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The damask girl 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
BOOKS BY 
 
 
 MORRISON I. SWIFT 
 
 
 The Damask Gikl .... 
 
 $ I.OO 
 
 Papery soc. (By mailyc. extra) 
 
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 The Morrison I. Swift Press 
 
 136 William Street 
 New Yokk 
 
THE DAMASK GIRL 
 
 And Other Stories 
 
 BY 
 
 MORRISON I. SWIFT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 The Morrison I. Swift Press 
 
 136 William St 
 
 1906 
 
Copyright, 1906, by 
 Edgak J. Swift 
 
 /\»l0S\v^* 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 The Myth of Pelican Dome ... i 
 
 A Very Rash Doctor ... 13 
 
 Caton's Daughter . . . . . 31 
 
 Call Again ...... 41 
 
 The Scientist's Wife 53 
 
 The Damask Gikl 69 
 
 Mighty Lionel 81 
 
 Changing the Climate of Tulip Valley . loi 
 
 Urgent ...... 107 
 
The damask girl 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
The Myth of PeHcan Dome 
 
 Men often do what is gloomily incomprehensible to 
 them afterward. To some this is habit, and their whole 
 sad career is an accusing mosaic of accidental destinies, 
 of which the most ill-timed and accidental of all is death. 
 
 Samuel Clifford West was in no sense a man of this 
 limp and weather-vane variety, and having thus nega- 
 tively defined him we know that he was of the masterly 
 disposition that holds the reins of Fate firmly, and when 
 the animal balks or frisks, whips it back to the track of 
 Will and makes it prance to some purpose. If such a 
 person forgets himself for a critical instant along life's 
 journey, the consequences to his mind are something as 
 if the forces of nature should pause and forget to act for 
 a few minutes: everything would be what? when the 
 forces undertook to resume again. 
 
 West had not slept for four nights in his mad speed 
 to reach his sick friend. Why couldn't this oleaginous 
 stage man hurry his brutes over the hills? 
 
2 The Damask Girl 
 
 Everybody might die at this rate and no one get to the 
 others' bedside. He sat by the driver contemplating 
 whether to hurl him out and take the reins or angle for 
 sleep. 
 
 The stage extended behind him the remote distance of 
 six tiers, the possessors of each seeming to form a sepa- 
 rate community of their own. Clifford ignored all the 
 inhabitants of this ark, disliked them, imagining they were 
 in secret conspiracy with the driver to walk his animals 
 up the steep spots. Then the four sleepless nights con- 
 quered, and he knew nothing, sitting bolt erect asleep. 
 
 "What is the name of that mountain ?" 
 
 These are perchance innocent syllables. You would 
 expect them to bring forth only such vocal ripples as 
 Pike's Peak, Mt. Washington, Marshall, Marcy, Indian 
 Head or Adam's Apple, or some other distinguished 
 sounds according to the geologic locality: the locality 
 most aflfected in this instance was Samuel Clifford West, 
 and if he had been driving Fate at his usual pace — but 
 this was the critical moment of pause. 
 
 A feminine voice spoke the words, and almost sleeping 
 though he was. West knew it to be the most wonderfui 
 of voices. He wanted to turn and gaze in the ques- 
 tioner's eyes to explore the source of the sweet freightage 
 of sound, and resented when the driver appropriated the 
 
The Myth of Pelican Dome 3 
 
 question and replied, "Great Dragon's Tooth, ma'am" — 
 but now all the laws of West's being were reversed. In 
 five minutes under any other circumstances he would 
 have been conversing with this melody-gifted sylph, whose 
 voice was affidavit of her charms : what did he do in this 
 instance but fall hard asleep again in fifty seconds? 
 "Do you know the legend of that lonely hill ?" 
 "No, ma'am ; but I know the owner of it." 
 She sweetly related the legend, though the driver, 
 nearly swamped in an ocean of sand, could do no more 
 than nod and grunt appropriately at the pauses without 
 quite gleaning the sentiment. The fable mingled with 
 West's dreams, and somehow through the clairvoyance 
 of sub-waking consciousness he was certain that the m)rth 
 of Pelican Dome was told for him, and in his somnolence 
 he hazily fancied, how or why he could not tell, it was an 
 invitation, a suggestion, almost an appeal. 
 
 The story was of an Indian maiden of matchless 
 beauty, persecuted by distasteful lovers until she resolved 
 to retire to a desolate place and await the coming of the 
 One whom she had seen only in fancy. She was certain 
 he lived, though he tarried and came not, for her fancy's 
 vision was clear and real. Then she set forth to find him, 
 telling none of her people why or whither she went. The 
 very next day the lover she sought came, only to find the 
 
4 The Damask Girl 
 
 mountain deserted. Far and wide he followed her, always 
 one day late, because she sped so swiftly in her zeal that 
 he could not overtake her. He knew her course, for she 
 was ever asking those by the way if they had seen the 
 beautiful youth whom she described — although she had 
 never seen him herself — ^yet when he came on after they 
 recognized him as her desired. Disheartened at last, he 
 betook himself back to the mountain, determined to re- 
 main there till death if she did not return, and that night 
 she came to him. 
 
 West should have turned then and taken a short path 
 across the meanderings of human history: he let the 
 magic chance slip by, only the creaking of the springs 
 belabored the silence that followed. Suddenly the rock- 
 ing vehicle sailed round a curve and began to descend a 
 three-mile slope, extending before them a marvelous pano- 
 rama of intercepting valleys distantly vestured in the 
 deepest, glossiest blue. Clear at the bottom the road 
 forked, and some of the passengers changed to a smaller 
 stage in waiting; in the new wagon they took their rela- 
 tive positions — but West had seen her face. 
 
 There was a party of three women who were traveling 
 for the benefit of their baggage, which had to be trans- 
 ferred and counted after them, consuming fifteen min- 
 utes of expert enterprise of the two drivers and West. 
 
The Myth of Pelican Dome S 
 
 They knew they had fifty-seven packages, including the 
 incidental cameras, dress-suit cases, foot wear, umbrellas, 
 parcels and literature-bags, and they insisted upon check- 
 ing them all off twice. At length the battle subsided and 
 the stage that had brought them bore away relieved and 
 exulting. The second conveyance was just to steam off 
 when the young woman who was now dominating all of 
 Samuel West's personality addressed the driver with an 
 eager exclamation : 
 
 "Please wait one moment ; I've been seeing them all the 
 way up, and I must have this one." 
 
 She sprang lightly out and plucked a four-leaved clover, 
 her head skillfully averted from West. The three bag- 
 gage women looked in astonishment at her, thinking 
 haughtily that it would take a long time to collect enough 
 such grass to fill another bag. 
 
 In climbing back her dress caught. It was another 
 glorious opportunity for Samuel West, the man of no 
 regrets, because he always garnered the occasions 
 that life presented him. Why did he not leap to her as- 
 sistance and pave the way to acquaintance after the fash- 
 ion and promptings of his burning desire ? This is why : 
 he was ashamed of his timorous procrastination, and felt 
 that he was already deep in her contempt ; he would have 
 stammered and not known what to say, he, Samuel Clif- 
 
6 The Damask Girl 
 
 ford West, who had been to Ceylon, Greece, Yakutsk, 
 Zululand, Paris, Patagonia and Boston, and talked to all 
 the women of these nations in their own engaging 
 tongues; wherefore, rather than blush and mumble for 
 the first time in his career, he remained like common in- 
 sensibility or a copper bust seated where he was while 
 this girl, who eclipsed all his vivid anticipations of the 
 infinite feminine, disengaged her own finite skirt and 
 mounted to her place alone. Now she rightfully hated as 
 well as despised him, which made two in the company 
 who felt that way. 
 
 "That's Defile Inn," remarked the stage man, pointing 
 forward with his whip. 
 
 "Oh," answered West, "is it?" nervously snatching at 
 the handle of his bag. 
 
 They rounded up at its entrance, where Clifford West 
 alighted, and it was his last chance to give or receive a 
 slight human message. He let that go, too. He was 
 chastening himself in gall and rankling scorn ; it was be- 
 yond retrieval, never could he regain that priceless pres- 
 tige before his own soul which this mortifying incredible 
 behavior had forfeited. 
 
 Without looking at the only person he was then con- 
 scious of in the State of New York or the state of ex- 
 istence, he disappeared into the hotel. The stage rum- 
 bled on to St. Michael's Lodge. 
 
II 
 
 West's friend was recovering. When it was no longer 
 necessary for him to stay about the place Clifford tramped 
 off to St. Michael's to study the register. She would 
 have arrived there June 29th, a whole week earlier. The 
 names of the three feminine baggage agents were tran- 
 scribed boldly in antagonistic scrawls, with those of sev- 
 eral single gentlemen, and one massive family tree even 
 down to the shrubs. On the whole, the 29th had been 
 a good day gastronomically for the Lodge, but there was 
 no signature by any drift of fancy mistakable for hers. 
 
 Clifford interviewed the clerk discreetly. 
 
 "Stages go on beyond to four points twice daily," was 
 the hope-terminating rejoinder. 
 
 Inquiry was useless, there was not a single clue; she 
 had vanished into the broad world and everything was 
 ended. So he said aloud as he wandered home, and then 
 satirized his folly, asking what there had been to end. 
 
 Edmund Trent sat on the veranda regaining his health. 
 
 "You can't hide it, Cliff; even the chambermaids see. 
 Something's astray in the upper altitudes." 
 
 West gave his friend the story. 
 
 "I never was a callow pulp of inaction before," he 
 
 7 
 
8 The Damask Girl 
 
 bridled defensively ; "yet this was the critical moment for 
 which the wheels of the ages had turned for me, and if s 
 gone." 
 
 "She's married and your star was protecting you/' 
 ventured Trent, to inspirit him. 
 
 "She's not married, and she loves me. I know she is 
 suffering just as I am, and we are lost to each other." 
 
 "Yes, you are both lost, wits and all, and suppose you 
 begin by finding yourself first." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "You were the class poet, weren't you ?" 
 
 "Oh, well." 
 
 "And have done some poetic tricks since?" 
 
 "A few." 
 
 "Yes, your nom de plume is at least a 'Minor American 
 Poet' already. Now, I'll tell you. Ashmere's on the staff 
 of — what's that popular magazine all the girls read? — 
 write the Indian legend into a poem, put in civilization, 
 the stage coach, yourself, the four-leaved clover and the 
 'heaven-tuned' voice. Make Ashmere publish it in his 
 next issue, which is August : she'll read it and the lost will 
 be found." 
 
 "I don't see it." 
 
 "Oh, she'll write to you through the magazine office, 
 and then reunion, fond reconciliation, and, if necessary. 
 
The Myth of Pelican Dome 9 
 
 mutual recognition, though two simpletons might be per- 
 ffectly happy forever without recognizing." 
 
 "Your brain's affected, Trent ; you'd better go to sleep." 
 
 Yet West did it, and managed to convey in the beau- 
 tiful cipher of poets a revelation to one illumined by love's 
 X-light — if she should ever see it — that the American 
 lover sought and haunted the same mountain to find the 
 lost Caucasian maiden of 1904. 
 
 Then Samuel Clifford West returned to the hills, took 
 up his abode in Shady Crag Cottage at the base of Peli- 
 can Dome, and spent each day upon its summit. The 
 convalescent Trent was now fled, so there was no creature 
 tut himself to know how utterly silly he -was. 
 
 Pelican Dome was no longer as it used to be in the 
 days of the enchanting Indian beauty. Now the gentle 
 millinery of civilization often fluttered in its soft winds, 
 through its foliage peeped cannibalistic-looking lunch 
 baskets, for it was the finest mountain in all the grand 
 quiver of peaks from which to gaze off on the beauty of 
 the world without a lofty penitential climb before and 
 after. 
 
 The twenty-ninth of August came, and in two days 
 West must abandon the hills for austere practical life. 
 The twenty-ninth was the memorable date. 
 
 It was a quiet, delicious morning, and the mountains 
 
lo The Damask Girl 
 
 were sheened in a rich, warm, hazy glow ; a sweet gen- 
 tle melancholy pervaded heaven and earth as summer, 
 just departing, poured forth its treasured culminating 
 effulgence for man. West ascended the Dome and threw 
 himself upon the ground, feeling all nature summoning 
 the wondrous unknown in the glad vibrations of his 
 tumultuous blood. At such times there is a yearning for 
 the presence of a consciousness as wide and deep and 
 thirstingly insatiable as one's own. Everything primitive 
 in man grows urgent and passionately throbs for escape 
 into more illimitable life. 
 
 West did not at once perceive the object lying open on 
 the ground a few yards off, though he could have told 
 that magazine from one mountain peak to another. It 
 was turned down at his poem ; he looked at it, lost in the 
 question whether she for whom he had sent out his song 
 had placed it there for his coming. Something rustled, 
 and they stood before each other. Ah, if he had known 
 that she, too, might be silenced by the spell of love, while 
 the blood reveled its wild betrayal through her skin. 
 
 He did not instantly speak to her — and when his words 
 came they were not those he had contrived day and night 
 through the waiting weeks. 
 
 She took the faded four-leaved clover from her breast 
 and extended it to him. 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 
 
 Some work kept me in my office laboratory, and it was 
 midnight before I realized how the hours had flown. 
 When I looked up I was startled to see a man standing 
 in the middle of the room. How had he entered with- 
 out my hearing him? I confess a chill ran through me 
 as I quickly arose to demand his business. As I did so 
 he became rigid and would have fallen had I not sprung 
 forward to his support. 
 
 This seizure settled my nerves and I became my natural 
 cool self; the gentleman was there to consult me profes- 
 sionally, in my capacity as nerve specialist. It was flat- 
 tering, and I at once took great interest in him — a young 
 specialist is susceptible to all recognition, even midnight 
 or two o'clock in the morning recognition. 
 
 His fit lasted six and three-quarters minutes, but I 
 brought him out safe. While he was in his stupor I no- 
 ticed a revolver in his coat pocket, probably there in con- 
 templation of suicide, — as I carried him to the sofa it 
 knocked against me. 
 
 13 
 
14 The Damask Girl 
 
 "You have perhaps saved my life," he moaned weekly, 
 as he opened his eyes ; "but, my God, I would rather die 
 than suffer from any more of these attacks." 
 
 "Let us trust they may be warded off," I answered 
 cheeringly; "lie still a while and you may then give me 
 an account of your case." 
 
 He pulled himself up and began at once to talk. 
 
 "Time is precious," he cried, with an unnatural ring in 
 his voice ; "if it does not happen at two o'clock to-night 
 I'm lost! I shall know it's an incurable affection of the 
 brain." 
 
 He was much excited, and gripped for his watch, al- 
 most tearing it from his pocket. 
 
 "Calm yourself and speak," urged I ; "these catalepsies 
 are quite curable if directions are strictly observed." 
 
 "Ah, there is hope, then, is there? Hope! I don't 
 know, ah ! but hear me, doctor ; hear my story before you 
 venture encouragement." 
 
 He took a little sip of the healing liquid I had prepared 
 for him and began. 
 
 "Four nights ago I had no idea of coming to the city ; 
 Providence may be in it, pray Heaven it may. Just at 
 midnight I fell into a waking dream. I saw myself wind- 
 ing through streets to a handsome house, which I entered 
 without ringing; I hurried up stairs and passed through 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 15 
 
 two doors which I now distinctly see, and found myself 
 behind curtains screening a large and elegant room. In 
 the centre of this reposed a richly elaborate coffin. 
 
 "As I waited three young men entered, two of them 
 almost carrying the third, who was sadly under the in- 
 fluence of drink or some stupefying drug. With horror 
 I divined their intent, but it was impossible for me to stir 
 or lift my voice. They conveyed the unresisting victim 
 to a settee, removed his garments and decked him in 
 funeral attire, and lifted him into the repository of death. 
 As they began to screw down the cover, rendering the 
 receptacle impervious to air, so that the occupant must 
 soon die of suffocation, I broke forth into a terrible shriek 
 and awoke from the trance. I was dripping wet from an 
 agony of perspiration and trembling with exhaustion." 
 
 The narrator paused, and I was about to put some 
 questions about the condition of his digestion, when he 
 resumed : 
 
 "For three nights that vision has recurred, always at 
 the same time, and always indicating two o'clock of this 
 very night as the hour when the tragedy will transpire. 
 Yesterday I could endure it no longer and took the train 
 hither, meaning to visit a specialist on the brain, and idly 
 fancying that my presence might avert some foul calam- 
 ity. Now, sir, you have my remarkable experience from 
 
i6 The Damask Girl 
 
 beginning to end, and I throw myself upon your profes- 
 sional wisdom." 
 
 I meditated profoundly, recalling everything in psychia- 
 try that might throw a gleam on this startling problem. 
 
 "Have you relatives in the city?" I inquired, making a 
 shrewd guess. 
 
 "Some cousins," he answered, "who are much above 
 me in wealth, and as I rarely come this way I do not 
 even know where they live." He was a little uncomfort- 
 able under this query, as one might be who was consid- 
 ered an inferior country relation. 
 
 I got up and walked to a cabinet of chemicals, turning 
 on two more electric burners as I did so. 
 
 "Sir," I said, "your case is serious but not hopeless. I 
 believe I can cure it." 
 
 Those who wrestle with the complicated pathology of 
 the human nerves will apprehend my reasons for having 
 a mirror behind the bottles of this cabinet, which enabled 
 me to observe patients when my back was turned. I be- 
 gan to compound a mixture, keeping an eye upon the mir- 
 ror. "The brain," said I, rattling the bottles diligently, 
 "is an organ of wondrous tunes ; sometimes the player is 
 super-phychical, by which I mean that the agencies that 
 are about to produce events act upon a sensitive mind be- 
 forehand, premonitorily. I do not consider your phe- 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 17 
 
 nomenon to be of such a sort, yet the first step toward 
 cure is to convince you that it is not, in order to remove 
 the dread of an outward calamity in some way associated 
 with you. Do you think you could trace your way to 
 that imaginary abode?" 
 
 The man's face glowered up behind me with vivid sat- 
 isfaction, and for a moment all traces of illness vanished. 
 
 "I can't say that what is so plain in my mind is a map 
 of actual streets and corners, but the route is as definite 
 as if I had known it for years." 
 
 "Good," said I ; "let us at once unseat this fixed idea by 
 proceeding to the place and proving that your tragedy is 
 but diseased imagination. I will get my coat." 
 
 The mirror again revealed my patient's delight, but as 
 I turned to him his face was long and wan. I went into 
 a side room for my light top coat and medicine case, but 
 scooping out the bottles I quickly inserted in their stead 
 a couple of loaded revolvers. 
 
 "Lead the way," said I, returning, "and we'll see what 
 the spirits can do for us ; your dream can have no truth, 
 but a doctor is always more comfortable with his medicine 
 box about him for emergencies." 
 
 I amused him with a recital of desperate cures as we 
 proceeded, so that he must have been a very much 
 shrewder fellow than I took him to be not to imagine that 
 
i8 The Damask Girl 
 
 my head was filled with nothing but nervous afflictions. 
 
 We reached a residence at length among the best of the 
 town before which my guide paused. 
 
 "Strange," he exclaimed, with a palpable shudder, "here 
 is the very front I saw in my vision !" 
 
 It was his way to remove barriers and then await my 
 initiative. 
 
 "Come," I said, "you walked in without obstruction in 
 your trance, let us see if it can be done now." 
 
 It was a notable corner mansion, and although the 
 front was absolutely dark the large doors swung open to 
 our trial, admitting us to an ink of gloom. 
 
 "Goodness \" I whispered ; "'they must manufacture the 
 dark here, keep by me." 
 
 With my case under arm I grasped his elbow with my 
 left hand, shakily, as if perturbed, drawing close to him, 
 and slipped my other hand into his pocket, abstracting the 
 pistol it held. We ascended the stairs silently, passing 
 through two doors into a curtained retreat; there was 
 light beyond, illuminating a magnificent apartment, ren- 
 dered sombre by a costly casket and its funeral appurte- 
 nances. 
 
 My companion swayed the hangings aside to look at 
 his watch, letting them fall again into their place — I had 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 19 
 
 a second's glimpse of him, his face was ashen pale and his 
 hand trembled violently. I caught the moment of dark- 
 ness to slip his pistol into a corner of the little chamber. 
 
 "Just two," he murmured, and on the instant a door 
 opened and three men, ranging about the age of thirty 
 and clad in high fashion, advanced into the room. The 
 dream had progressed correctly to this point ; but reality 
 now deviated, for none of the lot was in liquor, yet their 
 visages were hard with the emblems of dissipation. 
 
 I began to wonder if I had done well to venture into 
 the power of four desperate plotters in their own lair, 
 whose purpose toward me must be as evil as they ap- 
 peared rude and merciless, when one of them touched a 
 button in the wall and the curtains slid back, exposing us 
 to view. One of the men called me politely by name : 
 
 "Dr. Allen, if you will kindly step this way we desire 
 to engage you for services in your line." 
 
 My companion followed me as I advanced to a prof- 
 fered seat near a table facing the four. 
 
 "Gentlemen," I responded pleasantly, "I am not usually 
 consulted in this manner, but my professional offices are 
 always at command." 
 
 Without further ado the oldest, whose features wore a 
 brutal and repulsive strength, delivered himself: 
 
 "We trust, doctor, you will not object to indulging in 
 
20 The Damask Girl 
 
 a whim of ours for a couple of days for a fee of twenty 
 thousand dollars — there is the money." 
 
 He tossed a roll of bills on to the table in my direction. 
 
 "The nature of your whim might make some differ- 
 ence," I suggested. 
 
 "No, it would not." He spoke with an accent of stern- 
 ness that was uncomforting. "You shall know -our will. 
 A brother of ours disappeared a year since, and we con- 
 sider him dead — in truth, we have the best of evidence 
 that he is so. This, however, does not satisfy the legal 
 sticklers, and a fortune of several millions hangs fire un- 
 til we prove his demise — in other words, its division awaits 
 the proof. Now, we can't wait, and we say, d — ^n the 
 legal obstructions ; if Charles isn't on top of the earth he 
 shan't keep us out of our share, and since he's dead he 
 shall not exclude us from his." 
 
 The speaker's face knotted up until his eyes glared at 
 me out of a very repellant twist. 
 
 "I cannot raise the dead," said I, to smooth his temper 
 and countenance. 
 
 "No one wants you to," he snarled angrily ; "that's not 
 in you doctors' line ; you can make the dead in plenty, but 
 you can't unmake them — but you can prove that my 
 brother Charles is where " 
 
 "You want him ?" I prompted. 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 21 
 
 "Dead," he scowled. 
 
 "How, sir?" I brightened, "explain yourself — if this is 
 all you ask of me for that money and it can be done in 
 two days." 
 
 His face untied considerably on hearing me speak thus. 
 I had touched him right and he sailed through the rest 
 of his plot in less choppy humor, while his very first 
 words were like a dirk thrust to me if I had but chosen 
 to show it. 
 
 "Why, you see, you're the picture of Charles." 
 
 "And by feigning death and going through a funeral 
 as becomes a corpse the authorities will admit that Charles 
 is no more." 
 
 "You catch on quick, doctor; you're all right." 
 
 I knew I felt ghastly within, but they were admiring 
 the shrewdness of my wit and did not see it. 
 
 "You perceive there's no fraud about it; he's dead, it 
 isn't killing him." 
 
 "Excellent," I cried, with a twinge of inner sickness, 
 "and couldn't I help you a little farther? As attendant 
 physician on his last hours I could give you a certificate 
 of his death." 
 
 They applauded this proposal warmly, I was winning 
 on their confidence; yet I knew that if I went into that 
 
22 The Damasi. Girl 
 
 cofHn I should never come out of it : these shrewd rogues 
 wouldn't take that risk of my exposing them. 
 
 "We must have things ship shape," said I. "Is the 
 coffin comfortable ?" 
 
 "Elegant," said they; "you can see for yourself — 
 try it." 
 
 I took off my overcoat and flung it carelessly away; 
 they could tell that it had no pistol in it. I buttoned my 
 trim coat tightly about me so that a weapon would have 
 shown through my pocket, and they could see at a glance 
 I was unarmed. I knew their eyes were open for this 
 very thing; they had no fear of me now, and quite re- 
 laxed. 
 
 "We'll show you," said they, and a couple lifted off the 
 entire casket top, exhibiting a rich soft fluff of satin that 
 would have been most seductive in any other environ- 
 ment. 
 
 "And about ventilation," said I, with innocence; "one 
 can't carry in a day's air." 
 
 They were a little bluffed, but I spared them notice of 
 it and gave them time. 
 
 "We'll slide the glass," was their leader's happy re- 
 joinder. 
 
 "Quite adequate," I agreed. The glass was expressly 
 built in not to slide, I had observed. 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 23 
 
 "Now, gentlemen," said I, "not to consume your time 
 and mine, when is my funeral to be?" 
 
 "Day after to-morrow ; we must give you time to be- 
 come a little corpse-like, and will request you not to eat 
 until after the final ceremony." 
 
 "Ah, um," ejaculated I, with a deep sinking; "four or 
 five meals is not a long abstention — for twenty thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 "We hoped you'd see it so," they chuckled oozily; the 
 air of the room was wringing wet with hypocrisy, but 
 their grilled smiles showed what cheap and easy prey 
 they thought me. 
 
 "And until the pleasant event — I mean the funeral — 
 where am I, uh, er, to — fast?" 
 
 "In the box there," the chief rake answered bluntly, 
 the devil playing in his eyes. "You must train for your 
 duties, you know, and you're much safer shut up than 
 running loose in the house. You might want to run 
 away." 
 
 They all looked at me, grinning. 
 
 I forced the elements of a pleased smile and put them 
 together on my face as best I might ; but I felt my spirit- 
 ual teeth chatter aloud as I saw myself murdered in that 
 box, suffocated by these demons. Withal I could hear 
 my own voice, as the dead may bear the living in another 
 sphere, saying with astonishing composure : 
 
24 The Damask Girl 
 
 "Your cause is just. If a man is to deserve his salary- 
 he must earn it, and if I may further advance your plans, 
 I have with me some harmless drugs which a few hours 
 after taking will lend me the appearance of having died 
 of a malignant and infectious disease; my aspect under 
 their influence will serve to both relax my features and to 
 frighten off the inquisitive from your doors." 
 
 They swore big curses of satisfaction at me ; that would 
 make strong the only weak place in their plot ! The leader 
 cried : 
 
 "We'll raise your fee to twenty-five thousand!" 
 
 Why shouldn't they — ^to fifty thousand — when they 
 would take it back from my dead hand ? 
 
 My chemical case was on the table by me, and I snapped 
 back the catches, talking of what my drugs would do ; my 
 brain for a space was in a fiery whirl ; I only know that 
 when things cleared I was like polar ice, looking down 
 across ten cartridges at four huddled men with hands 
 high aloft. 
 
 "Clasp your hands on your heads," I advised thought- 
 fully, "you may have to stand that way some time, and 
 I wouldn't tire you." 
 
 Keeping my aim I backed to the nearest window, and 
 kicked out a great pane of glass ; my foot struck an im ■ 
 pediment beyond, and I realized that the window was 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 25 
 
 heavily shuttered. There was no doubt that three of the 
 fellows were armed; but I had taken the weapon of the 
 fourth, and him I sternly ordered to advance and throw 
 open the shutters. 
 
 "My friends," I said, "let us understand each other. 
 You intended to smother me in that box and to bury and 
 leave me buried in good earnest ; you wouldn't have dared 
 to let me out with a knowledge of your villainous con- 
 spiracy. And where is your brother Charles? Whac 
 good would all this plotting do you unless he is cer- 
 tainly dead? He might return any hour to dispossess 
 you. If he is dead from fair causes this trickery isn't 
 necessary. It's clear, then, that he is dead already by 
 foul means, or that vou're going to kill him. By inten- 
 tion you are therefore twice murderers : I shall treat you 
 as such. I'm a good shot, and if I see the least move- 
 ment toward pistol-play I will shoot the mover dead. I 
 have the advantage, and before you draw on me I can 
 finish you all." 
 
 They were hard men, lost to all human sense, but their 
 nerves were debauched and they had no mind to put my 
 skill to the test. They may have been thinking, too, of 
 the process by which they had lost the whip-hand that 
 night. 
 
 "Are you a detective, or just Dr. Allen?" sallied their 
 leader, attempting humor. 
 
26 The Damask Girl 
 
 "Just plain Dr. Allen, a mere doctor." I could quite 
 endure their smartness. 
 
 Watching narrowly, I extracted a call whistle from my 
 vest,, and standing in the window prepared to blow a 
 shrill note. 
 
 "Ah," I said, taking the whistle from my mouth un- 
 sounded. Exultation had painted itself on the ring- 
 leader's face — it fled before a wave of rage when I didn't 
 blow. 
 
 "You would have liked it," I remarked. "Would it 
 bring up your friends in the house?" 
 
 His oaths uncoiled like a steel spring and I was sorry I 
 had taunted him; these full drinkers are like blind bulls, 
 apt to demolish their skulls on rocks through sheer inter- 
 nal explosion. I had too many to handle easily; three 
 would manage more amiably than four. The coffin top 
 was still off. 
 
 "Climb into that coffin," I said to the irate big fellow 
 sharply. 
 
 It took the snap all out of him, and he begged like a 
 craven. 
 
 "I'll give you three," I said, "and if you haven't 
 climbed I'll send sizzling lead down your backbone." 
 
 I made the others stand facing the wall while I re- 
 lieved them of their revolvers, beginning at the coffin. 
 
A Very Rash Doctor 27 
 
 "Now screw on the lid, and screw it tight." 
 
 He thought I meant to murder him as he would have 
 dealt with me, but he dared not scream. 
 
 "I'll only hurt you if you make a noise, and then I will 
 hurt you," I vowed to him. 
 
 I made those three men pick that heavy casket up and 
 bear it softly downstairs and out of the front door into 
 the street, while I walked behind them with a taper in one 
 hand and a pistol in the other. I marched them through 
 the street a block, and under an electric bade them set 
 their burden down and slightly slacken the lid for air. 
 
 Then I blew my whistle loud and long for patrolmen, 
 and when after ten minutes none came I fired a couple 
 of shots to wake them up. Still the squadrons of peace 
 slumbered and time sped. The nearest precinct station 
 was ten blocks ofif. 
 
 "Move on," I said, "and take the funeral with you." 
 
 Down the avenue puffed and staggered the cortege, the 
 pall-bearers doing the first stint of honest work of their 
 lives and making a terrible heave of it. Before the po- 
 licemen's home I blew my call again and a batch of blues 
 tumbled out to receive us. The mourners had to be well 
 nigh carried up the steps from fatigue. 
 
 Three months after that, brother Charles of these 
 blessed scoundrels came to my office. He was a fine, 
 
28 The Damask Girl 
 
 bronzed fellow, to resemble whose corpse would have 
 flattered any man. He was indeed the only human mem • 
 ber of his family, all the rest being brandy-pickled rats. 
 
 "You saved my life, Dr. Allen," he said, wringing my 
 hand tremendously with his strong arm. "My good 
 brothers had dispatched, a brace of desperadoes to do me 
 up ; they were on my heels and about to strike when the 
 story of your great exploit was telegraphed everywhere, 
 and they read it. Seeing they had lost their hire they 
 turned informers, and had the chilled greed to demand 
 for not killing me what my family had promised them for 
 killing me. I spun them down two flights of stairs, their 
 heads bowling over their feet and legs like ten-pins. 
 
 "By George, that last coffin scene, where you deliv- 
 ered your catch to the police screwed up in the box that 
 was to have buried you, dims all the glories of common 
 war." 
 
Caton's Daughter 
 
Caton's Daughter 
 
 Ramrod was the picturesque name of a little town 
 which I have good reason never to forget. I pulled up 
 there one Saturday at the end of a month's hard riding 
 inspecting certain oil rights I had acquired, a sun-browned 
 man whose outward garniture was the worse for the 
 storms traversed but whose blood and appetite were prob- 
 ably the best in the country. I was unshaven and un- 
 doubtedly rough-looking, and that is what enabled me to 
 pass an inspection and perform a duty which a man more 
 glitteringly garbed could not have risen to. It is well 
 that I did not know on setting out that I was to meet a 
 lady. 
 
 After stabling my horse and washing at the hotel pump 
 I went in to supper. They put me at the only table occu- 
 pied by guests that night; I confess the other travelers 
 surprised me, I seemed to them the usual occurrence in 
 that country. They did give me one glance as I sat at 
 the other end of the board, or at least the man did, which 
 seemed to satisfy him of my innocuousness ; I concede 
 that I did not see that the young woman looked at me 
 
 31 
 
32 The Damask Girl 
 
 at that time. Thus neglected, I could study them under 
 my long rumpled hair and above my month's beard with- 
 out impropriety. When the father — it was clear at once 
 that he occupied that pleasant position toward the young 
 woman — ^had settled me and placed me on my level he 
 resumed a didactic conversation which I seemed to have 
 ruffled for an instant, and being a little tepid in his pre- 
 vailing emotions and determined, took no pains that I 
 should not hear. He had tabulated me as a non-existence, 
 perhaps a guess to be repented of by him — and the girl, 
 for she was not much more than that, spoke her replies 
 as clearly as if she had been talking to me. 
 
 "Berta, I can tell you something you will find out be- 
 fore you are much older: the best husband gives you 
 plenty of money and lets you alone. You are in a posi- 
 tion then to be happy without the fatigues of a vindic- 
 tive affection. For strong love is vindictive and maims 
 its object to be sure of it. A man who loves a woman 
 much is a menace to her peace and happiness ; he worries 
 her into rapid old age. Are you listening, daughter?" 
 
 "Very respectfully." 
 
 "Reginald Lidding has the right points for a husband. 
 He will idolize you in public and let you alone in private. 
 You liked him well enough in Europe and wherever 
 you've met out here. It is an appropriate family alliance 
 
Caton's Daughter 33 
 
 on both sides, and rich girls must do their duty in this 
 respect. You owe it to your country." 
 
 "I don't love him." 
 
 "All the better. You will have the ascendency. Let 
 him think you do, just enough to keep him faithfully irri- 
 tated. He will mildly dangle as long as you live and be 
 proud of you without pestering fervency. There'll be no 
 scandalous divorce. I hate them." 
 
 "It would be wicked to marry without love, wouldn't 
 it, papa?" 
 
 The elder gave a sound as when a cat elevates its back, 
 and paused with the coffee cup before his lips. 
 
 "I shall put an end to your nonsense. Reginald will 
 be here with a clergyman in an hour, and you'll be mar- 
 ried this night. That's why we came to this God-doomed 
 spot. Do not go out of my sight." 
 
 I had stopped eating and was gazing straight at the 
 young lady to see the effect of these astounding senti- 
 ments. She lifted her large eyes to me and for at least 
 three seconds a current of — I don't know what — ^passed 
 between us. Then she calmly lowered her glance and an- 
 swered, "Very well, father," and completed her supper. 
 
 The reason why / had come to this God-doomed place 
 was now clear to me, though it was not so obvious how I 
 -was to perform my duty. j^ 
 
34 The Damask Girl 
 
 I thought it would be well as a preliminary to convince 
 the tyrant that I was not alive in his sphere, and I took 
 off my coat, throwing it over the back of a chair toward 
 him, and, sitting in my flannel shirt, lighted a pipe and 
 smoked; which affected him so deeply that he did not 
 need to look at me to illustrate his contempt. The land- 
 lord, humbly obsequious to this pair, requested me to de- 
 sist from smoking in the lady's presence, and I left the 
 table and took a careless look at the register. The names 
 of these interesting strangers might bring some light. 
 
 "Jerome Caton — Denver." 
 
 "Ethelberta Caton — Denver." 
 
 The ill-kept host's offensive suppleness was fully ex- 
 plained. I registered an assumed name, for my own hap- 
 pened to be well known in those whereabouts. Strolling 
 out to the stable ostensibly to examine Mildred after her 
 long journey, I took notice of the other mounts, of which 
 two were first class and the others indifferent. The stable 
 boy having bedded and fed the animals, would not be in 
 again until, the next arrivals, so after tossing the super- 
 fluous saddles and bridles into the loft and taking the 
 best, I led the two good steeds out by the back way and 
 tied them under a tree a little distance off, turning the 
 others loose. It was pretty dark and they would not be 
 remarked. 
 
Caton's Daughter 35 
 
 There was a rival hotel of the genus spirituous with i 
 lot of fellows of all sorts sitting about smoking and drink- 
 ing, and from these I picked my man, a shrewd-visaged 
 young cowboy, and got him aside. 
 
 "Friend," said I, "do you want to play a practical joke 
 and make fifty dollars by it? ' 
 
 "Sartin." 
 
 "Take your horse out into the country a little way and 
 then come riding in high speed to the 'Three Chickens,' 
 where Caton is stopping. Say you have important news 
 for him, and tell him on the quiet but with great excite- 
 ment that the Gaylor band have heard he is here and are 
 on the road to capture him and his daughter for a big 
 ransom, and that his time to get away is short." 
 
 "All right, I like that, you can trust me." 
 
 "I know it," said I. "Here's the spoil, and be quick, 
 and cut the telephone between here and Fakirs' Nest 
 afterward." 
 
 I returned to the hotel, and in about seven minutes there 
 was a furious clatter of hoofs, and the cowboy burst in 
 with a perspiration which I did not see where he obtained 
 in so short a time. He got Caton into a corner and whis- 
 pered my story with fine impetuosity. The Gaylor crowd 
 were the terror of the country at that time, and Caton 
 didn't wait to ask questions — though he remembered his 
 
2,6 The Damask Girl 
 
 duty to the young man with a fifty dollar note — ^but or- 
 dered the horses brought on the instant. The stable boy 
 came back pale-faced to announce that every horse was 
 gone. 
 
 "They must have sent some of their men in ahead to 
 do that and hold you," offered I in an undertone, "but 
 that needn't keep you. I have two extra steeds with sad- 
 dles out in the heath which you can take. Say nothing 
 of this to the rest but come with me. If you can get away 
 quietly without anyone knowing the direction they will 
 lose time following." 
 
 He looked at me doubtingly, lest I might be a Gaylor 
 in disguise ; but the daughter urged : 
 
 "Quick, father, come ! They'll be here !" 
 
 "Hold the rest back," I motioned to the cowboy. Once 
 out of the house we ran. 
 
 "Saddle that one for her and I'll do this for you," I 
 directed Caton. 
 
 He had Ethelberta mounted, and turned toward me. I 
 pricked my animal with a knife and he reared frightfully 
 "Stand back and I'll have him down in a minute.'' 
 He obeyed, and I leaped into the saddle, giving a touch 
 with the whip which brought my horse alongside the 
 other, whose bridle I seized, and with a sharp word of 
 urgency to the spirited brutes we were off. Caton howled 
 
Caton's Daughter 37 
 
 murder and various other things in his fury, for he 
 thought I was a Gaylor indeed and had taken his daughter 
 by force. 
 
 Fakirs' Nest was ten miles off and we made the ride 
 hke wind. Slackening as we reached it to enter decor- 
 ously, I inquired of the first man for the house of a par- 
 son. Then I brought my animal close to her's and asked : 
 
 "Is that where we are to go?" 
 
 She reached out her hand, which was trembling, and 
 I took it and kissed her. 
 
 The ceremony was hardly over, for the good man didn't 
 know our danger and I dared not hurry him, when a 
 reveille of hoofs sounded outside and Jerome Caton 
 stormed in with Reginald Lidding and someone in a very 
 dusty white choker, and three or four more, who served 
 as native constables and deputies, behind. Some one had 
 marked my advances to the cowboy in the other hotel, 
 and as that discreet young person had disappeared they 
 put things together and concluded there were no Gay- 
 lors in it. It was therefore an elopement, for Caton re- 
 membered that his daughter had not screamed. When 
 they tried to telephone to Fakirs' Nest and found the 
 wires down they were sure. 
 
 Caton towered over the scene and thundered his ulti- 
 matum with lurid passion. 
 
38 The Damask Girl 
 
 "Unless you renounce that cowboy scoundrel this in- 
 stant, never see him again and get divorced, I'll disown 
 you, and I hope you'll be judged insane and locked up as 
 a lunatic for life." 
 
 "Whatever he is I love him, and I have married for 
 love," she answered, putting her hand into mine. 
 
 A disagreeable sound was gathering outside, and it took 
 definite form in the shrill and fierce yells, "Put tar on 
 him ! String him up !" 
 
 Two of the constables had stolen out and incited a mob 
 for this outrage, to gain Caton's favor and not doubting 
 his approval. In calmer moments he would have silenced 
 them, but he was now too far the victim of a deadly bile 
 to be himself. The protests of Reginald and the two 
 clergymen had no effect on the angry crowd. 
 
 I saw they meant business and that the foolishness 
 must be stopped. 
 
 "Pardon me, Caton," said I, "you hardiv want a crime 
 on your soul," and I took out my card and handed it to 
 him. 
 
 He got to a chair looking like a fool. 
 
 "Marsden," groaned he, "why didn't you tell me who 
 you were and not let me make an everlasting idiot of 
 myself?" 
 
 "Because," said I, "I have been looking for a girl who 
 would marry me for pure love." 
 
Call Again 
 
Call Again 
 
 Gridley Dobson made the impression on strangers of 
 being foolish. It was at that time his only capital, and 
 he said of himself that his blank look was his bank book. 
 If he could have taken his face off and sold it, it would 
 have been killing the goose that laid the golden egg. 
 There were many people with facial circumstance and 
 dire blankness behind it who would cheerfully have ex- 
 changed their beauty for Dobson's external vacuity if a 
 trade of interiors could have accompanied the barter. In 
 these times a man can afford to look as meek as a paving- 
 stone if within he has a mind qualified to keep his stomach 
 thankful with digestible provender. 
 
 And the best of it was Dobson never said he had a 
 mind : that was left for those who thought he hadn't one 
 to investigate. 
 
 Every person of truly great intellect cherishes an ideal 
 beckoning him toward the summit of his dreams. Grid- 
 ley's dreamland aspiration was to be famous for his re- 
 sources in collecting debts from the stony-hearted, so 
 
 that on hearing his name or seeing his simplicity approach 
 
 41 
 
42 The Damask Girl 
 
 they would cringe, relent, capitulate, and pay upon the 
 presentation of his card — 
 
 G. DoBsoN, Esq., Artist of Debts. 
 
 saving him the delays, rebuffs and insolences to which 
 common collectors are heir. 
 
 He moved toward this ideal with an inflexible resolu- 
 tion hidden by a vacillating countenance on which were 
 written vacuums and heavenly confidingness. 
 
 Hiram Hooper was an honored gentleman of large af- 
 fairs, some sunny and most shady, like a forest landscape. 
 He had never enjoyed the pleasure of hearing of Gridley 
 Dobson, and he had lost nothing by it, for the losses to 
 such men came rather from knowing Dobson than from 
 being denied his society. 
 
 Let me say for those who may design to give up a 
 lucrative profession for the collector's lot after hearing 
 of Gridley, that a collector resembles the delinquent 
 boarder. Naturally, the one gets only the toughest mor- 
 sels to eat, the other the toughest debts to collect. It is 
 human nature to have it so, a little weak, a little wicked. 
 The creditor exhausts his own ingenuity as well as his 
 Christianity on the debtor first, then passes the abandoned 
 character on to the fangs of the professional extractor 
 with orders to extort or torture up to the limits of the 
 
Call Again 43 
 
 law. Commercial surgery without anaesthetics is the col- 
 lector's school of medicine, for his healing instrument is 
 pain. 
 
 Such a debtor was the multifarious and nefarious "Hi" 
 Hooper. 
 
 Hiram Hooper's creditor sighed remorselessly as he 
 gave his account into Dobson's talons to collect. "He is 
 a lemon with a brass rind," said the creditor more in 
 anger than in sorrow. "I can't crack him, but there is 
 plenty of juice in the acid abomination if you can get at 
 it. He's worth hundreds of thousands and has owed me 
 this two hundred for a year, and I need it ; he's rich and 
 I'm poor, and I've earned the sum twice in running after 
 it. All I ask is, get it. You can't hurt him, he's feeling- 
 proof ; if he fell into the lake of fire he'd get a mortgage 
 on it ; and I'll tell you now, not to set you up, I haven't 
 any hopes of my money." 
 
 Dobson arranged his face in accordance with the wish 
 and plan of nature and shambled into the spidery pres- 
 ence of Hi. This man had risen from poverty to riches 
 by the virtue of saving his debts. He never paid them, 
 although he made many. It is one of the mysteries of 
 the uninitiated how such men's credit lives, but it does 
 and grows, and the fact is Hi was so malicious a man 
 and hard a dealer, never showing mercy when he got an- 
 
44 The Damask Girl 
 
 other by the hip, and being the great source of borrowable 
 ready money, that men trembled to refuse him or press a 
 claim. By the grace of saving he was therefore always 
 gaining in affluence, which brought him respect and envy 
 and crowned him as a potentate for the young of the 
 town to admire and model after. Whoever despised him 
 was very cautious about it, well weighing the material 
 consequences of letting Hi hear of it. So he was feared 
 because he was rich and rich because he was feared. 
 
 His start in life was the fruit of a few maxims which 
 he had found enough for this world : "Convince men you 
 can do them, then squeeze and squeeze hard." "Bluff 
 where you can't squeeze, you can frighten most men." 
 "A Bluff is as good as a Blow." These principles had 
 rewarded him with half a million dollars or more, and 
 every dollar was a new and multiple squeezer for more 
 dollars. 
 
 Hi would not have parted with his virtues for all the 
 sins he had neglected in his hurry to be rich. He held 
 himself infinitely above sins and sinners who couldn't 
 grind a neighbor's nose so honorably as not to go to jail 
 for it. "I've got the cinch on ye," was his legal tender, 
 and with the long lash of his accomplished tricks he kept 
 his victims pretty still, leaving fresh for his further opera- 
 tions the yet unfleeced, the waiting and even longing to 
 
Call Again 45 
 
 be fleeced, and the get-rich-quick aspirants after the prop- 
 erty of others, whom Hi could always fold up in their 
 own schemes and have considerable cloth left. 
 
 When Gridley Dobson waved the bill of ^ngel and 
 Angel's in the face of this devourer, in his own sanctum, 
 and even flattened out its creases on the devourer's desk, 
 meekly requesting a settlement of it, that mighty mag- 
 nate Hi Hooper thought it the greatest joke since the 
 theft of Adam's rib. He looked at Dobson's Assyrian 
 monument front, placid as the solitudes of non-existence, 
 expressionless as a weather-washed tombstone, and first 
 winked at it, then laughed outright, then shouted and 
 roared in ungovernable delight. Nothing had ever 
 pleased Hi so, and a laugh in his life was as scarce as 
 pearls in a poor-house. As this blockhead was a nobody, 
 he could be as impertinent to it as he pleased, and in truth 
 he had been in such a hurry to cheat all his life that he 
 had never heard of politeness as a lucrative quality. 
 
 "Who are you, anyway?" cried he when the cachinna- 
 tions of his glee were somewhat stilled. "I haven't the 
 money to-day, but come again, come often. Sit down, 
 won't you, it does me good to see you. I swum, I wouldn't 
 mind paying you a salary for coming, if you'll charge it. 
 I'll bounce my durn'd doctor and take you aboard. A 
 laugh's as good as a pill, old donkey, and a dum sight 
 cheaper, let me tell ye." 
 
46 The Damask Girl 
 
 G. Dobson came again, came twice, came several times, 
 at varying hours of the day, dunning, and Hi always 
 had the same kind of a fit when he came, while Dobson 
 was stupidly contemplating things with not the ripple of 
 a smile nor the crook of a frown. On going he sat down 
 on the curbstone in the hot sun, looking more like an 
 idiot then ever, with Hi, still shaking in the merry writh- 
 ings of his seizure, beaming at him through the window. 
 You wouldn't have thought that Dobson's gudgeon eye 
 was registering the manner of prey who went and came 
 at Hi's. 
 
 One day he gave Hooper a supreme dose of hiero- 
 glyphic amusement by saying that sometime he would 
 wish he had paid that two hundred dollars every time he 
 had called. That would be two thousand dollars ! What 
 fun !' Hi thought life was a flower garden with such a 
 cheerful whale coming regularly to remind him of his 
 creditors' gehenna. Business was bliss, but the sorrows 
 of the defrauded were an extra asset which he had never 
 before so lusciously enjoyed. 
 
 One day several well conditioned farmers gathered in 
 Hi's ofKce to round off a deal worth thousands to Hooper 
 and minus the same thousands to them — only they did not 
 yet know it. Hooper had been obliged to bait his slall at 
 incubating human avarice with sugar-coats of sanctimony 
 
Call Again 47 
 
 with these wary captains of the hoe, as he sneeringly 
 called them in his office privacy, angry at their foolish 
 aversion to a fleecing, acquired through having earned 
 their farms scratch by scratch. And being more used to 
 honest communion with the earth than to flirtation with 
 the mysteries of Hi's finance, they were naturally cau- 
 tious of his gaudy projects to enrich them in a year, al- 
 though not averse, since they had confidence in a man 
 who was doing so much for their good nearly gratis, as 
 Hiram demonstrated he was. 
 
 Yet he had captured all their convictions, and to-day 
 they were with him awaiting the last of their number to 
 bind themselves with signatures and go ahead to ruin, 
 when in stalked the everlasting tombstone, and before Hi 
 could get a syllable out to hush him, Gridley Dobson 
 broke forth in rasping thunder : 
 
 "I say. Hi Hooper, when are you going to pay Angel 
 and Angel that measly little two hundred dollars you've 
 owed them till it's sprouted? Haven't I been here six- 
 teen times for it now ? and ain't I getting tired, don't you 
 think? You told me you'd never pay, but I'm going to 
 squat with you the rest of my days and stick to you like 
 a sin if you don't. Come, now, pull it up, and give me 
 a chance to get to a few of your big debts which'll keep 
 you doing nothing but paying, when you begin, for a 
 couple of years." 
 
48 The Damask Girl 
 
 Hi was of a clammy purple after this cyclone; the 
 farmers scrambled to their feet, clutching helplessly at 
 the air toward Hooper, their lips open but speechless. 
 
 The expression of zero on Gridley Dobson's face re- 
 newed Hi's spirit; he recovered himself. 
 
 "Get out of this office, you peskified blackmailer!" he 
 yelped, fumbling for his big ink-well. "Get out quick, 
 or by the hoboes iMl put a blot on that barn outside of 
 yours that won't come off." 
 
 He would have thrown the ink-well, to stamp a convic- 
 tion on Dobson, but farmer Andrews stepped between. 
 
 "Neighbor Hooper," he said, mildly and sorrowfully, 
 "we believe you're ail right, but in doing large business, 
 with you, involving our homes and farms, our wives' 
 property and what we can borrow, we ough' to know 
 you're all right, now, hadn't we? And mebbe we've not, 
 been quite so shy as was proper, and mebbe you won't 
 take it inquisitive or interfering if we ask you to show 
 you don't owe such debts as this, this" — he looked at 
 Dobson, hesitated, stammered, and finding no word to fit 
 him, passed on, leaving a gap — "says you do." 
 
 They all stood still, heavingly agitated lest Hooper 
 should admit himself a dishonest skinflint and rob them, 
 of their great promised chance to triple their substance 
 by giving it to him, Dobson not saying a word. Hi white.- 
 but masterful. 
 
Call Again ' 49 
 
 "Show it? yes, and, what's more, prove it," Hi bit out 
 in forked wrath. "You go to Angel and Angel, you im- 
 pydent punkin-top, and tell them they're sued for libel 
 and blackmail. I'm doing it, Hiram Hooper, millionaire. 
 I'll teach 'em whether a man of my repetation can be dis- 
 honest; 'tain't possible, I couldn't have come to where I 
 be and been dishonest. Gents, sit. I'll have my lawyer 
 here in ten minutes and he'll sue right before your eyes. 
 Be ye satisfied now ? Suing's evidence, ain't it ? Putting 
 the law on a man shows what he is. I always knew them 
 Angels and Angels was raskels ; they meant to hinder you 
 from getting rich. Now let that Solomon-looking critter 
 out and we'll get to money making; we can't have such 
 slanderous varmin clogging the honest springs of wealth 
 and undermining the constitution of progress, hey. 
 Brother Andrews? No one could get respectafly rich if 
 we did." 
 
 The joke on G. D.'s tabula rasa and appeals to their 
 cupidity struck home. Hi was himself again. Reaching 
 his long finger out and stretching far forward over his 
 desk, all eyes followed him toward Gridley Dobson and 
 rested on that astounding physiognomy. 
 
 "Baboon !" fluted Hi, with his other hand shading his 
 mouth in mock confidence, rolling his eyes tragi-comic- 
 ally. "Would you believe that thing?" 
 
50 The Damask Girl 
 
 The tension loosened, and all the men broke into uneasy 
 guffaw, restrained in consideration of where they were, 
 the great issues at stake, and a remnant of suspicion. 
 
 "We've been taken in by him, Mister Hooper," spoke 
 up Farmer Clarkson, "but it's a duty in these latter days 
 to suspect your own brother of crooked doings in finan- 
 shearing. I feel I may say I kin trust you." 
 
 "I guess we're all converted," joined several, and none 
 opposed. 
 
 "Let's sign right here with this cantankerous existence 
 to witness; it may be a lesson to his nose not to pry." 
 This was Farmer Oldham's contribution, a former school- 
 master both learned and metaphysical. He had the art of 
 grafting homely phrases on to his scholarly elegance, so 
 that while the superiority of his language was felt no one 
 thought him over-elevated in mind. 
 
 Dobson took from a spacious receptacle in the tail of 
 his coat a package of papers and spread them out in por- 
 tentous sadness. They were unpaid bills of all ages and 
 sums from various firms and individuals against Hi 
 Hooper. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the collector with marrow-freezing 
 calm, "I call on you to judge: are these names dishon- 
 est?" And turning to Hi he said, "When people hear 
 about this they won't be so af eared of you as they was. A 
 
Call Again 51 
 
 bluff is as good as a blow till the other feller strikes the 
 blow." 
 
 The company examined the bills, turned them upside 
 down, looked at their backs, looked at the floor, at the 
 ceiling, at everything but at Hi and Gridley. They were 
 all very shamefaced. 
 
 "Hiram Hooper," said Farmer Andrews at last re- 
 proachfully, "I ain't for calling hard names, but there's 
 a time to speak. You're an infernal scallawag ; kiotes and 
 sneaking hienies wouldn't herd with ye." 
 
 They took their hats and filed out one by one, leaving 
 Hooper undulating in his chair, staring stonily after the 
 vanished thousands. 
 
 "Are you ready to settle that little matter of Angel and 
 Angel's?" inquired Dobson in suave tones. 
 
 "You haven't got your money yet," roared out Hi, as 
 a long audible breath, that might have been a wail or a 
 war note, died away. 
 
 "Never mind, Hi," responded Dobson sweetly, with 
 the first twinkle in his visage that had ever adorned it in 
 the presence of Hi, "I'll call again." 
 
The Scientist's Wife 
 
 "How beautiful is marriage!" meditated Professor 
 Paul Isling as he walked across the snow to his college 
 classes, waving his hand back to Glorian in the doorway. 
 "Yet I could wish my wife wouldn't read all my letters in 
 my absence, for there is a rich lode of jealousy in the 
 womanly composition." 
 
 Professor Isling was the youngest man of international 
 note on the faculty, and he had brought the lovely Glorian 
 home to participate in his honors only a few months be- 
 fore. He was a specialist in a novel branch of research, 
 where he had shown the wonderful perspicacity that had 
 secured him a full department before thirty. 
 
 The section of science at this moment controlling his 
 particular attention was love. He was writing a history, 
 psychology and anthropology of it, and had reached the 
 critical stage where in order to make his observations 
 exact it was necessary to correspond with experienced 
 lovers for data. He sent them a printed rubric of ques- 
 tions very skillfully devised to penetrate their layers of 
 reticence and convention and lay bare as it were the ma- 
 chinery of love in action, and he had gained a host of re- 
 
 53 
 
54 The Damask Girl 
 
 plies upon the faithful assurance that no eye but his should 
 peruse the answers. 
 
 By advertising he had also obtained a vast collection of 
 authentic love letters, which daily increased; while in 
 some instances, those of especial promise — and here was 
 the pinch with Glorian — ^his zeal for truth required him 
 to impersonate the lover and send forth epistolary Cupid- 
 esque darts from behind the armor of a triple-guarded 
 pseudonym. 
 
 At the last visible comer the professor threw a kiss, 
 and a curious smile flitted through the classic marble of 
 his features. "Perhaps if she reads them to-day it will 
 correct her melancholy unconjugal suspicions," was his 
 thought as he turned up to the laboratory to meet an ap- 
 pointment with some new specimens. 
 
 Glorian went to the study and seated herself at her 
 husband's desk thrilling with love. She had a feminine 
 sense of honor and was not quite easy in this work ; but 
 its justification was her heart, and she had a scientific 
 excuse. 
 
 There was a new heap of letters, and as she read she 
 arranged them in their previous order, for Paul was not 
 yet to know that she was keeping abreast of him in his 
 noble achievements. Her ideal had recently broadened 
 into oneness of intellect as well as of soul with her hus- 
 
The Scientist's Wife 55 
 
 band, an ideal how contrived it is hard to say, but per- 
 haps wrought out by a cornparative study of music and 
 art under the guidance of a dialectical theory of knowl- 
 edge and ignorance. She came to a little note without 
 an envelope, so small that it almost escaped her eye. It 
 ran: 
 
 "My Dearest : Meet me with a carriage to-morrow eve- 
 ning at eight at 79th and Madison. I can go to supper 
 with you at Sherry's. What a lark it will be ! You know 
 my difficulties, and I may be a little late. Ermia." 
 
 Glorian drew her hand across her eyes. Could the 
 depth of her husband's investigations into love justify 
 this? Did it not call for the application of a counter re- 
 search? She felt herself rising to the emergency: she 
 could go disguised to the appointed place in advance of 
 Ermia and personally verify her husband's original 
 methods. 
 
 Professor Isling left his home that evening with all 
 the tenderest marks of affection, which Glorian returned 
 with a stern sob slowly surging for manifestation but 
 only glistening outwardly in her eyes as greater love. 
 For she had a premonition. It might be the last time she 
 should kiss him, the dread morrow might find her going 
 home to her parents in Boston ; yet she was not weak and 
 she courted the crisis of truth. 
 
56 The Damask Girl 
 
 When Paul was gone she firmly dressed for duty, con- 
 cealing herself in a long fur cloak which she had that day 
 procured to dim the Professor's scientific insight. 
 
 Isling repaired at once to the hotel of his particular 
 friend, Professor G. Cumberland Grafton, whose subject 
 was astronomy; he had arrived only the night before 
 from Europe en route for an observatory in the West, 
 and was to meet Glorian for the first time on the follow- 
 ing day. 
 
 "I must tell you once more I don't like this, my dear 
 Paul," said Grafton. "It may satisfy your scientific con- 
 science on the subject, but in mine, which isn't scientific, 
 merely the raw untutored thing, I feel that it's not quite 
 fair to your wife for me to go out to-night in your place. 
 If she comes it will be a shock to her sensitive nature. 
 Is it good to bring up a young wife by initiating her into 
 a closed carriage with a stranger? Still, under protest, 
 I'll defer to your advanced knowledge as a specialist on 
 women, which I'm afraid you'll find to be advanced folly, 
 and I'm dreadfully certain Glorian will never end hating 
 me for my part in her illumination." 
 
 "Have no fear," answered Paul. "Does study of ev- 
 erything else give us knowledge, and is study of woman 
 only vanity? I have applied my principles to Glorian 
 and I know her thoroughly; I cannot fail; I run no risk 
 
The Scientist's Wife 57 
 
 of endangering her affection, which I wouldn't jeopardize 
 for worlds, for I love her with all my heart. I shall only 
 ■cure her of an unsophisticated curiosity by a slight emo- 
 tional shock, an electric bath, from which her devotion 
 will emerge brightened. I must be free to operate as 
 science dictates, even if scientific exactions are a shade 
 drastic from the feminine point of view; for if I cannot 
 probe into all the recesses of human emotion without a 
 wound to my wife's love my work is paralyzed. Go, and 
 if she comes make love to her ; let her think it is I as long 
 as you can ; call her Ermia ; it will make an impression 
 on her mind ; and I don't think she'll again meddle with 
 the canons of experimentation." 
 
 "Oh, well, if you're so determined, I must; the conse- 
 quences of your ruse be on your head." 
 
 The carriage was announced, and Cumberland entered 
 it to depart on his mission. 
 
 "Bon voyage!" said Isling through the window ; "I'll 
 await your return to me here." 
 
 It was a little before the appointed hour when the driver 
 turned into Madison at 79th, but Glorian was already 
 there to precede Ermia, and she stepped into the coupe 
 closely muffled to guard her husband from seeing her 
 face ; Professor Grafton's features were also deeply ob- 
 scured in the collar of a great coat as he assisted her. 
 The curtained door closed and it was dark within. 
 
58 The Damask Girl 
 
 The man sat awkwardly silent and Glorian forgot her 
 role ; she forgot that she was there to receptively observe 
 the methods of research ; this was her husband, it was 
 Paul, and she kissed him fervently in spite of his sins. 
 He would soon discover that she was not the dreadful 
 Ermia, she wanted him to know that if she had thwarted 
 his researches it was only because of intense love, and 
 then he would forgive her. 
 
 "Put your arms around me, darling," she whispered 
 tenderly, and Grafton mechanically did so. He seemed 
 reluctant at first, and she registered this mentally in her 
 husband's favor. 
 
 When the carriage stopped and they alighted, Glorian, 
 determined to preserve the disguise until she had disposed 
 of her wraps, still kept the fur close about her face ; but 
 she could not forbear a stolen look at Paul, which was 
 successful in spite of the care devoted to the shielding 
 collar. By this glance she saw with horror that her com- 
 panion was a stranger. 
 
 With great effort she was able to walk in steadily, and 
 when Professor Grafton turned back his coat and faced 
 her, to betray no shock. The few seconds of prepara- 
 tion had given her self-mastery; but the Professor, be- 
 lieving that she now saw his countenance for the first 
 time and expecting a temporary collapse, was himself 
 
The Scientist's Wife 59 
 
 stunned by her calm, and his features controlled them- 
 selves only through excess of stupefaction. Through the 
 down which disclosed only her eyes Glorian managed to 
 steadily command him to wait, and left him. 
 
 She was now convinced that her husband had no per- 
 sonal complicity in the affair, reasoning that Ermia must 
 have written the note to this stranger, some amateur de- 
 votee of actual love as against science, from whom Paul 
 had wheedled it to promote the cause of learning and 
 truth. She could not respect one who would expose the 
 secrets of a loving women even for the enlightment of 
 mankind, and as it was evident that this person still be- 
 lieved her to be his expected Ermia, she conceived a plan 
 to combine his discipline and her escape. Her heart 
 smote her for the true Ermia waiting in the frosty street, 
 but she choked this tenderness down. 
 
 With an exact copy of Ermia's note taken upon trans- 
 parent paper before her as a model, she indited the fol- 
 lowing missive to Grafton in Ermia's writing, with which 
 she had so many times nervously experimented that day, 
 and sent it to the Professor by a boy. 
 
 "Dearest: I am timid before all these people, some of 
 whom may know me, and I dare not face them. I might 
 be recognized, and then what a tempest! Let us go to 
 Philadelphia; take a night train and look for me in the 
 
6o The Damask Girl 
 
 morning in the Broad Street depot. I don't know anyone 
 in that city. Your Ermia." 
 
 Having guardedly seen this delivered into the right 
 hands, Glorian's next thought was to reach home before 
 her husband, and she quickly left the place. 
 
 In the open air she sighed joyously. If she could get 
 this original researcher off on a silly chase he might be 
 enough chagrined to make no further confessions to Paul, 
 and if he continued to tattle Paul wouldn't have a sus- 
 picion that the unknown woman in the affair was his own 
 wife. Paul would not forget the experience if he heard 
 of it, either. She was safe from discovery and full of 
 elation. 
 
 When Cumberland Grafton read the epistle he was dis- 
 tracted. He asked his conscience if Glorian had known 
 all the time that he wasn't Paul, and had fallen in love 
 with him, and he was not in the least happy over it, 
 though he was one who unintentionally fascinated many 
 charming women without their consent. It was the only 
 logical thread, and Paul would get his punishment. Graf- 
 ton cudgeled his wits, for something must be done and 
 time was short, and decided that Paul must speed to Phil- 
 adelphia to confront the fair deserter. Not long after 
 Grafton burst upon his friend and somberly presented the 
 note. 
 
The Scientist's Wife 6i 
 
 "It's from Glorian to me, read it." 
 
 As Isling read his ideas danced like avenging satyrs. 
 
 "What is to be done?" he asked, closing his eyes and 
 recalling the rules he had promulgated for such occasions ; 
 "I can't collect myself. What a consumed fool I've been ! 
 Principles don't walk in a sea of misery." 
 
 "Principles be shivered," said Grafton, briefly etching 
 the singular events of the ride. "Hurry to Philadelphia, 
 find her and bring her back to her senses and home if you 
 can." 
 
 He threw some traveling necessaries of his own into a 
 bag for Paul, who was quite helpless. 
 
 "It isn't Glorian's writing," cried the latter wretchedly, 
 "I see it all ! She was infatuated with you, and suppos- 
 ing there was a real Ermia whom you knew, wrote in her 
 hand to ensure your going ; she thinks you didn't see her 
 face and still believe her to be your Ermia. I know she 
 had the handwriting, for there were slight scratches of 
 new ink where the pen cut through her copy paper. Oh, 
 these women ! how little I knew about them !" The dis- 
 tinguished Professor bowed his head and sought consola- 
 tion in groans. 
 
 Glorian kept vigil for her husband in vain that night, 
 and by morning her fears were congested into poisoned 
 convictions. While she was with the stranger in the car- 
 
62 The Damask Girl 
 
 riage could Paul have been with Ermia? Was it, after 
 all, a conspiracy between these two men and had she been 
 duped ? She sat looking fixedly through the window into 
 the distance. 
 
 Professor Grafton, having passed a very bad night, 
 went out early to walk off the dismal spectres of his 
 friend's infelicity. He drifted toward IsHng's vacant 
 home and paused before it with a mournful scrutiny, 
 thinking what might even at that hour be happening be- 
 tween the ill-fated pair in Philadelphia. From the shaded 
 depths within where she sat weaving the threads of evi- 
 dence, Glorian perceived her husband's accomplice. There 
 he was as he had been last night, but with a cunning mel- 
 ancholy gravity; he had that unmistakable look of con- 
 suming virtue which she had heard of in the deepest 
 rogues and which the innocent should never forget. 
 
 Did he know her and had he come pursuing, to sequel 
 his escapade! Instead of an innocent apostle of science, 
 was he a villain? It was most diabolical, for only col- 
 lusion between this scoundrel, Paul, and Ermia, could em- 
 bolden the wretch to follow up his imaginary conquest 
 A terrible feeling of helpnessness and fear in the midst 
 of these toils came upon her. 
 
 Her married life was over. Collecting the few things 
 she still cherished and waiting for her persecutor to move 
 
The Scientist's Wife 63 
 
 out of sight, she hastened from the house, and hailing the 
 first cab, was soon being borne rapidly to the Boston 
 train, leaving no word with the servants of her destina- 
 tion. Twenty minutes later a vehicle came tearing down 
 the avenue containing Professor Paul Isling. A calm ob- 
 server would have said that he had had a night of it. 
 
 He rushed to Glorian's room, and there, amid the re- 
 jected debris, the last hope that had sustained him per- 
 ished. The worst was realized, he read her motives to 
 their dregs : after writing the note to Grafton she had 
 lost courage to execute the plan and returned home ; when 
 Paul did not appear, concluding her suspicions of him 
 true, she had gathered her things and taken flight to Phil- 
 adelphia to join Grafton as she had intended, but now 
 with the resolution to remain. 
 
 In the extremity of his grief Professor Isling madly 
 tore a mass of valuable love letters from correspondents 
 to shreds and hurled them into the flames before he re- 
 alized the nature of his act. 
 
 Though he felt himself to blame for leading Glorian 
 into temptation, she had taken the irrevocable step, and 
 pride now asserted itself, forbidding him to follow her 
 further. He had dealt some heavy blows at jealousy in 
 his book, calling it the vice of love, and he now took 
 down the manuscript and read it over; all that afternoon 
 
64 The Damask Girl 
 
 he spent indoors, incapable of seeing anyone, from time 
 to time traversing a page of his chapter on "The Vice 
 of Love." Dear as Grafton was to him, he could not com- 
 prehend his wife's infatuation for the astronomer. Hi& 
 readings gave him time to consider the probable verdict 
 of the world upon his competence to write the "Psychol- 
 ogy and Anthropology of Love." 
 
 One stern sad duty remained : he must proceed to Bos- 
 ton to break the news of the tragedy to his wife's parents. 
 It was a harrowing trial, and as he rang the once welcom- 
 ing doorbell his mind ran back to their wedding day and 
 heavenly embarkation for the land of France. There was 
 a sound of feminine approach, and he prepared to convey 
 the sorrow to his mother-in-law as tenderly as he could 
 with his own bereavement dark upon him. In the door- 
 way stood Glorian. 
 
 When some time had elapsed in incoherent bursts of 
 explanation and they were still in each other's arms, the 
 Professor fervently said : "I have been punished enough.^' 
 
 Glorian could not be less generous. "Oh, Paul," she 
 whispered, "I could forgive you anything now that I find, 
 there is no Ermia." 
 
 Isling was suddenly inspired. 
 
 "Glorian," he exclaimed, "we must hereafter work to- 
 gether ; be my ally and second self in these studies of 
 
The Scientist's Wife 65 
 
 love, I am convinced that a feminine mind is needed at 
 the elbow of a man who would tabulate all the intricacies 
 of a woman's soul. And our mutual labors, by giving 
 love a scientific basis and dispersing the confusions of 
 the emotions, will draw lovers together in the delicious 
 unity of accurate knowledge." 
 
 "I can do anything," she replied, "if I never have to 
 see that hateful astronomer again. He may be your friend 
 and very respectable, but if he isn't too dear to you to be 
 joked about, I feel sure that from letting his mind wan- 
 der without restraint among the stars he has acquired the 
 mental habits of an adventurer." 
 
 "You are safe for a year at least ; he goes to his duties 
 in the West before we return." 
 
 But on their homeward trip, which both declared to be 
 happier than their best hours in France, she caught him 
 flushing over a paragraph in the morning news. 
 
 "What is it, Paul ?" she begged, in consternation ; "has 
 our terrible misunderstanding got into the papers ?" 
 
 "No, dearest, thank God, not that, but prepare yourself 
 for something of a blow. Professor Grafton's latest brill- 
 iant discoveries have just been published, and an astro- 
 nomical chair in our university has been offered him." 
 
 "Will he take it?" she panted. 
 
 "He has done so. It was arranged yesterday." 
 
66 The Damask Girl 
 
 She covered her face upon his breast. 
 
 "Sustain yourself," said Paul, with concern. "I have 
 been a little bit of a traitor to you and Grafton, too, but 
 I see I am caught and I must make a clean breast of it. 
 Science leads one into such strange ways ! There is a 
 real Ermia, and she is a very dear girl, but she is nothing 
 to me. I didn't want to see her wasted on a common man, 
 and I laid a plan, almost deep enough for my ruin. I 
 wanted Grafton to meet her in a very romantic and un- 
 usual manner, for he always looks at women through a 
 telescope, as if they were remote stars. She is an inves- 
 tigator in my field, one of my special students; so, as 
 Grafton is very peculiar and interesting, I assigned him 
 to her as the subject for an essay. I wrote Ermia's little 
 note myself. She was to have met him that night for the 
 preliminary study — and would have done so if you hadn't 
 intercepted her — and I can tell you she wouldn't have 
 studied him quite as you did, love. 
 
 "Now, I didn't tell Grafton this, of course, but I made 
 him think you would come, though I honestly didn't ex- 
 pect you to at all. I have used my skill and science with 
 her to much better effect than I did with you, and I faith- 
 fully believe she's already deep in love with Grafton, 
 though she hasn't seen him yet, and I rather think her 
 essay on him will be a very unusual contribution to sci- 
 
The Scientist's Wife 67 
 
 ence. I shall give them a formal introduction, which I'm 
 sure will make things easier for you." 
 
 "He didn't study me like a distant star in the carriage," 
 said Glorian, with a little shiver. 
 
 "My love," answered Paul, "I have generalized that 
 when people imagine themselves married they lay aside 
 their long-range telescopes." 
 
The Damask Girl 
 
 When Anton Verrol seated himself in the Pullman to 
 cross the continent from the West, a very pretty young 
 woman occupied the section opposite. For hours, as the 
 train sped forward, her silken hair and soft-tinted skin 
 engaged his attention, and he found it unnecessary to 
 read for amusement or to improve his mind by observing 
 the species of tribes they were passing through. 
 
 As the car became sultry and the bright-haired traveler 
 vainly endeavored to raise her double windows, Anton, 
 conscious of all her acts, stepped forward politely, lifted 
 them, and having received her sweetest thanks, retired to 
 a deeper study of the outlines of her shapely head. 
 
 She opened and closed a dozen current magazines scat- 
 tered in her seats, examined the titles of a score of new 
 volumes of imagination, and seemed dissatisfied. Anton's 
 warm heart, troubled with the willing divination that she 
 craved human companionship, moved him to lean toward 
 her and observe, "We are passing through a beautiful 
 country." It was a desert, but he had not noticed that. 
 
 In kind but decided tones she replied : "I hope you will 
 69 
 
70 The Damask Girl 
 
 not destroy the good opinion I have formed of you," and 
 relapsed into a frigid silence. 
 
 In the evening an accident occurred, piling the cars in 
 a terrible heap. Shrieks and lamentations filled the air, 
 steam hissed violently, and the strained timbers groaned 
 as if themselves in agony. Anton, having tested each of 
 his limbs by a separate act of consciousness and finding 
 them whole, thought immediately of his attractive neigh- 
 bor. She was wedged beneath a splintered timber and 
 appeared to be dead. By a prodigious application of 
 strength Anton lifted the beam and the girl sat upright. 
 
 "Thank you very much," she said, "I am uninjured. 
 If you will be so good as to hand up my bag through the 
 window I believe I will step out." 
 
 It was quite time that she did, for the flames were 
 rapidly encircling them, and through assisting her Anton 
 lost his dressing-case. 
 
 The survivors cared tenderly for the dead and wound- 
 ed, as many as were not burned, placing the former in 
 the Death Car and the latter in the Hospital Coach, which 
 happily were the two uninjured carriages of the train, 
 and then resigned themselves to awaiting relief. It was 
 chilly, and all through the night they paced back and forth 
 upon the sand to keep life in their veins. Anton kept the 
 Damask Girl, as he had named her, continually in view. 
 
The Damask Girl 71 
 
 and several times inquired if there was anything he could 
 do for her, to which she always pleasantly answered no. 
 
 At midnight, as they met in their tramp up and down 
 the ties, he essayed another conversation. 
 
 "It is well that it does not rain." 
 
 She replied, "I am conscious that I owe you my life 
 and I am grateful. Please let me retain my respect for 
 you as my savior without lowering yourself in my es- 
 teem," and with eyes cast down she passed on her way. 
 
 It grew exceedingly cold, the wind rose, and Anton 
 perceived that the girl was drowsy and chilled. He 
 paused from cheering and helping others, and having cut 
 up some unconsumed timbers of a car with one of the 
 wrecking axes, for the fire had now burned itself out, 
 lighted them from the embers. Taking off his great coat 
 he drew it over the unresisting Damask Girl, and having 
 contrived a support for her back, watched until she was 
 warm and slept. 
 
 At daylight the Salvation Train, as it was called on 
 that road, through the frequency of its services, arrived, 
 bringing doctors and food, and the living retired to rest 
 in the fresh cars. 
 
 By afternoon all were awake again and revived. The 
 young woman returned Anton's coat, thanking him with 
 courteous warmth, which he acknowledged with a silent 
 bow. 
 
72 The Damask Girl 
 
 They were now passing through the Indian country, 
 and as the doctors had brought forward intelligence of a 
 desperate uprising, some of the passengers were nervous. 
 At Fort Burial, as the train steamed into the station, a 
 fierce war-whoop rent the air, and a general carnage 
 began. The redskins poured into the car, dealing de- 
 struction to the survivors of the wreck. 
 
 In traveling through the West Anton was accustomed 
 to wear concealed upon his person two magazine guns of 
 the recent type, each of which contains a great number 
 of cartridges that are discharged successively as long as 
 the finger continues to press. The beauty of the Damask 
 Girl attracted the Indians, and a dozen of the most pow- 
 erful and rash rushed forward to take possession of her, 
 leaving the others to continue the slaughter. In their 
 eagerness they seemed to overlook Anton, who stood in 
 his seat trembling with anticipation. The young man 
 shot a glance across at the fair young girl: she did not 
 shrink, she half rose defiantly, the hot blood crimsoning 
 her cheeks. 
 
 The first brave received a blow from Anton's fist which 
 reeled him onto the seat, and the girl, snatching the 
 weapon from his hand, and pressing it to his temple, held 
 him prostrate. Then Anton's artillery began to sing, and 
 in less time than it can be told half a dozen bucks were 
 
The Damask Girl 73 
 
 ■sprawling together dead or dying and the others were re- 
 treating in a panic. Following up this advantage, and 
 Tallying the express messenger and porter to his aid, the 
 redskins were soon driven from the town. 
 
 Anton could not restrain a burst of respectful admira- 
 tion for the Damask Girl when he returned, perspiring 
 and dusty from his long chase, to the train. 
 
 "You behaved magnificently," he declared. 
 
 The handsome creature answered: "Each day I think 
 more highly of you; may I not rely on you as a gentle- 
 man not to overstep the bounds of civility ?" 
 
 He colored deeply, and buried himself in Seneca's treat- 
 ise "On Benefits" till it was dark. 
 
 They were pulling up toward the top of the mountain 
 at Four-Fiend Gulch, through which a train seldom 
 passed without being held up and robbed. The conduc- 
 tor had just been through the car, calling, "If you have 
 any valuables, give them to me for safe-keeping," when 
 the well-known click of uncoupling the engine was heard 
 and masked faces peered in at the passengers. Anton, 
 Tcnowing the locality, had lightly swung out of the win- 
 dow while the train still moved at full speed, holding on 
 till it slowed up. Then dropping to the ground, turning 
 his coat inside out and drawing on a mask, he ran forward 
 and joined the robbers, entering the car as if he were one 
 
74 The Damask Girl 
 
 of them. Three of the desperadoes were deploying in 
 that car. 
 
 "Pardners !" he suddenly cried in a startled voice. They 
 all turned, to find themselves facing one of their own 
 number, whose two weapons pointed down their throats. 
 
 "Drop your guns," he requested persuasively, and 
 they did so. 
 
 "Volunteers here quick to guard these men," he called,, 
 and the Damask Girl sprang forward first to receive one 
 of their revolvers. 
 
 "Keep them covered," he said, "and don't let them stir." 
 
 Anton than ran to join the battle which was being hotly 
 waged outside. In about an hour the engine was brought 
 back, and the train again started on its course, bearing 
 the three prisoners. 
 
 "You are the bravest woman I ever saw," puffed An- 
 ton, turning his coat back to its proper position and fold- 
 ing away his mask. 
 
 "Flattery," she replied, "is never pleasant to hear, and 
 least of all from a total stranger. Please say nothing 
 more. I still think well of you, although you have now 
 for the fourth time ignored my request." 
 
 Some of the younger passengers spent much time on 
 the platform, the air being fresher and the scenery more 
 visible from that point. Anton and the Damask Girl had 
 
The Damask Girl 75 
 
 been seated by each other the whole forenoon without 
 exchanging a word as the train approached a wide river. 
 For a better view Anton pulled up the vestibule platform 
 and opened the outer door. They were moving slowly, 
 and had reached the middle of the bridge when an omin- 
 ous creaking and grinding sound was heard, and they 
 began to sink. 
 
 "The bridge is breaking!" cried Anton; "we must 
 jump," and seizing his neighbor about the waist he sprang 
 clear of the bridge into the boiling flood. They rose, and 
 he struck out powerfully, but at that instant there came 
 a terrible crash, detonation on detonation, as car followed 
 car into the abyss and the two were drawn down the vor- 
 tex of the sucking water. 
 
 Anton was at home in the waves, and battled with ex- 
 alted might. He knew that the whirlpool must finally 
 spew them up, and they would be saved if he could retain 
 consciousness until they reached the air. It seemed hours ! 
 Then, great God, it was the sun once more, and he drew 
 prodigious breaths, reviving. The Damask Girl was 
 limp, she had lost consciousness, and a wild fear seized 
 him. Would she die before he could gain the shore? 
 Placing her head on his shoulder and supporting her with 
 one arm, he struck out to swim with the other. But there 
 had been a heavy storm, and the waters were tumbling 
 
76 The Damask Girl 
 
 madly; they were whirled on, ever no nearer the land, 
 they were lost. In wild despair he kissed her! It gave 
 him the strength of a giant, and again he fought. She 
 opened her eyes, breathed, moved, her strength returned, 
 her weight lightened. She, too, was swimming. They 
 would be saved. 
 
 "It is very kind of you," she said, "but I do not think 
 I need your arm about me now. If I may just touch your 
 shoulder for a moment when I am tired I think that will 
 do." 
 
 They reached a farm house, and having dried their 
 clothes returned to the wreck in time to continue their 
 journey on the rescue train. This train had no sleeper, 
 and all their baggage being lost, they sat down together 
 in the seat of a day car. Feeling that he might now rea- 
 sonably make her acquaintance, he was about to speak 
 when she checked him, saying: 
 
 "You have been uncommonly good to me ; will you not 
 continue to be so and leave me to my own thoughts?" 
 
 Her look was appealing, and he succumbed to it. Of 
 all the cheerful travelers who had started from the West 
 they were now the only two that remained — she seemed 
 to be thinking of this. The conductor came, and they 
 gave their destinations, for their tickets had gone down 
 with the last Pullman conductor. She was for Boston, 
 
The Damask Girl "jy 
 
 his journey was to end in New York. They were ap- 
 proaching New York ; he did not know who she was, and 
 he should never see her again. 
 
 On the platform he lingered, expecting her to leave 
 him in silence, and they stood close to one another, he 
 with teeth set. Then mechanically they were slowly walk 
 ing together and took their way into New York. They 
 purchased some wraps, for which he paid, as they had 
 lost everything and her purse was in the depths of the 
 stream. 
 
 "I was never nervous before," she said ; "something on 
 this trip has made me so. If you would only accompany 
 me to Boston." 
 
 Her friends were there awaiting her, and as she came 
 down the platform with the handsome stranger they won- 
 dered. 
 
 "We feared you were on that fated train until your 
 telegram came," said a stately middle-aged man after the 
 first greetings, looking inquiringly from her to Anton 
 for an introduction. 
 
 "A stranger. Papa, who won my gratitude by not be- 
 ing rude." 
 
 The stately gentleman gave the young man a lofty in- 
 clination of the head without speaking, which the latter 
 returned with equal dignity. 
 
78 The Damask Girl 
 
 "Shall we go to lunch somewhere, Papa?" she said, 
 taking the stately gentleman's arm ; "I believe I am hun- 
 gry." 
 
Mighty Lionel 
 
Mighty Lionel 
 
 In the waning afternoon across wide fields of snow 
 the sun was setting in a rich mellow sea of light decep- 
 tively molten through the dry, keen-edged cold of the 
 air. Its golden rays flooded a little accommodation train 
 toiling smokily up an iron by-trail into the checkerboard 
 of hills and village-manned valleys. 
 
 The one non-smoker of this churning train contained, 
 in its collection of human averages, a girl dressed in the 
 fashion of the well-to-do farmers' daughters, though with 
 uncommon taste. The colors blended and stirred an ex- 
 pectation of beauty in the observer, if he happened to 
 note her clothes first. But when he saw her face, if he 
 was not instantly and hopelessly in love with her, it was 
 because he was married. By her upon the seat were 
 some bundles, indicting that her mission to Jamesburgh 
 might have been Christmas shopping. 
 
 Across the aisle a smartly polished commercial traveler 
 was betraying his broken heart in desperate launches of 
 flirtation. A more substantial social entity, no less a per- 
 sonage it might be guessed than the scion of one of the 
 
 Si 
 
82 The Damask Girl 
 
 big country estates of the city people, had seated him- 
 self directly in front of the rural maiden and hardly re- 
 moved his eyes from her an instant except to scowl at 
 the drummer for intrusion. Some of the men were con- 
 tented to gaze at her from behind or slantingly, but as 
 many as could changed their seats forward to command 
 the fair enemy from the front. The car in its masculine 
 gender both advanced and revolved about her, and it 
 happened that there were but two other women travelers 
 to be filled with scandal and scorn that a woman should 
 permit the men to behave so. 
 
 The object of this centripetal admiration was not un- 
 conscious of the vivid human panorama about her, but, 
 as all judicious girls must be in the midst of strange man- 
 kind, appeared with sweet gravity to be celestially uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 One young man who had admitted her to a fleeting 
 glance of condescension and then buried his wits deep in 
 a story magazine, occupied the little notice she could spare 
 for men from the multitudinous torch-flames of the west- 
 ern snowbound heavens. 
 
 Let us learn something of this young gentleman, who 
 bore himself with a striking stateliness before which and 
 the artillery of his beauty the citadel of any girl's heart 
 might proudly fall. He was Lionel Montyne, an ideal 
 
Mighty Lionel 83 
 
 youth in every particular, judged by the fair sex of high 
 station and the knowing world high and low. Rich, de- 
 scending from something or other that would pass in a 
 new world of money, handsome, with a fine air of repub- 
 lican lordliness, and a mind far elevated above slight 
 things and persons, they called him in envying tribute 
 Lofty Lionel. 
 
 Even for superlative Lionel this Christmas time was 
 not an unpunctuated period. At the great house to which 
 this trundling train was bearing him he was to meet the 
 beautiful debutante of the year, selected by his admiring 
 friends and the destiny of exalted fitness to be his bride. 
 Though you are mentally and socially a fixed and ulti- 
 mate star, betrothal is still a perceptible event for you. 
 He was calmly wondering what she would be like, not yet 
 having decided to accept her and being here to inspect 
 her parts. Destiny must take its hat off to him. Could 
 she in some faltering measure appease his infinite ideals? 
 They said he would be proud of her; he could hardly be 
 proud of anything but himself, but she might be worthy 
 of having his priceless pride radiated about her. It 
 seemed the perfection of a perfect world that he, the heir 
 of all the graces and gold of the Montynes, by right of 
 their service to commerce a species of newly dawning 
 royalty, should but need to nod and select from all the 
 
84 The Damask Girl 
 
 droves of beauties of the nation the one fittest to surren- 
 der her rays into his brilliancy. 
 
 In his set of the pre-eminent there had been a conscious 
 sifting for his benefit; his intimates were jealous of the 
 fabric of American Life, which would be deranged and 
 its divine equilibrium unsettled, if Lionel Montyne did 
 not marry the most incomparable jewel of the higher 
 world — his matrimony having semblance to the conjugali- 
 ties of State, a State of which his courtiers were the rich 
 kernel and proper essence. 
 
 Edna Merson alone survived the critical fire and re- 
 ceived the elective franchises of Lionel's subjects to be 
 his worthy consort, and now his own eyes were to rest 
 upon her and judge at the Leverings' great winter assem- 
 blage. If she did not measure up, there were daughters 
 of crowned heads with whom the richest Americans 
 should be intertwining maritally in order to compose the 
 destinies of the earth as they should prevail. 
 
 The train came to a convulsive stand, at which Lionel 
 again glanced up, catching the eye of the young scion 
 who was pits beneath him socially, and wafting him a 
 remote nod. He knew Tow Windiker on account of his 
 father's riches, but not in friendship. Money cannot ev- 
 erywhere buy its way to the highest shrines ; Windiker's 
 father was merely a big department store keeper. 
 
Mighty Lionel 85 
 
 The door jarred open a space and some one on the plat- 
 form was heard saying, "We'll be here a long time; it's 
 a fierce wreck." 
 
 The men hastened out through the snow to prospect, 
 and by and by returned for warmth, discussing the situa- 
 tion. A freight train had left the track, making a bad 
 mess of it, which would hold them four or five hours for 
 the clearance. What made it worse, the next station was 
 six miles beyond, and the last five behind. 
 
 They were deep locked in the fields, even the first cross- 
 road being a mile on. A man and the two women who 
 were to have alighted at the next village and knew the 
 people of the region decided to start forward and borrow 
 a farmer's conveyance for the rest of their journey. 
 
 Men came in from the smoker, some of whom were 
 not handsome, nor were they backward in appraising the 
 beauty of the country girl who was now alone among 
 them, or in making up to her with increasing bravery; 
 for the opportunity was a rare one not to be lost, since 
 it doesn't fall to the fortune of a train load of idle men 
 to encounter a delicious young thing alone where the com- 
 mon restraints of society are diluted by a railroad wreck. 
 Their heads were turned by her lovely face, which after 
 all could not have been otherwise unless she had veiled it. 
 They meant to be gentlemanly, each in his way and con- 
 
86 The Damask Girl 
 
 ception of the role, and each had an indignant sense that 
 he was protecting her from the others. 
 
 Lionel, silent, frigid and bored, a being by himself in 
 the rich coat that almost brushed the floor, paced the aisle 
 looking askant on this rustic drama, diverting himself 
 with vague efforts to comprehend his fellow creatures in 
 the steerage of life. He supposed this to be the manner 
 of country girls receiving attentions, and that in the di- 
 rect ratio of the thrusting of compliments was the warmth 
 of their pleasure. Her color was surely commendable, as 
 if she were annoyed ; how well she acted her part, keep- 
 ing them all beyond a line without addressing them, and 
 with a maidenly delicacy! She certainly had her points, 
 and if she had been born in the right sphere would have 
 taken high rank. Of course one couldn't admire rural 
 lustre unpermeated by breeding and refinement, which are 
 the spiritual substance of the finer beauty. An inner eye 
 sees behind the fair porcelain of a mere face. The ex- 
 traordinary coloring of this countryside damsel belonged 
 to inveterate outdoor exposure, whereas ladies could not 
 be always milking and feeding the pigs for their com- 
 plexion. 
 
 The silken scion was getting fond, as likewise were the 
 blazing drummer and a florid person from the smoker 
 who had been laying up liquid cheer for Christmas in ad- 
 
Mighty Lionel 87 
 
 vance, enough to leer off sugard words dislocatedly. 
 Lionel was displeased and went outside, disdaining longer 
 to witness and suffer from the vulgar comedy. His pres- 
 ence had been a restraint, especially on the scion. There 
 had been an exodus from the car to navigate forward and 
 examine the wreck, which left the persistent three alone 
 with the enchanting innocence ; and they were piqued and 
 goaded by her silent iciness to their perfervid pantomimes 
 of the heart. The scion pushed back and sat down by 
 her, determined to make her talk. 
 
 She was upon her feet, her cheeks aflame and eyes 
 flashing, commanding him in a low, quivering voice to 
 leave the seat. 
 
 "You must kiss me first," said the audacious Windiker, 
 and he would have thrown his arm about her, when the 
 car door opened. The young man who entered and 
 paused to survey the scene wore an indeterminate cos- 
 tume, which gave an easy freedom to his supple form. 
 He could hardly be placed, and after a studied view would 
 be described as powerful, dynamic and indefinable. 
 
 Although he stood there merely looking down the car, 
 he extended a remarkable influence to the group in it^ 
 centre. The girl sank back with a surprised radiancy in 
 her eyes, which she kept upon him; the rich and burly 
 scion bristled anger and menace upon the intruder until 
 
88 The Damask Girl 
 
 his vision cleared, when, muttering something apologetic, 
 he lumbered up and ungraciously retreated through the 
 rear door ; the salesman and the permature inebriate were 
 moved to bluster, but when the youth advanced down 
 the car they backed off and hustled away. This inde- 
 finable arrival was a stranger to all of the four. 
 
 The girl was trying vainly to stifle sobs that would 
 come for no reason in the world when he reached her 
 seat. The young man ignored what had happened and 
 sat down by her as if they were old friends. 
 
 He told her they would have to lie there far into the 
 night, a very cheerless prospect, that they would go to- 
 gether and find a team, and that he would set her down 
 at home, if it was not too distant. 
 
 "I was walking through from Jamesburgh when I 
 heard of the accident, and came down for a look at it," 
 he explained, "and that is how I happened in." 
 
 The girl replied that her nearest friends were at Den- 
 more, ten miles off, and that she could not take him so 
 far out of his way. 
 
 He lightly brushed her hesitancy aside, gathering her 
 things. 
 
 "I have no urgent destination," he laughed; "in fact, I 
 was going to spend the night in the next village if they 
 have an inn, and a sleigh ride and a farmer's bed are 
 much better." 
 
Mighty Lionel 89 
 
 While speaking he was leading the way. 
 
 "We shall have some high wading," he said, looking 
 into her brilliant eyes inquiringly. 
 
 They had to circle the wreck by crossing a big ditch 
 into the field and returning to the track farther on. First 
 they threaded their way through the crowd of passengers 
 who were shivering in front of the locomotive and scan- 
 ning the hills of debris dolefully. One incased in fur 
 from head to foot gave a low exhalation of interest far in 
 the furry recesses as they passed. Montyne recognized 
 the man, and treated himself to an ironical smile. 
 
 "Ever the same Thurston Egerly! Any girl is a ro- 
 mance to him. I suppose he was billeted for Levering's, 
 but now he sees a pretty milkmaid and rescues her from 
 the iridescent admiration of this menagerie. She'll hardly 
 thank him, I fancy; the harpies were her festival. What 
 a gay catastrophe it would be if this slip of the soil should 
 ensnare his heart !" 
 
 Lionel laughed melodiously at these happy reflections, 
 thinking how he would serve up Egerly scalloped on a 
 story with the brass drummer, Duncie Windiker, and the 
 drunkard, like a turkey with its embellishments on a plat- 
 ter. Thurston brushed by the tall, sable-clad form with- 
 out recognition. 
 
 They wended on by the lights of the wreckers, Egerly 
 
90 The Damask Girl 
 
 ploughing a path ; the snow was at his knees, and a few 
 more steps brought the drift to his waist. He faced 
 about comically : 
 
 "There are pretty big lengths of this ahead ; you'll be 
 wet through by wading and couldn't ride in such a plight. 
 There's no way but for me to carry you." 
 
 There was no other way, for passages of the ensuing 
 mounds would have been impossible for one impeded with 
 woman's clothing. He lifted her, and she put an arm 
 about his neck to lighten him, and thus he broke through 
 the billowed snow battlements to the track. 
 
 The second farm house on the road promised well, and 
 they went in. 
 
 "I have a team I wouldn't let many take," balanced the 
 owner, surveying Thurston critically, "but I guess you're 
 up to 'em." 
 
 While they dried the adhering snow their host and his 
 man hooked in the horses, whose bells soon trilled music- 
 ally at the door, and then the kind people brought out 
 their big coon-skin coats, without which no one thought 
 of sleighing in that country. 
 
 "I'll be back to-night," said the young man, "and may 
 I trespass on your goodness for a bed?" 
 
 They cordially urged him to stay with them, disclaim- 
 ing any virtue for sitting up late, for train wrecks were 
 like fires, and everybody ought to help who could. 
 
Mighty Lionel 91 
 
 So they were off, muffled warmly and packed beneath 
 the robes. 
 
 Lionel was right in calling Thurston Egerly romantic, 
 and this was as far as his comprehension of Egerly went. 
 Then, like a swift and beautifully organized racer, Thurs- 
 ton's nature left Lionel's behind and they were no longer 
 creatures of the same sphere. The value of love is gauged 
 by the quality of the lover, so that there are as many dif- 
 ferent species of love as there are people. The worth of 
 some love can be measured by clay or gold, but there is 
 a kind which has no analogy in any material substance 
 for measurement. 
 
 Thurston loved this slim, unsulled child of wood and 
 field; already he loved her with passionate, tameless 
 strength, so had life performed its miracles in this little 
 space. And curious, was it not? Now that he loved, the 
 winning of her seemed mountainous, stupendous, and out 
 of his reach. There was a power in her nature which he 
 could feel through the young sweet innocence that had 
 accepted his help so trustingly, a something convincing 
 him that if he should breathe of love it would send her 
 from him wounded and resentful forever and ever. 
 
 How could a young man be gay with the great human 
 in him uttering its wild cry and he superhumanly sup- 
 pressing it, despairing lest the object of its call should 
 
92 The Damask Girl 
 
 be affrighted and lost? And yet Thurston Egerly, upon 
 the surface, was like ice under the calm moon, with its 
 millions of crystals sparkling and shimmering over a boil- 
 ing river, as though he were a self-contained soul not of 
 this lovelorn earth, at peace. 
 
 It is strange that he did not deceive the girl. Close to 
 him, cutting through the crisp starlit night, her face 
 shone with something so indescribable that whenever 
 Thurston turned to look at her he must instantly bend 
 his head away, struck through with a delirium of aban- 
 doned hopelessness. He talked on, witty and deUghtful, 
 and through it all he was only saying, "I love you, I love 
 you, I love you!" And she understood, and sang back 
 to him in the sweetest music, "I love you, I love you!" 
 But he did not understand, because it seemed impossible 
 and too much, and his heart was burning and sore. 
 
 So on and on, with the space shortening and the brink 
 of heaven over which he was to step for an infinite fall 
 nearing. 
 
 What a coward he was ! The best he could do was to 
 ask in unskilful words if he might come back to call, to 
 which she demurely answered that this was not her home, 
 that she was living in Westbridge, where he might find 
 her in a few days — at Horace Lane's ; but the place was 
 far from anywhere, and his kindness had already been 
 
Mighty Lionel 93 
 
 great — greater than she could thank him for — and he 
 ought not to trouble further. 
 
 Which the poor fool received in bitterness and confir- 
 mation of the formula he had written within him that love 
 was far from her fancy and he but the light episode of a 
 flitting hour of her life. 
 
 He wanted a thousand assurances and would have be- 
 lieved in none less ; but when they parted she only per- 
 mitted him to hold her hand until he was ashamed to do 
 so longer, and to give it a little pressure, which she re- 
 turned with no more than he gave, and these sometime 
 tokens from the heart he interpreted as only her sweet 
 spontaneous girlish gratitude and friendliness. She even 
 forgot to ask his name nor would he thrust it upon her, 
 and he went away with Miss Lane in his heart and the 
 whole world for him in Miss Lane and the universe in 
 mourning for his defeat. 
 
 Lionel served up his story at the Leverings' with the 
 taste and excellence of a consummate social chef. The 
 pretty rustic had intrenched herself against the whole car 
 generalled by Duncie and the salesman, but when Egerly 
 sounded his horn she had flown the white flag, opened the 
 gates and been carried away by the conqueror. He hadn't 
 needed to strike a blow and it was now a safe guess that 
 they were affianced lovers. If Egerly condescended to 
 
94 The Damask Girl 
 
 appear among his friends he would come only to proclaim 
 his agricultural triumph and announce the size of her 
 father's mortgage. 
 
 The young women of the party did not relish this ban- 
 ter of Lionel's, Thurston Egerly being their favorite, and 
 his angelic eccentricities, not supposed to be comprehen- 
 sible, were fascinating features of his magnetism. 
 
 If Thurston had lost his heart in good earnest to the 
 dairy-maid, his friends were hurt and his foes happy, for 
 that would cede Miss Merson to the decadent Montyne, 
 for whom these friends said she was too good. Her alli- 
 ance with such mental antiquity would be a crime. The 
 Thurstonites had also built high on the confidence that if 
 Egerly and Edna met the stars would scheme their love 
 and give Lionel a sharp rebuke. 
 
 Eagerness to know the climax of the railroad adven- 
 ture was keen when Thurston arrived on the day suc- 
 ceeding the accident. He came only to say that he 
 couldn't remain, and found his story there in advance. 
 One of his friends sketched the Montyne program. 
 
 "You must rescue her," he said, "for her sake and ours. 
 We must save her from mediaeval Montyne." 
 
 "You'll have to do it, Hal, for I'm not a candidate." 
 
 "I would like to, but it's no use; they've done good 
 mining to explode her into Lionel's net, and no one can 
 halt the fate but you." 
 
Mighty Lionel 95 
 
 "Then I fear it can't be done," said Thurston. "I'm 
 sorry. I'd like to help." 
 
 "You will meet her, at least, and there's hope." 
 
 "But don't you see, Hal, if she could have a thought 
 of Montyne I couldn't have one of her? It's the very 
 test I should like to put a girl to if I were free." 
 
 The intrigue in his present frame of mind offended 
 him, and they could hardly extort a promise to return 
 to the Leverings' that evening. 
 
 Yet Lionel himself felt some trepidation as night ap- 
 proached, bringing on the hour of Edna's coming. 
 
 He imagined he knew that nothing makes a man so 
 enchanting to a capricious girl as his being over ears and 
 eyes in love with another pretty girl, though this is not 
 so. He therefore wished there had been a parson on the 
 train to marry Thurston to the slim farmer before he 
 could escape, while his heart was at love heat, ere he 
 could return to the resoratives of society and intelligence. 
 Perhaps there had been a parson or two among the hov- 
 ering love-makers — who knows? 
 
 Edna came and was waylaid by Lionel and his satel- 
 lites. The history of Egerly's lacerated emotions was 
 reproduced, making her curious to see the romantic hero 
 of something real in love. She was assured that the 
 
96 The Damask Girl 
 
 Knight of the Sod was presentable in his normal state, 
 though too eccentric for life out of an airship. 
 
 The circumstances were strenuous for Lionel, he was 
 not at all competent to nod and elect Miss Merson as he 
 had pre-visioned doing, nor to reject her, nor even to be 
 rejected without an internal tempest, for she dissipated 
 his loftiness by her witchery and made him humble and 
 beseeching. In fact, he was dreadfully in love with her 
 immediately, losing his majestical equilibrium, and then 
 was mighty Lionel no longer, but fell into a bog of misery 
 as deep as Thurston's. 
 
 Weaver secured a momentary word with Edna. They 
 knew each other well, and he talked to her in suffering 
 wrath, for now Lionel was besieging her fervently. Hal 
 foolishly spoke of Egerly, and gave his case away. 
 
 "Wait till you see Thurston," he pleaded, "before you 
 squander yourself there" — indicating Lionel with a mo- 
 tion of the eye. 
 
 She threw her head high with graceful scorn. 
 
 "Do you think, Hal, I'd take away another girl's lover 
 if I could?" 
 
 This was such an unexpected shot, the tone wounding 
 more than the words, that Hal looked into her eyes 
 with frank mystification. Was she angry? or jealous? 
 was she going to throw herself into Last Century's arms. 
 
Mighty Lionel 97 
 
 Middle Ages Monty's, because she wanted to show that 
 she wouldn't have had Thurston if he wanted her? It 
 didn't show it, and did betray pique that Thurston had 
 not given her a chance to be had by him. 
 
 "We'll help him out of that," Hal insisted ; "when he 
 sees you he'll forget his little haymaker, and we'll hope 
 she'll forget him in a week." 
 
 "He shall marry her, if he wants to," she said, scorch- 
 ing Hal with her dazzling eyes, now glowing with deter- 
 mined purpose. "He made love to her, I'm sure he did ; 
 you" — there was a withering emphasis on the you — 
 "would have him break her heart, and it would break it — 
 I'll be her friend." 
 
 Hal lifted his eyes in ludicrous despair. 
 
 "I give you up — you, who are the fittest for each other 
 in this giddy generation ; go your ways, marry your merry 
 misfits, meet afterwards, repent always, and think of me 
 who would like to marry you myself — there's my declara- 
 tion of love, which I intended to suppress. If you won't 
 have Thurston, in heaven's name take me, and not an ani- 
 mated fossil." 
 
 "Traitor," she laughed. "When there is a drought of 
 offers I'll think of yours." As he turned to leave her she 
 added, "Every silly has his day Hal, and this was yours." 
 
98 The Damask Girl 
 
 Thurston was very late in returning to the Leverings' 
 that night. When he came into the company and he and 
 Edna were face to face, it dawned upon Lionel Montyne 
 last of all that Edna Merson was the slim farmer. 
 
 When they assailed her for an explanation of her rail- 
 way masquerade, as they called it, she said: 
 
 "You know I came up here every summer when I was 
 little and have the dearest friends among the country 
 people, and I love to go about as I used to." 
 
 But they did not get the deeper explanation. Did 
 Lionel guess it? 
 
Changing the CHmate of 
 TuHp Valley 
 
Changing the CHmate of 
 Tulip Valley 
 
 Being a friend of Dr. Adam Merrill, I had privileges 
 that were accorded to few. He stood between the con- 
 tending factions with Christian sympathy for reaction 
 and progress both, and was made chairman of their meet- 
 ings, which he administered sagely with a very handsome 
 impartiality, just as he doctored. For he had no preju- 
 dices against either diseases or persons, he found good 
 in them all. 
 
 I was what they called a tourist, and was therefore 
 supposed to be a dreamy epicure weakly addicted to wild 
 flowers and golf, and I had not been long enough in 
 Tulip Valley to betray mind also, having only arrived 
 the day before the meeting. 
 
 Tulip Valley was a very renowned place, and it was no 
 shame for anyone to be there if he could get there, and it 
 greatly enhanced his luster if he succeeded in getting out, 
 through the roads. 
 
 Flowers, climate, beauty, and singularity of the human 
 species inhabiting, were the features on which the Val- 
 ley's distinction flourished. The tulip especially throve. 
 
102 The Damask Girl 
 
 having robbed the prism of its colors and semi-tones for 
 its own use, blooming the year round and paying no at- 
 tention to the seasons except to shift its hues on their 
 march. In mid-summer the valley looked like a great red 
 carpet, in fall the carpet turned sky blue, in winter it was 
 a brilliant green, and in the spring a dazzling yellow, 
 shading off into other varieties between times. Most 
 curiously it was oblivious to the dry season and when all 
 other vegetation died attained its most glorious blush, 
 like the ever verdant live-oak. 
 
 The climate was salubrious from November until June, 
 but between these dates reversed, the pathetic summer pe- 
 riod, it was seethingly florid. 
 
 The beauty was neither grotesque nor frightful, rather 
 that safe, sedate mountainousness, promissory of excluded 
 winds and merely temperate floods. When James Turn- 
 ville, the eastern railway president, lost his life going to 
 the station fifteen miles off during the moist season it was 
 his own foolhardiness ; a man who drives a team with a 
 delicate carriage into a boiling torrent interspersed with 
 ballet-dancing rocks has an evident penchant for mis- 
 placed enterprise and eternity. 
 
 We come now to the people, the race of mankind sit- 
 uated within the boundaries of the Tulip mountains. His- 
 
Tulip Valley 103 
 
 torical zoologists had classified them as first settlers, sec- 
 ond settlers, and unsettlers. The first settlers had arrived 
 in time to obtain all the Tulip Valley land from the Mex- 
 icans for a song and to raise its price higher than the ad- 
 jacent peaks; the second settlers were those who had 
 alighted later and accommodatingly bought land of the 
 pioneers at their celestial figures. They were mostly from 
 new and old England, of guileless and aspiring tempera- 
 ment, void of suspicious susceptibility to Californian 
 creeds and codes. They had plunged their inheritances 
 into land at the vaulting prices without forethought, ex- 
 pecting to repose on their verandas and recruit from re- 
 posing in Europe, while collecting thirty per cent, income 
 from their vicarious fruit orchards, and they had since 
 been eating the rolled oats and corn-meal of remorse 
 without indulging in travel or the national institution of 
 Sunday rest. They were fast anchored to the Tulip tem- 
 perature by land poverty. And they had become a stern, 
 unyielding set, taciturn, morose and mosaic, awaiting the 
 Judgment Day, determined to die defiantly in their want 
 before sacrificing on their investments by abating, in the 
 sale of their farms, a jot or title from the glorious for- 
 tunes they paid for them in the days of their halcyon 
 folly. 
 
I04 The Damask Girl 
 
 Strangely different was their drawn, wolfish aspect 
 from the rubicund mellowness of the first comers who 
 had secured their money and were now living commod- 
 iously in sanctified gratitude to Providence on its profits. 
 
 The unsettlers were the very last batch of Easterners, 
 who had immigrated with their eye-teeth already smartly 
 cut, so to speak, and who were now mere ruminating 
 residents without being land owners; but they were less 
 debased than the vagrant tourists, because they mani- 
 fested the ethical instinct of desire to invest. In fact, 
 they craved land and even clamored for it, offering prices ; 
 but the trouble was they did not offer the heaven-hailing 
 sums to which the Tulip earth had soared in its first as- 
 cension. They had arrived in the climate after what the 
 orator of the upheavers, a venomous pessimist, called 
 'the grand disillusionment,' referring to the gloomy 
 awakening of the East to its dark fate of gracefully pay- 
 ing nine or ten times the producing value of a California 
 acre on the strength of the scarcity of snow. 
 
 The unsettlers contended that if they bought fruit-bear- 
 ing land they ought to be able to make a living on it, to 
 which the previous inhabitants shrewdly replied that this 
 would be paying nothing for warm weather. 
 
 "But we can't live on climate." 
 
 "You can't live here without buying it." 
 
Tulip Valley 105 
 
 And there the two parties hitched and pulled in oppo- 
 site directions, and stood indignantly still. The country 
 also stood still, for no enterprising person could get a 
 piece of it without relinquishing both his wealth and his 
 self-respect. 
 
 All the land was thus held with an eye, or rather a 
 telescope, to the future, the original owners clinging to 
 their fabulous estimates in the pious and wrathful hope 
 of a just recompense through fleecing somebody as they 
 had been shorn. 
 
 The Tulip country was in this turbid condition when I 
 attended the public meeting. The unsettlers, radicals or 
 upheavers, as they were variously stigmatized, who were 
 mainly climate seekers, were moving to place Tulip Val- 
 ley on a basis of progress in order to acquire certain of 
 the pleasures and conveniences ordinarily denied to Cali- 
 fornians by their all-compensating admiration for unim- 
 proved sunshine. They wanted these comforts, even if 
 they were refused the privilege of abiding homes. 
 
 The valley, which was situated fifteen miles from the 
 Pacific Ocean, ran in a parallel line with the shore of that 
 cooling reservoir, and was a singularly protected enclos- 
 ure, fenced in on its four sides by four mountain walls, 
 so neatly arranged by the early procession of the vol- 
 canoes that the direct winds from the sea were rigorously 
 
io6 The Damask Girl 
 
 warded off, assuring that incomparably delicious mildness 
 on winter days which the land-owners associated with 
 paradise to the latter's disparagement. 
 
 At the Valley's lower extension issued a passage, 
 whence with innumerable sharp windings, ascents and 
 declivities, the only road coiled its way down to the sea 
 at Saint Yukon, the most evenly clement summer village 
 on the California coast, and which hung suspended over 
 the water upon the railroad like a beautiful pearl pendant. 
 Down this ravine meandered also a thread of water, help- 
 lessly feeble in the months of heat, but in the rainy time 
 a ravening torrent, crossing the road at some twenty 
 points between the valley and its terminus in the sea. 
 
 These interruptions and the jolting rocks of the road- 
 bed exacted of traveling humanity an expenditure of 
 strength so wearying as to lock the residents of the Tulip 
 region at home on the sizzling days when they most 
 needed to be gently driving on the cooling beach. 
 
 Now it was conceded that it would be a precious lux- 
 ury and save many lives if they could secure the invig- 
 orating ocean ozone more liberally, and it was upon this 
 problem that the meeting had been called to sit. 
 
 The first to address it was a clear and businesslike 
 speaker from the progressive side, barring the difficulty 
 he had in making his voice heard. His name was Bar- 
 
Tulip Valley 107 
 
 celon Gelly, who owned stock in twenty-five metropolitan 
 daily papers, although he never had strength to read any 
 of them and was confined for life to the Tulip climate by 
 an asthma which he had contracted in breathing anima- 
 tion into one of these giant organs of common sense. He 
 was, in fact, an extremely level-headed man, being com- 
 pelled by his disease to lie on his back most of the time, 
 and was considered to be in close touch with the interior 
 of human things from his connection with the world's 
 freshest events through his property, though obliged to 
 forego a knowledge of them, as all were aware. He was, 
 therefore, put forward by the iconoclast wing to manifest 
 their feelings. 
 
 He contended that the right way was to bring the ocean 
 to their doors by smoothing the road to Saint Yukon and 
 bridging the elbows of the creek. The drive through this 
 picturesque woodland was superb if one's marrow were 
 not being racked into convulsions by rocks. All of the 
 progressives heartily applauded these sentiments, and 
 called for a vote. 
 
 Silas Lagram, however, conservative, who owned a 
 thousand acres of land and two hundred thousand dollars 
 in coin, which he had earned by selling some other tracts 
 to his unsophisticated countrymen, proceeded to his feet. 
 
 Said he, "I agree with the speaker that we ought to be 
 
io8 The Damask Girl 
 
 enjoying the benefits of the ocean more than as if we lived 
 back in Arizonia, but it don't satisfy my notion of econom- 
 ical energy if we've got to ride away down there seawards 
 every time we get 'em. We ought to find a way to bring 
 the ocean up here, as it were. Some's obliged to stay at 
 home on the hot days to milk, and they'd like to enjoy 
 the coolin' comforts of nature as well as them who can 
 convey themselves about. I haven't a plan just now for 
 bringin' the ocean around, but we ought to set our minds 
 to it." 
 
 Judge Hidslup, formerly of the Superior Court, now 
 rose deliberately upon his cane and took off his hat. He 
 was a citizen of such respectability that Tulip public opin- 
 ion allowed him to keep it on when he preferred. His 
 manner of talking was peculiar and influential, and I 
 shortly observed that its eloquent impressiveness consisted 
 of a frequent absolute pause or period where, in the dic- 
 tion of ordinary men, there would have been none. 
 
 He first remarked that he had something to say. Which 
 he hoped would be listened to with attention. By the 
 younger men, if not in years at least in real estate. Who 
 occupied what he hoped he might without irreverence to 
 the British Parliament. Facetiously call the opposition 
 benches. He had a plan which he hoped. Would solve 
 and satisfy everything and everybody. His way would 
 
Tulip Valley 109 
 
 be to cut down all the trees in the gap. Between Tulip 
 and Saint Yukon. This would let the ocean wind sweep 
 up the passage, which was now obstructed by the trees. 
 It would pour over gratefully into the Tulip Valley and 
 cool it all. Which he thought was feasible, as he owned 
 nearly all the land. That the trees stood on. 
 
 A terrible shudder at this point ran through the opposi- 
 tion benches. The project meant nothing less than the 
 erasure of one of the finest natural parks in the State of 
 California, a thing of inestimable worth and beauty, if 
 not to the natives at least to the inflooding nature lovers. 
 
 The shudder was lost on the Judge, who continued his 
 remarks by saying that the price of stove-wood was going 
 up, and that if it rose high enough he should be willing 
 to relieve the Valley of its summer heat by supplying it 
 with winter heat. He said he had been investigating the 
 matter in order to make a report to the meeting, by climb- 
 ing a tree in the ravine clear to the top, and had found 
 the wind blowing beautiful and cool up there, while 
 down on the ground a person would sweat. The trees 
 held it back and gave it time to heat before it got to Tulip. 
 
 The Hon. Ponchas Leverbone, a forty-niner, who had 
 served a term in the State Assembly and another in the 
 State Prison, seconded these sentiments, but would go 
 a step further and cut down all the trees in the Tulip 
 
no The Damask Girl 
 
 Valley to give the new-comers a better view of the scen- 
 ery and the land market ; but as he was going on to ex- 
 patiate, Dr. Adam Merrill interposed, with the authority 
 of the Chair, to remind him that this was irrelevant to 
 the occasion, though another mee;ting might be convened 
 to consider the topic. 
 
 The Hon. Ponchas appealed from the Chair that if 
 Judge Hidslup's principle was right every tree left stand- 
 ing in the Tulip domain would impede the suction and 
 circulation of the cool temperature from the canyon, and 
 would hold it still while it warmed up — and the meeting 
 sustained him, throwing the innovators into extreme des- 
 pair as they pictured the entire valley nude and bald. 
 
 Deacon Hillery Dimpole, the general storekeeper of 
 Tulip with the exception of drugs, next seized the floor. 
 He was fluent in discourse from extensive practice at 
 church meetings; the ripe, mellow tones of his athletic 
 voice seemed to banish evil and strife from the vicinity, 
 though the words taken apart from the tones somewhat 
 rasped. 
 
 "I don't mind confiding to dear neighbors," he began, 
 "that I'm a leetle more pronounced than the brothers that 
 have sat down. Although richly recognizing the respon- 
 sibility of intercommunication, there are occasions when 
 I am opposed to a good road on religious principles, of 
 
Tulip Valley hi 
 
 which this is one. It would entice the salo-o-on element 
 into our midst and we should see empty bottles by the 
 Toad ; it would thin our tourists and slack our trade, for 
 while you might say they could get in here easier it's 
 ekally sure they could get out easier, and that's what some 
 of 'em want to do and what we've partiklarly to guard 
 against. Keep what you have and don't go a-sprouting 
 in the dark after more is an established principle of Tulip 
 success. Shall we make roads with our own hands, so to 
 speak, to accommodate travelers to imbibe our good air 
 by night — and shop in Saint Yukon by day ? What's the 
 sense of tourists if we can't have their business ? If they 
 want a better road, perhaps we can let 'em build it. To 
 him that hath, etc., is holy writ, and we, having the blessed 
 atmosphere, it's right to us shall be given the trade of 
 the sick. And I'm not in favor of Judge Hidslup's cut- 
 ting down his woods likewise — it would allure the drink- 
 ers this way and the tourists the other." 
 
 Couldn't we pump the ocean air over the mountain, 
 asked one, and when the pumps are not conveying the 
 climate use them to pump over the ocean water for sea 
 bathing ? 
 
 Marcus Julius Smith, who was considered a practical 
 genius on account of the number of mortgages that he 
 held and who seldom wasted his pearls on the early part 
 of a meeting, was now urgently called for. 
 
112 The Damask Girl 
 
 "I like the ideas of friend Lagram," he said, "only I 
 could wish there had been more of them, as I suppose he 
 does. It's plain we could double if not threbble the value 
 of land here if we was to find out a way to modify the 
 atmosphere as we pleased to. There's the ocean and here's 
 Tuhp Valley, one's cool while the other's hot and needing 
 it, and the only thing that stands in the way is that pesky 
 mountain ridge between. Now it does seem, though I 
 ain't a reg'lar engineer, that we might diskuver a trans- 
 action for unifying the two, and my idea is to cut a pass 
 through the mountain, which ain't above three thousand 
 feet high, and that would let the cool air blow direct in 
 here all summer, and we shouldn't need to go out of 
 Tulip Valley at all to get it. In respect to Deacon Dim- 
 pole's objection, we could leave it rough and stony at the 
 bottom so people couldn't drive through." 
 
 One of the radicals was on his feet as soon as Marcus 
 JuUus sat. 
 
 "That's all very well," he shouted excitedly, "and I 
 might support it if it didn't menace the very supremacy 
 of the Tulip climate as a winter haven. If you cut open 
 that gap three thousand feet deep and let the cool air in 
 on us in summer, it will be there when winter comes, and 
 the raw winter winds will rush through and destroy the 
 salubrious healthy beneficence which nature has granted 
 
Tulip Valley 113 
 
 us by creating the guardian Brimstone range. Why, the 
 very name of the mountain protests against such unnat- 
 ural ingratitude! It was christened Brimstone because 
 by precluding the ingress of the raucous ocean breath it 
 engendered the ardent temperature of the Tulip retreat. 
 Its predestined duty ought not to be interfered with by 
 man. If the value of land here should rise threefold in 
 the summer it would sink thirtyfold in the winter. I tell 
 you it would be a bad move, not because land isn't thirty 
 times too high but because we ought not to ruin one of 
 nature's few climatic successes." 
 
 Elijah Trample, lukewarm in his advocacy of either 
 progress or decay but much esteemed for having lived 
 twenty-five years with a quarter of one lung and thus 
 done more for the Tulip climate than twelve or fifteen 
 well men, took up the chain of thought argumentatively ; 
 
 "I believe a tunnel would be superior to a gap. It would 
 let less cold through in winter, and in summer the sea air 
 would be kept cool while proceeding along it. If we dig 
 a gap we'll spoil a number of farms on top of the moun- 
 tain, which'll have to be paid for, and it ain't improbable 
 that in going down we should cut into several great ar- 
 teries of oil and lay them open to pour their distressing 
 contents down into the Tulip orchards to abolish vegeta- 
 tion." 
 
114 The Damask Girl 
 
 The tunnel plan was rejected on the ground that it 
 would be an irresistible instigation to some company to 
 build a railroad through. 
 
 They also repudiated the remedy of cutting off the trees 
 in the Tulip River Canyon because of its windings and 
 pockets, where the wind would catch, as well as because 
 the canyon opened into the Valley way down at a corner, 
 far from the middle, from which all sections would be 
 unequally revived, so that the operation would be unfair 
 to some parts. 
 
 Prof. Flinders Duck, Principal of the Tulip Valley 
 Academy and a geologist of some note in Tulip, assured 
 them there would be no geologic objection to the gap. 
 
 Deacon Hillery had sat in severe meditation during 
 these variegated remarks, and he now got on his feet a 
 second time, speaking with two fingers of one hand lying 
 stiff and parallel in the palm of the other. 
 
 "I can't see that the point about spiling the winter 
 should stand in the way of a pious project ; the gap propo- 
 sition is most appealin' and shouldn't be allowed to fall 
 through for want of intellect. We can put big gates into 
 the opening, reaching all the way to the summit, like canal 
 locks, and when we want to have it cool here we can open 
 'em and let the ocean breeze up, and when we want it 
 warm we can shut them and keep the ocean wind out. 
 
Tulip Valley 115 
 
 We'll need to make the gates kind of V-shaped, because 
 the gap will have to be wider at the top than the bottom 
 to keep it from caving. 
 
 "I shouldn't wonder if we could get any kind of cli- 
 mate we wanted, for we shan't have to open the gates all 
 the way when the heat don't warrant; we can just open 
 them a crack or two and let an adjustable moderation in. 
 If we can get the climate changed here it'll be a great 
 precedent. Every town with a mountain near it can cut 
 a pass through and alter its climate to anything it likes. 
 And perhaps before long there'll be an invention for mak- 
 ing mountains so that every town can have a gap." 
 
 Silas Lagram intimated that they could sell the preced- 
 ent. 
 
 It was strange how this idea took possession of the 
 minds of both the first and the second settlers. When 
 the question was put they voted for it unanimously and 
 carried the motion, being the majority, and they agreed 
 to take hold of the work with their own scrapers and 
 teams. 
 
 I intend to visit Tulip Valley again next year to see 
 what progress they have made. 
 
Urgent 
 
 A TALL, handsome, actively built young fellow leaped 
 from his horse, and, taking some letters from his pocket, 
 walked softly into the tent. It was dusk, and he had rid- 
 den hard all day to the mailing station and back. "Here 
 are three for you, Stanley," he said in a low tone, "and 
 Clarence gets only one this trip. How is the poor fel- 
 low?" The speaker leaned over the rough couch where 
 Clarence Hallowell with bandaged head lay in a heavy 
 sleep. 
 
 "Better," answered the other; "he slept nearly all day 
 and the fever is abating, but he'll have to lie perfectly 
 quiet for several days before the danger line is fully 
 passed. It was a hard fall, and only the brush saved 
 him." 
 
 Bernard Grandon, the tall youth, studied the inscrip- 
 tion of his disabled friend's letter dubiously. "It's marked 
 'urgent,' " said he ; "perhaps Hallowell ought to know its 
 contents." 
 
 "You wouldn't kill him, would you!" exclaimed Stan- 
 ley Barker in an explosive whisper; "excitement would 
 
 be his death, even an embryo healer can diagnose that." 
 
 117 
 
ii8 The Damask Girl 
 
 "Well, Doctor," retorted Grandon indulgently, "then 
 we must take the responsibility of finding what the 
 urgency of the letter is, and I empower you to open it. 
 Something may need to be done, and we must see to it, 
 if we can, for old Hallowell, since he's in limbo." 
 
 While Stanley read the epistle the youthful patient on 
 the bed turned unconsciously and groaned. His finely 
 moulded features strikingly resembled those of his ath- 
 letic friend ; indeed, strangers pronounced them twins, 
 and when separated only familiar acquaintances could dis- 
 tinguish them. They had been companions for a year, 
 having met by accident and joined fortunes in this min- 
 ing expedition. 
 
 They were now the fastest friends, and far and wide 
 were know as the Arctic Twins. Over the great north- 
 ern peninsula they were famous for their high and daring 
 qualities, as well as for their devotion to fairness and their 
 geniality to all. Many had been saved from border in- 
 justice and savagery when it was known that these two 
 fearless and far-loved youths had espoused their cause. 
 
 It was the humor of the region to consider them as one 
 person without a double identity ; they were called Bern- 
 ard and Clarence indiscriminately — always affectionately 
 by the first name — and a conversation begun with one 
 was afterward resumed with the other quite as if it made 
 
Urgent i 19 
 
 no difference: which was exceedingly interesting to the 
 two young fellows, who immersed themselves in the sit- 
 uation with comical zest, ever having something unex- 
 pected and half magical to relate in the deep winter even- 
 ings, caused by their interchangeable personalities. 
 
 These three attractive men were of the age when life 
 is still unmarred by the cares of either having or wanting 
 gold. They had made this excursion in search of life ani 
 experience ; yet Fortune, piqued by their indifference, had 
 smiled upon and coquetted with them, and had ended by 
 making them rich. 
 
 Barker handed the open letter to Grandon: 
 
 " Fifth Avenue, New York, July 15, 1903. 
 
 "Dearest Clarence: 
 
 "Uncle George says it is my duty to marry Rudolph 
 Grane. It has been a long nightmare, already six months 
 of torture and resistance. I would sooner die a hundred 
 times than marry that marmalade gallant once. But the 
 dreadful catastrophe is appointed for September fifteenth, 
 a respite of only two months in my once happy Eden be- 
 fore the snake is to dine on me. Eve had an option : — ^the 
 serpent has, it seems, upon me. You, love, alone can de- 
 liver me. I can't refuse uncle's request and continue to 
 live if you are not here. It would seem a cruel caprice, 
 for he thinks his honor already terribly involved and that 
 
I20 The Damask Girl 
 
 worse things are gathering. He'll never believe in my 
 affection if I shatter his good name and fortune by refus- 
 ing this man, who, I'm sure, is a traitor. I can only prove 
 my horror of the reptile — in whom uncle implicitly be- 
 lieves — by acting; it is my only escape, and if you fail 
 me I must take my life. If you are not here I shall kill 
 myself at eight o'clock on the wedding night. 
 "Your fondest 
 
 "Ethelyn." 
 
 "By the Aurora, could anything be worse?" demanded 
 Grandon, much moved. "The afifair can't wait! Surely 
 he mustn't lose the girl just through this little accident. 
 When he learns her fate it may cause a relapse and kill 
 him. He should start to-morrow to get there in time." 
 
 "Start!" echoed Barker, who already had the doctors' 
 elastic perceptions ; "command your senses, Barney. If 
 he goes it kills him, he therefore doesn't arrive, and she 
 kills herself : then both are dead, two lives lost ! whereas 
 if we say nothing he lives and she is the only dead one; 
 he comes to and loses his mind, but we have saved his 
 life. A man without a mind is far better than a mind 
 without a man. Go eat your supper and seal up the let- 
 ter. This is a case for medical ethics." 
 
 Grandon did not hear this remedial philosophy. He 
 was thinking that it must not happen. "I'm enough like 
 
Urgent 121 
 
 Clarence to pass for him with his own bride, and they 11 
 lay all changes to a year in the Klondyke cold — perhaps 
 think him improved. I believe I can save Ethelyn's life 
 for her lover." 
 
 "Barker," said he, earnestly, "when Clarence comes 
 around tell him I've gone up the country to our other 
 claims. Keep back the letter till he's well, then let him 
 know I'm in New York to protect Ethelyn, and send him 
 on after me. I'll checkmate that beggar Grane." 
 
 Barker thought well of this project and the next morn- 
 ing Bernard Grandon started for New York. 
 
 It was a turtle's progress for a man on a life and death 
 mission, but on the fifteenth his train pulled into the city, 
 having recovered two hours of lost time ; and as soon as 
 speed would allow, the elated Grandon rang the bell at 
 Ethelyn's home. He waited tremulously, his heart almost 
 as palpitant as if his own fate were suspended. The girl 
 who glided into the dim drawing-room excelled the glow- 
 ing picture he had fancifully formed of her in the 
 weighted hours of his flying journey. She threw her 
 arms about his neck, and kissed him many times. 
 
 "Dear Clarence !" she cried, ecstatically. "I knew you 
 would come ! You have saved my life !" 
 
 "How could I help it ?" he answered, choking. 
 
 Of course the situation was embarrassing, but it was 
 
122 The Damask Girl 
 
 his duty to submit to it, and he did so manfully. The 
 plan required him to personate Clarence in every particu- 
 lar, even in extremes ; for if he were cold she might sus- 
 pect, and kill herself in chagrin or despair. He returned 
 her caresses with an outward ardor and inward chill, as 
 far as possible, striving to remember his friend and play 
 his part creditably. And after the first scene of the first 
 act he had a fine conviction that he was playing his part 
 as it ought to be done. He found, indeed, that he was not 
 obliged to force himself, that his role went naturally, and 
 the girl responded, giving him her love intensely and 
 lavishly. 
 
 They sat together in happiness, he forgetting every- 
 thing but Clarence and she everything but him, and time 
 passed; words were unnecessary, so they were left un- 
 spoken; and as he felt that Clarence himself could not 
 have done the thing better than he was doing it, his bliss 
 was supreme. 
 
 They might have remained thus for many hours, but 
 the thought of why he was there came suddenly and smote 
 Bernard. Hardly audibly, that she might not suspect his 
 voice, he said : 
 
 "Dearest Ethelyn, is the ceremony to-night?" 
 
 She came back to common life with a shudder, but was 
 immediately alert and firm. "Uncle and Grane are to have 
 
Urgent 123 
 
 another of their endless scenes over me — burial services, 
 I call them — you must hear it, Uncle George would call 
 you in if he knew of your presence." 
 
 She lingered fondly, and then led him into her rela- 
 tive's private room, where she had arranged a conceal- 
 ment. 
 
 Even at the eleventh hour her uncle and guardian was 
 again wavering, and Grane, a man of magnetism, ad- 
 dressed himself to restoring strength to the vacillating 
 mind. 
 
 "It will be hard on Clarence if we fail, my dear Run- 
 yon," he said sonorously ; "the boy's whole fortune goes, 
 you know. Ethelyn, Clarence and yourself will be 
 plunged into hopeless poverty. You may endure it, but 
 the young haven't your philosophy. Ethelyn was reared 
 in splendor and wealth — why, Runyon, she'll actually 
 have to work for a living, at typewriting or something; 
 think of it ! Ethelyn Runyon, a leading beauty and aris- 
 tocrat, working for a living! And Clarence, poor dog, 
 what can he do? You know he has neither business ca- 
 pacity nor training, only the idle life of a student behind 
 him ; it's hard to beggar a helpless fellow like that when 
 he trusted you with his money. You are too generous to 
 think of yourself, and as your junior partner I have the 
 right of affection to do so. Consider the steepening lad- 
 
124 The Damask Girl 
 
 der of life, the fruitless struggle to regain lost standing, 
 old age, decrepitude, remorse ! I tell you, you don't know 
 what you're doing! — do you suppose you can be happy 
 with Ethelyn wearing out under your eyes ?" 
 
 Runyon groaned. 
 
 "What are you thinking of, my dear friend," contin- 
 ued Grane, more eagerly, "when one word from you will 
 repair all ? We don't know why the girl's maternal grand- 
 father made such a ridiculous will, but he did, and if 
 Ethelyn's not married this evening, on her eighteenth 
 birthday, the magnificent legacy is lost to her and passes 
 from your branch of the family. Now, I love her, and 
 our alliance will scatter the clouds. Wouldn't it be a crime 
 to drag your dear ones down to desolation by a moment 
 of misplaced weakness? Surely you'll insist on her obe- 
 dience." 
 
 "Grane," answered the older man, his impressive coun- 
 tenance deeply furrowed with pain, "this is a terrible 
 crisis for me ; our business ought not to be where it is ; 
 I left too much in your hands." 
 
 He paused sadly, looking out at the mild-shining Sep- 
 tember sun. Grandon could see Rudolph Grane's visage, 
 and as Runyon spoke a devilish look of triumphant con- 
 tempt, not free from something more sinister, glowed a 
 second there and went out in deferential concern as Run- 
 yon turned and resumed : 
 
Urgent 125 
 
 "I was to blame; that foreign branch of our house, of 
 which you said the profits were so sure — ^how it has 
 drained us! I should have given an older man's no to 
 your expansive proposition, it was the first time I ever 
 was indulgent in business affairs and it was fatal. But 
 if we break — ah, it would kill me, I'm afraid — ^yes, I'll 
 appeal to Ethelyn once more, for the honor of my name 
 and yours. I don't censure you, Rudolph ; those dubious 
 transactions in my absence and without my knowledge 
 were but the effervescence of your youthful commercial 
 zeal and not moral laxness. I covered them with the 
 probity of my established name and assumed full respon- 
 sibility, proving my love for you — you can never doubt 
 my love, Grane, after what I did — ^but if we don't pay 
 dollar for dollar all that goes for naught, we're both 
 ruined, and I stand before the world a criminal, branded 
 for what I didn't do." 
 
 The evil look reveaUng the malignancy of Rudolph 
 Grane's interior once more flashed and faded. 
 
 "He's a devil," said Grandon, as the partners passed 
 arm in arm from the room. "He has brought the firm to 
 ruin to force Runyon to give him his niece and her for- 
 tune, and he has drawn off the firm's money for himself." 
 
 The youth could hardly keep from rushing after Grane 
 and choking a confession out of him ; but there was more 
 to learn, and he postponed the pleasure. 
 
126 The Damask Girl 
 
 Runyon ascended with weary step to his niece's apart- 
 ment. A strong feeling as of father and child existed be- 
 tween them, her parents being long since dead and he un- 
 married. He feared to find her depressed, for earlier in 
 the day he had disclosed the full gravity of his position, 
 only withholding Grane's agency ; but she was gayer than 
 she had been for months, which cheered him, as he read 
 in it a decision to adopt his advice to love and marry 
 Grane. 
 
 "I will take you out of pawn to-night," she laughingly 
 said, so he went away renewed to congratulate Grane. 
 
 It was the last hour of afternoon. In the window look- 
 ing out upon the coloring sunset sky Ethelyn stood with 
 her hands tightly clasped behind her and a strange soft- 
 ness in her eyes. The radiance of love was in them and 
 her form thrilled. "It is not Clarence, it is not Clarence," 
 she breathed. What had brought this splendid stranger 
 just in time, and why had the other remained away ? And 
 the mystery of their resemblance! She had kissed him! 
 and her cheeks glowed a dark crimson as she thought of 
 it. Yet in her face there was no regret, the glow was of 
 deep happiness. 
 
 During dinner Ethelyn's maid conducted Grandon to 
 a place in the centre of the house, where hidden in a for- 
 est of plants refreshments awaited him. "It is a shame 
 
Urgent 127 
 
 for Mr. Clarence not to have more than this," the young 
 woman said, sweetly smiling, and Grandon couldn't de- 
 cide the meaning of her smile. 
 
 The marriage guests were few. Though Grane desired 
 a grand wedding, with a flourish in the newspapers, since 
 the ceremony had not been certainly scheduled in all 
 hearts concerned to come off until that very day, he was 
 perforce contented with an occasion most select and pri- 
 vate. The officiating clergyman was a rather young man 
 and former acquaintance of Clarence's, who kept rigidly 
 within himself, answering Crane's loquacity with words 
 of hardly one syllable. Grane sorely afflicted his sensi- 
 bilities. 
 
 The hour came and they awaited the bride, Grane beam- 
 ing with victory. Five minutes lengthened into twenty, 
 and Crane's brow grew ever blacker: if she tricked him 
 he had George Runyon where he would grind him to 
 atoms. Then she tripped lightly down the wide stairs 
 unattended. 
 
 "I have decided not to marry," she said steadily, smil- 
 ing. 
 
 The blood left Runyon's cheek. A muffled, raputurous 
 explosion shook within the clergyman; Grane, purple 
 black, moved to a window looking out on the street and 
 raising it as if for air to sustain him, waved his hand 
 
128 The Damask Girl 
 
 slightly. Almost immediately a message was brought to 
 Runyon, which he read with a terrible pallor. 
 
 "I am ruined," he said; "we have lost all, but that is 
 light. I thought our creditors fully covered, but here's 
 word of another miscarriage, and little is left for them. 
 I'm notified of criminal charges." 
 
 He stiffened himself with strong effort and added : 
 
 "Grane, the worst falls on me alone ; you are bankrupt 
 with me, but my assumption of your acts saves you from 
 the criminal docket and makes me a felon." 
 
 Grane forced an aspect of woe, and laying a hand on 
 his senior's shoulder urged in round tones, "Bear up, 
 Runyon ; if you go to prison I'll pay your debts, I pledge 
 my life to it, you shall find me steadfast. Think of years 
 behind the bars, Ethelyn ! the cruelty of it ! I beg you to 
 relent." 
 
 "I can save you all," convulsively broke from the cler- 
 gyman. "Er, I'm willing to marry Miss Runyon, should 
 be glad to, in fact, to, to save her esteemed uncle from 
 infamy, and, and, confer a great blessing, ah, fortune 
 upon her. I happen to be unmarried, providentially. It 
 would, ah, give me great pleasure ; I always liked Clar- 
 ence. Prisons are terrible things, terrible; proper per"* 
 sons will refuse to go to them, will refuse." 
 
 They were so absorbed in awaiting Ethelyn's reply to 
 Grane that none attended the clergyman's offer or ob- 
 
Urgent 129 
 
 served Bernard Grandon as he stepped forth, except the 
 girl herself, and she was conscious of nothing else. 
 
 "She shall never marry Rudolph Grane," he solemnly 
 announced. "I forbid it. 
 
 "Clarence !" cried the astonished uncle, staggering into 
 the embrace of the sturdy figure. "No, she never shall !"' 
 and down his overstrained cheeks coursed tears of relief. 
 
 The devil in him got the mastery of Grane; he raged 
 and gloried openly in the misery about to break on these 
 dear friends; and poor Runyon listened with a stupefied 
 stare as the truth dawned upon him, murmuring humbly, 
 "Alas, alas, my course is run ; I deserve my doom for be- 
 lieving in that villain." 
 
 Grandon allowed the rogue to go on until he had com- 
 pletely unmasked himself before them all, and then walked 
 over to him. Gathering up the front of Grane's collar 
 with his left hand, 
 
 "Dog," said he, through his wrath, "you know you 
 have robbed my uncle to accomplish the villainy of this 
 marriage, confess it. You have betrayed your partner's 
 affection to throw on him the imputation of a fraud 
 planned and committed by you to discredit his integrity 
 if he resisted your demands : publicly declare this and re- 
 store every dollar or I will " 
 
 The process had already begun, the vise tightened; 
 Grane, who was a large man, gurgled and struggled, 
 
130 The Damask Girl- 
 
 lunging out heavily with his fists, but in a few seconds 
 his wrists were pinioned by Grandon's unrelenting right 
 hand. 
 
 Runyon interposed. "Clarence, I can't yet believe all 
 that of him, bad as he is ; don't injure him in my house. 
 The love I had shall protect him from it ; but I will know 
 if he is a traitor and compel restitution if I can." 
 
 Grandon had listened to Grane's exulting with concern. 
 How could this fiend insolently revel in his power to 
 crush them still unless he saw it was not Hallowell that 
 had come but a stranger posing as Hallowell? Runyon 
 also remained overwhelmed, though calling him Clarence. 
 His arrival had not cleared the air as he had anticipated- 
 
 But Ethelyn believed him to be her real lover, he was 
 sure, and on that faith he would win. He resolved on 
 a grand stroke: he would marry her under Clarence's 
 name, thus preserving her legacy, and after the ceremony 
 would disappear, leaving the field open for his friend to 
 return and take his rightful place as husband without dis- 
 closing to Ethelyn the change. Why need she know? 
 Why need anyone? It should forever remain a secret. 
 Clarence could invent some fiction for his abrupt depart- 
 ure on the marriage night, such as the pressing investi- 
 gation of Grane. Grandon craved this mission for him- 
 self, but Clarence might arrive in the midst of it, bring- 
 
Urgent 131 
 
 ing exposure and general consternation ; so he must head 
 the latter off in San Francisco to groom him for his char- 
 acter. Were the interchange of bridegroms subsequently 
 detected, divorce would release Ethelyn to marry the real 
 Clarence, with the stipulations of the will satisfied and the 
 fortune secure. 
 
 Staking everything on this venture, Grandon boldly 
 said: "If Ethelyn is willing, she shall be married to- 
 night." 
 
 "To whom?" asked several. 
 
 "To me." 
 
 "Clarence," said Runyon kindly but firmly, though a 
 very great pain shot through his features, "you know this 
 cannot be. I was prepared for much, but not for this. 
 What " 
 
 "Ha ! ha ! ha !" interrupted Grane, roaring. "Now lis- 
 ten to him, will you, and see what he is ! Is he the one 
 to lecture me on what I shall do? Hardships have fud- 
 dled him," he jeered mockingly, with another great roar. 
 "You marry Ethelyn!' Do you think we've forgotten 
 you? Now, Runyon, come to your reason and settle this 
 and give her to me." 
 
 Grandon, though stunned and dumb for an instant, re- 
 bounded from even this shock. If he couldn't wed as 
 Clarence for some inscrutable reason into which his deli- 
 
132 The Damask Girl 
 
 cate position forbade inquiry, why not as himself, with 
 the same result? Divorce would restore Clarence when 
 the hindrances were cleared. He trusted Ethelyn's quick 
 mind to penetrate his purpose. 
 
 "I am not Clarence Hallowell," he announced, "I am 
 Bernard Grandon, and as such I ask Ethelyn Runyon in 
 marriage." 
 
 The company now relapsed into complete dementia, in 
 which even Grane participated. It was the clergyman 
 who first emerged to expostulate : 
 
 "But you know you are Clarence, dear chap ; I couldn't 
 know you better if I had baptized you." 
 
 Runyon folded his hands on his breast in deep-toned, 
 silent resignation. 
 
 Grane, again reanimated, straightened his shattered 
 apparel for a new campaign of hortatory protest. 
 
 "If you're not Clarence you can't forbid her marriage 
 to me. I'll have her yet in spite of you. Why, Runyon, 
 what do we know about this adventurer? He may be a 
 bad man; he looks it; we don't want Ethelyn taking up 
 with a shady character, think of the family reputation ! a 
 first family!" 
 
 Runyon now meekly spoke. "I have shown myself un- 
 equal to guiding and protecting those I love through the 
 stormy labyrinths of life. Having been deceived by you. 
 
Urgent 133 
 
 Grane, I shall never henceforward credit the information 
 of my senses about my fellows. The young gentleman's 
 assertion that he is not Claience would count for little 
 against the affirmation of my eyes, which declare that he 
 is, but that optic declaration is now the strongest proof 
 to me that he is not. Ethelyn shall marry whom she 
 pleases, with my feeble blessing." 
 
 Ethelyn disclosed her mind lucidly. 
 
 "I never had a thought of marrying Mr. Grane. You 
 have all learned to-night that a woman would better be 
 dead than be his wife. I have felt that all along, and was 
 prepared to end my life this evening before surrendering 
 to him. I will marry Mr. Grandon." 
 
 As the reluctant clergyman made them one he shivered 
 as he thought how near the perfect happiness had come 
 to him. Yet happiness in this life, he gratefully medi- 
 tated, is only meant as a shining frame to bring our moral 
 wretchedness into deeper relief. 
 
 The rift in the clouds caused even Runyon to smile 
 and yield to the spirit of the occasion in which all were 
 joyously immersed, and this was Grane's chance. None 
 heeded him as he drifted from their midst to the dressing- 
 room and thence to an exit. A servant swung the door 
 for him and he was on the threshold gliding out when a 
 light touch on the shoulder brought him around, and he 
 was face to face with the interloper from the North. 
 
134 The Damask Girl 
 
 "Not yet," said Grandon. "Europe can wait a little 
 for you." 
 
 "Bring Runyon," he added to the servant. 
 
 The veins in Crane's forehead swelled fearfully, he 
 felt an impetuous frenzy to crush this antagonist like a 
 worm, but his aching throat acted as a danger signal 
 warning him from the real encounter with the polar bear 
 which Runyon had earlier spared him. 
 
 The door closed again and Grandon stood before it 
 with Grane two paces off, like a mad dog, raging but 
 spellbound and not daring to spring. 
 
 Runyon hurried to them with hand outstretched plead- 
 ingly, but Grandon checked him. 
 
 "You must give this knave over to the law to-night or 
 you'll see him no more," he said. "He has your whole 
 fortune and you can make him dig it up, but put a thread 
 on him or he'll fly." 
 
 Runyon was in awe of this authoritative young man 
 who had miraculously rescued him, and after meekly 
 protesting obeyed. 
 
 When the business was settled they return to the com- 
 pany. 
 
 For a few fiendishly delicious moments Grandon stood 
 with his bride ; they looked into each others eyes, she un- 
 utterably happy, he in the deepest conceivable abyss of 
 
TJrgent 135 
 
 misery ; he interpreted her look as gratitude for what he 
 had done, and for her sake concealed his cruel anguish ; 
 and a little later, when for a moment they were separated, 
 not daring to trust himself longer with her, he quietly 
 withdrew and started on the long return to that solitary 
 mining camp in the distant wilderness of the north. 
 
 Shall I attempt to describe his feelings? It is impos- 
 sible. If you had ever been the husband of the most beau- 
 tiful woman your dreams could picture and had loved her 
 deliriously, if you knew that she loved your dearest friend 
 and that she had wedded only your name and not your- 
 self, to escape a great evil and gain a fortune for her 
 lover and your friend, you might fathom Bernard Gran- 
 don's emotions as the train whirled him across the Amer- 
 ican continent. 
 
 In her room that night Ethelyn Runyon passionately 
 wept the first bitter tears of her life, and through the long 
 hours could find no comfort. She loved this stranger and 
 had married him for love, with blind absolute faith that 
 he returned it, and he had not loved her and had gone. 
 Did he think the wealth his act had given her was any- 
 thing without him ? What had he thought of her ? She 
 loathed herself and her fortune. 
 
 The ensuing weeks were busy ones in that family. 
 Grane was savagely fighting Runyon to strike at Ethelyn 
 
136 The Damask Girl 
 
 through his humiliation and for his own safety. Ethelyn 
 paid the firm's debts and the probing of Grane began, 
 which placed him where be must choose between prison, 
 restoration of his embezzlements, and forfeiture of his 
 heavy bonds and a felon's flight. 
 
 When Grandon reached the Coast he was ready to 
 turn back to spend the rest of his days concealed in the 
 neighborhood of his wife. He was of flesh and blood 
 like others, had not these some rights? Again loyalty 
 conquered, and he waited brooding for the boat which 
 was to bring Hallowell. Having clasped hands with his 
 friend and apprised him of the great happiness so des- 
 perately conferred, he would set forth on his bleak des- 
 tiny. He was resolved to conceal from Qarence his own 
 love for Ethelyn that he might not cloud the generous 
 fellow's joy. 
 
 "Did you think I was going to lie abed up there all 
 winter?" cried a merry voice accompanied by a hearty 
 blow on the back. 
 
 Grandon swung round, and Clarence Hallowell, hale 
 and well, planted his hands on his friend's shoulders, and 
 looking him affectionately in the face exclaimed with 
 concern : 
 
 "Why, man, you're the sick one, what is it?" 
 
 "The nasty city," stammered Grandon. "It nearly 
 
Urgent 137 
 
 killed me ; you breathe up north, I'm going there to stay. ' 
 
 "Well, I thought you were made of iron. I've been 
 living on the plan of having you with me and Ethel in 
 town, and now you explode it. No, old fellow, it won't 
 do ; you must come back and we'll make you well. Why, 
 you couldn't have been in the 'nasty city' more than a 
 day, and that never could hurt you ; it was the hard travel. 
 I didn't tell you of Ethel, kept her back for a surprise, 
 and now you shall not run away from us." 
 
 "Good heavens!" groaned Grandon, "it won't work, 
 I'm a sick man, I tell you, and must get to regular ways 
 and bracing air. I appreciate everything, couldn't want 
 to stay more, but it can't be, I should be dead in a little 
 while back there." 
 
 Clarence studied him, and at length broke into a lively 
 laugh. 
 
 "You're fibbing, I can see it in your eye, you never were 
 made for a liar ; so out with the truth quick." 
 
 "I'm married," feebly communicated Grandon. 
 
 "Married! in this space! where — who is she? what a 
 lark!" 
 
 "Don't call it a lark, if you love me ; it's Ethelyn Run- 
 yon ; she's in New York." 
 
 "To Ethelyn! You never saw her till ten days ago! 
 She's in New York? Then why are you here?" Hallo- 
 
138 The Damask Girl 
 
 well's face became ludicrous. "If you've left her like 
 that what did you marry her for? Ethelyn isn't a girl 
 to be married and left." 
 
 "I know it, you don't have to tell me, that's just it, 
 neither could I if — ^but I married her for you, you know, 
 and so " 
 
 "Vestibuled stars! for me? What do you mean? Are 
 you blank daft?" 
 
 "Yes, that saved her, and you, and her fortune, and 
 everything [but me, he moaned within] , and I pulled my- 
 self out immediately without saying much to her, you 
 know. You're the only one she loves, she said so ; if you 
 didn't know it you'll be glad to hear; and you love her, 
 don't you?" 
 
 "Well, I should think so, but if you're married to her 
 how can I be the only one she loves, and how can you 
 give her to me, and why do you want to? I'm gravelled 
 if I can see anything." 
 
 "Get divorced, of course," answered Bernard, stiffen- 
 ing to conceal his hurt, for he began to feel that his lofty 
 sacrifice was not being appreciated; "that's what I in- 
 tended to do all the time. Do you suppose I had any 
 other motive?" 
 
 Clarence's face relapsed into complete stupor, but 
 flushed as he inquired, "Was that being quite — you know 
 
Urgent 139 
 
 what — with a confiding girl? I ought to know Ethelyn 
 Runyon if anybody should, and if she married you she 
 did it because she loved you." 
 
 "Loved me!" screamed Grandon in frantic derision. 
 "Why, it was perfectly understood between us, the same 
 as if she had said it in so many words, that she married 
 me for your benefit and happiness, to get the fortune 
 for you and save Runyon from Grane. That devil had 
 swallowed up everything and held Runyon dangling over 
 Sing Sing, and she had to marry some one to fell the 
 brute. I offered, and I was to get out of the way for you. 
 Her eyes told me this every time I looked at her, they 
 were brimming with love, they spoke volumes, love for 
 you streamed out of them; you needn't fear, old fellow, 
 but she'll have you." 
 
 Hallowell fairly stamped in mystified vexation. "Have 
 me ! Why, this is the last bubble of lunacy. Do you take 
 us for mercenary wretches who work things that way 
 and go marrying and unmarrying and adventuring for 
 fortunes ? We've not sunk to that. Is this a hoax, or are 
 you somebody's dupe? It was perfectly undestood be- 
 tween you, was it ? She was to have me, was she ? And 
 with this understanding she married you, did she? If 
 Ethel led you to think that she's insane." 
 
 Bernard stopped him. "I can hear nothing said against 
 
I40 The Damask Girl 
 
 Ethelyn Runyon; I'm extremely sorry for what I have 
 done since you take it so ill ; I oughtn't to have interfered, 
 though I did suppose you of all men would understand 
 my motive. But I've begun, and I'll go through with 
 my whole duty. I assure you calmly it is exactly as if we 
 were not married. I had nothing in mind but your honor 
 all the time, the fortune had to be saved, some one had 
 to marry her then and there to do it, and I say it finished 
 that scoundrel Grane, who was lording over the whole 
 place. She wouldn't know me if she saw me again, and 
 I honestly believe she thinks she's married to you and 
 that you posed as another to get her, though the others 
 don't think that — they were all flurried, I can tell you. 
 You can simply go in and explain and set things right 
 and take my place. She called me Clarence, and when she 
 
 pulled my face down and was kissing me " 
 
 "Kissing you! Damnation! All I can say is she has 
 played you a devil of a trick, or you have played her one, 
 or you're both playing me one. She kissed you! and it 
 was perfectly understood between you that she didn't lovs 
 you ; it is just the same as if you were not married ; you 
 will hear nothing against Ethelyn Runyon, you only had 
 my honor in mind all the time ; you've left her and I may 
 have her, and you are extremely sorry for what you have 
 done ! I should think you might be. I don't think I shall 
 
Urgent 141 
 
 ever trust a friend again, whatever the outcome of this 
 mocking farce-tragedy may be. If it weren't for doing 
 my duty by poor Ethelyn, I should go back to the North, 
 and I can't say that I should ever care to leave it." 
 
 "Very well, as things have turned this way, I shall ac- 
 company you to New York," said Grandon, sternly, bit- 
 terly grieved, "and with Ethelyn for witness set this tan- 
 gle right. It pains me unspeakably that you, in your in- 
 timate relation with that sweet girl, haven't more confi- 
 dence in her sublime fidelity. Where is there anyone like 
 her? And you talk of returning to her from a sense of 
 duty, with not a word about love." 
 
 "And you, having played a very merry part, I should 
 think — or I don't know what from your incomprehensible 
 story — but a part which I consider very astounding, to b; 
 mild, for neither Ethelyn nor I care a fig for the fortune 
 you stalk your conduct behind, and she did marry you 
 for love, torture it as you will : I say I can't seem to rec- 
 ognize your conception of either duty or love as one that 
 I ever met before." 
 
 Hallowell writhed as he pronounced these words, for 
 he was suffering keenly from friendship's blow. 
 
 "Although," continued he, "you have married her and 
 possess the rare jewel of her heart, for you confess that 
 she drew your face down and kissed it, and might possess 
 her entirely if you cared to, what are you but devoid of 
 
142 The Damask Girl 
 
 - the natural promptings of love and deaf to the stern coun- 
 sels of duty? Great Heavens, how you have changed 
 -since I knew you in Alaska ! And I can only say that I 
 -feel cruelly wronged." 
 
 Grandon made no further effort to explain. He was in 
 despair over his friend's perverse ingratitude, and every 
 ^word of his made it worse; their firm affection seemed 
 ; shattered; his noble Clarence was taking advantage of a 
 7 purely formal marriage to free himself from the divine 
 girl who had confided her affection to him, for which 
 ■nothing could excuse him unless the recent concussion at 
 the camp had shaken his senses — that would account for 
 ..a moral collapse ; but there was no saving evidence of in- 
 -sanity in that lucid eye and ruddy cheek. 
 
 They took the same train over the country but diflferent 
 
 ■ coaches, and scrupulously avoided each other, both the 
 
 prey of gloomy apprehensions. Each was brooding over 
 
 the situation of Ethelyn and bewailing the incredible 
 
 heartlessness of the other. 
 
 In New York they hurried to the home of George Run- 
 yon. Grandon stood in the background, while Ethelyn 
 leaped into Hallowell's arms. In the midst of his distrac- 
 tion secret hopes had awakened and Grandon nourished 
 them, for if Qarence rejected her was it not possible that 
 ,- she should some time care for him ? But these hopes now 
 
Urgent 143 
 
 faded; Hallowell alone possessed the dear girl's heart. 
 Her eyes showed nights of weeping, so natural after the 
 supposed desertion when she had still imagined him Clar- 
 ence. 
 
 Yet this look of grief did not wholly vanish in her 
 lover's arms ; could she have a premonition of his with- 
 ered passion? 
 
 She didn't even glance at Bernard, and stricken in 
 spirit, the poor fellow moved silently to depart as an alien 
 in the circle, to leave them alone to deliver and receive 
 their griefs. 
 
 "Hold on, Grandon," called Hallowell, severely, for 
 the tokens of Ethelyn's sorrow had cut him to the quick 
 and it was monstrous to see the cause of it skulking away 
 to escape ; "let me at least introduce you to your wife." 
 
 "He is nothing to me," trembled from her lips, "he 
 mustn't be considered my husband," at which a last fond 
 lingering surreptitious doubt of Bernard Grandon's died 
 and he longed to follow it. 
 
 "He shall receive his freedom as soon as the law can 
 act," she added, more tremulously and faintly. 
 
 "And then will you maiTy me?" asked Hallowell, in a 
 hard, dry voice. 
 
 "Don't joke, Clarence; I have decided never again to 
 marry any one but you." 
 
244 The Damask Girl 
 
 "I told you so, Clarence," exclaimed Grandon, almost 
 overpowered by his strong emotion. "She is wholly 
 yours, she doesn't love any one else ; you will marry her, 
 will you not ?" 
 
 Ethelyn looked from one to the other in amazement. 
 Then light dawned in her and she was transfigured. But 
 Grandon didn't see yet, and Hallowell shrugged his shoul- 
 ders and scornfully remarked: 
 
 "He has raved in no other tune but that since we met." 
 
 "I cannot marry my half brother," the girl said, looking 
 with her great melting eyes at Grandon, "but I can love 
 him." 
 
 "Ethelyn!" burst from Grandon as he sprang forward 
 to her, "Clarence is your brother ? You are my wife !" 
 
 When the uncle, alarmed by the cry, rushed in, antici- 
 pating new sorrows, he only saw Ethelyn crying and 
 laughing silently upon Grandon's breast and Clarence 
 Hallowell with his long arms folded around both.