet of packed snow! What are you doing, yourselves, with all the engines you want and a snow-plow, and all the men you want? It strikes me that as butters-in you are about the worst existing."
And then from the boss of the rescuing train Stafford listened to clicked language the recollection of which was ever afterward among the delights of his life. It referred to his personalcharacter and to his ancestry and to a large variety of things besides. It was an admirable effort, an oration trimmed with red exclusively.
And Stafford, understanding that something would, naturally, be expected of him in return, cut loose with his own store of expletives. His four years' absence from the country had left him somewhat deficient in modern Americanisms, but, during that time, as became a man handling lazy coolies, he had acquired a stock of Orientalisms that were not altogether without merit, and these he launched at the gentleman with whom he was engaged in conversation.
Evidently the man at the other end was delighted, for this was his reply:
"I don't know who you are who appear to be running things over there, but you seem to have some stuff in you."
"That's all right," said Stafford, "but we've got some curiosity over here. What have you got for a snow-plow, anyhow—a mowing-machine, or a reaper?"
"We'll show you, my child! Oh, we'll show you! And I've got some mighty good news for you. Things are doing. We've thrown away the trinket we've been trying to use, becausewe've just got a new snow-plow from the East. She's a monster, and a beauty of the new style. Why, she just lives on snow—wants a mountain of it for breakfast, two for dinner, another for supper, throws away what she doesn't eat, and throws it a mile! She's eating her way toward you now, and she's eating mighty fast. She was hungrier than usual to-day. Watch our smoke, that is if you can see it above the snow she throws, and we're making lots of smoke, too. We'll save your sinful bodies, if we can't your souls, this very day. Get ready for moving. We'll be with you somewhere between one and four o'clock. Good-by."
Stafford gave a whoop—he couldn't help it—and imparted the good news to those about him. In no time it was all over the train, and then, to the accompaniment of satisfied exclamations, there was bustle and a gathering together of things everywhere, for during the long wait there had been much scattering of personal belongings. This was a business soon accomplished, to be followed by a period of excited waiting.
It was almost precisely three o'clock when the prisoners, listening like those at Lucknow, heard, faint and far beyond the snowdrifts,something like the piper's blast. It was the distant triumphant whoop of a locomotive. Nearer and more loudly it approached and, presently, in the distance, could be perceived dimly a column of smoke. The advance was not rapid, as a matter of course, but neither was it very slow, and, at last, the whooping monster was in sight, or, rather, not the monster itself, but a cloud of smoke in front of which, swirling, and dense, was a roaring snowstorm. The end was nearly reached. The relief train, its engineers still overworking their whistles, came on, the snow-plow still doing its fierce work, until the two trains stood there close together, the nozzle of the locomotive resting against the snow-plow lovingly.
There was a scramble of people from the train so long imprisoned as there was also from the rescuing train, and there followed a general time of hand-shaking and congratulation. Stafford had the pleasure of meeting the train boss with whom he had been talking in the morning, and took a fancy to that rugged and accomplished civil engineer and railroad man at once, as evidently did the other man to him. Then came business. The boss explained the situation:
"You are in our way. We have work to do in behind you, and we can't pass you. We've got to get you back to the siding, about ten miles from here. We'll have to haul you, I suppose. Have you any coal?"
"Not ten pounds," was the answer of the engineer of the rescued train. "Used it all up, and mighty carefully, too, for heat. Been using bushes for wood. Another day and there'd have been trouble. Lucky it hasn't been very cold."
"Yes, we expected that, and can supply you. We've a flat car load along. We'll haul you back to the siding and get the coal on there. It's the only way."
The coupling was made, the slow retreat of the rescuing train to the siding, taking over an hour, accomplished, as was the transfer of coal and water, with great difficulty and much work of trainmen, and, at last, the train from San Francisco was itself again. It moved forward, its passengers cheering the train on the side track which was also pulling out, but toward the West. The episode was over. Upon the rear platform of the last car as the train drew eastward stood, all alone, the big blonde porter.
The train was whirling toward Denver.There was a great reunion after supper, presided over by Colonel Livingston, of course, to celebrate, as the Young Lady expressed it, their providential escape from the largest island of Juan Fernandez in the world, but the Far Away Lady was not present. Stafford wondered, and was restless and disappointed. As time wore on, he could not endure it very well, and, withdrawing quietly, went forward to her car, adjoining. What he saw as he entered—and the sight gladdened him, for he feared that she had retired—was the lady sitting alone by the window, still, and apparently dreaming. He advanced and seated himself beside her. She looked at him and smiled, but said nothing.
"Why are you not in the Cassowary with all the rest?" he asked. "They are rejoicing."
She made no answer to his question: "I hope you are happy, John," she said gently. "I heard of your marriage to the American girl at the legation in St. Petersburg, and I prayed that"—but she never finished the sentence.
"Wh-a-t!" gasped Stafford, "Married! I—What the—"—and he almost forgot himself, this man fresh from handling coolies—then more gently and most sadly: "Agnes, youshould have known better! Oh, you should have known better! There was a Stafford married there, it is true, a relation of mine, a cousin. It was through him I made my Russian connection—but, Agnes, how could you! Did you think there was room in my heart for another woman, and so soon? But women are strange creatures," he concluded bitterly.
She could not answer him at first, though the light which came into her face should have represented courage; she could but murmur brokenly:
"Forgive me. You must do that—but, oh, John, what could I think? It all seemed so assured. And I was half insane, and doubting all the world. And now, now you have made me very happy. I cannot tell you"—and she failed, weakly, for words.
Every thought and impulse of the man changed on the moment. A great wave of tenderness swept over him:
"Forgive you? Of course I do," he said impetuously, "I can understand. Poor girl, you must have suffered. Who wouldn't at the unveiling of such a man?" Then came the more regardful thought: