One woman's two lovers, or, Jacqueline Thayne's choice
page: 0 (Cover) [View Page 0 (Cover) ] ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. page: 0 (TitlePage) [View Page 0 (TitlePage) ] ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS; OR, JACQUELINE THAYNE'S CHOICE. BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND, AUTHOR OF "SIX IN ALL,' "MLLS OF TUXBURY," tONLY GIRLS,' ETC. "We must be at the top of our condition to understand anything rightly." PHLADELPHA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1875- page: 0-5[View Page 0-5] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. CHAPTER I. SHE came over the bridge, a little out of breath with her rapid walk, for it was getting dark and chilly now; heavy, blackish clouds, like the hulks of old men-of- war, had anchored themselves low about the horizon; while overhead a sky, dull and sad, looked down on the earth where the year's great work had all been spoiled by the black frosts. Faded leaves still hugged the branches and shivered in the winds, clinging forlornly, one with a little im- agination might fancy, to happy memories of soft hum- ming of winds and singing of birds through pleasant June mornings. "What a wide, dismal gloom the landscape has, with the slow mists crawling up like unclean spirits from the distant swamps, and the -early dark settling drearily upon everything; yet the year has only grown what we all must in a little while-old! old!" Some thoughts of this sort passed through the mind of the young woman as. she moved across the long, covered bridge rather too rapidly for grace; yet you could never have mistaken her for anything but a lady. I use the word in its old, fine meaning, not in that, 2 5 page: 6-7[View Page 6-7] 6 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. modern, indiscriminate one, which takes no account of anything but a fair, showy outside, no matter how essentially coarse and hard may be the nature under- neath. Everybody at Hedgerows knew the gray wrapping shawl, and the simple brown hat above it, for they were out in all weathers, off on long walks among the country roads and hills; and there clung to the wearer a slight reputation for oddness and independence. People had vague notions that she did not square her opinions and life after received patterns; and, if the truth must be told, were a little afraid of her, or, at least, afraid of petty disguises and affectations before her, for she had a glance that dived deep into things, and a sudden irony that could leap to its mark like an arrow; only this irony was on the surface-a little, thin, rough rind after all, beneath which lay a nature sound and sweet to the core. This young woman, Jacqueline Thayne, whom I want you to know and to love, and whom, with what power of heart and brain I have, I shall try to make clear to you, had one of those faces most .difficult to write about: fair and delicate; yet its charm does not consist in its being these. An earnest, thoughtful face, with a wonderful sweetness which comes into it at times like the"spirit of its lost childhood stealing back and looking out of it; a low, broad forehead under its fine, dark hair; eyes in whose dark, luminous brows, and in the flushed lips beneath, you touch the secret power of the face, one which-and this, after all, is the best thing to say of any human face, whether it be beautiful or homely-to know it best is to love it most. *. I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. Just as the girl reached the end of the bridge, some- thing stumbled upon and nearly upset her. It proved to be a small, shock-headed boy, with a heap of yellow- ish-white hair looking much like "a pile of badly- picked oakum." The face which stared up at the girl had an old, wizened look----a child's face, it seemed, with all the childhood long ago faded out of it. In the single instant that followed their collision, when both involuntarily drew -back, Jacqueline took it all in,-the small, shambling figure, the dirty, whitish hair above the young, wizened face, the startled look in the dull eyes which seemed of no particular color. And the boy, in his turn, saw for one moment the wide, beautiful eyes, the flushed lips, the delicate face under the brown hat. And then they passed on out of the covered bridge and left him. The girl went on more rapidly than ever down the steep slope of the road, as though she was anxious to get away from some disagreeable thing. Then, of a sudden, she stopped short. Look at her there, the chilly wind making sudden dashes at her hair, the live flushes in her cheek, the fair, oval profile cut out darkly against the gathering murk-if anybody chanced to be 'standing on the river bank, far below, in the shadow of the bridge, it would be worth looking up-the sight of that girl's face. It stands there a moment, doubtful, irresolute; be- hind it, thoughts going rapidly. "You'll only make a fool of yourself, Jacqueline. Where's the use? You can't carry the world on your shoulders - quite. It's late, and cold, and you're fagged out and chilled through-you know you are- t.. page: 8-9[View Page 8-9] 8 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. with this imprudently long walk. As though this miserable old world wasn't full of just such forlorn little wretches as that one'!" Behind these, thoughts slipped some other ones, with tones as soft as the singing of night-winds among the tops of a forest of firs. "After all; it's only a little sacrifice-a few steps backward, a few moments, and a few kind words; and it's most likely the only chance you'll have of doing a generous act this day. Perhaps it will send a ray of comfort into the heart of that poor, little, forlorn wretch-who knows? Ah! your old, grand dreams of blessing and elevating your race won't stand the test of one small beggar on the highway"- a faint smile, with a touch in it of scorn and sadness, about her mouth. Meanwhile, however, she had turned back, hurried across the long, covered bridge again, and found the boy at the other end of it. There was a light, imperative touch on his shoulder, and, turning, he saw the brown hat, and the face of the lady under it. "Here are, some pennies,; child." She had been fumbling in her pocket-book as she walked. "Go right up to the baker's now and get a-card of fresh gingerbread. It will taste good, won't it?"-dropping half a dozen coins into the grimed, scrawny palm that stuck itself out. "Yes'm," answered the child, down his throat and through his nose; but into the dull eyes, watery with his cold, there came a light of startled pleasure. The woman saw it. She had a heart easily touched. She put her hand out now, and laid it on the dirty pile ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. g of hair, her thoughts going again--"Lousy, I dare say, or scald-head; but, you miserable little ragamuffin, I'm sorry for you. God made you, as well as me, and I can take no special credit on my side for the difference be- tween us; yet, having made you-for what reason, He knows, I don't--it's natural He should care for you more than He does for me, as I've had the best chance thus far;" You see, now, that the people of Hedgerows were right when they thought Jacqueline Thayne a little odd. How many women, stopping a beggar on the highway, would have had precisely such thoughts as these? Whatever the boy may have felt in view of the pen- nies and the prospective gingerbread, I think the touch of that woman's fingers on his head, and her pitiful, half-absent, "Poor child! poor child!" which was all of her thoughts that got as far as her lips, went deeper than the sight of the pennies or the cravings of his stomach, although, to tell the honest truth, this latter was in a half-starved condition at that particular mo- ment. He looked up with a glimmer of intelligence and feeling through the heavy mould of the features; be- yond that, something, half-awed and half-curious, in his face, which was more pathetic than all the rest, showing how a small kindly word or act was something quite strange to him. Jacqueline noticed it, and, with her, to notice such a'look was to feel it. "I see you are poor and forlorn, and must have a hard time of it"-going straight to whatever wit or heart there was in the child. "I see your clothes are 2ix Z.. page: 10-11[View Page 10-11] 10 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. old and ragged, and not half warm enough for such a night. I'm sorry for you, from my heart; but never mind. Boys have worn just such old clothes, and had just such a long, tough time of it, and yet come out braver and better men in the end for all the poverty and struggle. Don't you give up now. Keep a good heart, do what is right, and make up your mind that a brave, honest man shall come up one of these days out of the old clothes and the hungry little boy." The big mouth wide open, the eyes on the woman's face, drinking in every word that she spoke, as though she were some beautiful sibyl, her lips freighted with solemn prophecies of his destiny. She noticed that, too. "The boys laugh at you sometimes, for your old clothes, I suppose. It would be like some of them." "Yes'm-they make fun of me." "I wish I could hear them once. I should like to tell them how far you, in your old clothes, were above the mean, cowardly souls that could make sport out of your poverty, and that all their fun was shame and dis- grace to them, not you." There was a real light now on the rough cutting of this boy's face, which was like faces you sometimes see on coarse pottery, with this difference on the boy's side-there was a soul behind, and it came into his face now. It did not into his words, though, for he only said "Yes'm" again, and clutched the pennies tighter in his little, dirty palm. But Jacqueline did not want any words. At her own, she had seen the boy's soul grope and glimmer up into his face. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. "Next time you are very hungry, and see no way to get your dinner, come up to the gray-stone house be- yond the pines, and I'll give--no, I won't promise that, but, at least, I'll see that you earn your dinner. It will taste sweeter for doing that; and you don't want to be a beggar when you can help it. Now go and buy your gingerbread," and she turned again and went over the bridge, and the boy stood still, gaping after her. I suppose the whole talk had occupied less than-three minutes. ' Whether it had done any good-well, Jac- queline Thayne had very little faith there. She had had her grand dreams, as she called them, of a career, and of doing something for her race which should shine resplendent through all time, like Jeanne d'Arc or Florence Nightingale; but the old dreams and visions had paled slowly, leaving some disappointment and impatience in their stead. Somebody did happen to be standing on the river- bank under the shadow of the bridge, at that particu- lar moment when Jacqueline, having crossed, paused a moment on) the road; and somebody looking up, caught the sight of the profile that had such a rare, finished look under the brown hat, against the gathering murk of the night. He turned to his companion, who had just secured a small rowhoat to the bank, touching his shoulder, and pointing to the figure above, saying in a low tone-- "See there, Draper." So both of the young men stood still, and looked at the face, until it turned suddenly and disappeared upon the bridge. The first speaker then turned to the other. "Fine, page: 12-13[View Page 12-13] 12 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. wasn't it?" he said. "If she had been studying that effect for a day, she could not have made a better thing . of it." Sydney Weymouth had at times a flippant way of speaking, which jarred on Philip Draper a little; yet there was a cordial liking between' the two, and this was proved by the fact that for the last fortnight the young men had almost daily found time for a short tramp in the woods, or an hour or two's fishing down the river, or a brisk trot over to the Bend; and they talked books, and game, and dogs, and horses so well together, that one might have fancied-I mean one whose plummet did not go to any profound depths- that they had a good deal in common. Young'Draper made no reply to his companion's re- mark, and the two stood silently watching the figures on the bridge. Of course the young men were quite too far off to catch even the faintest murmur of the voices, but the gestures had a language of their own. Neither could they see the mute pathos in the boy's face, which never could- have groped its way out from all his want and misery to his lips, as he stood- there, looking up at the lady with her hand on his head-that action, too, having an eloquence which needed no words. The two young men, standing below, watched the shawled figure as it-returned at last over the bridge, and disappeared down the road out of their sight. Then they turned and smiled one upon the other. And 'this time young Weymouth did not have anything to say about "studying effects." "Do you know that lady?" asked Philip Draper, ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 3 showing by that question that he was comparatively a stranger at Hedgerows. "Oh, yes-Miss Jacqueline Thayne. She is one of our old neighbors. She lives with her uncle in the odd-looking gray-stone house on that lonely bit of hill-road beyond the pine-woods, a regular greenery of hedges and shrubs in front. The outside of the house, even, is worth seeing. It has a curious effect on me, with its air of silence and antiquity; although I played blind-man's-buff among the foundations, when they were being laid." "Oh, I remember the house perfectly," answered the other, with animation. "It burst on me suddenly as I came out of the pine-woods the other day. The whole house has a curiously peaceful, medieval look that seems singularly out of place in this brisk, thrifty New England town; something wonderfully comfort- able and homelike, too, about it all. I remember-this struck me so strongly at the time, that I thought I'd give almost anything for permission to go and lie down for an hour, in the afternoon sunshine, under one of those young larches in a corner of the grounds," speaking half to himself. "You had only to ask the owner, and he would have lifted his hat and asked you in with a smile and an air just suited to the owner of that house and those grounds." "What is his name, Weymouth?" "Algernon Thayne: a scholar and a gentleman-an old bachelor, too; something a little odd about him; you'd know it from that house-in the veins of the race, I fancy. He is a kind of gentleman farmer; has some page: 14-15[View Page 14-15] I4 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. splendid acres in the low land beyond the creek, but an overseer has charge of men and work, and the owner gives more time to his library than to his fields." "A rich man, then?" "Well, he passed for one at Hedgerows before the war; but his figures wouldn't foot up heavily now out- side a country town. Not' exactly the stuff, you see, out of which great fortunes are made. A man must love money to make it." Young Draper stuck the heel of his boot into the wet sand by the river. He had had of late a good many perplexing thoughts on this same subject of money. He fancied he was growing very hard and material, and that, on the whole, there was nothing better for him to do. In a moment he looked up. "Miss Thayne is an orphan?" !"Yes, and her uncle's idol. She has lived with him from a child. I have not seen her before for years. Col- lege, and going abroad, and all that sort of thing, has quite put the old townspeople out of my horizon. But Jacqueline and I are old friends, for she was the only little girl at Hedgerows I cared to visit, before I was started off to fit for college. I was ready to give up a nutting or sail with the boys any day, for a visit to the stone cottage and its piquant little mistress, she was so bright, frank, honest; none of those airs and affecta- tions to which the feminine mind and character take so naturally before the girl is out of long clothes." Young Weymouth laughed so good-naturedly that, though the words jarred again a little, Philip Draper smiled in turn, and then the former went on: ONE WrOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. z5 "I should have expected something of the sort we've seen, from the kind of little girl Jacqueline Thayne was. She's turned out a fine-looking woman, too. I ought to go round and see her, for our old friendship's sake. Strange I haven't thought of it before." Philip Draper felt a pang of envy shooting across his soul, at the "Open Sesame" which his companion possessed to the gray-stone house. It seemed to him, for the moment, that all the ripe plums fell to young Weymouth's share, while only sour, gnarled, tough- minded ones dropped into the lap of his life. I will here do Philip Draper the justice to say that ; envying others' good fortune was not a habit of his; but there were a good many reasons why his courage and his native good spirits, nay, his very moral tone, had sulk to an unusually low temperature at this time. I suppose some devil is always on the lookout for a cranny through which he can whisk himself into our souls. The two young men form a strong contrast, as they stand side by side on the river-bank, with the little row- boat, almost like a toy, keeping time with the throbbing of the tide at their very feet. Young Weymouth would, I suppose, by most young ladies be called the handsomer man of the two. He himself has no doubt on that subject, having a secret conviction that, in mind, body, and estate, he, Sydney Weymouth, has been especially favored by the blind goddess; yet he is too shrewd, and has too much good taste, to let his vanity often crop out. A rather tall, well-built young man, with a carriage that set off page: 16-17[View Page 16-17] X5 - ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. the figure to the best advantage; abundant dark hair, and dark eyes, too, with a gleam of shrewdness and good- humor in them; a dark, clear complexion, and a hand- some moustache; and altogether a rather prepossessing presence and air. "What more in the world could you ask-of a fellow in the way of looks?"Sydney Weymouth would wonder. His companion is several inches shorter, and several shades lighter; a broad-chested, rather stalwart-looking young man. His head and his face, you find when you regard them critically, are on rather a Teutonic mould: thick, fine, brownish hair; large, intelligent features; clear, gray eyes, that will bear searching steadily into, and that, carrying no shame or cow- ardice in them, will look steadily back in turn; a mouth not hidden by any moustache, and that has, when quite closed, a certain grim resoluteness about it which does not add to'the attractiveness of the face, but which, after all, gives you a key to unlock one side of this man's character; and the smile, when it comes, clear, warm, and pleasant as a child's, gives you a key to the other side. "Well, Weymouth," glancing at the basket in one corner of the boat, " there's our trophy, of perch and trout. You're welcome to my share of the plunder." "Oh, no, Draper; that isn't fair. We will divide." "In that case, I should; have to put my portion into their native element again. My landlady wouldn't look serenely on a present that involves broiling and a red nose for her share. You've a home where you can carry whatever falls into your net, Weymouth." He spoke the last words in a very lint tone,-so * . / ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 17 light that it seemed to form a contrast with them; and one on the watch for signs might have fancied the lightness covered some ache or loneliness beneath- which it did, sure enough. Perhaps it struck young Weymouth, also. He was a good-natured fellow. All his college chums would take their oath, if necessary, to that. Always ready to do a crony a good turn, in his easy, off-hand way. "Come home with me and eat your- share, Draper. Peggy will serve them up brown in a trice, at my ask- ing." "Thank you, Weymouth, sincerely, but I've some matters to send off by to-morrow's mail, and that is made up early. So, good-night." They had been gathering in their fishing-tackle while this talk was going on. It was quite dark now, and occasionally a star put a shy kind of face outside the gathering clouds for a moment, and then disappeared l as suddenly. Each of the young men shouldered his rod, shook hands cordially, and went his way-Weymouth trolling some old English ditty to himself, and Philip Draper not humming any ditty at all, but with an underlying feeling that fortune had made a kind of foothall of him for the last ten years, and that it would go on so to the end. He should never get into the good graces of the blind woman; but, for all that, he would never put off the harness or give- up the fight--his large- moulded jaws setting themselves more grimly than ever. In a few moments, however, the scene came back to him which he had witnessed on the bridge-the jaws, v . '.3 ' . page: 18-19[View Page 18-19] 18 ONE WOoMAN'S TWO LO VERS. the whole face even, slowly relaxing, and a smile com- ing about the mouth--a smile that brought up along with it something from the man's soul--the sight of a generous deed always inspires a generous nature. Somehow the murk of the night, the world itself, and his own part in it, did not look so dark afterward to Philip Draper, going home to his boarding-house that night. CHAPTER II. IN the library of the gray-stone house, the uncle and the niece sat together that evening. It was the pleas- antest room in' the house to both of them, and was a little odd, like the inmates. I cannot tell precisely in wlhat the oddness consisted, only I know you would at once have felt that the occupants of- that room must possess some marked individuality. The moderate-sized apartment haddark wainscoting and plethoric book-cases on two sides; on the others, a few choice engravings and landscapes in oil, a cabinet of rare shells and minerals, with two or three small marble groups and statuettes, and pretty, rustic baskets here and there; a long, green library-table, with books and papers scattered over it, and a carpet in dark green, too. This library was evidently put to daily uses, and was pervaded all through with a sense of life, comfort, and home. The. central features of the room to-night however, ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 19 are the two figures before the fire. The elder is a man, who may be all the way from fifty-two to sixty-five. His hair is quite gray, but under it what a fine, strong face there is--not handsome, exactly, but better than that; a thick beard, too, like Hamlet's father's-a sable, sil- vered; and such keen, pleasant eyes, of a dark grayish brown; a large, stoutly-built man, growing slightly cor- pulent with years; the spring and the summer of his life are passed now-perhaps were a good while ago, but the autumn is full of a strong glow, like wine; such a hale, vigorous, ripe autumn, as can only follow a youth and manhood pure and sweet, and filled with good uses. By the man's side sits his niece, in a low, favorite seat, a sort of hybrid between a camp-stool and an arm- chair. Overhead, English ivy trails across the mantel, winding its green fibres over the ceiling, and making a kind of bower of shadow and greenness there. In- deed, it is astonishing how much of outdoor life, of woody scents, and colors,-browns, and greens,--have managed somehow to get into this library. Through all the indoor warmth and homelikeness you have a vague sense of the quivering of leaves and of cool, shady depths of greenness, with winds singing their own tunes among them. Yet, when you come to look around to find the source of this feeling, there are only rustic baskets depending here and there, filled with mosses, and leaves, and clasping vines, and glittering berries in the corners; and through all that strange, sweet scent of woody growths, as though it had floated in from' the forest on some autumn day, and clung there ever after- ward. For a full quarter of an hour, by the Swiss clock on page: 20-21[View Page 20-21] 20 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. the mantel, the two sitting there have not spoken, gazing into the depths of the fire-a bright wood-fire, sparkling and humming up the chimney like a hive of bees, filling the room with heat and glow, so that one could dispense well enough with the soft moonlight through the shaded lamps on the table. At last the man leans down, places his hand on the girl's hair, and says, "Well, Jacqueline?" and he need hardly say anything more to convey to you a sense of the place that girl has in his heart. She looks up now; her face is like his favorite books to hbim, wherein he can always read sundry and fresh meanings; and it is worth seeing just now, this face of Jacqueline Thayne. The light has been growing slowly up to it, as you have seen the moonlight grow slowly over the mountain tops, and fill the sky all around, when, as yet, there was no sign of the risen moon;- yet her first remark, outside of its tone, is a very commonplace one--"Oh, Uncle Alger! how pleasant the fire is!" "Very. What has it been saying to you, my child?" "Many things; a very singing of thrushes among my thoughts. If it had been a coal-fire, it would have been so different. There is always a great silence and heat about that, which suggest to me the still caverns and the long, dark cycles where the fuel has lain; but a wood-fire is always full of quivering life, sparkle, motion, like the woods that made it. One feels in it, somehow, the very quiver of the sunshine, the thrilling of sap in the strong old veins, the flutter of leaves, the song of birds, and the swinging of -mighty storms through the branches. After all, this fire seems a fitting ' - ONE WO MAN'S TWO LO VERS. 2I death for the trees. It doesn't hurt one as do so many things one has to put up with in this world." "That's a pretty thought, little Jacqueline," said her uncle. i These quaint conceits are always winding veins of gold-in and out of your talk." She smiled upon him now, such a smile as no human being but her uncle could call into the face of Jacque- line Thayne. Outside, there was a clattering of winds like horsemen going to and fro, and making ready, in hot haste, for the battle, and suddenly. the rain dashed wrathfully against the windows. "What a night this is outside!" she said; yet she did not say it, as most young women would, with a shiver, drawing nearer the fire, but with a flash of strong enjoy- - ment in the words. "How I do love these nights which ; wrestle through the tempest and the darkness! I fancy my feeling approaches, as nearly as a woman's can, to -s:t- that ' Stern joy which warriors feel' :! in the tumult and heat of the battle. Uncle Alger, were there any gypsies among my ancestors?" "Not a ghost of a legend of one, my dear." Hi! "Not a chance for me, then. I wanted to feel that He! I came honestly by this passion of mine for all outdoor ?s1^ moods and things, this love of nature in all her shades I?:: and forms." S "Never mind hunting up any title-deeds -to your soul's birthright among your dead ancestors. You 45'i came honestly by the love, Jacqueline." ? She smiled up at him again, the sweet, thoughtful smile, in which eyes and lips held their own part. 3* : page: 22-23[View Page 22-23] 22 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. "Uncle Alger, you always find just the wise, kindly words that clear the way out of my doubts and per- plexities. What should I do without you?" and she leaned her arm on his knee, and looked up in his face. "Without an dld man like me, child? Sometimes I'm half afraid that I've made some mistake-that it wasn't the best thing to give all those fresh years of youth and blossoming to a prosy old fellow slipping out of his prime, and a bachelor at that." "Uncle Alger, how could so sensible a man have so silly a thought!" He laughed at her way of turning on him. He knew the little sharpness of wit which lay on the outside of the warm, sunny, healthful nature. It gave a fine pungency, he had often thought, to the sweetness of her character. -Still, when the laugh was done, he looked at the face upturned to his in a trust and sweet- ness that seemed, as I said before, the lost spirit of its childhood looking out there again, and his eyes grew serious. "Sometimes I think I'm a selfish fellow to stay here at home and not start off to show you more of the world; but as a man gets old, inertia of body and brain grows on him; and I like the dear old rookery here'so well, I can't make up my mind to leave it and go tumb- ling about the world, even to show you all the grand sights; and there seemed such very good reasons for putting it off until next year,.as each came along,--and each one I've grown a little older, and a little less in- clined to move." "I'm in no hurry, uncle, only I don't like to hear you talk about growing old." 1;1 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 23 "Why not, child, with this gray mane of mine?" running his fingers through his hair, while its silver glistened like hoarfrost. "tBut growing old means a great many things I never like to dwell on. Oh, uncle! it seems as though you and I must always live together just as we do now," and she drew closer to him, with a little gesture not just like her, for it hinted at dread or fear, and she was a brave woman, this Jacqueli ne Thayne. The man looked at her with something in his eyes such as Prospero's must have had when he said to Miranda,-- "Oh! a cherubim Thou wast, that did preserve me." "Don't trouble yourself about the future, dear child; God will take care of that." Her eyes went off again to the fire-to the swarming and the buzzing sparks up the chimney. But God has such a strange way of caring for his world, Uncle Alger," she said, and the vision of the little, ragged, wizened, shock-headed boy, who had run against her that night on th e bridge, came up once more. ;ii " A strange way," repeated her uncle; "as far above our ways as the' heavens are above the earth; but some time we shall find it is the only way of Love and Wisdom." Jacqueline did not reply. She had begun to feel these days that she was dreadfully wicked; the old, per- plexing problems of human life and destiny weighed wlU elheavily upon her soul at times. Sometimes she cotild talk of these things-,-sometimes z ;1A page: 24-25[View Page 24-25] 24 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. she could not. This was one of the latter times. But again she- sat still, looking into the fire, and listening to the clatter of winds and plunges of rain outside, and wondering what she was in the world for, and whether she had any work to do here, or whether Death would not come some day and find she had failed to do the thing that was appointed her to do; while underlying all was a restlessness, dissatisfaction, and weariness of life, which is natural enough when one does not feel certain that God has not -left one out of his general plan; she had a cold, shuddering doubt at times, too, whether He had any general plan at all, or whether He had left his world to, grope and stumble along, like most human beings, as best it might. Her uncle suspected pretty nearly what was going on in the girl's soul. He would have been- glad to help her, for he had been through the same doubts and glooms; but there are , times when it is wisest not to speak. Fortunately, Algernon Thayne knew what these were. At last she looked away from the fire, and regarded the man sitting there with a curious, intent look, half amused, half puzzled, too. The riddles had not ceased to perplex her. But one cannot always grope among mysteries, and it was pleasant, after all, to come back to the warm human presence and human love in the library that night, while outside the rain and the wind held their long battle. What if, after all, this was the surest way to finding an answer to Jacqueline's problems? "Well, what do you think of me on the whole?" Mr., or Squire, Thayne, as the farm-hands universally called him, came up suddenly out of his book, in which ^ ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. he had been buried for the last half-hour, and looked smilingly at his niece. "I was contrasting you just then with the world's notion of an old bachelor. You know what that is- made up of crustiness, fussiness, whims, oddities, and selfishness." "Yes; I know, Jacqueline." "Well, I'm not sure it's not the true one in most cases. The world blunders and bungles toward a good many sound conclusions, and I know you have a fervent faith in the blessings of matrimony." "Fervent! the man or the woman who misses that misses the best thing in life, although I think usually the man, in case he does it, is worse off than the woman, because he is more material, perhaps, and gravitates lower without her influence, sympathies, help. We've tested this matter pretty fairly in the early settle- ments of California and Australia, and with all our out- lying territories; it's the old story over again. If you will keep us from sinking into brutes, let us have our wives, mothers, sisters about us." Jacqueline laughed a little, yet she said gravely enough the next moment--"But there are men, oc- casionally-at least, I might name one-who do not seem to lose anything by having forsworn matrimony. "I think, however, that can only be said of rare and exceptional natures." "No," said Squire Thayne, looking absently into the fire. "The man himself, who has gone through this life without a woman to shelter and to love, to trust always, to lean on sometimes, knows better than any other what he has lost; how much poorer and weaker I! tlk page: 26-27[View Page 26-27] he is in many ways than he would have been with r her." "Yet I cannot understand, Uncle Alger," speaking half to herself, " how, being precisely the man you are, and holding the theories you do, you have never loved any woman enough, at least, to marry her?" "You cannot, Jacqueline?" Something struck her in the tones; and she drew her breath to listen, rather to them than to the furies of winds and the heavy tramp of the rain outside. CHAPTER II. PERHAPS Squire Thayne was listening to the wind too. At the best, he was an absent sort of a man. No words coming into the silence where Jacqueline waited for her uncle's voice, she looked up at last, and as soon as she looked she knew that no voices of winds or rain were calling to him outside. He was looking straight at her. And yet it seemed as though he saw another head where hers was-a kind of solemn tender- ness shining in his eyes, and all over his face there was a light, but it was a light that had been buried away sometime in a great darkness. "Why, Uncle Alger!" said Jacqueline, and she drew nearer to the man; and in an instant there flashed over a her an intuition that some woman had been inwrought :! into her uncle's secret life-had brightened, overshad- ^ owed it, as the case might be. If no word had hence- -, I ??;: ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 27 forth passed between them on the subject, she would have been certain of this henceforward. Jacqueline wondered at her slowness in discerning this--she, who knew her uncle better than anybody else did in the world, who had been his playmate and companion from childhood; she, a woman, too, ought to have felt that her uncle could never have been the man he was, a prince among his kind, at least to this girl's eyes, with- out some sweet, noble woman had sometime been taken into that great heart of his. Squire Thayne saw the girl's thought in her face. It was his own secret, you remember, carried through all these years of silence, and guarded as a woman guards the memory of her first love. He was a strong, stalwart man, nothing morbid about him, nothing fem- inine even, except that which being without he would have been less a man. Yet I should not like to say he did not color faintly under the wide, startled eyes of this girl, who looked in suddenly on his secret. "You've found it out, little Jacqueline?" he said, smiiling on her. "But to think I shouldn't have known it all this time!" putting her hand up to her cheek in just the way he remembered when she was a child, and some- thing in the lesson perplexed her. "Why does that seem strange to you, child?" he asked. "Because I know yot, uncle." In a little while after he said to her-"My child, if there are any questions you want to ask me now, do not be afraid." page: 28-29[View Page 28-29] 28 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. ? "Is she alive, uncle?" ' Not on earth.": She looked so sorrowful that he hastened to say-- ; "But it was not death came between us first." -; "Oh, Uncle Alger!"- "Yes, dear child, it was hard at first,-God knows that,-but I lived it through, you see," and the man looked, as he said that, like one who had wrestled with a mighty foe and come off victor in the battle. She came a little nearer to him; she laid her hands A on his knee-"Uncle Alger, there is one more question -do not answer it unless you had rather than not." "Anything, child; ask me anything." "What was her name?" ' He paused a moment, and then he answered slowly and softly, "Evangeline." "It seems as though that ought to have been thel name of the woman you would love." ': He saw, after that, she would ask him no further questions; and now he had spoken for the first time, it seemed to be easy and natural to talk about her. "You : want to know how she looked, Jacqueline?" "Oh! that of all things, uncle." : "She was about your height; in hair, too, the same shading of dark browns-but just there the likeness : ends, at least in color and feature; blue eyes of the :: clearest and darkest; a very finely-shaped head, and a X face finished and delicate-a woman's face, not hand- some, I suspect, among crowds of women's faces, but beautiful as an angel of God to me--beautiful,. too, I ' honestly believe, to all who loved it. How could it be A otherwise with a soul like hers shining into it?" ONAE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 29 He sat silent, the gray-haired man, seeing the face of the woman of his love, as it was in her youth. After awhile, and in a few words,--he would not be a man of many on such a subject,-he told the story. He owed it to Jacqueline now. "You know what a wretched time that was, Jacque- line, when your grandfather died-everything gone to utter wreck and ruin-his affairs left in hopeless chaos. It wouldn't have been so hard for me if my shoulders had been a little broadened and seasoned for the burden which came on them in one dreadful thump. I stag- gered awhile at first, for you know what my life had been beforehand: the smoothest kind of sailing, with plenty of money-at least, quite as much as was good for a young fellow; with rather a surfeit of tenderness and praise. "You know, too, I was fresh out of college, and had just made my choice of a profession, and was to round off with a couple of years' travel abroad, when lo! the crash came! I had something to do after that. Your father was a couple of years younger than H-a scholar, artist, gentleman; but--poor fellow!-he never could be made to see any further into business than a baby. "Thank God, there were some pluck and grit in me from the beginning, or I should have gone down under the first heavy sea; but there was your grandmother, quite shattered with grief over death and poverty; so you see I had to make a pull for it all alone. "It came down to the hard bread-and-butter ques- tion, and I found it a tough problem for awhile. I rode some heavy breakers, but at last I got to land--a good deal bruised and out of breath, it is true, but 4 page: 30-31[View Page 30-31] 30 ONE WOAIfAN'S T WO L O VERS. toughened and seasoned by that sharp fight for the rest of my life. You've heard me speak of the old com- mercial house-of Hawthorne, Fairbanks & Co.?" "I remember." "I shall never again feel as rich a man as I did the day I found myself with an upper clerkship in that house, and a salary of a thousand dollars. It is true the money went farther in those days than twice that sum would in these." "And there were three people, tenderly bred and accustomed to ease and luxury, to be fed, housed, and cared for out of that salary I Poor Uncle Alger!" said Jacqueline. "But when you come to think of the two years that had gone before, this salary seemed almost like another fortune. I had had a tough lesson set me in practical economy, when it was rather late and hard to learn it. But, perhaps, in the end, like a good many other hard lessons) it did me no harm. "I got on well with my work, and grew into great favor with the second partner of the firm. He was an old man-a widower, with a son and a daughter by different wives. The years had already sapped his vigor, and in various ways the man trusted me--proved to me that I could be of use to him. A real friendship gradually developed between us, and his pleasant man- sion, a little way out of town, was as open to me as were the doors of my own home. It was there I first met his daughter, and in a little while we grew to know each other, anid-I never knew when, neither did she--to love each other also." "Evangeline Fairbanks!" said Jacqueline, breath I \ONE WOMAN'S TtWO LOVERS. 31 : ing the name in a voice keyed just out of a whis- per. "Yes. How pleasant and natural the words seem! I should like to tell you the woman she was like, Jac- queline-the woman she was to my youth, to my heart and soul. I should like to tell you what I owe to that girl, what her whole character was--so finely balanced, so large, and delicate, and true. I should like to tell you, dear, only a man cannot talk of these things." "There is no need," said Jacqueline softly. "At the close of the second year of my clerkship, the offer came from South America. It was not prob- able that I should have such another chance in my life, and I had no right to throw away my fortune, when it came with open hands to my very doors. You know how it was. An old, attached friend of my father's, desirous of paying some debt of gratitude to the son, offered to secure for me, on retiring from active busi- ness himself, the general management of a large busi- ness firm in Brazil. Reluctant as Mr. Fairbanks was, for many reasons, to part with me, the old man was among the foremost to urge me to accept this offer, and there was no time to be lost. "Long before that, Evangeline and I understood each other. Indeed, for that last year we had been in- timate as brother and sister-reading, and talking, and rambling together in the wide, pleasant. grounds and arbors, and the great, cool rooms of the old-fashioned house. "The night we parted, I said to her, 'Evangeline, you know that I love you!' "'Oh, yes, I know it, Alger,' she answered--no page: 32-33[View Page 32-33] 'ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. faltering, no affectation about her, the true, glorious woman!-only a blush came into her face, and across the blush a smile. Oh, Evangeline Fairbanks! the long- lost sweetness cf your smile!" Squire Thayne paused a moment, and his niece knew that it was swimming in all its living beauty before him-the smile out of the sweet, dead lips of the woman he had loved. In a moment he went on: 'After that we put our hands in each other's. Ah! the feel of that little, soft, white hand!-and we said-no matter; Evange- line knew-so did God. "Her father coming in at the end, saw how it was, and called me his son, and blessed us--and so we were betrothed, and I set out for South America. "I was to be away three years. Whatever there was of home-sickness, whatever was strange and hard in the new life, I faced it, put into my work all the power of brain and heart that was in me, looking across the three years that lay before me much as wide, desolate, sandy steppes lay sometimes between world-wide travel- ers and home. "The first two years were prosperous beyond my dreams. Your father went to finish his studies abroad, and your grandmother, whose health had been delicate of late, accompanied him. "The mails were irregular in those days, but Evan- geline and I did -our best with them, and the only shadow in her life was her father's rapidly-breaking health. "One mail brought me tidings of his death, and the next that ofyourgrandmother's, who dropped away sud- ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 33 denly, just as Robert was getting ready to return home with her. I should also have started at once, only my business absolutely demanded my presence at this junc- ture. I learned, too, that Evangeline's brother, who, on the news of his father's death, took the next steamer for home, had taken the entire settlement of the dead man's affairs into his own hands. I had never seen this half-brother of hers. The old man had been very fond of his son, and weakly indulgent during his youth; and he had grown up handsome, shrewd, indolenta man of the world. He was at heart utterly selfish, and his honor, on which he prided himself, rotten stuff enough, bring it once in contact with his own interests. The facts were,-I found them out long afterward,-he had squandered his share of his father's fortune, and run deeply into debt while abroad. He managed to get the lion's share of the old man's fortune under his control; and then-I want to put this into as few words as I can, Jacqueline--an old college chum and travel- ing companion saw Evangeline, and fell at .once des- perately in love with her. "Of course, the truth had to come out then. When young Fairbanks learned that his sister was betrothed to a man who, two years ago, had a clerkship in his father's house 'on a starvation salary,' his scorn and anger knew no bounds. He was too shrewd to let Evangeline discern his real feelings, and he was very heavily in debt to this chum of his; and-I only know that he swore that our engagement should never be consummated-I only know that he kept his word." "Oh, Uncle Alger!" exclaimed Jacqueline, actually growing sick all over. 4* page: 34-35[View Page 34-35] ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 34 "Yes, dear," speaking in a rapid way, as though the words hurt him, and he must make them as few as pos- sible. "Communication between the countries was slow at that time. Everything conspired to serve the vil- lain's purpose. Through the agency of some corrupt employe, our letters were intercepted; and as nothing could shake the heart or the faith of Evangeline Fair- banks, they made her believe I was dead." A little, stifled cry of horror burst from Jacqueline's lips. "Yes, child, it's a dreadful story for you to hear, I know. About the death, though,-there was some plausibility in that, and they might have drawn back before they went so far as to insist on this, if they had not half believed themselves, and wholly hoped, it was true. A vessel from our port had been wrecked at sea, and the name of one of the lost passengers closely re- sembled my own. Evangeline was ill a good many weeks after that; but their pertinacity and prayers at last shook her resolve. Before the year was over, she was that other man's wife!" I Jacqueline sat still as a figure turned suddenly to stone. Great, yellow wings of flame flapped up the chimney. They glanced and quivered in their flight l upon the fair, shocked face of the woman sitting there, I looking down into the gulf of the youth of Algernon Thayne. "How could such a woman as you have described . be blinded like. that?" burst out Jacqueline. "She ought to have divined intuitively what kind of man she a was to marry." ' '"But he was not a bad man at all. I honestly be- i ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. 35 lieve he would have put his hand where Cranmer did, and let it burn to the bone, before heQwould have blackened his soul with---all this guilt, had he known the facts. He was a good-hearted, generous fellow, desperately in love with a beautiful and attractive woman, who, he had been made to believe by her brother, was about to throw herself away on some worthless, scheming adventurer, whose chief merit consisted in a tongue with a good deal of the artful eloquence of Richard III. At the time of their mar- riage, too, the man fully believed I had gone down in the wreck, and no doubt thought the world was well rid of me." After he had spoken these words, Algernon Thayne rose up, pushed over the ottoman in a hurried way, and walked up and down the room. The passionate fire of his youth had burned out long ago, but the memory of the old madness came upon him now, as it had not done for years. His face for a few moments worked with a strange agitation; then he came over to the girl and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Jacqueline,"--a solemn sound she had never heard before in his voice,--" it is enough for you to know that there were days when madness and murder reigned in my heart together, and I thought only of vengeance. God forgive me, but if Richard Fairbanks had crossed my path then, he or I would have looked our last on the earth and the sky over us! The blow crazed me for awhile. It came so suddenly, you know, the hour after I reached port, expecting to see her that very day-and to learn that she was another man's wife! Through the thick darkness of that time there was no page: 36-37[View Page 36-37] 36 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. light. Worst of all, my soul lost God-God, who had sat all that time in his heaven, and let all that foul wrong go on under his eyes! He, too, had forsaken me." Squire Thayne, pacing up and down the library now, felt for a moment the wild tempest of his youth waking up in his soul. He trod unsteadily back and forth, his rapid words breaking out of colorless lips. Jacqueline was crying. He heard her sob. In a moment he paused, and came over to her. "Why, Jacqueline, what a brute I am to trouble my little girl in that way!" speaking in his bright, hearty tones. "It was all over long ago; and you see I've i managed to make a happy life of it-an exceptionally happy life, I honestly believe, when I compare it with most men's." - But, oh, uncle!" seizing his hands, " what became of the woman-what became of her?" A smile, a light of ineffable joy, came into the man's face. "She died, dear." "Uncle Alger!" "Yes, she never knew, thank God! With all her well-balanced brain and heart, I think that knowledge would have driven Evangeline Fairbanks into a mad- house. But a sudden illness seized her in less than six months after her marriage, and when it was over it was all well with her-with me also, in God's good time." ;! "And you never saw the man " - "Yes; once only, for five minutes, it may be. I sought him. I looked him in the face. The tempest i which had made me long for his life, and cry blindly ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 37 to God to take* my own, was over then. I told him what I knew of the fiend's work which he had done on the dead and on the living." Jacqueline shuddered, knowing how Squire Thayne could say such a thing. "Evangeline's sweet, dead face under the sods that hat clasped themselves green above it, was not whiter than that man's when I left him." "And afterward?" "I went back to South America, and threw myself into work again--work that tasked body and brain to the utmost. Meanwhile, you know, your father met and married his bonny little American wife, among Scottish highlands and heather; and after the romance and the seventh heaven of an artist's honeymoon, he went to work at his models, and dreamed of fame and fortune, until his health broke down. Poor Rob! he used to pity me, s drudging away down there in that furnace-blast of a climate;' but it was the road to home and comfort for us all at last." Then Squire Thayne came around and seated himself in his chair again. Jacqueline looked up at him with a smile so full of tears, that she hardly dared to trust its glimmer across her lips. "Now, my little girl," said Squire Thayne, speaking in that straightforward, robust tone of his, which, as it were, infused all his words, and without which the real life seems to have oozed out of them, and they lie, mere wrecks and phantoms of their former selves, upon my paper-"Now, my little girl, I ought not to have told you this story. It does not pain me and sadden me, coming out of my youth to-night, and looking at page: 38-39[View Page 38-39] 38 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. me, as it -has grieved and saddened you to hear it. Look in my face. Do I look like a disappointed, ' , world-wearied old man?" Jacqueline did look up in the fine, strong, resolute face; every line instinct with life, thought, feeling, all held in the large, Teutonic cast of the features, and the gray eyes with their swift flash of native humor. One could hardly conceive of anything more utterly the antithesis of his question. "Oh, no, Uncle Alger; only," laying her hands on his knee, "when I think what the woman might have been to you, what you have lost, it almost breaks my heart!" the last words getting unsteady. "Why, dear, it mustn't do that," chafing the long, j slender fingers on his knee. Then a light came slowly into the man's face, and grew and spread all over it. He shook his head. "She has not been dead to me- my Evangeline," he said. "She has been in God's world all this time, and -that woman's influence has throbbed through my whole life. I never lifted a human soul out of slough and dunghill, and set it on j its feet again, especially if that soul was a woman, j bruised and mired out of all likeness to the gracious- ' ness, and honor, and glory of her sex, without thinking j of Evangeline, and saying, 'She would have been glad t to see me do this-she would have smiled on me with i i her glorious eyes.' Indeed, I hardly have taken an im- portant step in my life without stopping to ask myself, 'What would she have thought of it?'" Jacqueline did not say one word here, simply because she could not. He went on. "You must not think that I went ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. perpetually grieving for her in secret. All my youth and prime, after I made up my mind that my dream of being a scholar must go to the winds, was spent in a wide, breathless activity. Thank the Lord, I had magnificent health, and it was needed for the kind of work I had to do. It was business of a sort that drew- heavily on body and brain; but at last, when poor Rob came home, broken in health and hope, with his young wife and his little girl, and poor as a church-mouse,- because it was in generous, careless, true-hearted Rob- ert Thayne to be that and nothing else,--I had made my fortune, and was ready to 'come home, too. Be- tween bile and bullion, I should have gone to wreck in a few years more. As it was, I escaped both just in the nick of time." Jacqueline could not help laughing. This quaint humor was always cropping out of her uncle's talk. "Rob and I, you know, were the last of our race; and when I found that sweet wife of his, and the little five-year-old incarnation of mischief and merriment they had brought along with them, I said to myself, 'After all, Algernon Thayne, you poor, old, forlorn bachelor, you've found something worth living for, just as the first snowflakes begin to scatter themselves in your hair.' And now, dear, I've brought you down where you can take up the threads yourself. It was a good thing to have a home and kindred once more. It was a blessed thing that my little girl came to me." The beautiful eyes shone up to the man through their tears. "You saved papa's life, I know you did, for three happy years of comfort and luxury; and mamma's for page: 40-41[View Page 40-41] 40 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L LO VERS. as many more. Oh, uncle! how glad I always was that the house at Hedgerows was finished before she died. It always seems to me that she is thinking of us here in the dear old home together-you and me." "Who shall dare to say she is not, darling-,who shall dare?" They both were silent a little while; then the man spoke again in quite his old tone. "So, you see, my old-bachelorhood has not been such a dreary thing after all. If it had not been for my little girl here, I should always have had a sort of feeling that I had not done my whole duty in life, though." "I don't understand you, Uncle Alger." "Well, I have a theory that it is every man's duty to marry some woman, and do all that in him lies to cherish her, and make her through his love and care a better and a happier woman than she could have possi- bly been without them." She was not surprised to hear the man say that. She knew the inborn chivalry of his soul. I "But, Uncle Alger, no second love could ever have taken the place of the first." i "Certainly not; but another might have had its own place and rights. Do you suppose the knowledge and J the love of such a woman as Evangeline Fairbanks would not have made any man a better husband to any woman? I know what her wish would have been there. 3 But it happened that I was mostly thrust out of the pale of woman's society, until I was past my prime, and after that-well, after that, my little girl came to me, and as she grew up she took such wide space in my ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. heart, that there seemed no room to spare for another, beside her. Ah, Jacqueline Il I shall lay the burden of my old-bachelorhood on you. Our sex have a conven- ient way of puttihg our sins at your doors. We had an early example-set us, and we haven't been slow in following it." Again she laughed; and although the laugh of Jac- queline Thayne had many notes, there was a clear sweetness that reminded you of a thrush's in her lower keys; but it hardly died upon her lips before they were grave with a half-troubled gravity. "Ah, uncle! how can I have been what you say, after you have known such a woman as Evangeline Fairbanks?" - "Because, dear, you are more like her than any woman I ever knew." What a start she gave! What wide eyes stared at the man! Surely this Jacqueline Thayne, whatever her faults were, had little conceit at bottom of them. "What! A, uncle? More than dear mamma, even?" "Yes; more, even, than dear mamma." She was still as a mouse awhile after that. It was almost midnight now, and they did not keep late hours at Hedgerows. It was a part of the religion of Squire Thayne, that he and all about him should be no spendthrifts of vital forces. The strength of the storm was exhausted in low shudderings of wind, and in dragging wet boughs across the panes. Squire Thayne rose up and went to the window, and, away up in the wide, black darkness of the clouds, he saw the golden face of a solitary star 5 : page: 42-43[View Page 42-43] 42 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L OVERS. float for an instant, and then the black tide burst across it, and it was buried. Jacqueline had, come to the window, and looked over his shoulder, but she moved so softly that he did not know she was there until her breath touched his cheek. "I saw the star, too," she said, with the ring of her three-year-old voice. CHAPTER IV. IT was pay-day at the woolen-mills of Stephen Wey- mouth & Co. In one corner of the factory-yard stood 1 the new office, which had been opened for the first time I on the arrival of the new superintendent only a month I ago. It was a small granite building, with a French J roof, and-narrow, mullioned windows, and the fa;ade was ornamented with heavy mouldings in dark stone. The small building formed, altogether, an immense contrast to the vast, gloomy breadth of old red bricks and small-paned glass windows, that seemed to look down upon the little, ambitious stone edifice lowering and defiant, as though its compactness and smartness were out of place there, and a kind of insult to their j own bare, red grimness and desolation-at least, Philip Draper had thought so sometimes, when he went out and stood on the banks above the dam, which afforded a fine point of view for the special individuality of the factory landscape, while the water drowned all the heavy thunder of the machinery in the wild ecstasy ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. with which it swept and thundered over the dam into the broad, still, green lake below. It was to get rid of the rasping and grating, and the low, steady roar of the machinery, that Philip Draper came out sometimes and stood on this bank and listened to that grand old organ of the dam until his heart took courage. Inside, the spinners, and weavers, and dyers, at the great vats, looking out of the windows, wondered what the "boss" was doing there with his hands in his pockets. I strongly suspect if they had dived into his precise thoughts at that time, Philip Draper would have fallen considerably in the opinion of a majority of the work-people. But, as I said, it was pay-day at the factory, and Philip Draper, standing at his office-desk, in one corner of the wide room, had paid off the long files of " hands" which had passed before him, commencing with the weavers, and coming down to the spool-winders-slips of girls about equally divided between the heavy Cana- dian-French and broad Irish types, for the most part hovering on the frontiers of their teens. The last employe had gone out now, and the pay- master sat alone -before his desk in the office, the pleasant Indian-summer sunshine all around him. It was time for him to get up and start off to his dinner now, but he was in no mood for eating-did not feel energy enough, in fact, to drag his limbs from under the desk where he had stretched them. A great, open book lay before him, with long double columns of names stretching down the page, but he was not reading them-not so much as seeing them now. He was thinking that he, Philip Draper, had small right page: 44-45[View Page 44-45] " ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. to be in the world at all, and that, if his place should close up, it would not so much as leave a scar, hardly a . pang, in any human heart. And yet some lives were so full and rich with hopes and purposes, with human love and faith, too-why had his fallen to him so bare and colorless, so utterly worthless? I almost shrink from showing you this side of Philip Draper, lest you should set him down at once as weak and morbid; and he was seldom either, there being at the core of him a sound, robust cheerfulness and courage which made him turn to the bright side of things when this latter seemed very small indeed. But he had struggled and strained himself in his long scramble for a foothold in life, until his nerves and his spirits were beginning to avenge themselves. It is true, he had never been, financially, a quarter as well off in his life as at this time; for although the superintendent of the Weymouth factories had a good : deal of care and responsibility, still, Philip Draper had j never objected to hard work, even when it did not bring him a tithe of the handsome salary which he was now in receipt of. Philip Draper's father had died just within the dimmest circle of the boy's remembrance. The former's story can be put into a very few words. The man had started with the fairest prospects in life, inheriting a moderate fortune, while possessing far more than ordi- nary abilities. He squandered his fortune, he drank himself into his grave, leaving behind him a helpless, invalid wife and one son, to make their way through A the world as they best could. It had been a hard "scramble" for Philip Draper. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO ERS. 45 He had to fight for his own foothold when he was a mere boy, and to clear a little sheltered corner for his mother, too. Notwithstanding, he had managed to carry himself through college,-how, he could hardly tell himself; honestly, he was certain,-and he was just girding up himself for a new tug and strain at a profession, when Mrs. Draper died and her son's health broke down. What that mother had been to Philip Draper-well, it was his own secret, so deep and sacred that he could never tell it to any one, unless it might be, some time, to the woman of his love. The doctors had insisted that he must give up all study for the present, and get into some active life; so he found himself suddenly transformed from a rather shabby student into a paymaster of some large iron works, with a new suit of clothes, and through this road -a dreadfully smutty, noisy one, when you come to contrast it with the cool, green silences of his Alma Mater-the door to the great stone office at Hedgerows had opened to him. "Capital berth for you," said his old employer, as he shook hands with him for the last time, just as the young man was about to start for Hedgerows. But young Draper choked down a sigh. The old Greek and Latin had left a sweet taste in his thoughts, that made him long for the shabby overcoat and the slender purse once more. "What great good will a fortune do to me? I've nobody to share it with me," thought the young man; and in that last sentence you have the key to Philip Draper's character. 5* page: 46-47[View Page 46-47] E WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. But I have given you the shell of his life, thus far. For the kernel, that must be in his own character and acts. Spite of himself, he has had to fight home-sickness ever since he came to Hedgerows. If it had not been for that good fellow, Sydney Weymouth, the son of the head of the mills, he doesn't know how he could have stood up under it; but their drives, and sails, and tramps have just kept up a spark of life in him. Yet, what in the world he has to complain of, Philip Draper does not well know. He was never so well paid, never better housed and fed-in his life before; only housing, and feeding, and paying will never be anything more than the bark and shell to Philip Draper. There are other things that hold far closer relations to his soul. So, these weeks at Hedgerows have been terribly dreary ones to him; a miserable home-sickness and dreariness, an utter want of interest in life, have come over him; all the old forces and energies which have made this man fight such a good fight with fate have flagged now; an utter loneliness fills his soul, and its real cry, at this time, would, it seems to him, be the moan of the sea when she grows cold under the clouds, and shudders at the coming on of the storm; worst of all, Philip Draper's soul has lost God,-can find Him nowhere-his mother's God and his own. Part of this mood is, no doubt, owing to overtasked nerves, part to his temperament, part to his lack of all outward interests-it being a necessity of Philip Draper's nature that his life should not centre in himself. So, he wonders again, sitting there, what he is in the world for, and it seems to him he has no place here. Perhaps the hands filing home to their factory board- ing-houses, with jokes and loud guffaws of laughter,- pay-day always generating a good humor in the uni- versal workman of whatever grade,-could have thrown some light upon the question. Each one, from the weavers down to the little spool-winders, had an instinct that the paymaster had enjoyed giving out his small rolls of wages that morning, and more than one had akindly word or two to say about him which it seemed a pity the poor, lonely, homesick fellow sitting there could not hear. It would have lightened his heart a little. Something suddenly glimmered on his eyelashes, and fell upon his hand. The sight of that tear stung Philip Draper with an ineffable self-scorn. He dashed his hand away, as though a spark of fire had touched it. "Fool and spooney!" he muttered to himself. "Crying like Shakspeare's schoolboy, are you, be- cause all the plums haven't got into your slice of cake? If there's a spark of manhood left in you, get up and look your fate in the face, as you've looked it when it was harder than to-day, and then go home to your dinner. You've known what it was to have little or none to go to." A little, half-grim, half-sad smile struggled out on Philip Draper's face. The hard, bitter words had stung him into some wholesome life now. He sprang up, and in that very act caught sight of a face at the open page: 48-49[View Page 48-49] TE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. window, with the nose a good deal flattened against the pane, with sunburnt, flabby cheeks, and white, woolly head. "Well, what's wanting?" asked the superintendent, or paymaster, or whatever you choose to call him, for he went by multiform names among the hands; and he said this in a tone that would have encouraged any one wavering and half inclined to run away to come in now, and make his want known, whatever that might be. The boy entered, lank, overgrown, and shuffling; coat, trousers, and shoes in an advanced state of dirt and dilapidation. "I've come for my wages, sir," hitching up his trousers with an awkward, nervous jerk. "Your wages, eh? Why didn't you come with the relt?" The boy drew his breath, put one foot before the other, and mumbled something, in dreadful embarrass- ment, down his throat. "What's your name?" inquired the paymaster; he was not one of your men who have a taste for torturing anything--criminals even. This time the answer came clear enough--"Fin Brummer." The trisyllable, -Alphonso, had been gradually mouthed over and worked down into its present con- ciseness. In fact, few of the boy's associates knew he had ever possessed any more dignified cognomen. Philip Draper turned and looked at the books. There the name stood, and against it stood four days of work out of eighteen. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. " "How does it happen you've been off work so many days, Fin?" The boy looked at his boots, which certainly could not, in their present condition, have afforded an agree- able subject for contemplation, and then up at the ceil- ing, and wriggled his shoulders; and yet, with all these efforts, did not find a word to say. "Come, now, Fin, look straight at me. Tell the truth and shame the devil." The boy could not resist the powerful attraction of the presence and voice. He looked straight at the man standing at the desk, and the words came right out of his throat of their own accord, it seemed: "I played hookey." "I supposed so. Well, Fin, you see this playing hookey doesn't pay, after all, as well as work." Fin had a keen realization of that fact, now pay-day had come and his board bill had fallen due; and again he resorted for suggestion or consolation, first to his boots and then to the ceiling. Philip Draper, looking at the boy standing there, dumb, self-convicted, hungry and ragged, lazy and bad, felt a strong pity coming over him; moreover, a secret sympathy with his truant proclivities. He had had of late so many morbid and miserable feelings himself; he had been conscious of so many depraved impulses toward running off into the wilder- ness and turning hermit, gypsy, savage, even, that he could very well understand how Fin would enjoy far more lying on his back, or laying traps for squirrels, or climbing trees for birds' nests, than-picking wool or hanging up webs in the bleach-house. The man and page: 50-51[View Page 50-51] 50 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. the boy in the mill-office, unlike as they were, had one thing in common, after all, and that was love of strong, homely mother-earth, and of blue sky, and broad, warm, generous sunshine, and the rustle of winds among leaves. Then, too, Philip Draper had been growing charita- ble toward the lapses of his kind, as he had not been in his proud, unbending youth, when he held such absolute faith in himself, in his conscience, and in his honor. It is true, Fin, standing there, was only learning the lesson older than the world's oldest harvest-field, of reaping what he had sown; but if beyond that solemn law there were no God somewhere with heart of love and pity, then into what fields of barren stubble and what wraths of whirlwinds we should all come at last! More or less of these thoughts worked behind Philip Draper's wide, gray eyes as he looked at the boy with the flabby cheeks and the shock head awaiting his fate. "I suppose you want this money to pay your board, Fin?" speaking again. "Yes, sir, I do," said Fin, his voice now proving equal to four gruff, fervent monosyllables. "But it's a very small sum that's owing you-not half enough to settle your bill." "If I'd take it to her, though, she might let me stay on," said Fin, with an eagerness that brought a glow into his flabby cheeks. - The superintendent understood that "her" and "she" referred to the hostess of the factory boarding- X house, o ! "I have my own doubts about that," replied Philip ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 5I Draper; and then, looking at the boy, homeless, and hungry, and conscience-stricken, before him, he made up his mind what to do. "Fin,"--speaking in his kindest tone,--"I should really like to feel there was the making of an honest, industrious boy in you; and though I have no right to pay you a cent beyond what you've fairly earned this month, still I want to let you start with a fresh chance, so I am going to give you, out of my own money, the balance of the month's wages which you haven't earned. "' At this announcement Fin opened his mouth wide; his light-green eyes seemed about to start out of his head, and he stood still, simply staring at the superin- tendent in a kind of blank amazement. The gentleman proceeded quietly to open the desk, counted -over the amount which was due Fin on the books; then he took out his pocket-book and added to the sum what would make the full month's wages. "Here it is, Fin"-holding the money out to him. "Remember, it will never do to try me like this a second time; but I am willing to give you a chance to make an honest, faithful boy. Go home, now, and get your dinner, and pay your landlady." Fin shuffled- up his lanky, overgrown figure to the desk, shoved out a soiled paw, and took the little green pile. He moved off without speaking a word, in a kind of dazed way, and shambled half across the room; then he turned back and came up to the desk. "I thank you, sir," he said, and there were actually tears on his short, yellow bristles of eyelashes. "You're welcome, Fin. Don't forget what I said, page: 52-53[View Page 52-53] 5 2 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. my boy," answered the superintendent, and he smiled now; and when the fullness of Philip Draper's smile came into his face, the one upon whom that smile shone would not be likely to forget it. Fin shuffled out, and then the superintendent rose. At that moment there was a stir in the side-entry, and, looking up, he saw a noble-looking elderly gentleman, in a brown overcoat, and a whip in his hand. "Excuse me," he said, coming forward, "'but I called in a hurry, to see if Mr. Weymouth was in, and I hadn't the heart to break up the scene I was witness- ing. I hope I did no harm by keeping still." "Oh! not the least, sir," answered Philip Draper, blushing a little, however, as he remembered the part he had sustained in the drama. "Are you in the habit of treating your employes in this manner?" asked the gentleman with a smile; and as the speaker happened to be Squire Thayne, you know already how he looked, and what his smile was. "It would hardly do for employers to run the mills on such principles," said the younger man, smiling in his turn; " but this was a little, independent side-piece of my own." "I wish, my dear sir, one had a chance oftener of witnessing such 'side-pieces' as that in the world," said Squire Thayne, and he added no more--which was not needed, certainly. Both the men looked at each other with strong in- terest. The elder, at least, was in a hurry. "I suppose you are the new superintendent?" he asked. ;It X ONE WOMAN'S TWO L OVERS. 53 "Precisely, sir. You have the advantage of me there." "Yes,-I forgot that. I am Mr. Thayne, an old townsman and friend of Mr. Weymouth." Philip Draper's face brightened with pleasure. "Oh! yes. You are not unknown to me now, Squire Thayne. " A little surprised glint in the elder man's deep gray eyes. "If you choose to have it that way, Mr. "Draper," suggested the younger. * "Draper"-bowing his thanks. :"You must have found our bustling little town lie rather ponderously on your hands or spirits when you came a stranger among- us. " "Rather, I confess, sir." "We are not a very sociable people, I fear-at least, what cordial warmth we have doesn't lie near the sur- face. But, whenever you feel like it, come over to our rookery without further talk or invitation. We shall always be glad to see you. Act, whenever you are moved to, on that knowledge." It was impossible to doubt that the man meant what- ever he said, or to regard this as a mere ordinary civil- ity. "Thank you, Squire Thayne. I shall certainly act on your invitation," answered Philip Draper, When the two men parted, they shook hands with a kind of feeling that they had known each other all their lives. Philip Draper went up to his boarding-house with a lighter heart than he would have dreamed possible when he sat at his office-desk half an hour ago. '. .6 page: 54-55[View Page 54-55] 54 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. ' CHAPTER V. WHEN Squire Thayne reached home that day, after his interview with Philip Draper, he found company-- pleasant company, he saw by Jacqueline's face as she came to meet him, that face which he knew like a book, better even than his favorite ones, which is saying a - :: great deal. The company in this case proved to be Sydney Wey- - mouth, the son of the head proprietor of the woolen : factories. Squire Thayne had hardly seen him since ?? he set out from Hedgerows, a bright young stripling, : more than a decade ago, to prepare for college. The / elder man looks at the younger now, with the bright, shrewd eyes under the gray, bushy brows; thinks what a fine, stalwart-looking fellow he is; wonders how much of the old man's stuff there is in him; if, with a cer- tain inherited basis of the elder Weymouth's shrewdness and energy, there is an essentially finer and deeper : nature, out of which life will have a chance to work something: more than a prosperous moneyed man. A Otherwise, with all his good looks and agreeable ways, , he will not occupy a very high altitude in Squire X Thayne's estimation, the man having his own standard of judging of his kind; and being given to thinking, if not often to saying, of many a swimmingly prosperous a business-man of his acquaintance--"Little more, after all, come to line and plummet, than another poor old Dives, when 'his soul shall be required of him.' ' ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 55 I am not just certain whether Squire Thayne had ever said this of the successful proprietor of the woolen fac- tories or not. The two were townsmen and neighbors, and Squire Thayne liked to have an hour's talk with the man; and at a certain level the two got on admira- bly, although, had Stephen Weymouth had any idea what was going on in the silent, shrewd brain of his companion regarding himself, he would have been, to say the' least, startled. But Squire Thayne liked to talk with all sorts of men. He had none of Jacque- line's fastidiousness, or could put it into the background better than she could, and was not so easily bored. He met his guest cordially. And they-were the kind of men to fall at once into easy talk together. There was -no trouble here to find something to say to each other, as there often is between people who have long been apart, and whose interests and experiences have widely diverged meanwhile. Jacqueline looked wonderfully animated. It ap- peared that for the last two hours she and young Wey- mouth had been keeping up a brisk conversation. She had always liked her old playfellow; and now he came, setting ajar with his words, his very presence even, the gates and doors of her childhood, and she looked in upon old happy scenes as our to-morrows will always turn and look upon our yesterdays; and it began to seem to her that they were once more just boy and girl sitting together, with the same old, bounding life and careless fun and talk going on between them. Philip Weymouth had been easily prevailed upon to remain to lunch; and it transpired then that he had not forgotten the last time he sat-in the pleasant little * f- ***. page: 56-57[View Page 56-57] 56 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. breakfast-room, and Jacqueline had been his hostess. Yet he never once complimented her on her improve- ment in person or mind during this long interval, as most men certainly would most women who deserved it less than Jacqueline Thayne. Certainly Sydney Weymouth would have done it most gracefully to any other woman whom he knew; and herein you have one key to the man's character. After Squire Thayne's arrival, the conversation swelled into wider channels; and here, too, the guest fully sus- tained himself. It was years since the elder gentleman had been abroad, but he never forgot anything he had once seen. And it happened that young Weymouth's lines of travel had fallen into those Squire Thayne had followed more than a couple of decades before. Jacqueline was content to listen to the two now, al- though she was no stranger to the whole ground, having been over it so often with her uncle. Indeed, she quite unconsciously often slipped in some remark which showed so familiar an acquaintance with the subject, that Sydney Weymouth was thoroughly amazed. On one of these occasions he said to her-"You say you'have never been abroad, Miss Jacqueline, and yet if I had in the least forgotten the native, downright truthfulness of my old playfellow, you would compel me to doubt your word. Why, there isn't a woman, Squire Thayne," turning to that gentleman, "in a hundred, who has been on the ground, who is familiar with these details your niece knows by heart. What- does it mean?" -- Jacqueline laughed in that bright amused way which Sydney Weymouth had not forgotten. "Uncle Alger O ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. and I have taken the journey so many times in the old library together, that it would be a shocking proof of my stupidity if I knew no more abbut these things than I should, having been there once to see with my own eyes. Why, I was fairly brought up on his travels and tumblings about the world." "The truth is," said Squire Thayne, looking at his niece as he never looked at anything else on earth, "my conscience is always twinging and twitting me of playing the part of some old medieval guardian toward my little girl. I've kept her shut up here at Hedge- rows as young maidens were kept in the days when it was unsafe for them to wander outside the sight of the moat and towers of their own feudal castles; and she has made me believe she liked it better than anything else in the world, and whenever I have talked of cross- ing the Atlantic she has found some excellent excuse ".' for delaying it another year. She is good at those things when she fancies I am putting myself out to please her; but the truth is, I saw through the sophistry all the time, and the shame is, I was selfish enough to act on it." "Now, Uncle Alger, I have waited patiently for you to make your peroration," laughed Jacqueline gayly, "but I warn you it is the last time I shall sit meekly by and hear you anathematize yourself. As for being shut up in feudal castles, and things of that sort, I assure you, Mr. Weymouth, there has never a winter gone by, since I left the middle of my teens, that we have not duly made a journey to the city, and I have plunged into crowds and excitements until I grew thor- oughly tired and bored, and plead hard to be brought 6* page: 58-59[View Page 58-59] 58 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. back to Hedgerows. I own that when Uncle Alger has issued his Europe-programmes I have always said, and I only wish all my remarks had been as sensible and to the point--'If I live, there's plenty of time for all that; if I die-what's the difference, Uncle Alger?'" Both the gentlemen laughed. "Yes, that is precisely what her answer has been," said Jacqueline's uncle. "I d6 not in the least doubt it," answered young Weymouth; "I know her of old, and it sounds like her -so much so, indeed, that if I had heard the speech alone, I should have been certain it came from my old playmate, Miss Jacqueline Thayne." "( Was I really in the habit of amusing you with my speeches?" inquired Jacqueline, with perfect inno- cence. Her guest lifted his eyebrows--"I think you were," he said. "I hope you have not outgrown the habit." A little while after this, I only know they had drifted out again on the current of young Weymouth's travels -he was relating some amusing anecdotes which had transpired during a day's visit to Versailles. He could tell a story well, this Sydney Weymouth. He could catch all the bright,1 picturesque points of an event, and adapt the relation to his hearers' tastes and preju- dices. His listeners evidently enjoyed his talk, but Ver- sailles was a prolific topic, and started a long discus- sion on Art and the times of Louis XIV. At that name Jacqueline burst in--CLet me warn you in time, Mr. Weymouth, that you are approaching dangerous ground. My uncle Alger is the most char- ! ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 5.9 itable man in the world; and for all kinds of human lapses and infirmities he has the broadest sympathy and pity; but when it comes to the Bourbons and the Stu- arts, his native kindliness fails him. The crowned heads who bore those names seem to be to him an impersonation of every possible evil." Her uncle rubbed his hands and laughed. "Find some good thing to tell me of the races," he said. "What a track of desolation and death they leave, through history! What forgiveness can an honest, native-born American, brought up on George Wash- si/ut 6ington, nurtured on the grand old names of the Revo- lution, have for men like these, with all the hard, mer- ciless vices of the despot in almost every one of them, whether you find it under the grace and splendid pres- ence of Louis XIV., that magnificent Sardanapalus, or of his cousin, that hard, merciless, obstinate bigot, James II. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes stands against one, the drowning and torturing of the Scotch Covenanters the other; and for the work they did, and the misery they wrought, God may forgive Stuart and Bourbon, but how shall the man who reads history? "One can only do it, remembering how every par- ticle of the sacred and anointed skin and bones for which they had so high a regard has blown, long be- fore this, as Dickens puts it in his felicitous way, to dust impalpable.' " "I certainly share your feelings, Squire Thayne, with regard to both races," answered Sydney Weymouth, "only I think my historical aversions include a good many other names besides those of Stuart and Bourbon. page: 60-61[View Page 60-61] 60 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. They were no worse, it seems to me, only more promi- nent, than a host of others." "No; but they sinned against greater light. Look at poor Elizabeth Gaunt, on the very threshold of the eighteenth century, arranging the fagots which were to burn her; and think of that magnificent monster, Louis XIV., draining the very life-blood of a nation- ,that's no fine metaphor, but a plain, downright fact this time-to adorn his palaces, and deck his mistresses, and make a blaze of splendor-about his royal self. Ah! I ground my teeth thinking of it all among the splendid columns and glowing canvas of Versailles." "Yes, it sets an American's heart and brain at work, as he gazes on all that splendor," replied Sydney Wey- mouth; and I really believe he fancied, for the moment, that he felt all he *as saying. "But," said Jacqueline, "what a retribution .the gods, grinding their mills slowly through the centuries, have ground out for both families! Think of that cup of red wrath, the French Revolution, which the Bour- bons drank to its bitter dregs, and of the Stuarts, wandering, uncrowned and homeless, about the world, their kingdom lost, their very name a scoff and by- word." "And think of that monster, King Bomba-of Na- ples, and that wretched Isabella of Spain! The flour- ishing green bay-tree cut down to the roots. Thank God! oh, thank God!" Squire Thayne's voice reminded one strongly of the solemn fervor-of some Methodist elder. This, of course, was a side issue in the talk, yet I could not fail to put it down, letting you, as it does, r, ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 61 into one side of the characters of these people; but the conversation got back again to, personal and con- temporaneous subjects. They talked of Hedgerows, of its people, and of its changes; of which latter, in the prosiest town, a de- cade must always have a large share; and of Sydney's father, and how well he bore his years; and of the elder man's desire thai his son should settle down in Hedgerows and a partnership in the factories-a solid, prosperous berth enough for any young man. This brought back to Squire Thayne the scene which he had witnessed that morning in the office. He spoke now. - "I see, Weymouth, your father has a new super- intendent. I met him at the office when I dropped in on business to-day." "Yes. Philip Draper is a good fellow-companion- able, too, on a sail or a tramp ;-a man of culture, also -out of college not very long ago. I suspect he's had some tough, up-hill work of it through life, although he never says much of himself." "I liked the fellow heartily," said Jacqueline's uncle. "There's good stuff in him. He impressed me strongly at this interview." Jacqueline looked at her uncle. She knew better 'than anybody else what strong praise this was, coming from him. She felt a momentary curiosity to see this superintendent, but forgot it the next in listening to her guest. Although he was not really conscious of it, this praise grated a little on Sydney Weymouth; he could not for his life have told why, only from that time -he did not like Philip Draper as well as he had done- page: 62-63[View Page 62-63] 62 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. had a vague feeling of antagonism, impalpable as mist, toward him. He answered again-"Draper's a bright fellow, and seems to give very good satisfaction at the works." No very ardent praise, you see. Perhaps the fact struck Squire Thayne. 'He was a man -given to observing small things, but, with all his shrewdness, his great heart always kept him from grow- ing cynical and morose over the weaknesses of his kind --such a broad, genial man to the core, that I love to write about him. It was almost sunset before Sydney Weymouth took his departure. He would be sure to come again soon, and you might be certain he would be welcome when he did, from the kind of invitation which he carried away from both host and hostess. Jacqueline, between her fastidiousness and her real soft-heartedness, was frequently driven to straits when it came to the temperature of her invitations to the Manse, as her uncle had a quaint habit of calling her home. Commonplace, pretentious people bored her im- mensely; she had no patience with them; was always relieved when their time came for leave-taking; yet when it came to letting anybody leave their threshold without carrying away a last warm sense of welcome, her heart always roused itself to the rescue, with sun- dry little reminders of conscience lest she should over- step the bounds of truthfulness even in inviting a neighbor to call. Jacqueline and her uncle had accompanied their guest to the door. After he had gone, they stood there a ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 63 moment, looking at the splendor of colors in the sun- set. "I wish Ruskin was here to see that," said Jacque- line, who had been deep in his "Modern Painters" of late. Her uncle did not answer. He was looking- at one long, gray cloud which stood out from the bronze heap behind, like some lofty human figure; golden mists sweeping away on one side like yellow, floating tresses of a woman. "What are you thinking of that cloud?" asked Jac- queline, seeing where his gaze rested. "It was only one of my foolish fancies, child. But it seems to me Boadicea must have looked something like that when she rode down in her chariot, in her float- ing yellow hair, to meet the Roman legions on the- battle-field. The grand old Britoness! What a figure she makes on that background of history! One brave heart, and that a woman's, defying the pride and power of the world!" "Yes, it was glorious!" answered Jacqueline. "And with a little imagination you can have the whole battle- scene drawn out in the clouds up there. All the gray masses on the left are the Roman legions, with the horsemen and banners, and the eagle whose beak has torn 'The noble heart of Britain, and left it gorily quivering.' And there on the other side are the soldiers, with their forest of darts and bucklers, and the chariots and the scythes, and Boadicea, with her fair hair and her float- ing raiment, in the front. A grand figure, as you say, Uncle Alger." page: 64-65[View Page 64-65] " ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. And while they gazed, the whole dulled and blurred slowly, until the tall figure of Boadicea, and the chari- ots with scythes, and the Roman legions with their banners and horsemen, were first one huge brownish mass, and then a heap of soft gray . "Come in; it's chilly," said Jacqueline's uncle, closing the door, as the autumn wind crawled up from the distant marshes, where it had been hiding all day. "Well, what do you think of young Weymouth?" asked Jacqueline as soon as they regained the room. "I like him. He's agreeable and intelligent. I'm really pleased to see he's turned out so well," said Squire'Thayne, glad to say the very best he could of the son of his old townsman and neighbor-Jacque- line's old playmate, too. She answered with animation--"I think he is all you say, Uncle Alger. I don't know when I have enjoyed a visit so much as I have this one. Sydney-I can't help going back to his old name-seems to have studied, and seen, and thought to, some purpose all these years. I always liked him, you know." "Yes; -he was a bright boy," answered her uncle. And then the tea-bell rang. During the meal, Squire Thayne related to his niece the scene which he had witnessed that day in the fac- tory office. Such a story could not fail to touch and interest her. After her uncle was through, she made sundry inquiries about Philip Draper, those which would be likely to occur to a woman-the principal points referring to his looks and address. "I really should like to see him," she said. "I intend you shall," replied her uncle. I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 65 "It must be dull work for the poor fellow, a stranger, too, shut up here at Hedgerows." "I saw that by the way his face brightened when I asked him out here." Sydney Weymouth, walking leisurely home that night, switching off with his cane the leaves from some hazel clumps on either side of the road, thought to himself that he had had a capital visit that afternoon, and that Jacqueline Thayne had made a grand sort of woman; handsomer, too, than he could have ever fancied pos- sible, remembering her thin, colorless childhood. She interested, stimulated him. She had always done that, with her bright, quaint ways and face when they were boy and girl together. He compared her with all the other women whom he had known, and she stood, to quote his own thoughts,-and if he had been truly and inwardly capable of appreciating such a woman, he would never have had so coarse and flippant a thought of Jacqueline Thayne,- "head and shoulders above them all." Beyond that, it came upon him all of a sudden that it might be worth his while to try and win this Jac- queline Thayne for his wife. She was not precisely the kind of woman he had fancied, in an indolent way, would some time wear and do honor to his name: but something about her made other women seem dreadfully insipid when he came to compare them with this girl. Jacqueline would interest and amuse him always, he thought, and he should never get tired of her, which he should, for a dead certainty, of an ordinary woman. "The dash and sparkle in her, the brave, proud, page: 66-67[View Page 66-67] " ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. fiery spirit"-you will bear in mind here I am quoting Sydney Weymouth's thoughts-suited him. Moreover, he had a secret feeling that Jacqueline Thayne's heart would be something better worth having, if a man once got it, than most women's. Now, whatever was best and choicest in the world, Sydney Weymouth had a feeling belonged of right to himself-a wife among the rest. It is true, in the midst of all these thoughts which were so strongly in Jacqueline's favor, he had a few secret misgivings. He was a little afraid of something in her, he could not precisely tell what; but it was a certain disregard of the world's opinion, a courage and downrightness which he had a little fear might be masculine. But he remembered the smile with which she had 'looked up in her uncle's face that afternoon-the womanly sweetness, tenderness, devotion that shone out of her eyes. "Once let that girl love a man, and I wouldn't be afraid to trust her," thought Sydney Weymouth, switching off-more leaves. The young man thought, too, how it would suit his father and his mother to see him settle down in Hedge- rows with Jacqueline Thayne for his wife. There would be a handsome fortune waiting for her in Squire Thayne's will, for everything the man possessed would, of course, fall plump into his niece's lap. 'That consideration would not weigh so heavily with me as it would with father," thought Sydney Wey- mouth, possibly with a faint notion that there was something slightly mercenary or material in that " con- sideration," and when you came to money there was nothing miserly about him. "I have a foundation ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 67 laid here at Hedgerows, and prospects in store which- thank the gods--set me quite above any need of fortune- hunting in the way of a wife." Through all this it never once entered Sydney Wey- mouth's thoughts to ask himself whether he was worthy of Jacqueline Thayne; whether he was the man to make her happy. He took all that for granted. Turning an angle of the road, he came suddenly upon Philip Draper. The two young men shook hands cordially, and walked some distance together-their roads lying in the same direction. There was no shade of difference in the manner of either, as they talked about the weather and the news, and had over their jokes, and one quoted a scrap of Horace, and another supplemented it with a smack of Virgil. And it may be that some unacknowledged feeling of antagonism made young Weymouth a little more pronounced in his cordiality to his friend, for he had never said more heartily than he did when the two parted at the corner,-"Don't turn the cold shoulder, Draper, as you've been doing of late, on an old crony. Show your face up at the house a little more fre- quently." The other made fair promises, but Sydney Weymouth did not inform his friend where he had been that after- noon, nor allude in the remotest degree to the Thaynes. page: 68-69[View Page 68-69] 68 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VYERS. CHAPTER -VI. FOR several days Philip Draper had been promising himself that he would accept Squire Thayne's invita- tion to his house, and yet, when the time came, he always found some excellent excuse for putting it off, all the while secretly desiring to go. He was no coward, this Philip Draper. Whatsoever, thus far, life had brought him to do, he had not failed in the prompt, brave doing. Once show him that his work lay that way, and he would have gone to the wil- derness and faced all the dragons that haunted it; but for some unaccountable reason the young man-not so very young either, for he was deep among his thirties- did shrink from walking up to the front door of the stone,cottage, with its quiet, medieval air behind its greenery of clumps and shrubs. I think Philip Draper had a vague, blind instinct that across that threshold some fate waited for him. It was singular how often at this time his thoughts were hovering about the inmates of that quiet house, be- tween the pine-woods and the hills. But you must re- member, despite the outward bustle and activity of the superintendent's life at this time, how lonely and barren one side of it was,--the deepest and best. So, in the midst of driving bargains with sharp dealers in piles of wool, in t he midst of all the jar and thunder of the pon- derous machinery, as he mounted one story after another 'i!lt ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 69 of the vast building, a face so misty, so much like a vision or a cloud that he was hardly aware of it himself, floated before Philip Draper; but its faint, pure shadowy lineaments were those of the woman whom he had seen when he stood under the bridge, and her face had been drawn clear and pure as some rare sculpture against the murk and the shadows of the coming night. He felt a craving curiosity to know more of the owner of that face, and of her uncle, who had made so strong an impression on him; yet though the way had been smoothed for him to the very threshold of the Thaynes, and it was the most natural thing in the world for him to take it, Philip Draper never actually found himself on the road. One day, however, going home, if his boarding-house must, in want of a better, stand for that name, Philip Draper came plump upon Squire Thayne in his buggy. The latter was going home, the name in his case repre- senting a fact. "Ah! how do you do, sir?" he said, drawing up at once, and offering his hand with great cordiality. "I'm on the road home. Jump in and go out to supper with me." The younger man hesitated an instant, then seized the current. He sprang into the buggy, and in an in- stant young Draper found himself bowling along the I road after Squire Thayne's brown mare. Ten minutes' ride brought the two home. Squire Thayne showed his guest at once into the library. You know already what sort of room that was; and I hope by this time you have seen far enough into Philip Draper's real self to fancy how this would strike him [! . F ' - , . page: 70-71[View Page 70-71] 70o ONE WOMAN'S. TWO LO VERS. on first sight. He heard his host go to the foot of the stairs and call--"My bairnie! my bairnie!" I may as well say here that Squire Thayne had had an old Scotch nurse, who had woven her own homely vernacular all through his first lustrums. Squire Thayne clung to the broad old Scotch through all his after-life, loved it dearly, as any good man loves the scenes and sounds of his childhood. It was always cropping out in his talk. Philip Draper heard a swift rustle of woman's gar- ments along the staircase; there was a low murmur of voices, and some sweet laughter between, and then the door opened, and Squire Thayne came in and intro- duced his niece to Philip Draper with a few quaint words; for the individuality and the deep humor of the man made him always go through with these little ceremonies in his own fashion. So the man and the woman looked at each other. Jacqueline Thayne wore this evening a white dress, with a little woolen jacket in dark blue, for the days were getting shorter and colder. It was as simple a toilet as possible, you see; but the white and the soft blue gathered about her throat were very becoming. Perhaps she looked unusually well this evening. I do not know. This, then, was the face, shadowy, and misty, and sweet, which had been floating before Philip Draper all these days. I only know that when he beheld it, it seemed to him such a face as he had been dreaming of all his life; that in his eyes it wore some divine sweet- ness, and loveliness, and that he thought of Helen, as she came with her maidens among the elders of Troy; a ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 7I and of Guinevere, as she rode out- from her silken tent to meet King Arthur; and of Enid, as she sat in her frayed and faded garments by her wounded knight, Geraint; and of all the beautiful women he had ever read and dreamed about. Now, Jacqueline Thayne would have made no such impression on the eyes of most men as she came into the library that afternoon. Every man has his own ideal and type of beauty, I suppose. It happened that Jacqueline Thayne's face--the strong, delicate outline, the dark brown of hair and eyes, the faint touches of color-was above all others the type which suited Philip Draper. The girl looked at the man, too, as she shook hands with him-a rather scrutinizing gaze, for she was a little near-sighted. I do not think the face struck her par- ticularly at first sight. It was not so handsome as her uncle's or Sidney Weymouth's, she probably thought; and yet she would find all the time that if there was any disappointment in Philip Draper's face, it came with the first glance. The more you looked at it, the more you foundI in it of power, strength; because of a the heart and soul which lay behind it. Neither do I think, in the talk which followed during the next half-hour, and which really had little worth setting down here, that Philip Draper showed himself at his best-at least to the girl. When it came to her uncle, he got on better. To say the man was embarrassed, or, worse yet, bash- ful, in the presence of this woman, would seem to take away from him all the elements of a hero. Yet,: for awhile, he never came so near feeling awkward and ill page: 72-73[View Page 72-73] 72 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. at ease in his life as he did with that girl's bright, calm eyes upon him; his ideas never seemed so slow, his faculties so little at his command, as was proved by his thoughts, which kept on in a kind of chiding under- current-' Rouse up,- man! What's the matter with you? Don't make a fool of yourself." Jacqueline did not share in any secret feeling of this sort. She could not help taking an interest in the man of whom her uncle had related such a story as the one he had witnessed in the office; but for all that she' would have found a good deal more to say-have prob- ably enjoyed the first half-hour a good deal better, if Sydney Weymouth had sat in Philip Draper's place. Squire Thayne, however, had come to the conclusion that there was something in this man, whether it lay on the surface or not, and he set about angling for it skill- fully. By the time they got out to supper Draper was a good deal thawed. People with much essentially in common, with deep, immortal affinities and sympathies, may not always get on at first half so well as those whose at- tractions lie wholly on the surface. At that quiet supper-table, with all -its tender home atmosphere about him; with the face, to him beautiful and divine in its womanliness, behind the tea-urn; with the talk of-his host waking old memories of his college- days and happy tea-drinkings at the tables of some of his old professors, although the talk then lacked some fine flavor of feeling and humor which was in his host's to-night, Philip Draper quite came out of his shell. Interested and stimulated more and more, he regained the mastery of his faculties. It is true he had never ft IONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 73 had any of Sydney Weymouth's opportunities-had never been outside his native land, and, in fact, had seen but a very small slice of that; but it is always of less consequence how much a man sees than "what he brings eyes for seeing." Philip Draper was still a young man, but he had thought and felt more than most old ones. The prob- lems of human life had come up one by one, and per- plexed and saddened him more or less, as they had saddened and perplexed Jacqueline Thayne; although her path, 'unlike his, had been sunny and smooth, and sheltered from childhood to womanhood, with never a salt-breaker of sorrow dashing across it; but she knew for all that, as all fine and generous souls must, what steep, barren, flinty roads were outside her own flower- bordered ways. Philip Draper was a native-born student, and he had devoured books, and his brain and heart had digested them afterward. As he grew at ease during the supper, more or less of himself came into the conversation, notwithstanding he was naturally modest, and usually a little reticent. "I haven't been disappointed in the fellow," thought Squire Thayne, and he looked pleased as they got on one and another of his favorite authors, and Philip Draper proved himself at home with them. When they returned to the library, they found the fire blazing in the chimney, the room filled with a summer-like glow and warmth; while outside the night- winds groped up from the marshes through the chill, damp air, and moaned desolately at the windows; and it seemed to Philip Draper, as he looked about him on page: 74-75[View Page 74-75] 74 QlONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. the warmth and softness and home climate of the room, that he was nearer heaven than he had ever been before; and that the lady in white and blue before him was just the fitting divinity of the place. Jacqueline had enjoyed the talk at the supper-table. She returned to the library with a new interest in their guest. As they were taking their seats, she glanced at her own, and turned toward a chair, thinking hers hardly dignified enough to occupy in the presence of a stranger. Her uncle saw the movement. He turned quickly, placed his hands on her shoulders, and quietly placed her in her own seat,--"There, bairnie, take your own place," he said. And from that time the little hybrid between camp- stool and chair was a throne in Philip Draper's eyes. He did not know it, but he turned and smiled on the girl, and Jacqueline's face started, and a little flush, half of surprise, dawned upon it. Philip Draper's whole face had taken part in that smile, and she thought the first look she had had of him must have been in a poor light. "I fear you must have found Hedgerows a little dreary," she said, speaking what came uppermost after that smile. a' One is apt to find any place that, I suppose, where all faces are alike strange ones." "Ah! yes, my dear fellow, I know how that seems," said Squire Thayne, thinking of his first year in South America. "You have, however, the same stuff to keep you from rusting and moping that'I had--hard work, ' Young Draper laughed. "Yes, whatever virtue there ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 75 is in that, those two hundred people down there at the factory seem determined that I shall have the benefit of it." "Hedgerows seems the most' charming place in the world to me," said Jacqueline, " but I wonder what it would appear if I came to it the first time, a stranger, withoutyou, Uncle Alger?" "Very much the sort of place that it has to our friend here, I suspect," said the girl's uncle. But Philip Draper began to think Hedgerows would never seem to him what it had for the last month. So their talk lingers about the town and the people awhile, and then diverges; and the old man and the young one get interested, and the lady sits still and listens, for the most part, but her wide, brown eyes are no longer cool and calm as they were before supper. They have grown dark and radiant with eagerness and enjoyment, for the talk is ranging through wide circles, now, of human life,-of the past, and some of its grand dramas of the present and the future. She has gone over all this ground often with her uncle sitting in this very chair, with the red glow of the same fire on the ceiling overhead; but to-night she prefers to sit still and listen, finding this stranger at their fire- side has something to say to her. , Late in the evening there comes through the hungry, desolate voices of the wind outside, a sound that startles them all-a rapping of knuckles on the casement. They turn and see a small figure at the window, and a round, white thing that looks at first sight as much like A big plaster of dough as anything else, flattened against the panes. page: 76-77[View Page 76-77] 76 ONE- WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. "What's this?" says Squire Thayne, in the first sur- prise, rising up and going to the long window, and opening it, while the others follow. "Please, sir, I want the lady," says a pitiful voice, with a gruffness through its nose and a squeak in its throat, The gentleman by this time has drawn the boy in- side, and the light dazzles his eyes, and the warmth strikes softly to the very marrow of his chilled bones. "Now, where did you come from?" he asks, looking at the small, miserable object. ,But Jacqueline has recognized it-the hair "like un- picked oakum," theshambling figure, the pinched, wilted mask of a face. She goes straight toward it, and then she starts back'with a sudden shock, seeing what a terribly swollen blue-black eye turns toward her. "You are the boy that I met on the bridge. You are looking for me," she says in a moment. "Yes'm"--driving the toes of his old shoes into the carpet. "You told me to come here when I was hungry, and I'm dreadful." "Poor child!"--drawing nearer to him at this con- fession, just as she had drawn that night on the bridge. "But where did you get that black eye?" "My mother gave it to me. She took whisky yester- day, and got high, and turned me out of doors." Jacqueline turned her white, shocked face toward the two men. For a moment she could not speak. Her uncle came forward now. "Come, my boy," he said in his kindest tones, "we will go out into the kitchen and see if we cannot find a ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. " good, warm supper, in the first place," and he took the cold, scrawny hand in his own large, warm one. "I will go with him, Uncle Alger," said Jacqueline, coming forward. "No; one's enough"-looking at her face. "You must keep Mr. Draper company," and he went out and i left the young man and woman alone together, with the fire humming in the chimney, and the winds fretting drearily outside. Jacqueline settled herself down in her old seat-the shocked look on her face. "It's a miserable world, after all," she said. "What do you think of it, Mr. Draper?" "Whatever I think, I always have, at last, to fall back on the conviction that it is God's world, although I confess it sometimes seems as though He took very little interest in it." "If I had Uncle Alger's faith!" she said. "He expects that it will all be made clear and right, some time." "So did my mother," answered Philip Draper, and then he was astonished at himself; he had hardly spoken to any woman of his mother since he had watched the gray clods smoothed over her. At that moment Squire Thayne came back. "The boy's in Paradise now," he said, " over a good, warm meal. One wants to bring a little of his sauce of hunger to the table to find out the sweetness there is in bread and butter." Jacqueline understood what the light words cov- ered. "What are you going to do with him?" she asked. 8 i. . page: 78-79[View Page 78-79] 78 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. "Put him into a good, warm bed, after he has got through with his supper, and think about the rest to- morrow. Don't look so grave, my little girl. . He will get over the black eye in a few days." "But not over the whisky and the bad mother," said the girl, sorrowfully enough. "No; that is the worst of it," said Jacqueline's uncle. "We must try and do something for him. Where did you come across him?" "I met him on the bridge one evening, returning from a walk; and the child's wretched looks cut me to the heart. I gave him some pennies and told him to come out here the next time he was hungry. It seems he hasn't forgotten; but the mother, drunk and brutal, was worse than I thought." Philip Draper did not supplement Jacqueline's story with what he had seen himself; he only added-"Per- haps I can find some berth for him in the factory." "Oh! thank you," said Jacqueline, turning upon him a face with a beautiful smile shining out of it. "Well," said Squire Thayne, " if I hadn't made up my mind long ago that God's world was quite too large for me to carry on my shoulders, I don't think I should have lived to see this day; but I have managed to get on by lending a helping hand where I could, and leav- ing the rest to Him. "The boy's case is bad, but a full supper and a warm bed have made his cup full for one night. What were we talking about, you and I, Mr. Draper, when the rap came at the window?" They took up the old threads again, and wove them into another hour's talk; and I cannot tell which heart ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 79 was the lighter,-the boy's, in his warm, fresh bed up- stairs, or the superintendent's as he went home that night. CHAPTER VII. MR. and Mrs. Stephen Weymouth sat together one evening in their drawing-room. Everything about them was handsome, elegant, solid. The large, spa- cious stone house had the air, inside and out, of a wide, substantial prosperity. There was nothing to find fault with anywhere. Everything was in good taste and good order, from the carved cornices over- head to the crimson figures of the velvet carpet under- neath. What money could do it had -done here. There was nothing simply pretentious or superficial. Stephen Weymouth liked gold and rosewood, not gilt and veneering. There he sat among his papers, with his broad, solid figure, and his Roman head, and his large, shrewd, well-moulded face. He was a good-looking man, and he knew it. In fact, he had a very comfortable esti- mate of his own merits in general, but good sense enough to keep this opinion moderately in the back- ground. He was a practical, sagacious man. He had made his own fortune by his own wits, and now, on the broad and sunny slope beyond his prime, the man was taking his ease among the goodly harvest-fields of his wealth; "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also [A page: 80-81[View Page 80-81] 80 ONE WO MAN'S TWO LO VERS. reap," holding true of things material as well as of things spiritual. Mrs. Weymouth sits opposite her husband, busy in embroidering a crimson stripe of Afghan. She was a handsome maiden years ago; she is a handsome matron now. Sydney came honestly by his good looks from both father and mother. The clusters of grayish curls, the handsome lace coiffure, set off the lady's regular features to advan- tage; and there is a glitter of gems among the glow of her wools as her fingers move swiftly over their work. No wonder her son was proud when he took out this handsome, young-looking mother of his, lean- ing on his arm. He had so much to be proud of, this Sydney Weymouth ! As to the woman herself, behind the handsome looks and the fine laces, I hardly know what to say. I only know I never saw Mrs. Stephen Weymouth without thinking of the wife of ' Sir Aylmer Aylmer, that all mighty man." She was good-natured, and I rather think she was kindly hearted. She believed in her husband-and her boy, and in a Providence that would always have in especial care and shine with his kindest beams upon the house of Stephen Weymouth & Son. As for the world outside, I honestly wonder whether she ever felt a pang of pity for it, a thrill of hearty in- terest in it. I used to wonder, too, what kind of soil the plowshare would turn up, if it struck down beyond the fair, smooth levels of her commonplaces-whether all those swarming human souls in her husband's factories were of any more interest to this woman than just that number of animals would have been; whether it ever struck her with solemn force that they had human hearts and souls as well as herself, and Ste- phen, and Sydney? Yet no doubt, if poverty or suf- fering had come in her way, she would have slipped back' the rings of her purse graciously enough; the servants, too, had orders never to refuse a worthy beggar at the kitchen-door. Thus much, at. least, the recording angel has put down to the benefit of Mrs. Stephen Weymouth. "Where is Sydney to-night ?" said the gentleman, laying down his paper, stretching his limbs, and closing the register in front of him, for the room was growing warm, and he was of rather a plethoric habit. "I strongly suspect that he's ridden out again to Squire Thayne's." 'The lady did not lift her eyes from her work, but that fact, perhaps, did not lessen a certain significance in her tones. "To Squire Thayne's?" repeated Mr. Weymouth. After a moment's reflection, he turned suddenly to his wife. "Does a wind set in that quarter, Mary?" "It has struck me there does of late, Stephen," an- swered his wife, still intent upon her wools, the soft, graceful work seeming precisely suited to her. Mr. Weymouth reflected, this time longer than the first, his fingers working slowly with his gray beard. " Well, Mary, it's wholly news to me, but you women are wider awake on these matters than we men." "Yes, we are, Stephen," a little flattered. CI have been on the watch of late, and I have put a good many things together, which have satisfied me that the wind 8* page: 82-83[View Page 82-83] E WO4AN'S TWO LOVERS. O. blows from that quarter. Sydney goes over to Squire Thayne's whenever there is an opportunity, and he is not long at a loss for finding one." " Possible! possible I" said Mr. Weymouth, in a slow, amazed kind of tone, and then he was silent-from no lack of interest in his subject, certainly. "Well, Stephen, what do you think of it?" asked Mrs. Weymouth at last, pausing in her work and look- ing at her husband. Mr. Weymouth did not seem to know precisely what to say. He drew his hand rather irresolutely across his face-it was not a frequent motion with him. The image of Jacqueline Thayne rose before him-the fair, delicate, intellectual face; the swift, quiet, brown figure which he met so often on the country roads when he was riding out. He had always liked the girl,-fancied the sparkle of her talk, with the little, sharp edges to it, to use his own words; but he had always associated some oddness and individuality with all this. Jacqueline Thayne was not just like other women, he fancied; and when it came to looking on her as the future wife of his son, he was a good deal startled. " I had never thought of the boy's taking a wife at Hedgerows," said the gentleman, rather parrying his wife's question. "Neither did I. Jacqueline Thayne is not, I must admit, the kind of young woman I should have sup- posed would strike Sydney's fancy." "Perhaps she hasn't, after all, Mary. You know they were old playfellows, and the boy may go out there as much to see the Squire as his niece." ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 83 Mrs. Weymouth shook her head. " When it comes to these things, a mother is not easily deceived." "It's a good family," continued Mr. Weymouth after a pause, "but there's an odd streak in the Thayne blood." "That's it precisely," said Mrs. Weymouth, with so emphatic a gesture that a heap of wools fell from her lap to the floor. "The girl's got it in herself, too." "Of course. She came honestly enough by it. Squire Thayne's a capital fellow, a scholar and a gen- tleman to the core, but there's some oddness at bottom of him," answered the gentleman. His wife moved uneasily, and there was a shadow on the face under the gray curls and the handsome coiffure. She had an instinct of antipathy to independence and un- conventionalism, She had always fancied that Sydney would choose a wife after the pattern of his mother; a handsome, stylish woman, who would do with becoming grace and dignity the honors of the elegant home in which it would be her good fortune to be placed. As for this Jacqueline Thayne, nobody could ques- tion her being a lady, certainly; but she had such odd notions, habits, ideas; not at all in the line of Mrs. Weymouth's. The elder lady had never understood the younger one, and, if the honest truth must be told, was a little afraid of her, although a pleasant, half-neighborly acquaintance had subsisted between them; Mr. Wey- mouth and the Squire being the best of friends, as the world goes, and the two most prominent men at Hedgerows. "There's one thing," said Mr. Weymouth, with that page: 84-85[View Page 84-85] 84 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. eye to the main chance which had so far distinguished him through life; " the girl 'will have a snug little for- tune of her own one of these days, for, of course, whatever Squire Thayne possesses will eventually fall to his niece." . I ' I suppose so; but money isn't everything, Mr. Weymouth," said his wife, and I believe it was the first i time that she had ever expressed a sentiment of that J kind. "Of course not, Mary; but it is a very comfortable thing, as we are all aware. In fact, I never knew it come amiss," said Mr. Weymouth, with an involuntary i glance about his elegant drawing-room, and a very X agreeable sense of proprietorship. "Squire Thayne is too fond of his books and has too many crotchets to put himself heart and soul into business, and he has some curious notions about property which, in my opinion, wouldn't answer for most of us to carry into the brunt of business." "I have always considered it very unfortunate for Jacqueline that she should have been brought up wholly under her uncle's influence. She has imbibed his notions and ideas too fully ever to make just the right sort of a wife for any man," continued Mrs. Weymouth. "Perhaps so," answered her husband, a little reluct- antly; for, with all his hard, practical shrewdness, Stephen Weymouth had a liking for Squire Thayne- honored him, I think, a little more than he did any other man in the world. "Isn't there something we can do to nip this liking in the bud?" suggested Mrs..eymouth, with a good deal of nervous irritation in der voice. "I don't think ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 85 matters have progressed very far yet. I only see where they are tending." "It's rather dangerous to meddle with these things. I appreciate your feeling, Mary, but after all, the boy might go farther and fare worse. I should want to take the matter into serious consideration on all sides, before I took any active measures." I really do not suppose Mr. Weymouth was conscious that he was at all in- fluenced in this matter by a feeling which he had had for years, that there was a' magnificent water-power going to waste in the river that bordered Squire Thayne's property, and that the pasture slopes might, within a decade, be cut up into splendid building sites. Hedgerows was a growing town. Stephen Wey- mouth knew the value of every foot of land, present and prospective, within its limits. If, in connection with Jacqueline Thayne for his son's wife, visions of the water-power put to vast manufacturing services; and the hill-slopes cut down into building lots which brought city prices, and all falling into Sydney's net,-the best fish floating as by some natural law into Weymouth seine,-don't be too hard on the man. He was only following his own instincts, after all. Mrs. Weymouth was too much of the Lady Aylmer Aylmer type to maintain any very salient opposition to her son or husband. Yet the very mild disapproval which the latter manifested regarding his son's fancy caused the lady as much chagrin and annoyance as it was in her nature to feel. "I really wish, Mr. Weymouth," she said, with un- usual energy, " that you would bestir yourself in this matter while there is yet time. It seems to me very * , ' ' "* . page: 86-87[View Page 86-87] 86 AONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. unlike your usual way of doing business, to fold your hands and let things take their own course because there's a chance Sydney may do worse." "Well, my dear, you see meddling with courting;, affairs isn't so easy a matter as making a shrewd bar- gain." Mrs. Weymouth usually laughed at her husband's jokes, howeverl mildly they effervesced; ;but this time her face maintained an imperturbable gravity. Noticing it, he said, in a more sympathetic tone,-"Well, now,: Mary, what would you have me do?" "I should like to have Sydney got off to New York for two or three weeks. Absence and change of scene might break the spell, and I'm sure you could invent;: some business to make the journey necessary at this J juncture." '^ "Ah! now I'm on my own ground, Mary; I could ? easily accomplish that." : "Well, then, do it, Mr. Weymouth, without delay,'" said his wife, -with a dramatic fervor that was almost startling in one of her usually placid deportment as she ' folded up her wools. On the very evening while this talk was transpiring between Mr. and Mrs. Weymouth, the two principal subjects of it sat together in the library at Squire, Thayne's. The owner himself happened to be absent. They had -had a very pleasant evening. Sydney Weymouth and Jacqueline Thayne were always certain of that when they were together. The more the man saw of her, the more he enjoyed the wit, the bright- ness, the power and sweetness of the woman- ' He made up his mind that all her little oddnesses - . ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 87 only gave her a certain pungent flavor, which, by con- trast, made the ordinary woman more insipid. He had tried that type pretty thoroughly; indeed, he had outgrown the first illusions; an ordinary flirtation now failed to have any charm for him; or if this is say- ing too much, a good deal of practice had made the whole game an old story to Sydney Weymouth. But he never attempted anything of that sort with Jacqueline Thayne. - Some instinct warned him off that ground. This much, at least, may be said to his credit,-Syd- ney Weymouth had the power to perceive there was in Jacqueline Thayne something finer and loftier than in most of her sex. Whatever circle the thought of the two swept, it was certain to come back at last to their childhood, and to the old, happy days at Hedgerows. Young Weymouth had not been slow in detecting the magic which these associations exercised over the heart and memory of Jacqueline, and he had been biding his time, resolved on making a little adroit stroke of his own. Sydney Weymouth was deep in some story of an afternoon when they had wandered off into the woods together and got lost. Jacqueline had forgotten the whole affair until he had brought it back to her, with- so many picturesque colors and touches, that she was quite bewildered between the plain outline of facts and the glow of fiction which overlaid them. Either her memory was shamefully at fault, or her companion had drawn very strongly on his fancy. All this, with a laugh, she told Sydney Weyinouth, but he saw she was interested and amused, and thought that his time had come. page: 88-89[View Page 88-89] 88 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. - He drew from his pocket a small box, a bit of fan- ciful Swiss carving, and- handed it to Jacqueline. "Will you do me the favor to look inside?" he said. "It is possible you may find something there that will interest you." . Jacqueline opened the box. Inside lay a little netted, crimson purse, with silver rings. She took it up carefully and shook it out in the light, the silken X meshes and the silver beads flashing before her eyes. "Oh, Sydney!" she exclaimed, and her-whole face I was moved. X "You remember it, then, Jacqueline?" "Perfectly. But to think you have kept my poor a little gift all this time!" and she regarded the bright, silken thing with touched, tender eyes, thinking of the summer days long ago when she sat by the roses at the south window, and her thoughts were sweet and happy I "As linnets singing in the pauses of the wind," i Ii while she netted the purse for Sydney, who was going i away to prepare for college. "Did you think I should ever lose that, Jacqueline?" for they had long before this come back to the old - names. "I see the little girl standing at the front l gate, with the flush in her cheeks, and the wind blow- i ing the hair about her eyes, and I hear her saying g again, ' Look, Sydney; I did every stitch of it with my own fingers, and you must think of me every time you i( use it!' There was no need to say that. I have not taken out the purse in all these years, without the pic- - ture of my little friend with the glow in her cheeks and I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 89 the wind blowing the hair about her face rising up before me, nor without thanking her over again, not only for the gift, but for the picture embalmed in my memory. " That was very pretty talk, no doubt. If it was true, it was something a great deal better than that. Yet, if Jacqueline could have known at that precise moment that Sydney Weymouth had come accidentally upon the identical purse the day before, stuffed down, where it had lain for years, at the bottom of an old trunk full of wrecks and debris of toys and old treasures of his boyhood, there would come a sudden revulsion in her feelings, all the greater because she knew Sydney Wey- mouth wished her to believe that he had been carrying her little, childish souvenir all over Europe with him. What if now, away down in his heart, he were secret- ly felicitating himself over his fine stroke, much as an ambassador would over some successful manceuvre in political diplomacy? Sydney's words had brought back the whole scene to Jacqueline. She stroked the little silk talisman in her hand, and the smile on her lips and the tears in her eyes were at strife as she said, looking up at him,- "Oh, Sydney! that was so long ago. I shall never be the little girl standing in the gate again-the happy little girl, with the wind in my hair, that I was when I gave you this!" Sydney Weymouth was emboldened by his success. He was tempted to lean forward and kiss the fair fore- head upturned to his. I cannot tell whether his courage would have failed him at the trying moment; but at that instant Squire Thayne walked in, brisk and genial 9 page: 90-91[View Page 90-91] go ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. as ever; and Sydney Weymouth took the purse out of Jacqueline's fingers and put it away in the box again, as though it were something very precious. If the thing had only -possessed a tongue, and told to what new honor it had been suddenly raised from the igno- ble corner where it had been stowed for the last twelve years! "What a good fellow Sydney Weymouth is!" said Jacqueline, speaking suddenly out of a long silence, during which her uncle had been steadily regarding her. Their guest had been gone for some time, although he had remained more than an hour after Squire Thayne's entrance, the two men having had their own talk together. "What has impressed you with that fact so strongly at this particular moment?" asked her uncle, smiling a little at her fervor. Jacqueline related the little incident about the purse. Her uncle did not say much in turn, but it might be that he was having a good many thoughts in that shrewd brain of his. He knew men better than his niece did, and he had not precisely made up his mind about this Sydney Weymouth. But he kept his doubts, if he had any, to himself. Meanwhile, Sydney Weymouth, going home in the gray, starless night, the chill in the winds prophesying snow, was saying to himself,--"If her uncle had not come in at that unlucky moment, I would certainly have kissed her. None of your ' faint hearts when it )R comes to winning a fair ladie.' * ' * . . ?** ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 91 CHAPTER VIII. PHLIP DRAPER was heartily glad to see young Wey- mouth when he dropped into the office that morning. The two had not met for more than a week; and as they had been together almost daily when the for- mer first arrived at Hedgerows, one might have sus- pected their ancient good feeling had undergone some change. Young Draper would have strongly repudiated this. So, probably, would Weymouth, and attributed their not seeing each other entirely to accident. The superintendent had at least done his part, for he had gone over twice to his friend's residence, and happened to find he had gone out on both occasions. The greetings of the two were as cordial as ever. Each, fancying the other might feel a little aggrieved, was prolific of apologies. Young Weymouth declared, and here he spoke the truth, that he had not been in the best of humors for the last two days, his father having projected a trip to New York for him, to which, at this juncture, he was strongly disinclined. "I tried to slip the burden off on your shoulders, Draper, but the governor insists you are quite too im- portant a personage here to be spared for a day; so you see what comes of making your services of so much consequence. Draper laughed a little, yet rather with the air of a man too simply conscious of the value of his services page: 92-93[View Page 92-93] 92 t ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. to be greatly delighted at any compliment regarding them, and added-"H should hardly suppose that a journey to New York would be a very disagreeable prospect; at this season especially." His companion was naturally not inclined to confide the thing which lay at the bottom of his reluctance to going away at this juncture. He found the prosecution of some plans on which he had set his heart altogether too stimulating and agreeable to wish anything to in- terfere with them at this time, so the young man made answer to his companion: "Hedgerows is a drowsy place enough, but it's home; and when a fellow's been tumbling about for as many years as I have, he likes to settle down snugly in a corner, and is disinclined to stir; but the governor says this business must be at- tended to, and there's nobody but your humble servant to do it." You perceive by this fact that the elder Weymouth had acted adroitly on his wife's suggestion. His son and heir had not the faintest suspicion of the fact which lay at the bottom of his father's aggravating pertinac- ity- about this particular business. While the two young men were talking, a buggy drove up to the office, and Sydney's father alighted, and Squire Thayne, who had picked up the gentleman on his way to the mills, sat inside, and lifted his hat to the two young men. What surprised young Weymouth was, the Squire's calling out, quite with the air of an old friend, to the superintendent,-- You've shown yourself in no great k haste to give us the pleasure of a second visit, my dear sir." ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 93 "Thank you, Squire Thayne. If I have not inflicted myself on you, it was only out of consideration for yourself." I do not know what the reply was, but as the Squire's buggy drove off, the younger Weymouth turned to the superintendent, saying, in a light tone, which masked some composite feeling,--"What, Draper! on such a friendly footing as that already?" C The Squire dropped in one day, and we had a little chat together. The next time I met him he insisted on taking me up, and driving out home. That is the extent of our acquaintance," explained the superinten- dent. But the brevity of the acquaintance only gave addi- tional emphasis to the cordiality of the Squire's man- ner. The language which he had used on the only occa- sion when he ever spoke of Philip Draper recurred to young Weymouth, and with it came' back that old feel- ing of hostility, only stronger than ever. It was singular how the young man, from the begin- ning, seemed to have some strong instinct of rivalry in connection with the superintendent, when there was not the faintest apparent cause for this, and what a se- cret feeling of antipathy it awoke in him toward Philip Draper, as that of somebody who might stand in his way. It was doubly singular in this instance, because Syd- ney Weymouth was not a jealous man naturally. He had quite too high an opinion of his own merits to trouble himself about rivals; and in the present in- stance he certainly possessed every conceivable advan- 9* page: 94-95[View Page 94-95] " ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. tage over Philip Draper. Jacqueline's nature was a loyal one, as you have seen, and I do rnot hesitate to say for her that if, at this time, she had married any man in the world, it would have been Sydney Wey- mouth, for the very good reason that she liked him better than any other. How in the world, then, this prescience of a rival in his father's superintendent, which seemed simply absurd, should take more or less possession of young Weymouth, I cannot explain. I only state the fact, and that, as he walked away from the office where he had left his father and the superintendent deep in some business matters, Sydney Weymouth felt less and less inclined to leave Hedgerows at this precise juncture. No doubt Draper would be out there again in a few days to see Jacqueline. Nobody knew how often he might go on the strength of this unaccountable fancy which the: Squire had taken to him. Draper was an intelligent fellow-in every respect far in advance of anybody at Hedgerows. So much Sydney Weymouth was compelled to admit to himself. What if he could bag the game and have it thoroughly secure before going off? It was rather hurrying matters to a conclusion, but courage and valor, whether the prize was a woman's heart or the walls of a beleagured city, \ usually carried the day. Then Sydney Weymouth had that comfortable faith i in himself which made him believe his suit pretty cer- ] tain to prosper wherever he carried it. After a long process of reflection, he made up his mind to go over i and propose to Jacqueline Thayne that very afternoon! That young lady, little suspecting the real purpose of ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 95 her friend's visit, was in no wise surprised to see him that day. Her face brightened, as it always did on meeting him; and Sydney came out oftener to the Thaynes than even his mother, ever on the watch, sus- pected; and he had really brought some new color and interest into Jacqueline's life at this time. She was not at all surprised, either, when Sydney in- vited her to take a little drive that afternoon. He had done this several times since his return home, and the people of Hedgerows had had their gossip over it all, of which Jacqueline was blissfully unconscious. It was a pleasant afternoon for a drive: a tender soft- ness in the brown air, and something pathetic in the pale, clinging sunshine, which made one feel that the year, worn and heart-broken, had gathered all its faint energies into one last clinging smile and caress over the poor, frost-smitten earth, waiting patiently for the snows to cover it. It took Jacqueline wholly by surprise. They had been riding for about an hour along the smooth river- road, with the wide, dun-colored sheet of water below the shelving banks on one side and the bare woods on the other-here and there'tufts of crisp, faded leaves clinging forlornly to the trees. They had been going at a rapid rate, talking gayly most of the time. Jacqueline was never so uniformly merry with anybody as she was with Sydney Weymouth. He brought out, just as he had in childhood, the fresh, sunny side of her. Suddenly there came a little pause in the talk. Jac- queline fancied he wanted to breathe those splendid bays a little. Sydney Weymouth did not make gradual 2* page: 96-97[View Page 96-97] 96 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. approaches to a climax, as he would have done with any other woman. He fancied, and he was not far wrong in this, that the best way with Jacqueline Thayne would be the frankest and shortest-a few words, having a ring of immortal truth in them. "Jacqueline," turning upon her suddenly, and pull- ing up his horses into a slow walk, ' I have something to say to you. I should be glad to do it with sweet and eloquent speech, such as becomes the subject, but it is altogether too vital a matter to tell you in any words but the fewest and plainest." "I shall like best to hear them in that way, Sydney," said Jacqueline. He looked in her face. He saw then she had not the faintest idea of what was coming. You will wonder at this. Perhaps Jacqueline did her- self some day. She was a woman, and had the swift intuitions of her sex regarding such matters. In any other case she would have had some prescience of the true state of things; but Sydney Weymouth, you must remember, was her old friend and playfellow. He lin- gered still among the enchanted gardens of her memory. She had loved the boy when they played together; but then she had not thought of him as her lover. So she waited. I think Sydney Weymouth would have been glad to see her fluttered a little. I think it was, after all, rather a trying moment to himself when it came to getting the words out, which he had prefaced so adroitly, but they came in a moment: "Jacqueline Thayne, I love you! Will you be my 1 wife?" How she quivered in every nerve! How her face ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 97 faltered and shook out of all its bright calm! Yet her answer was altogether characteristic: "Why, Sydney! Why, Sydney!" He strained his ears to find what was in the tones; but he could make out neither pain nor joy there, only a blank amazement. Then he took her hand. She did not draw it back, neither did the delicate, white thing nestle softly in his palm. It only lay still there. Could he take hope from all these signs-? He could not tell; neither could Jacqueline. "Didn't you know all that before?" he said, and his voice was like a lover's. "No, Sydney, no;" hers was breathless and strained still with amazement; but after that first start and quiver she sat very still. "I thought my manner must have told you all this, long before my words did." Sydney Weymouth did not stop here to consider whether he was telling the truth or not. "Are you glad, Jacqueline?" "I cannot tell, Sydney. It has all come upon me so suddenly," and she put up her hand to her face, shaken with pallor and blushes, in just that sort of per- plexed way which he remembered as a habit of her childhood. Then Sydney Weymouth said some other words--no need to repeat them here-they were well spoken- they had a ring of feeling and tenderness in them, which they could not have had if the speaker had not believed he was telling the truth. He waited a little while, thereafter, and Jacqueline spoke, still with wavering face and voice. "You page: 98-99[View Page 98-99] 98- ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. must give me a little while before I can answer, Sydney. "1Oh! yes; only I cannot wait patiently, Jacqueline. Let the time be short." "Give me until to-morrow," she said, as though she craved a favor. He could not deny her that, although I think it would have pleased him better to do so. They were bowling rapidly home now, across the smooth, hard levels of the river road. All the beauty of the afternoon was going down in one wide, dull blur of clouds. Winds with damp, clammy chills began to take possession of the air, and fill it with moan and mutter. I am not sure that either the man or woman was con- scious of the change. One thing struck Sydney Wey- mouth at this time, which he never afterward forgot, and that was the total absence of any instinct of co- quetry in this woman. If she had been anybody else, he would certainly have thought she was only delaying now to enhance his ardor and the sweetness of her consent. But it was impossible to have any such thought of Jacqueline Thayne. When they reached home she looked up in his face and smiled such a sweet, touched smile, that he leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Little playfellow," he said, "it is not the first time," and those words made the kiss something no other man's could have been to her. "Sydney," she said, speaking at the last, "what- ever my answer is, you know it must be best for both of us." "It can only seem best- for me in one way, Jacque- ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 99 line," he said, and he left her at the threshold, and drove off, on the whole satisfied with what he had done, and with what her reply would be to-morrow. "Not at all like other women," he said to himself, "but by so much the better." That evening Jacqueline did not come down-stairs until summoned to tea. She found her uncle awaiting her in the library. "Where have you been this afternoon," he asked. "I went out to drive with Sydney Weymouth, uncle," she answered, and something in her tones struck him. He watched her at supper. She was absent-minded and troubled, sparkling up occasionally in some of her old jests. "Somethiing is the matter with my bairnie," thought Squire Thayne. When they returned to the library, she sat still for a full half-hour without speaking one word. She thought it was only five minutes. Her uncle read, or pretended to read, his papers. Suddenly the man leaned forward and laid his hand on her knee. "Little girl," he said, "has any man been asking you to marry him?" She almost sprang from her seat with the start she gave. Her whole face flamed. She need not to have answered him, but she did in a moment, in a very characteristic way: "Yes, Uncle Alger, there has." "( I thought so," he said. "I thought so," speaking. mostly to himself. ii page: 100-101[View Page 100-101] Ioo ONE WOMAN'S TWO Z O VERS. {'What- made you think so, Uncle Alger?" asked Jacqueline, drawing closer to her uncle. "I saw it in your face to-night." "It took me by such utter surprise; almost as much as though you had come home yourself and told me you were to be married." "I can hardly say it has taken me by surprise. I find now that I must have been rather expecting it," said the elderly man, quietly enough. "Uncle Alger!" she answered, and she was so aston- ished she said no more. "So Sydney Weymouth has been making love to my little bairnie!" said her uncle, after a long pause, in which he had been regarding the profile half turned from him toward the fire; and now he put his hand on her soft, shining hair. "Well, does she love him?" "That is what I don't know, Uncle Alger. I wish you would help me," turning up to him her wistful, perplexed face. Sydney Weymouth had thought truly -there was no instinct of coquetry in this woman. "It seems to me there ought to be no doubt on this subject," said the man, thinking how Evangeline had' once answered him. Jacqueline drew a long breath, and turned her face to the fire. The clock chirruped away on the mantel, and the sparks buzzed in the chimney. "I like Syd- ney Weymouth," she said at last, speaking half to her- self. "He is more agreeable to me than any man in the world excepting yourself, Uncle Alger. He always interests or amuses me. Whenever he comes, I am glad to see him; when he goes away, I am sorry. We have, I think, a wide range of tastes and sympathies Q .x ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. IOI in common. He is a good fellow, a noble fellow. How fond I was of him in my childhood! I would sacrifice almost anything to give him pleasure. It seems to me I should never grow weary of him. His presence is always a fresh stimulant and delight to me. Jacqueline's uncle had been listening to every word, weighing each one carefully. Think how he loved that girl, and what a life-and-death matter it was to him. Not that Squire Thayne would have thought of himself for a moment when it came to Jacqueline's happiness; but he would sooner have laid his little girl out among the waiting snows, between her father and mother, than have given her to wife to a man unworthy of her. That Sydney Weymouth was this, Squire Thayne had not, perhaps, consciously admitted to himself. He was not a man given to hasty conclusions, and he did not like to think or to speak evil of others; but from the beginning he had maintained' a singular scrutiny of Sydney Weymouth, having, perhaps, a vague prescience of what was coming. A variety of small circumstances, light as air, which would have escaped any other person, and which Squire Thayne could not have re- peated, had, however, given the man an inveterate conviction that under Sydney Weymouth's fair and stately outside were some arrogance, and hardness, and selfishness which only wanted time to come to the surface. F: But he was a just man-nay, he would deal more 7) : sternly with himself because of the live pang that struck -i' to his heart, now there could be no question what was ::8il that most precious thing of which Sydney Weymouth X . v was seeking to rob him. ,E, I I i& - -i page: 102-103[View Page 102-103] I02 ONE WOMAWN'S TWO LO VERS. 'He leaned forward and laid his hand on the girl's shoulder. "But all this you .,have said is not love, Jacqueline." "That is what I doubt, Uncle Alger; that is why I asked Sydney to wait until to-morrow. Yet my feeling for him is something very different from that of ordi- nary friendship." Her uncle secretly suspected that the charm of those old, childish associations, had much to do with Jacque- line's feeling. But he resolved to test her thoroughly. "Jacqueline,"-taking no immediate notice of her last remark,-" how would it seem to you to have Syd- ney Weymouth come to dwell always with you and me, be another with us-a part of our everyday life, thought, home? Think well, now, before you answer." She was still a little While, and then her answer came. "It would seem very odd at first; I suppose such things always do; but I cannot think of Sydney Wey- mouth's ever being otherwise than welcome and agree- able even here with you and me, Uncle Alger." He tried her once more. "Well, Jacqueline, if either must go away, this young Weymouth or myself, for half a dozen years, which could you spare easier from Hedgerows-which would give you the longer and sharper heartache to part with?" There was no hesitation now, She turned straight around upon him, and her face, in its steady radiance, said all that her words did. "Oh, Uncle Alger! I could part with Sydney Weymouth a thousand times the easier, as I love you a thousand times the better. Happy at Hedgerows with him, without you!" and she clung to her uncle. ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. 103 i,: "Jacqueline," he said simply, "you do not love this ',' man." --: "I-don't-believe-I-do," she said very slowly, the truth beginning to grow clearer to her. Then she added in a little while, very softly and sor- rowfully,-"But if I do not love Sydney best, and not as the woman who marries him should, I do love him enough to be grieved to the heart at the thought of anything which would give him pain. He must have loved me, or he would not have said what he did to me to-day." The tears shone in her eyes. Her uncle would not tell her what he was provoked at himself for thinking, and yet was sure of, after all, -that Sydney Weymouth's heart would not suffer so much as his self-love at his niece's refusal; so he only said,--"However hard it may be for him, it would be harder to do him that other wrong." After he had said this, there was a silence of some minutes, and the thoughts of both were busy; and suddenly, in an overflow of gladness and -exultation, Jacqueline's uncle put his arms about her. "'Oh, my bairnie! my bairnie!" he said. She understood him. "Why, uncle, are you so glad as that?" "Just so glad, dear. And yet, if you loved him, and he were a good man, I would not come between. I would stand aside and thank God with my whole heart." The next day Sydney Weymouth came. It was the hardest, cruellest hour of Jacqueline's life. It was the bitterest of his, for he had set his heart on making -; Jacqueline Thayne his wife, and there was the sharp- X - - i i. page: 104-105[View Page 104-105] O04 ONE W'OMAN'S TWO LO VERS. ness of his wounded self-love. It was the first time that Sydney Weymouth had been denied what he coveted. Yet it seemed that any man might easily forgive such a refusal as Jacqueline's. , "Is- there any other man?" he said to her, almost fiercely. "None, Sydney, none. I love you better than any man in the world, save my uncle." "Then, Jacqueline, he shall not stand between us. Come to me. I will not be jealous of him." "No, Sydney, if you will not be just to yourself, I must. You are worthy whatever is best in the heart of a woman. I will not wrong my friend so deeply as to let his generosity take less than he deserves." So at last he went away, taking a kindly leave, for he could not help being touched and impressed by her manner; but as he went home, some anger and bitter- ness grew toward her in his heart. She had refused him-Sydney Weymouth. She would remember it all her life, and so would he. It may be that the loss enhanced the value of Jacque- line Thayne's love in the thought of Sydney Weymouth. He must have loved her, too, in his way, I think; and when he saw young Draper standing in his father's office door, there was a sudden flash of hatred in the young man's eyes. Yet Jacqueline's words came back to him, and he knew that 'the girl had spoken the truth. , The superintendent could not be his rival. Yet for all that, the old feeling remained in sufficient force to make him avoid Draper; and so, going home by a circuitous route, the favorite of fortune, the heir ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I05 of the richest man in Hedgerows, felt himself more mortified, chagrined, and unhappy than he had ever been in his life. CHAPTER IX. THE superintendent was in his office. A group of farmers and sheep-raisers, in heavy overcoats and furred caps, had been cracking jokes and aiming tobacco-juice at the spittoons in either corner while settling their accounts for the vast piles of wool which lay waiting their turn to be seized by the jaws of the iron monster overhead. The superintendent had his jokes also with the big, burly group about his desk, fresh from hills and pastures, a strong, homely scent of mother-earth clinging to them, their very wit having some broad and heartsome flavor of their own fields, the man at the desk thought. These men liked him-would be sure to say so when they talked him over in the keen, frosty air out yonder, getting their teams ready, meanwhile. If Philip Draper, superintendent of the woolen fac- - tories of Weymouthi & Co Y had taken a fancy to run ; for member of Congress, governor, or something of -t;\' that sort, he could have made some capital out of the f:: good feeling of these varied kinds of men with whom he was'brought in daily contact. Having a strong fel- ;I- low feeling with anything human, he was the last man in the world to take on airs; and having, also, some H;R ' 10. page: 106-107[View Page 106-107] Io6 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. ideals of character and manhood which kept pretty effectually in the background any overweening sense of superiority. At bottom of this man, however, was a sturdy self-respect which prevented any undue famil- iarity on the part of others. As the last figure disappeared at the door the super- intendent pushed back his books and rose up, looking at his watch. It was high time to make his daily round over the factory. Something from behind suddenly plucked at his arm. He turned and saw, first, Fin Brummer's flabby face and woolly head. "Well, Fin, what's wanting this time?" "I've-I've-there's a girl outside what wants a place in the factory. She's a good deal skeered, and wanted me first to come in and see if there's a chance for her." "Go back and fetch her in, and tell her to try me for herself, and see whether I'm anything to inspire mortal terror," answered the superintendent, with the smile that Fin remembered on the day that his board- bill was settled. He had not played "hookey" since. Fin shuffled out, and returned in a moment, followed by a young girl probably not far out of the first half of her teens, all wonder and shyness and blushes, but as pretty a creature as you ever laid eyes on. Pretty is precisely the word,-not handsome or beautiful, if you give its deeper and finer content to either adjective. The prettiness was not of the sort to last late; years, or toil, or trouble would soon fade it out, for it was the prettiness of youth, and health, and bloom; but it was delightful, after its kind. Under the little brown hat ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 107 were cheeks like roses when they grow reddest in June, and lips that seemed to have caught the very tint of mountain strawherries, and dimples and rows of white teeth, and eyes which set one to thinking of harebells, violets, and all those soft, purplish things. There she stood, shy and blushing, before the super- intendent, who had so keen a sense of- beauty; and there, by her side, stood Fin Brummer as spokesman, with his face that looked as though,it might have been hurriedly moulded out of putty. "Well, now, do I really seem like a person to be very much dreaded? I am curious to know," said the superintendent, with his smile coming out again, for he pitied the child, who was stealing glances at him and drawing on and off the cotton glove from her little, brown hand, in a great flutter. At that smile she looked him steadily in the face, and smiled in her turn, showing the pretty dimples. "No, sir, you don't." "Very good. Now that fact is settled satisfactorily, we will make a beginning. Fin here tells me you want a place among us. Is he a relative of yours?" glancing from one face to the other for any subtle sign of family likeness. The little autobiography came out then by scraps. It was as common as human life. The girl had lived all her days away up among the Vermont hills. No city could ever have rounded the deep, healthful bloom of those cheeks, any more than it could the wild raspberries along the still roadsides. Her family were all dead; the Brummers and they had once been neighbors. The girl had lived for the last , . L page: 108-109[View Page 108-109] Io8 ONE WOMAN'S TWO. LOYERS. year with an aunt, but had grown tired of dairy-work and the long, cold winters, and Fin had written to her cousin, who was an old crony of his, glowing descrip- tions of his factory life at Hedgerows; so the girl had concluded to come away and try her chance at the factories. It might seem a very small plunge to many people, requiring no great pluck or vim; but the superintendent did not think that; he knew what anxious days and sleepless nights the effort had cost. The superintendent promised to do his best to find the girl a place in the mills, and went out a moment to speak to the men in the yard before he made the tour of, the factory; and he left the girl and Fin seated in the office until his return. "Now, Ruth, didn't I tell you so?" said Fin, rub- bing his red hands. with excitement as soon as the superintendent had disappeared. "Isn't he a brick?" "I think he is splendid, Fin," answered Ruth Ben- son, that word having to do a vast amount of service in the American young woman's vocabulary, whatever her grade-may be. "He acted as though he had known me all my life." "He-al'ays does," answered Fin; and he kept on talking with enthusiasm to a most interested listener, while Ruth Benson's heart grew lighter every moment, and she quite got rid of that dreadful feeling of strange- ness, and of wanting a good cry, which she had from the first moment she stepped from the stage two hours before into the new world of Hedgerows. It was not long before the superintendent put his head inside the office door. "Come, now, I'm all ready I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. Io9 for you," he said, in his pleasant tones, and the boy and girl followed him out. He was a busy man these days, but behind all the business he managed to hold in clear, serene airs his thoughts and dreams-not an unhappy man, after all, as the days went here at Hedgerows. Going through the lower stories of the factory on his tour of inspection, the superintendent stopped a mo- ment at the room where they were sorting the wool. His companions stopped with him. The man might have sent Fin back at once to his work, but he realized what the sight of a familiar face must be to the boy and girl; moreover, he was inclined to reward Fin a little for his faithfulness. One of the men who was sorting the wool looked up as Ruth Benson stood there. He was -rather a new hand, also. From the first, however, Draper had not diked the man,-felt a kind of subtle aversion to him. He was a youngish man, with a certain disagreeable air of smart- ness about him; rather tall, heavily built, with a florid complexion, and light, thin, reddish whiskers. Reynolds might have been good-looking, if it had not been for a disagreeable smirk of self-conceit, changing sometimes into a sinister look, which came into the man's bold, dark eyes. This Reynolds carried himself with a swagger, took on airs among the work- men, cracked coarse jokes, and told stories that brought out loud guffaws of laughter, and left a bad flavor in the thoughts afterward. Nobody seemed to know anything about Reynolds's antecedents, yet with his larger knowledge of the world page: 110-111[View Page 110-111] I I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. and his stories with a bad flavor, he was rather a favorite crony with the workmen. From the first, as I said, the superintendent had dis- liked the man. Once or twice he had caught the bad leer in those bold eyes. Among the hundreds of operatives with whom he was daily brought in contact, Philip Draper would probably have selected this man as the one most likely to be guilty of any surreptitious meanness or vileness. As Ruth Benson stood in the doorway, the wool- sorter looked up from his piles, and saw the pretty, blushing face. He stared at it with those bold eyes of his, until the girl moved uneasily under the man's half-admiring, half-insolent gaze. The superintendent, turning around, saw the stare. Man as he was, it affected his nerves a good deal as though some cold, crawling thing had touched him. "Come away," he said to Ruth quickly, glad to get her out of the man's sight. Perhaps Reynolds noticed the gesture. He had a poor opinion of his, kind, and always hated his supe- riors, with the feeling that their being this was a per- sonal wrong to himself. "The fellow has a relish for a pretty woman. I'll wager my old hat he's got his eye on her now for himself," he muttered, with a dark sneer under the pale, reddish whiskers as he turned to his work again. Up-stairs, Ruth Benson was initiated into her first factory work of winding spools. Amid the crowd of strange faces, with the loud thunder of the machinery in her ears, that first day at the mills would have been I ONE WOMA.4N'S TWO LO VERS.' I I 1 a dreadfully homesick one for the poor, half-scared, half-bewildered child, if it had not been for the smile and the cheering words with which the superintendent had left her. She clung to that as,-far out at sea, a sailor clings, through blinding drifts of the tempest, to the distant lights on the horizon. If I had not- something to do besides writing a love story, I should have kept you better informed of the acquaintance which began away back in the autumn between the superintendent and Miss Thayne. That was progressing, after its kind, and in a rather desultory fashion. Philip Draper had, an almost morbid dread of in- truding on people, and though the Squire's invitations increased, if possible, in their cordiality, the young man was rather slow in availing himself of them. Still, he went frequently enough to have these visits shed a certain glow about his life at Hedgerows, which otherwise was dull enough. Longer acquaintance only enhanced the mutual re- gard which the elder and younger gentleman had felt toward each other from the beginning. So, to their talks together by the wood-fire in the library, the older man brought his fine intellect, his ripe experience; the younger his dreams, his enthusiasms, the poetry that was like a deep well-spring in the soul of Philip Draper. Jacqueline sat still and listened, saying unusually little at these times. Indeed, she had grown rather silent of late, the thought of Sydney Weymouth lying heavily on the soft heart of the girl; not that she ever regretted the reply she had once given him--it was not page: 112-113[View Page 112-113] II2 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. in her to do that; only it grieved her to think she was giving her old playmate pain-that for her sake he was banishing himself from Hedgerows through this long winter. Jacqueline was not always silent, though,-it was not in her nature to be; and then, when it happened that Squire Thayne and his guest disagreed on any topic under discussion, which of course happened sometimes, her uncle would turn around to the fair, thoughtful face and say--"Come up, bairnie, to the lists. Draw the keen- rapier of your woman's wits among our heavy broadswords." And so Jacqueline would find herself drawn into the current of talk; and there she-was at home, whether the subject in hand proved to be one of those grand historical characters, which tower up so far above the dead, level dark of the past that a ray of immortality touches them, or whether some system of philosophy or ethics was under discussion. Jacqueline's uncle had carried her up more or less into his own heights of thought and reading. The atmosphere there would have been too fine and stimu- lating for most minds, perhaps. It had not been. for hers. Yet it always struck Philip Draper that she hardly ever looked at any of these subjects just as the two men did. Her feminine insight went down oftener to the very soul of things, it seemed to him-always touched with some color of grace and tenderness whatever she talked of. On that low hybrid of hers between arm-chair and camp-stool, she would turn often and look at her uncle, : ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. sometimes in pauses of her most earnest talk, for she was a woman, and never talked much without feeling what she said, and a softness would come into Jacque- line's eyes, and a tender shining into her face. Jacque- line never loved her uncle, never clung to him, just as she did these days. It seemed to her that her answer to Sydney Weymouth had set her and the Squire apart, shut them up to all the world besides. Certainly one might have fancied Philip Draper's stars were unlucky here. This was the time of all others least likely for any man to make an impression on the heart or mind of Jacqueline Thayne. In one way and another, though, during these infre- quent visits, I believe an interest in the superintendent, in the man's character and individuality, grew on her. He had not, thus far, however, taken possession of her fancy, unless in the very faintest degree--not a tenth part as much as Sydney Weymouth had. "A staunch fellow that--sound to the core of him," her uncle would say sometimes, after one of Philip Draper's visits, standing before the fire and rubbing his hands. ' Yes; I think he is-he talks well,'"Jacqueline would reply, in an acquiescent, half matter-of-fact tone, which made her uncle look at her and wonder if she would really care whether she ever saw the superintendent again. But he, being a wise man, never told his thoughts. But something happened of a sudden which mate- rially affected .the relations subsisting between the superintendent and the Squire's niece. Squire Thayne had a passion for architecture. Jacque- II page: 114-115[View Page 114-115] 1i 4 ONE WOMAN'S TWO .LO VERS. line was always rallying him on it. The house was a slow outgrowth from time to time of one and another of his fancies, being long, and low, and picturesque. The people at Hedgerows accepted it as they did- the' Squire himself, thinking it would not be like the Thaynes to live in a house just like ordinary mortals; so there was a pointed gable-on one end, and bay win- dows at another, a supplement here, and a wing there, with dormer or lozenge-paned windows. The man's last notion had been to run up a couple of rooms on the right side of the house--a Round Tower, Jacqueline playfully called it, though, indeed, the lower apartment was to serve for a supper-room, and the upper one for a kind of observatory of the sunsets and the wide land- scape, which commanded the whole town of Hedge- rows, the doubling of Otter River, with its outlying creeks and brooks, and beyond the broad meadows and slopes of woodland up to the royal company of the hills, that held solemn court here all the year round, whether in tender greens, or deep purples, or, last of all, in still, dazzling ermines. "I shall come up here every afternoon with my read- ing," said the Squire, picking his way with his niece among the rubbish and debris of the partially laid floor to the window. "Ah, Jacqueline! think of reading to these sunsets!' The girl drew a long breath, flushes of pleasure glow- ing in her face. All the time Jacqueline had had a lurking doubt as to the advisability of this new sup- plement to their home. "Where was the use of flank- ing it with a round tower?" she had- wondered. "As though their dove-cote had not ins and outs enough ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. )! .1IS already, and was not quite large enough for the two!" But when she looked out of the window at the win- ter sunset that day and saw the whole wide landscape idealized in the light, she said,-"Oh, uncle! you were right after all. This will be our dearest room-for day- light, I mean," thinking of the evening wood-fires and the library. "Isn't it delicious, bairnie? So all my botching and buttressing hasn't come to naught, you see." "Uncle Alger, I'm remorseful enough for those words, without your bringing them up to confront me," her eyes on the distant hills, their white summits touched with the sunset splendor. At last she turned her face around. "Ah, Uncle Alger! it is a good world to live in," she said. "Yes; while there are such scenes as that to see in it," he said-" yes." - The next afternoon Jacqueline picked her way up the half-built oak stair-case again, to watch the sunset. It was late in December now, and there had been a fresh fall of snow the night before, and the whole land- scape, as well as the summit of the distant hills, was one pure, dazzling white, broken by the dark, steely gloom of the river. After stopping awhile at the window, a fancy seized Jacqueline to go out on the balcony. This was a peril- ous undertaking, the merest skeleton of planks hav- ing been laid here; but Jacqueline was a careless creature, and stepped out boldly on the narrow planks, slippery with a thin coating of ice, as though they had been a smooth, solid flooring. page: 116-117[View Page 116-117] I 16 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. The view here was perhaps finer than the one from the window. At any rate, it made the girl forget everything else, as she stood still, quite regardless of the consequences of a misstep on the slippery planks, while she gazed on the wide, white landscape, the smoke from the farm-houses floating slowly in the wind, pale grays and silvers, she thought, like sails of some phantom fleet. But it was no time or place on that slippery bridge to be indulging pretty, quaint fancies about the smoke, and drawing analogies between that and phantom fleets. They had been excavating the ground beneath for a drain. Into this had been dumped a pile of jagged stone, on which the girl must inevitably have been pre- cipitated if she once lost her balance. A cutter dashed suddenly around the road, a couple of men inside. Squire Thayne had picked up Philip Draper somewhere on the way and brought him out to tea, saying, with -a laugh, You may count on being kidnapped whenever I can get my grip on you." There was not a workman in sight, the whole squad having taken a half-holiday, some firemen's celebration and parade coming off at Hedgerows on this afternoon. They saw the girl standing there. It was a terrible sight. She seemed hanging between heaven and earth, every line of the fair, clear face, the delicate figure, cut out sharply against the cold, blue air. Both the men turned pale at the sight. "Is the girl stark mad!" muttered the Squire between his teeth, giving his horse a cut, which made the creature plunge, and tear madly along the road. I At that moment Jacqueline caught sight of the men. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I 7 She turned hastily to go in; her foot slipped, the figure swayed a moment, and then they saw it sink. "Oh, my God I my God!" cried Philip Draper. It was more than a cry--it was a prayer. He was out of the sleigh in a moment ; the next, he had leaped the high fence: the old college feats, among whose athletes he had been foremost, serving him well now. Jacqueline hung there. It was for life or for death. But the timbers were slippery, and her hands were numb and her strength was failing. A few moments more and help would be there; but could she hold out those few? She closed her eyes. The voice of Philip Draper rang out like a bugle-note,--"Hold on! hold on! I'll save you!" Slie expected to drop every moment. She heard his feet thunder along beneath her. A ladder lay on the ground. In the twinkling of an eye it flashed up through the air and rested against the planks. Jacqueline felt it graze her shoulder. The next moment a stout arm was around her waist. She knew nothing more. She was quite senseless when the superintendent bore her down the ladder and laid her in her uncle's arms. The elder man had just reached the ladder. He, too, had sprung from the sleigh, but his youth was gone; he could not leap the high fence, and Jacqueline's life had hung on the superintendent's accomplishing that feat. Had her uncle been alone, she could not have kept her hold until he came up. "'X- page: 118-119[View Page 118-119] II8 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. CHAPTER X. THEY carried the girl into the library. She came out of her faint in a few moments. She was naturally bewildered on- the instant, but seeing the faces of the two men over her, for they had not yet summoned a servant, the whole came back on her. She turned to her uncle and put out her arms. The man had not spoken when he received his niece at the foot of the ladder from Philip Draper-received her literally from the jaws of death. k It seemed to Squire Thayne that he had lived years in those few moments when Jacqueline had hung by those planks; his strong nerves had been shaken like a woman's. Perhaps he never would show it to the world, but he knew he had grown old in that time. He put his arms about the girl; the strong heart gave way. "Oh, -my child! my child!" he said. Philip Draper went out of the room, partly for their sakes, partly for his own. He walked up and down the portico; he did not know it, bu he was crying and thanking God. . After awhile-he could not ,lave told whether it was minutes or hours-Squire Thayne came and brought the young man into the house. Jacqueline was sitting by the fire. She was very white, and she lifted her head and looked at the superintendent a moment--a look that he never would forget as long as he lived. Then she put out her hands to him. a Mr. Draper, you have saved my life!" she said. I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. II19 He took her hands, he tried to speak, but the words worked and worked in his throat, and his lips were dumb. It was Squire Thayne who broke the silence. "Let us thank God, children," he said. The man knelt down. I cannot write that prayer here. It was a man talking with his God, a man who had stood face to face with death a few moments before. After that, all their hearts were hushed and steadied. ' I shall never forgive myself, uncle," said Jacque- line, turning to him, the tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. She did not think of herself now; she'only thought of what he must have suffered during those few moments, and that it had all happened through her own carelessness. Perhaps the Squire took some- blame to himself, for he had educated his niece to a great contempt of danger, and then courage to rashness was-in the Thayne blood. Still, he felt the lesson might do her good. "You will never expose yourself again to such peril, Jacqueline?" "Never-Oh, uncle!" she stopped and shuddered, seeing herself lying on the jagged stones outside; she I . grew sick all over. . Then she turned and looked again on Philip Draper. "Oh, my friend! my friend!" she said. But she did not once thank him. As if there were any need! Nobody else in the house suspected the awful tragedy which had come so close to it; nobody heard it after- ward-for years at least. When supper was ready, Jacqueline insisted on going page: 120-121[View Page 120-121] 120 ONE WOMAN'S TWO O VERS. out as usual, and taking her place at the table. She was very quiet and pale; that was the only change in her; but then there was hardly the usual amount of brisk, electric talk about the supper-table that night, although the Squire and the superintendent did their best. They had a different evening, too, in the'library, by the humming .and glowing of the wood-fire, from any that they had ever passed there before. Jacqueline sat here in her old place, and her uncle sat close to her to-night, and with a gesture of unutter- able tenderness he put his hand on the dark, glossy head. "Ah, my bairnie, if I had lost you!" he said. (' My one bairnie!" They did not talk much of what had happened. Per- haps they would, some time, when time had softened and shaded what was so near and awful now. Jacqueline's face looked so shaken and white, that her uncle begged her to retire, but she insisted on remaining-"I like to be by you to-night, Uncle Alger," she pleaded, and he knew what that meant, and did not insist any further, and the Squire and his guest got to talking at last in their old fashion-only they dwelt to-night for the most part on contemporary events ,and characters. Neither was equal to the old circle of discussions. The superintendent went away early that evening. They would have been glad enough to have him remain with them for the night, but he could not be prevailed on to do this. The Squire followed his guest to the front door; he wrung his hand-"My dear fellow"-he broke down ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 121 there--'The Lord remember it of you!" he said. That was all. It was a dreary night enough: a black sky overhead, the air all alive with chilly, damp winds which filled the air with moans and mutters. I doubt, though, whether Philip Draper, in the midst of it all, could have told you what kind of a night it was-whether there was a shining overhead of stars, or only that blank blackness. He was going over with the dreadful scene of that afternoon. Not only that, but when he saw the girl hanging there between life and death, Philip Draper had learned something which would make a different man of him through all the life to come. He wondered now, almost as though it were another man, how it had all come about. They had met so very few times, had a few talks in the library, and a few times that face of hers, in its pure sweetness, had shone opposite him at the supper-table in the quaint, quiet home. Yet to think how he loved her! It was a surprise at last that was like a painful shock to the man. It almost seemed to him, at first, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, as though he were nothing more than a big, susceptible school-boy. But that feeling did not last long. Everything else was swallowed up in the consciousness that had been born in the sharp travail of one terrible moment. How he loved this girl! How she seemed to him the one woman in all the world; how he had grown familiar with a thousand little habits and gestures of hers which somebody else might hardly be conscious page: 122-123[View Page 122-123] 122 ONE WOMA N'S TWO -L O VERS. of who had known her all her life-little swift tricks of her hand going up to her hair; little sudden quivers of her eyelids, and restless stirrings of her fingers when they; lay clasped in each other. To do Philip Draper justice, he never once in all this time thought of Jacqueline as holding any personal relation with himself. That might come in time, but now such a thought would have- seemed sacrilege. It was enough to the superintendent to feel the new love that was awake in his soul; that the old, long, dreary solitude of his life was over at last; and he did not know that the night, with its blank of clouds and its ghostly mutter of winds,-was about him. The superintendent did not go straight home. He wandered around the outskirts of the town; for he knew all the roads so well by this time, that he would not have lost his way among them had he been stark blind. He was on one of these roads now; in one of its loneliest portions, too, the houses separated by long intervals of wheat-fields and pastures, when the super- intendent became suddenly alive to footsteps not far behind him. He had keen ears; he would have been conscious of this fact some time before, had the man been less preoccupied. Philip Draper heard the steps on the crust of snow; a low crackling, evidently of one trying to disguise the sound. The superintendent was no coward, but he reflected that he was without a weapon; not so much even as his cane; and the only house in sight was the one far up the road, where a faint light glimmered from a soli- tary window. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 123 The superintendent could have faced dragons that night without flinching. Not a pulse quickened, al- though he was quite alive to the possible perils of his situation, as he kept on at his steady, rather rapid gait, and every few moments there was a little crunch upon the snow, which showed that the footsteps had gained on him. Philip Draper drew a long breath or two. If it came to a sudden spring, he was ready for it. He was only unprepared for a blow from some weapon, whether of club or dagger. That thought might, it would seem, make the strongest nerves shiver. Perhaps it would Philip Draper's at any other time. But that night he was invulnerable to mortal fear. A face whose sweet- ness would never fail his soul shone before him, exalt- ing and calming the whole man as though he stood near to the gate of heaven. A few steps more, and he knew the thing behind was close upon him. All at once it flashed upon Philip Draper that the man who was following him, intent on some evil, was Reynolds. He never could account for this conviction to himself, although he tried to after- ward many times. There was no shadow on the snow; the thick darkness was all around these two; no faint light from the distant farm-houses showed any dim outline of the burly figure of the wool-sorter. Yet Philip Draper could have sworn to the man's identity. -On the instant he wheeled suddenly around, and spoke in a loud, careless tone-"Well, Reynolds, is there anything you want of me? . Make a little more noise, man. It isn't a bear you are tracking in the snow this time.' page: 124-125[View Page 124-125] 124 ONE WOMA N'S TWO LOVERS. There was a 'moment's pause, followed by a loud guffaw, in which, however, young Draper detected something not just. right; a little uneasiness or suspi- cion. "That's Mr. Draper, is it? I knew your voice at once. But what ears or eyes you must have, sir! If I'd known it was you, I wouldn't have tried on one of my old tricks. But when I heard your steps, I thought I'd see whether I -could track a bear as snugly as I used to in the snows out West. I've lodged a shot more than once in a brute's brain. But I ask your pardon, sir." The man was brazen enough; cunning, too, if he really meant harm to the superintendent, about which, at the least, the latter would always have strong suspi- cions. Still, there was nothing better to be done now than to take the wool-sorter at his word. If there had been any intention of assault on the part of Reynolds, there was no proof of it. So Philip Draper accepted the man's explanation. You've done me no harm, Reynolds, as I happen to possess nerves like steel; but a man who had weaker ones wouldn't particularly enjoy being followed on a dark night, and in an out-of-the-way place, in this fashion." "That's a fact, sir. I should have spoken the next moment,. if you hadn't got ahead of me. But I'll wager a new hat 'there isn't living one man in a thou- sand who could have told anything was behind him." The two men were walking on briskly now. Still, Draper kept himself alert for every movement of the other until they reached the vicinity of the farm- X ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I 25 houses. He half chid himself for this. He could not account for his unconquerable aversion to the man; tried to make himself believe there was no more in this stealthy tracking him than appeared on the surface. Reynolds was doing his best to be agreeable: tell- ing stories and joking; and Draper entered into the talk with more animation because of the dark doubt which lurked at the bottom of all. Reaching a sharp angle of the road, Reynolds turned off with a cordial good-night. The wool-sorter had his own perplexities regarding the superintendent's opinion. "If he scented mischief, he was brave as a lion," muttered the man, after he was well started on the road which led directly to the lower part of the vil- lage. i' He's a cool head, and his eyes"-some oaths followed here. After Jacqueline had gone to bed that- night, Squire Thayne sat all alone by the library fire. He tried to read for awhile, but even his favorite books failed of their charm. He lived over more than once in the silence there the awful strain of that afternoon, and perhaps he learned now, as he had never done before, how dear and precious this daughter of his brother was to him. The bond, however, -was not one of relationship. That alone could never have held it so firmly, although Jacqueline was the last ,of the Thaynes. It was for herself, for all that she was to him, that the Squire loved his niece. 12 page: 126-127[View Page 126-127] I 26 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. At last he went up-stairs, and passed by her door to reach his own. He paused at the chamber a moment, and then, softly turning the knob, went in. A dim light burned in the room. Squire Thayne went up to the bed. Jacqueline lay there sound asleep, her cheek on her hand, the cleat, delicate profile cut out above the pillow like marble. What a beautiful face it was! at least to eyes that could read it; but that presupposed a good deal. Men that liked bloom, prettiness, mere sensuous beauty, might not have found much in the face of this girl. But the mail who gazed on it to-night knew its infinite charm, and- to him it was as the face of no other woman. There was a slight bruise on the temples where the dark, silky hair was brushed away. He had not ob- served it before; but it brought over the man again the "awful horror of that moment when he looked up and saw whereJacqueline hung. The man!s strong nerves shivered. "My poor little girl! My poor little girl!" he murmured to himself, softly stroking the temples of the slumberer. All the while he was thinking, too, of Philip Dra- per, and of what an immeasurable debt he owed the young man. Of a sudden it flashed upon him--I can- not tell how, but he was thinking of Draper's face when the cutter turned the corner and they both looked up -that the superintendent loved his niece. Perhaps lie was not conscious .of this yet himself; but he would learn it some time. Occasionally, Squire Thayne had tried to school himself to the pang that would be sure to come with a IJ 'ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I127 knowledge of this kind; but he experienced nothing of that now. It only gave a glow of tenderness to the interest with which, from the beginning, he had regarded the stranger at Hedgerows--an interest which had half surprised the Squire himself--before the deed of to-day had set Philip Draper apart from all others as the one man who had done the greatest service it was in human power to do the uncle of Jacqueline Thayne. He, knew Jacqueline as only love can know another soul, and knew also how few men there were in the world who could make her happy. Yet he saw it was quite possible she might at first be drawn more strongly toward some one who attracted her fancy as the superintendent had not done. What was in common between them did not lie on the surface, but it was none the less eternal. If the revelation of soul to soul would only once come, what might these two be to each other! Squire Thayne thought of his gray hairs and his gathering years, and it seemed to him there was one man in the world to whose youth and' strength he could willingly give his darling. "We could trust him, you and I, Jacqueline," he murmured, standing there by the bedside, in the still night; and his thoughts were swift and many-within him. "We must leave that also with God." This was sure. to be with him the ultimate conclusion; and then he turned and walked softly out of the room. page: 128-129[View Page 128-129] 1 28 ONE WOMAN'S TWO O LOVERS. CHAPTER XI. ONE morning Mrs. Weymouth came into her hus- band's room just as he was about to start for the facto- ries. Since the new superintendent entered on his duties, the head of the firm, having a comfortable assurance that all was going on at the works quite as satisfactorily as though it were under his personal supervision, had been in no haste to get out from his pleasant home. So Stephen Weymouth wrote his letters and read his papers much at ease, detailing to his wife any little scraps of sensational news which he happened to come across, knowing she had a palate for any highly-sea- soned items of that kind, swallowing them with an un- doubted faith which sometimes provoked a half-amused admonition on the man's side: "My dear, it is well to remember that newspaper stories are not always as true as holy writ." Mrs. Weymouth's handsome face on this particular morning was quite radiant with pleasure as she ap- proached her husband with an open letter in her hand. "My dear," she said, " it's from Sydney, and there's some astonishing news in it." The gentleman made a movement to take the letter, but his glasses were in his vest-pocket, and his over- coat snugly buttoned over them. "You read it, Mary," he said. It was a long letter, but the central fact, prefaced by ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 129 a good many rather ambiguous and elaborate sen- tences, amounted, in a word, to thiS-Sydney Wey- mouth was engaged! It had happened rather suddenly, he affirmed, and came near enough to being a case of love at first sight to answer all the purposes of a novel. The lady was young, accomplished, beautiful-in- deed, it was immensely astonishing that, with so large a train of eligible admirers, she had condescended to take up with such a good-for-nothing fellow as the writer. But there was no accounting for a woman's tastes, and Sydney Weymouth was the elect and happy man. He had, at least, the gratification of knowing the woman of his choice would do honor to his taste and gratify the natural pride of his parents. Her family was unexceptionable; she was an only daughter, and her father had amassed a large fortune in real-estate brokerage at the West. The conclusion of this letter did Sydney's head or heart credit. Mrs. Weymouth's voice actually shook with feeling over the words of her idolized boy. "His first thought," he affirmed, "had been for his father and mother. He could not be quite happy until they had shared his joy, and he had received their congrat- ulations on this greatest event of his life. L So much grace he had in himself, thankless, roving Bohemian though he had been for the last half-dozen years. The approval of his father and mother at this momentous crisis was the one thing wanting to make unalloyed the bliss of their roving, but at bottom loving son, Sydney Weymouth." 12* page: 130-131[View Page 130-131] 130 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. The gentleman and lady looked at each other in silence a few moments after the latter had ceased read- ing, and then she. asked, "Well, Stephen, what do you think of it?" "It's a pretty sudden thunder-clap, but I see no reason to suppose it may not all turn out for the best." "I don't see where it could be bettered," continued the mother, energetically. "Young, accomplished, beautiful, rich,"-going over her son's adjectives with a lingering relish on each,-' one would think we might be satisfied with all that." "Yes, if it's all as the fellow puts it." Mr. Wey- mouth prided himself on a certain shrewdness and wariness to which he believed he owed largely his success in life. It was, at least, safe not to be over- credulous. "I don't see any reason to doubt it," replied Mrs. Weymouth, in a tone just. touched with annoyance. "The boy, bless him! writes in a straightforward, common-sense way, if he is a lover." "Yes-; I like the tone of his letter," replied Mr. Weymouth, satisfied, now he had first demurred to his own sagacity, to accept such agreeable news as true. "Dear me! I'm so excited I feel as though I should be good for nothing to-day," said Mrs. Weymouth-a certain flutter in her tone and manner quite at variance with her usual matronly composure. "What a lucky stroke that was!" What?" "Getting Sydney out of the way just as we did. I never could have given my consent to, that other match, Mr. Weymouth." -I ' [ ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I3I I3I I No doubt it has turned out much better as it is," answered the gentleman complacently. "I must write to Syd this very evening." "And so must I. There will be so many questions to ask. 'It seems as though I could not wait the fort- night which must elapse before his return." "There is one thing certain,-a wife will be pretty sure to anchor the roving fellow down at Hedgerows. There's a chance, too, for him to double his fortune here in a few years, if he'll keep a sharp lookout. The place is getting on its legs, and real estate is bound to treble itself when the new railroad gets in operation. I've seen that from the beginning." Mrs. Weyrmouth had the same faith in her husband's business prophecies that she had in the old-Hebrews, although she would have thought it very irreverent in anybody to say so. She was going over with parts of her son's letter for the third time now. She laughed in a soft, amused way to herself. "It sounds just like him," she said, " always turning himself into a joke; but you and I know, Ste- phen, that there's nothing at all surprising in the lady's choosing our son among her host of admirers." "No," said Mr. Weymouth, repeating his wife's smile. "I don't think there is." There was a great deal more talk after this; there were all kinds of'pleasant projects started for the future, when their son, with- his new, beautiful young wife, should come to take up his abode at Hedgerows,- under the family roof, too. It must be a narrow nature which could not enter with real sympathy into the new joy of these people page: 132-133[View Page 132-133] 132 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. that morning, for this boy of theirs was all the world to them: Therein, too, lay the pity that the hearts of neither were wide enough .to take in anything which was not of their own flesh and blood. At last Mr. Weymouth started down-town in an im- mensely good humor with himself and the world in general. In fact, when things went well with him, you could not easily find a more jovial companion, or one who told a story with a better relish, than Stephen Weymouth. When the maid, too, came up that morning to re- ceive the day's orders, her mistress gave her a beaming smile, and a fresh blue ribbon from out her work-basket; so, after all, from the fountain of Mrs. Weymouth's happiness a few drops did fall on other souls. At the end of the fortnight Sydney Weymouth came home. By this time the birds had sung, and the spring was at her old magic again: soft, velvety green shone on the hillsides and in all the trees. Before he reached Hedgerows, the news of his en- gagement was well circulated through the town, as any- thing was certain to be which concerned such magnates as the Weymouths were at Hedgerows. Sydney carried himself before his parents like the happy man he was supposed to be, which perhaps he really fancied he was himself. Yet, away down in the young man's soul, there lurked a secret feeling which, perhaps, no one word can describe, but which was not self-complacency..- I do not mean to say the young man was dissatisfied with his choice, for when he surveyed it with cool judgment, ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I33 which he did rather frequently for an enthusiastic lover, he found everything to satisfy his pride and ambition. Yet I hardly think his beautiful betrothed had touched his heart any more than a dozen other-women whom he had flirted with; and he had certainly entered the list of her admirers with no ultimate intention of offering her his hand. But the truth was, Jacqueline Thayne's refusal had given the man's vanity a terrible wound; shaken, even, his confidence in himself, for before that Sydney Wey- mouth had taken it for granted that there was not a woman in the world whom he could not win if-he chose to ask her; and this doubt, which his first failure had given him in his own powers, lent a certain ardor to his pursuit in the present instance. It was really a matter of personal pride with him to outstrip all the other rivals in this race. If it could have ended with equal credit to himself, Sydney Weymouth would have been satisfied with entering the lists, wearing the lady's colors, breaking the best lance in her defense, laying the trophies at her feet, and riding off at last, conqueror in all eyes. But the days of tilt and tourney were over now, and the heiress of the western broker on this winter's visit to her relatives in New York was the reigning belle of her own circle. Sydney Weymouth was quite certain that he was an object of envy to several of the lady's most fervent admirers, and once he would not have had a lurking doubt as to his real position in her regards. But whether there was a coquette's tact or a woman's heart beneath all the sweetness of smiles lavished on page: 134-135[View Page 134-135] I34 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. hosts of admirers, Sydney Weymouth had not been just certain. His curiosity was piqued, his self-love enlisted. The value of the prize was enhanced in his eyes, because so many were eagerly seeking it. And so, on a sudden impulse, one evening, when a ) good chance presented itself, Sydney Weymouth pro- posed; and a certain insecurity as to the result, remem- bering the answer he had received on the only time he had ever made a bona fide proposition of this kind be- j fore, gave an ardor and a certain amount of eloquence to his talk, at least very flattering to the lady. .j All doubts were, however, gracefully put to an end, for Sydney Weymouth was, after a due amount of pretty coquetries, accepted. His vanity would have suffered a terrible shock if he had not been; and I do not mean to say that he ever regretted the result. Yet it was hardly in the nature of a fond and happy lover to go over in his own mind the good points of his matri- .monial bargain, much as a man would one he had con- cluded in stocks or real estate. It looked a good deal I as though there was a lurking feeling that something was wanting, and he wished to reassure himself in the 1 matter. ?!! The truth was, with all the beauty and the charms of i his Dulcinea, which men of a certain type raved over, Sydney Weymouth had found a finer flavor, a subtler magnetism, in the'society of Jacqueline Thayne. It was to Sydney Weymouth's credit, after all, that he had found this out; and strange as it may appear,. and connoisseur in woman's beauty as the man was, the i face of the Squire's niece was fairer in his eyes than that of the woman he was to wed. * "I\ ONE WOMAN'S TWO. LO VERS. 35 Whether he ever owned it to himself or not, Sydney Weymouth found his wife precisely like dozens of other fascinating women he had known, and, if the truth must be owned, sickened of a little. She never stim- ulated and amused him with anything fresh, odd, quaint, as that curious, frank, fascinating Jacqueline Thayne was always doing. And he had a secret feel- ing that the clearer and deeper gaze of the finer woman's soul had found something wanting in him- in him, Sydney Weymouth! Had Jacqueline dropped like a ripe plum into his hand, he might not have set so high a value on her as he did after she had actually-refused him. But with the feeling which I have described were mingled others-a certain sense of personal injury, and an un- acknowledged hankering for revenge on the woman who had humiliated Sydney Weymouth-which cir- cumstances brought at last into active force. For several days after his return, the Thaynes were not mentioned either by Sydney or his family. Mrs. Weymouth had acted her part well; her son had no suspicion that a thought of any predilection on his part for the Squire's niece, beyond that of their old friendship, had ever crossed the brain of his mother. One morning, however, she said carelessly enough, while she was feeding her canaries,--"I want to go over to the Squire's this afternoon for a call. Will you drive me out, Sydney?" Mrs. Weymouth's tone was the most natural in the world.- No one would have suspected how keenly alert her ears were for the answer. page: 136-137[View Page 136-137] 136 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. It came in a moment. "I shall be happy to take you over, mother." Sydney felt a good deal relieved. This proposition smoothed the way to the first call at the Thaynes', which had for several days been rather a disagreeable prospect in Sydney Weymouth's brilliant future. In a few moments he spoke again. "I suppose our friends at the Rookery, as the Squire calls it, have been getting on prosperously this winter?" "Oh, yes. I never saw the Squire looking in better health. He was over here with Jacqueline a few days before you came home. I told her the news." "You did?" Sydney was reading a magazine. His mother heard it rustle on the floor. "What did my old playfellow say? Something unlike anybody else in the world, I'll wager my new horse. " "Of course. She seemed, however, greatly interested and pleased. She always thought a great deal of you, Sydney,-but that was not surprising." "We are very old friends, you know, mother," pre- tending not to see the covert compliment in the last clause of her sentence. "I know you were. I always liked Jacqueline, de- spite that odd streak in the Thayne blood. I was in hopes she would get over it as she grew up; but it's in the grain. She and her-uncle seem just made for each other; and it's well they are; for really I can't imagine any man's wanting precisely such a wife as Jacqueline Thayne would make." Mrs. Weymouth would not have ventured to say so ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. ' 37 much before Sydney left home last fall. She fancied she had stepped in to the rescue at just the moment when the friendship was beginning to have a dangerous fascination for her son. She was a little curious to know just how far matters had gone between Sydney and the Squire's niece, but, on the whole, was tolerably well satisfied that they had never progressed beyond the safe ground of their old friendship. Still, she had watched Jacqueline's face narrowly when she confided to her her son's engagement; but that had a secret to keep for another which it might not have done so well for herself, and the lady learned nothing. What a thunder-clap it would have been to Mrs. Weymouth, if she had known that Jacqueline Thayne had actually refused the heart and- hand of her idolized son-tenderly, half reluctantly, it is true; but then she had none the less refused them! I think Jacqueline Thayne, despite her oddities, which Mrs. Weymouth characteristically included un- der the general head of the "Thayne streak," would have been wonderfully exalted in the woman's estima- tion. She might, on the whole, have rejoiced at the girl's decision; thought it had done Sydney a great favor; but she would also have borne Jacqueline a certain grudge ever after. There was not, however, the slightest danger of Mrs. Weymouth's ever suspecting the truth. Sydney knew Jacqueline Thayne too well to- have any fears there. Had her lovers been as numerous as Cleo- patra's, -she never would have divulged the name of one for the sake of any extra social consideration it would have brought her. I3 , page: 138-139[View Page 138-139] 138 ONE WOMAN1'S TWO LOVERS. Sydney wondered sometimes whether Jacqueline had ever told her uncle. He was certain he should never know from the Squire's manner. At the last remark of his mother's, the young man rose up and went to the piano; struck a few notes of some German air, and then added-'"Jacqueline has her oddities, as you say, mother: I suppose they are in the Thayne blood; but then some men might like her all &he better on their very account." "I can hardly imagine that, Sydney. A man would have a very peculiar taste to fancy some things about that girl." "You think so? What are they, mother?" still following the German air through its sweet, bewilder- ing trills and mazes. a Oh! a great many things. She never acts or talks just like other people. It isn't easy to say in just what the difference consists, but you know as well as I do. Just think of her long walks, too, in all kinds of weather." "All that comes of her uncle's fancy, you know. She was a delicate child, and he kept her out-doors as much as possible. Besides, many an English woman would beat Jacqueline Thayne in pedestrian feats." What made Sydney Weymouth take the opposite side in this discussion of Jacqueline Thayne, he could hardly have told himself. Perhaps it was secretly pleasant to hear his mother disparage her. The conversation was abruptly closed by his father, who, just ready to start down-town, put his head inside the door; "Come, Syd, don't you want to go over to the factories?" ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I39 "I believe I do, sir." A moment later, Mrs. Weymouth, watching from the window, saw the two stride off together. That afternoon Sydney carried his mother to the house beyond Otter River. Jacqueline was at home, and received her guest with all the cordial frankness of his old playfellow. In a few minutes the Squire came -in from the grounds, where he was overlooking various kinds of spring work. At last, when his mother and her host were busily engaged, Sydney went over to Jacqueline. "My mother says she has told you, Jacqueline." "Yes; I was so very glad, Sydney. I am prepared to like her for your sake." "You are?" mentally contrasting the two women in a way that I think would scarcely have pleased his future wife. "Yes, for your sake, Sydney. Do you think I could be so much your friend as I am without liking anybody that was dear to you?" What reply Sydney Weymouth would have made I cannot tell, for his mother addressed some remark to him at that moment. But it would have been all the same, however for the moment her manner might in- fluence him. Jacqueline Thayne had refused Sydney Weymouth, and no kindness, no friendship, no affec- tion even, on her part, could atone for that fact in the man's eyes. . . page: 140-141[View Page 140-141] "O ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. CHAPTER XII. ONE day, taking a walk after tea, before he settled himself down to his books for the evening, the super- intendent, turning suddenly off from the highway into a quiet lane, with an old stone wall and some ancient apple-trees, whose blossoms filled the twilight with sweetness, came suddenly upon two figures. They were engaged in conversation, and did not see him at first; but he recognized them at a single glance-with a pang, too, of real pain, for the pair was Reynolds and Ruth Benson. The man was leaning down toward the girl, looking into her shy face with those bold eyes of his, in a way that made Philip Draper's nerves fairly shiver. Had that girl been anything dear to him--sister or friend --it seemed to him that he must have gone up and snatched her away from that man's side as he would from something vile, whose very presence polluted her. Any interferenoe on his part at that time, however, would be worse than useless. Reynolds bowed when he saw young Draper, with that half deferential air be- hind which the superintendent always fancied he saw a smirk of malice; and the girl returned the gentle- man's recognition with a half-pleased, half-scared look. Philip Draper kept on his walk; the May evening about him was full of the tender beauty of the fresh spring. At any other time, all that new life and love- liness would have beguiled the young man's soul, but f ONVE WOMA N'S TWO LO VERS. "1 to-night he could think of nothing but the two figures he had met in the lane. What could that bad man want of that pure young girl? The thought of her-poor, simple-hearted child- under Reynolds's influence, in his power, fairly sick- ened Philip Draper. Over and over the impulse seized him to turn back and hurl away the man whom he was certain was whispering his soft, false talk in the pleased, half-scared ears of Ruth Benson. "Better she should die, poor child,-better she should die a thousand times,-than listen to him," murmured Philip Draper, snapping off a branch of alder from a clump that came in his way, and doubling the lithe thing fiercely in his hands, as he would have enjoyed doubling Reynolds up at that moment with a blow. He went home at last, and tried to bury himself in Froude's History; but he did not succeed, and he tossed down the book and commenced pacing his chamber. "Philip Draper," he said, "what do you want to make an ass of yourself for? Men and women will go to the devil in this world, for all your fretting over it. You will only get yourself into hot water if you meddle with this matter. If the little simpleton can't take care of herself, you won't save her." So, hedged about with the hard common sense of his logic, Philip Draper tried to settle himself down to his history again; but the man had a heart,and it found its way through all his armor of philosophy; he could not get back into the sixteenth century, among the splendid historic figures in that long, grand drama of Elizabeth's reign. The sweet face of the little fac- tory-girl came between the reader and his page, and a 13* page: 142-143[View Page 142-143] "2 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. second time the book was dumped with an impatient gesture on the table, and the bristling hedge of his logic broke down when his heart and his conscience spoke to him! "So that is your good, common sense, is it, Philip Draper-to let that young girl go blindfold to her ruin because you are afraid of getting yourself into trouble- meddling with what is not your business! Give the feeling its true name now, which is selfishness to the very core of it. Put the question to your own soul whether you enjoy this moment a right to your own thoughts, in the silence of your chamber, which men and women haven't taken some trouble to earn for you, even when it came to scaffold and stake.' They meddled with business that wasn't their qwn with a vengeance, and you and every soul of your generation are reaping the benefits of their meddling to-day; and yet, when it comes to a possible singeing of your little finger, you shrink back. Manly, isn't it? Christ-like, isn't it? "Here chance has thrown a simple, innocent, soft- hearted child in your way, with a face sweet as a spring violet, and you shrink from putting out your hand to snatch her back from the gulf into which that man's vileness will inevitably plunge her. No doubt, it would be easier and more comfortable for you to let her go on--it is never pleasant to meddle with other folks' affairs, especially to one who stands in just your posi- tion toward these people; but when it comes to that young girl's honor and soul, don't let them be required of you." And when his heart and conscience had spoken to ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS.' 143 Philip Draper, other thoughts came up--of his mother and of Jacqueline--the woman in her grave, and the woman in his heart, both so near and so far away. For their sakes he would do what was in his power to save this girl from the villain who was seeking to destroy her. All this time Philip Draper did not, in his own mind, allow Reynolds "the benefit of a doubt." He be- lieved the man to be a scoundrel; did not doubt that he had fully intended assault and robbery on that night when they met in the darkness, on the lonely outskirts of the town. Nothing had happened on the wool-dyer's part to deepen this conviction in the mind of the superinten- dent; but the two never met without the impression of Reynolds's innate rascality taking a stronger hold on Philip Draper's mind; so much so that he had ceased to try and combat the feeling. It was not as easy a matter as would appear on the surface, for the superin- tendent to have a private interview with the factory- girl. It is true, he saw her on his daily rounds through the work-rooms, and in all their vast lengths there was no face so pleasant to him, as there was certainly none so fair, as the shy, blushing one of Ruth Benson when it looked up to him from the loom where she had of late taken her place. The young man and the maiden always had a few pleasant words to exchange; indeed, Philip Draper did not suspect that his visit to her loom was the brightest thing in the day to the girl, nor how far it had gone toward tiding her over the first week of strangeness and home-sickness at Hedgerows. But a few moments' chat, which everybody was free page: 144-145[View Page 144-145] "4 ONEvE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. to hear and comment on, was a totally different thing from the serious talk which Philip Draper had now in hand. Anything of the latter sort could not fail to arouse the curiosity and the suspicions of the operatives. From the beginning, the superintendent had avoided all partialities with the people under him. He never patronized one of them, because anything of that sort was impossible with Philip Draper; but his position made all his intercourse with the crowd of operatives a matter requiring caution and good judgment on his part, and thus far it had been perfectly open, giving rise to no buzz of gossip, or, what was still worse, envies or hearthurnings. Philip Draper turned over several plans for a private interview with Ruth Benson, and then dismissed each one as impracticable. The girl's pretty face was so patent to all eyes that any marked attention on young Draper's part would be construed into admiration; and poor little Ruth Benson would be the target for all sorts of innuendoes and ma- licious gossip from scores of indignant damsels. Philip Draper laughed heartily to- himself when it suddenly struck him that his words and acts created about as much sensation in his small factory-world as Louis the Fourteenth's used to among his courtiers. "What an awful old humbug this world is!" he said to himself, having a keen scent always for the comic side of a dilemma. At last he made up his mind to trust to chance for this interview with Ruth Benson. It came in a day or two, when he least looked for it. The girl had left something at the mills, and had ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 145 returned to find it after the day's work was over, and was hurrying home, when Philip Draper came suddenly upon her in the factory road. The superintendent himself was late that night, hav- ing been detained by a couple of college classmates, who had hunted him up and burst suddenly upon him at Pedgerows. Philip Draper's mind was full of this visit, and of all the old associations which it had awakened, when he came upon Ruth Benson. It happened to be on a strip of cross-road recently opened to diminish the distance between the boarding-house and the mills. On one side rose a steep, sandy hill, on the other the thick swamp willows, and just below was the dark gleam of Otter River. Ruth looked up with her bow, and the bright blush which always accompanied it. It was Philip Draper's time now. "Ah, Miss Ruth! I've been wanting to have a few minutes' private talk with you." The girl stood still. How pretty she looked, play- ing awkwardly with her bonnet-strings! "With me, Mr. Draper?" she repeated. "Yes; because I am your friend, Ruth, and because I fear a great danger is drawing near you." She started now, and drew her breath in little, fright- ened gasps. "Near me, Mr. Draper?" she faltered out her mono- syllables again. "Yes, and I had made up my mind to warn you with the first chance. I was very sorry to meet you in such company the other night in the lane." page: 146-147[View Page 146-147] E WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. The girl understood now; her color bloomed and paled. "He urged me very hard to walk out with him," she said. C"Ah, my child !" and the man, in his earnestness and his pity for the pretty, trembling thing before him, laid his hand on her arm, " do not trust that man; I believe he is bad to the core-worse than you can imagine, even. I believe he is seeking to draw you within his influence, only to do you harm. I shudder when I think where he may be leading you." The girl fairly trembled at the solemn words. A sob strained and quivered in her throat, and big tears darkened her eyes. "I didn't know he was such a bad man," she said. "I know you didn't, my child. I know you are a little, pure, innocent-hearted girl, and I hate to say these words to you; but precisely because of your lone- liness and innocence I cannot refrain from warning you. You believe I am your friend,. Ruth ?" "Oh! yes, sir. I knew that from the beginning." "Well, then, I say to you just what I would if your dead mother should get up this moment from her grave and stand here between us to hear me. Keep out of this man's way, as you would out of devouring flames -as you would out of a serpent's in your track!" The poor child was sobbing and shaking now. " Ruth, you do not care for this Reynolds?" her distress half alarming him. "Oh ! no, sir," she gasped. "I was afraid of him at the first-I could not tell why; but he was very kind and pleasant, and I thought it was all my foolishness." ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I47 "And there is nothing behind that I do not know? You may trust me, Ruth." " Only I almost promised Mr. Reynolds to go to the Fair at Grape Meadows to-morrow. He said it would be very nice, and we could ride home by moonlight." Grape Meadows was ten miles from Hedgerows. Philip Draper thought of the long, lonely road betweeh the two towns, looked at the sobbing young girl before him, and shuddered. "Ruth," he said, solemnly, "I would rather you lay dead at my feet this moment, than have you take that ride with this Reynolds !" "I won't go with him, Mr. Draper, indeed I won't!" her wet face shining up on him with a sudden determ- ination that gave the man faith in her. "Put your hands in mine, Ruth, and promise me as your friend who wants to save you." The girl did as he requested, with something in her voice and eyes that made him believe she would not fail her promise. "Now, my child, go home, and don't be unhappy over this. I believe you understand me, and know that I have warned you solemnly as I have because I felt your lonely, unprotected situation; and I thought of your dead mother, and was sure if she could speak she would thank me for what I have said to her child." "Oh! I am sure she would," said the trembling lips, with the scarlet of ripe berries upon them. "You have been very kind to me-more than I can say, Mr. Draper. ' She looked at him with a face so sweet, troubled, grateful, when she said these words, that the superin- page: 148-149[View Page 148-149] "8 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. tendent had hard work to keep from suddenly bending ' down and kissing her. But he did not. Then, with a last injunction that she was not to con- fide their interview to any person, the two shook hands and parted there in the strip of yellow, bare, factory cross-road by the river. e In a few moments a man crawled out from the thick, low growth of swamp willows into the- dust of the road, and the fading light struck some yellow bars across his face and gave it an ugly look. The man doubled his fist and shook it fiercely, and swore two or three terrible oaths at Philip Draper. i Hidden down there among the swamp willows-for he had caught sight of the superintendent, and turned among the shadows to avoid him, having had an un- comfortable, sneaking sort of feeling in the latter's a presence since their meeting one night-Reynolds had witnessed the interview between the young man and t Ruth Benson. Reynolds's ears had not served him as well as his eyes had done, for he had in vain strained the former to catch a sentence of the conversation, but a distant murmur of voices was all that reached him. But no gesture escaped the man watching with - greedy, venomous eagerness the pair in the factory cross-road, and, with the readiness to suspect evil which always characterizes those in whom it exists, Reynolds i at once put the worst possible construction upon this interview. "Curse him!" he growled under his breath, his face * dark with passion; "the fellow wants the best pick of -! the lot. I see what he's up to well enough. I'll wager ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I49 a guinea now he's put a flea in her ear about me. I can find that out if she's on the off side the next time I see her. Well, my young man, you've got the best of me in money, and place, and all that, but you are not a whit better than I am, it seems; and when it comes to a pretty woman I can lie as low and run as fast as any other man," and he laughed a low, hard, chuckling laugh that never came out of an honest man's throat. Reynolds had not, however, been the only witness of the meeting in the cross-road between the superin- tendent and the factory-girl. A small rowhoat, in which was a single occupant, had just reached a point on the river where an opening in the trees afforded a view of that part of the road where the figures stood. The boat had stopped, and its occupant had watched with intent curiosity the whole scene. Sydney Weymouth's handsome face wore-an expres- sion not quite pleasant as he was about bending to his oars again, trolling some notes of an old Spanish air while his thoughts went after this fashion: "So you have a relish for a pretty face as well as the rest of your sex, with all your fine notions about womanhood. Well, you've shown good taste, Draper, for she's the prettiest girl in the lot, although I shouldn't have thought it of you-getting up a sly flirtationf of this sort. A man must believe his eyes, though, and those tender looks and that clasping of hands put the thing beyond dis- pute." The boat was on the point of turning around when young Weymouth caught sight of another figure as it lifted itself from the ground, and the yellow bars of " * i .U page: 150-151[View Page 150-151] 150 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. sunset struck across its face. He recognized the wool- dyer at once, and saw the angry gesture of the man. Sydney Weymouth saw immediately that he had not been a solitary witness of the scene. He perceived that some strong passion was at the bottom of the ges- ture,-jealousy and hate, probably,-and, unconsciously perhaps to himself, young Weymouth felt a certain sympathy for Reynolds. That vague, subtle dislike which he had experienced for some time for his father's superintendent found here some slight grounds for its justification. Sydney WeymbiUth was not aware of it, probably would not have believed it of himself, but as he turned his boat up-stream he felt a subtle triumph over the scene he had witnessed, and at its disparaging reflec- tion on Philip Draper. "No better than any other man," he murmured to himself once or twice.- "It's hardly fair on the other fellow, though. But you've got the winning card in your hand, Philip Draper'"--and he went back to troll- ing his Spanish air again. CHAPTER X IIL IF, during this time, I have been silent regarding the relations of Philip Draper and Jacqueline Thayne, it has been because there was really very little to tell. w The superintendent, it is true, was- a tolerably fre- - quent guest at the house beyond -the Pine Woods, but ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. 5 he would not have been, had not the Squire a habit of pouncing down suddenly upon his young friend at the most unexpected times and places, and bearing him off triumphantly, regarding the superintendent as legiti- mate prey on all occasions. These visits at the Hermitage, as, for want of a better name, people called the quaint, many-sided house, were enchanted hours to Philip Draper, exhaling a sweetness over all the coarse, matter-of-fact days which rounded out the weeks and months in the fac- tories at Hedgerows. Philip Draper had, at best, a kind-of chronic sensi- tiveness, which gave him a morbid horror of intruding himself anywhere; and when it came to visiting the Thaynes, this feeling was intensified. Within those charmed boundaries dwelt the woman of his love, and it always seemed to him that he was treading on sacred ground when he passed inside the rustic gate; he envied the very leaves that drew their breath and quivered away the summer in that air; but because of that very reason, not all the Squire's cordial invitations, supplemented by his niece's, could draw Philip Draper often, of his own accord, up the winding walk, through the greenery and shadows that fell upon his tired heart like the very peace of angels, to the curious little portico, perched like an overhanging bird's-nest above the front door. Still, through the Squire's active interference, Philip Draper did find himself here moderately often, and any reasonable man ought to have been satisfied with the kind of reception which awaited him from the young hostess of the Hermitage. page: 152-153[View Page 152-153] 1,5 2 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. Jacqueline Thayne was by nature grateful. A real kindness done to herself was something she never for- got; and here was a man to whom she owed her life; she never saw him, never thought of him even, with- out remembering that, and it set him apart from other men, and invested him with a certain sacredness in her eyes. It is true, and natures to whom obligations are rasping would have remembered it, that her preserver had encountered no personal peril in rushing to her defense; that the desperate race, on whose speed her life hung, had cost Philip Draper no sacrifice. Prob- ably Jacqueline never thought of this; if she did, I think by this time she saw far enough into the man not to doubt that he would have plunged foremost into any peril, to save any human being menaced with death. Yet this man's and woman's knowledge of each other progressed slowly. It seemed to the Squire, who watched its growth with his -keen, penetrating eyes, that something thin as mist, yet strong as granite, stood between the souls of these two, and prevented their coming closer together. It was owing apparently to no fault on either side. Jacqueline, from gratitude and interest which grew out of that, did her best to make the visits of her guest agreeable, and they got on well enough together, talk- ing as a cultivated-man and woman would be likely to talk who found they had a good many sympathies and tastes in common; but, notwithstanding, there was a certain ice of reserve between them. With this one woman, Philip Draper was not just himself. I do not know but he will be henceforth far ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I53 less a hero in your eyes; but, if the honest truth must be told, he was actually more or less bashful, had a school-boyish sense of awkwardness and self-conscious- ness, in the presence of Jacqueline Thayne. With her uncle, however, the case was entirely dif- ferent. It was astonishing how the -elder man and the younger grew into each other's hearts; how every in- terview seemed to bring them closer together; how they ranged over fields of literature, and over their old, classic haunts, and across broad highways of his- tory, while they walked over the grounds in the pleas- ant summer weather, or flung themselves down on the grass under the shadows of the great trees, very much like two boys. "I wouldn't have believed my old heart had so much of Jonathan left in it," thought the Squire to himself. "I can't help loving the fellow as -though he were a younger brother. Ah, Jacqueline! my poor, little, purblind lassie, if you could see him as I do, as he is, how that Sydney Weymouth of your girlish fan- cies would shrink and. shrivel beside him!" As for Philip Draper, you must have found out by this time that he had a feminine faculty of idealization. He believed he had found in Squire Thayne the man of his heart, and glorified him so far that he would have been willing to admit that Jacqueline could not have been just the angel she was had any other man than Squire Thayne had the bringing-up of her. But Philip Draper had the "humility of strong af- fection." Other men might have been flattered by Jacqueline's cordiality and interest. He attributed them solely to her gratitude. "' page: 154-155[View Page 154-155] 154 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. "It would be like her to remember always that I had saved her life, and that she must put up with me on that account," his foolish, self-depreciatory thoughts went. And he fancied his society bored her; that she put up with it out of the absurd idea of gratitude. All this Squire Thayne, shrewd in reading the souls of men, divined. He pitied the fellow, praised him to Jacqueline; but less, perhaps, than he would have done had he known and loved Philip Draper less; and the girl listened and -assented. And Squire Thayne said to himself, when he grew a little impatient or pro- voked with both-"Wait, man, wait." One day, of a wonder, Philip Draper did come out to the Hermitage of his own accord. It turned out, however, that a rumor had reached him the preceding day of the Squire's illness. He found the gentleman in an advanced state of convales- cence, in the grounds with his niece. "I had a touch of chill last night," he said, "and could not get over to the committee meeting. It was only a faint reminiscence of my old life in South Amer- ica," turning to Jacqueline with a smile. "It does very well, Mr. Draper, for Uncle Alger to lay his illness on the shoulders of South America, for those who don't know how he has been haunting the vicinity of some marsh-lands he is having drained this summer. I've been predicting a tussle with chills or typhus, but my prophecies had no more terrors than the singing of swallows in the chimneys. " So the talk commenced, in a more playful and in- formal strain than was usual with Mr. Draper and Miss Thayne. Perhaps the day had something to do with ONE WOIMAN'S TWO LO ERS. 155 it. It was one of the loveliest that ever shone out of June skies, through whose blossom-scented air west winds ever sung, amid whose light and dews, whose birds and leaves, the world could dream of her long- lost Eden. Jacqueline wore a white dress to-day--she wore white more than anything else, because her uncle was fond of seeing her in it-and a little fresh straw hat, with some jaunty trimmings, which was very becoming to her. - She had looked very beautiful many times in the eyes of Philip Draper, but she never looked quite so lovely as she did on this day. "I am heartily glad you have come to join us in our ramble, my young friend. What a delicious thing the mere living is to-day." "Yes; even down there among the dust and din of the mills, I have felt a new thrill and intoxication in my veins. It's good to be here, Squire Thayne." Philip Draper turned and smiled on his friend as he said these words. Those who had known his mother said her smile lived yet, when it broke up with its sudden light and sweetness the gravity of her boy's face. It never struck Jacqueline precisely as it did at this time, for Philip Draper's face had always to her a cer- tain immobility, just as his character had. But the smile gave a kind of new meaning to both. And then you must remember what such a day would be to such an organization as hers. Wandering about in that free, out-door life, the very air full of the sweetness of blossoms and sprouting page: 156-157[View Page 156-157] 156 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. things, among the lights and the shadows, and the fresh beauty of leaves and grasses, the two grew better ac- quainted than they had ever been before. Unconsciously to herself, perhaps, the girl turned the gay, playful side of her nature to this man; and he, in his turn, came out of that shell of gravity and self-constraint-which had always held him more or less when in the presence of the intellectual, and cultivated, and eccentric Miss Thayne, as the people of Hedgerows regarded her. The two sparkled out in jest, and story, and all man- ner of easy, playful talk, and the Squire brought his forces of wit and humor to the help of his companions, until the wide old grounds rang with sudden peals of laughter. But the fragmentary, effervescent talk would lose its glow and sparkle at once, if it were spread out upon my page. Late in the afternoon the trio came to the lawn, which had just been freshy shaven. "Ah! this has the real scent of new-mown hay," said the Squire, throwing himself down upon the grass under a kingly horse-chestnut, every branch covered with white obelisks-of blossoms. His niece and his friend followed his example. The landscape spread beneath them broad, grassy slopes descending to Otter River, which lay wide and still between its banks, now choked in black glooms of shadows, now flashing out in a broad laughter of sun- light. The Squire regarded it a few moments in silence, and then he spoke. "The river looks solemn and sluggish enough, to-day, going down to find the sea ^ . ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 15 7 somewhere. Curious"-the last word spoken in an absent way to himself. "What, Uncle Alger?" asked his niece, jogging his arm a little. "That the old story or legend of the freshet always comes back to me when I see the river in this quiet mood. "What is the story?" inquired Philip Draper. "I never heard it." "It must have been at least fifty years ago that the freshet happened. The summer had blazed with long heats, and been parched with droughts. The equinox came down at last with a sudden fury of whirlwinds and rains. Up among the mountains the small brooks and springs that feed Otter River were suddenly swollen into furious torrents. The waters swept over the banks, carrying away mills, tearing up booms, barns, and bridges, and making frightful havoc up in the town, and at last riding triumphantly over the top of Huckleberry Hill yonder"-pointing to a broad, -Sloping shoulder of land, the summit just visible on their right. "It must have taken a tremendous freshet to lift the waters out of their bed to that altitude," said Philip Draper, looking from the glooms of the river to the sunlight on Huckleberry Hill. "Yes, but I've talked with more than one old far- mer about here who had seen the thing with his own eyes. There was more than one life lost that time." "I don't believe I shall ever like Otter River quite as well as I have done," said Jacqueline, gravely enough now. r. page: 158-159[View Page 158-159] 158 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. "It was a kindly death, after all, child, and perhaps saved these drowned people the slow agonies of a sick- bed. I can't be hard on the old river, because drown- ing never had any terrors for me." "I never knew anything that had," answered Jac- queline, with just the hint of a smile. "Yes," he said, " there are some things that have terrors for me-great terrors!" but he did not say what the things were, and nobody asked him. Then Squire Thayne spoke again: "I've always been expecting a freshet like the one the farmers talk about since I settled above Otter River, but it hasn't come yet." Long afterward, that conversation returned to two of the three who sat under the horse-chestnut in the warmth and sweetness of the June afternoon. Not far off from where they sat there was a great bush'of white roses in full blossom. When Philip Draper saw the great white wave of bloom, he said, "They were my mother's favorite flowers; every June she wore white roses in her hair." He did not say any more-indeed, I am not sure that Philip Draper knew he had spoken his thought at all; he only sat still, looking at the bush. Jacqueline had never before heard him allude to his mother. The words, few and simple as they were, opened something new to her in the nature of this man. She leaned a little toward him. "I should like to have you tell me something about your mother," she said, her voice just outside a whisper. Philip Draper turned and looked at the girl. The large, brown, luminous eyes -met his own, and he saw ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 159 in them some touched curiosity and interest for him- self which he had never seen there before. "What would you like to hear about her?" he asked, and a smile came into his eyes, and Jacqueline wondered to herself that she had never known before that this man had fine eyes. "Anything that you would like to tell me. What kind of woman she was; or, at least, what she seemed to you." Excepting to a few of Mrs. Draper's old friends, her son had not talked of her for years, but now it seemed as natural to speak as to think of her. He told one story after another of his boyhood and youth; stories of sweet, homely pathos sometimes, and at others the stories were little, quaint cabinet pictures of childhood, shining with wit and fun, that made the Squire and his niece laugh heartily; and the young man did not suspect how clear and distinct this mother, who had been the love and ideal of his boy- hood, stood before these people. The dew began to fall before anybody was aware of it, and they all went up to the house. The guest had promised himself he would not re- main to supper to-night, but he did, and through the pleasant evening that followed. Just as he was about to leave, Jacqueline brought him a bouquet of fresh, white roses, glittering with night-dews. She did not tell him that they were for his mother's sake, but he knew it all the same; yet, going home that night with the sweet fragrance filling the air about him, Philip Draper did not think of what those flowers page: 160-161[View Page 160-161] I60 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. had been to his mother-only of the soft, warm hands whose touch yet thrilled his fingers, only of the living face which shone above the blossoms. Jacqueline sat still awhile after her guest had gone, and her uncle buried himself in his newspaper. At last she spoke-"What a fine hbead Mr. Draper has! It never struck me, though, until to-night." "Hasn't it? It did me, long ago." CHAPTER XIV. THERE was a taint of a bad cigar on the sweetness of the summer air, and then Sydney Weymouth heard the growl of a low, hoarse oath or two. He was on his way to the post-office. Somehow, he was not in a very good humor. It is a singular fact that he never was, after completing one of -his flowery love-epistles to his betrothed. In fact, he had seated himself to this one saying, with a smile which had a dash of satire in it, as he dipped his pen into the jaws of his inkstand, which happened to be a lion couchant, in bronze-"All women are just alike. They want a dose of flattery and another of fondness, so here goes for you-Ada, my angel!" He would never have sat down with such a muttered preface to write to Jacqueline Thayne. After all, something in this man's soul must have found in her the sort of woman it needed. I want ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 161 you to bear that in mind through all that I am going to tell you of him. Sydney Weymouth, catching the low growl just on his right, turned, and looked. The post-office stood before him, a tall, narrow building, in dull, red brick, and rows of small, dust-covered windows on every side. Just in the rear of the office was a small grocery, of a dirty yellow color, and at the end a bar-room, where every evening you would be sure to find a dozen or more loungers, men of the very worst character in Hedgerows, puffing at their pipes amid low jests and loud guffaws of laughter. Sydney Weymouth recognized the man in the low doorway of the yellow grocery, with the cheap cigar in his mouth, as the one who had performed that sig- nificant pantomime in the factory-road a couple of weeks before. Since that time he had observed the man more closely, and had even exchanged a good-natured re- mark or two with Reynolds when he passed through the apartment where the man was sorting wool. Sydney Weymouth followed the direction of the man's eyes, which had at that moment an ugly glare in them. On the opposite side of the street, moving rapidly out of sight, he saw his father's superintendent. Now Sydney Weymouth did not, in his secret soul, feel any the less friendly toward this Reynolds when he discovered the individual against whom that low oath had been growled. The eyes of the two met now. A dull flush came into Reynolds's cheeks. The super- intendent and his employer's son were friends, he fancied. I5 page: 162-163[View Page 162-163] I62 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. Oh, my friend, don't swear," said Sydney Wey- mouth pleasantly. Reynolds took off his hat with his best air-"I beg your pardon, sir; it's something I'm not in the habit of doing." "I hope there is no especial reason for it in this case," said Weymouth, and then he stood still a mo ment, waiting for Reynolds to speak. The latter hesitated, and shuffled one foot before the other a little uneasily. He would have been glad to feel his way before he committed himself to this handsome and polished young man, of whom Rey- nolds, with all his bluster and swagger among his equals, being a coward at heart, stood in awe. "Whether there is any reason or not, people in my place have no right to complain," answered the man, $ his language quite above that of the average workman. Weymouth noticed that. "I hear the superintendent is in the good graces of all you people down there," with a little gesture in the direction of the mnills. "It's nothing of that sort, sir; I've no complaints to make on that hand," said Reynolds, with some eagerness, not suspecting, in his turn, that the question had been put by young Weymouth solely as a feeler to draw him out. The mail was about closing. Young Weymouth must post his letter on the instant, and he hurried off; but coming out of the post-office a few minutes later, he found what he expected--his father's workman B awaiting him. - A rapid process of thought had been going on during ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 163 these last few moments in Reynolds's brain. The workman was greatly flattered by attention from so high a source, and was determined, if possible, to im- prove the chance. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but I don't feel quite easy about those words you overheard just now." "They did sound ugly, Reynolds. I don't know, of course, what sort of grudge you may fancy you have against Draper, which serves a little to excuse you." "It's the kind of one, sir, which a man feels to the quick, if he-is poor, and another stands far above him in place, and power, and riches. You know there may be wrongs of that kind, Mr. Weymouth." "But although I grant what you say, I cannot easily believe young Draper would do you or any other man a wrong because he happened to be better off, or higher in position, or anything of that sort. If he would, he is a very different man from what I have always taken him to be." The two men were walking together now. Reynolds had thrown away his cigar, and was taking in greedily every tone of his companion; and although the words sounded honest and true, and might have been spoken by Philip Draper's best friend, still something in the tones implied surprise or curiosity sufficient at least to draw Reynolds on.' "Well, sir, if you'll allow me, I'll suppose a case." "Certainly, Reynolds. Go on." "Supposing a man -had taken'a fancy to a girl-not one of your quick, come-and-go sort, I don't mean, A. . page: 164-165[View Page 164-165] I 64 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. but one that was honest and lasting-and that the girl was-as pretty as a rose, and shy, and pure as ever a woman was, and that he had every reason to believe his fancy was returned, and that another man, his superior in money and education, and all those things, saw the girl, and having a taste for pretty faces, took a fancy to this one for a little while, -and set deliberately to work to break up her first liking, and hatched up all manner of bad stories and suspicions, and so worked on the girl's innocence and simple heart that she re- fused to have any more to do with the man who hon- estly loved her, what would you think of that, sir?" tI can have but one opinion of it, Reynolds, as you put it. I should think it was a mean, cowardly, devilish thing for any man to do." "Well, sir, that's precisely my opinion, and you may be sure a man feels such a thing just as much whether he is a rich man or a poor one, whether he's in a high place or a low one." ,. ' I don't question that. But you don't mean to tell me, Reynolds, that your superintendent has been con- nected with any baseness of this sort?" There was a triumphant leer in Reynolds's eyes. Yes, sir," he answered, "that is precisely what I do mean to say." There is no use in going through the talk that fol- lowed between these two. Reynolds told the story about himself and Ruth Benson, in an apparently straightforward-way, and gave the whole just the color- ing which suited his own purpose. Young Weymouth listened, and believed Reynolds's l story, because he secretly wanted to. He was very in- ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 165 dignant, or fancied he was, which in reality amounted to the same thing. It is true, a sense that he owed something to the man who had been his companion and his friend made him-for young Weymouth believed himself a man of honor-put Reynolds through some close cross- questioning, in order to establish the truth of his nar- rative. JIt was, however, quite within Reynolds's capacity to make out a plausible story, and he did it on this occa- sion. Any shrewd reader of human nature, looking in the man's face, would probably have doubted his word. Perhaps Sydney Weymouth would at any other time, but there was a secret sympathy between the wool- sorter and the mill-owner's son. Both had a grudge in their innermost souls against Philip Draper. Even at the close of the conversation, Sydney Wey- mouth did not commit himself by any very salient expressions of indignation. Still, he managed to con- vey to- Reynolds, before their talk closed, a strong impression of sympathy, and of the real attitude in which Draper's conduct had placed him in young Weymouth's eyes. "These are things in which one man cannot help another," he said. "If I had the ear of this pretty damsel, I'd put in a plea for you, Reynolds, but, according to your showing, Draper has secured that." "Yes, sir; and if that thought isn't enough to make a man swear, -I don't know what is. Try and take it home to yourself, sir." "It doesn't have, a pleasant look, I must own. But I5- page: 166-167[View Page 166-167] 166 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. try and keep cool, my friend; that seems to be just now about the best advice I can give you," offering his hand to the wool-sorter, who grasped it warmly. "I am deeply obliged to you for your sympathy, sir. I shouldn't have been bold enough to -trouble you with my affairs, you know, if I hadn't needed to, in order to explain what set me to swearing." "I understand. There is no harm done. Your secret is safe, Reynolds." "I haven't a doubt of that, sir. But-you'll pardon me for saying it--there are other pretty girls in the mills, and a man that's so light o' love, and so ready to trifle with one woman, ought to have some eye on him." Weymouth had to remember that this man's provo- cation was very strong before he replied--"Well, Rey- nolds, your advice is no doubt all well meanft, but spies upon anybody's conduct is not in the line of the proprietors of Hedgerow's mills." There was a little hauteur in these words. Reynolds saw that he had gone quite far enough; but, on the whole, the man was well satisfied with the result of his confidence. There was a leer of triumph and revenge in his face as he turned and walked away. About this time the elder Weymouth had an attack of illness; not a serious one, but it at least prevented his daily visit to the factories; and whatever was miss- ing on his father's part, Sydney undertook to supply. Every day he went over to the factories, and withhis pleasant, free, and easy manners, managed to make him- self a favorite with the hands. He however passed very ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 167 little timeI in the office, and consequently he and the superintendent saw but little of each other. Philip Draper began slowly to admit the conviction against which he had fought, that there was some change in the cordial relations which formerly existed between himself and young Weymouth. The latter was cordial enough when they met, but there were no more tramps and sails, or races on horseback, between the two now. Philip Draper was quite too proud to seek for any exp!anation of this change-to make many advances, even. Being a sensitive man, however, the coldness probably hurt him a little; but then Sydney Weymouth had never taken any vital hold of Philip Draper, while the former tried to keep up the semblance of the old cordiality, and was almost ceremoniously polite toward his father's superintendent. About this time, too, there began to rise a slight feel- ing of disaffection among the hands toward Philip Dra- per. He was not conscious of it himself for a good while-perhaps had not really admitted it when circum- stances brought the matter to the surface in a way that could not fail to convince him. The superintendent was brought less in personal con- tact with the people, as his business confined him more closely to the office; and young Weymouth took the rounds of -the factory upon himself, thus growing in favor with the hands as the other imperceptibly declined. Little absurd rumors of one kind and another got afloat-nobody knew how--rumors that more or less re- flected on the superintendent, and, of course, the idle, the gossipy, the ignorant, were'eager to drink them in, and give them a wider currency; and groups of men i . page: 168-169[View Page 168-169] 168 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. gathered at night, when the work was done, about the doorways, and discussed respectively the superintendent and the junior proprietor; but it was, at least, a notice- able fact that the best part of the factory community, the most industrious and sensible, were always the warm friends of the superintendent; the faction which de- lighted in small scandals, and in an attitude of covert rebellion to Philip Draper's authority, being composed of the young, and idle, and restless among the mill hands. One day Squire Thayne's carry-all dashed up to the office door. Inside were the owner and his niece. As soon as he caught a glimpse of the two, Philip Draper went out and stood there some time talking with his friends. It must have been very amusing talk, too, for every little while anybody standing near - enough could catch the sudden sweetness of Jacque- line's laugh; and at last, when the two drove off, the young lady's voice floated pleasantly back--"We shall lay an embargo on you for to-morrow evening, Mr. Draper." Another person beside the one for whom the rally- ing invitation was intended heard the words. Young Weymouth had just started from the main building to the office on some errand, when the carry-all drove around the factory, and he caught sighto of its inmates. The face of his old playmate was never an agree- able one to the young man now. Still, he took it for granted that the Thaynes had stopped on some errand for himself, and was advancing toward the carriage, when Philip Draper came out. Young Weymouth's face darkened in an instant, an 3 IONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I69 he drew back in one of the side entries, where there was a small window which commanded a view of the office. Here the young man posted himself, and wit- nessed not only the interview, but heard the words of Jacqueline as she drove away. A bitter rancor toward the superintendent awoke in Sydney Weymouth's heart-a feeling that he had been overreached by this man. "I believe that girl might to-day have been my wife if it had not been for this fellow's arts. And if -that Reynolds tells the truth-and there is no doubt of it- Draper is a villain!" he muttered. "So you've made, my lady Jacqueline, a fine exchange-you, with your high notions and lofty ideals, that always had a touch of prudery or nonsense in them. You'd better have stuck to your old playfellow, after all, for though he may have plenty of faults, he isn't capable of such an infamous act as lies at that hypocrite's door,-seducing an innocent young girl from an honest man's heart, with base motives of his own!" Other thoughts, hurried and half chaotic, but all bitter and passionate, flashed through Sydney Wey- mouth's mind. A swift desire for vengeance, a feeling that no man would do well to make Sydney Weymouth his deadly foe, and a sudden longing to unmask whatever villainy lurked behind the fair outside of his father's superin- tendent, all bore part in the sudden tumult of thought and emotion which raged that morning in the soul of Sydney Weymouth; and perhaps deeper than all the rest was a feeling he would not-have acknowledged to himself-a feeling of exultant triumph in any prospect page: 170-171[View Page 170-171] 170 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. of proving to the woman who had refused him the utter unworthiness of her lover. Here was something that must bend the pride and stab the heart of Jacqueline Thayne. I do not presume Sydney Weymouth put it in such words to his own soul, but none the- less the feeling was there I At the moment the carriage drove off, Reynolds, turn- ing around the corner of the building, came plump upon young Weymouth. He saw the glance which turned from the carriage to the superintendent, who was re- entering his office, and in that glance there was a flash of deadly hatred. Reynolds had observed the occupants of the carry-all. He was a shrewd man in reading, on a certain level, the hearts and souls of men. In a moment it was all clear to him. He plunged into one of the lower rooms, piled with bales of goods, and there was a leer of malicious triumph in his bold eyes, and he chuckled to himself- "So you've been, playing the same game over him that you have over me, my precious rascal! I might have known there was some mischief at bottom when he swallowed down my story so smoothly. In the same boat, eh? Two enemies for you now, and one's master of the concern. Look out for your bearings, sir!" and he snapped his fingers with some tingling malice in the very gesture, as he turned back to his work. A moment- more, and Sydney Weymouth went out, too, and only the hot noon sunshine lay in the wide, bare factory-yard. I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I 7 CHAPTER XV. THERE was a very unusual excitement that morning at the well-ordered breakfast-table of the Weymouths. Just as they were sitting down to it, a messenger had arrived from the factory, quite breathless, with the news that a mob had collected around the office the night before, dashed in all the windows, broken the furniture, and, as the crowning effort of their noc- turnal riot, seized upon a suit of clothes which hung in one of the closets, and as to whose proprietorship there could not be a shadow of doubt, and suspended this to the ceiling with a rope around the neck. It was evident that the animosity of the mob must have been principally aimed against the superintendent of the factory. The elder Weymouth was thunderstruck. His nerves, since his illness, had not regained their normal steadi- ness, and between amazement and indignation at the rioters-for he regarded his own person and dignity defied and insulted in that of his superintendent-the man could not eat his breakfast, his appetite failing alike on steak, omelet, and coffee. "Dear me! This excitement will be sure to lay you on your bed again," prophesied the anxious voice of his wife, as she glanced at cup and plate. "To think the affair must have happened precisely as you were getting well upon your feet once more." "The rascals!" groaned the man, setting down his *i . page: 172-173[View Page 172-173] 172 ONE WOMAN'S- TWO LO VERS. coffee-cup with a hand that actually trembled. "To think they should have dared play such a trick on us! If I could only get hold of 'em, every mother's son should be lodged in jail before night." Sydney Weymouth's appetite that morning, too, was none of the keenest, as his doting mother observed. He had also been a good deal startled by the news which had come up from the factory. He had been conscious that there was, more-or less, a widespread spirit of disaffection -among the oper- atives, but he had by no means expected or desired that this feeling should come to a head so rapidly, or develop itself in a midnight riot. He was secretly a little uneasy and self-conscious, too.' Young Weymouth might not admit it to himself, yet for all that he could not help knowing in his in- most soul that he had never exerted himself to put down this rising spirit of disaffection toward the superin- tendent. Young Weymouth tried to assure himself that he was not responsible for it, but he knew well enough that those with whom he had grown most pop- ular were precisely, to a man, those to whom Philip Draper was most obnoxious, and that there was among them a tacit understanding of this fact. "We must take some strong measures," said the elder gentleman, excitedly. "If we can only ferret out the ringleaders, and make an example of them. What an infamous outrage the whole thing was!" "Now, Mr. Weymouth," again interposed the troubled voice of his wife, "do try and keep calm. This excitement will certainly put you on your sick- bed again." ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 173 "( As for ferreting out the ringleaders," added Syd- ney, who, though he could honestly say he was igno- rant of them, had his own suspicions, " that will be a 'matter which requires delicate handling. The rioters have the honor of thieves, and would sooner die than betray one of their band." "But we can't let the thing rest. Such an outrage going unpunished would remain an everlasting disgrace on the firm of Stephen Weymouth & Co.," continued Sydney's father, with hot excitement, still regarding the whole thing from a strictly personal standpoint. "Those factory people have always been so peace- able," subjoined Mrs. Weymouth in an injured tone. "What spite in the world can they have taken against us now?" "I don't think the spite was directed against us at all," replied young Weymouth, feeling that now the time to speak was come. "That makes no sort of difference," answered his father decidedly. "Besides, the bloaw must have been aimed at us over Draper's head.?' "I can't precisely agree with you there, sir," an- swered the son, and a little twinge of conscience made him stop. "Why?" "I intended never to mention it) and was in hopes that it would all blow over before there was any dem- onstration of this sort, but I have seen for some time that the popularity of young Draper was on the wane among some of the people here." The elder Weymouth was a business man, He un- derstood the value of capacity, diligence, integrity, 16 page: 174-175[View Page 174-175] 174 ONE TVOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. All these he had found combined in Philip Draper, to a rare degree, he believed. "They've no business whatever to complain of him," he growled. "I never had a man in his place who looked so thoroughly to the interests of the concern. I know ability when I find it, and I tell you Draper is a man in a thousand." "! don't dispute that he is a capital superintendent in many respects, father," replied the son; but some- thing in his tone or manner--I cannot tell which- seemed to qualify the praise, The elder, in his excitement, did not observe this. "To have him treated in this rascally fashion! We must have him up here without delay, and let him see at once how we regard the conduct of these scoundrels. Perhaps he can throw some light on the matter." "I hardly think he would be likely to do that," answered Sydney Weymouth in a slow, significant tone, much as though he were talking to himself. But the tone this time struck his father. The elder man turned and looked sharply at the younger. "I don't understand what you are driving at, Syd- ney." To do young Weymouth justice, he felt that little, uncomfortable stab again, and this time his voice was louder, and with irritation or defiance in it. "I merely remarked, sir, that I didn't think young Draper would be likely to throw much light on this wretched affair." His father turned, and faced his son squarely. "Am I to understand by this that you mean young Draper could not or would not?' ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 175 Sydney Weymouth paused a moment. How much hung for Philip Draper on the change of a single letter in one of the monosyllables in this sen- tence! The young man saw that clearly enough. He saw something else a moment later, which helped him to a reply, and that was the face of Jacqueline Thayne! "You are to understand the latter, father." It was out now, for good or for evil. Sydney Weymouth drew a long breath, but I hardly think it relieved a certain tension about his chest at that moment, while his mother looked amazed and a little shocked. The elder Weymouth was a man of strong prejudices, and his late illness had made him more or less irritable and impatient of all sorts of op- position. A talk of an hour or more's length followed, in which there was a good deal of angry excitement on both sides. The elder Weymouth had, from the beginning, taken a hearty, and, for him, rather unusual liking to his superintefident. All his subsequent intercourse with the man had confirmed his first feeling; and Sydney Weymouth had now to meet and overcome this, which was no slight thing when it came to such a kind of man as his father. The young man commenced at first in a cautious, roundabout way, with some vague, depreciation of Philip Draper, which he tried to qualify the next moment by praises dealt out, a kind of sop to the Cerberus of his conscience. But to quote a favorite saying of Stephen Weymouth, "stuff of that sort never went down with him;" he kept interrupting his Son with sharp, sword-blade ques- page: 176-177[View Page 176-177] I176 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. tions which went straight to the point, and which were uttered, too, in a tone of skepticism or contempt. Sydney Weymouth had not intended, when he com- menced talking, to casi anything more than a general shadow of doubt on the hitherto unsullied conduct of the man whom he secretly hated; but he ought to have known the character of his father quite well enough to be certain that nothing but absolute facts would satisfy him with regard to his superintendent. At the beginning, Sydney was thrown on his de- fense. He had to make out a story that admitted of no doubt or qualifications, or abandon his position altogether. As he proceeded, his father's skepticism, added, per- haps, to some secret misgiving about the entire truth- fulness of Reynolds's miserable story, worked' the young man up into a strong excitement. Hating Philip Draper as he did, the sight, of his father's strong predisposition in the superintendent's favor only added fresh- gall and wormwood to Sydney Weymouth's soul. In his heat and excitement, he did not know how far he was going; but whatever ground he took he was re- solved to maintain himself on it. "The truth is, Sydney," said the elder Weymouth, walking up and down the room, mopping his forehead, where the perspiration had gathered during the heat of the argument, " you've been swayed and biassed by the talk of some of those people over yonder. They are a restless set, and would be sure to balk and shy sooner or later at the hand that held the reins over them. I tell you I know an honest man when I see him, and ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 1" nothing but the facts, tough and square, and no leak in them, can make me believe young Draper anything but the sort of man I took him for at the beginning. Have you got them now?" turning half fiercely upon his son. "Now, father, don't." Mrs. Weymouth seemed to regard it as her duty to put in this admonition at stated intervals. "If you give way in this fashion, you will certainly have to pay for it." The lady's caution had very little effect at that time. Her husband stood still, awaiting the reply of his son. "I think I have some facts, sir, which would con- vince any unprejudiced mind that this boasted super- intendent of yours was not just the model of virtues you seem to imagine him," answered Sydney, with a sneer all through his tones. "Well, I say facts are the things'we want now. Bring them forward," said the other, trying to keep cool. "Yes, Sydney; do tell us whatever you know," put in Mrs. Weymouth again with curiosity, natural enough, perhaps. "I know, then, that he has behaved in one case like a villain dyed in the wool!" burst out young Wey- mouth, with a great semblance of indignation, and trying to place the worst possible construction on Philip Draper's motives in the story that Reynolds had told him. "Who is your authority for all that stuff?" inquired his father, a little impressed, nevertheless. "My own eyes for a part of it. I suppose that is evidence a man can trust." "Oh! dear me, Sydney," said his mother, with a 16* page: 178-179[View Page 178-179] 178 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. relish not entirely feminine for a story with a flavor of mystery and villainy. Sydney Weymouth was committed now. He did not mean to tell what was not true; but was there ever a man burning with secret jealousy and hatred toward another, who could be trusted to tell the absolute truth about his rival? He related the interview which one day, rocking in his boat on-Otter River, he had seen between the superintendent and the factory-girl. If Sydney Wey- mouth enlarged on every point, if he gave to the whole a complexion which the simple facts by no means war- ranted, I suppose he was largely unconscious of it, and that, in his eagerness to believe Philip Draper a villain, he did not perceive how far he was transcending the truth in relating what his own eyes had seen. His father listened with a kind of blank dismay growing in his eyes, and Mrs. Weymouth drew several half articulate breaths of wonder, as her son went on describing the scene in the factory road, and throwing around the whole an air of mystery and secrecy which no unprejudiced observer would have found in tit. Thus Sydney Weymouth felt his way carefully to a full relation of the confidence which Reynolds had re- posed in him. Here again the young gentleman cer- tainly made the most out of his materials, painting the superintendent's conduct in blacker colors than even the wool-sorter had done, and working himself up into what seemed a heat of virtuous indignation, but which was really hate and jealousy; and they made quite an impressive peroration. "When a man is carried away by a sudden tempest ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO ERS. 179 of passion, I'm ready enough to overlook and forgive; but a hypocrite always affects me like the sight of a snake, cold and crawling-ugh! Now, this Draper al- ways assumed such-high moral standards, always some- how managed to convey an impression that he was a little purer and loftier than most men; and then to stoop to such a mean, dastardlyact-getting that poor, simple-hearted child away from an honest man's love! Why, I tell you it was a devilish, base thing, and if I speak of it at all, I must speak of it as it deserves." A doubt had been growing in Mr. Weymouth's mind as he listened to his son. "It seems as though there must be another side to this story," he said, pulling at his iron-gray beard ini a nervous, perplexed way. "I'm not apt to be deceived in men. Draper's face speaks for him. And as for Reynolds, there's something bold and bad in the man's eyes. I never liked his looks." Young Weymouth whistled a note or two, and his whole manner indicated that he would have said several things if regard for his father had not held them back. "There are the facts that I saw, though. How do you get aside of them?" he asked, with a coolness which contrasted strikingly with his heat of a moment ago. "True,' they do have a bad look," answered the elder reflectively. Mrs. Weymouth had something to say now. On certain subjects her husband and son usually deferred to her opinion, but her influence had its limitations, and it would not be likely to be powerful in the present instance. "I always liked Mr. Draper," she said. ' He page: 180-181[View Page 180-181] I80 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. seemed such a pleasant, well-bred, perfect gentleman, as I have so often told you, Mr. Weymouth; but if he has done what Sydney thinks, -I never wish to set eyes on him again." "Such a popular superintendent as he was, too; and a place that it's so difficult to fill," added Mr. Wey- mouth to himself. "But his popularity has been immensely on the wane of late, as last night proves with sufficient emphasis,?' added Sydney. The elder man had a secret misgiving at this time which made him more easily swayed than he usually was by others' opinions. Stephen Weymouth had begun of late to have a fear that his memory was failing him slightly; that his men- tal faculties, too, might be losing a little of their pris- tine vigor. He would not have owned so much even to his wife. If the-fear was not altogether groundless, as its very existence proved, the loss was only temporary, a result of physical derangement. But this lurking dread made Stephen Weymouth a little distrustful of his own opinions. And although at the beginning he had maintained his position angrily and obstinately enough, Sydney's adroit handling had not been without its effect--an effect heightened by the fact that his father's mental powers were hardly in their normal condition. Stephen Weymouth had always prided himself on his shrewd reading of men. At another time he would hardly have dreaded a single mistake so much as to yield his own convictions to another, without a thorough investigation of all the facts. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I8I Sydney's story had shaken him. He began to doubt, after all, whether he might not have made a mistake in gI the character of his superintendent. Rill CHAPTER XVI. EVERYTHNG apparently was going on as usual at the mills of Stephen Weymouth & Co. that morning; yet there was an undercurrent of strong excitement through- out the whole factory. Before the bell rang, eager faces of operatives had been peering about the office, some grave or hot with indignation, and others with a half concealed leer of triumph. Some voices loudly condemned the riot of the pre- ceding night, pronouncing it a cowardly outrage, a burning disgrace to every honest man that worked in the mills; while others indulged in great guffaws of laughter, and called the whole proceeding a "jolly raid-an old stroke of fun." Those engaged in the riot dared not commit themselves further than this that morning, but from every window of the vast factories eyes friendly and unfriendly watched for the figure that came over' the bridge every morning with its strong, swift stride, alert with life, and courage, and energy. It came in sight at last-a little later than usual on this particular morning, for the delicious September weather took Philip Draper off on long tramps at this season. There was hardly a heart among that hive of workers which did not give an extra thump, either of / . page: 182-183[View Page 182-183] I8z2 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. dismay or malicious triumph, as the superintendent came in sight. How would he take the outrage which awaited him? At the end of the bridge, Philip Draper stopped short, finding Fin Brummer lying in wait for him, his face, always on first sight ludicrously suggestive of some of Punch's caricatures, white with agitation and excite- ment. "Well, Fin, what is to pay?" fancying the boy must have got into, some trouble with some of the officers. "H wanted to see you, sir, first," said Fin, wrig- gling his fingers in and out of each other in the most ridiculous manner. "Oh! that's it, is it? Well, what is the trouble this time?" "'Taint any trouble of mine," said Fin, looking very solemn. "Something's happened," and he glanced in the direction of the office. "Something's happened," repeated young Draper, now quite mystified. "To what, or to whom?'" "You'll see when you get over there. There was a row last night, and they've made dreadful work- smashed in the windows, and torn things up gener- ally." Fin's eyes were on the hearer's face, but they could not pierce to what was going on beneath. He saw the face get a shade paler, and sterner, at this news,-that was all. There was a little pause, and then the gentleman said -"And so you've been waiting here all this time to tell me? It was very kind of you, Fin." "Yes, sir; I thought it would be better to let you ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 183 know beforehand, than to have it come all at once upon you. There's many a one this mornin' that's mad enough over it. It was only a few of the roughest and wust sort, sir," said the boy, with an earnestness that could not fail to strike Philip Draper even at that mo- ment. He said a few kind words to Fin, which more than repaid the boy for all the pains he had taken, and the one went off to his work, and the other to his desk. "They won't get much comfort out of him. He's true pluck," chuckled Fin to himself, as he watched the figure of the superintendent moving at its usual steady, rapid gait up the factory road. Arrived at the office, matters presented a sorry spec- tacle. The large panes had been smashed in, and a mass of debris strewed the floor. The office-furniture had been more or less mutilated, and although there had been evident attempts to remove the most salient features of the riot, the effigy that dangled from the wall having been taken down by friendly hands, still the evidences of the last night's work were on every I side. A small group of men were lounging about, watching with some curiosity to see what the first effect of all this would produce on the superintendent. If he had ene- mies among them, they must have been keenly disap- pointed. His manner was as composed as ever as his gaze went over the scene, taking in the whole. I The men were vociferous in their expressions of sym- pathy, and in their denunciations of the rioters. The man at whom, evidently, all this overt malice had been page: 184-185[View Page 184-185] x184 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. directed, was the calmest among the group. He ex- pressed his regret at what had taken place. There could bebut one opinion over the shameful outrage, whether directed against himself or the proprietors of the factory, but this was not the time to discuss it. Business required his attention now, and he proceeded to that as though nothing had happened; feeling, nevertheless, all the morning a glow of gratitude toward Fin Brummer, be- cause he had apprised him of what had taken place, thus preparing him beforehand to face the worst. The superintendent made his visit over the factories as usual. Nothing in his demeanor betrayed to the covert glances which followed him everywhere his con- sciousness that anything out of the ordinary course of events had happened. Late in the forenoon, young Weymouth came in. In fact, Philip Draper found him standing in the midst of the ruin and debris when the latter returned to the office after his tour of inspection through the work- rooms. Weymouth came forward and shook hands cordially with the superintendent, but I do not think his feelings were to be envied at that moment. No man's are who is doing a cowardly thing; and after what he had said that morning of the superintendent, he had no right to treat him as a man would treat his friend. He commenced at once. "Well, Draper, what does this mean?" "That is precisely what I cannot answer,"' replied the superintendent. "You must have heard of it early in the day." "Oh! yes. We knew there had been trouble over ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 185 here before we sat down to breakfast. But really, mat- ters are worse than I had any idea of," looking around on the general destruction. "What a red heat the wretches must have been in!" "Yes; the facts show that clearly enough." "And you have no idea, Draper, what was at the bottom of all this?" asked Weymouth, turning sud- denly and looking his companion full in the face; but this was about the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. Philip Draper looked back in turn. "None what- ever," he said. His companion turned on his heel, and went from one point of destruction to another in a rather nervous manner. "Outrageous-outrageous! The fiends!" he mut- tered. "We must get to the bottom of this beastly work;" but even then it struck Philip Draper in a vague way that the anger of the other was not honest, and a kind of impression clung to him that Weymouth was acting a part. He tried to shake this off, fancy- ing that the last night's events made him morbidly impressible, but afterward the feeling explained itself.' "I have not moved in this matter at all," con- tinued Philip Draper. "I naturally waited to con- sult with your father and yourself before taking any active measures to discover the perpetrators of this outrage." "I think your course was the wisest, Draper. Con- found the rascals! Who would have believed there was such a mutinous spirit among them, or that they would have dared display it after this fashion? We must set 17 page: 186-187[View Page 186-187] X 86 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. them a terrible example-have a grand winnowing among them." "We must go to work wisely, though, and be sure to have the punishment fall on the right shoulders," added Draper. "Of course! of course!" subjoined Weymouth. Then he spoke the next moment, as though the thought had newly struck' him, "They must have an awful spite against some of us!" "No doubt of that, or against whom it was princi- pally levelled this time." "Yet it is most amazing. The people have always been so quiet and orderly, and there have been no new rules, and no unusually rigid enforcement of the old ones. Well, bad blood is everywhere, and will come to the surface once in a while. You know there is an odd mixture of races and types among our work- men." Draper assented, and there was some more talk, largely on Weymouth's side, pretty much in the same train. In the course of it, it came out that he was to be absent two or three days, having been hurriedly summoned by telegraph only an houror two previous. Draper learned this with regret, as he considered the presence of the junior partner highly important at this juncture. Young Weymouth was loud in deploring the neces- sity of his absence. Perhaps he was honest enough here. His business summons seemed to be imperative, even to Draper. "The old man's nerves are a good deal shaken by what he has heard," said the son, just before he took ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I87 his leave. "I did not think it the best thing to have him come over to day and see the ruin that had been made; but you will see him to-night?" "Certainly." "Be a little careful about exciting him. I shall hurry back on the earliest possible train-say day after to-morrow--and meanwhile you will take no strong measures in this rascally piece of business until my return." And so these two parted. To a stranger watching the interview, there would not have been apparent a shade of distrust or coldness between them; indeed, if the manner of either lacked warmth, it was certainly on the side of the superintendent. That day, returning to the office after his noon inter- mission, Philip Draper found a little white-china vase, in which were a couple of damask roses in beautiful, fragrant bloom. The season for these was quite passed now, but young Draper knew at once where the roses came from. Some of the factory-girls were in the habit of training exotics in the windows of the work-rooms, and scarlet geraniums and clusters of pinks often laid a bit of glow- ing warmth and fragrance against the dusty panes. Ruth Benson's " flower-pot,"as the factory vernacular went', held a rose-bush. Going over the building, the superintendent's eyes, always in search of any beauty, had often rested on the flowers, the rich, damask bloom lying against the dark green of the leaves. His face moved a little as he caught sight of these roses on the desk, which had happily escaped the gen- eral mutilation. The factory-girl's expression of her page: 188-189[View Page 188-189] 188 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO0VERS. sympathy was as delicate as the finest-bred lady's could have been. "Poor little girl!" exclaimed Philip Draper to himself, looking at the roses in the bit of china vase, and taking it up, and turning it carefully around, "you did the best you could 1" And there came suddenly a singing among his thoughts like thrushes in a green thicket. No matter what the words were-it was only some sweetness of ! Tennyson,.long since laid away in his boyish memories, i which the sight of the roses thrilled into sudden life; but anything which made a sweet singing among the gloom of Philip Draper's thoughts that day, if it were only a factory-girl's flowers, was worth something. Of course, under all this outward calm, his brain was busily at work. The riot last night among the workmen had come like a thunderclap upon the superintendent. The more he reflected upon it, the more he was satisfied that it did not reflect the general sentiment of the work-people ; too many rugged faces had shone with honest sympathy upon him as he made his factory rounds that morning, for Philip Draper to doubt for a moment that the real heart of these work-people was on his side. Still, there must be a minority bitterly opposed to him-the facts proved that, and he had been dimly conscious for a long time past that there was some leaven of disaffection at work among the hands. Going over with those whom he regarded as most likely to stimulate and control the directions of the ! feeling opposed to him, the face of Reynolds always came up, with the cunning leer in his eyes. Draper tried to turn his thoughts away from it, but it came - . , sv ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I89 back again and again all that day, with offensive perti- nacity. So the long day wore down. It was one of the longest of his life to Philip Draper, despite the calm- ness with which, by sheer force of will, the man carried himself through the hours. In the evening he went over to see Mr. Weymouth, as he had promised that gentleman's son. His reception here had always been of the most cor- dial kind, but it did strike him to-night that Mrs. Weymouth's manner had a little extra shade of state- liness. He met the lady before her husband came in. She confided to her guest that the former had been a good deal. shaken and agitated all day with the disagreeable news from the factory, and besought the young man that the interview which was to follow might be as little exciting as possible, thus repeating her son's injunction. Draper had -barely time to promise this, when the gen- tleman entered the room. If there was any change in his manner toward his superintendent, the latter did not observe it; and remembering Mrs. Weymouth's suggestions, directed the conversation at first toward the ordinary topics of the day. The lady remained for some time in the room, di- recting occasional anxious glances toward her husband, and curious, doubtful ones toward her guest. As soon, however, as his wife had left the room, which she did with some evident reluctance, the elder gentleman turned upon the younger abruptly. "Well, Mr. Draper, we've had some serious trouble down yonder." 17* page: 190-191[View Page 190-191] I90 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. "Yes, very serious." "What have you been doing about it?'" "Absolutely nothing. I would not take any steps, even to discover the perpetrators, until I had conferred with you." The talk of Sydney was working in the old man's thoughts. He watched the superintendent with his keen, gray eyes, while there was something restless and undecided- in his manner, which Draper could not help observing, but which he regarded as fully accounted for by Mrs. Weymouth's words, and the fact that the man was still convalescing. "And you had no suspicion that there was any leaven of disaffection at work among the operatives until this morning?" "I cannot precisely say that. I have had a vague feeling that some half-mutinous spirit was working among a portion of the people, but I expected time and honest labor, and the general good feeling, would keep the bad blood from working to the surface; but it was more widely diffused than I supposed." 'Yes, yes; I see, I see," said Mr. Weymouth, and he. did not know precisely what to say next; and all the while Sydney's story was working its miserable doubts in his father's brain. "There is always some cause for an effect, Mr. Draper." "Undoubtedly. The corollary is, there must be one for last night's riot." "You have no idea what it is?" The question was asked eagerly, the man bending for- ward, the curious, suspicious look crossing his eyes again. But Philip Draper sat by the window and did not see it. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 191 ' Not the remotest. But whatever it is, I am confi- dent that it will work itself to the surface in a little while. Such things always do." The elder Weymouth rose up and paced the room. He had never felt so thoroughly perplexed in respect to human being before. What a face this man had for a hypocrite's or a scoundrel's! Philip Draper looked at his host in turn. He was about to enter into the measures which he regarded it best to take at this critical juncture to enforce quiet among the work-people, or at least prevent a recurrence of last night's disgraceful scenes; but the memory of Mrs. Weymouth's admonition, added to her son's, checked him again. "He is evidently two-thirds used up by the day's excitement. It would be cruel to force these things upon him at this time," thought Philip Draper. Into the midst of his thoughts came the elder man's talk. "I suppose they've made havoc and destruction down there at the office-smashed up things generally-- eh, Draper?" "' Well, I confess matters have a bad look over there. You must prepare yourself to see things generally de- molished. But, Mr. Weymouth, I want to insist on one thing." "What is it?" surprised at the sudden change in the younger's tone. 4"That we leave this matter to spectres and hobgob- lins for one night, and come to it with clearer brains to-morrow morning. You need a sound sleep after it; page: 192-193[View Page 192-193] 192 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOYE RS. and I honestly confess I don't believe my younger nerves and muscles would be harmed by one." "I believe you are right, Draper," answered Mr. Weymouth, glad to be excused at this moment from any decisive measures. 'I wish Sydney was here at this time.' It was very annoying that he should be summoned off to-day." There was more talk, but it really amounted to nothing. Mr. Weymouth, shaken and perplexed, was glad to slip everything on to-morrow's shoulders; and Philip Draper, out of regard to the old man's health, consented. "Well, Stephen?" said Mrs. Weymouth, with a good deal of anxiety in her voice, as she met her husband after he had seen his guest to the door. He was punc- tiliously ceremonious that night. s Well, Mary, that Draper may be a villain, but I'm ready to swear he doesn't look like one." Mrs. Weymouth was, like most persons of very narrow sympathies, a poor reader of character. "Yes; I was never more amazed in my life, as I've told you a dozen times to-day, Stephen; but then there's Sydney's story-one can't get around that." "No, it's a stone wall in the way," pulling his gray beard nervously. "And you saw that Sydney had no doubt that he was a bad man," in a tone that said plainly enough her son's opinion ought to settle the matter to the satisfaction of every human being. "Yes, Mary, yes," said Mr. Weymouth, drearily enough. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I93 CHAPTER XVII. IT was the middle of the afternoon. The day had been just such a one as Philip Draper loved, perhaps, above all others: a day ripe with sunshine and mellow atmospheres in the middle of September. But despite its perfect loveliness of earth, air, and sky, the day had not charmed the soul of Philip Draper. Sometimes, it is true, he had gone to the office door, and looking fromn the still, dark river to the peaceful, distant hills, a whole summer of happy thoughts seemed to have burst suddenly into the gloom and disquiet of his mood. Still, on the whole, the day had been one of the dreariest of Philip Draper's life. Something clung to his soul like those cold dismal fogs that cling to northeastern coasts. He tried in vain to shake it off, but there it was, like a dull, steady pain. On returning to the office that morning, he found that, so far as possible, all traces of the riot had been removed by friendly hands, and order and neatness re- stored. When he made his rounds about the factory, the eyes which followed him-kindly eyes, too, for the greater part-had a puzzled curiosity in them. Evi- dently this was no ordinary man with whom they had to deal. So much, at least, the dullest of the work- people were finding out. When the superintendent returned to his office, he found a note awaiting him from Mr. Weymouth, stating page: 194-195[View Page 194-195] 194 ONE WOMAN'S TWO O LOVERS. that he would be out during the afternoon, to talk over the recent troubles. On the back of the envelope the- young man's pencil scrawled unconsciously a few figures. He smiled to himself grimly enough when he found what these were. He had been multiplying the days of his life by the thirty-seven years which yet remained to round out that circle of threescore and ten which is the measure of a man's life. "They go up well among the thousands," murmured the superintendent, looking at the figures with a kind of questioning curiosity, in which yet was some sadness or bitterness. The outlook was dreary enough. I do not think it is saying too much to compare it to stretches of the solemn desert, the burning sky overhead, the awful stillness around, and the figure of the solitary traveler moving across the gray desolation. "All those days!" said Philip Draper, apostrophizing the paper. a , I wish you were well over them." Then bitter thoughts came. If there was a whole- some sting of remorse in them, better still. "Don't be a fool, man," they said to him. "Shake off this mood which is of the devil, or if you can't do that, fight it to the death! "Here you are, turning coward and traitor, instead of taking your fate by the beard. It will do to get limp and worn and ready to die when you are fairly tided over the sand-bar of your seventy years, but not before." There were various causes which had contributed to this man's mood, and in some sense, at least, ex- cused it. No doubt the riot had its share in producing this ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. I95 frame of mind. It is never pleasant to a man to learn that he is unpopular even with a minority, and Philip Draper had been taught this of late in a very rough fashion. Still, the whole occurrence affected him far less than he would himself have supposed possible. Looking back on it, long afterward, Philip Draper wondered at his indifference at that time. , The truth was, he did not know himself what a long strain this spring and summer had been to him.. For the first time he felt a sudden longing to get away from Hedge- rows, to put the old town, with its dark-blue belting of rivers, and its distant hills, with their crapes of silver mists, far away from him. His soul seemed to pant and cry suddenly within him, for wide, fresh horizons. He thought of the western prairies, with the rush of the cool winds in the long, loose grass; of the wild, fierce joy of the buffalo hunts over those green, level leagues. He thought of the cool nights, when, every muscle aching with the blessed fatigue of the day's ride and tramp, he would lie on the ground, gazing up into the solemn peace of the skies, until sleep should come softly and fold him away in its blessedness. "Oh, my God! I wish I was there this hour!" said Philip Draper, walking up and down the office, while the birds and the winds dreamed in the leaves outside. He was like a man whose whole nature stirs itself of a sudden, and clears off at a bound a paralysis which has clung to him. He wanted to possess himself again, and it seemed to him that he -could never do this in an atmosphere charged with the presence of Jacqueline Thayne. I think the instinct of his nature was the page: 196-197[View Page 196-197] I96 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. true one. If he could not take to his heart the woman of, its love, the next best thing for him to do was to get as far away from her as possible. Some purpose he had half formed a while ago, of going out west and passing two or three years in pros- pecting and geologizing, returned to him now. "I wish I could throw up my engagement here and start to-morrow," muttered Philip Draper. But that, of course, was not to be seriously thought of at this juncture. Much as the superintendent might desire to leave Hedgerows, his presence was imperatively de- manded here at the present crisis. He had every rea- son to suppose that a suggestion on his part of a release from his engagement would meet with the strongest opposition from the head proprietor of the woolen-mills. Indeed, the issues of the riot were yet to be met; and to run off before a thorough investiga- tion had been made into the affair, was something which it was not at all like Philip Draper to do. "It won't do to turn your back on duty, man. There's no release from this bond," said the superin- tendent to himself, drawing a sigh, this time, as the old sense of stifling and oppression came back upon the soul, stung so lately with a wind from the wide, free plains. I fear you will think my hero was, after all, lacking in manly courage. Perhaps he was, but if so it was the first time in his life that Philip Draper had been found wanting in that quality. It may be that, had his love been less, he would not have feared so much to put it to the test. But he had so far idealized and glorified Jacqueline Thayne in his thoughts, that the ON E WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. I97 possibility of winning her for his wife seemed to him almost as hopeless as winning a seraph. I suppose men have felt like that towards women before, and I do not believe the men who have felt so have usually been weak or ignoble. Perhaps, too, Jacqueline's devotion to her uncle had its influence with Philip Draper. He believed that a man of the lofty ideal type of the Squire could alone win her heart; and where could she find such another? he asked himself more than once. No doubt he was a little morbid, and in this in- stance lacked self-esteem, but this latter want is not usually the accompaniment of ignoble minds, and, at all events, I will answer for my hero-he would not fail when the time came to test him. The superintendent had resumed his seat at the desk, when a shadow fell upon the threshold, and, looking up, he saw the figure of Mr. Weymouth at the door. The old, gentleman came forward less briskly than usual, but that was easily enough accounted for by his recent invalidism. The two shook hands cordially. The elder's gaze went around the office, which, despite all the efforts to remove them, bore plenty of traces of the recent riot. His eyes flashed angrily. "The rascals!" he muttered. "That plate-glass cost six hundred dollars." "Yes; they made the destruction pretty thorough, considering the short time they were about it." The two sat down by the desk.- The workmen going back and forth in the factory-yard looked inside 18 . page: 198-199[View Page 198-199] 1.98 oNE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. the office, and saw the proprietor and the superintend- ent sitting there together, and conjectured all sorts of : things as to the talk going on between them--getting, of course, very wide of the truth. Mr. Weymouth took out his handkerchief and wiped his face a little nervously. He turned and looked at his superintendent. If Philip Draper had been observing, he would have noticed something curious and doubtful in the look. "There have been no further demonstrations of this spirit, Mr. Draper?" "Not a sign of- one. The people have never been more quiet and orderly than during the last two days. I think the results of their own violence have appalled the perpetrators, and then the majority was against them." "No doubt, at -the commencement; but such a leaven as this working among these people will be sure to spread disaffection among the whole body. The more I think of this matter the more serious it seems to me," and again the old gentleman wiped his fore- head with a little nervous movement. I may as well say here that the proprietor of the mills had, after a struggle which had told a good deal upon him, come to a settled resolution that morning. Indeed, the effort which it had cost him to do this had only made him more resolute in his purpose; and this was, in homely English, to get rid of his superintendent. It was a most disagreeable business, and therefore the sooner it was well over the better. Moreover, he wanted to prove to himself and to Sydney that the old masterful will on which he prided himself was not I OONE, WOMA4N'S TWO LOVERS. I99 shaken. This was a matter of strong feeling with the man, as you have seen. He went on, stretching out one leg until the toe of his boot could tap the foot of the desk. "It is high time we took some active measures to discover the perpetrators of this wretched affair. You, Mr. Draper, cannot have been among these people so much without getting some general notion with regard to most of them." "Well, if I were a betting man, I should not hesi- tate to lay down a high wager that I could name the half-dozen ringleaders in this movement." "Suppose you do it, Draper, without betting," replied the proprietor. The superintendent wrote off half a dozen names on a slip of paper, and handed it to Mr. Weymouth. The latter glanced -it over eagerly. Reynolds's name headed the list. There was a quick, suspicious flash in the proprietor's eyes as he read that name. "You think he is the king of the rascals, do you, Draper?" "I do. When the matter is thoroughly sifted, I believe enough can be brought home to this Reynolds to prove him the most active promoter of the riot. I like to give a man the benefit of a doubt, but when it comes to this Reynolds, I have long believed him a villain dyed in the wool." "Aren't you rather severe on him, Draper?" The question struck the superintendent as a little singular. Perhaps, by this time, something in the elder's manner did also. He turned squarely upon his companion. I ..* page: 200-201[View Page 200-201] 200 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. "You know this Reynolds, Mr. Weymouth. You are not unskilled in reading faces. What does this man's say for him?" "True, true; a bad face," muttered Mr. Wey- mouth, shifting his feet uneasily. After a moment's silence, he inquired, "Have you settled on any plan for bringing-this whole matter to daylight?" The superintendent proceeded to lay before the pro- prietor the plan which had struck ,him as most likely to reach the bottom of the outrage. What that was has nothing to do with my story at this time. Mr. Weymouth declared long afterward that Draper had hit upon the right expedient. Indeed, he followed the former's, suggestions in the main. Philip Draper's instincts were very susceptible. I cannot tell--he could not, I suppose, himself-the precise moment when it began to dawn on him that his auditor was listening in a nervous, preoccupied state of mind. Turning full upon him, Philip Draper met a look of dull suspicion in the eyes of Ste- phen Weymouth, which he had never seen there before. It baffled the younger man for a moment. The longing for wider horizons-for the free, careless life of hunt and bivouac on the plains-was still stinging and stirring in the man's brain. On its impulse he spoke. ',Mr. Weymouth, I believe I need not say that I have tried to do my whole duty in all my rela- tions with you and your work-people since I came among you." The senior sat bolt upright. "I have nothing my- self to complain of,' Mr. Draper," he said. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 201 "But it is evident some of your people think they have. I do not disguise for a moment the fact that night 'before last's demonstration was aimed solely against myself." "It 'appears to have been, Mr. Draper, I regret to say," added the man, looking at his superintendent, and feeling a strong impulse to unburden himself of that miserable story of Reynolds's, only that would be betraying Sydney. "And with that fact kept fully in view, you can perhaps understand that my position here will not be altogether a pleasant one?" I' I comprehend, Draper; but then, my dear young fellow," returning by the very force of his attraction to his old manner toward his superintendent,!"I need not tell you there are no positions in life which are altogether pleasant." Philip Draper's heart sank at the kindly tones. A hope had flashed across him that a chance for release might, after all, be opening, yet, the next moment, he fancied the wish had been father to the thought. He could not fail to know the value of his services to the proprietor. "What you say is true enough, Mr. Weymouth; yet-well, I will come to the point at once--you could not do me so great a favor as to give me an absolute release from my engagement this very hour." The elder stared; got up from his seat, like one who hardly believed the evidence of his senses, and braced himself against the desk. He had been fumbling all about in his thoughts for a key to fit the lock, and here the door was spread wide open, and he had only to IS* page: 202-203[View Page 202-203] 202 ' ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. bow the superintendent out. "Man alive!" he gasped. Is Isthat what you want?" "Of all things in the world that is what I want supremely."' "Mr. Draper," said Stephen Weymouth, even now shaken in his resolve, although he had roused all the forces of his strong will to make-it, "I can never hope to light upon another superintendent who will supply your place." 'It appears, however, that you and your people differ widely in their estimates of me," with a signi- ficant gesture toward the broken panes. "Well, if you insist upon it"-Mr. Weymouth made a last effort--"I will not hold you to your bargain, Mr. Draper." The superintendent rose up, paced across the floor, every drop of blood in him, it seemed, alive, and stung with a delicious sense of freedom. The elder man noticing him, observed the bold, springy step, like that- of one who has suddenly sprung into liberty. a What ails the fellow?" thought Stephen Weymouth to himself. The superintendent came over to the other. "I thank you from my heart," he said, as he would say it to a man who had done him a vast favor. "But do you know, Draper, what they will say of you around here?" "No. What?" "That I have turned you off." ' Will they? What folks say of me became long ago a matter of absolute indifference on my part." "You are a strange man, Draper." Mr. Weymouth l ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 203 supposed he was only thinking these words, when in reality he spoke them out loud. "I don't understand you." Philip Draper smiled to himself, and his smile now made his face like a boy's. There was an answer to that remark, but it would hardly have been compli- mentary to the senior member of the house of Stephen Weymouth & Co. The young man contented himself with saying, "Do you think so?" "They sha'n't say that of you. I'll fix it," an- swered Stephen Weymouth, his honest feeling mount- ing now above all his suspicions and prejudices. Philip Draper folded his arms and looked around the office. It seemed as though any woman, seeing how brave and manly he looked at that moment, might have loved him. ( You are very kind, Mr. Weymouth," he said; "but I do not think that any man who knows me will sus- pect that I slink off because I am afraid to stay, or that I fear to face anything human. A good many hard names may well apply to me, but cowardice is not one of them." "I wish Sydney could see him now," thought that young man's father, thinking, too, of Reynolds and his love, whom this man had with craft and baseness seduced from the wool-sorter. The old man tried to harden his heart again against his superintendent; but he went home at last, sorely perplexed in mind, and not knowing whether he was glad or sorry. page: 204-205[View Page 204-205] 204 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. CHAPTER XVIII. SQUIRE THAYNE had just returned from a little busi- ness trip, which had taken him out of town for several days. His niece had accompanied him. She came into the kitchen now, and sat down on a low-chair by the window. It was her favorite seat, perhaps because it commanded a fine view of the sun- sets. When she was a small girl, she used to come to the window every evening, and, climbing upon this very chair, watch the west with her great brown eyes through the long shining of the sunsets. Perhaps it was from habit partly that she always loved the kitchen so well, and the seat by the window, and the chat with Deborah, the faithful old Englishwoman, who, to her general duties of housekeeper, added no small share of the daily work of the family; Squire Thayne not being a sufficiently rich man to keep a corps of ser- i -vants if he had had the inclination for it. "Oh, Deborah! it seems nice to. get home," said Jacqueline, with a live gladness all over her face. Deborah was a dumpy little body, with a broad, honest face, and a quaint glimmer of humor among her wrinkles. "It seems good to get you back, too, Miss Jackey, child," said Deborah, who had never learned to get beyond the old childish dissyllable when she addressed her young mistress. "I've had rather a lonesome time of it." ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 205 "Have you? I fancied it would be brimful of rest and comfort, with nobody to trouble you." And she sat down and commenced opening a bundle of letters and papers which she carried in her hand. She always opened her uncle's mail. It had been another of her habits from childhood; although she no longer could stand by his knee, with his arm around her, while he watched the little, dimpled fingers, and the small, grave face, as she carefully tore away the envelopes. Meanwhile, a brisk talk went on between the two women, for Jacqueline was relating, in her bright, pi- quant way, various incidents of her visit, and Deborah was drinking it all in amid little, short, amused laughs, while she bustled about from pantry to table. In the midst of her talk, Jacqueline came suddenly on a large, square envelope directed to herself. Open- ing this, the handsome wedding-cards of Sydney Wey- mouth tumbled out. Jacqueline's cheeks certainly flushed. She examined the cards with something more than a woman's natural curiosity over things of this sort. "Dear fellow! I hope he will be happy," she said. "Who's that, Miss Jackey?" asked Deborah. And then the girl saw she had spoken her hope aloud. She handed the cards to Deborah, who put on her silver-bound glasses with gravity, and squinted at the cards for a long time. At last she gave them back. "They're mighty purty, Miss Jackey," she said; "but I'm glad your name isn't there." "Why not?" asked the young lady, a good deal surprised. She had a high opinion of Deborah's n page: 206-207[View Page 206-207] 206 ONE WOMANV'S TWO L O VERS. shrewdness when it came to judging people or things. So had her uncle. Deborah settled the corners of her mouth squarely, and shook her head very decidedly. "I've known him from a boy," she said. "' He was always handsome, and smart, and agreeable, but with all his fine airs I al'ays felt there was something hard and selfish underneath." "Why, Deborah, I am sorry to find you have so poor an opinion of my friend," answered Jacqueline, almost indignantly. "You do him injustice." Deborah's opinions were stubborn things. Her mis- tress knew that well enough. The serving-woman did not reply at once. She pulled down her sleeves and fastened them at the wrists with profound gravity. At last she looked up, the puckered face solemn as an owl's. "Miss Jacqueline" (on special occasions, when Deb- orah desired to be impressive, she unconsciously slipped into the trisyllables which formed her mistress's name), "there are two kinds of gentlemen in the world, and one may be handsome, and polished, and agreeable, with all sorts of grand learnin' and fine airs, and yet when you come to look away down inside, if you've got eyes to see deep enough, there's something hard and selfish at the bottom. Somehow all the learnin'. and fine airs, and the agreeable manners, don't strike clear in--when you get to the core, there's specks and unsoundness, jest as you'll find in some apples that are the reddest and finest outside." Jacqueline drew a long breath. "Deborah, you wholly mrisconceive my friend," she said. "I always ONE - WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 207 thought you wonderfully acute in reading character, but you have made a grave mistake this time." Deborah squared her lips and lifted her eyebrows for answer. Jacqueline knew from experience that further argument would be useless. The serving-woman sat down now, drew a large pan of greengages which she was getting ready for preserv- ing toward her, and commenced talking again. 'If you want me to name a gentleman of the real fine strain, the true stuff, as much a part of him as the color of his eyes or his hair, it's that new superintendent over to the woolen-mills, Miss Jackey." "Mr. Draper is a gentleman, certainly," answered the young lady, a little amused and a little curious; "but, Deborah, how in the world did he manage to get so deeply into your good graces?" "As though I couldn't tell the real stuff when I saw it!" said Deborah, with a little expressive toss of her head. "I never told you a little thing between him and me, did I, Miss Jackey?" "No. What was it?" said the girl, looking up with real interest. "It must have been before he ever darkened these doors; but I'd gone down to the store one afternoon on some errand, and I was on my way back with a basket in one hand and a big cage in the other, for Miss Trueman had given me lher parrot to keep while she went out of town, and there came up suddenly a gale of wind which I thought would take me off my feet, and send the whole kit of us, parrot, basket, and all, riding through the air, like witc hes on a broomstick. The wind struck me full-blast as I reached Hunter's page: 208-209[View Page 208-209] 208 ONE WOM1AN'S TWO LO VERS. Lane, and twiched my blue plaid shawl off my shoulders, and sent it flyin' through the air, and lodged it in a pine- tree a little way off! "Jest then horses' feet came thunderin' along, and before I could look they stopped close by me. That man was off his horse in a minute-he must have taken in the state of things with a glance. He went straight to the old pine, and reached up and switched down my shawl from one o' the lower branches, and brought it back and wrapped it round me as carefully and politely as though I had been a crowned queen. "'I think the force of the wind has pretty much spent itself,"' he said. "' I' m very much obleeged to you, sir,' I managed to get out. "'Oh! not at all, ma'am. It isn't worth thanking me for,' and he lifted his hat as though I had been a beautiful young girl, instead of a gray, wrinkled old woman standing there in the road, and went back to his horse. I didn't learn for weeks afterward who he was, but I tell you, Miss Jackey, there's no mistakin': the man that did that deed is a gentleman born-it's in him to the core." "Yes, I think it is," said Jacqueline. If Philip Draper dould have seen her face at that moment, he would have felt under life-long obligations to the old serving-woman. By a very natural process of association, Jacqueline fell to wondering whether Sydney Weymouth, under the same circumstances, would have done precisely what Philip Draper did. +I ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 209 "Of course he would; of course he would," she murmured to herself, but, in her inmost heart, there lurked a little uncertainty. A face suddenly showed itself at the open door. Both the women started, and then recognized it, although there was a wonderful improvement in it since that winter night when it had flattened itself against the pane like a big plaster of dough. "Why, Tib, boy, is that you?" cried Deborah. "Come in, and tell us what has brought you over here to-night." Deborah always regarded the boy as- a protege of her own; although the superintendent had, according to his promise, provided him a situation in the mills, and wholesome fare and regular work had effectedna won- derful improvement in the boy's whole appearance, and the coarse, yellowish hair resembled much less than. formerly a heap of unpicked oakum. , The boy came in now, shambling and shy. His eyes fastened on the lady in the corner, who put out her hand and said, with her sweetest smile,- ' "I am glad to see you have not quite forgotten your old friends, Tib." It was a mooted question with the owner himself what Tib stood for. The drunken mother might have solved the problem in her sober moments, but she had done her boy the greatest favor it was in her power to do, by absconding from Hedgerows, and taking her shadow out of the horizon of his life. "I come over to see if you'd heard about the row night before last at the factory,", blurted out the boy of a sudden, setting his hands on his hips and striking 19 page: 210-211[View Page 210-211] 210 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. an attitude which recalled to Jacqueline a coarse print she had seen that day on a placard of a prize-fight. "A row!" exclaimed both the Women, and one forgot her half-opened letters, and the other her green- gages. "Yes; they smashed in the windows, and stove in . the furniture, and tore up things in the office. It was all done for spite against the superintendent, but I'm on his side-that's what I am," and a flush came up into the cheeks that, with plenty to eat, had rounded ' l out from their old pinched look, and the boy actually doubled his fists; but this time Jacqueline did not think of the picture of the prize-fighter. For the next half-hour the questions and answers : followed in quick succession. Tib related in his homely but picturesque vernacular the whole history of the riot. I doubt, after all, whether anybody could have told it better. The two women drank in the recital with breathless interest-both inexpressibly shocked and indignant. There could be no doubt that a feeling of gratitude and loyalty to the superintendent, as well as an honest desire to prove that he had no part or lot in the riot, i had brought the boy out to the Hermitage to-night. i "It's a shame, a perfect outrage, to treat him in that way, and he such a noble young gentleman," said - Deborah, her voice shaken with the grief at her warm, honest heart. S Her mistress was less demonstrative in speech, but she i certainly looked pale, as she sat there with the red E aureole, of the sunset in her hair, and its flickering \ lights upon her beautiful hands, at her heart some ill- i-.. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 2" tenser feeling for the superintendent than had ever moved it before. "He's worth a dozen of Mr. Weymouth, whatever the folks may say--Mr. Draper is," blundered out Tib again; and although the speech hardly struck Jacque- line at the time, she remembered it afterward. "Tib; I al'ays said you'd come out right," said Deborah, piling a tray with plums, berries, and cake, and setting the tempting heap before the boy. As for Jacqueline, she went into the library, and sat down in her uncle's arm-chair thinking of Philip Draper; but she was tired with her long ride, and in the coolness and stillness she fell asleep. She dreamed that she sat on the brow of a hill, and looking off into a valley on her right, she saw the superintendent standing calm in the midst of a vast crowd, gone mad with rage and riot. She saw the dark, fierce faces, she heard the wild yells in the still- ness where she sat, while far below her, amid the shouts, and the sea of human figures rocking to and fro, the superintendent stood silent' and unmoved as a statue. Suddenly in her dream Jacqueline rose and floated to him. She touched his arm. "Come with me, my friend," she said; "I will save you." He turned and smiled on her, and then Jacqueline awoke. Squire Thayne was standing by her side. He had just come in, for his riding-whip was in his hand. Jacqueline started up. "Oh, uncle," she said, "have you heard of the dreadful riot down at the factories?" "Yes, my dear," he replied, "I know all about it.'-' page: 212-213[View Page 212-213] 2I2 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOV O VERS. CHAPTER XIX. PHLIP DRAPER went down the old factory road that night with a sweet sense of freedom tingling in every drop of his blood. He fancied a man might feel as he did who walked out suddenly from some dungeon where he had been immured for months into the wide, blessed air and sunlight. As soon as supper was over he went up to his room, and, with the excitement which was stinging his very fingers' ends, set about packing his trunks. He worked with a diligence that was quite amusing for the next half-hour. Then he stopped suddenly, with a little smile, half contemptuous, at his own haste, speaking out loud to himself-"What is the use of all this desperate hurry? I need not be in such mortal haste to leave Hedgerows as though I had done some- thing to be ashamed of. I will at least have the grace to take a kindly farewell of the pleasant old town." So -Philip Draper left the rest of the packing for to-morrow, and went out to take his last walk around Hedgerows. The sun had set not long before, but the clouds in the west were heaps of color, reflecting the glory which had passed by them. Young Draper drew in two or three breaths of the cool twilight air, and plunged into his old walks as a swimmer springs eagerly into the waves. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 2I3 He went on for miles, and the splendor of color in the west grew into a pile of gray clouds, and after the long, hot day, the breeze took heart and tried its voice in soft tunes among the leaves. It grew darker and darker in the lonely woodpaths where Philip Draper walked. Above the low, gray flats of clouds the stars gathered slowly, and when the man looked again the young moon hung in a blue arch of the sky. He was going away from all the familiar places, but the thought filled his heart with a sudden gladness that moon and stars would still be over him, and that he could always fancy them shining over the old town, and, it might be, upon the very face of the woman whom he loved-of the woman for whom, for that very love's sake, he was fleeing away--fancying that he was doing a brave thing-the one thing which it was manly and best to do. Perhaps it was, at that time; but knowing Philip Draper as I afterward came to know him, I have always believed that no matter if he had gone to the antipodes, the secret affinities between his own soul and Jacque- line Thayne's-nay, more than all that, the courage and manliness that lay at the bottom of him, despite some morbid self-depreciation-would have brought him back to Hedgerows to tell his story to the heart and take his verdict from the lips of the woman that he loved. In the stillness of the night, with faint voices of winds among the leaves, a quieter mood grew slowly on the excitement which had possessed Philip Draper. Here and there some fibre of habit and association had wound itself about the old town that' slept between its hills and 19* page: 214-215[View Page 214-215] 214 ONCE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. its river, and each began to twinge now, but all other regrets were soon lost in the stronger one of leaving Squire Thayne. l I think Philip Draper had never realized until this moment how tenderly he loved the man, old enough to be his father; yet, on account of that perennial youth which was a part of the nature of Algernon Thayne, Philip Draper's affection for him was much like that of a younger brother toward an elder. He could not leave without a last good-by this man who seemed to the younger to embody the ideal of his youth; who had given to Philip Draper new loftiness and clearness of purpose for himself, new tenderness for humanity, and new faith in his kind. Once in a while, too, there came over everything else, like a cold wind of death blowing in upon his soul, the thought of leaving Jacqueline. "How would she feel," he won- dered, " when she learned that he was really gone from Hedgerows?" Would his absence drop the faintest shadow into that life she carried so fair, and sweet, and womanly across the years? How kind she had always been to him, making him always welcome with the sweetness of her smile and the kindness of her greet- ing! But then it was a part of her nature to be kind to anything, and that absurd notion of gratitude no doubt had emphasized the cordiality of her manner 5 toward him. He wished it was all over-the explana- i tions and the one heart-wrench of parting. How he did love her!--that woman whose cheek he had never touched with the passion of a lover's kiss; the cool feel of whose soft fingers he had hardly returned with the lightest pressure; yet -he knew every line of her i -" s ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 2 I5 face-the fine and varied meanings, which others had never dreamed of finding there. The Thaynes would be certain to be home by to- morrow or next day, and he would lose no time in going over and telling the truth about this factory busi- ness. They must learn that from his own lips. No doubt, after he was gone, there would be all- sorts of scandals and rumors rife. Well, the tongues might do what they chose with him. They could not touch his soul, and for the things they blamed him for-for those at least-he would not be ashamed before God. He had strolled on for miles absorbed in his own thoughts, while overhead the stars multiplied and filled all the dark gulfs of the night with light and gladness; and at last Philip Draper, pausing suddenly, found him- self on the steep edge of a bank above Otter River. He knew the place well, and he had come here out of mere habit. He was now less than three miles from the town, and was conscious at once that some time before he must have instinctively faced around for home, as he had traversed a much greater distance from Hedgerows than the point at which he now found himself. A little way behind him was a dark stretch of woods, and the road between this and the fields was a barren strip of sand. The trees, however-oaks and maples -made the coolness of a grove on the steep bank that plunged down sheer to the river which lay, black and still, thirty feet below. Philip Draper stood here. In the river beneath him the man saw the sky again, with the glory of the moon and stars. Overhead among-the leaves the winds, as i*.. page: 216-217[View Page 216-217] 216 ON E WOAN V'S TWO LOVERS. though remembering some old grief, stirred and moaned plaintively in their sleep. Philip Draper stood still a few moments looking at - the river, and thinking to himself that on its banks Jacqueline Thayne had sported away her childhood %and grown up into the divine miracle of- her woman- hood. As he stood there, Philip Draper became aware, in some instinctive way, that he was not alone. Some- thing approaching him with slow, stealthy movements was close at hand. It was not friendly, either. He felt in every startled nerve an evil, menacing presence. At first he fancied a wild animal must have tracked him here, and was about to spring on him, but the absurdity of this notion flashed the next instant across Philip Draper. Whatever the thing was, it was coming upon him in human shape. He was a brave man, but the place was solitary in broad noon even, and the river was cold and deep below. His heart must have jumped as he thought of that ; but the thought which followed sharp on the first one was a prompt "Courage, man! whatever this is, you must face it!" He had partially turned, when a blow came upon him. Had he not been upon his guard it must have felled him to the earth. As it was, he swayed aside, staggered, and only received half its force. The next moment he had drawn himself up, every drop of blood stung to frenzy by the blow. He had time for one deep breath, and then his enemy sprang on him and I the two closed in a desperate encounter. Philip Draper was lithe and elastic; moreover, he ^ made his muscular training a part of his Christianity, s but he had no easy foe to deal with this time. The , ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERRS. 217 man was taller and a great deal heavier than himself, and had the advantage of Philip Draper in making the onset. The ruffian was desperate, too, and the other had all he could do for awhile to act on the defensive. The superintendent supposed, at first, that his assail- ant was unarmed, but at last his strained ears caught the click of a pistol. Neither of the men had yet seen each other's face, for the moon had almost gone down by this time, and the trees were thick where they stood. But the sound of that pistol seemed to infuse the might of ten men into Philip Draper's muscles. I sup- pose it was only the awakening of the swift, blind in- stinct of life, but in a very frenzy of strength he half wrenched himself from the deadly hug of his foe, tore away, in a flash, the pistol from his grasp, tossed it over the bank into the. river, and heard the sudden hiss of the waters as the weapon smote them; then he turned and closed once more with his enemy. This time the struggle was short but terrible. Again Philip Draper received two or three blows that almost knocked the breath out of him, and that must certainly have stunned him, if swift and lithe he had not parried their full force. But of a sudden the younger and smaller man gained the advantage. He heard two or three fierce oaths as he forced his adversary nearer the edge of the bank. These were the first words spoken; and in a breath a conviction flashed upon Philip Draper, which no proof could have rendered stronger, that his assailant was the wool-sorter. The latter evidently had, while mentally measuring the superintendent's wind, been deceived with regard page: 218-219[View Page 218-219] E WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. to the real physical power of the man. There may have been something, too, in moral forces, which Rey- nolds would not take into account. At any rate, he found himself beaten at his own game. Do his best he was losing ground, his breath was failing him, and he felt that he was drawing nearer and nearer to the dreadful edge of the bank. At last the man cowered and begged for mercy; but not until but a single step lay betwixt him and the cold black river which waited below, and which held for him, hurled from that height, a swift death. Philip Draper was wrought up to a livid rage at that moment. His arms now held his victim tightly pinioned. "Do you think I don't know you, Reynolds? Do you think me fool enough not to serve you as you intended to serve me?" his voice hard and hoarse with passion. "I didn't mean to kill you," whined the wretched man. All his cool desperation forsook him as he hung, bruised and breathless, in the power of the man whose vengeance he had brought down on his own head. "I only meant to throttle and rob you." One effort more and Reynolds would have been over the bank. Philip Draper was about to hurl the shivering figure down, when across the madness which the fight had wrought in him came a thought of Jac- queline, and in another flash, a thought of God. The murder of this man was in the heart-his blood would be on the head-of Philip Draper. The thought came upon his burning wrath like a cold wind-it was all over in far less time than it takes me now to write it. The desperate hold relaxed a little; but Reynolds, F ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 219 if he had the strength, was too cowed now to attempt any further resistance. 'What could Philip Draper do with this man?" If there had been any chance for it, the superin- tendent would certainly have given the villain into custody; but they were three miles from Hedgerows, and Draper could not drag his foe into town. There was no way but to let him go; the gods would grind out their justice for him sooner or later. At that moment, shaken and appalled by the sud- den revelation of the deed into which his blind wrath was unconsciously hurrying him, Philip Draper felt himself nearer a level with the wretched creature who groveled before him than at any previous time he would have conceived possible. This made him merciful with the criminal and his crime. In the faint starlight the two men looked at each other. "Reynolds, I am not going to murder you," said Philip Draper in a low, calm voice, strangely at vari- ance with the hoarse wrath of a few moments before. The man burst forth into sobs and thanks. Probably both were more or less genuine, for he had looked death in the face a moment ago, and that was, at least, enough to take all swagger and bluster out of him. "I suppose there is nothing to do but to let you go. I am cheating the State's prison, I know." The wool-sorter muttered something about being an honest man in future. At that moment, however, Philip Draper had no strong faith in the other's repentance. ' Well, Reynolds, I have given you the chance." With some more profuse 'thanks the wool-sorter page: 220-221[View Page 220-221] 220 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. dragged himself up and shuffled off. It was painful work evidently. No danger of his returning to try his strength the second time against Philip Draper; but I will do the man so much justice as this: I do not believe he would have attempted another assault had breath and muscles been as fresh and strong as they were when he dealt Philip Draper that first blow. The latter was left alone again, with the stars over- head, and stray fleeces of mist among them. All that had passed in the last few minutes seemed a dream. Philip Draper knelt down in the darkness and thanked God that the man's blood was not on his head. After- ward, when he rose up, he remembered the pistol which he had tossed into the river. He wondered why he had done that, for the possession of the weapon must have placed Reynolds at his mercy. Philip Draper was not certain, but he always fancied some blind instinct had made him dash the weapon from him lest he should use it to take the life of his foe. While this encounter, which had just escaped being a deadly one, was going on in the darkness of the woods,-- Squire Thayne and his niece, sitting in the library, -talked over the late riot at the works of Stephen Weymouth & Co. Jacqueline's face was flushed with excitement and indignation. "There must be a great wrong some- where, Uncle Alger." "Such things never happen without there is great wrong somewhere, my dear." "But it cannot lie at Philip Draper's door." She called him this for the first time in her life. "Nothing could ever shake my faith in that man." s OXE WOMANA'S- TWO LOVERS. 221 "No; nor mine," said the Squire, very quietly, but away down deep in his eyes there was a look of sincere pleasure. "But how did thee news get out here?" he asked. Jacqueline went over the factory-boy's story in a rapid way, but she left nothing out. When it was over, the girl's uncle sat still, his thoughts going busily enough. Jacqueline drew a little closer to him. "Now, Uncle Alger, it is your turn," she said. Squire Thayne had met with a queer little adventure that night-only queer things were always happening to him; Jacqueline said he had some native affinity for them. Some business had taken him a few miles out of town, and just in the twilight, as horse and carry-all struck the turnpike, he came upon a young girl in a brown straw hat, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, and pretty enough, to use his own words, "to have sat, three hundred years ago, for the portrait of one of Shakspeare's English lasses." The girl gave him out of her startled blue eyes a glance of recognition. The Squire drew up and touched his hat. "I have a fancy that you know me, miss," he said, and that smile I have told you about came with the words. "Oh, yes, sir,"--the sweet blue eyes at their widest, --" you are Squire Thayne." "I suppose there is no harm in an old man with such a grizzled head as mine asking a pretty young girl to ride with him, especially when she knows his name; so won't you do me the favor to jump in, miss, and let me take you back to town?" A good deal pleased and a good deal fluttered, the 20 page: 222-223[View Page 222-223] 222 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. girl climbed into the chaise. The two soon got into a brisk talk. Squire Thayne learned that the girl's name was Ruth Benson, and that she worked at the factory. That admission was soon followed by the story of the recent riot, which, of course, greatly startled the gentleman, and brought out on his side a good many questions, to which his pretty companion made very intelligent replies. ! It was evident enough that her sympathies were warmly on the side of the superintendent, whom she ' designated as the best and noblest gentleman in the - world. "But how in the world does it happen that so good a man should have such a strong party of virulent enemies?" asked the Squire. ' "Ah, sir, there are some very bad people at the mill -very bad," shaking her head and looking very grave. "You know some of them, perhaps?" X "Yes, sir, I think I do." Looking up to her corn- panion with some doubt and bewilderment in her face. i The Squire fancied something lay on the girl's mind, which a question or two on his part would have : brought out, but there was no time for it now. They drew up where the road forked, less than a quarter of I a mile from the factory-girl's boarding-place. The Squire set her down here, telling her he hoped it would not be their last ride together, and drove off. After he had related this to his niece, the girl sat very still. Her uncle saw there was somle trouble in I her face. She was thinking about Sydney Weymouth, i and what the old housekeeper had said, but it seemed ;i disloyal to her friend and playfellow-her lover that : ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 223 would have been-to repeat the words even to her uncle. He was thinking, too: thoughts which he did not tell his niece. There were wheels here within wheels. Some meaning must lie behind the words the factory- boy had blurted out about being on the superintend- ent's side, instead of young Weymouth's. Had Jac- queline's refusal of his suit anything to do with it? The Squire almost chid his thoughts for springing to this question so rapidly, and because he found he had so little faith in the son of his old -neighbor-the boy whose bright, promising youth he had watched with such hearty interest and high hopes. CHAPTER XX. PHLIP DRAPER found it hard work to get up the next day. Yet he did, and by sheer force- of will dragged himself down to the factories, despite the stiffness and bruises which made every movement cost him a twinge of pain. As the superintendent expected, the wool-sorter was not at his work. During the course of the day Philip Draper learned the man had left town. It was a relief to know this, and to be spared the duty of denounc- ing Reynolds to the authorities. Draper's first feeling when he awoke that morning, and the events of the past night flashed upon him, was one of unutterable page: 224-225[View Page 224-225] 224 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L OVERS. thankfulness that the death of the wool-sorter did not lie at his door. In the course of the morning Squire Thayne drove up. Despite the welcome which shone in the young man's eyes, the elder could not help seeing at the first glance how white and worn he looked. There -was reason enough, however, for this in the recent exciting events through which young Draper had passed. He broke the ice after a preliminary- '"I hardly looked for you back so soon, Squire." "Put it in a nut-shell: Two days of business, and two of visiting," was the reply. "You have learned the main facts already, I pre- sume," and Draper pointed to the broken windows. "Yes; and when I learned the bad business, I said to myself-' My young friend has the stuff in him which all heroes have. He will come out a little wiser and a little tougher for these hard knocks.' " Philip Draper's face shone with sudden pleasure. "My dear sir, I never once doubted that you would have faith in me," he said. "Faith in you!" answered the Squire; and if I could only put his tone into the words, you would un- derstand what they meant to Philip Draper. "But you ought to go home and stay there for a week!" "Why?" "Because it is evident enough this outrage has worn on your nerves. I should fancy you had been ill for a fortnight." 'Do I look like that?" with a smile, yet a little startled, as he remembered that everybody would lay his looks where his friend did-to the riot. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 225 "Come," said the Squire, "I want to have a talk with you. Throw business to the dogs for the next hour, and take a drive with me." Philip Draper sprang up with alacrity, but a stitch caught him in the side, and his right arm gave a terri- ble twinge, and he made rather limping work of get- ting to the door; and he-thought to himself, with that swift sense of humor that was a part of him, that " there could not be great fun in being an old man, if one's bones must perpetually feel like so many rusty old hinges." When they were fairly started on their drive, he :turned and looked at the Squire, and met the kindly eyes reading his face with some trouble in them. "' Then -I look terribly used up, do I, sir?" "Frankly, you do. I've no doubt you've shown moral bravery enough, but you've done it, I'm sorry to see, at a terrible cost of physical power." "But you are wide of the mark this time, Squire. I give you my word the riot hasn't cost me the loss of a single meal or a night's sleep." It was out before he was really aware. No doubt his pride was touched a little, that the Squire should attribute his wretched looks to the cause he did; and then the young man's soul was lonely, and hungered for some human sympathy more than he himself was aware. "My dear fellow, I have no doubt you think you tell the truth, but your face is about the color of Ham- let's ghost." "That is because I came very near being murdered last night!" 20* page: 226-227[View Page 226-227] 226 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. Squire Thayne was silent with amazed horror after his companion had spoken these words. The latter went on. "But that is not the worst of ) it. I came quite as close to being a murderer my- self!" ! The Squire sat very still. He was waiting for Philip Draper to go on, which the latter did in a few mo- ments, not pausing until he had related the whole- story of his encounter with Reynolds in the darkness, on the bank of Otter River; not sparing himself, nor that one awful moment when he was about to swing the man into the death that waited for him in the river below. "It was a frenzy-a madness of blood and brain.. There was murder in my soul! You can't understand -it, Squire Thayne." * Yes, I can," said the elder. -1 "But I came to myself before it was too late; and I have shuddered so frequently, remembering how near I came to sending the man into eternity, with all his sins on his head, that I have hardly thought of the crime he was bent on committing." The Squire sat still a few moments after listening to this dreadful story,' rejoicing that the end had been what it was, that the life of his young friend had been spared, and that he had not, in the dreadful encoun- ter, hurried another soul into eternity; knowing well what a terrible regret in that case would have shad- owed all Philip Draper's after-life, no matter how en- tirely the world had acquitted him. "Well, my dear fellow," said the Squire, "I thank God that, after last night's dreadful work, I have you, ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 227 safe and sound, by my side again this glorious morn- ing. No wonder you look a little worse for your tussle of last night. We must get you over to our house, and try the effect of a few days' nursing. There's Jacqueline-the girl has a wonderful genius in a sick- room." "Thank you. I do not question Miss Thayne's genius in that line; but there are rougher remedies must mend my case." "What are they, if a man may be so bold as to ask?" "I am going away from Hedgerows in a few days." "What!" turning sharply round on his companion, while the big bottle-green fly his whip had been care- fully in search of quietly sucked a meal out of the neck of his horse. "I've made up my mind that I must cut loose from Hedgerows at once," speaking very rapidly and de- cidedly. "The life there at the factories doesn't suit me, soul or body. It cramps me. It may be there is a strain of savage blood somewhere at the bottom of this longing to cut civilization for a year or two." "But you quite take the breath out of me, Draper," said the Squire. "I am an old fogy in blood and habits by this timrre. For what goal do you set your face after you have shaken the dust of Hedgerows off your feet?" "For the West. For plain and prairie, and a very revel of freedom. I shall vary my life with hunting, and geologizing, and prospecting. A tent and a rub- ber blanket'will be my greatest luxuries for a year to come." page: 228-229[View Page 228-229] 228 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. "What do you think my very practical friend, the chief of the staff of the factories, will say to all this romancing? I happen to know what kind of value he sets upon your services." "However that maybe, he consented yesterday to i give me my papers of dismissal-without any great re- !! luctance either, on his part, so far as I could see. I H am off, for a dead certainty, Squire Thayne," turning his eyes, filled with eager, exultant light, on the elder man, and then another thought quenching all that. I "I do not forget I am to leave you, my dear sir. A - man cannot say much when he feels most,. The going away from you will be the one pang in leaving Hedge- rows: a pang only less sharp than that I felt when I . saw them lay away the face of my mother under the grass, and thought it would never smile on me again." - "My dear fellow!" said the Squire, and for a while both the men were silent. Squire Thayne's 'thoughts were very busy at this time. They jumped swiftly to a conclusion as to the real motive which was driving Philip Draper away from Hedgerows. After all, it was natural enough, if he believed his love was hopeless. 1 Squire Thayne remembered Evangeline, and thought he should,-in his friend's case, probably have been fool a enough to do precisely what he was doing. - Yet, after all, was the man a fool? Would not Jac- queline's answer to young Draper's suit be just what i it had been to Sydney Weymouth's? If the knight and the hero crossed her path, he came with no clash of trumpets, or neighing of steeds, or floating of plumes, and in his commonplace garb the girl did not recognize him. - ? ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 229 Yet God, by original, immortal affinities, had made those two for each other. But his little girl could not open her blind eyes and see, and now she was driving the man by the very force of his love away from her! Squire Thayne turned and looked at his friend. How little Philip Draper could imagine all which lay under that look! If at that moment the Squire was half tempted to say, "Go, and put all at stake, man, and compel the heart of the woman you love," the uncertainty of the Squire's own mind regarding his niece's feeling toward the superintendent held back the words from his lips. "Here's a pretty coil, as Shakspeare would call it; driving this magnificent fellow across half a conti- nent, and making him turn Arab," went the Squire's thoughts. "What business has the girl not to love him now?" Then he thought that perhaps Jacque- line's devotion to himself stood in the way of her love for any man-for this one--and he felt almost as though he were robbing Philip Draper of his right. Something of this thought must have been in his gaze when he turned and looked at his friend. The eyes of the two men met. - "Draper," said the Squire solemnly, "I cannot tell whether if you were my own -son I should feel worse at letting you go off from me, but without that relation it is hard enough for my old heart to part with you." The young man tried to speak and could not. '"There's Jacqueline," making a thrust at a venture, "my little girl will be very sorry when she comes to learn of this decision of yours." "Will she, indeed! It is very good of her to take page: 230-231[View Page 230-231] 2'30 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. so much interest in my affairs. ' I shall come out and say good-by to her before I leave." .i "Suppose you let me drive you on home to lunch with us?" "No, thank you, sir. Please excuse me to day." And something in the tones-made the Squire refrain ! from pressing the matter. -d After he had set down Philip Draper at his boarding- place, the Squire drove around to see his old friend, Stephen Weymouth. The gentleman had just finished a letter to his son, wherein he had dilated considerably on the bold stroke by which he was well rid of his superintendent. He tried to take a great deal of credit to himself for the promptness,-energy, and resolution with which he had acted -in this business, notwithstand- ing which it was evident enough that the writer was provoked with his son, provoked with himself, and I greatly puzzled by the conduct of his superintendent. I After some general conversation, the Squire; ventured upon the subject which was at the bottom of his call. "I am sorry to learn that you have had this bad ? business down at the factories, Weymouth." ! "Yes; bad enough! bad enough! Involved us in all kinds of troubles," speaking sharply and angrily. "I'm sorry to learn, too, that your superintendent is to leave." "How did you learn that, Squire?" looking up curiously. . I "He told me so himself this very morning." "What did he say was taking him off?" "Wants to turn savage out there on the frontiers; has'a hankering for bears and buffalo-hunts. Such ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. 231 fancies get into the blood of young men, and fire their hearts and brains. I suspect there's a smack of the savage in us all, Weymouth." c"Likely enough! likely enough! But old bones and steady brains don't relish that sort of thing," said the elder man a little gloomily. "I was quite breathless," continued the Squire, "when young Draper confided his plans to me. I hardly supposed you would be prevailed on to let him go. " When people in my service make up their minds to. leave, it has never been my habit to insist on their re- maining," was the evasive reply. "I suppose so; yet here is a man, on your own showing, whose place you can hardly expect to sup- ply." "As a superintendent, I certainly have no fault to< find with young Draper." As he said these words the elder Weymouth looked at his old friend with a sudden impulse to tell him the whole of that miserable story of Reynolds's. But the thought of Sydney, and an instinct that his son would strongly disapprove of this confidence, held the old man silent. The Squire in his turn was on the point of relating to Mr. Weymouth the assault of Reynolds on Philip Dra- per the night before; but on second thought he was not quite certain that this was npt the superintendent's secret. The two talked over the riot, on which topic the senior proprietor was excited and voluble. He did not blame Philip Draper. Indeed, he seemed carefully to avoid doing that, while all the time Squire Thayne could not help feeling that the proprietor held the page: 232-233[View Page 232-233] 232 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. ! superintendent mainly responsible for the disaffection among the men. The Squire rode aiayl'at last more perplexed than ever. "There is something wrong here," he said to himself, as his chaise bowled along the road. "That ? is evident enough. And all the while I can't help : feeling-I wish I could-that you are at the bottom of it, Sydney Weymouth!" CHAPTER XXI. i "BY Jove!" said Sydney Weymouth, "the old : man put affairs through this time with a vengeance!" XI He sat in the chamber of his hotel in New York. It was after his late breakfast, and he had been enjoy- ing' his cigar in a luxurious fashion, and thinking the i world was a pretty comfortable place, if a fellow had X plenty of money, and was philosopher enough to take it easily. Then he had taken up a photograph which his be- ; trothed had sent him, with one of her dainty epistles, X the night before. He had contemplated this for some time, with a hard, critical look on his face, which could scarcely have gratified the original of the picture. "Women never do look well in photographs-the ! hard lines always spoil their faces," the young man thought to himself. Yet most men would have ex- ' ' ii ONlE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 233 claimed, on seeing the carte de visite--"What a hand- some woman!" But a face with a pale, fine outline, and dark radiant eyes, seemed to hover with tantalizing pertinacity about this picture which he held in his hand. What business had the hovering phantom there? Yet Sydney Wey- mouth knew well enough whose form and likeness it had taken, and in his heart the man hated it. His meditations were suddenly broken by the waiter, who brought the morning mail. There was a letter from his father. The son read it hastily, and then broke out in his ejaculation. He was too excited to sit still now. He rose up, tossing his half-consumed cigar on the table, and walked about the room, looking pale and excited. He had not counted on his father's pushing affairs to such swift conclusions. Would this headlong precipitation on the old man's part cheat the son out of that sweet morsel of ven- geance for which he had been waiting and working so long? How often he had lived it over in imagination: the hour when Jacqueline Thayne should come to learn that the man to whom she had given her heart--the man for whose sake she had refused the love of Sydney Weymouth--was a coward and a villain! Young Weymouth had come to entertain no doubt that Philip Draper alone had stood between Jacqueline and himself in that hour which made him lock his teeth together whenever it rose up before him. From all the rest of the world, Sydney Weymouth was certain that his secret was safe enough; but the 21 page: 234-235[View Page 234-235] god vi"v ,U(^'AS TWO LO VERS. husband of Jacqueline Thayne would be certain to know that he owned the hand which Sydney Wemouth had asked for in vain. e What an enormous thing this man's self-love must have been, that it could be so galled and stung by such a thought; a thought that could transform the good- I natured-and, on a certain leve, generousSydney Weymouth into the deadly foe of hisrival! While I write this, I am thinking, too, how many a man owes a woman an eternal debt of gratitude be- cause she saved himt a life of misery, by refusing the love he offered her in his undeveloped manhood; how many a woman looks back with a half shuddering sense of deliverance to that time when9some boyish lover wore the roseate hues of her girlish fancy, think- ing, , If he had asked me then, I might be his wife to- day I II Perhaps Sydney Weymouth could have been more generous toward Jacqueline Thayne, if she had been merely some commonplace girl, whose prettiness or brightness had attracted his early fancy; but he had a feeling that the highest and the "lost precious thing he had ever coveted had denied itself to him; and his soul within him longed to prove to her-to himself, perhaps -the mistake she had-made; to bring down into the mire the man she had set in the sacred temple of her soul as noble and lofty above all other men, and say, Behold, this is he whom your soul reverenced!" Over the thought of that triumph the soul of Sydney Weymouth gloated with savage exultation. Sydney Weymouth, too, had counted wisely on the nature with which he had to deal. He knew, once ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO ERS. 235 prove to Jacqueline Thayne that this lover of hers- the man's instinct always took it for granted young Draper was that-had dealt falsely by the factory-girl, -had, in short, flirted with her and won her heart, if it had gone no further than that, merely to gratify his vanity or test his power over another soul, or to infuse a certain zest and interest into the dull weeks at Hedge- rows-the Squire's niece would shrink from her lover as something false and defiled. Other women in her case might look lightly on such conduct,--at least, try to palliate or hunt flimsy excuses for it, but Jacqueline Thayne would regard a wrong done to the lowliest of her sex as though it were done to herself: the most charitable and pitiful of women where her sex are usually deemed severest, prompt and generous to over- look all those faults which find some palliation in or- ganization and temperament, the girl shrank with horror from cruelty, meanness, or 'cowardice. Her heart-that very womanly instinct of worship which was a part of her nature-could never pardon false- hood or baseness in its beloved. Sydney Weymouth had given the darkest possible construction to the superintendent's relations with Ruth Benson. Prejudiced as the young man was, however, he could not fail to discern that there were some links wanting in his chain of evidence. Whether, however, the worst could be proved or not, it would be sufficient for Weymouth's purpose to convince Jac- queline that Reynolds had told the truth. "Ah, my fine lady, it will be a dreadful blow to you," he said to himself, gloating over the thought of all Jacqueline must suffer when she came to know the page: 236-237[View Page 236-237] 236 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. truth; and something evil came into the man's eyes. Sydney Weymouth was growing bad these days. The contents of his father's letter could not fail to move him strongly. He had hardly suspected it would be such easy work to get rid of the superintend- ent, and in his heart the son could at first have cursed the old man for his haste. But as he grew calmer, and took in the whole situa- tion of affairs, he began to feel that this might after all l turn out for the-best. He must trim his sails to this new wind. Philip Draper's absence, too, might prove the best thing pos- sible at this juncture. - Sydney Weymouth, however, found fresh food for his suspicions in this readiness of the superintendent i to leave Hedgerows. I "He was in a fat berth down there at the factories, and, my soul on it, he wouldn't be willing to throw it up if he wasn't afraid something was likely to come to light greatly to his disadvantage. Ah, my man, I've got my grip on you, and I don't intend to let it go until I've torn the mask off you, and shown you up, hideous and hypocrite .as you are, to the eyes of one woman!" and Sydney Weymouth clinched his hand, and then snapped his fingers and laughed. It was a light laugh, but I believe the devil was glad to hear it. He finally concluded he could afford to stay a couple of days longer in New York. There seemed no especial reason to hurry home, and there was a new opera to be brought out, and he wanted hugely to see it. The truth was, Sydney-Weymouth did not want to - -' O! ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. -23 7 look Philip Draper in the eyes again. The latter had said he- would be gone in a day or two. At the very time the son was reading his father's let- ter in the chamber of his hotel, the old gentleman was reading, another at home. When it was through, he laid it down and swore a loud oath. "Stephen, I would not have suspected that of you," exclaimed Mrs. Weymouth, feeding her canaries at the other end of the room. Profanity was not the habit of her husband. Mr. Weymouth took off his glasses. His hand. shook as though a sudden palsy had seized it. His wife came over in a fright to his side. "Is anything the matter, Stephen?" "Read that," and he pointed to the letter he had laid down. She took it up and ran over the contents. It was a letter from a police officer, inquiring whether a man by the name of Stark Reynolds was in the employ of the Hedgerows woolen-mills. He might go by some other name, but this was certainly one of his aliases, of which he had at least a dozen. He was an old hand at crime, and had broken State's prison six months ago. He had served out a year of his last term. Then followed a description of Reynolds. The police had been on his track for a while, and had suspicions that the man was lurking about Hedgerows. Mrs. Weymouth laid down the letter, and the hus- band and wife looked at each other. "You are Sure it is the man?" she asked. She had never seen the wool-sorter. 21* page: 238-239[View Page 238-239] 238 OVE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. "There's not the ghost of a doubt about it. That de- scription would nail the villain anywhere. Curse him!" Mrs. Weymouth could not find a word to say. i She had never seen her husband so excited in his life. He called himself a fool, and he called Sydney another. As for Reynolds, he affirmed anybody might have seen, though he were blind as a bat, that that man carried villainy written in his face. "Oh, Stephen, do try and be calm. It will kill you to go on in this fashion," pleaded Mrs. Weymouth, almost as much agitated as her husband. But she might as well have talked to the winds. In fact, Mrs. Weymouth received a look from her hus- band at that time which actually scared her. "What are you going to do?" she faltered. "I'm going, for the first thing, to get that fellow back into the cell he so richly deserves, and as for Draper"-he drew himself up by the mantel and drew also two or three hard breaths, his eyes strained at his wife as though he could not see her, and his face grow- ing deadly pale. "Mary," he said, in a changed voice, "I feel cold; what is the matter?" The wife went up to him with a new alarm in her face. His hand groped for her as though he were a helpless infant, and when she led him to a seat he leaned against her heavily, as though otherwise he must have fallen. That day Sydney Weymouth received a telegram from home. His father had had a stroke of paralysis. Jacqueline Thayne had gone out of doors late in the afternoon. Such magnificent days as had bourgeoned ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 239 out of this week-the last of September! Each was a miracle of splendid color, of soft airs, of sunny still- ness. "I hope I shall die in the midst of just such days," Jacqueline had said to her uncle, her eyes so deep and lustrous that the man could not keep his own away from them. "But I can't imagine that I should want heaven any better than this, or'y that will last, you know. " This afternoon she went out with no definite plan for her walk; only the beauty outside called to her, and made her restless to go and meet it. She went slowly up the lane, through the warm, sunny stillness, not meeting a soul, and at last reached the wide hill-pastures. She crept through the bars, and wandered on to a great wild cherry-tree in the middle of the field, and sat down at the foot of the huge trunk. How beautiful it all was!-.almost more than she could bear. The tears came into her eyes. Those were God's hills, afar off in the still, purplish atmos- pheres, and so were the azure skies overhead, and the dear, old, green earth all about her. How near He always seemed these days-how tender and loving! She never doubted Him at such times. All those dreadful problems of human life that tormented her soul, and came with chill and darkness between her and her Father in heaven, ceased to trouble her now. His heart was her eternal home, and its love would care for and perfect all it had created. So the girl's thoughts went, sitting under the old cherry-tree in the hill-pasture, on that late September page: 240-241[View Page 240-241] 240 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. afternoon. Her seat commanded a view of one side of her home. Looking down, she suddenly saw a young girl standing at the side gate, gazing at the house, with something timid and irresolute in her air. Jacqueline watched the girl's movements with a good deal of interest. She seemed to take heart at last, and go up rapidly to the door, although her figure was soon lost among the windings of the shrubbery. "I wonder what she can want?" thought Jacque- line, and then she forgot all about the girl, and fell to thinking of Philip Draper. e She had thought a great deal about him of late. Ever since she had learned of the riot at the mills, she had felt a constant solicitude and sympathy forihim at her heart. She had wondered, too, why he did not come out to the house beyond the pines, and she had been a good deal disappointed as the evenings went by without bringing him. She did not even know that he was about tdo leave Hedgerows. It was very singular that her uncle had not told her, but Squire Thayne was a good deal like a woman in one thing-he largely obeyed his instincts, and whenever he was tempted to inform- his niece of the superintendent's plans something seemed to warn him to wait. It was all very absurd, set- in a common-sense light; nevertheless Squire Thayne kept silent. In a few moments Jacqueline saw the young girl come in sight again. She remembered now that her uncle had been absent all the afternoon. She would have called to the stranger, had she been sure of mak- ing herself heard. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 241 The young girl walked slowly up the road until she came to its juncture with the lane. She paused here; then turned about and came up the hill. Jacqueline watched her as she drew near. It struck her at once that this must be the very girl -" pretty enough for one of Shakspeare's English lasses"--whom her uncle had come across the other day. The girl had some errand with him doubtless. Per- haps Jacqueline could serve as well as the Squire. She rose up and went towards the bars. The face, like a blossom, flushed with surprise as she saw the lady standing there; but Jacqueline smiled, and said, in her own perfect way, "I have been watching you for some time. I saw you go up to the house just now, and come away a little later. I fancied you wished to see my uncle, Squire Thayne." "Yes, I did," said the girl, and there was a little flutter of embarrassment in her voice. "He has gone away, and will not return until late this evening. I am sorry.," "Thank you; it's no great matter," answered the girl. "Well, then, perhaps I can serve in his place. Is there anything I can do for you?" The girl-drew her breath. The swift color came into her face, and for a moment the sweet blue eyes had the scared look of a child. Then she turned and gazed at the lady with a doubtful, inquisitive glance, which also had something childish in it, and, as she gazed, the fright went out of her eyes. "It was something he said to me that day I had the page: 242-243[View Page 242-243] 242 ONR WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. ride. I've been thinking ever since, perhaps he ought to know, only I hadn't quite the courage to tell him." Her voice sank and hurried across the words as a though she were half afraid of it herself. It was evident the girl had something upon her mind which it would relieve her to unburden. She was such a pretty, shy thing, that Jacqueline's interest 7 was aroused; yet she did not like to press anybody's confidence. - !"Suppose we go and sit under the cherry-tree a few minutes," she said at last. "I want to get a little bet- ter acquainted with you; I have, indeed, ever since my uncle took that-ride with you." "Did he tell you?" asked the girl, surprised and E pleased, and she followed the lady. "Oh, yes; he always tells me everything." The two sat down under the cherry-tree, and Jac- queline talked awhile on whatever came uppermost,-- the scenery and the weather,--in a way most likely to set her companion at ease. The -shyness that hung about the girl's face and manner disappeared slowly, and a pleased confidence took its place. At, last there came a silence between the two, and, when Jacqueline next met the girl's eyes, something in them told her it was time to speak. "I see you have something to tell me, and that you will not go away quite at ease unless you have spoken. Now, if I can help you-if for any reason you think it best-try me." The girl drew a long, long breath. Flushes and shadows of thought came and went on the pretty face. ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. 243 She drew nearer Jacqueline. "It's a secret," she said. "It's about the superintendent and another man." "{ Mr. Draper, you mean?" "Yes; he has been such a kind friend to me kinder than anybody would believe." "He has been a very kind friend to me, also," said Jacqueline. "Then it will be easier to tell you," looking pleased. "I could only tell it to his friend, and I knew your uncle was that when he talked of him." "You are quite right there." "But it seems to me he has some great enemies, and that I know who they are. I can't help him, you see; but your uncle might." "If any man could, I am sure it would -be my uncle." By this time Ruth Benson was pretty much at her ease, and afterward she had the talking to herself. She commenced with her acquaintance with "that wicked Reynolds," as she called him, and then related her interview with the superintendent in the factory road. She told it just as it happened, repeating the young man's very words, although she grew greatly agitated as she went over the exciting scene, and the sobs strained her voice and the tears dimmed her eyes. Jacqueline put up her hand to her face, and listened without a word. Ruth Benson went on. After the interview with Philip Draper, she affirrmed that she had carefully avoided Reynolds, although the man had been very z. page: 244-245[View Page 244-245] 244 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOYERS. persistent in his attentions and invitations, and an- noyed and sometimes alarmed the factory-girl. At last, wearied out by her continual coldness, he had ceased to trouble her, and for some time she had not met him. One day, about a month ago, she had come upon him suddenly. It was in the evening, just after dark, and- Ruth was hurrying home from a call on one of her factory friends. She came upon the wool-sorter almost precisely on the spot in the factory road where she had had her in- terview with Philip Draper. She recognized him at once, and was- hurrying past, when he planted himself directly in her way,'and, with a -loud laugh and a volley of oaths, burst out: "Ah, my prettybird, you've been playing a nice game of hide-and-seek with me, of late; but I've got hold of you now." And he put his arm around her, and his 'breath, hot with whisky, came up in her face. The poor girl, half dead with terror, tried to wrench her- self out of the-ruffian's grasp. But he held her fast, talking all the time, and inter- larding his speech with frightful oaths. It was strange how, in the frozen terror of that time, Reynolds's talk had entered into Ruth's brain and remained there. He cursed her and he cursed Philip Draper, and called Ruth names which made her blood curdle with horror. Then the man burst out into a horrible laugh, and declared that hypocritical dog would find himself worsted in the game he was playing, for young Wey- mouth knew all about it, and had an old grudge of his own to settle. Reynolds was sure of his man there, ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 245 for he had told his own story; and the young fellow had swallowed it all like a lump of sugar. There would be hot work at the factories before long-she would see that; and see, too, what that young scoundrel who kept the books got by fishing in another man's river. Suddenly voices came down the road. At the sound, Ruth Benson, in a swift access of strength, wrenched herself out of the ruffian's grasp. A few minutes later she reached her home, and was sick all the next day from the fright she had under- gone; but she never breathed it to a human soul; and from that day to this Ruth Benson had not exchanged a word with Reynolds, avoiding him as she would a rattlesnake. This was the story which Ruth Benson told to Jac- queline Thayne, in the old pasture, under the cherry- tree, that afternoon. It was impossible not to believe every word that the girl said. Indeed, Jacqueline, looking on her face, never entertained a doubt of her. "I knew your uncle was a good man, and a wise one," continued the girl. "After that man had called me those terrible names, I could not go to Mr. Dra- per "Her face flushed, and her voice broke down here. "I see, dear, I see," said Jacqueline, and she laid her hand softly on Ruth Benson's. "Yet it seemed to me som ebody ought to know. I've laid awake a good many nights, thinking it over; and when the riot came, I was sure that Reynolds had done all he could to bring it on. He would do any- thing to harm our superintendent." "He must be a monster! I can't understand, 22 page: 246-247[View Page 246-247] 246 ONE WOMAN"S TWO LOVERS. though, how he can have any influence over Mr. Wey- mouth," continued Jacqueline, half to herself. "He seemed very sure of it at that time," answered the factory-girl. "But he was drunk, you remember, and probably did not know what he was saying," continued the lady. "Ye-es, ma'am, I know," speaking in a slow, doubtful way. "But there are two parties at the fac- tory, and nobody who likes Mr. Weymouth is a friend of Mr. Draper's." Jacqueline was silent a little while. At last she spoke: "You said the truth; my uncle is a wise and good man. You have done just right in coming to him. I shall tell him all you have said, and he will wonder, as I do, that you have acted so wisely and nobly as you have done in all this matter." Jacqueline was amply repaid for the last clause by the look on the factory-girl's face. There was some more talk between the two so singularly brought into each other's confidence; and then the afternoon was almost gone; and Ruth Benson went away, carrying a light heart, and sure that she had found a new friend in the lady she had left sitting alone in the pasture, with her sweet, thoughtful face looking toward the sunset, while the winds awoke softly in the old cherry-tree over her head. Jacqueline sat there a long time, thinking over what she had heard, and. it seemed to her that this Philip Draper's character came out all the time in clearer and nobler lineaments, and showed itself something which her inmost soul must honor; while some shadow fell ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 247 upon Sydney Weymouth, and he shrivelled away and was not the old friend of her girlhood-the friend she had trusted and loved. But the thought gave her a great pang, and she tried to put it away, chiding herself for being just like a woman-always jumping at swift conclusions. Uncle Alger would return that night, and the whole thing would be laid open in the light of his clear judgment. At last, when the twilight and the dews began to fall, Jacqueline rose up and went home. A telegram met her there from her uncle. He had been detained, and would not be home until the next day. She passed the evening by herself, trying first one volume and then another; but each failed to interest her, and at last she fell back on the newspapers, but these proved also a futile resource-that story of the factory-girl's still keeping uppermost in her mind. She pondered it a long time before she went up-stairs, where the very last thing she did was to look out on the night. Overhead, the sky was in its full splendor of stars. There they waited, and shone, and watched for the morning. Across that distant glory, it seemed no cloud could ever gather. Over the face, too, of the watching girl, uplifted to them, the stars saw gather a solemn joy. "What a good world it is to live in!" was Jacque- line's last thought as she closed the blinds. page: 248-249[View Page 248-249] 248 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. CHAPTER XXII. THE next morning, when Jacqueline Thayne awoke, something was struggling against the windows. She started 'up and listened. It was raining frightfully. The winds drove with fierce cries among the trees. The autumn gales had come at last, bursting down in sud- den wrath upon all that glory of days and nights. To think of those stars under which she had sank to rest, and of the tempest in which she had waked! [ Yet Jacqueline did not dislike such days. She en- joyed the wild mood of the tempest. Her soul seemed to mount exultant on the mighty wings of the storm. When Deborah met her young mistress that morning, the old serving-woman saluted her with, "Oh, Miss Jackey, we've got an awful storm!" "I suppose it is, Deborah;' but it's magnificent." All that day the storm strengthened. Vast sheets of water broke against the windows. Overhead, the masses of cloud rolled heavier and darker. The winds blew mighty bugles through the rain. Otter River rose higher and higher, threatening to drown its banks. Deborah went with-her scared face from one window to another, saying to herself, or to Jacqueline, if the latter happened to be within hearing--"If this goes on long, there'll be plenty of trouble to pay!" I Jacqueline was not naturally timid, and she had felt all day in the library before the fire very much as she fancied some bird might, in its warm, soft nest, while El ONE WOOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 249 the storm rocked and raged among the branches. Still, as the night gathered, she began to fear, in a vague way, that if the storm continued at this rate there would be a terrible chapter of freshets, of barns flooded, and bridges swept away. It was growing dark when a carriage dashed up to the front door, and there was a great stamping of feet in the front hall. Jacqueline rushed out to hear Squire Thayne's voice. "Uncle Alger, is that really you-in this terrible storm, too?" "Yes, it is I, of a dead certainty, but wet as a colony of drowned rats.- There, don't come near me, child, until I've got off some of these soaked wrappings- whew! not a dry thread on me!" The two women bestirred themselves. Jacqueline made the fire roar, thinking how pleasant it was to hear her uncle's voice again, and what an evening they were going to have together, while Deborah brought a steam- ing cup of coffee, and insisted the Squire should drink it before she would let him off to his room. The old woman was an autocrat in her line. In a little while the Squire entered the library, having exchanged his dripping garments for dry ones. "Ah, my darling;" he exclaimed, on catching sight of the blaze and the lady who sat by it, "I honestly believe this is the best place this side of heaven!" Jacqueline came to meet him, and he took her in his arms and kissed her again and again with more than his usual fondness. "I've missed you immensely all day, with only the storm out there to keep me com- pany." 22* page: 250-251[View Page 250-251] 250 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. "But I never once dared to hope you would come home to-night. Wlhat brought you?" "I don't know, unless it was a great longing to see my little girl. That got hold of me and wouldn't let me stay. Nothing has happened to you, my bairnie?" "Oh, nothing in the world." Then Squire Thayne went on to talk about the storm which he had faced for twenty miles. He had never encountered such a one. The Furies were all abroad, he averred. The hills sheltered Hedgerows from the worst of the tempest, but on the wide lowlands it was just awful. The river was rising at an unheard of rate; indeed, the Squire had to take to the hill road, for the lower one was overflowed. There had been a long drought, and now all the mountain streams were over the banks, and there would be terrible mischief to the mills and the river-farms if the storm did not speedily abate. Squire Thayne looked sober as he talked. Jacque- line had not suspected the peril was so imminent, and felt anxious for a few minutes; but she was so thoroughly content, now her uncle had come back, that she nearly forgot all about the storm. They had the coziest of suppers together, in the course of which the Squire declared himself alarmed lest he should never reach the limit of his capacity for Deborah's warm biscuit; and then they returned to the - library, and Jacqueline said, "There will be no mail up -to-night in this storm." "No," replied the Squire; "I can dispense with my newspaper this evening." Perhaps some unusual tenderness or solicitude in his ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 251 manner toward her to-night struck Jacqueline. At any rate, she turned suddenly and looked at her uncle a moment, and put her fingers in his beard and pulled it a little, just as she used to do when there was not a solitary white flake in the brown- mass; and then she asked, "Was I really worth so much, after all?" Worth how much?" "So much that you should have taken such a ride through all these roaring winds and drenching rains to pass the evening with me?" He put his arms around her. He drew her close to him. "Oh, yes, my darling," he said, in a tone that left no doubt of his feeling; "thank God, you were worth just so much." Afterward, they drew up to the fire, and Squire Thayne told his niece how, in the fore- noon of that day, an unaccountable desire and yearn- ing after her had taken possession of him. He had, immediately after breakfast, made up his mind that he should not start for home until the storm abated; but this feeling overcame his hesitation, and he gave orders to harness up at once. "It was a curious feeling, uncle, and I sheltered so safely here in the library all day," she said, when he paused. "I can't account for it, precisely," said her uncle; "but then there are a good many things one cannot account for-better not even try to." He was -silent awhile, and so was she, and the storm grew fiercer without; and at last the Squire turned to his niece, saying very earnestly, "Jacqueline, do you ever think tlat some time one of us must die and leave the other?" page: 252-253[View Page 252-253] 252 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. "Oh, Uncle Alger!" she started and winced, and the light went out of her face;' "don't talk of that." "Oh, but, my dear, we must think of it sometimes. You may go first, with all the youth on your side; there's no telling. I am hale and hearty, and there are no signs of breaking up about me that I can per- ceive; still, I am slipping smoothly down the current of my sixties." "Uncle Alger," exclaimed Jacqueline with a good deal of impatience, " what is the use of holding up your years like spectres before me? You are just like a young man; you seem one to me, and I wish you would not take pains to remind me of the precise number of days you have lived in the world." The man laughed amusedly. "Is my age such a i terrible bughear to you?" he said; and he continued: "But it's a cowardly way to live, after all, isn't it- with this 'hide-bound' love of life? As though we should go away from God because we are going out of this one world of his!" "I know what you say is all true," replied the girl, "but, after all, it is such a dreadful lqap! and there are the awful darkness and silence, and here the warmth, and light, and love." "I know all that side, dear, and, what is better, God knows it, too ;" and after that he went on to talk of death so simply, so beautifully, for all the world, for himself, for her, that Jacqueline listened a long time without any vague feeling of dread, even when he came to speak, as he did, of several little matters he should like, to have adjusted in case he went first. After her uncle had talked a long time-Jacqueline ONE WOMAN'S TWO L OVERS. 253 never knew how long, although afterward she tried many times to remember-the girl started of a sudden out of the awed, tender mood which the conversation had brought with it. "Uncle Alger," she said, "what makes us talk in this way? You don't really think you or I are going to die soon, do you?" "Oh, no; but then we must, some time; and, after all, what does 'Soon' mean?" "I couldn't live without you, and shouldn't want to," she said, with her native impetuosity, and she put her head down on his knee. His hand fell into the soft, shining hair. "Wherever God wants us, he can find a way to keep us," said Algernon Thayne. There was no more said, at least that Jacqueline could remember; and circumstances happened after- ward to impress every syllable of this evening's talk on her memory. The talk with Ruth Benson, the day before, probably flashed suddenly across-her, and dissipated everything else, for, on the instant, she lifted her head, and said, "Oh, uncle! to think you have been home all this time, and I haven't told you yet!" "Told me what?" "Why, about what happened yesterday, and my in- terview with the pretty little, factory-girl whom you took to ride." Squire Thayne roused himself now, with an air of great attention. Jacqueline's story was hardly inter- rupted by a remark or question on his part; but when she concluded, he knew all that she had learned the page: 254-255[View Page 254-255] 254 NE WOM4AN'S TWO LOVERS. day before, sitting in the sunshine, under the cherry- tree, in the old pasture lot. He was still awhile, putting all the facts that he knew together, fitting them in their places, and seeing how each threw light on the other. The factory-girl's story made evident enough the truth which the Squire had long ago vaguely suspected: the personal enmity of young Weymouth toward his father's superintendent; and the Squire had no doubt of the secret cause of this feeling. Into his musings Jacqueline's voice came abruptly; "Uncle Alger, what do you think of all this?" "I cannot tell you in a few words; only I believe that miserable villain, Reynolds, told the truth for once in his life-told it drunk, as he certainly would not if he had been sober.' Jacqueline looked troubled enough. "But there was Sydney Weymouth. That part of the story could have had no better foundation than the whisky and the malice in the wretch's brain." Her uncle did not say one word. "Uncle Alger," said Jacqueline, almost angrily, "why are you silent?" "Because I had -rather you would excuse me, now, from saying one word on that topic." When he spoke in that tone, his niece knew him too well to press the matter. She sat still a good while, with a puzzled, troubled face, which her uncle did not like to see. He spoke at last:!"I wish you had asked me, instead, what I think of Philip Draper's conduct toward that poor little helpless factory-girl, and how many men ONE I5OAMAN'S TWO LOyVERS. 255 there are in the world who, under the same circum- stances, would have acted as he did." Her face brightened. "It was a noble action: it touched me to the quick." "It was like him, after all. There is nothing true, or worthy, or noble, which one who comes to know Philip Draper thoroughly may not expect of him." This was very high praise. Jacqueline was not pre- pared for it; her uncle, for obvious reasons, having always been a little reticent of the real' estimate in which he held the superintendent. "I did not know, much as I saw you liked him, that Philip Draper stood so high as this in your favor." "No; I left my little girl to find out the man for herself. I have not usually found her perceptions slow." "But you think I have been this time? After he had saved my life, too," speaking half remorsefully. "Child, do have done with that everlasting notion of gratitude. A man might have done all that, and not be in any wise what Philip Draper is." The talk was getting on dangerous ground. The Squire realized it, but he would not draw back now, so he continued before Jacqueline had time to reply: "Perhaps I should not to-night have expressed my sentiments so warmly, if I had not felt that the con- spiracy, or whatever one may call it-the bad feeling, in high and low places, against Philip Draper-had succeeded." "What do you mean?" asked Jacqueline, eagerly. "I mean that he will soon be rid of Hedgerows." The girl's look of consternation encouraged her ' page: 256-257[View Page 256-257] 256 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. uncle to proceed, and he related the entire conversation which had transpired betwixt hitm and Philip Draper in their last ride together. Jacqueline listened in pale horror to the account of the deadly struggle on the bank of the river, between Philip Draper and Reynolds; but when it came to the superintendent's determination to leave Hedgerows, she burst in with-"Uncle, you must not let him go. It is cruel--it is outrageous! I know you have great influence with him." "It is useless to attempt to move him. I find his resolution is not to be shaken. In his case I should pro- bably do precisely as he is doing; yet I wish they had left my young friend to me," added the Squire. "Uncle," said Jacqueline, impetuously, "I must speak whether you allow me or not. I see you" have a conviction that Sydney Weymouth has done some wrong to Philip Draper. Now, what possible reason have you for supposing this? Do not refuse to tell me." Thus adjured, her uncle could not choose but answer. "Jacqueline," he said, significantly, "it takes a very generous man to forgive the one whom he regards as his rival." ' His rival! Philip Draper Sydney Weymouth's rival!" murmured Jacqueline, and then she started sud- denly, as an idea struck her, and stared up in her uncle's face. Her eyes were frightened, her cheeks flushed. At that moment the winds, like a peal of artillery, shook the 'house to its foundations. While they had been talking the storm had grown in strength, and the rain poured down in black masses. Jacqueline drew closer to her uncle and shivered with ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 25 something like fear. "What an awful storm it is!" she said. "Awful, indeed. To-morrow will bring a terrible chapter of disasters. And these have gone on while we have been sitting snugly unconscious by the fire. And do you see it is past midnight? How troubled and tired you look, my child! You must go straight to bed. Think of nothing in the world but that God is in the storm, and that you have only to go to sleep." He would not allow her time for another word. But, excited and troubled, it was a long while be- fore she fell asleep. She lay awake listening to the sounds of the tempest, and thinking of what her uncle had said. Was it true? Did Sydney Weymouth really believe that Philip Draper was his rival in her regards; and because of this was he trying to take subtle ven- geance on the superintendent? It all'seemed too absurd--too dreadful to be true. Yet her uncle evidently believed it, and he was a man not likely to be mistaken. What an awful mistake, too, Sydney Weymouth had made if he fancied the superintendent cared for her! There, in the dim light of the taper, her face smothered away in the pillows, the fever-heats came and went in her cheeks with the rush of her thoughts. The storm raged outside, but she forgot all about it, and at last sleep came down and folded her senses in its soft cloud. 23 page: 258-259[View Page 258-259] 258 ONAE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. CHAPTER XXIII. ON receiving the telegram of his father's sudden ill- ness, Sydney Weymouth had set out at once for home. He reached it to find his mother almost frantic with the terrible shock she had undergone. His father recognized Sydney, but his mind wan- dered more or less; and although the physicians were unanimous in their opinion regarding the sick man's ultimate recovery, they insisted on the absence of all excitement for their patient. After his interview with his father, the young man went into his mother's room and sat down there. However luxurious the apartment might be, the thoughts of the occupant were very little to be envied at- that juncture. Outside the wind blew its trumpets and tossed the rain in blinding waves against the windows, yet the man did not heed it. In a few words his mother had explained to Sydney the circumstances which had preceded his father's stroke, and placed the officer's letter in his hands. So Philip Draper was an innocent man, and Sydney Weymouth had lent his ear and given his sympathy to the base falsehoods of a criminal fresh from State's prison, skulking that moment from the -law-officers on his track! This was not a pleasant reflection for any man, es- pecially when he was conscious that he had in covert ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 259 ways used all his own influence, which, of course, was not small, to promote the factory disaffection toward the superintendent. I do not suppose that Sydney Weymouth hated Philip Draper now a whit less than he had been doing for months past, but he certainly felt himself meaner and more like a coward than he had ever done in his life. Then, too, this sudden stroke of his father's had a look unpleasantly like the judgment of the gods. Sydney Weymouth was not superstitious, certainly, but you must remember that he had just come from the sick-bed of his father, and his mother's words left small room for doubt as to what had laid the old man there. In a few moments Mrs. Weymouth came into the room, looking ten years older than when Sydney had left Hedgerows. He started up. "Poor mother! It must have been terrible to go through this all alone!' Wherever he 'failed, it was not in being an affectionate son. Mrs. Weymouth tried to answer, and burst into tears. It was a good while before Sydney could quiet her. When he had succeeded partially, she broke out with what her son had been knowing must come all the while-with what, too, he had been dreading to hear. "It all comes of that dreadful business. It has nearly cost the life of your father, Sydney! It's been a wretched thing from beginning to end." Hardly knowing what he did say, he could not help feeling there was a certain reproach in his mother's tones. : "I've seen for a week that the affair was wearing , . page: 260-261[View Page 260-261] 260 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. dreadfully on your father, and I have been anxious and troubled, but I never supposed it could come to this." "Nobody could have supposed it," answered the lady's son. l "It was a dreadful thing--your father's having to go through with getting rid of his superintendent. He's gone about the house with his hands in his pockets, shaking his head, and muttering to himself-' Strange! I never made a mistake in a man before; and then there's Draper's face, too!'" Young Weymouth set his teeth hard under his hand- some moustache. Perhaps he was cursing Philip Dra- per's face down deep in his heart, but he at least took care that his mother should not hear him. She went on, too excited herself to notice her son's silence: -"I have done nothing but attend to your father since yesterday. I knew you would take matters into your own hands as soon as you reached home." "Where is Draper? Has he left town?" asked Sydney with a sudden hope. i "I sent down for him at once, but learned that he would not be at home until late at night. I presume the storm has kept him." "No doubt," thinking it was the luckiest storm that ever fell into his own life. "Have you made up your mind what to do?" "I was too nearly frantic to make up my mind about anything, but I should certainly have shown Draper the officer's letter, and told' him the whole story-how that wretch had been going about to work his ruin with you and your father." "There seems no doubt this Reynolds is a rascal." ONE [OMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 261 cHe is the deepest and the blackest villain on the face of the earth, exclaimedMrs Weymouth "Hang- ing is too good for him. I hope, at least, he will go to State's prison for life." Sydney got up and moved about uneasily. "Itis a miserable mess!" he said. , There's only one way to remedy it. You must do it at once, Sydney." it What is that, mother?" "Z thought you would see it, too," said the mother, and for the first time in her life Mrs. Weymouth looked at her son with some doubt regarding the soundness of his judgment. "We must settle up this matter some- how with Mr. Draper. We must get him back in his place at the mills." "I don't see how that is to be managed. I doubt, indeed, whether Draper will wish to return. But we-must leave no stone untured to in due him to come backS continued Mrs. Weymou th idol, she did know your father; and there is nothing in the whole world that would go so far toward setting him up again as having this matter all settled as it was before that wretch interfered. For my own part, I'm ready to go down on my knees to Draper, if that will do any "I, mother! YOU talk like a woman," exclaimed Sydney. ,'Business is never done in that way." He did not know it; but there was some scorn or impatience in his voice. He began to feel that he was driven lto bay, and must turn and fight the fate that was closing around him. If Sydney was Mrs. Weymouth's idol, she did not page: 262-263[View Page 262-263] 262 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. less adore his father. All the heart of the wife .had been stirred in her by the scenes of the last twenty-four hours; and even her mother-love could not blind her to the fact that Sydney had been thoroughly deceived by a man straight from the cell of a prison, and that, had her son espoused Reynolds's side with less headlong obstinacy, her husband would never have taken the measures which had cost him so dearly. All this Mrs. Weymouth could see clearly with what knowledge of the facts she possessed. She knew how Sydney's father had been driven by his son's statements to act against his true convictions from the beginning; and even in the mother's eyes the son's conduct seemed precipitate and headstrong. Added to all the rest, there seemed something almost unfeeling in his tones, if not in his last words; and some sudden indignation overswept Mrs. Weymouth, which she would not have imagined possible she could ever feel toward her son. Under its influence she spoke--'If I am a woman, Sydney, I have sense enough to see where the truth is, and that if you had never been wheedled by that wretched Reynolds into swallowing his lies, this whole. thing would never have happened, and your father would not lie where he does to-day!" Words from his mother's lips bitter as blows; so bitter because of the terrible truth in .them. If a man had spoken them, there would have been some relief in knocking him down. He would have done it, too. As it was, Sydney rose up and stood before his mother. He was very white. "I have no reply now to make to your reproaches, ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 263 mother," he said in a hard, dry voice. "I want to know simply what you intend to do in this matter?" Mrs. Weymouth was not just herself on this morning. Grief and excitement had aroused some latent force in her, which, after all, was more like desperation than anything else. She spoke now in a way that left no doubt she meant to do precisely what she said she would. "I know what your father's wish would be. He would have justice done to Philip Draper. If you do not show him the letter, and tell him who has been at the bottom of all this miserable business, I shall, Sydney." "You will, mother?"His face was fairly livid. Her eyes were dim with weeping and watching, or she must have seen it. "I will, Sydney." He turned and walked up and down the room two or three times. He went to the window and looked out on the gray, dreary sky and sheets of rain, scourged and twisted by the frenzied winds. He wished he was dead; wild impulses flashed across him of running away,--of rushing out and throwing himself into the river, whose swollen rapids were thun- dering and tossing madly below; but Sydney Weymouth had neither those faults or virtues which plunge some natures into desperation and suicide. Yet it was the bitterest hour-the sharpest humiliation of his life; but the thing ;nust be done, even though he would give his right hand to avoid the doing. He turned away from the window and came and stood before Mrs Weymouth. "Mother," he said, "I have a story to tell you." She was on the point of returning to his father, but ,' ^ page: 264-265[View Page 264-265] 264 ONE WOMAN'S. TWO LOVERS. something in her son's manner struck her now, and she sank back in her chair, only saying--' You must be quick, Sydney." But during the next half-hour she forgot all about the time-forgot even about the invalid in the next room. Sydney Weymouth had to make a clean breast to his mother. If he did not tell his story precisely as I have told it to you along these pages, he did not intentionally distort the facts; it being a truth well worth remember- ing that one's own wrong-doing never appears to him- self precisely what it does to others. After all, the main features of my story and Sydney's are the same. He had proposed to Jacqueline Thayne. Here his mother started horror-struck. He had been refused. His father's superintendent had, or Sydney believed that he had, come between him and all which he coveted most on earth. No doubt this fact had unconsciously predisposed Sydney to listen to Reynolds's story favorably. He had believed he was doing the woman of his love the greatest of services to prevent her union with a hypb- crite and a scoundrel. After all, it seemed he had been deceived. - Reynolds was the villain, and Draper an innocent man. Sydney would, to- the end of his days, deplore the precipitation with which he had acted. This, in substance, was his story, and the woman who listened to it was Sydney Weymouth's mother. Yet, there were ugly features in the tale which she had heard. Although, of course, they looked to Mrs. Weymouth very different from what they have all along been look- ing to you. ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 265 She would henceforth bear a grudge toward Philip Draper, although he had spared her the misery of seeing her son the husband of Jacqueline Thayne. But Mrs. Weymouth was not without instincts of justice and honor, which her partiality could not wholly blind. "Oh, Sydney!" she cried out, "it is a terrible busi-. ness! How will it all look to your father?" For the last twenty-four hours Sydney Weymouth had been asking himself this question. His father had some old-fashioned notions of truth and honor. He could be inflexible enough, too, when his mind was once made up. He might insist on the superintendent's return at any price, and on installing him in his old place at the office. Spite of all that had passed, Sydney could not yet believe that Philip Draper: had willingly resigned his position. Young Weymouth walked up and down the room; a cold sweat came out on him. "To feel that he is my rival; to see him every day; to be certain that he suspects the secret cause which made me give what he at least will think such easy cre- dence to Reynolds's story! If Draper goes back, I will give up my position, and will never set foot in the works again, mother!"'-' Mrs. Weymouth wrung her hands. "Your poor father! What will he say?" "At least he will not forget that I am his son. There is some humiliation he cannot demand of me." Then it struck Sydney of a sudden that his father would have to know, too; and how the whole would look in the: old gentleman's eyes. He groaned out sharply. page: 266-267[View Page 266-267] 266 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. The groan went to his mother's heart. She knew what it meant. She rose up and went to her son; she laid her hand on his head. ' Sydney, I will tell your father," she said. She could at least spare her son the pain of going over his story a second time; and it must be several days before his father would be able to take in the whole bearings of the case. Meanwhile, they must do the best they could. When it came to losing his son or his superintendent, Mrs. Weymouth believed there could be no doubt that her husband's affections would incline the scale; but it was a miserable business, and Sydney's share in it must be an awful shock to his father. But what was done could not be helped. If Philip Draper and Jacqueline Thayne would only go off to the ends of the earth, where their faces could never be seen, their names never be heard of again! Suddenly Mrs. Weymouth-turned to her son with a start.- "He will be sure to come up here as soon as he reaches home and gets the message of your father's illness. " There was no need she should mention any name now; and the sound of Philip Draper was not pleasant in the ears of either mother or son. Sydney came and stood by her. "Mother," he said, "I could face an army of spec- tres, but I cannot see that man to-day." No need to repeat here all that followed. Suffice it that it was arranged betwixt the two that Philip Draper should not be admitted to Mr. Weymouth's bedside. There were plausible reasons for keeping him away from the patient; neither would Mrs. Weymouth acquaint i = ONE WONMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 267 the superintendent with her son's arrival, or the con- tents of the-letter which had precipitated her husband's illness. It could not serve the young man now to learn of the wool-sorter's villainy, and the share the latter had had in undermining the superintendent at the factories was Weymnouth's secret, and there was every reason why the latter should conceal-it. Somehow, all the time they were talking, both mother and son had a miserable feeling of guilt clinging to them. At the close of it all, the mother burst out with a woman's vehemence--' Oh, Sydney! I feel as though I could not go back and look your father in the face." The son did not answer, but his heart echoed the words so loudly that he fancied his lips spoke them also. CHAPTER XXIV. THE THAYNES, uncle and niece, awoke next morning to find the storm had not abated over night. The rain still rattled like volleys of musketry against the case- ment, and the winds held on their race-course among -the hills. Otter River was a spectacle to appal the eyes of the bravest. It overflowed the high banks at Hedgerows, and the wide meadows and pasture-lands below lay drowned under the flood. But that was not the worst. Borne helplessly along with the rush and thunder of the currents, were the page: 268-269[View Page 268-269] 268 ONE WOMAN'S TWO, LO VERS.. wide, terrible witnesses of the destruction which had been wrought in the land over night. All along the banks, for miles, mills; barns and storehouses had been carried away, while the wreck and debris tossed and struggled above the drowned lands at Hedgerows. The freshet had rushed in also upon the low country roads, and swept them off in a single night. With awful hiss and roar, the floods had burst over the lands for miles along the river, and where, the day before, had stretched green meadows unscorched of frosts, and orchards smiling in the warm autumn sunlight, there was now only one vast scene of havoc and desolation. Trees torn from their roots, bridges hurled away in the frenzy of the freshet, granaries with the stored harvests of the year--all the plunder of the flood lay now a heaving wreck on Otter River; every small mountain- stream, swollen suddenly into a mad torrent, having swooped up its trophies on the way, and shot them triumphantly into the great current. The thunder of the dam was awful. It almost drowned the bellowing of the, tempest when Squire Thayne and his niece met that morning in the break- fast-room and looked at each other. ,'Isn't this dreadful!" asked Jacqueline, with a shudder. "Yes; I never knew a storm like it in my whole life. God have pity on the victims!" answered the Squire, glancing out of the windows. "It hardly seems as though we had any right to take our breakfast so cozily while all this misery is going on outside," said Jacqueline. "Oh, yes, we have, bringing to it hearts a little more ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 269 thankful for ourselves, a little more pitiful for our human kin," answered the Squire, seating her at the table with his unvarying courtesy, which was beautiful, because it was an instinct with him. What a pleasant, attractive scene it was,-that warm, cozy breakfast-room, and the meal that old Deborah had prepared with her usual success! The contrast, too, of all that home peace and comfort with the mad storm outside, was something to strike the dullest imagina- tion. There -was not, perhaps, as much wit and humor as usually flashed and glimmered about Squire Thayne's coffee-urn; but I doubt whether, after all, the two had ever had a pleasanter breakfast together than that one. "Did you sleep last night through all that storm?" asked Jacqueline. "Sound as a hunter after a week's campaign. What in the world is there in the wind's blowing or the rain's, falling to prevent a man's sleeping who is at peace with God and his neighbor, andOhas sound nerves and a good digestion?" Jacqueline laughed. "I suppose all that applies to a woman also, for although the wind did wake me up two or three times, I dropped quietly off to sleep again." "Whew!" exclaimed her uncle, as the wind shook the house again. "What a blast of artillery that was! Let us go up into the Round Tower and get an idea of the general devastation." They went together. Just as they reached the lower landing her uncle playfully laid both hands on Jacque- line's shoulders and half lifted her up the stairs. There was nothing unusual in the act, only something hap- 24 page: 270-271[View Page 270-271] 270 ONE WOMAN'S TWO L O VERS. pened not long afterward which made Jacqueline re- member just how they two went up-stairs together that morning. From the upper windows of the Round Tower a ter- rible scene spread before them. There were the sub- merged land, the wrecks of happy homes, the year's noble harvest strewn upon the river. -For a while the two could not find voice enough to speak their pity and grief. Even Huckleberry Hill was gone. Jacqueline looked for it, and remembered the talk of last summer; but there was-only a black waste of waters where the old hill had lifted its broad green shoulder in the June sun- light. "The destruction is wider than I expected. I never dreamed my eyes would behold a calamity like this," said the Squire, going from one window to another. "And this is one night's work. Pitiful! pitiful!" 'and he shook his fine old gray head sadly enough. At last Jacqueline came to the window out of which she had walked one winter day-walked so. nearly to her death f She never stood there without remember- ing that time. Her uncle she fancied must have thought of it, too, for he came over and stood by her side and said--"Well, my little girl, you have seen enough of this scene of horrors. Let us go down." Before they reached the lower landing, there were voices in the hall. Two or three townsmen had come over in a hurry to solicit aid of Squire Thayne's work- people, Some warehouses, stocked with merchandise, on the other side of the river, a mile below, were in imminent ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 271 peril. The buildings had been regarded as quite out of danger, as they occupied a comparatively high point some distance back from the river; but the flood had already spread into the lower apartments, and without prompt measures at this juncture it was feared the foundations would give way. The Squire's workmen, with the exception of the gardener, were off duty that day, but the gentleman promptly offered his services to his neighbors. Jacqueline helped him on with his great-coat, and then said-"Oh, Uncle Alger! do take care of your- self. What if anything should happen to you!"It was not just like her to speak in that way. "What in the world, child, do you suppose would be likely to happen to me?"Then he turned back and looked at her. "You don't feel afraid, do you, to stay here alone in the storm?" "Afraid! Uncle Alger!" and her face answered for her. And Squire Thayne went. Drawing up his horse just at the entrance of the rail- road bridge, Philip Draper saw a sight which a man would not be likely to behold more than once in a life- time. He beheld the old, tall, narrow warehouse, with its three stories, totter and shiver like a human thing all through its gaunt-looking, frame; then slip from its foundations, while the current seized it, and it went with a slow, stately motion, like the gliding movement of a spectre, down the black whirl of the river, until at last it bore suddenly toward an island in the centre, -the tops of the small trees barely visible, and the old page: 272-273[View Page 272-273] 272 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. building was shivered to pieces in one moment, like some tower of sand that a child builds and a breath of wind topples over. Philip Draper had been on horseback for the last three hours. He was drenched to the skin, benumbed and exhausted with the wind. He had been overtaken by the storm, and had made his way back to Hedge- rows as he could by slow stages, the business which had taken him out of town not lying on the line of rail- roads. A small crowd of men on the other bank had also witnessed the strange spectacle of the house sailing down the river. They had not so good a standpoint for the whole effect as Philip Draper had, just above the railroad bridge; but the sight was sufficiently im- pressive to make them stand rooted and silent to the spot. When they turned to the other warehouse, that too was rocking-to its-foundations. Two men rushed out of the lower story in panting haste. "The timbers are giving way," they shouted. "Everything is going to pieces!" Then a face appeared at the upper window, with some surprise or apprehension in it, like that of a man suddenly awakened out of sleep. There was a shout of alarm among the men. "It's Squire Thayne! Come down for your life'!" The face disappeared. But the next moment there was a sharp creaking and rending of timbers, as though the soul bound up in the old beams and rafters found a voice in that last death-wrench, and then in a moment the whole building went to pieces with a crash like ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 273 thunder, and the mass choked the currents that pounced with hiss and roar upon it. The crowd of white, horrified faces looked at each other. Philip Draper on his horse, up at the railroad bridge, does not know to this day whether he heard the voices of the men shouting Squire Thayne's name the moment before the warehouse went to pieces, but a conviction flashed across him like lightning that the man was in- side the building. He was off his horse, leaving the creature to take care of itself;' he was down the road, his feet swashing the water, a few inches deep, which was creeping up the high bank; he was among the group of horrified, staring men. "Oh, my God! my God! what shall we do?" cried Philip Draper. In the black whirl of the waves and the choking mass of the timbers a face suddenly appeared. The figure seemed struggling with the current; but of a sudden a huge rafter floated against the man, struck him, and he went down. Philip Draper did not know that he had thrown off his overcoat; but he had, and plunged into the river. It seemed certain suicide. Surely no human strength could breast those fierce currents that would toss him about and suck him down, and drown the life out of him in a few moments; but Philip Draper never once thought of his own life-only of his friend's. How hedid it he cannot tell to this day; neither can the men who stood on the bank in stark, silent horror-- neither can I. I only know that Draper held his own in the block, swift current; that among the floating wrecks he saw the gray head drift once more; that he 24* page: 274-275[View Page 274-275] 274 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. seized it, and that with superhuman, strength and with one arm he fought the tides! It was well that he had been a splendid swimmer from his boyhood. He did not let go his grasp of his unconscious burden. He bore it out of the sweep of the main current, and then the men on the shore came to their senses and shot planks within his reach, and by the aid of these he still made headway toward the bank, until at last the nearly drowned men were dragged on shore by those who ventured farthest into the river to their aid, Yet Philip Draper never quite lost consciousness through all that dreadful time. He knew when they forced brandy through his lips, and when the crowd parted and they carried the Squire to the nearest house. Philip Draper knew, too, when they were bearing him- self away, and when, a little while afterward, he was in a wide, warm room; and then he quite lost con- sciousness. Jacqueline Thayne started of a sudden, for there was a loud knock at the door breaking in upon her thoughts. For the hour after her uncle went away she had herself been restless enough, unable to set at any work, going from one window to another, watching the storm out- side, and thinking of all the dreadful havoc it was making over the land. But after a while the story of Ruth Benson came up, and the talk-of last night followed hard on that; and she had forgotten all about the storm, and had been sitting still as a mouse before the fire for a half-hour when that loud, sharp knock sent her thoughts flying. ONE WOMAN'S' TWO LOVERS. 275 She went straight to the front door, the wind and rain roaring in as she opened it. Two or three men stood there. She recognized the doctor at once, and knew by his look that something was the matter. "Oh, what has happened?" she cried out, not think- ing for the moment of her uncle. The old doctor had known the girl from childhood. There was a dreadful pity in his eyes as he looked at her. "Try and be brave, Miss Jacqueline," he said; "it is your uncle!" She gave a little cry, then stumbled backward, and would have fallen, perhaps, if --Deborah had not put her arms around the girl, who did not even know that the old woman had come out and stood by her side, her face white as her mistress's. Suddenly Jacqueline staggered forward and caught the doctor's arm. She could not speak, but eyes did the service of lips, and he understood. "Oh, no, my child, he is not dead. He was in the warehouse, working like a beaver to save things, and didn't observe the danger, when the old shell suddenly went to pieces, and he was thrown into the river and dreadfully knocked about in the current and the wreck. But we will hope for the best. Try and be a woman for your uncle's sake. He will need you now, Miss Jacqueline." That was the one appeal to reach her. Jacqueline aroused from her stupor. They were lifting something carefully from a covered wagon outside. She had no need to' ask what it was. When they brought him in and laid him on the bed, she was at the head. page: 276-277[View Page 276-277] 276 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. The Squire was still unconscious; but after a hasty examination and consultation, they had thought it best to bring him home; and the physicians-for two had accompanied him--hai meanwhile sent for a sur- geon. Neighbors and friends hurried over with offers of -help; and the Hermitage beyond the belt of Pine Woods was full of awed, anxious faces; but no face was like the face of the girl who kept watch at the bedside, white and still, with all the life in the dreadful anguish of her eyes. Yet she seemed to understand everything they said to her, and was ready with service. Somebody asked if the young fellow was hurt; and another said " it was the grandest deed he had ever wit- nessed in his life, and that it was a miracle they'd either got to shore with a breath of life in them.' And then Jacqueline had started and inquired what they all meant. She got the story in fragments, for one and another took it up and told her what Philip Draper had done. Just as they had finished, her uncle opened his eyes; he knew the touch of the little soft fingers on his fore- head. "Jacqueline, Jacqueline!" he said, very feebly. At sound of the dear voice she put her face down to his. "Oh, Uncle Alger! Uncle Alger!" she said; and somebody who heard her speak then, said he kept wondering all that day whether the dead who loved each other here did not speak in just that way when they first met in another world. At that moment the surgeon came in; and for a little while Squire Thayne and his physicians had to be left ONE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. - 2" alone together, even Jacqueline dragging herself into the next room, only saying to the doctors--"You won't keep me away long?" The examination corroborated all the doctor's worst fears. The blow of the beam as he lay in the water had struck Squire Thayne on the back. It had para- lyzed the spine. One side of him was utterly helpless, and the hurt had been fatal! The physicians looked at each other. Squire Thayne had full possession of his senses by this time. He un- derstood the look and what it meant. "My friends, I am not afraid to hear it," he said. "Tell me how long the old hulk can hold out." "A few hours--until midnight, probably." There was no need of disguising the truth with such a man. He closed his eyes a moment, and then they heard him speak. "Oh, my bairnie! my bairnie!" and his voice had a real human anguish in it that it would never have had for himself. There was nothing to be done; and now the time was so short, it was cruel to keep her away from his side any longer. She came back from the next room, out of which Deborah had carefully shut everybody, keeping guard herself. Ever since she had been away a hope had been growing in Jacqueline's heart that it was not so bad as she had feared. Her uncle was alive; he had known her. He would recover in a little while. She came forward eagerly; the first livid terror had passed frotm her face. "Dear Uncle Alger, we will have you well in a little page: 278-279[View Page 278-279] 278 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. while!" she said, and that girl's love for him was in her face. He looked up and saw it. "Yes, dear, I shall be well in a little while," he answered with a smile, and a bright solemnity all through it. Whether the smile or the tones struck her, I cannot tell. The intimacy had been so long and close betwixt them that many words on either side were never needed. She darted a glance at him; her face grew awfully livid, the white lips stood fixed apart. He saw it all; but it must come, and better from him than from another. "Yet, my bairnie, I must go away from you a little while-such a very little while-remember that." She was mercifully half stunned for a moment. She stood there, staring at him in a ghastly way, her face fallen, her jaw dropped; then, as his meaning grew slowly upon her, she dropped down on her knees, with a little, low, exhausted cry. "I shall go with you, Uncle Alger!" she said. "I cannot live in the world all alone without you, and my heart -will break, and we shall go together," and a spasm of gladness actually shone across the whiteness of her face. He saw it. With a great effort he put up his right hand, for his left one would never move again, and stroked the face over which that dreadful pallor had grown. "I should not want to break your heart, my darling. I should not want you to come with me in that way." "Don't say that; I can't be left here all alone with- out you. Oh, Uncle Alger! you were never cruel to me in life. Don't be so now-don't say at the last that I may not come with you!' ONE WOMAN'S TWO 1 O VERS. 279 In her great anguish she hardly knew what she was saying. I think at that moment it seemed to her that her fate for life or death rested with the dying man. "But you are coming, dear, only not just yet. You must remember that; and the time between is so very short that it does not seem worth grieving about, only as I see what it costs my little girl; not?more, really, than it did when I used to bid her good-by in the morn- ing to be gone all day, knowing I should come back at night." "But, oh, uncle! there will be days and days and days--never to see you, never to hear your voice"- she cried out sharply, waving her hands, as though she would wave off those dreadful spectres of the future days. "Don't think about that. You have nothing to do with those days now, my child. But I have a good deal to say, and you will want to hear it, Jacqueline." There was all the quiet power of his old strong voice through his words. It had its influence even in the agony of that hour. One by one the people had gone out and left the two quite alone. It was the last talk, and in life they had loved each other so! I cannot tell whether it was the effort which she made to listen to his words, or whether it was in her case, as in all others, that nature had its limit of capac- ity for suffering, but she grew still and torpid, and lis- tened with her sharp, frozen face while her uncle went on talking. "You must bear that in mind always, darling, that page: 280-281[View Page 280-281] 280 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. it is only a little while-that you are coming to me; and every morning and every night you must remember that we are so much nearer the meeting, just as you used to look at the clock when I was gone, and say to yourself, 'In an hour at farthest he will be home again!' "So, let the thought be always with you that you are coming to me, and never that you are away from me, or that the grave lies dark between us.-" Still she did not speak. She only sat looking at him with that frozen, hopeless face of hers. "And take comfort, dear, from the thought that every time you tell over to yourself the words that you are coming to me, you will be a little nearer when you have finished than when you commenced speaking; and then I shall certainly not love my little girl less, but more, because I am in heaven and she upon earth; and, dear heart! she has always been so thoughtful for my comfort and happiness, she will be glad sometimes to think I am gone away to fuller life and blessedness." It seemed that then some faint feeling came into the hard, stony look of Jacqueline's eyes. Her uncle went on again. "And then there is so much to comfort you in the way I am leaving you; without any pain, to speak of. I have always looked forward with a cowardly dread to suffering; to the slow breaking down of vital forces, day after day, before disease; to the growing old,- sense and memory failing under the gathering burden of the years-you know how we've talked about all that?" She bowed her head, her lips moved and fairly ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. 28I writhed with their effort to speak, but not a word came out of them. "Such a good life as I have had in the world; such an easy way of getting out of it at the last; not a pang except that one of leaving my bairnie!" At that old familiar word her face broke up suddenly with a kind of gasp; she put it down on the pillow by the dying man's, and he felt the slow tears oozing upon his cheek; yet she lay quite still. He did not speak- for awhile, and when he did the energy of his voice had failed a little. He had left everything in order, he said. His will was made, and he could trust her to carry out all his wishes. She would live in the old home-she and- Deborah. It would be lonely at first, but though she might not be- lieve it now, God would certainly find some way to comfort her. And again he was still, and the hot, hopeless tears trickled upon his cheeks. After awhile he spoke again. "Jacqueline, you will take my last words to him--I should never have been able to send them if he had not put his life at stake to save mine." She knew he must mean Philip Draper. The doctors had. told the Squire all that had happened after he fell into the river. "Yes, uncle." "Tell Philip Draper that I loved him above all other men!" Even at that moment such words startled her. She lifted her head and looked at her uncle. There was a movement at the door just then, and Philip Draper came in. Weak and bruised with the page: 282-283[View Page 282-283] 282 ONE WOMAN'S TWO LOVERS. morning's work, the man dragged himself across the room to the bedside. An hour or two before, he had awakened from the stupor in which they had carried him up from the river to a house at hand. Familiar faces were all about him; his first inquiry was for the fate- of Squire Thayne. They broke the dreadful tidings carefully, for by this time it was known in every household throughout Hedgerows. Then the young man had insisted on coming out to Squire Thayne's. Everybody thought it was madness. The storm was, if possible, fiercer than ever, but Philip Draper was resolute. He looked at the Squire; he looked at the white, worn woman, over whose face age seemed suddenly to have crept. And the Squire said-c"Oh, my friend, I am glad to thank you before I die!" "I was ready to give my life to save you, but I was too late." The words choked out from his heart to Philip Draper's lips. Jacqueline heard them. She looked in his face. The sense of all he had done that day came suddenly upon her. "You tried to-save him for me. You did your best; but he is going to leave me all alone. Oh, my God! all alone!" It was the cry of her heart. Philip Draper turned and looked at her. She was the woman of his love, bowed unto death with her awful sorrow. Then his soul stirred itself within -him and cried out, and he could not help it--"Oh, Jacqueline! I would to God, for your sake, that I lay there in his stead!" ONVE WOMAN'S TWO LO VERS. 283 ) Perhaps through all her grief that cry made itself felt. But it was Squire Thayne who spoke now. "Philip, I have known it all along, and kept your secret well. Let me tell her now." Philip Draper understood. He must have answered with voice or sign, although he did not know it, and Jacqueline did not hear. "Jacqueline, he loves you, and God let him spare my life long enough to tell you!" She started back; she put her hand to her forehead; even then there came no flush across the deadly pallor, but the stoniness was all gone, and her face was quick with life as she lifted it and gazed at Philip Draper; and when his gaze answered hers she could not doubt that her uncle had spoken the truth. Something swelled in Jacqueline's heart which she thought could never move it for man again. With a blind instinct she put her hand in her uncle's, and when he laid it in Philip Draper's she knew what that meant, and did not withdraw it. "My children!"' he said, and he thanked God and blessed them. So they were betrothed. It was nearly midnight. Outside, the long vengeance of wind and rain had almost spent themselves. Since the sun went down the Squire's strength had failed. Before that time he had said many things to his niece and to Philip Draper which only they two of all the world will ever know. But his voice gradually grew fainter, and a great drowsiness gained upon him. He page: 284-285[View Page 284-285] 284 ONE WOMAN'S. TWO L O VERS. was restless at times, but he seemed to suffer very little pain. It was just before midnight when he roused him- self and -his eyes opened. Jacqueline put her face down to his. She heard him murmur, "I cannot see you, my child." "Here I am, Uncle Alger." ' He is the only man to whom I could ever have given you. I shall not leave you alone, my bairnie! my bairnie!" She lay quite still, listening, but no more words came, and- his lips grew very cold when her cheek lay close to them. At last Philip Draper's voice called softly: "Jacqueline!" and he lifted her up. She turned and looked at the face on the pillow, and then she knew! - Sh6 put out her arms to Philip Draper. "Philip, Philip, take me away!" she said, and then he knew for the first time that she loved him- that with her heart she gave herself to him! Overhead, out of a gray, watery edge of cloud, the young moon rode suddenly and looked on the faces of the man and woman and on the face of the dead which smiled beneath them; and that young moon, after the storm, was to them a promise of God written in the fresh blue of his heaven. THE END. X E I p 4
