CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOl >HT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
PS 1657.H8"*" ""'""'"V Library 
 ^%l!im&MtffJSl!.^^r!fise,a novel 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021982867 
 
Ed^ar pau;eett'$ U/ritip^s. 
 
 Each in One Volume 12mo. $1.50. 
 
 " Mr. Fawcett was the man of wkoin Longfellow expected fnore 
 than of a7iy of the other young American authors, both as a poet 
 and a novelist." — American Queen. 
 
 "There is an 'untranslatable charm' about the writings of Edgar 
 Fawcett. One may correctly characterize him as fascinating. Brilliant, 
 witty, eloquent, subtle, delicate, — all these terms might respectively 
 apply to the various papers included in this most delightful volume of 
 character sketches." — Providence Telegram. 
 
 ROMANCE AND REVERY. 
 
 SONG AND STORyI 
 
 Poems. Each in 1 vol. Hand-made paper, rough edges, gilt tops, 
 " Exquisitely and surprisingly beautiful." — The Beacon. 
 " A poet of rare gift, rich fancy, imagination, and intellect," — Theatre. 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF CLAUD. 
 
 *' One of the most picturesque and exciting novels of which New York 
 has been the scene. The plot is strong, the action is spirited, the char- 
 acters are striking, and the interest never flags. " — New-York Tribune. 
 
 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE, 
 
 " It is not often so good a novel appears in these days. We can com- 
 mend it heartily to all those who enjoy Trollope's stories of English 
 home-life; and we are delighted to see an American who is treading in 
 the old-fashioned footsteps of that pleasure-giving English novelist." — 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES. 
 
 _A brilliant and piquant record of Mr. Mark Manhattan's New- York 
 sights and experiences, showing up all the follies and oddities of metro- 
 politan sdcietry with a pen of light. 
 
 TINKLING CYMBALS. 
 
 A brilliant novel of New York and Newport in the nineteenth century, 
 
 ADVENTURES OF A WIDOW. 
 
 *** For sale by booksellers, or will be sent, post-paid, on receipt of 
 price by the Publishers^ 
 
 TICKNOR & CO., Boston. 
 
THE 
 
 HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE 
 
 ^ ^OVEL 
 
 EDGAR FAWCETT 
 
 ACTHOS OF " AN AMBITIOUS WOMAN," " flHKLIKG CYMBALS," " A GENTLEMAN 
 OF LEISURE," " SOCIAL SILHOUETTES," " BUTHERFOKD," ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 TICKNOR AND COMPANY 
 
 211 STrrmont Strret 
 
 ■R 
 
COPYRIGHI:, 1886, 
 BY TICKNOR & COMPANY, 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 ELECTBOTY?ED AND PRINTED 
 
 BY RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
THE HOUSE At HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 I. 
 
 The June morning had been a white haze of 
 heat; and those huge arches, of High Bridge, 
 spanning so loftily a stream that is so meagre, 
 must for hours have almost been fit to blister any 
 hand laid upon their mighty masonry. The Ele- 
 vated Railway had brought few visitors, as yet, 
 to the various casinos and beer-gardens. But 
 now that a little desultory breeze had sprung 
 from the south (pleasanter, no doubt, down at 
 the Battery than here at the upper end of Man- 
 "hattan), people began to arrive in greater numbers 
 on the noisy aerial trains. They came with flushed 
 faces or with damply pallid ones, and in every 
 degree of irritating fatigue ; for the weather had 
 recently given a leap of that elastic sort which 
 long ago stole both dignity and character from 
 our American thermometer. 
 
 Since noon, however, the leafy slopes along the 
 river had lost their misted look, and twinkled 
 
6 THE SOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 freshly in the awakened breeze. The river itself 
 no longer drowsed in glassy stagnance, but had 
 swollen with the altering tide, and was full of ra- 
 diant ripples. The rest of the day promised to be 
 more breathable ; and as Mrs. Coggeshal and her 
 daughter, Sadie, alighted from an elevated car at 
 One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street Station, they 
 both felt the grateful relief of an atmospheric 
 reprieve. 
 
 " I do think I never have known it as hot as it 
 was in the city to-day," said Mrs. Coggeshal. " I 
 used to believe the summers were hotter in New 
 York, and the winters colder there, when I was a 
 girl. But of course climates, and things like that, 
 don't change. It's only ourselves that change. 
 Have you got all your bundles, Sadie? You're 
 sure you didn't leave any in the cars ? " 
 
 " Oh, siire," said Sadie with curt confidence, 
 and a tired ring in her voice. "I'm glad we're 
 back," she went on, as they passed through the 
 iron gateway, and went out upon the wooden 
 structure which runs by at least two popular, flar- 
 ing-signed restaurants before it lands you on the 
 firm, macadamized roads and paths of the little 
 settlement beyond. 
 
 " There he is, now," whispered Mrs. Coggeshal 
 to her daughter, with an abrupt nudge that Sadie 
 instantly resented by a frown of mild exaspera- 
 tion. Sadie's exasperations, though sometimes 
 numerous, were always mild. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 7 
 
 "Of course he's here," said the girl, looking 
 straight into her mother's face, and not at all at the 
 neat-clad male figure which had just taken several 
 brisk steps in front of them. . " Where did you 
 think he'd be, mamma ? " she went on, as if the 
 question were meant to pierce depths of maternal 
 conscience. " A little more, and I declare he'd 
 have heard you. You're so careless in that way." 
 
 The two women walked much slower than the 
 man was doing. They were both jaded by their 
 shopping in the hot city, and moved along as if 
 their bundles were an almost painful clog. 
 
 " He's got a real nice figure, hasn't he ? " said 
 Mrs. Coggeshal. Sadie's rebuke was one of the 
 commonplaces of her daily experience. Like many 
 an American mother, she would have missed it if 
 it had not turned up more or less regularly, just 
 as breakfast or luticheon time did, or other fixed 
 and rigid details of her domestic routine. " He's 
 so trim, isn't he ? " she continued, with a liberal 
 loudening of her tones, which indicated no repent- 
 ance for her past misdemeanor, but merely that 
 the object of criticism was now safely distant. 
 " I always liked trim men. Your father used to 
 be so for a good while. He fell all away just before 
 you girls grew up. I wish he hadn't. I remem- 
 ber how he had to have all his coats and vests 
 altered — and so suddenly too. I nearly cried 
 over it. I'd like your Clarry to be less stout than 
 he is ; wouldn't you ? " 
 
8 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 "Your Clarry," as it happened, was the devoted 
 lover of Sadie. They had been betrothed only 
 a short time ago. The glance that Sadie now 
 gave her mother was superb for its calm pity. 
 
 "Clarry suits me very well," she said, "just as 
 he is." 
 
 "Oh, my!" said Mrs. Coggeshal, with alert 
 apology, "I don't mean that, of course not." — 
 And then she appeared to wander from her subject 
 a little, as was frequently her habit. . . "Looks 
 are nothing at all in a man: I always stuck to it 
 that they're not. It's the man, not the looks." 
 . . And then she wandered still further. . . "I 
 declare, I'm ready to drop ! And Sadie, to think 
 that he's living just next door to us, and might 
 have carried some of our bundles, and played the 
 galZaw*, if we'd only known him ! " 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Sadie, with a languor that be- 
 trayed more physical exhaustion, than scorn of 
 the soul. "We can do very well without him. 
 I think he looks as if he put on airs. And so 
 does Clarry. If Isabel doesn't, that's her own 
 affair." 
 
 " I believe Isabel's taken a real shine to him, 
 don't you ? " said Mrs. Coggeshal, turning swiftly 
 toward her companion, momentarily forgetful of 
 her worn state, and dropping into easy idiom. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know," replied Sadie, with 
 her boot-heels striking the planks beneath them in 
 that desperate way by which a tired woman will 
 
THE SOUSE AT BIGH BRIDGE. 9 
 
 show how tired she is. "Isabel's always slyly- 
 watching him whenever he comes out there 
 on the lawn. She told me yesterday that she 
 thought he looked like a thorough gentleman. 
 But I'm afraid I don't quite know what her 
 idea of a thorough gentleman really is. — Oh, 
 dear! I wish we were even nearer home than 
 we are ! I thought it was cooler ; but it isn't 
 much, is it?" 
 
 " No ; there's a breeze here, but when you walk 
 you don't seem to get it; you seem to be moving 
 just out of it all the time." 
 
 About a half-mile beyond this wooden viaduct 
 which they had now nearly crossed, and which 
 linked the lofty railway ^th one side of the 
 heights bordering Harlefl River valley, loomed 
 High Bridge itself, notable and even magnificent, 
 as a monument of human endeavor. The bridge 
 is so beautiful and stately as to strike a fine 
 human note of grace and truth for the whole un- 
 dulating country that surrounds it. From almost 
 whatever point you regard it, you feel that it 
 makes a memorable picture, and that its quiet 
 grandeur speaks with secure prophecy of the 
 classic association which may invest this whole 
 region at some future time. Not many years ago 
 these environments were desolate and depressing 
 enough, when, at low tide, the river left doleful 
 tracts of swamp to drowse between lonely accliv- 
 ities that may once have been its actual shores. 
 
10 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 But High Bridge has amply asserted, since then, 
 a character and a personality. True, it seems 
 almost absurdly solid and monstrous when com- 
 pared with the trifling current below it, unless 
 you remember the hidden mass of waters ever 
 rushing through its gigantic inner framework. 
 And for this reason, like many earthly achieve- 
 ments of importance, it may so err from codes of 
 art as to befriend the needs of future critics. 
 Still as a coigne of interest, rearing more than 
 a hundred feet in air a stoutly protected artery 
 of nutrition for the immense neighboring city, it 
 can not well escape the heed of unborn times. 
 And already its fame among the people seems to 
 be well defined. On clement Sundays the stolid 
 floor of the bridge itself swarms with strollers 
 and idlers, the restaurants on every side are 
 cloudy with convivial tobacco, the shooting-galler- 
 ies are haunts of a ceaseless cracking sound, and 
 the romantic woods that clothe the steeps hear 
 their green aisles ring with mirth. High Bridge 
 is plebeian, like most suburban places ; and yet its 
 charm has of late grown so positive that even 
 such foes of ugliness as abhor the Elevated Rail- 
 road in our not over-handsome New York, might 
 sometimes feel their hate soften on recalling 
 how much nearer they are than of old to a spot 
 rich in holiday diversions. And the phenomenal 
 bridge is surely alone responsible for all this gay- 
 ety, to which those who dwell more or less near it 
 
TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 11 
 
 (and often in neat, tasteful villas) give slight 
 apparent concern. 
 
 The Coggeshals had occupied one of these vil- 
 las for two years past. It was a small, square 
 house with a faintly metropolitan look about its 
 shining plate-glass windows, its heavy, ornate 
 front door and its outer bell-handle of wrought 
 bronze. But its fanciful roof, native-colored 
 brick exterior and subdued copings bespoke an 
 architect with at least a cleanly conscience. The 
 little garden that surrounded it was a temporary 
 concession of its landlord ; and houses had re- 
 cently been springing up all about it with such 
 mushroom speed that you could scarcely doubt 
 the sweet beds of geranium and coleus at either 
 side to have won but a brief and pretty vantage, 
 already touched by doom. 
 
 The house was close enough to the station, 
 fronting on one of the broad main avenues of the 
 suburb. All here wiU some day be as visibly New 
 York as it is now actually. But to the Cog- 
 geshals, who disliked their villa most keenly in 
 winter, and grimly tolerated it in summer, the dis- 
 trict often appeared dreary leagues away from 
 Macy's emporium, Daly's Theatre, Brentauo's 
 bookstore, and a hundred other contemporary 
 attractions and requisites. 
 
 As Mrs. Coggeshal and Sadie drew toward the 
 open doorway of their residence, they perceived 
 that a slender maidenly form had emerged as if 
 
12 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 to meet them. This was Isabel, the younger 
 daughter of the house, and its sole other child. 
 She and Sadie were very nearly of an age, though 
 of wide dissimilarity in many ways not settled by 
 years. 
 
 " You two poor, hot things ! " said Isabel, with 
 a commiserating little laugh, as she relieved her 
 mother of a bundle heavier than its mates, and 
 offered her instead a Japanese fan. "You both 
 look broiled. Was it so dreadful in town ? " 
 
 " Don't ! " said Mrs. Coggeshal, as she dropped 
 into a hall-chair. " We were very foolish indeed 
 to go." 
 
 Isabel was taking the residuary bundles from 
 her mother, with a sympathetic air and a humane 
 side-glance for Sadie, who poured all her own 
 brown-paper burdens upon one opportune chair 
 before she sank into another. 
 
 " Yes, you were foolish," said Isabel. " But the 
 weather has changed up here: you'll soon find 
 that it has. There's quite a draught through this 
 hall. Don't you feel it already ? " 
 
 " I only feel this draught," said Mrs. Coggeshal, 
 with a frantic but effete motion of her fan ; " and 
 I've scarcely got strength to make it." 
 
 Isabel took the fan away, and used it with quiet 
 vigor upon her mother, wliile she untied the lady's 
 bonnet-strings. She was dressed in a cool, white 
 gown that let you see how well proportioned to 
 her slimness was the delicacy of her rounded arms 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 13 
 
 and bosom. She had blue eyes, large, bright, and 
 verging upon gray ; but her hair, which was pro- 
 fuse and waved crisply, rivalled the night for 
 darkness. Her whole presence was full of win- 
 ning cadences; her voice pleased by its most 
 careless tones, it was so full and smooth ; in the 
 movement of her hand, while it swayed the fan, 
 dwelt as much felicity as freedom. Something 
 about her ma,de you promptly grant that she was 
 a girl whose honesty of motive equalled the secure 
 force with which she could maintain it. 
 
 "At the last moment," she now said, "I felt 
 like running after you and calling you back, while 
 you trudged down the street in that severe sun. 
 There'll be a frightful list of sunstrokes in the 
 city to-day. Just think how sad it would have 
 sounded, if, among the victims, there had been a 
 young bride and her blooming mamma, who had 
 left their palatial residence near High Bridge for 
 the purpose of making a few purchases which 
 would complete the bride's already sumptuous 
 trousseau!" Here Isabel looked at her sister, 
 while she still continued her serene oscillations 
 with the fan. 
 
 Sadie did no more than just return the glance. 
 She never laughed at Isabel's humor, and rarely 
 even smiled at it; she had been used to it so 
 long. Besides, very few things made her either 
 laugh or smile. Not that she took life solemnly, 
 but rather that she took it without humor, like an 
 
14 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 unsalted soup. She objected, on the other hand, 
 to Isabel's fun when it was personal, and espe- 
 cially when it concerned her own engagement to 
 Mr. Clarence Coulter. Sadie had often had her 
 suspicions as to the way in which her " Clarry " 
 might be regarded by the subtle and fathomless 
 mind of Isabel. Fertile in sarcasms, nimble to 
 leap at the very heart of a foible, an idiosyncrasy, 
 a mannerism, Isabel has shown, thus far, unwonted 
 reticence regarding her sister's betrothed. And 
 for Sadie Coggeshal her " Clarry " was quite the 
 miraculous being usually to be found under such 
 conditions of attachment. 
 
 "Of course," Isabel continued, "they would 
 have mentioned you as the wife and daughter of 
 our eminent American novelist, Mr. Herbert Cog- 
 geshal." Here her tones changed a little. " And 
 I'm glad enough to say that poor papa does at 
 last deserve the name." 
 
 Mrs. Coggeshal nodded genially. Her faded 
 face, with its sallow sag of the cheek under either 
 dim-blue eye, could easily express any amiable 
 mood: it had dealt in few other portrayals for 
 about fifty years. Her husband had always been 
 a mystery to her, . and she had served him since 
 their marriage, like the priestess who meekly dis- 
 charges her share of a divine cult, with full per- 
 ception that there are several thresholds of the 
 temple still between herself and deity. It may 
 well have occurred to her, that Isabel had alone 
 
TBE SOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 15 
 
 crossed this intervening distance. But she was 
 quite satisfied in having so competent a deputy ; 
 for Isabel, whom she had so often called "her 
 father over again," stood second, in the admira- 
 tion of this gentle zealot, to only Mr. Coggeshal 
 himself. 
 
 " Deserve to be called eminent ! " she now 
 exclaimed, after her approving nod. " Well, if 
 you'd been with us in the city to-day I guess 
 you'd have said so ! Why, the book was just 
 everywhere ! Wasn't it Sadie ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sadie, a little mechanically. 
 
 She had taken off her natty, befeathered round- 
 hat, and was touching her brow and temples 
 with a crumpled handkerchief. The heat gave her 
 a few tints of undue color ; but they were merely 
 a tepid pink, for her skin wore by nature that 
 creamy pallor which goes with hair of reddish hue 
 and lustre. Lovely hair Sadie's was, and its 
 folds crinkled over large eyes of a drowsy but 
 pellucid blue. Those who said that she had a 
 stupid face were willing to admit that it was 
 a handsome one. She had strong points of re- 
 semblance to the type which her mother had once 
 been, but as a born beauty she clearly excelled 
 it; and her figure, cast in a much more generous 
 mould, melted from one to another line of ele- 
 gance with a fluency foreign to so robust a shape. 
 
 " Oh, we saw the book all over ! " Sadie pur- 
 sued. "All the bookstores have bills with its 
 
16 THU HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 name in big letters, ready to stare you in the 
 face." 
 
 "And all the book-counters of the Elevated 
 Railroad," struck in Mrs. Coggeshal. "I asked 
 the man at the Fourteenth Street one, how it 
 was selling and he said it was the best book of 
 the season." 
 
 " Oh, he'd tell i/ou that!" answered Isabel, with 
 a scepticism that somehow missed fire, and showed 
 a sly credence. " He thought you meant to buy a 
 copy." 
 
 " Why, certainly he did ! " said Sadie, bristling 
 languidly. "I felt so mortified when mamma 
 just nodded her head and walked off ! " 
 
 " Perhaps he thought mamma was the author," 
 said Isabel, in her gay way. " Well, he came 
 next door to it, didn't he ? " 
 
 Mrs. Coggeshal gave a faint laugh. " My ! as 
 if I was next door to your father in anything, 
 Belle ! Where is he, by the by ? in the libra- 
 ry?" 
 
 " Yes," said Isabel. "He doesn't know you're 
 back." 
 
 Mrs. Coggeshal, who was cooler, took a musing 
 air. " I wonder why he is so, lately," she mur- 
 mured. " So " appeared to be a monosyllable of 
 reference to some mental or physical state which 
 both her daughters were expected instantly to 
 understand. 
 
 "I told you, mamma," at once said Isabel, 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 17 
 
 " that it must be the success of ' Rachel Rand.' 
 After writing several novels, papa has made a hit 
 at last." 
 
 Mrs. Coggeshal scanned the hall-carpet. "He 
 always said he didn't care to make a hit, Belle; 
 and I don't think he did. But perhaps you're 
 right. When it came, he did care ; and it's made 
 him fidgety and queer ever since." 
 
 This did not appear at all to interest Sadie. 
 She spoke in her slow, neutral voice to Isabel. 
 " You never saw any thing like the way things 
 are marked down at Altman's, Belle," she said. 
 " Summer prices, you know. We've got such 
 lovely bugle trimming for a silk costume ! And 
 gloves! Well, wait till you see." 
 
 " I suppose you've ruined the family, between 
 you," said Isabel. " Now that you're both cooler," 
 she added dryly, " you begin to look guilty. . . . 
 Did you meet anybody we know ? " 
 
 Sadie shook her head. And then, -with, a glance 
 of immense mystery at Sadie, Mrs. Coggeshal ex- 
 claimed : " Yes, we did ! " 
 
 Sadie seemed dazed for an instant. But soon 
 a gleam of intelligence lit her face dimly, as all 
 such gleams always did light it. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she assented. " Mr. Brockholst. 
 He came up on the same train with us." 
 
 Isabel looked a little conscious. " I saw him 
 go into his house," she said, " a short time before 
 you got here." 
 
18 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Sadie laughed again. " You always see him do 
 every thing," she softly declared. " Belle, you are 
 gone about him ! " 
 
 "Nonsense," said Isabel. Her dark head had 
 dropped slightly sideways. " I asked you if you'd 
 met any one we know ! " 
 
 Soon after this came a prolonged opening of 
 bundles, discussion concerning prices, and conflict 
 as to whether certain bargains had been bargains 
 at all. The conflict was waged alone and intrep- 
 idly by Isabel against her mother and sister as 
 allies. Both the latter had long been fond of say- 
 ing that she was extravagant, and without any 
 natural sense of economy in purchase. Perhaps 
 a memory or two of past mortifying blunders may 
 have spurred the girl into her present self-asser- 
 tion ; or perhaps it was all less serious with her 
 than it looked. For she ended it by a laugh, and 
 so lost her battle, as no doubt she deserved to do. 
 
 " You're a very superior girl, Belle Coggeshal," 
 exclaimed her mother. " I've always held to it 
 that you're a very superior girl. But when you 
 attempt to tell us that we've given too much a 
 yard for nun's-veiling like that, why, you just 
 show you don't know what you're talking about." 
 
 " I wouldn't waste time trying to convince her," 
 said Sadie to her mother, with all the scorn of a 
 great artist for a bungling tyrO. The profoundest 
 mysteries of " cheap shopping " held no secrets for 
 Sadie. She had latterly eclipsed even her mother 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 19 
 
 in this unerring quality ; the wiliest clerk could 
 not deceive her ; and, now that she was trying to 
 make a slender purse buy her a smart wedding- 
 outfit, some kind of instinct, like a canine scent, had 
 seemed to be developed in her, by means of which 
 she was drawn toward the luckiest and fattest of 
 prizes. It was all very well for Isabel to talk un- 
 derstandingly about Emerson with her father, or 
 to discuss intelligently what she might hold as 
 " weak points " in Spencer or Lecky ; but, when it 
 came to moving among the bales of Altman's or 
 Macy's drygoods with serenity and discrimination, 
 there it was quite another question ; and there, as 
 Sadie felt securely enough convinced, her sister 
 might with profit take a long term of schooling 
 from herself. 
 
 After Isabel had good-humoredly given up the 
 contest she revealed further proof of magnanim- 
 ity by making a pitcher'ful of iced lemonade for 
 Sadie and her mother. She left them drinking it 
 in the near dining-room. They had lunched in 
 town, and it was now past four o'clock ; so that 
 they wanted no more solid refreshment until their 
 usual six-o'clock dinner. A little later Isabel 
 sought ber father in his cosey study at the back 
 of the house. The study was just to the rear of 
 the drawing-room and was reached through the 
 same hall in which that rather loud wrangle had 
 lately been held. Mr. Coggeshal was seated at his 
 desk. A half-wi-itten page lay before him. Isabel 
 
20 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 always came and went, as regarded this room, with 
 the freedom of a confirmed familiar. 
 
 " I suppose you know they're back, papa," she 
 said, looking at him with a tenderness of which 
 she was never aware, and which had been noticed 
 by others as a change both quick and constant. 
 
 " Yes," he answered ; " I heard them." 
 
 " You must have heard us all three," said Isabel, 
 smiling. " Mamma and Sadie, when it's a matter 
 of getting things cheap, look down on me from 
 vast heights. They're so self-satisfied about it, 
 that they won't make any allowances for my 
 mutilated vanity." 
 
 " I see. And that undergoes a stormy sur- 
 render." 
 
 " Of course it does. I dare say there's nothing 
 in us that dies quite so hard." She paused a mo- 
 ment. She was thinking of how he had sat there 
 and not gone to meet them when they returned, 
 though he knew so well, from the voices, that they 
 were just outside in the hall. He would not have 
 acted like this last year, nor even three months 
 ago. What was the meaning of such alteration in 
 him ? — such indifference, reserve, apathy, gloom, 
 whatever it should be called? 
 
 " Still, no doubt mamma and Sadie consider 
 themselves entitled to respect by a well-earned 
 reputation for shrewd trading," she continued, her 
 buoyancy coming back again. " Success is apt to 
 make autocrats." Here she gave a swift little mo- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 21 
 
 tion toward her father which had in it a touch of 
 pretty repentance. She laid her hand gently on 
 his shoulder for an instant, and the very gesture, 
 faint as it was, conveyed the idea of a warmer 
 caress. " I don't mean that of you ! " she exclaimed. 
 " Your success hasn't done that" 
 
 " My success ? " he repeated, in a voice that 
 sounded odd to her, and always sounded so, often 
 as he nowadays would speak in it. 
 
 " Oh, papa ! " she cried reproachfully, " as if you 
 didn't know that your novel is a success ! And 
 it does not cheer or gladden you at all ! It seems 
 only to turn you sad ! " He started, and she went 
 on as though eager to tell him something which she 
 had made up her mind to tell, and feared postpon- 
 ing for another hour, lest it should remain harm- 
 fully unspoken. " You know I don't fret people, as 
 a rule, about their ways of acting. I believe every- 
 body was born with a native nimbus of privacy 
 that the most intimate companionship shouldn't 
 break. . . Dear papa, for this very reason I've 
 never before even referred to something which 
 worries me very much — which worries us all." 
 
 He had taken her hand, and was holding it in 
 both his own. But he was not looking up at her 
 from his place by the desk. He had fixed his eyes 
 upon the sunny open space at the back of the 
 house, viewed clearly through the half-shaded 
 window just in front of him. Some marigolds 
 were there in clusters, and a few spires of crimson 
 
22 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 hollyhocks, all seeming as if the slanted afternoon 
 sunlight had brought relief to them since the sick- 
 ening down-pour of noonday heat. 
 
 " What worries you, Isabel ? " he said. 
 
 He appeared to ask the question as if he already 
 knew its answer. He was a tall, thin man, rather 
 angular of build, with a face full of thought and 
 force. His signs of weakness were in the too 
 abrupt slope of chin and jaw, where a beard of 
 natural black grew sparsely, spotted with white. 
 His forehead showed power, and there was intel- 
 lect in the sparkle of his dark-blue eyes, which he 
 had given to Isabel with a variance of hue but not 
 of expression. 
 
 " Your despondency, papa," Isabel said. " You 
 know very well that I'm right, that you're not 
 half so contented as you used to be. And I some- 
 how can't believe it's your health, for you're not 
 unwell. ■ I've watched you more closely than 
 you've guessed, and I believe there isn't the least 
 trouble of that sort. It seems to be something on 
 your mind, papa. And it can't be money-matters. 
 We're just as prosperous as we've always been, 
 aren't we ? There's exactly so much, and we all 
 know it, and not one of us ever forgets it. If any- 
 body is extravagant it's I, and my atrocities in' 
 that direction are not very flagrant. . . Oh, papa, 
 I wish you'd tell me what the matter really is! 
 You know how you and I have always been such 
 very dear friends ! " 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 23 
 
 He lifted Ms eyes to hers, now ; and as he did 
 so she stooped and kissed him on the lips. 
 
 " Tell me ! " she said, almost as if her soul had 
 gone into her voice. 
 
 -"There's nothing to tell," he answered. 
 
 " No, papa ? Really ? . . But you ought to be 
 in such splendid spirits ! " 
 
 " Why ? " he asked, still looking up at her. 
 
 " Wht/, papa ! Because you've made such a 
 great success at last ! You know that you have I 
 And how deceitful you were about it, too ! I some- 
 times tliink I can never forgive you for that. 
 You never told me that you'd even written 
 'Rachel Rand.' You kept the whole thing an 
 absolute secret." 
 
 He had dropped his eyes again. "Well, my 
 dear, the secret is out now." 
 
 " I should saj-- it was ! And you ought to be 
 so happy ! But you are not. You have lost all 
 your old lightness. Poor mamma feels the differ- 
 ence, just as Sadie and I do. Papa, make an 
 effort to be yourself again ! Will you not ? Will 
 you not for my sake ? " 
 
 He rose as she ended, and silently took her in 
 his arms. He kissed her once or twice, and 
 stroked her hair while her head nestled against 
 him. This had been his way of caressing her ever 
 since she had been a little girl — and yet not 
 quite his way. For something soon made Isabel 
 lift startled eyes to his face, and, as she did so 
 
'24 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 she saw that it had grown pale and that his lips 
 were twitching. In another minute he had put 
 her from him, though not with the least roughness. 
 
 " I have really nothing to tell you, Isabel," he 
 said. " I don't deny that there is some change in 
 me ; at times I even notice it myself. I try to 
 guess what it is, and — what has caused it. But I 
 — I don't find out. No, I don't find out." He 
 was staring forth at the marigolds and hollyhocks 
 again, and had begun to smooth his ragged beard 
 nervously with one hand. "You must not con- 
 cern yourselves with the matter at all. Advise 
 your mother and Sadie not to do so. Be a sensi- 
 ble girl, as I've always found you thus far. The 
 merriest mind will get a little gloomy sometimes. 
 I was never merry, you know ; and if now you see 
 me a trifle dull, perhaps a livelier change will 
 come round again with the altering season. . . I 
 fancy we're all more or less barometric, my dear, 
 in mysterious ways that science is yet very far 
 from explaining, spite of all her recent victories." 
 
 Toward the latter part of this speech his voice 
 had grown more composed and natural. But, if 
 there was calm in it there was also dismissal of the 
 late subject. And Isabel, trying to believe that 
 her effort had not been a failure, and that she had 
 learned something in learning that there was truly 
 no secret to be disclosed, refrained from all fur- 
 ther appeal. 
 
 After she had once more left him alone in his 
 
THE SOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 25 
 
 study, Herbert Coggeshal felt, for perhaps the 
 hundredth time since a certain event had taken 
 place, that it would perhaps have been far better 
 to have told her all his bitter and burdensome 
 secret. He knew the full scope and vigor of her 
 filial love. He knew that her impulse would be 
 to shield him at almost any cost, the instant her 
 first shock of real horror had passed. But there 
 lay the fatal impediment to confession ! Mixed 
 with such horror would be an inevitable thrill of 
 contempt. He had not the least doubt as to 
 what her nature was : he had studied it lovingly 
 with her growth from girl to woman. She was 
 all fine gold as far as honor and probity went. 
 He himself had taught her the worth of right 
 doing, and this tuition had been as easy as to 
 train her secure and flexible mind in grasping the 
 facts and formulas of books. Her weak points 
 had no concern with any possibility of such a 
 crime as that which now stained his own life. 
 And yet she was capable of realizing the magni- 
 tude of his recent temptation ; she might even, in 
 a manner, sympathize with it. That she would 
 pardon it, sooner or later, in so far as personal 
 arraignment or accusation would go, he was also 
 confident enough. Her love and pity must con- 
 quer, in the end, all forces of indignation or dis- 
 gust. But her respect — the respect which he 
 found himself treasuring beyond price, now that 
 he recognized how utterly barren was his title to 
 
26 THE MOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 it — would not this be shattered and annulled for- 
 ever? And that melancholy, mocking result he 
 both feared and loathed to face. 
 
 But his dread and aversion did not stop here. 
 Isabel might never be content with any half- 
 measures of repentance. She might demand, 
 with an imperiousness that his guilt could not 
 resist, entire reparation, restitution, self-humilia- 
 tion. Her attitude would almost surely be the 
 acute reverse of her mother's, or of her sister 
 Sadie's. They would tremble before the novelty 
 of such a misdeed, and weep at its evil ; but when 
 more tranquil nerves had steadied them they 
 would counsel protracted concealment as the one 
 sure remedy against disgrace. They would never 
 give a thought to that moral degradation which 
 the very publicity of such disgrace might alle- 
 viate. They would not see, as Isabel would see, 
 that the sole way out of the sin was for him 
 who had done it to inform the world of its com- 
 mission. They would remember the shame to 
 themselves entailed by a disclosure of this rank 
 sort, and yet not so selfishly that they would for- 
 get its ruining scandal for him whose name they 
 bore. To tell them all would be merely to inflict 
 upon them a cruel sorrow, and to terrify them 
 lest the grievous truth should transpire. But to 
 tell Isabel all would be to sound the inmost 
 depths of her- native honesty while testing the 
 utmost limit of her love. She would shrink from 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 27 
 
 the worse obloquy of silence, and though she 
 proffered the richest lenitives of compassion, she 
 might require that justice be recompensed in 
 the full measure of the wrong it had received. 
 
 ' But why torment myself with reflections like 
 these?' Herbert Coggeshal said to his own un- 
 happy spirit, while he now slowly paced the floor 
 of the study in which Isabel had left him. 'A 
 hundred times better that I should keep my lips 
 locked until death makes them fast forever ! Only 
 one other being besides myself knows it all, 
 and has not he the best of motives for saying 
 nothing ? ' 
 
 But even there he paused in his train of dreary 
 self-comfortings ; for a certain remembrance which 
 had haunted him during several days past returned 
 now, and with a chill of painful presentiment to 
 which he had already grown accustomed. 
 
 " I must see Carolan to-night," he said aloud, 
 " and ask him if the coming of this young Brock- 
 hoist can mean the slightest danger. If it 
 does" — 
 
 He did not end the sentence. But the dying 
 color on his cheek seemed to end it instead, as he 
 knotted both hands together, and sank, with a 
 long, low sigh, into his former seat at the desk. 
 
28 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 11. 
 
 During dinner that evening the Coggeshal 
 family-circle received an addition, in the way of 
 Mr. Clarence Coulter, the betrothed of Sadie. Mr. 
 Coulter came into the dining-room with a small, 
 fluttered laugh, just after the soup had been taken 
 away. The laugh was indeed so faint that Sadie 
 alone heard it. She turned toward the doorway ; 
 and as the plump body, coy little black moustache 
 and beady eyes of her " Clarry " were discerned 
 by her, gave an agitated exclamation of " Wht/ ! " 
 and hurried to the new-comer. Then they both 
 disappeared, and it was presumable that some sort 
 of brief but fond salute occurred in the ambush 
 of the outer hall. A little later Sadie returned, 
 with a refreshed and stimulated air, at the side of 
 her lover. 
 
 " It's too bad," soon said Mrs. Coggeshal, with 
 rueful hospitality, to the latter. " We wouldn't 
 have sat down without you if we hadn't really 
 given you up." 
 
 " I told you he said he might be kept at the 
 office," quietly struck in Sadie. She had no open 
 charge to make ; covert insinuation! was more in 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 29 
 
 her line. But at the same time, if her " Clarry " 
 did really get a plate of cold soup, it was just as 
 well that he should know she was not blamable. 
 
 " Oh, I'm glad you didn't wait ! " said Clarry, 
 with ardor, to Mrs. Coggeshal. 
 
 " You're young and strong enough to catch up 
 with us, are you not ? " said Sadie's father ; and 
 Clarry gave a lusty nod of the head, and a copious 
 bass laugh, and replied, " Yes, sir ; I guess I am ! " 
 Sadie had asked him not to call her father " sir ; " 
 and he had recollected her request on several 
 occasions, just at the needful moment and no 
 earlier. But anything like a joke from Mr. Cog- 
 geshal, of whom he had always stood in deep awe, 
 was too dizzying for the preservation of even this 
 haphazard forethought. Coggeshal represented 
 , to the young man great funds of intellectual 
 superiority and of condescending indulgence as 
 well. He had permitted his daughter Sadie's be- 
 trothal, and that was alone a large step in the line 
 of toleration. Mr. Clarence Coulter dwelt not far 
 away, in a modest little house owned by his wid- 
 owed mother. This residence was about all that 
 the lady did own ; and her son's salary, as paying- 
 teller of a New-York bank, materially aided the 
 su.pport of herself and daughter. It was by no 
 means a brilliant match for Sadie, and yet it was 
 a love-match in the most wholesome degree. The 
 two young people had met, about six months 
 ago, at a neighbor's evening-party, and love had 
 
30 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 sprung -with romantic speed from the meeting. 
 Sadie's mind was matrimonially made up, after the 
 fashion of the true American maiden, before she 
 instructed her admirer to ask her father's consent. 
 She had not considered the question of having 
 him ask her mother's. But she knew very well 
 that the whole affair would be ultimately referred 
 to Isabel. Sooner or later all important affairs of 
 the Coggeshal household were referred to Isabel. 
 And it happened precisely as Sadie had expected. 
 Mr. Coggeshal, absorbed in correcting the proofs 
 of his new novel, " Rachel Rand," had consulted 
 his younger daughter regarding this proposed 
 alliance with even more than his wonted defer- 
 ence to her judicial opinions. He was a man 
 who had always professed strongly democratic 
 social views ; and during the last few years, when 
 his fortunes had drifted from easy prosperity to 
 a rather cramped though permanent state of 
 finances here at High Bridge, he bad lost even 
 his last slender hold upon the so-called dignity of 
 caste. 
 
 " You know a great, deal more about this young 
 man than I do. Belle," he had said. "I suppose 
 that if he's thrifty and of good general instincts 
 there's no reason why Sadie shouldn't have her 
 way about him." 
 
 Isabel made only a brief demur. She did not 
 at all like the idea of Mr. Clarence Coulter be- 
 coiping her kinsman. But she felt that the 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BBID6E. 31 
 
 chances were slender of Sadie eyer wedding much 
 above the standard supplied by that young gentle- 
 man. " We are a broken-down family," sadly 
 argued Isabel to herself, " and I suppose we must 
 resignedly accept the results of our downfall." 
 But still another motive swayed her in presenting 
 no obstacle to the engagement. Sadie was deeply 
 in love with her stout, dapper little bank-clerk. 
 A wide sea of difference lay between the two sis- 
 ters ; but Sadie, with all her deeps of oppositeness, 
 was yet near in blood and in affection. She was 
 Sadie, and she would suffer passionately if crossed 
 in this most vital of exigents. Why sow the seeds 
 of an empty and fruitless pain? If the paying- 
 teller never got a. dollar more of wage than he got 
 this hour, Sadie would doubtless be happy enough 
 as his wife, whether they dwelt together in High 
 Bridge, in Hoboken, or in East New York. She 
 would retain her talents for economical shopping ; 
 she would turn and trim her frocks adroitly ; she 
 would make a good appearance every Sunday at 
 church, in a modish bonnet wrought by her own 
 deft fingers; she would have her little suburban 
 circle of intimates, her gentle dissipations of gos- 
 sip, her conventional tasks, amusements or preju- 
 dices. She would pass for amiable (everybody 
 frankly admitted of Sadie that she was "amiable ") 
 just as she had always passed since a very young 
 child, and be in reality trying, mulishly obstinate, 
 meekly but inexorably " set " and difficile. Why 
 
32 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 oppose her marriage? There seemed to Isabel 
 more and more of useless arrogance, even super- 
 ciliousness, in her own assumption of any such 
 hostile posture, the more that she gave it her best 
 and calmest heed. 
 
 They were a happy enough house in their way, 
 and yet they had always been a house divided 
 against itself. Years ago the head of it, Herbert 
 Coggeshal, had stooped, as the patrician phrase 
 goes, by his marriage. He had been the son of a 
 New York merchant whose record as a West India 
 trader was past reproach, and whose cousinships 
 could be numbered among such people as the Van 
 Twillers, the Van Corlears and the Ten Eycks. 
 Old Mr. Coggeshal had sent his son, Herbert, to 
 Columbia College, and had expected of his son, 
 after a rather creditable graduation there, any 
 thing but the reckless act which he soon after- 
 ward committed. Even those who pour much 
 scorn upon the fact of family pride existing at all 
 in our republican realm except as a glaring incon- 
 gruity, cannot be very noteworthy assailants if 
 they deny the depth of the roots which family 
 pride has for at least two centuries been striking 
 into our soil ; and old Samuel Coggeshal, when all 
 is told, stood perhaps for as doughty an exponent 
 of it as any householder from the Batterj' to Bond 
 Street. He frowned in dire offence at his son's 
 marriage with poor, mild-mannered little Lucy 
 Hook, the daughter of some one who had kept a 
 
THE HOUSE AT UIGH BRIDGE. 33 
 
 popular eating-house not far from Bowling Green. 
 No red-faced English squu-e could have fumed and 
 blustered more under the same piercing revelation. 
 He did not live long after he had learned the un- 
 palatable tidings ; and a story ran — as a story is 
 so apt to run, when it can prettily embellish the 
 demise of any such irate and injured parent — 
 that Herbert's gross imprudence had killed him. 
 
 But Herbert liad never been brought by the 
 longest lapse of time to look upon it as an impru- 
 dence at all. He had chosen the woman he loved, 
 and he had never regretted his choice. She was 
 not mentally companionable as his wife, but he, 
 on the other hand, felt no need of a wife who was 
 mentally companionable. It was only years later, 
 when his second daughter, Isabel, began to grow 
 up, that he began to recognize the possibility of 
 such a gratification. He was a man of literary 
 tastes, with strong belief in his creative capacity 
 and entire ignorance that he looked at the whole 
 plan of life from the standpoint of other men's 
 writings about it and not tlirough the medium of 
 personal observation. He had gone to work with 
 a marked imitative tendency which he entirely 
 mistook for an original, inherent force. We have 
 heard his wife say that he had never cared to 
 make a popular success with his books. But he 
 h.ad had his fling at the sham of mere saleability 
 in novel-writing, as it is possible that every active 
 romancer, from Boccaccio down, has had during 
 
34 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH B JUDGE. 
 
 certain dainty or idealistic moods. In reality he 
 had concealed his deep disappointment as welPas 
 he conld from everybody, when novel after novel 
 fell flat upon the public it addressed. Mean- 
 while he had worked hard with two hands, as it 
 were, at two separate tasks. One had been the 
 management of a rather lucrative weekly journal 
 of a sort quite practical and inartistic, and one 
 had been the serious weaving of his ambitious and 
 redundant tales. The name of the journal was 
 The Tanner, and it was devoted wholly to the 
 interests of the leather-trade in his own and a few 
 other large American cities. He detested the edi- 
 torial place which he held, and retained it for 
 years on the ground of emolument alone. The 
 place itself had fallen to him merely by a lucky 
 accident, just after his marriage. He was at first 
 ignorant of the very subjects concerning which 
 fate had called upon him to write ; but he had 
 always been quick at seizing facts, and when the 
 senior editor suddenly died, and he was asked to 
 exchange apprenticeship for superintendence, his 
 glib knack of rhetoric easily did the rest. To 
 know a thing, and to write effective periods about 
 it, are two accomplishments of whose striking di- 
 versity current journalism has long given ample 
 proof ; and with a few sub-editors at his command 
 of actual information and experience, Coggeshal 
 was able to throw handsomely and deceptively 
 over the leather-trade a "light that never was," 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 35 
 
 and one which perhaps never ought to have been 
 either. 
 
 Bvit he kept securely at his post, and even 
 won repute as custodian of The Tanner. He had 
 learned how to avoid disastrous blunders, and this 
 always means a great deal where it is a case of re- 
 sponsible incompetence. Neat concealment is the 
 most telling diplomacy of the trusted charlatan. 
 Coggeshal often almost felt as if he were that, and 
 never so much as when, at a dinner to " the trade," 
 he stood up and wove tinsel threads of mercantile 
 sagacity amid that non-committal woof of oratory 
 ivhich loaded digestions and smoke-beclouded 
 visions were persuaded to call eloquence. His 
 after-dinner speeches were always glittering cre- 
 dentials of his worthiness to remain where fortune 
 had drifted him. They were models of artful dis- 
 crimination between topics of safety and topics 
 of peril. 
 
 Meanwhile he continued to write his unsuccess- 
 ful novels, to live in fair comfort with his family, 
 and to save one or two annual thousands from his 
 regular rewards. His father had not relentlessly 
 cut him off, but the inheritance had been a meagre 
 one, and he had chosen not legally to contest it. 
 Some of his relations who had received the bulk 
 of the paternal property, moved in what are called 
 high metropolitan circles. But he rarely saw them, 
 and made no effort to walk in their decorous path- 
 ways. He had but a single purpose in life — to 
 
86 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 become a novelist of conceded excellence and lead- 
 ing fame. He despised other gifts which might 
 have secured for him, if earnestly cultured, a rec- 
 ompense both of wealth and prominence^ His aim 
 was to use these gifts but in one way — toward 
 the securing of a steady future income which 
 would lift his family and himself above all the 
 stings and thrusts of want. Then, having achieved 
 such tangible surety, he would lapse quietly into 
 the calmer life of letters, he would work out mas- 
 terpieces, he would give to his land that " great 
 American novel " which just about at this time we 
 had all begun avidly to clamor for. 
 
 And he deserves to be placed on the limited list 
 of those who reach, during our sublunar term, the 
 goal of their pecuniary hopes. It is by no means 
 meant that when new brains and purses brought 
 with them a clear sweep of all the old machinery 
 of The Tanner, Coggeshal's dismissal left him with 
 the full amount which he had hoped to realize be- 
 fore such exit. But he had already saved enough 
 to blend very encouragingly with what his father 
 had bequeathed him. He did not rise from his 
 editorial chair for the last time with anything like 
 a qualm of despair. He even had a few stray in- 
 vested bonds whose sale would permit him to 
 make a sojourn in Europe. And shortly after- 
 ward he went to Europe with his youngest 
 daughter, Isabel, leaving his wife and Sadie on 
 these shores. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 37 
 
 He had certainly perfected and attained some- 
 thing, after all. He saw too much of that immense 
 majority who strive and fail, not to comprehend 
 that he had distinctly escaped their doleful des- 
 tiny. In a worldly sense, he had begun his life 
 wrong, he had offended a rich and indulgent 
 father, he had married humbly and quite beneath 
 him. But he had conquered the harsh results of 
 all this ; he had driven the wolf from his door, 
 though that door might not be a specially smart 
 one as concerned its decorative carpentry. Still, 
 it was sturdy ; it would last his own and his wife's 
 time, and keep bad weather from his children, too, 
 if neither of them should marry behind prettier 
 panellings. But in all such modest acceptance of 
 victory there was for Herbert Coggeshal one keen 
 element of defeat. 
 
 He did not perhaps acknowledge it to his most 
 secret meditations, but it was nevertheless posi- 
 tively there. His start had been a moral one, even 
 to the verge of chivalry ; his conscience had been as 
 sensitive to evil as a water-surface is to rain-drops. 
 But later he had turned disloyal to his own fine 
 tenets ; he had let an unknightly tarnish creep 
 across the lustre of his shield j he had dealt, during 
 his management of The Tanner, in something close 
 to hypocrisy and fraud. It had all been a masquer- 
 ade, a hoisting of false colors, a clever striving to 
 appear that which he was not before the eyes of 
 his fellows. And like every such downward step 
 
38 THE nOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 it had entailed a lower level of manliness. It 
 made that which afterwards happened more easy 
 to happen. The purer the hand that plays with 
 flame, the more readily it may be soiled by 
 scorch. 
 
 His stay in Europe with Isabel lasted three 
 years, and during most of the time his daughter 
 was at an admirable French boarding-school, not 
 far from Paris. Isabel quickly profited by this 
 advantage ; she enjoyed several months of travel, 
 too, with her father, through half the famed cities 
 of the Old World. On her return home, at seven- 
 teen, she was well-versed in two languages besides 
 her own, keenly alive to the niceties and the graces 
 of living, and as different from the staid, hard- 
 lined mental methods of Sadie as a delicate-sway- 
 ing rose from a stiff-stemmed azalea. Sadie had 
 never understood her sister at all well, and she 
 now understood her far worse. But Isabel warmed 
 to her as she had always done, and took up the 
 rSle of consideration, indulgence and allowance- 
 making just where she had left it three years 
 before. The house at High Bridge had been a 
 necessity ; for more money had slipped away dur- 
 ing that absence abroad than Coggeshal had either 
 calculated upon or intended. None of the four 
 liked being thus domiciled in the suburbs, and 
 perhaps Isabel, after what her fresh young mind 
 had met abroad, liked it least of any. But she 
 made no audible plaint, which cannot by any 
 
THE BOIME AT HIGH BRIDGE. 39 
 
 means be recorded "of Sadie and her mother, who 
 were at first loud\m their protested aversion. 
 Sadie, meeting her '\Clarry," had finally become 
 consoled ; Mrs. Coggeshal had sunk into a state of 
 benign resignation ; but Isabel, with her store of 
 transatlantic impression\ and her natural forces 
 of brain and temperamenKchafed silently at what 
 seemed to her a stringent dVess. To dwell near 
 a great city and feel one's self n^ part of its throb 
 and stir always brings longing discontent to youth, 
 when culture has made youth eager for congenial 
 association. And Isabel, with her early aptitudes 
 nurtured by her father's fond teachings, with her 
 three years of schooling abroad, and with her con- 
 stant reading of those good foreign books now 
 procurable to any American who wants them, be- 
 cause our country casts its own authors into the 
 dust by defrauding the authors of other countries, 
 — Isabel, I say, felt the drag of time and the mo- 
 notony of bondage in no slight degree. 
 
 With Coggeshal, however, it was different. He 
 would certainly have preferred the city proper to 
 High Bridge or any similar environ. But he 
 wanted retirement for the beginning of new and 
 very serious labors, and though he would have 
 chosen it to be tlie sort of retirement which may 
 command a glimpse of Union Square or the Worth 
 Monument from an adjoining window, he still 
 failed to languish in its isolation. Six novels had 
 left his pen before he had departed for Europe. 
 
40 TUE HOUSE AT BIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 While abroad he had completed the seventh, pub- 
 lishing it immediately on his return. All had 
 been works of thought and force, but in all there 
 was the one fatal drawback ; they lacked the ele- 
 ment of interest. They did not lead their readers 
 on, from chapter to chapter, or even from page to 
 page. To read them was like moving through a 
 woodland in which trees of girth and grandeur 
 rose on every side of you, yet with each trunk, 
 each twig, each leaf, in exact likeness one to the 
 other. They were too didactic, too formal, too 
 cumbrous to be the best literature, and yet if you 
 knew what literature is you must have granted 
 that they came well within her domain. The 
 critics always treated them with consideration, — 
 a touching testimony to their dulness, if not to 
 their superior points. But they had obtained no 
 vogue, apart from their unpopularity. They were 
 quite without that small clique of enthusiasts who 
 can transform an ill-appreciated good thing in let- 
 ters to a thing which its author may eventually 
 hail as reward for the masses' neglect. And with 
 reference to a future-blossoming glory — an im- 
 mortality, in fact — they stood no chance what- 
 ever. They had neither enough true imagination 
 nor enough true passion — qualities which, one or 
 the other, are the test and preservative of all great- 
 ness in fiction. They must either win the taste 
 of their time, or perish hereafter. The first they 
 had not done ; that they should not do the second 
 
TSE HOUSE AT HIGH: BRIDGE. 41 
 
 was irreversible as fate itself. And yet their fail- 
 ure to do either was fraught with pathos ; they 
 aimed so high, and they missed their aim with so 
 much real distinction and dignity. 
 
 No one, apparently, expected that any of their 
 successors would either fail or miss. No one 
 seemed either to think or to care on the subject. 
 But after his first six months of residence at High 
 Bridge, Coggeshal had produced a work which 
 his wearied and indifferent publishers forced him 
 to issue at his own expense. This was " Rachel 
 Rand," of which mention has already been made, 
 and of. whose composition, as we have also learned, 
 even Isabel, his devoted admirer and friend in all 
 undertakings of every known sort, had remained 
 wholly ignorant. 
 
 "Rachel Rand" had encountered, at first, a 
 cold critical reception. It puzzled the gentle- 
 men of the newspapers; it was unexpected, it vio- 
 lated tradition, it touched amazing novelties in 
 the way of precedent. Some journalistic pens 
 roundly damned it; others met it gingerly with 
 their nibs, inscribing non-committal comments, 
 and perhaps leaving a sly little blot of rancor. 
 The critics, who are so often hated and so rarely 
 pitied, never showed themselves so deserving of 
 pity as now. Their incapacity to do more than 
 admit their disqualification for dealing with any- 
 thing whose merits demanded a new line of 
 eulogy and whose faults invoked a new effort of 
 
42 THE HOUSE AT BIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 censure, was at once plainly manifest. But mean- 
 while " Rachel Rand" gained quietly in public 
 estimation. People bought it, read it, laughed 
 and cried over it, advised their friends to dip into 
 it, spoke of it irrelevantly at times of commercial 
 pursuit, and greeted it with a singularly loud ac- 
 claim. And then, as always happens, the critics 
 who had denounced it most hotly, wrote with 
 vehemence in its favor. The book proved a phe- 
 nomenal success, and many a jaded scribe of 
 Printing House Sqiiare and thereabouts drew on 
 his resources of encomium just as he had before 
 drawn on those of vituperation. 
 
 The conversation this evening at dinner had 
 soon flowed easily enough toward the topic of 
 "Rachel Rand." And Mr. Clarence Coulter felt 
 much more at his ease when it had done so. He 
 had partaken of his luke-warm soup, and had 
 creditably squared accounts, as it were, with his 
 fellow-consumers by the time that the lamb-and- 
 peas became a reality. Meanwhile he had found, 
 with a flush followed by a chill, that the general 
 talk was showing sad gaps which he was evidently * 
 held responsible for. He gave Isabel one or two 
 furtive glances, and did not feel reassured. There 
 was always something about Isabel which made 
 made him think she did her best not to let him 
 know that she held herself above liim. As for 
 Mr. Coggeshal, the poor young bank-clerk could 
 not have regarded him more exceptionally if con- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 43 
 
 vinced that he had dropped from another star. 
 Clarry had read every word of Coggeshal's novels 
 since his engagement to Sadie. He had not liked 
 seven of them at all, and he had taken up the 
 eighth with a calm obedience to the discipline of 
 duty. And yet not liking the works of his pro- 
 spective father-in-law was with Clarry a very 
 different thing from presuming to approve his 
 own distaste for them. They were unpalatable 
 because he had no palate to catch their exquisite 
 flavor; they were dull because their light could 
 not contract itself into the scope of his limited 
 vision ; they were mountains which he could not 
 climb, rivers which he was incapable of fording, 
 seas which he had no sail to brave. They bored 
 him, but he venerated them ; and it often seemed 
 to him that if the fact of their boring him should 
 be known he would almost die of shame. 
 
 But when Sadie put " Rachel Rand " into his 
 hands, and said : " Oh, just read it, and tell me if 
 you don't think it's perfectly lovely, " all was 
 changed with Clarry. The new book was as 
 different from its predecessors as a blossoming 
 garden from a hot-house full of glacial camellias. 
 At least Clarry had certainly found it so. Its 
 love-passages stirred his pulse and moistened his 
 eyes, while the treasured Sadie seemed to look 
 up at him from many a printed page. Its narrative 
 charm, natural and yet romantic, held his interest 
 by a stout bond ; its humor insisted upon his smile ; 
 
44 TUS UOUSE AT UIGII BRIDGE. 
 
 its philosophy (which he but half comprehended) 
 bore a crispness that made it as pleasant reading* 
 as if it had been pure sentiment only. Poor 
 Clarry had never been so enthralled by any 
 book since he had read, at a considerably ear- 
 lier age, " The Three Guardsmen " and " The 
 Wandering Jew." But he had read these famed 
 volumes in a wholly different way, and without 
 knowing it he had been so stamped, in his later 
 life, by the altered mood and need of his time, 
 that he would no longer have enjoyed them half 
 as much as he now enjoyed the human realisms of 
 " Rachel Rand." 
 
 Inevitably, therefore, the maker of this fascinat- 
 ing marvel became an object of increased rever- 
 ence. The great author had permitted himself to 
 be not alone thoroughly understood but thor- 
 oughly sympathized with as well. Clarry uncon- 
 sciously began to regard Sadie's father as one who 
 from heights far beyond him had deigned once to 
 descend, and for his own personal delight and 
 indulgence. He could not escape this feeling, 
 though he never put it into an actual concept. It 
 abode with him, however, and made him perhaps 
 one of the most zealous devotees whom the novel 
 had yet secured. 
 
 " It's taking everywhere, I guess," he now said, 
 nodding intimately to Mrs. Coggeshal, who had 
 just referred to it and who was always very far 
 indeed from awing him. " Everybody in our bank 
 
TnE UOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 45 
 
 has either read it or is reading it." Here he 
 turned to Mr. Coggeshal, again oblivious of Sadie's 
 injunction. " It must be gratifying to you, sir," 
 Glarry continued. " Of course your reputation 
 was a dead sure thing before, and all that, sir, 
 but to have an effusion from a talented pen catch 
 on with everybody, as this effort has done must 
 seem . . seem kind of new. Don't it, sir ? " 
 
 The respectful trepidation that went with these 
 words made their attempt at eloquence just as 
 noticeable as their spontaneous out-crop of slang. 
 Clarry could never quite control his slang ; it was 
 a part of his being, as it was nearly all of his daily 
 association. 
 
 " Yes, it does seem new," said Coggeshal kindly. 
 " I hardly expected it." There he stopped short. 
 
 " Papa doesn't think it by any means his best 
 novel," said Sadie proudly. 
 
 " Is that so ? " asked Clarry, who had heard the 
 same remark from his beloved more than once in 
 private, but who now felt relief in turning famil- 
 iarly toward the one dearest member of this 
 august family by which he had been honored in 
 so signal a way. 
 
 "It's more suited to the popular taste," Sadie 
 went on, as though she were repeating something 
 learned accurately beforehand, " but it has not the 
 same solid merit as papa's other books." 
 
 "Oh . . ah . . I presume so," replied Clarry, 
 in tones of the deepest respect. 
 
46 THE HOUSE AT BlOn BEIDGE. 
 
 " I don't know anything about solid merit, Tm 
 afraid," here announced Mrs. Coggeshal, in her 
 vohible, meandering way. "I don't say that I 
 oughtn't to, living all this time as the wife of an 
 author so . . well, so up in almost everything as 
 . . Mr. Coggeshal is." She was going to say " as 
 pa is," but checked herself; for Isabel had long 
 ago warned her against speaking of her husband 
 as "pa" — a tendency no less strong from sheer 
 force of early habit than was that of Clarry to 
 say " sir " from replete and overwhelming respect. 
 " But I just don't," proceeded Mrs. Coggeshal. "I 
 guess I never could fathom those other things." 
 Here she caught her husband's mild gaze, across 
 the table. "Now what are you looking at me 
 for?" she exclaimed, with a girlish abandonment 
 which she had always given vent to at certain 
 times, and which always had in it a tameness like 
 that of a kitten's paw-stroke. " You know just as 
 well as you know you're sitting there, Herbert 
 Coggeshal, that those books never did suit an 
 every-day person like me. How could they ? But 
 this last one " — 
 
 "Mamma, you mustn't make confessions like 
 that," broke in Isabel, with a weary ring in her 
 voice that she sought to hide by gayety. " You 
 must go about saying that every thing papa has 
 ever done is perfection, and that ' Rachel Rand ' 
 can't hold a candle to any of his other books. 
 Wliateyer your real opinions are, for the sake 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 47 
 
 of the family you must learn policy and be 
 circumspect." 
 
 Clarry laughed quite loudly, at this, though 
 even while he did so he mentally decided to look 
 up the exact meaning of the word " circumspect " 
 in a Webster's dictionary which he had found 
 reason to purchase since his engagement. 
 
 " How is that, Belle ? " asked Sadie, with loiter- 
 ing reflectiveness. "I suppose you mean it will 
 make the other books have a better sale. But if 
 so, why doesn't papa write to the papers and 
 state that he thinks this work inferior to his 
 former ones ? " Sadie now turned toward her 
 father. They were not ever on intimate terms, as 
 might be said ; for years he had recoiled from her 
 petulance and wilfulness as a child, and after- 
 ward he had repeatedly told Isabel and his wife 
 that he " could make nothing of that girl." As 
 two people will do when they have once started 
 all wrong in their mutual relations, these two 
 were forever misunderstanding, affronting and 
 pricking one another, either with intenrfon or 
 without it. Sadie always altered her voice when 
 she spoke to her father; its tone was now cold 
 and constrained as she said: "I believe you did 
 tell us that you place your last novel below all 
 those you wrote before." 
 
 " Did I say that ? " Coggeshal answered, crum- 
 bling a piece of bread between thumb and finger, 
 and seeming almost to address his own thoughts. 
 
48 TIIE HOUSE AT niGU BTilBGE. 
 
 Sadie immediately looked hurt. Often indeed 
 had that look crossed her face before. Even 
 Clarry had seen it, though to him it was steeped 
 in the golden languor of poesy, as the pout of a 
 mistress must always be to a lover. Still, there is 
 no doubt that Sadie was possessed of that pecul- 
 iar unamiable nature which none but a person 
 of wide repute for amiability can successfully 
 develop. 
 
 "Of course you said it, papa," replied Sadie, 
 with the tips of her lips, so to speak. 
 
 Coggeshal started a little, and assumed a pro- 
 pitiating air. All her family had long ago fallen 
 into the habit of propitiation with Sadie. Not to 
 do so was to run the chance of feeling for days in 
 the domestic atmosphere that effect of dampness 
 which can best be expressed by comparing it to 
 a February thaw, during which the sun shines, 
 although you set your wraps closer about your 
 throat. 
 
 " Well, Sadie," acceded her father, " perhaps I 
 did sJ^ it. But no doubt I was then expecting 
 the book to prove a failure. It's highly probable 
 that since it has done otherwise I may have al- 
 tered, my estimate. That's only human nature, 
 you know." 
 
 Sadie nodded her head slowly, with a mollified 
 little smile. And as she did so, her mother said : 
 
 " Now, Herbert, you know you never did care 
 about what the public at large thought of your 
 
THE HOUSE AT Iiwn BRIDGE. 49 
 
 writings. Don't let your son-in-law that's going 
 to be, get a wrong opinion of you." 
 
 " There isn't any danger I shall ! " exclaimed 
 Clarry, with effusion. " I guess I'll only have the 
 right opinion, every time 1 " 
 
 "He's above minding how people talk about 
 him, or what they write, either," declared Mrs. 
 Coggeshal to Clarry, with earnest confidence and 
 the mien of one who is sure to meet entire sym- 
 pathy. "He knows that when they can't grasp 
 the productions of his intellect they'll be as apt 
 , as not to run them down, or else to say some- 
 thing that shows they're not even fit for praising 
 them. So Mr. Coggeshal don't care, and I never 
 knew him to care. / can't alwaj-s grasp his 
 thoughts, and Sadie can't, either, sometimes . . 
 Isabel, you can, because your brain and your 
 father's always were something alike. But " — 
 
 " That will do, my dear," said Coggeshal, tem- 
 perately enough, at this point in his wife's pro- 
 gressive rhapsody ; and Mrs. Coggeshal, with a 
 meek but decided "Very well" ceased from her 
 panegyric. But she and Clarry at once exchanged 
 a glance which indicated their perfect unison of 
 sentiment and their appreciation of the modesty 
 prompting greatness to shrink from undue cele- 
 bration. 
 
 It woke inward wonder in Isabel that her father 
 should now find nearly every sort of reference to his 
 literary career odious. He had never shown vanity. 
 
50 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 or a desire of hearing liis own exploits praised ; 
 but, as Isabel knew very well, he had by no means 
 disliked to discuss his mental equipments and the 
 various results with which they had been em- 
 ployed. And yet latterly it had proved so differ- 
 ent with him ! Isabel made a swift attempt to 
 permanently change the whole subject, realizing 
 tliat it dealt mysterious discomfort ; and there was 
 even a pretty touch of self-sacrifice in her slight 
 act of rescue. 
 
 "I'm inconsolable," she said to Clarry, "about 
 our next-door divinity. He saw me on the piazza 
 this afternoon while he was passing, and took no 
 more notice of me than if I'd been one of the 
 flower-beds." 
 
 Clarry quickly became convulsed with laughter. 
 Isabel had recently familiarized him with her dry, 
 calm way of confessing an immense passion for 
 the Mr. Lloyd Brockholst who lived next door 
 and to whom she had never even spoken; and 
 Clarry, listening at first with consternation, had 
 afterward done so with keenest amusement. All 
 this kind of serio-comedy was to him an undiscov- 
 ered country in the way of feminine humor. He 
 had never before met any girl who had thus dared 
 tranquilly to assert that she was devotedly in love, 
 blending all the drama of emotional disclosure 
 with the coolness of prosaic statement. At first 
 he had had strong misgivings as to whether Isabel 
 were not thoroughly serious; but afterward, on 
 
TUB HOUSE AT UIGU lililDGE. 51 
 
 discovering her hyperbole to merely mean a high- 
 flown manner of saying that Mr. Lloyd Brockholst 
 pleased her by his appearance and that she would 
 like to •become acquainted with him, Clarry was 
 none the less diverted. 
 
 " Oh, Belle," said SadiC;, brightening a little, in 
 her lifeless way, " how can you talk so dreadfully I 
 Clarry believes you. Don't you, Clarry ? " 
 
 "No," responfled Clarry, still giggling. "I 
 used to, almost; but I don't now. I see the 
 joke." «. 
 
 " It's no joke," said Isabel, with the faintest be- 
 trayal of a smile on her lips. " It's tremendously 
 the opposite." She quietly glanced at her father. 
 " Tell him, papa, how wild I am," she said, with 
 the utmost composure, "about this fascinating 
 neighbor of ours." 
 
 " We don't know what we shall have to do with 
 her," said Coggeshal, looking at Clarry, while a 
 spark of humor, which Isabel loved to see, crept 
 into his pensive eyes. "She appears to be in a 
 low condition of frenzy, for the present harmless." 
 
 " Precisely," said Isabel, with great demureness. 
 
 " Oh, Belle," exclaimed her mother, " do stop ! 
 you've only just found out his name." 
 
 "I know," admitted Isabel; "but I'd adored 
 him three days before I knew it." At this point 
 Clarry gave a loud cry of laughter ; it all struck 
 him as so marvellously funny. 
 
 " Will you stop. Belle ? " called Mrs. Coggeshal, 
 
52 THE HOUSE AT HIGH liRIDGE. 
 
 laughing too. " Clarry'll go and tell his mother 
 and sister. The idea ! Of course you don't mean 
 it. Your father only got his name from that Mr. 
 Carolan about two days ago. I guess you must 
 be pretty hard up for a sweetheart to carry on as 
 you're doing I " 
 
 " I am," said Isabel, without changing the play 
 of a muscle. And this drove Clarry into another 
 spasm of merriment. 
 
 But just then the servant who had been waiting 
 upon them at dinner, handed Isabel a note. She 
 took it surprisedly — so few notes of any sort 
 ever reached her, here at High Bridge — and 
 after she had glanced through its contents her 
 face began to tell rather rosy tales. 
 
 " Who's written, Belle ? " asked Sadie. " Is it 
 Mrs. Bondurant ? " 
 
 "Yes," answered Isabel. "She wants me to 
 meet" — Here she paused, and looked at Clarry. 
 "My adored being," she continued, without the 
 least smile. " He is to be there this very evening 
 at eight." She sighed, rather preposterously, as 
 her blush departed. "I wonder if I shall have 
 strength to go and meet him," she proceeded, " at 
 Mrs. Bondurant's? What do you think, papa?" 
 
 " Oh, we'll try and fortify you up to it," said 
 her father. 
 
 " So you're really going to be introduced, 
 Belle ! " cried Mrs. Coggeshal, in her voice that 
 always had its feeble, insecure ring, without re- 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 53 
 
 gard to the sense it conveyed. "Who knows 
 what may happen, after all ! Do let me see Mrs. 
 Bondurant's note." 
 
 Isabel tossed the note toward her mother. She 
 tried to smile as she did so. At the same time 
 she was rather drearily thinking how a little 
 pleasantry amused Sadie's future husband, and 
 how much it would take to bring back the old, 
 familiar, happy look to her father's loved face. 
 
54 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 III. 
 
 CoGGESHAL went out upon the piazza when din- 
 ner was over. Isabel followed him, and watched 
 him, herself unobserved, while he stood taking 
 several quick jjuffs at a cigar which he had 
 lighted but which he presently threw away. 
 
 "You're here, are you, papa?" she then said, 
 stepping forward and joining him, as if it were the 
 most unforeseen thing in the world. " How much 
 cooler it's grown, hasn't it ? I suppose to-morrow 
 will really be a cool day." 
 
 The broad avenue which the house fronted 
 was now swept by a persistent though moderate 
 breeze. From the piazza they could see High 
 Bridge with its gray arches turning vague in the 
 twilight, and the river beneath them shining 
 softly. The foliage of the embankments had 
 taken a most dusky tinge, but overhead the sky 
 was filmed with a gauzy rose-color, while intervals 
 of deepening blue showed the timid silver of one 
 or two early stars. Lights had begun scatteredly 
 to gleam in the vast city at the lower end of the 
 island. Pleasantly in accord with the freshened 
 atmosphere, sounds of music floated from the 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 55 
 
 beer-gardens not far aloof. Whichever way you 
 looked, the lines of leafage, of valley or of accliv- 
 ity were tender and yielding against the dreamy 
 air. 
 
 " It has changed decidedly for the better," said 
 Coggeshal, as Isabel joined him. He glanced 
 into her face with a smile both faint and tran- 
 sient, but dear to her simply because it was a 
 smile. " So you are to meet your idol this even- 
 ing at Mrs. Bondurant's ? " he said. 
 
 " My idol ! " laughed Isabel. " Oh, papa, I fear 
 I've carried my joke too far! Clarence Coulter 
 was so amused by the mode of speech I adopted 
 that I kept it up. Not that it was at all original. 
 So many American girls have the same style of 
 imprudent parody. That's why the foreigners who 
 take us seriously are often so shocked." 
 
 " So, then, you're not quite forlorn about him, 
 eh ? You've been fooling a little on this question 
 of adoration ? " 
 
 "Oh, papa! you know too well that I never 
 meant a word of it ! I thought him nice-looking, 
 and yesterday when I spoke at the gate for a few 
 minutes with Mr. Carolan,I learned that his name 
 was Brockholst, and that he was old Mr. Chad- 
 wick's nephew, recently returned from abroad. 
 A girl says so many things she doesn't mean. 
 And of course I was sure that you and Sadie 
 and mamma understood my nonsense ! " 
 
 « Of course, Belle." 
 
56 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 "But now comes tliis invitation from Mrs. 
 Bondurant for to-night," pursued Isabel, with a 
 little excited tremor in her voice. " It makes me 
 feel actually guilty, papa ! I don't think I ought 
 to accept it. Mrs. Bondurant is such a rattling, 
 prattlesome kind of person that she may have 
 told him some of the absurd things I've said." 
 
 " Ah I " replied Coggeshal dryly. " So you've 
 been confiding your attachment to Mrs. Bon- 
 durant also ? " 
 
 " Nothing of the sort ! I never had the least 
 attachment to confide ! Papa, how can you ! I 
 told her I thought he had a very gentlemanlike 
 appearance." 
 
 Coggeshal had taken Isabel's hand in his, and 
 was holding it by the slim, flexible fingers while 
 he watched her demure upturned face. 
 
 " There was nothing very compromising in 
 that," he said. " Belle, my dear girl, you ought 
 to have lots of admirers — lovers, I mean, and 
 make your choice from among them; and the 
 man who gets you will be lucky." 
 
 " Oh, papa, how nice of you ! But I don't want 
 any lover except yourself. Truly, I don't. I'm 
 perfectly contented with your devotion, provided 
 you'll always make it evident." 
 
 " You say that, dear Belle, but you'll change 
 when your fate arrives. Go to Mrs. Bondurant's, 
 by all means . . I want to see Carolan this evening. 
 I've a question I want to ask him," 
 
THE BOUSE AT niGH BBIDGE. 57 
 
 " Is it any point about your new book, papa ? " 
 
 " Who told you I was writing a new book ? " 
 
 " Your manuscript . . Oh, I've taken a peep at 
 it, now and then ! You don't keep it locked 
 away mystically, as you did ' Rachel Eand.' " 
 
 "Well," said Coggeshal, after a little pause, 
 " perhaps it is about my new novel. Anyway, I 
 must see Carolan." 
 
 "It's a strange intimacy, yours and his," said 
 Isabel. " I never could understand it." 
 
 "No ? " He had di-opped her hand. He moved 
 several paces away from her, and seemed to be 
 gazing at some unknown point of interest iu the 
 sweet, dusky landscape. 
 
 " No, papa," asserted Isabel stoutly, " I never 
 could see why you liked that plausible, talkative 
 Irislmian. He is so different from you, with his 
 superficial cleverness and his glib, tripping tongue." 
 
 "We often like oiir opposites," said Cogge- 
 shal, as he turned and passed slowly toward the 
 hall. "Or, if we don't like them, we tolerate 
 them, for any reason, or no reason. You tolerate 
 Mrs. Bonduraut, although, as you have often told 
 me, you don't like her. High Bridge is not very 
 remarkable for its abundance of society." 
 
 He disappeared in-doors, and soon afterward 
 Isabel heard his step pause in the region of his 
 study. She listened to hear where he went. She 
 was always thinking of him and worrying about 
 him, of late. 
 
58 TEE HOUSE AT UIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 But about a quarter of an hour afterward he re- 
 emerged upon the piazza, wearing his hat. Sadie 
 and Clarry were seated there now, deep in the 
 shadow dear to lovers. He passed them without a 
 sign, and they were perhaps grateful for the avoid- 
 ance. Isabel, as he took for granted, had gone to be 
 a guest of Mrs. Bondurant, who lived but a short 
 distance away, in one of the villas which skirted 
 . the broad avenue. As for his wife, she had stolen 
 sleepily upstairs, fatigued with her town shopping. 
 
 Coggeshal descended the steps of the piazza, 
 and soon found himself at the doorway of the 
 single house nearest his own. It was a residence 
 of more solid build than that in which he dwelt, 
 and more suggestive of the city close at hand. It 
 looked very dark and uninviting as he rang the 
 bell. He rang twice before the door was opened 
 by a man whom he instantly recognized. "Ah, 
 so it's you, Carolan," he said. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Coggeshal. I was upstairs, and had 
 just put the old gentleman comfortably to bed. 
 Glad you dropped in. Come into the sitting-room. 
 Mr. Brockholst is out." 
 
 "No," said Coggeshal. "We'll walk a little 
 along the avenue together, if you don't mind. 
 It's a warm evening, and we can get more air 
 tliat way. Besides, a breeze has sprung up, and 
 we can find it better if we walk. Are you 
 willing ? " 
 
 " Willing ? " said Carolan. " Certainly. Any- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 69 
 
 thing suits me that suits you. Just wait till I get 
 my hat. It's only here in the hall." 
 
 The speaker had a hearty, mellow, bass voice, 
 and it suggested a man of large stature and firm 
 health. Ample-chested, tall, springy in his gait, 
 jaunty in his carriage, Carolan presently passed 
 forth upon the avenue at Coggeshal's side. The 
 dimness left it well visible that he had a face of 
 full mould, shaven quite clean. Its plumpness 
 could not hide its fine, true lines ; its profile would 
 have looked well in a cameo ; you might have 
 called the rounded jaws and chin sensuous, but 
 the arch of the nose and curve of the nostrils be- 
 spoke mind and will. Such a visage as Cardan's 
 might have belonged to the English Regency, and 
 the short curls that pushed densely and crisply be- 
 low his hat-brim at either temple perhaps helped 
 to suggest^n the vague Ught, that period of wigs 
 and smoofflKaees. There was the dry sparkle as 
 of wit itself in his blue and rather prominent eyes, 
 and a look about his lips of their being brisk to 
 deal with drolleries yet in a most unsmiling way. 
 When the Regent caroused late over his claret 
 with Sheridan and Fox, this other merry-tongued 
 Irishman might not have been out of place in 
 their bacchanal company, and perhaps could have 
 seasoned the banquet with as much Attic salt as 
 nearly any of the band ; for he shone with that 
 rollicking geniality which forms, when it is allied 
 to intellect, one of the chief attractions of his pe- 
 
60 THE HOUSE AT HIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 culiar race. But Carolan had his gloom as well 
 as his sunshine, and they who would lightly have 
 ranked him as a light personage might later have 
 learned this error to their cost. It is not always 
 the shallow thing that flashes or the weightless 
 thing that floats. 
 
 " I haven't seen you for several days, Carolan, 
 have I ? " said Coggeshal, and they walked slowly 
 along together. The words had somehow a por- 
 tent in them as of some anxious pending question. 
 
 "No, Mr. Coggeshal," replied* his companion, 
 with the ever profuse geniality. " That's a fact, 
 sir — you haven't." Carolan seemed to reflect for a 
 moment. " I meant to drop over, but the old gen- 
 tleman has kept me a good deal with him lately. 
 His gout was bad one day, and his spirits were 
 worse the next, and there were matters of rents 
 and mortgages to be got through witluthe next, — 
 aqd so it went on. . . But I wanted to m)k you up. 
 I'd have come over to-night, perhaps, if you hadn't 
 called. I saw Miss Isabel, by the way, for a few 
 minutes, yesterday." 
 
 " You met her. Yes, she said so." 
 
 " She was looking very well, Mr. Coggeshal. I 
 don't think I ever saw her looking better. . Yes, 
 yes. . . It was just near your house ; did she tell 
 jou ? Ah, yes, excuse me ; I believe you said that 
 she told you." ^ 
 
 Coggeshal made no reply. He had drooped his 
 head a little ; he seemed lost in thought. He was 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 61 
 
 too absent to notice a furtive look that Carolan 
 now quickly gave him, as they still strolled on- 
 ward. 
 
 " She didn't ask me in," said Coggeshal's friend, 
 with a passing note or two of his rich, unctuous 
 laugh ; for if a smile was rare with him a laugh 
 was not. " No, she didn't ask me in. Miss Isabel. 
 I confess that I might have gone if she had done 
 so. I usually do whatever Miss Isabel requires of 
 me — when I can. But opportunities, in this re- 
 spect, are limited." 
 
 " Ah ? " said Coggeshal, coming to himself, as it 
 were. . " Belle would have been very glad to ask 
 you in, if " . . he paused, in his desire to be con- 
 ventionally civil . . "if she had thought you 
 cared about it." 
 
 "I did care about it," said Carolan, putting 
 his hand on Coggeshal's shoulder. "I always 
 do when she" is good enough to think asking me 
 worth her while." 
 
 Coggeshal seemed to take this airy, amiable pro- 
 fession quite for granted. No doubt he ranked it, 
 carelessly enough, among the pleasant things that 
 were always being blown, like little iridescent bub- 
 bles from the Irishman's affable discourse. He 
 had never reflected at all as to how much Carolan 
 b'k fiij^ is daughter, though he had heard rather 
 broadcast praise and e^pliment paid Isabel from 
 this same fluent sourcW But suddenly he remem- 
 bered in what slight esteem the girl herself held 
 
62 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 him who had just mentioned her, and this con- 
 sideratioii perhaps wrought its effect upon the 
 quality of Iiis reply. 
 
 "Oh, drop in any time," lie said. "We're 
 always glad to see you." 
 
 Carolan, far keener under his outward blandness 
 and good-fellowship than many people gave him 
 credit for, caught on an instant the off-handed 
 evasion of this little speech. He may even have 
 speedily divined its precise reason for utterance. 
 He was very much in love with Isabel Coggeshal, 
 and so could weigh as by the most delicate scales 
 whatever bore upon one precious question. He 
 had made up his mind a good while ago that Isa- 
 bel rather disliked him than otherwise, and pangs 
 of passion had been cost by this realization. But 
 he was a man who could plot and ponder and wait 
 where it was a case of certain valued results accru- 
 ing ; and of late he had carefully done all three. 
 
 Just now he chose to change the subject, and to 
 use a sympathetic frankness in saying: "I felt 
 interest, of course, about the new novel. I hope 
 it's getting on finely." 
 
 Coggeshal at once turned to him with a bitter 
 smile. " It isn't getting on at all," he said, low- 
 voiced. " The truth is, Carolan, I'm paralyzed." 
 
 " Oh, bosh, now, my j^friend — bosh, I say ! 
 You're worth twenty mole things as good as 
 'Rachel Rand.' That's ^en you a fair start — 
 nothing else." 
 
TUM HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 63 
 
 Coggeshal shook his head, pausing in the path- 
 way as he did so. They had got to a part of their 
 walk where the houses had ceased and the yellow 
 calm of the summer stars hung without a twinkle 
 over blank tracts of field. The band-music from 
 the near casinos, hidden behind black slopes of 
 leafage, came to them with an odd staccato amid 
 the stilbiess. Only a fitful rustle woke now and 
 then among the trees that clung so densely all 
 down the bend of the land till it met the river- 
 bed below ; but even then, faint and transient as 
 was the movement of the boughs in the night- 
 wind, it held that wistfulness of harmony than 
 which there is hardly any other more potent in 
 all the sounds of nature. Its plain tiveness — 
 which might be made to stand, in the broad 
 symbolism of all music, for a remorseful sorrow 
 after some irremediable sin, — Carolan was not 
 without the fancy to which analogies like these 
 are easy, for duly recognizing ; and as a long sigh 
 from the wind-stirred foliage came fluttering to 
 his ears, he was by no means below discerning 
 soft correspondence between such seolian minor- 
 chords of pathos and the pale, troubled face now 
 turned full toward his own. New lines, as of suf- 
 fering, seemed abruptly to have deepened under 
 Coggeshal's eyes and about the corners of his 
 lips; the pallor of the light that struck his fea- 
 tures from what glow still brooded above the dead 
 June sunset, gave them unwonted haggardness. 
 
64 TRE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " A fair start ! " he repeated, with dismal irony. 
 "Why, the success of that book, Carolan, has 
 somehow told me that I wrote my own death war- 
 rant when I put my own name to it. T despised 
 doing it — I slu-ank from doing it — I told m3'self 
 that to do it would be hoi'rible and viie. And 
 yet the opportunity hung ready, like the cord of 
 a bell that we can set ringing by a touch." 
 
 Carolan gave a low laugh, that had, for him, an 
 uncomfortably harsh vibration. " But you rang the 
 bell — and its peals haven't stopped yet," he said. 
 
 " Say its knell, Carolan — its kneU over a 
 ruined manhood ! " 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! If the story hadn't had 
 the great go it's achieved, you'd have looked on 
 the appropriation of it as your own in the light of 
 mere clever literary fooling." 
 
 " Never as anything so harmless," murmured 
 Coggeshal, scanning the dark path beneath him. 
 "No, never — as I was once an honest man ! . . The 
 sting of repentance must always have come. I 
 think I felt what that sting would be before I 
 sent ' Rachel Rand ' to the typewriter — before 
 I wrote my name on its first sheet — before I let 
 the temptation grow into crime. I think I felt, in 
 warning, in . . in a kind of lurid expectancy, just 
 what my present self-contempt would be. But 
 with all that sure consequence before my . . my 
 moral vision, I — well, I accepted this torture that 
 I'm undergoing now." 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 65 
 
 Carolan made an impatient gesture and walked 
 away several paces. But he returned quickly, 
 and put his hands on either of the wretched man's 
 shoulders, trying to peer into his drooped face. 
 
 " Come, now, Coggeshal," he said, with a rough 
 joviality and bluntness which had long ago made 
 him pass current in the big misled world as " the 
 best fellow going," or something equally distant 
 from the astute and deliberative personality that 
 he really was. " Own up that when I showed you 
 the manuscript of that novel, you thought it 
 might push you a little ahead in popular favor, 
 and nothing more. It would make people begin 
 to read you, you reflected, and discover that you 
 were worth reading. It had elements that were 
 touched with a tarnish of cheap writing here and( 
 there, you thought, but it had certain merits th^t 
 you would not be at all ashamed to father. It 
 wasn't the book that you could ever heiive just 
 found the inclination to write, but it we^s a book, 
 nevertheless, which had in it not a few things 
 clearly up to your standard, jovcc ideal. You 
 would appear to stoop a little for the time, and 
 when you rose again you would rise to the heights 
 of your actual self in letters — heights whither 
 you wished a little select company of constituents 
 to follow you. But that was all. You were pre- 
 pared to have this novel which you didnt write 
 mildly forgotten in the handsome appreciation of 
 those which you had written, or would write here- 
 
66 TUE nOVSE AT HIGH BTtlBGE. 
 
 after. You proposed to use ' Rachel Rand ' as a 
 slim but trustworthy ladder for yourself and your 
 new cliency to mount on. But instead of being a 
 mere ladder, she's turned out to be an infernal 
 stumbling-block! And why? She's become a 
 prodigious favorite ; she's irritated you into believ- 
 ing that the public will like you only as a maker 
 of future novels exactly in this same vein. Hlne 
 nice lachrymce ! as the newspapers say, when they 
 want to behave as if they knew Latin. You can't 
 write novels exactly in this same vein. But you 
 can write something that may win people to ac- 
 credit you with a power that's truly your own, 
 guided into such acceptance of you by the success 
 of 'Rachel Rand.' And there isn't any earthly 
 reason, my friend, for the success of 'Rachel 
 Rand ' to breed in you this anguish of remorse." 
 Here Carolan paused a minute, and met the grave 
 gaze that Coggeshal lifted to him. " Good God, 
 man," he went on, " it's a safe secret ! I hope you 
 don't think otherwise ! " 
 
 Coggeshal smiled the sort of smile which looks 
 as if the lips clung dryly to the teeth in making 
 it. " You read me pretty well," he said gloomily. 
 " I did think all tliat. It's why I befouled myself. 
 And I won't deny that I feel blacker in soul be- 
 cause everybody is now talking of the book and 
 buying it — the book that I did not write a line 
 of, except to change its title and the names of its 
 characters. But, as I said, my conscience would 
 
THE nOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 67 
 
 have stimg and stabbed me — perhaps not as it is 
 doing now, but still with enough force to suffer 
 by. . This is matter for a man's moral sense, 
 Carolan." Here the speaker showed a flurried, 
 hunted, querulous look, and added sharply : " I 
 sometimes think you haven't a damned bit of 
 moral sense, you, yourself ! I do, indeed ! " 
 
 Carolan's face flushed in the dubious starlight. 
 He was always affronted by reckless personalities. 
 He never gave them unless under severe protest, 
 and they always cast into disarray his well-ordered 
 light-infantry of bonhomie. 
 
 " Perhaps I'd respect the impertinence more,"' 
 he said, with speed and a plain sneer, " if I didn't 
 know quite so well the person who pays it." 
 
 Coggeshal gnawed his under lip for a second or 
 two. The slur had told. It was the first one, 
 moreover, that his crime had thus far engendered, 
 and it held the bitterness of woful prophecy. It 
 pointed to a future thick with just these jeers. 
 Wrath and accusation were equally in his tones 
 as he now retorted : 
 
 " I date all my dishonor from the time when 
 you first tempted me to become a thief." 
 
 Carolan threw back his head, and laughed with 
 cold derision. " There's downright language," he 
 exclaimed, "if it was ever spoken! . . But wait 
 a minute," he went on, suddenly slipping verj;- 
 close to Coggeshal and catching the lapel of his 
 coat between firm thumb and forefinger. " Isn't 
 
68 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 it a rather mean thing of you, now your course is 
 taken, to throw the blame on me ? Suppose I'd 
 shown you an axe and said, ' Chop your hand off;' 
 would you have done it ? " 
 
 Coggeshal shook himself free of contact. 
 " You saw how weak I was," he said, with a low 
 gasp at the end of the brief sentence. 
 
 " Oh, I did, eh ? And suppose you'd chosen to 
 be strong. What funny law of nature made me 
 the custodian of your conscience ? Why don't 
 you go now and tell the big sympathizing mass of 
 your fellow-beings that you've proclaimed your- 
 self the author of a book you never wrote, but 
 that the atrocity was really none of your con- 
 triving ? — that it was all the work of a certain 
 plausible Irishman named Carolan, who had the 
 villainy to storm the ramparts of your rectitude 
 at a time when mental depression — or, let us say 
 an attack of indigestion — made them ill-defended? 
 Do it — why, don't you?— just for an experiment! 
 You might get complete exoneration (who 
 knows ?) at the hands of outraged society. I ad- 
 vise you at least to try the plan." 
 
 This merciless mockery seemed to quiet its 
 hearer. "Pray drop that strain," he said, pres- 
 ently, in an altered and much more placid voice. 
 
 " So I will," shot Carolan, with tart suUenness, 
 " when you cease to talk like a madman." 
 
 Coggeshal gave a long, heavy sigh, which the 
 pensive ripple of the breeze in the leaves appeared 
 
THE SOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 69 
 
 to take up and reduplicate far away down the 
 hillside. 
 
 "I feel like a madman — sometimes," he fal- 
 tered, in complete dejection, now. 
 
 " Quite credible. But I confess that your 
 moods of sanity, when I'm fortunate enough to 
 meet them, please me the most." 
 
 "I — I didn't come to you for the purpose of 
 idle wrangling." 
 
 " That's pleasant intelligence, certainly. I'm 
 refreshed to obtain it. I feel relieved of a rather 
 awkward doubt to the contrary." 
 
 "I — I wanted to ask you about this nephew of 
 Mr. Chadwick's." 
 
 Carolan was easing himself back into his cus- 
 tomary urbanity ; his ruffled plumes were getting 
 sleek again. " I'll give you any information," he 
 volunteered, " that my own very limited data will 
 allow." 
 
 They had begun to walk on again. " He is just 
 back from Europe ? " asked Coggeshal. 
 
 " Lloyd Brockholst ? Yes. He's lived there for 
 ten years. I don't think he would ever have 
 returned at all if it hadn't been for his uncle's half- 
 imbecile state and Mr. ChadAvick's entire lack of 
 all blood-relations in this country. People will 
 say, of course, that the old gentleman's money 
 was a potent incentive. But I don't believe a 
 word of it." 
 
 " He has a fortune already, this nephew ? " 
 
70 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " He has about fifteen thousand dollars a year, 
 and is the sort of man you'd more than suspect of 
 an unmarried future. Three years ago, when Mr. 
 Chadwick's memory had not so many of the murky 
 intervals that often visit him now, he told me this 
 little fact about his nephew's income." 
 
 " And is he to be long at High Bridge ? " 
 
 "I think he means to remain here as long as 
 his uncle does ; and I dare say Mr. Chadwick will 
 die here in a very few years — or months. But 
 Lloyd Brockliolst means to stay until the end. In 
 his quiet, reflective way he told me only yester- 
 day that if he had known his uncle's truly pitiful 
 state he would have crossed the ocean some time 
 ago. 'Mr. Chadwick,' he added, 'was my mother's 
 only brother, and I am sure that if she were living 
 now it would be great pain for her to see him as 
 he is, but greater pain not to see him constantly, 
 not to make his last days warm with the care and 
 the companionship of near kindred.' So as a 
 matter of duty, if nothing else, Mr. Brockholst 
 will remain at High Bridge." 
 
 " He looks like a man of the world," said 
 Coggeshal, with something tentative in his tones. 
 
 " He is one. He's still water, I should fancj"- ; 
 he has his depths and silences. A trifle disap- 
 pointed by the whole human scheme, very possibly, 
 but Avith not enough vanity to deplore his own 
 absence at creation. Outward conventions come 
 easy enough to him ; he was educated at a Swiss 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 71 
 
 college and has seen some of the best English and 
 European society. He has never done anything 
 in his life, but he throws a good deal of neat dig- 
 nity into his idleness, somehow." 
 
 " Fond of books ; eh?" 
 
 " French and German ones — yes. I never see 
 him reading any but those. He brought a lot of 
 them up here, and others have been sent him since 
 his arrival. I suppose he will bore himself mightily 
 before long ; it seems to me that such a man must, 
 in such a place. But it's more than likely that 
 he'll slip into apartments in town after a few 
 weeks, and merely pay visits, now and then, upon 
 his invalid uncle. That's the most natural course 
 to be expected of him. He mentioned one or two 
 of the fashionable New York clubs to which he 
 had been invited since his arrival. No doubt he'll 
 be made a permanent member, soon, of at least one 
 of them. The nobs and swells always take up a 
 man like that, you know, in New York. He's 
 well-born — what you Americans would call very 
 well-born, I should judge. The Chadwicks and 
 Brockholsts have been leading people for a number 
 of generations, I believe. Perhaps some one of 
 the many lovely girls here will ensnare him with 
 her pretty sorceries before a great while. I find 
 that most male Americans who have the matri- 
 monial pick usually take a bride of their own 
 nationality ; it seems to be only girls of the same 
 fortunate standing who marry unpatriotically." 
 
72 THU HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Coggeshal kept silent for a little while, and 
 when he next spoke it was in a voice full of that 
 solemn anxiety which his words at once explained. 
 
 " Tell me, Carolan : do you think he has read, 
 or will read, ' Rachel Rand ' ? It was because of 
 this thought, this dread — which I have had 
 ever since learning he had come here to his uncle's 
 house — that I sought you to-night." 
 
 Carolan made an impatient noise with his full, 
 ruddy lips. " Bah, Coggeshal ! " he exclaimed. 
 " And what if the book were read by him twenty 
 times over? You don't — you can't think, in all 
 the conceivable absurdity of your nervousness, 
 that he would ever remotely surmise it wasn't 
 yours ! " 
 
 " You found it among his uncle's old papers, in 
 that big chest of rubbish, you know," began Cog- 
 geshal, faintly and forlornly. 
 
 "Yes. WeU? And if I did? Pray, what 
 then ? " 
 
 The hesitant, insecure answer came in the form 
 of a question. " Was not this nephew in New 
 York at any time while a young man ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. I should say that he was about 
 eight-and-thirty now, if a day, and I think that 
 ten years ago he spent three or four years in this 
 country." 
 
 Coggeshal quickly nodded his head. " There 
 — you, see," he said; "I've reason to fear. . 
 Oh, you may call it foolish, Carolan, but I can't 
 
TRE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 73 
 
 help wondering if that poor devil, Arthur Lawton, 
 whose letter you found with the manuscript, and 
 of whom we're both sure that he died a miserable 
 unfriended death years ago, may not have been 
 known to Lloyd Brockholst — may not have . . ." 
 
 Carolan broke into laughter, as his companion 
 paused. " I think I've a full perception of your 
 bugaboo," he said, with a tripping kind of ridicule 
 that carried only comfort to his miserable auditor. 
 " Brockholst may have known all about the story, 
 of course. It is so excessively probable that 
 Andreas Chadwick, his uncle, who was then an 
 elderly man about town, and received from a 
 starving poet named Arthur Lawton a manuscript 
 which the old gentleman doubtless never did 
 much more than glance at, should have begged 
 his nephew to read and decide upon its claims. 
 Oh, yes, I'll grant your terror this one probabil- 
 ity, and I'll even admit that it is extreme. But 
 suppose Lloyd Brockholst did really read the 
 thing. How about his remembering that he 
 either skimmed or waded through its very bad 
 hand-writing ten years ago? Won't you grant 
 that he might, by some unique mental accident, 
 have forgotten it, even if he did read it? Or 
 is that making too great a demand upon your 
 credulity?" 
 
 Coggeshal would have liked the speaker to go 
 on in this strain almost indefinitely. The sarcasm 
 employed was only pleasantly irritant when con- 
 
74 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 trasted with the dull ache that its tingle slightly- 
 relieved. " I can't see how it would be strange if 
 Brockholst should remember the book, provided 
 he had seen it of old," came the gloomy, lingering 
 response. "Discovery might set in that way as 
 quickly as by any other. There is no getting 
 over the fact that pairs of eyes besides our own 
 have looked upon Arthur Lawton's manuscript." 
 
 " Pshaw ! and these pairs of eyes, except ours 
 and Chadwick's, are all long ago in the grave." 
 
 " You said that very confidently when I last 
 saw you," sped Coggeshal's next words. His 
 eager, scanning look into Carolan's face — as 
 though to assure himself that the Irishman's con- 
 solatory assertion was wholly spontaneous and 
 genuine, told of many a distrustful qualm. " You 
 think, Carolan, don't you, that if any one had 
 wanted to set the Hudson on fire over ' Rachel 
 Rand's ' authenticity, he ... " 
 
 "He'd have started his conflagration several 
 weeks ago," affirmed Carolan, not interrupting 
 but ending this last laggard and brooding sort of 
 sentence. " I say, will you come over the bridge • 
 here and get a glass of beer ? It will cool us both 
 off, and brighten up at least one of us, who needs 
 brightening." 
 
 They had almost reached the large wooden 
 causeway over whose planks the wearied feet of 
 Mrs. Coggeshal and Sadie had passed but a few 
 hours ago. They could see the showy lights 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 75 
 
 from the nearest casino, and could hear more 
 loudly the music whose brassy vigor most aptly 
 suited their bold rays. People in twos and threes 
 were moving not far away amid the darkness, like 
 strayed revellers, dim as the figures in a dream. 
 Far beyond, they could see the city, magnificent 
 for its vagueness and suggestion as any Babylon 
 of old, and looking like an immense cluster of 
 stars that had dropped upon the dusky land. 
 
 " No," said Coggeshal. " I can't go into those 
 hot places. I'm too nervous. The music tries me, 
 with its coarse shrieks, and besides, I can't drink 
 beer ; it always disagrees with me — brings on 
 dyspepsia and headache. Let's turn back." 
 
 "Oh, as you wiU," Carolan acquiesced; and 
 when they had got where it was quite placid and 
 retired again, where the tumults of the band had 
 become mellowed by the enchantment of distance, 
 and you could hear the sleepy billowings once 
 more of the night wind among the trees, he care- 
 lessly added : " If you will go on eating your heart 
 out for no earthly reason, why, do it, my friend. 
 That's a kind of funeral-dirge, you understand, 
 at which no one pays the fiddler except one- 
 self." 
 
 " True enough," came the almost sighed answer. 
 
 Carolan kindled, now, into his accustomed fervor. 
 
 " Grant," he softly cried, " that somebody does 
 declare you stole the book. It's a question of 
 proof — of document. I gave you the manuscript, 
 
76 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 did I not? You copied it, and burned it after- 
 ward." 
 
 " Yes, yes," hurried Coggeshal, bristling at once, 
 and as if bent on clearing this point of some cobweb- 
 like uncertainty. " I burned it to ashes — ashes ! " 
 He repeated the word " ashes " several times, with 
 much lower intonation, even after Carolan had be- 
 gun to speak again. 
 
 " Very well. You've all the battle on your side, 
 if battle there should ever be. But there never 
 will be any, at this late day. You might have one 
 foe, and a dangerous one — but he's all." 
 
 "Andreas Chadwick?" swiftly questioned the 
 other, as if he were sure and yet not quite sure of 
 the answer. 
 
 " Of course. Who else ? " Here Carolan paused 
 for an instant. Then he let one of his laughs, 
 moderated from its familiar allegro, softly enmesh 
 while not retarding his few next words. " Except 
 your very humble servant, no one has the least 
 real power at all to give you away." 
 
 " Give me away ? You ?■ " murmured Coggeshal, 
 looking full at the obscured face so near him. 
 " Well," he went on, with a drowsy humor, 
 " you've more or less said I was a fool to-night, 
 but I'll draw my line of folly, if you like, at not 
 being afraid of you." 
 
 " That's wise, Coggeshal. It shows an economy 
 of solicitude that I hardly dared expect in you. 
 You see, I know so much." 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 77 
 
 Aeqiaainted with the speaker as he was, some- 
 thing in that ending sentence made Coggeshal 
 start a little. He presently peered into the Irish- 
 man's face and said : 
 
 " Oh, if it comes to that, I don't know that you 
 know so much. I mean, of course, in . . in a prac- 
 ticable way. I — I mean, in other words, if you 
 should ever wish to betray me." 
 
 " I betray you ! What an idea ! " But Cardan's 
 tones altered perceptibly as he finished. " My pow- 
 ers as an informer are my own, and it's to be hoped 
 they'll remain so." 
 
 "What are these powers?" came the instant 
 question, rather harshly. 
 
 " Why, if nothing else, the two or three letters 
 you sent me before you decided to turn the abom- 
 inable person you insist upon declaring yourself." 
 
 « So you didn't destroy those letters ? Eh ? " 
 
 The question came swift and sudden. Perhaps 
 Carolan drooped his eyes a little in the gloom. 
 "Did I say that I didn't destroy them?" he 
 laughed, and with an effect of slyness and mis- 
 chief wholly amiable. 
 
 " Bid you destroy them ? " Coggeshal urged. 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "It was only common prudence to have done 
 so. If you had lost them, who can guess what 
 awkward disclosure might have come of it ? In- 
 deed, for that matter, with human life as uncer- 
 tain as it is, you might have died suddenly. Oh, 
 
78 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 yes . . by all means those letters should have been 
 made way with. I'm very glad you've done it, 
 Carolan, — as you say you have. It was imprudent 
 enough for me to write them . . though, when I 
 did write them, I was playing with temptation ; I 
 hadn't yielded to it; I — I had seizures of it, so 
 to speak, like a man with chills, who wonders on 
 his well day how he could possibly have been so 
 ill the day before." 
 
 All this was delivered in a hasty and fluttered 
 style, quite different from the demeanor with 
 which he now measuredly and a little crisply 
 continued. "As for this whole question of my 
 being in danger from you, I can't say that I just 
 understand why you brought it up. And you did 
 bring it up. You'll not deny that you did, I im- 
 agine." 
 
 " It brought itself up," said Carolan evasively. 
 
 A longer silence now followed on Coggeshal's 
 part than his associate was exactly prepared for. 
 It was not Carolan's intention to change the pres- 
 ent subject, which might lead to the revelation of 
 that firm, insistent attitude he was bent upon 
 sooner or later assuming when the false cloak of 
 friendship should be flung aside to show the sti- 
 letto of treachery glittering beneath it. Still, he 
 did not wish to press matters unduly. He was 
 not at all hardened against the pathos of Cogge- 
 shal's insecurity ; he would have assured you (and 
 with no little truth) that he was not hardened 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 79 
 
 against any thing or any body. Only, in this 
 affair of pretended authorship there was unfortu- 
 nately a certain exercise of menace and compul- 
 sion which must be inflexibly undertaken. Just 
 when the time for undertaking it would be ripe, 
 Carolan had not yet determined ; but its proper 
 maturity was not far off. Let Coggeshal receive 
 one keen initial hint to this effect that very even- 
 ing ; — why not ? If the first preparatory cut of the 
 blade dealt a fierce pang, the remaining operation 
 might be less painful by contrast. He hoped that 
 it would. He desired that all which fate (as he 
 might have put it) forced him to do, should be 
 done as pleasantly, as smoothly, as possible. But 
 he meant that it should be done. 
 
 Coggeshal did not abandon the subject. On 
 the contrary, he at length presented it in a new 
 light — and perhaps a rather lurid one. He 
 turned presently to Carolan, and said with tones 
 that held both irritation and alarm : 
 
 "Carolan, there's something behind all this. 
 You're keeping something hidden. I don't know 
 that you haven't been keeping something hidden 
 all along." 
 
 Here was just the turn that Carolan would 
 have wished their talk to take. 
 
 " What could I have been keeping hidden ? " he 
 
 Coggeshal folded his arms and stood still in the 
 dusky light, facing his questioner. 
 
80 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " That you wanted to place me in your power 
 — and hold me there, perhaps — for some purpose 
 of your own." 
 
 Those few words gave Carolan a kind of glad 
 catching of the breath. " It has come at last," he 
 thought, and coolly prepared his answer. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 81 
 
 IV. 
 
 That answer, when lie framed it, proved brief 
 enough. "After you think more calmly over 
 what you have said, I feel sure that you will admit 
 you have just insulted me." 
 
 " Pshaw ! I meant to get at the truth. I m^ant 
 no mere insult — if you put in that way.'' 
 
 " I do put it in that way. I don't see any other 
 rational way to put it in." Garolai^ had lowered 
 his tones, and they ponveypd either feeling or the 
 semblance of feeling. ^^ If you accuse me of wish- 
 ing to place you in my power," he continued, 
 " you can have but one reason for such an accusa- 
 tion or for such a belief." 
 
 " One reason ? " Coggeshal repeated. 
 
 "Yes. You must have seen that I love your 
 daughter, Isabel." 
 
 " You ! " The father of Isabel drew backward 
 several paces, in sheer consternation, while he 
 pronounced this one short word. No announce- 
 ment could have been to him more sharply 
 surprising. 
 
 " I have loved her," said Carolan, with perfect 
 simplicity of confession indicated by his composed 
 
82 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 yet earnest voice, " since almost the first time that 
 I ever saw her. Above everything else in the 
 world, I should like to make her my wife. It is 
 needless to add that I have never told her of this 
 wish. I am convinced, as perhaps you are, that 
 her reply would be adverse. If she does not 
 roundly dislike me, she at least holds me in very 
 slight regard." 
 
 Coggeshal seemed now to find his voice with 
 some effort, if not actual difficulty. " You are 
 right," he said. "She does regard you in this 
 way. I happen to know it. Besides, you are — " 
 and here he very suddenly paused. 
 
 Carolan waited, looking most steadily into the 
 dimmed face. He made the silence following that 
 pregnant pause as significant as his own silence 
 could make it. And then he said slowly, putting 
 the fragmentary sentence into what appeared a 
 deliberated question : " Besides, I am . . . ? " 
 
 "You are not the man," supplied Coggeshal, 
 with merciless candor, " whom I would desire my 
 daughter to marry." 
 
 Carolan nodded, broke into a laugh, and then be-* 
 gan, while his first word cut the laugh dead : " So 
 you take that line with me, do you ? All right. 
 Well, now, listen : I love your daughter, Isabel, so 
 much that I think I could make her the best of 
 husbands. And I don't at all despair of being 
 that to her at some future time. If you're not 
 with me in this idea — " 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 83 
 
 " I am not with you I " broke in Coggeshal, 
 haughtily and austerely, " and never shall be I " 
 
 " No ? " said Carolan, tranquilly enough. He 
 turned away, walking several steps along the 
 path. Then he veered round, and by some effect 
 of recession or of the reflected starlight, Cogge- 
 shal saw his face more clearly than he had seen it 
 since they had thus walked together. It was 
 paler than ordinary, and the little jovial wrinkles 
 under his eyes looked mystically smoothed down 
 past all hint of appeal; one would never have 
 suspected a trace of jollity in his even composure 
 of visage. 
 
 " I did not destroy those two letters," he said, 
 as serenely as if he were bidding a good-night. 
 "I have them yet — both of them. Pray think 
 over all that I've told you this evening. I want 
 to keep friends with you. I should be very sorry 
 not to do so. But — I retain those two letters, 
 and I am in love with your daughter, Isabel." 
 
 He passed rapidly into obscurity, leaving Cog- 
 geshal not far from his own gate. 
 
 And Coggeshal, having heard every word of 
 this extraordinary farewell as we hear all things 
 that hurl defiance and challenge, no matter how 
 much in repose they are spoken, stood peering 
 after the man with a new dread, a new misery 
 at his heart. 
 
 He walked onward, presently, and found the 
 shadowed gate which led to his lawn. If Sadie 
 
84 THE HOUSE AT UIGU li RIDGE. 
 
 and her Clarry were still seated on the piazza, just 
 then so benignantly gloomy for lovers like them- 
 selves, he took neither note nor thought. He 
 went straight to his study, on the ground-floor, 
 and seated himself in an armchair, after turning 
 high the jet of gas which had been made a mere 
 star. 
 
 " So, then," he muttered, locking both his hands 
 together and staring before him at a little etching 
 which he had picked up abroad, and which now 
 seemed to stare back at him as a mute memory of 
 his unsoiled past, — " so, then, the man was using 
 me, after all ! And he requires that — he tempted 
 me on that account ! " 
 
 A long sigh, partly of wrath, partly of sufPering, 
 escaped him, but his audible expression of pain 
 ended here. Naturally enough, at such a time, 
 his thoughts wandered among incidents which 
 concerned a few recent weeks. 
 
 From the first this Bourke Carolan had pleased 
 him. To the studious man, the man shy of com- 
 pany, the lover of solitude for its emancipations 
 and relaxations from worldly usages, no personal-* 
 ity is more immediately winning among his fellow- 
 men than such a volatile and graceful one as that 
 of Carolan. They had met as near neighbors 
 meet, but it had depended upon the garrulous and 
 expansive Irishman alone that their encounter 
 should bear any more tangible result than the or- 
 dinary exchange of courtesies. But Carolan had 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 85 
 
 speedilj'- dispelled such formal terms. He was just 
 next door, the companion, servant, nurse and busi- 
 ness counsellor of old Mr. Andreas Chadwick. Of 
 course Coggeshal and he should know each other 
 well. It was not necessary for him even to in- 
 fer that he had heard of Herbert Coggeshal, the 
 novelist. It was indeed a godsend to find any one 
 intellectually congenial here in this rather deso- 
 late and inchoate place. He himself had once 
 tried his pen at novel writing. Oh, yes ; he had 
 written a novel in Dublin, when he was about 
 two-and-twenty, and had had it published as well. 
 It liad been a flat failure, just as a little book of 
 his verses had been a flat failure the year after- 
 ward. He had recognized that creative talent 
 wasn't in him ; he had been wise ; he had long ago 
 assured himself that the laurels of literature were 
 not for a brow like his own. They were for the 
 real artists, the born geniuses — the Herbert Cog- 
 geshals, in short. 
 
 No innocent in the matter of chicanery and im- 
 posture, Coggeshal had recoiled not a little before 
 these voluble advances. Indeed, he had taken so 
 immediate a liking to his neighbor that inquiry as 
 to Carolan's antecedents and present status was 
 naturally undertaken with a prompt ^leal. In so re- 
 stricted an environment trustworthy information 
 had not been difiScult to secure. The position of 
 old Mr. Andreas Chadwick was irreproachable. 
 Now a semi-paralytic, scarcely ever leaving the 
 
86 THE UOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 home which through some senile whim he had 
 built himself here in High Bridge and which he 
 would supposably occupy until his near death, 
 this gentleman had once ruled as an arbiter of 
 fashion in New York circles, and had left a 
 repute for frivolity which might be compared to 
 the delicate filigree on some solid and massive 
 structure ; there was so much secure and distinct 
 reputation beneath it. And Carolan had for an 
 appreciable time received the jaded old bachelor's 
 intimate confidence, now fulfilling toward him, at 
 a period of desuetude and perhaps imminent de- 
 cease, the office of both friend and adviser. What 
 recommendation could be more ample and satis- 
 factory ? It took Coggeshal only a little while to 
 banish the least misgiving he might have felt con- 
 cerning the entire probity and repute of his new 
 attractive friend. 
 
 Carolan himself was the reverse of reticence in 
 speaking of his own past. And he spoke with full 
 truth. "I came," he told Coggeshal, "of good 
 but very slim-pursed Irish parentage. My father 
 was a Protestant clergyman in Belfast. There 
 were fourteen of us besides myself. I would 
 never have got the precious college education 
 which I really attained, if a wealthy friend of 
 my father, who owed him a good turn, had not 
 paid it back in this wholesome fashion. But 
 after leaving college I had to shift for myself. 
 I shifted with a vengeance. In Dublin I kept 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 87 
 
 incessantly vacillating between tutorship and jour- 
 nalism. But journalism and not tutorship was 
 my admired cult. Like so many of my race who 
 can wield a facile pen, I woke up to the fact 
 — the stupendous fact, I thought it then — of 
 America. I drifted here to New York as inevi- 
 tably as the steel drifts to the magnet. I found 
 employment for a little while — and pangs of 
 untold disappointment as well. While I was 
 struggling along as a reporter on the New 
 York Asteroid a certain scandal in high life oc- 
 curred. The Asteroid wished to ' work up ' the 
 scandal, with a flourish of accurate information 
 that should send its contemporaries into igno- 
 minious shade. This tendency toward bold and 
 gelid personal exposure on the part of American 
 newspapers was just then beginning to be sanc- 
 tioned and recognized. The whole abominable 
 idea had been borrowed from certain London 
 journals which had reaped fat profits from the vio- 
 lation of individual and domestic privacies. As 
 it chanced, a certain bachelor beau, at the Metro- 
 politan Club in New York, was believed to know 
 more about the particular scandal under popular 
 discussion than anybody not directly and pain- 
 fully interested in its developments. The name 
 of this gentleman was Mr. Andreas Chadwick, and 
 fate, with her usual random appointments, fixed 
 upon me as the special hack-emissary of the 
 Asteroid who should approach and interview this 
 
88 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 valuable personage. I shall never forget the 
 freezing reserve with which Mr. Chadwick re- 
 ceived me, one evening, in the visitors' room of 
 the Metropolitan Club. But in less than ten min- 
 utes I had somehow won him over and hand- 
 somely conquered him. He has liked me, indorsed 
 me, ever since that hour. My path hasn't been 
 wholly strewn with roses, however ; don't for an 
 instant imagine that it has. I am the old gentle- 
 man's ostensible favorite and counsellor, but like 
 a good many other powers behind the throne I 
 am constantly taught to realize that the throne is 
 most materially in front of me. For three or four 
 years my position was much more endurable than 
 now. I was blamed for everything, from the in- 
 solvency of a tenant to the incorrect ironing of a 
 shirt. 'Bless my soul, Carolan — what the devil 
 does this mean, sir?' had become one of those 
 commonplace expectations which rank themselves 
 with a rainy day or an effete appetite for break- 
 fast. But I didn't mind it. Mr. Chadwick, with 
 his caprices, his laziness, his inconsequential scold- 
 ings, his methodical club-habits which made him 
 like a man out of some American Thackeray, was 
 nevertheless a resident of New York. Until he 
 fell ill and took the fancy of living here at High 
 Bridge, I was consoled for all my annoyances by 
 the fact that I dwelt in New York. I've never 
 been in London ; I don't know anything on the 
 other side more comprehensive as regards a city 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 89 
 
 than dear old Dublin. But I've found from tlie 
 first that New York is a very adequate substitute 
 for dear old Dublin. I felt that I was hardly- 
 treated when the old gentleman moved me up 
 here. And now that he's grown nappy and de- 
 crepit and weak-witted, I begin to feel like a hired 
 attendant in a rural sanitarium, with ambitions 
 transcending his dull daily routine." 
 
 Such breezy confidences as these on the part of 
 Carolan — reposed with an accompaniment of co- 
 pious and effusive suavity — attracted Coggeshal 
 more than he at first even privately conceded. 
 He introduced the Irishman to his family with a 
 pride in so positive a social discovery amid such 
 a recognized wilderness. But although Mrs. Cog- 
 geshal and Sadie pronounced him " funny " and 
 " nice " and " good company," it was soon evident 
 that their conquest had been only partial. Carolan 
 was above their mental calibre. He said things 
 that they understood and laughed at, but he said 
 other things that kept their faces quite sober 
 while they perhaps may have felt that there were 
 occiilt reasons why they should laugh most heartily. 
 Yet with Isabel it was wholly different. Her chief 
 comment was — " He rings false, papa ; " and after 
 hearing this oftener than pleased Coggeshal's self- 
 love as the indorser and introducer of Carolan, the 
 animadversion of his younger daughter roused in 
 him a pique which Isabel answered merely with 
 retorts of pregnant silence. 
 
90 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 But Coggeshal began to remember Isabel's decis- 
 ion when it became a question of secretly appro- 
 priating as his own the manuscript novel now 
 known . to the world as " Rachel Rand." The 
 admirer of Carolan had felt no least faint thrill of 
 temptation at the beginning of it all. Carolan 
 had brought over the glazed, clammy bulk of 
 rather ill-written foolscap, and had read aloud sev- 
 eral passages from its contents. The story told 
 regarding just how it had been chanced upon was 
 a moderately true one. Mr. Chadwick's adherent 
 had found it in a chest of old forgotten newspa- 
 pers, magazines, receipted bills, and all the similar 
 results of a long experience like that of his em- 
 ployer. It was entirely without signature of any 
 sort, but as Carolan declared, a letter had been 
 found with it from a certain Arthur Lawton to 
 Andreas Chadwick. This letter was never shown 
 Coggeshal, for the weighty reason that it had 
 never existed. " I have mislaid the letter," Caro- 
 had said, " but I think I will surely come across it 
 again in a few days." The "few days" multiplied 
 themselves into several weeks, but Arthur Law- 
 ton's letter never reached the hands of Coggeshal, 
 who had meanwhile spent a good while over the 
 manuscript, and had faitlifully obeyed an explicit 
 injunction not to let any of his household even 
 know that he had it in liis possession. 
 
 As a man who never dreams of deceit will some- 
 times be deceived, Coggeshal had accepted readily 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 91 
 
 enough the stipulation that he should consider the 
 work in utmost privacy. But Carolan had not 
 been without his diffuse explanations of why this 
 request was made. He had learned all about the 
 deceased Arthur Lawton, whose name he had now 
 chosen to employ. In former times, when Mr. 
 Chadwick's memory was not the wandering or 
 somnolent faculty which it now by turns appeared, 
 he had spoken at great length about Arthur Law- 
 ton, no doubt stimulated into doing so by the 
 recognition of a clearly literary turn in his new 
 favorite. Carolan knew well the short and un- 
 happy term of life spent by this brilliant young 
 Englishman in New York ; — how he had come to 
 these shores eager for success as a writer ; how he 
 had brought letters to people of position; how 
 he had been admitted and admired, for a while, 
 among the leaders and law-makers of society ; how 
 his beauty of person and his grace of address had 
 won many hearts; how, in spite of his meagre 
 purse, he might have gained and kept hosts of 
 friends ; how he had sunk through lust for 
 drink, with gradual yet sure descent, below all 
 possibility of reform; how he had struggled to 
 re-secure his lost foothold, and in an interval of 
 sobriety had appealed for aid to Andreas Chad- 
 wick ; and lastly how he had received this aid 
 only to fling away all decency, courage and man- 
 hood, mercifully dying, one day, in disgrace and 
 shame. 
 
92 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Chadwick had always been fond of telling about 
 Arthur Lawton, and long before the old gentle- 
 man himself had dropped into an irresponsible 
 state, every detail of the ill-fated Englishman's 
 career had undergone rather diligent repetition in 
 the hearing of Carolan. The latter had invented 
 that tale of the posthumous missive, but he firmly 
 believed Lawton to have written the novel exca- 
 vated from the old chest. What other literary 
 friend save this Lawton had Mr. Chadwick ever 
 had? How strongly probable that this luckless 
 young adventurer himself should have confided 
 an unprinted work into the hands of his last 
 adherent and benefactor ! In any case Carolan 
 felt so confident of the real authorship that 
 even Mr. Chadwick's corroboration of his views 
 could hardly have made them more secure. In 
 the mean time Mr. Chadwick was very far from 
 corroborating them. The old beau was indeed a 
 most shattered personage in this his seventy-second 
 year. His overthrow, like everything which had 
 ever concerned him, was picturesque and even 
 romantic. Precisely these qualities in Carolan had 
 pleased him and brought about their present rela- 
 tions. He had always been able to pardon a per- 
 son a great deal if anything about him or her 
 engaged his volatile fancy. He had liked, that 
 evening in the Metropolitan Club, Carolan's 
 jaunty apology for intrusion; he had liked the 
 grace and plaintiveness mingled in this audacious 
 
THE HOUSJE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 93 
 
 young Celt's appeal of " Do help me, Mr. Chad- 
 wick, for although it may be your gall and worm- 
 wood, it's my bread and butter ! " He was always 
 liking what struck him as felicitous, however 
 superficially so, in his fellows. And now the 
 poor old bit of decorative humanity had become 
 afflicted with a most blurring and tenacious tar- 
 nish. He would never shine harmlessly and or- 
 namentally again, in his old meretricious way. He 
 sat in his wide, airy room overlooking the arches 
 of High Bridge, and maundered dolefully about 
 his gay past. He wore a flowered dressing-gown, 
 when able to rise and wear any kind of garment, 
 and a smoking-cap of embroidered ruby velvet — 
 though he had quite lost the nerve or the palate 
 to smoke. He rambled on about dead-and-gone 
 Knickerbocker beaux like himself, and dead-and- 
 gone Knickerbocker belles whom he had known 
 and possibly made love to in his departed days, 
 with a garrulity that sometimes keenly bored liis 
 compulsory listener. But when it came to actual 
 facts of the past, Carolan could now get little 
 from him that was lucid or trustworthy. He had 
 nodded his head in a vague way when the myste- 
 rious manuscript was shown him, and had said, 
 in answer to a direct question as to whether 
 Arthur Lawton had written it or no: "Well, 
 yes ; I dare say he did. He sent me some- 
 thing like that to read, once or twice, but bless 
 me if I just recall whether I sent the writings 
 
94 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 back again . . or, in fact, queer as you may think 
 it, whether they were verses or . . or prose." 
 
 From this indefinite reply Carolan had gathered 
 new certainty. There was, of course, a risk of 
 some other author claiming the story, were it ever 
 printed with Coggeshal's name. But he deter- 
 mined to take that risk, and when he had finally 
 prevailed upon the father of Isabel to carry out a 
 compromising fraud of whose perfidy he alone was 
 aware, the risk held for him merely one sharp 
 threat of danger amid much tough surrounding 
 warrant of safety. 
 
 At the first suggestion, clearly understood, that 
 he should publish the manuscript as his own, 
 Coggeshal had turned upon Carolan with a look 
 of indignant scorn. 
 
 "What do you mean? " he exclaimed, heatedly 
 enough. " Be a lie before the world for the rest 
 of my life ! Steep myself in self-degradation ! 
 This is villanous in you, Carolan ! I've almost a 
 mind to forbid you from ever daring to address 
 me again ! " 
 
 " As you please," said Carolan, truly stung, and 
 at once leaving hiiu. 
 
 The Irishman had made his guileful move, 
 and passed several days of the most acute self- 
 reproach on account of it. He was very far from 
 being an adept in either duplicity or knavery. 
 He loved Isabel Coggeshal, and he had already 
 received from the girl that kind of rebuff which 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH HEIDGE. 95 
 
 made Mm hopeless of winning her on grounds of 
 purely personal reciprocated attachment. He had 
 never loved like this before ; he had indeed never 
 loved at all before, but he had from his early days 
 of sentiment and of reading about sentiment 
 more or less tropical and fervid in others, cher- 
 ished the idea that he would at some future time 
 love profoundly and passionately. He had taught 
 his conscience the vicious theory that such a love, 
 whenever it came, must be ranked as an impulse, 
 a spontaneity, sacredly above all other considera- 
 tions — above even honor and principle. He had 
 been himself tempted to tempt Coggeshal, and 
 had justified his ultimate collapse of moral regard 
 by the glorious and dizzying reflection that he 
 was a slave of law from which revolt would be 
 undutiful, disloyal. All roads led to Rome for 
 him in his crooked amatory geography, and if he 
 was forced to take a narrow and ill-odored lane 
 thither, so much the more circumstantially pa- 
 thetic. Isabel Coggeshal, he had told himself, 
 was measurelessly devoted to her father, his in- 
 terests and fruitions and successes. If hereafter 
 that father could be unmasked or not as a thief 
 by a single hand only, and this hand were one 
 which desired very greatly to slip a wedding-ring 
 upon Isabel's, who could say what triumphant 
 results might follow ? Carolan did not feel as if 
 he would ever rudely force such a marriage by 
 means of threatened betrayal ; that was too tinged 
 
96 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 with melodrama for the proper poetry and dignity 
 of his own passion to tolerate it. But the posi- 
 tion of being able to force a marriage, provided he 
 chose — the bringing of all this feminine incom- 
 pliance, all this cold virgin unconcern, under a 
 yoke of secure subjection, according as his caprice 
 might direct — here lay sources of stimulus whose 
 cogency and refinement seemed equal. If Caro- 
 lan deserved the downright name of rascal — and 
 it is by no means here maintained that he de- 
 served any other — then his rascality should be 
 coupled with the qualifying trait of daintiness. 
 He liked to enshroud in a prismatic mist of im- 
 aginary generosity the course he would take 
 when it became known to Isabel that he could 
 dishonor her father on her continued rejection of 
 his suit. But always in the rear of such ficti- 
 tious magnanimity abode a firm hope that the 
 girl would herself make voluntary surrender. 
 ' As for the practical side of our union,' he would 
 reflect, embellishing his own future attitude as 
 the recipient of Isabel with more of the flimsy 
 veneer he had previously employed, ' would I not 
 be giving myself to an almost penniless bride? 
 And has it not been for a long time both my 
 ambition and my belief, with the looks and the 
 brain and the attractiveness which I possess, to 
 marry a woman whose dower would place me 
 above all chances of want?' Even in his private 
 thoughts Carolan preferred to call it ' dower.' 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 97 
 
 ' Dower ' pleased him much better than the taw- 
 dry commonplace of such a word as ' money ' or 
 'income.' 
 
 It has been recorded of Coggeshal that he 
 treated with abhorrence the proposal of false 
 appropriation first made Mm by his new acquaint- 
 ance. He had read the manuscript with enough 
 care to feel almost certain that it contained ele- 
 ments of popularity. He had said to his own 
 thoughts, on finishing it, that although he would 
 never care to tell a story as this one was told, and 
 no doubt for reasons of temperament and taste 
 could not do so if he had tried ever so hard, still, 
 there were strong and appealing places in the 
 work which might set it selling and indeed merited 
 to set it selling, and to set people talking about it 
 as well. The reflection, too, that if }ie himself 
 had written some such thing with an aim at mere 
 popularity alone it might have pushed his other 
 books into notice and acceptance, had already 
 entered his mind. And now the recollection 
 that Carolan had used this same idea as an argu- 
 ment when openly tempting him, roused a medi- 
 tative surprise even amid his anger. He wanted 
 popularity. He had never known how to gain it ; 
 his critics had. not told him; they had only told 
 him, as their acumen was not required to do, that 
 he had failed to gain it. But he believed stoutly 
 in the worthiness of what he had thus far written 
 to place him high and unassailable. Before his 
 
98 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 wife and Isabel he had seemed careless of any 
 reward but that of consciousness in superior 
 achievement. Yet secretly he had chafed and 
 fretted that this consciousness was ignored and 
 unrecorded. He would have been satisfied if his 
 failure to sell his novels had passed into current 
 quotation as a proof of the unappreciative period. 
 He had no objection to fail importantly ; it was 
 failing obscurely that vexed and depressed him. 
 And he believed — as so many authors with all 
 his talent and all his lack of genius have believed 
 before him — that some random agency of acci- 
 dent had alone determined his present neglected 
 fate. 
 
 But perhaps, cheered the occasional voice of 
 hope, some cause equally fortuitous would on a 
 sudden make his head touch the stars. He had 
 waited long for some event like this. Thinking 
 that he might perhaps accelerate it, he had sent 
 copies of his books to famous men both here and in 
 England. Not always even a reply had come to 
 him ; for there are writers of repute whose celebrity 
 does not keep pace with their courtesy, and who 
 are too absorbed, sometimes, by the larger moral or 
 ethical questions to perceive that the finest kernel 
 of their theories and principles may lurk in what 
 we call acts of common civility. But when a reply 
 did reach him it was always impenetrably polite 
 and no more. He could rarely gain an inkling as 
 to whether his gift had roused any marked admirar 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BHIBGE. 99 
 
 tion ; the longed-for word of thrilling encourage- 
 ment was either not there or else it was aggravat- 
 ingly smothered in a profusion of thanks. He now 
 and then had his violent moods of sweeping cyni- 
 cism, when he cried in spirit : " Curse them all ! 
 They are all alike — jealous of each new-comer till 
 forced to admit him their peer." But such moods 
 were infrequent, for his nature, like that of most 
 artists who are fed by their intellectual faculties 
 alone and divine nothing through electric flashes 
 of sensibility or intuition, was seldom touched with 
 any phase of excitement. Yet it could feel the 
 slow gnaw of discouragement, and of that unap- 
 peased craving for distinction which, whether fed 
 or no by real conquest, has the same settled belief 
 that it deserves to be so fed. Expectation for some 
 sort of appreciable guerdon had grown a dismal fa- 
 tigue to Coggeshal at the time of Cardan's daring 
 advance. Still pure enough in theory as regarded 
 all trickery or falsehood where his name and place 
 among men of letters were to be considered, he 
 had nevertheless dealt with something for which 
 either sincerity or self-respect would be too clean 
 a term during his experiences on a certain com- 
 mercial newspaper. Deception was not an un- 
 known art to him; he had already more than 
 mastered some of its oblique rudiments. For this 
 reason, most possibly, he found his ire against 
 Carolan fading a little more speedily than was 
 proportionate with its first heat and blaze. 
 
100 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 The manuscript, he began to muse, was unique in 
 its way. Arthur Lawton was dead. To use what 
 he had left would be like making the dead help the 
 living. It was not, after all, such an act that a 
 man in his own peculiar state of unacknowledged 
 credit for superior ability as a novelist could ever 
 feel acute twinges about it in the way of gross, 
 cold-blooded theft. If he assumed the authorship 
 of the story he would not be doing so with any 
 aim toward advancing his actual merit beyond true 
 deserts. What he had written, was written. It 
 could speak for itself. Such a tale as this, if he 
 should print it with his own name on the title-page, . 
 might serve like a somewhat loud and loose-tongued 
 showman, prevailing passers to enter and inspect 
 wares of worth and skill. This was an advertising 
 age ; his publishers had more than once assured 
 him so ; a good bit of work went begging for read- 
 ers, where some other, weak enough by contrast, 
 met wide heed through mere legerdemain of " push- 
 ing." He did not want his novels to be pushed 
 vulgarly ; they were top fine not to suffer by the 
 inducement of a chromo or a sewing-machine as 
 prize to every buyer — like certain newspapers he 
 knew. But to seem as if one descended a little 
 from one's pedestal and wrote a popular thing 
 with some easy gush and spirit in it — this was 
 not necessarily to drop among the masses, to de- 
 sert fine principles of style and finish, to baisser 
 pavilion, to confess defeat. Another book might 
 
THE HOUSE AT niGII BRIDGE. 101 
 
 re-establish former tenets. And meanwhile read- 
 ers would have been gained — and what novelist, 
 or scribbler of any sort under the sun, can dispense, 
 after all, with readers? Then, if it were to be 
 looked at as a question of robbery, it was robbery 
 of the dead. And how could Arthur Lawton, laid 
 away for years in his grave, know or care? To 
 rob a living man would be different. There you 
 took from a sentient and striving fellow-creature 
 what might be money in his purse or spur to his 
 renown. But in this instance you dug his very 
 mortality out of oblivion and quickened it by the 
 loan of a new life. Ought not any dead man, who 
 had failed here on this planet, to feel grateful — if 
 any dead men can anywhere feel grateful for any- 
 thing — because his own spurned and buried craft 
 of brain has won vitality through serving the needs 
 of a worthy survivor ? 
 
 Specious arguments indeed were these — feints 
 at exculpation made by a moral sense that quiv- 
 ered under admonitions of its own ruin. Cogge- 
 shal had begun to feel like one about whose body 
 the loops of an invisible net slowly tightened. 
 Two days after the dismissal of Carolan he sat 
 down before his desk one day and wrote a long 
 letter to his proscribed neighbor. This letter Car- 
 olan duly received. It was one of those which he 
 had not destroyed. 
 
 The next day he called on Coggeshal. It 
 chanced that on eutering the house he met Isabel, 
 
102 TIIS HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 and they had a little talk together. She looked 
 insolently beautiful, as Carolan thought, and talked 
 to him with the tips of her lips, as it were, stand- 
 ing in the hall of the house and appearing cruelly 
 enough remote from any desire to have him not 
 remain standing as well. This circumstance may 
 have had its weight with Carolan during the in- 
 terview which followed between Coggeslial and 
 himself. It was a long interview, and it decided 
 nothing. But it broke ice, as the phrase goes ; it 
 ploughed new ground. 
 
 Other letters followed from Coggeshal, and very 
 discreet responses were written him in return. 
 The man, pausing then on the edge of an abysm,al 
 self-degradation, did not realize just how discreet 
 these responses were. And then came another 
 visit from Carolan, and another very long inter- 
 view. All was arranged thenceforward. If there 
 were a hell, and devils who laugh in it over the 
 sins of earthly lives, they would have had their 
 malign motive for mirth at that fateful hour ! . . . . 
 
 " Rachel Rand " had appeared. We already 
 know that it had circulated to an amazing degree, 
 as the sales of books go in this country. It had 
 shot up into thousand after thousand. Coggeshal 
 had not once doubted that Arthur Lawton wrote 
 it. He might have done so, however, if he had 
 doubted Cardan's flowing statements a little more. 
 That " mislaid " letter of Lawton's never turned 
 up. Carolan expressed real chagrin at the circum- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 103 
 
 stance. A suspicion had lately come across him, 
 he declared, that he had burned the letter by 
 mistake with some worthless accumulated papers 
 flung into his fire-place about a fortnight ago. 
 Yes, he grew apparently more and more certain 
 that its persistent disappearance could not be ac- 
 counted for in any other way. But he knew the 
 letter almost by heart ; he could repeat it almost 
 word for word. And then he made bold to " re- 
 peat" it. He had composed it and carefully 
 learned it. A thoroughly clever composition, it 
 avoided rousing in its auditor any preventive 
 overplus of compassion, or making him feel that 
 Lawton had highly valued the romance and set 
 any great store of faith upon its future. To pro- 
 duce either of these two effects in Coggeshal would 
 be impolitic, and might jeopardize the development 
 of the plan at a most promising moment. And as 
 it was, all had turned out surpassingly well. The 
 forgery once committed, its extraordinary success 
 with the world at large was held by Carolan as a 
 new stroke of luck in his own favor. If the book 
 had failed, or if it had only moderately caught 
 public notice, his secret would have been of far 
 less weight than now. But now it was of just the 
 greater value in proportion as its disclosure could 
 more prominently and tellingly wreck the reputa- 
 tion it concerned. 
 
 ' But I shall never be called on to enact the in- 
 former's part,' Carolan said to himself, after he 
 
104 TEE HOUSE AT HIGII BRIDGE. 
 
 had abruptly quitted Coggeshal, that evening, at 
 the gate of the latter 's dwelling. ' And I never 
 would assume it, even if I were dared to do so by 
 father and daughter both. There's what makes 
 all my conduct in this matter so free from mere 
 ordinary baseness. I don't want to get revenge, 
 like the scamp in a play — not I ! I only want her 
 to think of me as a person of more importance 
 than she has yet condescended to do. If she had 
 ever cared for another fellow, it would be different. 
 I should have to reckon jealousy in with the whole 
 account, then, and I don't know just what jealousy 
 might lead me to.' (He was not averse to imagin- 
 ing himself dealing a vengeance through jealousy 
 of some rival, for that contingency had the right 
 pardonably romantic touch ; there might be coarse- 
 ness in it, but there was also the poetry of a goaded 
 anguish, of a discarded lover's headlong despera- 
 tion ; and all this potential line of action was so pic- 
 turesquely preferable to the plain black-and-white 
 "marry -me -or -I'll -tell" kind of tactics!) 'But 
 there's nobody else,' his reflections proceeded, as 
 he here passed up the steps of his employer's house, 
 and entered by means of his latch-key (rarely 
 enough used in so quiet a quarter) the dim hall- 
 way beyond. ' And why shouldn't she take me 
 without knowing a bit of the real truth ? Why 
 shouldn't her father, now that I've let him see I'm 
 in love with her, bring the whole proceeding tran- 
 quilly about ? I shouldn't be at all surprised if it 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BHIDGE. 105 
 
 happened exactly in this way. The girl loves her 
 father well enough to look at me with changed 
 eyes on a few meaning hints from him. She has 
 only to look at me, and not above me and around 
 me, to see that though I am Andreas Chadwick's 
 factotum and hack, I'm not the sort of man for 
 her polite avoidance. . . Well, I've taught Her- 
 bert Coggeshal a little lesson. I've shown him 
 that there's somebody else in the world besides 
 himself who has a purpose to serve, a mark to hit, 
 a cause to further. What will be the result of 
 my hardy little burst of candor to-night? Will 
 it be war, or capitulation ? Whichever it is I've 
 one course now — to wait events.' 
 
 A little later Carolan entered a smartly fur- 
 nished kind of study on the ground-floor of the 
 house, and flung himself into a comfortable leath- 
 ern chair near a central table. He was himself a 
 devourer of books, and the table contained many 
 besides those ranged in the low ebony cases 
 against the walls. Andreas Chadwick had col- 
 lected no mean library in his day, and this room, 
 whither the old gentleman now seldom came, had 
 profited much by Cardan's incessant use of it. 
 Here were many of the current American and 
 English magazines and reviews. They had been 
 subscribed for in Mr. Chadwick's vigorous days, 
 and their subscriptions were continued still. They 
 were an immense comfort to Carolan in his leisure 
 hours, but as he now took up one of them — 
 
106 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 the London Fortnightly Review, of whicli he was 
 always fond as a sturdy radical and professed 
 agnostic — he yawned and stretched his legs and 
 passed one of his big, strong, glossy-nailed hands 
 weariedly through his graceful crop of blond curls, 
 letting the familiar cream-colored volume fall idly 
 in his lap. 
 
 He had been a confirmed Bohemian in New 
 York, just as he had before been one in Dublin. 
 He longed, when it grew toward the small hours, 
 for the noisy beer-saloon in Fourteenth Street 
 where he had sat so often and tossed ofP his 
 eighth or tenth convivial glass of malt with news- 
 paper men like himself — dramatic critics who had 
 just scribbled denunciation of the last new play at 
 "Wallack's or the Union Square — literary critics 
 who had perhaps come red-handed here to Theiss's 
 for their beer after massacring this or that novelist 
 or poet — reporters like himself, who groaned over 
 being sent that same evening to a babj^-show or a 
 cat-show, to a prize exhibition of handsome women 
 at a dime museum in the Bowery or a walking- 
 match at the Madison Sqviare Garden. Every- 
 body had more or less grumbled at his individual 
 fate ; everybody was at once ambitious and im- 
 pecunious; everybody was willing to argue and 
 wrangle over such questions as whether Edwin 
 Booth was or was not a great actor, whether 
 the American dramatist was or was not hopelessly 
 handicapped by imports of foreign plays, whether 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 107 
 
 the modern realistic school in fiction was or was 
 not an ephemeral fashion, and so on, disputatiously 
 and wordily, till the huge pink hams were put back 
 into the refrigerators by sleepy waiters, and extin- 
 guished lights told that the establishment could 
 entertain no more revellers later than its custom- 
 ary two-hours violation of the Excise. 
 
 Yes, Carolan missed this kind of life keenly. 
 But for his present nearness to Isabel he would 
 have gone back among these emancipations of 
 town, semi-reputable though they were. Andreas 
 Chadwick's infallible salary had grown as mono- 
 tonous as the place for remaining in which he so 
 regularly received it. The true Bohemian never 
 growls with as much grim persistence as when he 
 no longer has the least excuse for lamentation. 
 His natural condition appears to be one of crushed 
 opportunity. Enfranchise him, and he immedi- 
 ately feels like a captive. Do not suppose for 
 an instant that he will ever really write the glo- 
 rious American epic on Pizarro or Cortes, which 
 he so passionately sighs for the leisure and liberty 
 to write, provided you pension him the rest of his 
 haphazard life-time. He can do the things that 
 will buy him his breakfast, his table d'hote dinner, 
 at Moretti's or Dennis Donovan's, his nocturnal 
 beer in the Palm Garden or Carl Goerwertz's on 
 Third Avenue. But his creativeness, even his 
 mere industry, will respond to no other goad 
 than that of necessity alone. 
 
108 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 He presently looked down at the review in 
 his lap, and began slowly turning its pages. He 
 soon came to an article on a scientific subject 
 by one of his favorites among the modern ra- 
 tionalistic writers. He hastily ran through the 
 number of its leaves, as we are all apt enough 
 to do, inquiringly rather than disrespectfully, 
 with even our most beloved writers; and as he 
 made this rapid examination his eye caught some 
 lines of comment scribbled in pencil on the margin 
 of one page. 
 
 " Brockholst's writing, no doubt," he murmured 
 aloud. And then, having remembered for the first 
 time that Mr. Chadwick's nephew had mentioned 
 early in the evening an intended visit upon Mrs. 
 Bondurant, a lady whom he had known abroad, 
 and who now dwelt here at High Bridge, Carolan 
 wondered whether Brockholst had provided him- 
 self with the latch-key which a servant had been 
 ordered to deposit on his dressing-table. 
 
 But a moment afterward, having read the sub- 
 stance of the lines Brockholst had written, Carolan 
 -felt a peciTliar lingering thrill, such as accompanies 
 in us the totally unexpected intimation of a fact 
 fraught with extreme surprise if not affright as 
 well. He stared fixedly for some little time at 
 the words which Andreas Chadwick's nephew had 
 formed ; but this hard gaze was not on account of 
 the sense conveyed by those words. 
 
 Then he suddenly put the page very much 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 109 
 
 closer to the light, and stared at the writing still 
 more fixedly. His face grew noticeably paler, 
 now, as the nearer lamplight flooded it. He had 
 seen something strange and startling. 
 
110 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 V. 
 
 It had somehow been in the air of High Bridge 
 that Isabel and Mrs. Bondurant should know each 
 other and see considerable of each other's society. 
 If they had both been members of the same circle 
 in a larger community they would perhaps rarely 
 have done more than exchange a civil word. But 
 here there was no such thing as a circle ; there 
 were a few ladies and gentlemen among the win- 
 ter-residents of the suburb who lived a tranquil, 
 domestic and entirely unsocial life, and there were 
 a good many other people whom it would have 
 been rather straining a point to call ladies and 
 gentlemen at all. Isabel was not by any means 
 above the attractions of outward appearance, and 
 when one day Mrs. Bondurant had joined her on 
 the broad avenue where both their dwellings 
 fronted and had assured her that they really 
 ought to know each other, as they were such near 
 neighbors, the girl felt a little tremor of sincere 
 gratitude. She had known Mrs. Bondurant by 
 sight for some time. The lady liad a rather dap- 
 per wagonette whose one horse she often drove ; 
 the cut of her gowns could not escape Isabel ; she 
 
TUE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. Ill 
 
 had seen women abroad, at one or two of the 
 watering-places where she and her father had 
 briefly sojourned, who had looked like this same 
 lady, in a'general sense of refined dash and vogue, 
 and who drove themselves about with one horse, 
 just that way. Mrs. Bondurant had some time 
 ago wrought the impression of being widely dif- 
 ferent from her surroundings, and here lay a bond 
 of sympathy for just a girl of Isabel's taste and 
 cultivation. It is almost always true of any 
 woman that the moment she is made to see life 
 with the look of one at odds with the dull and 
 the commonplace, her sensitiveness to compara- 
 tively trifling felicities and niceties of manner and 
 costume becomes vigilant and keen. In her own 
 sex, at least, she notes and even treasures effects 
 of attire, of posture, of carriage, of phrase and in- 
 tonation, which to a man not constantly thrown 
 among his fellows possessed of all these lighter 
 superficial graces, would pass unobserved and un- 
 criticised. Isabel did not at first criticise Mrs. 
 Bondurant ; she was too glad for the companion- 
 ship of somebody who looked and spoke and be- 
 haved as if she were familiar witli the better 
 human cultivations. 
 
 They talked of unnumbered things together, 
 and spent hours in so 'talking. Their chief point 
 of tangency, so to put it, had been a mutual dis- 
 like of their present environment. But dislike 
 was far too mild a term for the feeling entertained 
 
112 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 by Mrs. Bondurant. Loathing expressed it much 
 better, and held at the same time a fitting applica- 
 tion to the temperament of the lady herself. She 
 was one whose antipathies all struck yon as being 
 of necessity loathings, just as her prefei'ences were 
 all loves and adorations. 
 
 Isabel had soon wearied of her. She might 
 have been rather sharply interesting, the girl had 
 concluded, if seen in the active exercise of her per- 
 sonality. But here the personality, like an ebullient 
 pin-wheel on a rusty and slow-moving nail, pro- 
 duced only a kind of noxious sputter. Mrs. Bon- 
 durant was, at High Bridge, an exile, and a very 
 bitterly discontented one. She did not so much 
 remind Isabel of an extinct volcano as of a vol- 
 cano whose crater still smoked wrathfully, with a 
 grudge against the forces of terrestrial disturbance 
 in general for not giving it a better eruptive 
 chance. Her fires were still nimble enough, but 
 fate compelled them to smoke and not to flame. 
 As a human being, a member of the same sublu- 
 nar race with herself, she soon began to take very 
 individual outlines for the eyes of her new ac- 
 quaintance. She stood as the type of a passion- 
 ate embodied disappointment. She had started, 
 in a worldly sense, feverishly, victoriously, mag- 
 nificently. She had wanted nothing subtler and 
 sweeter than high place as a woman of fashion, 
 great wealth, decisive caste, unrivalled distinction. 
 All this had come to her, at first, in the copious- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 113 
 
 ness and splendor with Avhich fate will sometimes 
 pour such tribute. And then it had all ,been 
 taken away, with its echoes, like those of some 
 melodious pageantry, to linger in her ears,> and its 
 pomps of lost brilliancy and color to haunt her 
 craving siglit. 
 
 A fair share of her beauty was still left, such as 
 that beauty has always been. Her eyes were like 
 a gypsy's in their metallic darkness ; her face, a 
 little lined and faded when now, at her thirty- 
 fourth year, the unpitying sunshine smote it, was 
 of accurate but somewhat angular proportion ; her 
 small head poised itself on shoulders whose curves 
 were once of more gracious moulding; her frame, 
 still instinct with soft and fluttering movements, 
 betrayed a spareness which made you remark its 
 height less charitably than of old. But she was 
 still a very engaging, elegant and original figure ; 
 one did not need the rural awkwardness of High 
 Bridge to accentuate her physical endowments. 
 
 She lived in a house much smaller than the Cog- 
 geshal's, and kept but a servant and a half, as she 
 herself averred with more forlornness than pleas- ' 
 antry. " I would like to have my little Bridget a 
 ' buttons,' " she told Isabel, very soon after their 
 acquaintance was formed, in her demure, mirthless 
 and yet almost luridly exaggerated way. " There is 
 something so diabolically common about a female 
 servant, you know, who is under age. I consider 
 that my little Bridget just glares my poverty at 
 
114 THE HOUSE AT niGH BRIDGE. 
 
 people. But what can T do? If she were a 'but- 
 tons ' she coiildn't make the beds, or do the up- 
 stairs work. Oh, dear I what a ghastly thing 
 poverty is I And mi/ dear " (looking at Isabel with 
 tragedy in each of her dark ej^es), " how perfectly 
 maddening a thing it must be for me, who have 
 had my millions — yes, millions ! " 
 
 Isabel was certainly very much won over, at 
 first. She felt, while Mrs. Bondurant talked to 
 her, as if she were wandering through the melan- 
 choly mazes of some ruin, where you met, every 
 now and then, gaudily-blossoming vines in festoons 
 and clusters under the most vivid of blue Italian 
 skies. Mrs. Bondurant dealt in sad memories 
 enovigh, but they were somehow as cheerfully 
 tinted as the fragments of a shattered vase. As 
 for the present poignancy of her sufferings, Isabel 
 could not by any means allow it. She had herself 
 seen enough actual want in the world not to feel 
 any great throes of pity for this lamentation over 
 lost luxury. 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant had quickly become more con- 
 fidential. " I sometimes feel," she told Isabel, 
 " like a walking corpse." It occurred to her hear- 
 er that this was an experience in the Avay of mere 
 sensation from which she herself had thus far been 
 wholly shut out ; and so, while Mrs. Bondurant 
 leaned her slender body forward and peered 
 mournfully into the face of her companion, Isabel 
 failed, during the little ensuing pause, to hazard 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGU BRIDGE. 115 
 
 the slightest opinion of how a walking corpse 
 might be expected to feel. 
 
 " I was a Hudsonbank, you know," the ladj' 
 continued. " If there ever were two real howling 
 swells," she tenderly and retrospectively added, 
 " they were my mother and father. Mamma had 
 come of a terrifically old Southern family ; two 
 or three of her cousins or great-aunts or something 
 like that, had married into the English nobility. 
 Mamma was a perfectly frightful heiress ; I forget 
 just how much it was, but I know a great deal of 
 it was in slaves, and papa, you know, who was 
 Northern to the backbone, thought that was sim- 
 ply disgusting and beastly. So in a few years he 
 made her sell them all. Mamma became thor- 
 oughly Northern herself, afterward, but she al- 
 ways talked with a funny little twang that some 
 people loathed, but that I used to adore, I was so 
 used to it. Poor dear ! she's gone ; she's spared the 
 pang of seeing me poked here in this vile hole of a 
 place. They entertained hugely ; they were im- 
 mense favorites in society ; if you knew much about 
 what that sort of thing is in New York, you'd have 
 heard of them. And nowadays their dinners and 
 receptions and balls would all be chronicled in the 
 newspapers, so you'd be certain to hear of them. 
 But then — about twenty years ago, when I was a 
 mere girl — persons in society could breathe and 
 wink without having their portraits and biogra- 
 phies published by the Daily This or the Weekly 
 
116 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 That. 'We lived down Fifth Avenue, in a big old 
 brick house near Washington Square. Oh, it was 
 so lovely, then ! I didn't appreciate it ! I didn't 
 realize what my life there truly was. I often feel 
 now like an old Cunard steamer that's doing duty 
 off somewhere among the obscure Mediterranean 
 ports, or perhaps cruising in the Pacific, and that 
 once used to carry loads of nice people, wild to get 
 state-rooms on it, from New York to Liverpool. . . 
 Oh, well, I've had my New- York-and-Liverpool 
 days. Now I'm carrying' freight and steerage to 
 Australia — or something of that sort. I dare say 
 this sounds abominably blue. But I am abomi- 
 nably blue. Do you know. Miss Coggeshal" (the 
 " Isabel," and " my dear Isabel," came a week or 
 two later), "I'm just crazy with envy of the 
 people who never have had a single blessed thing 
 on this globe to be happy for. They've no 
 souvenirs, no reminiscences, no regrets. I simply 
 bristle with them — yes, I do ! Do you know — 
 now don't look too horribly shocked when I tell 
 you — I've more than once thought of suicide ! " 
 
 " Suicide ! " repeated Isabel, truly shocked, 
 though a few days afterward this announcement 
 would easily enough have taken its place amid the 
 characteristic hyperbole of Mrs. Bondurant. 
 
 " Yes. I once took a neck-ribbon and tied it 
 round my throat, and then pulled both ends of 
 it till it was just as tight ! But I stopped when the 
 strangled feeling came. It's all very well to he 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 117 
 
 dead, .but then there's the dying, you know. And 
 besides, I do think that if there's one thing more 
 outrageously vulgar than another for a woman to 
 do, it's to kill herself. Men . . well, men, don't 
 you know, can shoot themselves, or hang them- 
 selves, and though everybody agrees it's perfectly 
 dreadful of them, still, they're men. But so much 
 more is expected of a woman, somehow, in the 
 way of common decency. Don't you see what I 
 mean ? " 
 
 Isabel did not feel that she had by any means a 
 lucid perception of what Mrs. Bondurant meant. 
 But she said, a little demurely, though not, as she 
 hoped, quite unsympathetically : "I half under- 
 stand you, perhaps, though only half. Still, I am 
 almost sure that you could not justly find yourself 
 warranted to take extreme measures like those." 
 This seemed to her very set and formal, for she 
 wanted to show the genuine commiseration wak- 
 ened in her ; she had not yet learned to see the 
 real difference between Mrs. Bondurant and her 
 concomitant nimbus of theatrical red-fire. 
 
 " Oh, dear," exclaimed her companion, " how 
 sweetly literal and innocent you are ! Of course 
 I never meant to chohe myself with the neck- 
 ribbon, or anything else. . . As I was saying, I had 
 a most heavenly life when a girl. I was the only 
 child. Alma Hudsonbank. We went abroad al- 
 most every summer, mamma and papa and I. 
 They worshipped me, and I idolized them. Mam- 
 
118 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 ma was a beauty ; I never looked a bit like her ; 
 I'm dark, like papa. She had red-gold hair, and a 
 skin like cream, and the eyes of a dove. One 
 summer, at Baden, when I was only about four- 
 teen, she died very suddenly. It was too horri- 
 ble. Papa and I nearly went mad over it. Several 
 of the crowned heads sent condolences, and all 
 that — she was such an immense favorite with 
 everybody, and such a born great lady. / never 
 could be real grande dame ; it isn't in me, though 
 I've held myself as high as can be in my day — 
 don't make any mistake. . But I'm galloping on 
 too fast — it's such a pleasure to talk with a girl 
 like you, here in this awful place, where canaille 
 swarm so. . . Papa and I came home, of course in 
 the deepest desolation and woe. He never got 
 over his loss, poor papa, though he brought me 
 out in splendid style when I'd turned eighteen, 
 there at the old family mansion down the avenue. 
 I was a great heiress, and I made myself at once a 
 raving, tearing belle " (Isabel mutely wondered, 
 as she listened, what a ' raving, tearing belle ' 
 could possibly mean) "and had things for two 
 years or so about as much my own way as any girl 
 in New- York society ever had or ever could have 
 them. You see, I was the fashion. I used to 
 say saucy things to men that they would have 
 been furious at hearing from almost anyone else. 
 But they didn't dare to be furious at me ; they 
 knew they couldn't afford to be ; I held the fort, 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 119 
 
 as it were ; qui terre a, guerre a; J wasn't to be 
 snubbed with safety. Oh, what enchanting times 
 I did have, to be sure ! I never went out without 
 four or five bouquets to carry, and four or five ad- 
 mirers, as well, ready to obey my least nod. And 
 offers of marriage ! Why, in one week alone I 
 had four — two Englishmen, a Frenchman and an 
 American, and each man of them a parti. It 
 wasn't entirely my money ; I never could quite 
 make out what it was. Girls who were just as 
 great catches as I was didn't have my powers to 
 attract. And I wasn't pretty, either, except in a 
 bright-eyed, healthful way. Sonietimes I think it 
 was animal spirits. Men love animal spirits in a 
 woman ; they love a woman who effervesces — 
 who has something about her like the tiny, crisj?, 
 hissing sound that champagne makes when it's 
 first poured into a glass. I affected them like that 
 — at least I'm nearly sure I did. A good many 
 people thought me fast, as I was very well aware ; 
 but I could afford to be thought so over here, — 
 though not in Europe, of course ; and in Europe, 
 for that matter, I always pulled in my horns. I 
 was always as meek as a lamb, when anybody was 
 looking. Among a certain ultra-select little 
 clique T could almost have made it the proper 
 swagger (as the nobs in England say) to cultivate 
 the appearance of being fast. But I never was 
 really fast at all. I was — American. Do you 
 know, I believe .we are the only nation in the 
 
120 TUE HOUSE AT SIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 world whose women can ever make a noise with- 
 out being actually vulgar ? Oh, mercy me ! / 
 made noise enough, in all conscience. One good 
 year of my echoes would have rolled up enough 
 sound to last the ordinary respectable English- 
 woman her lifetime." 
 
 "And you have dropped into a quieter habit 
 since then ? " asked Isabel, with something in her 
 tones that sounded so like stealthy irony as to 
 elicit from her companion a faint, suspicious little 
 start. 
 
 " Quieter ? " she murmured. " Oh, my marriage 
 had the most marvellous effect on me. All the 
 dash and go died right out of me after it." 
 
 With staggered credulity, Isabel here thought : 
 ' What on earth can she then call the qualities 
 that survive ? ' But aloud the girl said, interest- 
 edly enough : 
 
 " Ah, yes. Your marriage. I am glad you have 
 come to that. I wanted to hear about it — that 
 is, if you thought best to tell." 
 
 "I've been very long in coming to it, haven't 
 I ? " said Mrs. Bondurant. " I don't doubt that 
 you think so, xay dear. Perliaps I lingered with 
 affection over those pleasanter memories. And 
 my marriage is a perfectly hideous and detestable 
 one." 
 
 "Ah, if that be the case," said Isabel, whose 
 incidents of sarcasm were always casual enough 
 beside the nice permanence of her good-breeding, 
 
THE HOUSE AT illGU BRIDGE. 121 
 
 " perhaps you had better not revive it merely on 
 my account." 
 
 " Oh, yes. We are to be friends, I hope — I 
 want enormously. Miss Coggeshal, that we shall 
 be friends — and if we are, it's just as well that I 
 should rend the veil of my inner temple for you — 
 let you see my uttermost shrine, as it were. There 
 would always be a great deal about me that you 
 couldn't account for if I failed to show you what 
 a . . a fortune's football I've been, kicked up here 
 at last and left to stay! Oh, I declare I feel, 
 sometimes, as if I ought to have great black streaks 
 under each eye, and a kind of livid, blue-mouldy 
 complexion, and snow-white hair, like a woman I 
 saw, once, gambling at Monte Carlo a few hoiirs 
 before she took poison ! " 
 
 Isabel tried to give a smile that would look po- 
 lite if not fully appreciative. These occasional 
 bursts of .fantasy and extravaganza bewildered lier 
 in Mrs. Bondurant ; they were like the first experi- 
 ence of what is both sultry and unwholesome in 
 climate to one born amid fresh northern breezes. 
 " I hope you don't take your misfortunes so much 
 to- heart as that," she said, feeling how absurdly 
 commonplace her reply rang even while she spoke it. 
 
 " Take them to heart, my dear ! I lie down 
 with them, dream of them, wake up with them, 
 and go through the day with them. Papa and I 
 first met Eugene Bondurant the last time we were 
 in Paris together. He was an American, a sort of 
 
122 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Creole, from New Orleans. He was very handsome, 
 very finished in his manners, and he went every- 
 where. His mother had been a French lady of 
 the ancien rSgime stock. He was reputed to be 
 enormously rich. There isn't the least doubt of 
 it — he fascinated me intensely almost as soon as 
 we were thrown together. I was then on the 
 verge of an engagement with somebody else — 
 never mind whom ; it doesn't matter the least in 
 the world. I soon became so abjectly idiotic 
 about Eugene Bondurant that I believe I'd have 
 eloped with him on the day of my marriage to this 
 ' somebody else,' provided he had asked me to do 
 it. Papa never wanted me to marry him. But I 
 almost laughed in the poor dear old fellow's face 
 when he attempted to dissuade me after I told him 
 Eugene and I were engaged. Everbody seemed 
 to consider it an excellent match. Eugene wasn't 
 known at all in New York (he's known there well 
 enough now !) but his European standing was be- 
 yond dispute, and in New Orleans the Bondurants 
 had for generations been great people . . Well, 
 he crossed back here with us on the same steamer, 
 as my betrothed husband. Two or three months 
 later we were married fro:n the old Fifth Avenue 
 house, in grand state. I wore a pearl necklace 
 that must have cost thousands — a gift from 
 Bondurant himself. The ceremony was in Grace 
 Church, and all New York jostled and elbowed 
 each other to get to it. I liked the Slan of the 
 
THE nOUSE AT niGU BRIDGE. 123 
 
 thing ; I had eight bridesmaids, and knelt at the 
 altar trailing point-lace costlier than many prin- 
 cesses, or queens, either, over there on the other 
 side, have ever worn at their weddings — or worn 
 at all, for that matter. The whole affair must 
 have been perfectly superb, the church part, the 
 breakfast, the reception, and everything. And 
 there wasn't the slightest touch of vulgarity about 
 it, — no shoddy pretentiousness, you know. Papa 
 understood how to do things en prince ; he could 
 make his money felt without showing the color of 
 it. Oh, dear ! I walked on thrones that day ! I 
 loved Bondurant madly. We were going back to 
 Europe very soon, and papa with us. We were 
 going to live in Paris, in a great hdtel on the 
 Rue Royale. My whole future was one dream of 
 Elysium. I was too happy! I burst out crying 
 like a perfect baby just before we started on our 
 wedding-tour that evening; they had to give me 
 lavender, or something, before they got me into 
 the carriage with Eugene ; it looked such horribly 
 bad form, you know, to see a bride go off booh- 
 hoohing. . . Well, we'd scarcely reached Wash- 
 ington, Bondurant and I, when a telegram came to 
 us from New York. My dear, what do you think 
 it was?" Here Isabel's companion leaned very 
 close to her, and caught one of her hands. " Papa 
 was dead ! Yes ! He had dropped dead with an 
 aneurism only a few hours after we left him ! That 
 was the first blow. I don't know how I lived 
 
124 THE BOUSE AT HIGU BlilDGE. 
 
 through it. It never had seemed to me as if papa 
 could die till after I'd gone myself and didn't need 
 him any more. He'd always been like my second 
 self. If I stretched out my hand, there he was, 
 with his sweet black eyes, and his iron-gray mous- 
 tache, and his ' Yes, my dear,' and his smile, with 
 its dimple in each cheek. Bondurant brought me 
 back more dead than alive. I raved and shrieked 
 when I saw papa in that awful wooden box, with 
 the glass over his face. They said I wanted to 
 break the glass; they had to hold me by main 
 force. For days they thought I was going mad. 
 But I didn't go mad. I begin to think you never 
 do when it would be better for you if you did. 
 Lunatic-asylums are not half as convenient in that 
 way as convents are ; some of those nuns abrofid 
 — what secrets thet/ hide under their veils ! I'd 
 be a nun now if I could only believe in anything 
 really, but T never could! . . . Well, I woke up' 
 from it all, ray dear, adoring Bondurant more 
 than I'd ever done. Old Stuyvesant Hudsonbank 
 was executor of papa's will, and I was executrix. 
 Stuyvesant Hudsonbank was papa's third or fourth 
 cousin. I had always more or less abominated 
 him. He must now be well past seventy, but I 
 don't doubt he'll see a hundred. He's a widower, 
 and he lives in a great gloomy, damp old house 
 in Second Avenue. Poor papa used to say that 
 he was 'solid.' I'm afraid I don't know what 
 ' solid ' is. I only know that my relative is very 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BHIBGE. 125 
 
 rich, dresses like a tramp, and lives like a pauper. 
 And I never remember him to be anything different 
 from just that. The moment I heard he had been 
 left executor I looked at my husband with despair. 
 But Bondurant said he'd try to make matters go 
 nicely, and I merely answered, ' for Heaven's sake 
 do ! ' But very soon I found that matters were 
 not going a bit nicely. Bondurant quarrelled with 
 Stuyvesant Hudsonbank about the management of 
 the estate. My husband wanted to make an imme- 
 diate sale of all the houses and lots and things in 
 New York, preparatory to our going abroad. I 
 wished to go abroad, and sided with Bondurant ; 
 I said 'yes.' But Stuyvesant Hudsonbank said 
 'no,' and said it, at first very stoutly. Then he 
 grew furious, after we had both opposed him. 
 Everything was left unconditionally to me by poor 
 papa, and besides all that I had mamma's fortune. 
 I was immensely rich; I must have been worth 
 about three millions. But I said to my husband, 
 like the blind, doting goose that I was (and I was 
 always the worst goose about money-matters !) — 
 'Now, Eugene, do you just manage everything 
 your own way, and if that old creature goes on 
 making too much of a fuss, we'll have to see what 
 the Law will do to stop him ! " But he soon left us, 
 in high dudgeon ; he washed his dingy old Knick- 
 erbocker hands of us — how I wish, now, that he 
 hadn't ! . . My husband sold real-estate right and 
 left ; he turned everything into cash. I owned all 
 
126 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 the cash, but I never dreamed of doing anything 
 except say "very well," and sign my name to 
 papers whenever he brought them for me to sign. 
 . . After everything had been settled we went 
 abroad. I knew no more of my own affairs than 
 a child of three. I left everything to Bondurant. 
 I'd given him . . what is it ? . . power of attorney, 
 after a while, and all that sort of thing. Oh, how 
 I trusted him I Why shouldn't I have trusted 
 him ? I adored him ; I thought the sun rose and 
 set in him ! . . Well, on the continent, after our 
 time of wearing black had expired, we lived in 
 glorious style. We took a superb house in Paris, 
 right on the Champs IJlysSes. I always had four 
 footmen to show me from my door-step to my 
 carriage. When we were not going to balls and 
 dinners we were giving them. I was always very 
 loyal to my own people ; I kept on good terms 
 with the American colony, as they call it in Paris. 
 Whenever I heard a spiteful, jealous remark about 
 myself from any of them I invited the backbiter 
 to dinner. You can smooth over so much, in that 
 way, with money. I wanted to lead — and I led. 
 But I won over the foreign swells too. I had 
 Germans, Austrians, Russians and English at my 
 salons who thought twice before they went any- 
 where, / can tell you! And even some of the 
 Faubourg St. Germain people came, too. I recol- 
 lect one dinner of ours where I went in with an 
 arch-duke and Bondurant went in with a cousin 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 127 
 
 of the Czar — such a fright as she was, by the way, 
 with rubies as big as pigeon-eggs and a squint that 
 might have stopped a clock ! . . Of course my 
 husband and I drifted apart. But I still thought 
 worlds of him. I flirted with lots of the swells 
 over there, but I was always as careful ! And I 
 still kept on trusting him as we trust the very sun 
 in heaven. All this lasted for a number of years. 
 I knew we were spending heaps of money, but I 
 knew there were heaps of it for us to spend. I 
 never fancied our money could give out, and it 
 never would have given out but for one miserable, 
 hateful reason. And that reason was the last that 
 could possibly enter my thoughts. Nobody told 
 me about it. If I'd been bad, if I'd had a lover, 
 like lots of the women who used to kiss me and 
 fondle me and make much over me, I might have 
 learned it in time. But not a whisper of the real 
 truth ever reached me. I suppose nobody actually 
 knew how matters stood. When you live as we 
 lived, your wealth is always thought ten times 
 what it is. I knew that Bondurant liked cards, 
 and that he often bet heavily at the races. But I 
 hadn't the ghost of a suspicion that he'd been 
 ploughing into my principal for years after gam- 
 bling away all his own. Well, he had, and one day 
 the whole horrifying truth burst on me. Every- 
 thing was gone. Gambling had been a mania with 
 him all this time. We were head-over-ears in debt. 
 And I, who had believed every dollar of my own 
 
128 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 fortune as safely invested as when papa left it to 
 me, found, one morning, that I owed thousands 
 and thousands of francs I couldn't pay. And 
 Bondurant? He told me this agonizing fact as 
 coolly as if he'd dropped into my boudoir to let 
 me know he was going to Vienna or Monaco for a 
 short trip. Oh, the scandale publique of it all, the 
 disgrace, the mortification ! All my grandeur fell 
 rattling round my ears like a house of cards. 
 And to make it worse, Bondurant had done some- 
 thing on the Bourse for which they put him into 
 prison. There was even some talk of the Galeres 
 when his trial came off. Friends deserted me in 
 shoals. A few people stuck to me — a very few 
 — and just those whom I would never have be- 
 lieved it of. Human nature turns out so queer ly 
 at times like these. Some people cling to you 
 from vanity and a certain kind of snobbishness. 
 It's funny to think of, but I'm right ; they don't 
 like to have it said of them that they deserted 
 you. Others cling because they want to be in at 
 the death, as it were, and settle old grudges by a 
 farewell stab — yes, it's really true ! But others, 
 thank God — pardon my profanity, my dear — 
 won't give you up because they've got hearts and 
 souls. And these are not many — they're only a, 
 handful. That's the way I found it. . Well, I 
 went to see Bondurant ever so many times in 
 prison, and though I cried and carried on fearfully, 
 and swore I'd be faithful to him through thick and 
 
THE HOUSE AT IIIGn BRIDGE. 129 
 
 thin, I always came away with a kind of chill. I 
 
 began to understand that he'd never cared for me 
 
 a bit — that I'd been used — that all his love had 
 
 been a sham — that in so many words he had all 
 
 along acted a selfish, wily, hypocritical part. The 
 
 case against him was horribly strong; he had 
 
 forged somebody's signature for a great amount. 
 
 He had played his long, infamous game, had lost 
 
 at it, and then had tried to right himself as only 
 
 a villain will. And now — now that I haven't a 
 
 grain of love or respect remaining for him, I can't 
 
 help being glad that he got someone to smuggle a 
 
 pistol into his cell and blew out his brains with it, 
 
 a week before his time of trial. The news may 
 
 have taken ten years or so off my life ; I don't 
 
 doubt that it did. I was ill — delirious, and at 
 
 death's door — for three months, more or less. 
 
 When I was well enough to go, some friends who 
 
 themselves happened to be going, took me back 
 
 here. And here I've been ever since. I haven't 
 
 a dime except what old Stuyvesant Hudsonbank 
 
 gives me. And he's given it with a growl — 
 
 almost a curse. I never see him ; it's all done 
 
 through his lawyer. I don't know if he's left me 
 
 one dollar, and he may die to-morrow. I've tried 
 
 several suburban places like this — Staten Island, 
 
 and Communipaw, and South Orange, and two or 
 
 three others. But I think I hate this the least, 
 
 somehow. I can look out oii the big, beautiful 
 
 Bridge from my side-windows, and almost persuade 
 
130 THE UOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 myself that I'm abroad again. And then the whole 
 valley has that suggestion for me ;. I can't explain 
 why ; it's the way the land lies — the way the foli- 
 age is massed on the slopes — the way the light 
 seems to strike and the distance to spread. It 
 reminds me of views I've seen in France ; it has 
 wliat you'd call ' style ' in a landscape of Dau- 
 bigny's or Dupre's. But oh, dear! there's very 
 little style about the throngs that come up here to 
 enjoy themselves. The illusion stops there. That's 
 why I called the place a hole. I alluded to the 
 company it keeps." 
 
 This woful history of Mrs. Bondurant's past 
 dwelt in Isabel's memory for many succeeding 
 days. She could not rid herself of the thoughts 
 it had roused. She was soon enough convinced 
 that all these misfortunes had befallen a weak 
 woman and a flippant one ; but might not very 
 much the same destiny have overtaken some 
 stronger and higher-minded woman as well ? The 
 sad side of life had hidden few of its grimmer 
 shadows from her meditative observance here 
 amid hours of inevitable solitude. She was a girl 
 for whom to be much alone was to think deeply, 
 and of necessity her mind had brooded, though 
 with far more sorrow than morbidness, upon the 
 gloom wrapping all human destiny. Isabel's was 
 not a nature to be morbid for any long period ; 
 her sympathies toward those of her kind beset by 
 griefs and failures laid a forbidding speU upon 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 131 
 
 anything like the mere sombre luxury of pessim- 
 ism. She could never reflect at all steadily 
 upon how grievous a world it is when everything 
 has been said for and against its unhappiness, 
 without some sort of brisk, vapor-dispelling im- 
 pulse to take her individual share in the task of 
 lightening burdens and binding up wounds. Her 
 humane desires were large in the abstract, though 
 practically limited by circumstance. But she 
 tried to do what she could, and felt glad in spirit 
 when sure that whatever rushlight of cheer she 
 could lift had sent a ray of true help somewhere. 
 Many of the poor and sick at High Bridge knew 
 her face, her voice, and not seldom the gentle 
 touch of her hand , and though the latter had no 
 silken purse-strings to unloosen, its ministrations 
 were often a very sweet challenge to gratitude. 
 Her mother, her father and Sadie were aware of 
 these good offices, though their details, often dis- 
 charged in so quiet a manner that scarcely a 
 record of them transpired, were merged in one 
 rather vague acceptance. It was always taken 
 for granted by the household that Isabel had 
 some little out-of-door charity in course of exer- 
 cise. It was a part of the personality of Isabel 
 to be thus interesting herself, and it took a famil- 
 iar place in their general recognition of her, just 
 as did her inability to evet become an astute 
 shopper, or her distinctive untrustworthiness in 
 the matter of neat needle-work. 
 
132 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 For the reason that she longed to give aid when 
 any need of it appealed to her through a fellow- 
 creature, the recent alteration in her father, be- 
 tokening some secret trouble, had cost her many- 
 silent pangs. And for some time after her first 
 meeting with Mrs. Bondurant, she had felt much 
 the same kind of regret. But by degrees this 
 had vanished. Mrs. Bondurant, in her way, 
 " rang " as " false " as the sportive Carolan had 
 done. The sensational and hectic widow had two 
 severe faults : she was deceitful and she was selfish. 
 Of course her fate had been a hard one, but could 
 not much of her disaster be laid at the door of her 
 own shallowness and insincerity ? Isabel, noting 
 little acts and speeches as she began to know the 
 lady better, fell to asking herself what hard things 
 might not that lover whom she had mercilessly 
 jilted in Paris for the courted and brilliant Bon- 
 durant be able to assert against her. Then, too, 
 those years of pomp and prestige ; — was her lord 
 more to blame than she for their hoUowness, their 
 idle glare ? What influence of example might 
 not her own curbed folly have wrought in him ? 
 And how exacting or how yielding had the father 
 whom she liked to remember as having so pas- 
 sionately loved, found the affection which she 
 claimed to have lavished with such bounteous 
 tribute ? 
 
 ' It is almost plain to me,' soon decided Isabel, 
 ' that she recognized no error in her past course.' 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 133 
 
 And this was indeed true. Mrs. Bondurant had 
 long ago put herself on the list of those whom fate 
 has wantonly maimed, and she was now so exclu- 
 sively absorbed in contemplating the extent of 
 her own injuries that the question of having her- 
 self ever dealt any had perhaps not even faintly 
 dawned upon her consciousness. She was like a 
 person with some extraordinary kind of suit 
 against accident, chance, the powers of the air, 
 who hugged his grievance fiercely and awaited 
 future justice with shivers of suspense. But any 
 conception of self-blame, either in retrospect or 
 anticipation, seemed totally unformed by her in- 
 telligence. 
 
 Isabel found it hard to resist all her blandish- 
 ments and overtures. And after a while the girl 
 gave up seeking to resist a good part of them. 
 Though there had begun to be tedium in Mrs. 
 Bondurant, there was also diversion, and when it 
 became a question of varying her high-strung, 
 flamboyant monotonies with poor Mrs. Mulligan's 
 rheumatic groans or Mrs. Cummisky's bewailed 
 slenderness of substance, the change was not free 
 from positive refreshment for Isabel. 
 
 She had invited Mrs. Bondurant to lunch one 
 day, and the result had been markedly unsuccess- 
 ful. Mrs. Coggeshal, who was always the soul of 
 civility and hospitality to any actual guest, stiff- 
 ened visibly before the florid and whimsical deport- 
 ment of this one. Her only immediate comment, 
 
134 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 after the guest's departure,. " My, Belle, she's rather 
 free-and-easy for a ladi/ ! " and Isabel understood 
 that her mother's further critical reserve hid 
 depths of uncomplimentary prejudice. But Sadie 
 was much more out-spoken. "I don't see what 
 you call manners, Belle, if you like hers," an 
 nounced Sadie, with the usual loiter of speech, 
 and a sidelong look at her sister that went with 
 a shocked backward movement of the head. 
 "Dear! She took her asparagrus up in her 
 fingers, for one thing ! " 
 
 "There's nothing ill-bred about that," said 
 Isabel, with neutral good-humor. "I should do 
 it, too, if I liked the vegetable and ate it. Papa 
 always does it, you may have observed." 
 
 "He wouldn't in company," resisted Sadie; 
 "you know it. Belle." 
 
 "No, I don't. There's ample polite authority 
 for it, I assure you. " More," she added, with her 
 eyes taking a mild twinkle, "than for calling it 
 'asparagrus,' as you will do, and with a quiet 
 elegance, Sadie, that makes me almost doubt the 
 dictionary." 
 
 " Pshaw," said Sadie ; " I'd rather pronounce it a 
 little wrong than eat it like that. But there were 
 other things," she went on, with the solemnity of 
 conviction. "I caught her in two stories. One 
 was about not knowing what to buy for her meals 
 at home, and leaving everything to her cook. 
 Why, Belle, I saw her having groceries put into 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 135 
 
 the back of that funny little wagon of hers, just 
 here in the village, only a few days ago. And 
 then that hat of hers, — she said she bought it in 
 New York, and there's one almost precisely like it, 
 except for the bunch of pansies, in Miss Pink's 
 little milliner-store." 
 
 "Perhaps she confused the pansies with the 
 bonnet," said Isabel, lightly at first and then grow- 
 ing serious. " But I don't endorse her strict vera- 
 city, Sadie. And I see she hasn't made a very 
 handsome impression upon either you or mamma." 
 Here Isabel looked at her mother, and contmued, 
 with a fond little touch of banter, " Poor mamma ! 
 she's showing wonderful self-control. She doesn't 
 want to express her full abhorrence through feel- 
 ings of delicacy for myself as Mrs. Bondurant's 
 introducer." 
 
 " Oh, there you are. Belle ! '' exclaimed Mrs. 
 Coggeshal. "I haven't any such feelings — of 
 course not. I dare say a good deal of what I 
 didn't like in her is on account of her living so 
 much abroad. But I'm glad for you to have any 
 new acquaintance, dear, and I guess she must be 
 one you'll enjoy talking with. She is bright — oh, 
 bright as she can be. I noticed the way she an- 
 swered your father, once or twice. You and he 
 could get on with her, I guess, better than Sadie 
 and I could. She's got brains. You just ask your 
 father if he doesn't think so." 
 
 " I'm afraid he does not," said Isabel. " I fan- 
 
136 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 cied she bored papa terribly during lunch. You 
 saw how he got away from her as soon as he con- 
 veniently could." 
 
 Mrs. Coggeshal sighed, and nodded assentingly 
 as she did so. " My ! " she lamented ; " it appears 
 to me he's always getting away from everybody, 
 nowadays, — even his own family." 
 
 Isabel did not again ask Mrs. Bondurant to 
 lunch. But they exchanged occasional visits, and 
 now and then drove together in the little clat- 
 tering one-horsed vehicle. When the invitation 
 had at length come for her to drop in on a certain 
 evening and meet the newly-arrived stranger of 
 High Bridge, Mr. Lloyd Brockholst, Isabel had 
 surprisedly answered : 
 
 " Do you know him, then ? You didn't tell me that 
 you did when we spoke of him a day or two ago." 
 
 " I wasn't quite sure, so I said nothing," an- 
 swered Mrs. Bondurant. "But since then I've 
 met him, face to face, near his uncle's house. I 
 remembered him at once — and so did he remem- 
 ber me. We used to know each other in Paris. 
 We had a little chat, there on the road. He said 
 he would drop in to-night. You'll come too, 
 won't you?" 
 
 "Thanks, yes," said Isabel. She was wonder- 
 ing if she had now heard the precise truth from 
 her companion. She had grown to be rather 
 keen, in a detective way, regarding Mrs. Bondu- 
 rant's prevarications and quibbles. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 137 
 
 But Mrs. Bondurant had no suspicion that Isa- 
 bel suspected her. Doubtless she would not have 
 greatly cared had she known this to be the case. 
 Her motive in asking Isabel to appear that even- 
 ing was not at all a complex one. Brockholst had 
 agreed to pay her a visit, and a very natural feel- 
 ing of awkwardness had ensued upon his acqui- 
 escence. She had not been under the same roof 
 vrith him in a long time. Not since she had told 
 him, one day in Paris, when he was her accepted 
 lover, that she had decided to throw him over and 
 marry Eugene Bondurant. 
 
138 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Isabel was the first to arrive, that evening, of 
 Mrs. Bondurant's two expected guests. But very 
 soon afterward Mr. Lloyd Brockholst appeared 
 within the small sitting-room on the ground-floor, 
 where a lamp, shaded by an immense paper sun- 
 flower shed its light upon a few happy little ef- 
 fects of decoration, considerably more modish than 
 costly. 
 
 He came into the room with a handkerchief 
 crushed in one hand, as if he had paused for a 
 minute on the little piazza to sweep its folds across 
 a moistened face. But he did not look at all warm. 
 It occurred to Isabel that he was not one whom 
 the extremes either of warmth or cold affected gall- 
 ingly. He seemed, however, to express a repose 
 acquired rather than inherent — or at least this 
 idea now came fancifully into Isabel's head as her 
 gaze dwelt upon his tallish figure and his blond, 
 calm, equable face. Brockholst's looked somehow 
 like the tranquillity that is an emotional develop- 
 ment, not an original property ; it might have re- 
 sembled those pools into which certain rivers widen 
 placidly after more turbulent beginnings among 
 rapids and cataracts — or that mellower adjust- 
 
TUE HOUSE AT BIGH BRIDGE. 139 
 
 ment of air and sun whicli follows the first thun- 
 der-lieats bred by rash young sum mer . Even before 
 there had commenced to be anything at all like 
 conversation, Isabel had noticed two points in 
 Brockholst which came out on a nearer view. 
 Perhaps they did not come out to everybody, 
 however, as quickly as to herself — provided they 
 were even observed at all. His hazel eyes, which 
 had both the shine and tint of an autumn oak-leaf 
 when wet and flooded with sun, showed, through 
 some peculiar moulding of lid or pnpil» for much 
 smaller than a close view determined them. Then, 
 to the corners of his mouth when he smiled (which 
 was by no means an occasion of ascetic rarity) a 
 little effect of gloom or fatigue would seem to 
 drift, so that the young and keen pair of eyes 
 which now watched him smile for the first time 
 had an unsatisfied longing to diminish distance 
 and find out whether they were two tiny wrinkles 
 or no that struck this minute note of sadness amid 
 his good-humor. 
 
 "Here we are, talking of the weather," Mrs. 
 Bondurant exclaimed, some fifteen minutes or so 
 after the entrance of Brockholst, "just as I was 
 sure we would be. What a detestable nuisance 
 it is! How it. insinuates itself into everj'body's 
 affairs ! " She spoke much more collectedly than 
 she had done thus far; at first something had 
 seemed to make her flighty and insecure both in 
 action and speech. 
 
140 THE UOUSE AT niGU bhidge. 
 
 "The weather ?" 'said Brockholst. He had ad- 
 dressed himself to Isabel ever since they were 
 introduced, though his eyes took a sidelong glance 
 now and then toward Mrs. Bondurant, and it had 
 chanced nearly always to be that lady and not 
 Isabel whose words he was in the act of acknowl- 
 edging. Isabel had been rather surprised by this 
 course in him, and did not know if she had better 
 account for it through some lurking vibration from 
 a past discord or in the easier and more flattering 
 way of a swift attraction wrought by herself. The 
 last explanation she was indeed loth to give, since 
 it involved a dread lest he might have learned of 
 what she had archly and gayly said to their hostess 
 regarding how old Mr. Chadwick's unexpected 
 kinsman had pleasurably prepossessed, her. 
 
 "I have always felt the deepest respect," contin- 
 ued Brockholst, " for the weather as an agent of 
 social intercourse. I don't know what we should 
 do without it. I think we fail to realize its true 
 power as a promoter of civilization. If it were 
 always the same, like many of the persons who 
 make use of it as an infallible 'topic,' dreadful 
 chasms of awkwardness in conversation might 
 present themselves which are now at least credit- 
 ably bridged over." 
 
 Isabel laughed. This struck her as fresh and 
 entertaining. She liked, too, the unconsciously 
 droll way in which it was delivered. 
 
 " The next time that it pours in torrents and 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 141 
 
 keeps me in-doors when I'm very anxious to fare 
 abroad," she said, " I shall trj'^ and reconcile ray 
 self with the hardship on grounds of philanthropy." 
 
 Brockholst smiled. He had never cared much 
 for mere beauty in women without some sort of 
 mental grace behind the fleshly one. He had al- 
 ready taken'note of Isabel's comely exterior, and 
 asked his own thought if much immaterial attrac- 
 tion accompanied it. 
 
 " I've long had the idea," he said, " of writing 
 an essay on the weather. But I've never gone 
 further than my title. I should call the essay ' It,' 
 and begin by reminding an ungrateful world how 
 indebted we have been for generations to the 
 simple yet expensive privilege of being able to say 
 'jY rains,' '■it snows,' ^it is fine,' or '■it is cloudy.'" 
 
 Isabel leaned forward, with a soft, spontaneous 
 clasping together of her hands. "Oh, by all 
 means write your essay," she- exclaimed, " and the 
 funnier you are, the more you will awaken our 
 dormant gratitude ! " 
 
 " Be careful," warned Mrs. Bondurant to Brock- 
 hoist. "Miss Coggeshal may turn traitor, and 
 give the subject to her father, who is an enor- 
 mously clever author, as you're no doubt aware." 
 
 "I have heard that this was the case," said 
 Brockholst, with a civil little nod toward Isabel. 
 
 " Oh, 3'ou shouldn't merely have heard it," said 
 Mrs. Bondurant. " You should have read ' Rachel 
 Rand,' Mr. Coggeshal's last novel." 
 
142 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 "No doubt," he replied suavely. "But I must 
 plead guilty to having read very few novels of 
 late — except foreign ones." 
 
 " Do you mean English ones ? " asked Isabel, 
 bristling a little. 
 
 " No. French — when I have read that kind of 
 literature at all." 
 
 "Ah, the French are great artists in fiction," 
 said Isabel, promptly mollified, as we all feel by 
 the discovery of a taste with which our own is 
 quite in accord. " I only wish their choice of sub- 
 ject was more often as satisfactory as their treat- 
 ment of it." 
 
 "Yes," sighed Mrs. Bondurant. "They do 
 harp on one theme, don't they? How revolting 
 and sickening it gets to be ! " 
 
 "A good deal of it has only one excuse," said 
 Brockholst. " The marvellously flexible and varie- 
 gated language in which it is written." 
 
 " Well . . fine feathers don't make fine birds," 
 morally declared Mrs. Bondurant, whose princi- 
 pal reading was French fiction. 
 
 " Your father is a hard worker, is he not ? " 
 said Brockholst to Isabel. 
 
 "He has been," she answered, "but of late his 
 energy seems to have deserted him." 
 
 "It's this fiendish weather," said Mrs. Bondu- 
 rant, who had lifted a silver-handled fan of pink 
 ostrich plumes, which was very likely a rich little 
 souvenir of faded splendors, between herself and 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 143 
 
 tlie light, while she leaned indolently back in her 
 rocking-chair of wicker-work. "It's enough to 
 weaken an ox." 
 
 "Papa's old industry had begun to fail him 
 before the hot weather set in," said Isabel 
 ruminatively. 
 
 " But I hear he has been very industrious in his 
 life," said Brockholst, — " that he has written 
 seven novels before this last very successful one." 
 
 "Oh, so you've been discussing him with some- 
 body, have you?" laughed Isabel. She felt a 
 thrill of sweet filial pride as the sentence escaped 
 her. It was pleasant for her to find that he had 
 taken enough interest in her father's concerns, 
 without personally knowing him, and after being 
 only this brief time at High Bridge, to recollect 
 the precise number of books he had written. In 
 this age of many books, when it would almost 
 seem as if more people wrote than read, there was 
 difficulty enough where one tried to correctly ac- 
 count for any literary progeny whatever, apart 
 from being able to state the precise extent of it. 
 But Isabel's flush of gratification underwent a 
 chill as she heard Brockholst's next words. 
 
 " That man of my uncle's told me — the dapper, 
 curly-haired sort of chap, who looks like a mix- 
 ture of a clergyman and an actor. Carolan, I 
 mean." 
 
 "I really think he's superbly handsome, don't 
 you know?" said Mrs. Bondurant. "I've only 
 
144 THM HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 recently found out what he was — a kind of ser- 
 vant to Mr. Chadwick, isn't he? But I never 
 thought he looked like a gentleman. He makes 
 one want to stare at him but not to have him 
 presented. He has a second-rate, declassi air." 
 
 " He thinks himself a good deal of a gentleman, 
 I can assure you," said Brockholst, with a tinge of 
 satire. 
 
 "What an odd world it would be," laughed 
 Mrs. Bondurant, " if everybody in it were treated 
 just according to the estimate he puts on himself ! " 
 
 " I don't believe such a state of affairs would in- 
 crease the oddity of it," said Brockholst dryly. 
 " It often seems to me, just as it stands, a world 
 in which everybody either gets considerably better 
 treatment than he deserves or considerably worse. 
 But generally better," he added, after the least 
 appreciable pause ; and his glance had by this 
 time fallen upon Mrs. Bonduraut's fan-shaded 
 face. 
 
 "Miss Coggeshal can tell you all about Caro- 
 lan," said the latter, perhaps with an aim to avert 
 further suggestive epigram on the part of one who 
 stood in the position to blend it with subtle yet 
 biting reproach. " Her papa has been kind enough 
 to treat him with monstrous politeness." 
 
 " Is there much to tell about him ? " asked 
 Brockholst of Isabel. 
 
 "My father could answer that question more 
 fully than I can," replied Isabel. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 145 
 
 "I hope you like him," said Brockholst. "It 
 would be a pity if you did not." 
 
 " How, a pity ? " queried the girl, surprisedly. 
 
 "He likes you so much," was the reply of 
 Brockholst. "You are very high up, I should 
 judge, among his enthusiasms." 
 
 Isabel felt herself color. " He has a great many 
 of those, I fear," she said, a little flurriedly. 
 
 "All the more magnificently complimentary," 
 exclaimed Mrs. Bondurant, " if you're high on the 
 list, Isabel. . Come," she went on merrily to 
 Brockholst. " What did he say about her ? If he 
 called her very handsome you mustn't dare to 
 breathe it, however, for Miss Coggeshal is hugely 
 above all grovelling trivialities like that, as you'll 
 find if you ever know her better." 
 
 "Knowing her better is a contingency that 
 should reconcile me to almost any discovery," 
 said Brockholst, with his easy, polished yet 
 slightly matter-of-fact air. " I'vg a good mind to 
 risk informing Miss Coggeshal that Carolan did 
 prepare me for more than ope agreeable surprise." 
 
 " There ! " cried Mrs,, ^^ondurant, dropping her 
 fan and clapping l^er hands together. "You 
 won't be a woman, Isabel, if you don't like Caro- 
 lan forever afterward ! " 
 
 "But I have never said that I didn't like him," 
 protested Isabel, with confusion. She was mean- 
 while quite woman enough, in one sense, to have 
 been won by the smoothly perfect deference of 
 
146 TBE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Brockholst, where quietude, if indeed not hiding 
 sincerity, so resembled it that all difference defied 
 scrutiny. 
 
 " What judgment could be more cruel than such 
 a negative one ? " said Brockholst, with a smile 
 that had passed almost before his final word was 
 framed. " But seriously," he continued, doubtless 
 because he had noted that Isabel rocked a little, 
 for some reason, in the troublous waters of embar- 
 rassment, " I should say that this Carolan was an 
 indolent, brilliant and rather superficial fellow, 
 of the kind I've seen droves of in my day. I 
 should predict of him, on my short acquaintance, 
 that he was a person with much of the left-handed 
 self-esteem earnest people are apt to call vanity, 
 but without the finer shrewdness to detect that 
 earnest people are not deceived by it." 
 
 Isabel nodded to the speaker, with sparkling 
 eyes. " I believe you are very near the truth in 
 that opinion," she said. 
 
 " And Isabel is one of the earnest people," 
 struck in Mrs. Bondurant. " Now I dare say this 
 Carolan would fascinate poor frivolous me, if he 
 were only a trifle less of the Bohemian in his style. 
 But even those adorable little blond curls that 
 peep out of his hat can't make me pardon him for 
 wearing it cocked on one side like a rakish car- 
 penter or plumber with an eye for the pretty 
 nurses and the chambermaids on a holiday. I am 
 convinced that he wears false cuffs on his shirts. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 147 
 
 and I have a suspicion that he is n't incapable of a 
 paper collar. And I somehow feel rigidly confi- 
 dent, as well, that he is fond of dropping into the 
 Atalanta Casino or some of those other haunts 
 which beautify our neighborhood, and drinking 
 beer with any Tom, Dick or Harry he may hit 
 upon. Well ; perhaps I'm wrong, there. He 
 might go as far as Tom or Dick, and draw a line 
 at Harry. Oh, dear ! I wonder why it is that I 
 loathe Bohemians so. I suppose it's because I've 
 had such a narrow escape from becoming one 
 myself. So much ruined grandeur tumbles into 
 Bohemianism. It's a yawning abyss that I've 
 thus far been mercifully saved from." 
 
 The talk soon drifted to subjects more welcome, 
 so far as concerned Isabel, than either the faults 
 or excellences of Carolan. She started with sur- 
 prise on learning that it was ten o'clock, and that 
 the maid-servant whom she had bidden to call 
 for her at that hour, now waited outside. " Send 
 her away. Miss Coggeshal," proposed Brockholst, 
 quite persuasively, " and allow me to unlatch your 
 gate for you a little later." 
 
 " Oh, thanks," faltered Isabel, who wanted de- 
 cidedly to remain longer. She looked at Mrs. 
 Boudurant, and somehow the cold gleam of that 
 lady's smile confirmed a dread which had been 
 gaining strength within her for the past half-hour. 
 " But T fear it will not be possible, this evening," 
 she added, glad that she could qualify her thanks 
 
148 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 for his offer by a little union of civility and likeli- 
 hood. "During this fatiguing weather they put 
 out the lights and close the house at a rather 
 early hour." 
 
 " Then may I go to the gate with you just the 
 same ? " Brockholst asked, rising as she rose. 
 
 Mrs. Boudurant also quitted her easy-chair at 
 this moment, and any eye fixed closely on her face 
 could have seen there the shadow of a chagrin 
 controlled yet evident. This had indeed been 
 for her an evening of dismay and mortification. 
 
 "My dear Brockholst," she said, while this form 
 of speech struck Isabel as an unpardonable laxity 
 and familiarity, " you forget that I've myriads of 
 things to ask you yet about Paris and the people 
 I left there — mutual friends as well as mutual 
 enemies. No doubt they've all forgotten me as 
 utterly as if I'd been in my grave a century. But 
 when you're buried alive like myself, being for- 
 gotten and forgetting are two vastly opposite 
 matters." 
 
 Brockholst had already moved toward the door 
 at Isabel's side ; but Mrs. Bondurant, softly press- 
 ing forward as well, now solely addressed Isabel, 
 while she put both arms about the girl's neck and 
 kissed her for good-night : 
 
 "My dear, if you must desert me yourself, don't 
 let him desert me also — though I abominate to 
 have you go so early, of course." 
 
 " He must not go on my account," said Isabel, 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 149 
 
 with a pretty, imperious little nod to Brockholst, 
 though she spoke in the third person. 
 
 "I won't go on your account," he responded, 
 securely. " I'll merely see you home." 
 
 " Staj'- for a little while," said Mrs. Boudurant 
 to him, lowering her voice perceptibly but speak- 
 ing with a direct unveiled appeal. 
 
 He seemed in doubt what to answer, for an 
 instant, as he turned, meeting her uplifted eyes. 
 But almost immediately afterward he said, quite 
 in a careless way : " I'll stroll back presently." 
 
 " Oh, very well." As Mrs. Bondurant spoke 
 the sentence she covertly bit her lip. Brockholst 
 went out at Isabel's side. But their hostess did 
 not follow them into the hall : she remained there 
 in the lamplit sitting-room. She soon heard their 
 voices, as they spoke together while descending 
 the steps of the porch. When the voices died 
 away she threw herself into her easy-chair once 
 more. She was bitterly annoyed. A reluctance 
 to meet Brockholst alone after all these years, 
 during which he must have seen both her rise 
 and her downfall, had caused her to make Isabel 
 a second guest at her house this evening. But 
 she had meant to use Isabel as the merest con- 
 venience. It had never occurred to her that the 
 girl might win more than the most ordinary heed 
 from so worldly-wise a man as this cast-off lover 
 of ages ago. She had always thought Isabel hand- 
 some, but the girl had seemed, in her judgment, 
 
150 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 to lack so much that her own worldly wisdom held 
 as the proper attraction for any one who was 
 outside of a simpler, unsophisticated radius, and 
 to be so entirely unpossessed of all really fascinat- 
 ing arts ! It was wonderful that even with her 
 nice eyes and her winningly candid demeanor, she 
 should have made anything like an impression 
 upon so tried a veteran as Lloyd Brockholst. 
 But she appeared to have undoubtedly done so. 
 ' How absurd of me to feel jealous of him ! ' now 
 entered her thoughts, while she slowly rocked 
 herself in the big wicker chair. 
 
 And yet jealousy was acutely at work in her as 
 she awaited Brockholst's promised return. Now 
 that her life stretched before her in one barren 
 level of failure, she was eager for even an illusory 
 hope of changing the desolate prospect. On first 
 meeting Brockholst the past had risen to her with 
 a poignant vividness. What a mockery of fate it 
 had seemed, to meet here in her ignominious exile 
 this man so closely allied with all that glowing 
 girlish past ! It amazed her afterward that she 
 could have been so self-possessed in stopping her 
 shaggy little pony and holding converse with him 
 as she had done, there on the bright-lit main-road 
 of High Bridge. Of all men on this densely-popu- 
 lated planet, he should have been the last to meet 
 her thus, amid her surroundings of defeat, depend- 
 ence and self-disgust. If she had married him, 
 how differently everything might have turned 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 151 
 
 out! And he had loved her with passion, with 
 loyalty, in those other days. But might not some 
 residuum of his old love still remain? Treacher- 
 ous and faithless as she had been to him, might he 
 not hide an imperishable force of attachment 
 which she could yet have it in her power to re- 
 vivify ? He was rich, and she was free to marry 
 again. The detested allegiance to Stuyvesant 
 Hudsonbank, the out-of-town weariness, the pov- 
 erty, — so keenly poverty to one who had drunk of 
 extravagance and luxury, — the biting and irk- 
 some dread of future penury, the hate of feeding 
 upon memories whose sweetness was now as vine- 
 gar, — all this might be appeased and alleviated if 
 only she could win back the man once carelessly 
 thrust aside. And why should she not thus win 
 him back? She was miserable, and her misery 
 must carry its due pathos to him. She was un- 
 friended, and her friendlessness must provoke his 
 instincts of protection. She had erred, and her 
 repentance (it was all promptly clear^Just how 
 she would manage the lights and shadows of this 
 repentance !) must rouse his impulses of pardon. 
 She had never really loved him in the former 
 time, and she had wildly loved Bondurant, who 
 had pushed him away from even her most casual 
 regard. But what was love to her now — this im- 
 petuous love 'that women of her age had nearly 
 always outlived, no matter how serene had been 
 their matrimonial fates ? On the other hand, re- 
 
152 TBE EOlfSE AT aiGS StitDOS. 
 
 habilitation was now much to her, and place in 
 the world where she had lost all place, and notice, 
 respect, recognition from those who had ceased 
 to remember whether she deserved either that or 
 oblivion ! 
 
 ' I am not so faded that he could not care for 
 me now in recollection of the way he used to care 
 for me once,' she told herself, while she sat wait- 
 ing his return and thinking over how she would 
 act when he came. ' If I've lost vitality, so must 
 he have lost it. If it's an Indian summer with me 
 so must it be with him. He has been living all 
 this time, just as I have been. I know very well 
 that women grow old far faster than men do. 
 With us it's the loss of youth ; with them it's the 
 loss of inclination. But if we have the little 
 wrinkles under the eyes, so have they the little 
 wrinkles — the rides du coeur — that nobody sees 
 except themselves.' 
 
 She fell to wondering and fretting about Isabel, 
 while she rocked herself, and now and then 
 fanned herself with the pink ostrich fan, dimly 
 suggestive of her vanished glories. It had seemed 
 so like fate that Brockholst should have turned 
 up in this lonely out-of-the-way quarter ! It 
 looked so much as if he might be her deliverance 
 from bondage. His forgiveness was now so poeti- 
 cally in order. It would be almost like the end of 
 a turbulent but well-arranged romance. Isabel 
 rather interfered with its harmonious termination, 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BlUDGE. 153 
 
 however. There should have been no Isabel whom 
 he accompanied home, and was apparently glad to 
 accompany home. But why should he have made 
 that little agreement about coming back ? Might 
 it not have risen from a natural reluctance to 
 show his full leniency and clemency all at once ? 
 He had said that he would come back ; he would 
 keep his word. She revived certain reminiscences 
 of him, and decided that he had always kept his 
 word in minor questions like this just as carefully 
 as in greater ones. And the effort of memory, 
 even for such a nature as her own, could not be 
 without its reproachful stab. How she had once 
 broken her word to Mm ! 
 
 She continued to rock herself and to fan herself 
 slowly, and waited for him to return. 
 
154 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Beockholst's offer to accompany lier home, 
 had pleased while it embarrassed its recipient. On 
 meeting Mary, the stolid-looking chambermaid of 
 her modest household, Isabel had said a few low 
 words which conveyed dismissal and yet left her in 
 doubt as to just how Mary was to be conveniently 
 spirited off. If Mr. Brockholst went with her as 
 far as her own door, it was not surely permissible 
 that Mary should do anything else except melt 
 into felicitous obscurity. There was a great deal 
 of obscurity, but there was also a great deal of 
 Mary. Knowing that her duenna was not of the 
 most intelligent turn, Isabel had found herself 
 dreading, for some little time after she and her 
 companion had quitted Mrs. Bondurant's cottage, 
 lest a stalwart feminine form might loom at any 
 moment beside them, in tranquil unconsciousness 
 of being neither desired nor needed. But Mary, 
 as it proved, revealed the true intuitions of her 
 sex. She permitted the starlight to screen her 
 return rather than betray it, and Isabel soon 
 found herself taking the firm arm which Brock- 
 hoist proffered, in mental security as to her ser- 
 vant's possible intrusion. 
 
TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 155 
 
 By the time that she had slipped her hand in- 
 side his arm he had begun to talk speculatively 
 and smoothly of life here at High Bridge and of 
 its possible dulness. 
 
 " Yes," Isabel found her,self answering, pres- 
 ently ; " it is dull, and yet perhaps not so very 
 dull to me, because I haven't ever known any 
 thing very much gayer." 
 
 " Indeed ? " he said. 
 
 "No. While abroad with papa I was either 
 travelling or else at school." 
 
 " I suppose your father's recent hit with his 
 novel has been a great delight to you ? " 
 
 " ' Rachel Rand ? ' Well, I should have cared 
 more for it if I had thought papa himself cared 
 more." 
 
 " And does he not care much ? " 
 
 " He seems to think his other novels — or at 
 least some of them — have a stronger claim to 
 distinction." 
 
 "I don't doubt it for a moment," said Brock- 
 hoist. " If they are better, they are of course less 
 popular. It is always the case. Popularity in a 
 book always presupposes mferiority of one sort or 
 another. I have found certain good critics who 
 cry down this view as dilettante; but I've repeat- 
 edly caught them afterward, in their feuilletons 
 there in Paris, arguing for the judgment of the 
 cultivated few. I've had the pleasure, as well, of 
 taxing them with their inconsistency." 
 
156 THE BOVSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " Critics are very apt to be inconsistent, I 
 should say," answered Isabel, " when they are 
 not regrettably ignorant." 
 
 " Your father has suffered from their attacks, 
 then ? " 
 
 " Oh, not much. Papa puts value on a kind of' 
 fame — if he really puts value on fame at all — 
 which these random writers of the period can 
 neither give him nor take away from him." 
 
 " That is the right way to feel," said Brockholst. 
 " For myself, I don't see the slightest use in hav- 
 ing these so-called critics. Do you ? " He smiled 
 as he peered down into her face, which he just saw 
 in the accommodating starlight. And he did not 
 lose the bewildered little frown with which she 
 replied to him. 
 
 " They're very outrageous, sometimes. They've 
 assailed papa now and then with great hostility. 
 But I've always looked on them as necessary 
 evils. I've never formed any idea as to how we 
 could do without them." 
 
 Brockholst laughed. " I have," he said. " It's 
 a very simple idea. Not long ago I wrote a little 
 satirical tiling in Paris. It was poor enough 
 French verse, no doubt, but I chose to publish it. 
 I didn't allow a single newspaper to receive a 
 copy of it gratuitously. But it sold very well, all 
 the same. It was advertised, and people found it 
 out that way. I think that is the only fair way 
 for an author. I don't believe in letting one's 
 
TBE HOUSE AT EIGH BRIDGE. 157 
 
 publisher distribute copies of one's work among 
 a lot of nobodies, who will very often adorn the 
 book-shelves of their libraries with the very vol- 
 ume they have written easy slanders about. I 
 should always feel perfectly contented to be pep- 
 pered by a critic who had bought my book and 
 paid for it out of his pocket. But when my pub- 
 lisher sends it to him and he covers it with abuse, 
 I can't help recognizing the rather one-sided con- 
 ditions of this whole arrangement." 
 
 "You yourself are an author, then?" said Isa- 
 bel, surprisedly. 
 
 " No — far from it. But in Paris I knew many 
 authors and many publishers. I tried, once, to 
 make four or five of the best publishers unite in a 
 body to ignore tire critics. I wanted them to send 
 the journals no copies of new books whatever. 
 But my plan fell through. There was that feel- 
 ing about the press being so powerful. I have 
 discovered that newspapers here are still more 
 powerful than in Europe." 
 
 " They are very powerful indeed," said Isabel. 
 
 "But their literary columns are often meagre 
 and ill-edited," replied Brockholst. " Their polit- 
 ical columns are sparkling with ability by con- 
 trast, however partisan and insincere. Evidently 
 the men and women who write the book reviews 
 are mere under-paid vendors of opinions. Every- 
 body has opinions, but they wish to sell theirs, 
 and I'm inclined to fancy they sell them at low 
 
158 THE HOVSM AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 rates. Let them be forced to sell something else. 
 Let no new books, as the gifts of publishers, drop 
 into their hands. They will soon realize that as 
 they have failed to write notable books themselves, 
 and that as the position of passing criticism on 
 books written by others who are in many cases 
 their superiors beyond expression has slipped away 
 from them, nothing will remain to them but the 
 adoption of some more amiable means of getting 
 their dinners and breakfasts." 
 
 " And do you believe," asked Isabel, " that such 
 a millennium as this will ever arrive for authors?" 
 
 " I believe it is very near at hand. The pub- 
 lishers are able to speed its. coming if only they 
 will. It's marvellous how long we tolerate an ab- 
 surdity of injustice before suddenly waking up to 
 it. And what can be a more clear absurdity than 
 that some one individual caprice, animus or even 
 honest judgment should be made to influence the 
 public regarding any new book? Smith, with 
 the Daily Diatribe behind him, is a force nowa- 
 days in America and England, simply because of 
 his being anonymous — of his being, in fact, the 
 Daily Diatribe itself. Resolve him into Smith, 
 pure and simple (or corrupt and complex, if you 
 like) and he becomes a mastiff without teeth. 
 And this is what publishers have the power to 
 do, by turning newspapers into that which any 
 such mere products of haste and transient, im- 
 promptu tintype-taking should deservedly be. I 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGU BRIDGE. 159 
 
 mean commercial mediums of advertisement, and 
 these alone." 
 
 " But do you not think that many readers are 
 guided in their choice of books by what they see 
 in the newspapers concerning them ? " 
 
 " No ; it occurs to me that they are usually in- 
 sensible to such verdicts, and naturally enough. 
 The difference between what Smith writes and 
 what Jones writes is nowadays often the differ- 
 ence between blame and praise, where it has be- 
 come a question of one and the same book. 
 Newspapers have multiplied largely during the 
 past twenty years here in this country. The 
 Smiths and Joneses have multiplied with them. 
 Criticism, as I now find it, in New York as 
 elsewhere, is a mere wordy war of opposing 
 prejudices." 
 
 "And you think it best to exterminate the 
 Smiths and Joneses," answered Isabel, " by de- 
 priving them of the gratuitous copies which they 
 now receive as functionaries of the various news- 
 papers ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I am afraid the authors themselves would ob- 
 ject to that proceeding, even if all the publishers 
 consented to it. I don't mean that my father 
 would," she added, correctively, and with a little 
 perceptible touch of filial pride which made her 
 companion like her none the less for having 'shown 
 it as frankly and sweetly as she did. " Papa has 
 
160 THE HOUSE AT HIGU BBIDGE. 
 
 no desire, I am sure, to be babbled about either 
 with favor or disfavor. But I should imagine 
 there were many writers who crave publicity even 
 at the price of warm censure, and that these would 
 uphold the system of the Smiths and Joneses, 
 complaining more of silence in the daily prints 
 than they now complain of criiel treatment there." 
 
 Brockholst laughed. " Oh, if the authors went 
 against the measure," he said, " there would be no 
 hope of the publishers carrying it through." 
 
 " I have always heard," said Isabel, " that most 
 authors are as fond of eulogy as they are impatient 
 of rebuke." 
 
 "Well, they have the credit, or discredit, for 
 extreme sensitiveness, but I have seen many of 
 them, and I have also seen many critics. And I 
 have been impelled to conclude that for real hys- 
 terical, vigilant, unhealthy sensitiveness, the aver- 
 age critic quite surpasses the average author. 
 The author, in most instances, need but wince 
 under his persecution to make the critic feel of- 
 fended into redoubling it. If the author is other 
 than a passive victim he rouses new incentives for 
 bad treatment. And as popular opinion stands 
 just now, the critic is ridiculously aided and forti- 
 fied. The author must never answer his assaults. 
 It is considered bad taste. The author must suf- 
 fer in silence, and it is ludicrous to state that he 
 does not often suffer. Everybody clearly under- 
 stands, as well, that he does suffer. The author's 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 161 
 
 best friends, who counsel him to wrap himself in 
 the majesty of unconcern, know perfectly well 
 that he has precisely the same feeling which a 
 man has who receives, with bound wrists, a hard 
 blow in the face. I don't think it makes any 
 special difference whose hand gives the blow. I 
 confess that a vagabond here in High Bridge 
 might deal me qiiite as much humiliation and 
 sense of injury by inflicting upon me a blow 
 wMch I was forbidden to return, as if the same 
 outrage were wrought by some one whom I felt to 
 be my equal." 
 
 " Then you believe," said Isabel, " in the author 
 answering his critics ? " 
 
 "I believe in his being privileged to do so at 
 his inclination, without any foolish charge that 
 he had lost dignity being preferred against him." 
 They had now reached the gate of Isabel's dwell- 
 ing, and she withdrew her arm from his, standing 
 beside him. " I like fair fights," he added, smiling. 
 " I'm still boy enough for that." He opened the 
 gate, and Isabel passed up to the porch, while he 
 followed. " And I hope also. Miss Coggeshal, that 
 I haven't bored you beyond measure by expressing 
 all thete belligerent views." Just as he said this 
 they had reached the steps of the porch. He put 
 out his hand, which Isabel took, immediately an- 
 swering as she did so : 
 
 "No, indeed, Mr. Brockholst. As an author's 
 daughter I am of course doubly interested in 
 
162 TEH HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 snch views. But if you had not told me to the 
 contrary I should have felt sure that you were 
 a full-fledged author yourself." 
 
 "No," he said. "That little French satire of 
 which I spoke a moment ago is all that I have 
 ever published." 
 
 " But you have written other things ? " 
 
 He shook his head negatively, and then, with a 
 sudden burst of confession, full of comedy, said, 
 " Well, yes ; I plead guilty to having once written 
 a novel." 
 
 " A novel ? " she inquired, with flattering eager- 
 ness. 
 
 " Yes. But it never found a publisher. Indeed, 
 it never sought one. I wrote it the last time that 
 I was in this country. I was living with my uncle 
 then, in his town house. I grew disgusted with 
 it after it was finished. Perhaps he has it now in 
 some chest of rubbish. I was thinking over it 
 only yesterday. I should like to fish it out from 
 obscurity, if I could, and have a laugh at it . . . 
 Well, good-night. You won't ask me in, I know ; 
 it is too late. But you will let me come and see 
 you, will you not, now that besides being such 
 near neighbors we are actual acquaintances?" 
 
 " I shall be most glad to have you come," said 
 Isabel ; and while she spoke the words she had a 
 fear lest he should note a tremor of undue excite- 
 ment in her tones. She liked him so much; he 
 had made her, in her quiet life so untouched by 
 
TICS HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 163 
 
 intercourse with any congenial company of another 
 sex, pleased enough at the possibility of knowing 
 him better. 
 
 "I have had friends both in France and Ens- 
 land who are authors," he now said, " and I have 
 watched their griefs and heart-burnings with some 
 attention; so that my sympathy, though imper- 
 sonal, is still ardent." 
 
 She looked up into his face with a most earnest 
 glance, while her own face was clearly hghted for 
 him by the reflection from the near doorway. 
 
 " Oh, I can understand that so well ! " she said. 
 " And I honor you for it. It is so much better to 
 feel for others than to feel simply for ourselves ! " 
 She broke into a little embarrassed laugh. " That 
 sounds wofully commonplace ; does it not ? " 
 
 "In the way of active, practical sentiment," he 
 answered, "it is about as far from the com- 
 monplace as anything I know. . . And so I may 
 drop in upon you for a chat, even on our brief 
 acquaintance?" 
 
 " You certainly may." 
 
 " I promise to bore you with no further theories 
 as to the suppression of critics." 
 
 "You can't think how thoroughly you've es- 
 caped boring me. I am only afraid I shall forget 
 some point in what you have said. For. I want, 
 with your permission, to repeat it all to papa." 
 
 "I sternly refuse any such permission. I am 
 sure your fatlier knows quite as much regarding 
 
164 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 the habits of that species as I can pogsibly teach 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, no ; you've convinced me that he doesn't. 
 But if you should find that neglected novel some- 
 where among your uncle's papers, read it again, 
 be struck with its excellence, put it into print 
 and receive an ovation of applause for it from the 
 critics, would you not then feel as if their removal 
 from the face of the earth would be a little less 
 of a popular blessing than it had once appeared?" 
 
 " Such a change is conceivable," he said, laugh- 
 ing. "But if I laid hands on the manuscript I 
 should almost be afraid to read it. I should give 
 it to the flames with a certainty that its one proper 
 fate was to be pulled to pieces by them alone." 
 
 " Oh, that would be really cruel I " exclaimed 
 Isabel, taking him seriously. "If you shrank 
 from a maturer glance at it yourself, why not let 
 some friend read it ? " 
 
 " Some friend ? " he repeated. 
 
 " Yes. Mrs. Bondurant, for instance." 
 
 He gave a start, so evident that she could not 
 fail to observe and be surprised by it. "Were' 
 you under the belief," he said, with emphasis, 
 coming a little closer to her, "that Mrs. Bon- 
 durant was my friend ? " 
 
 "I thought so," she faltered, hardly knowing 
 how to answer him. 
 
 " Is she your friend ? " he asked, low of voice, 
 and yet sharply. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH li RIDGE. 165 
 
 "I — I have not known her long," Isabel al- 
 most stammered. " "We are on friendly terms." 
 
 He seemed about to say something more with 
 the same force of tone he had just used. But she 
 saw him make a rapid little movement with one 
 hand, letting it drop placid afterward at his side. 
 With his walking-stick, which he held in the 
 other hand, he gave a slight, slashing stroke, so 
 that its ferule grated in short, harsh noise on the 
 dark gravel of the path. 
 
 "I knew Mrs. Bondurant once," he said, "very 
 well indeed. That was in Paris, some time ago. 
 Since then I have spoken to her but twice, — 
 once here on the roadside, where she reined in 
 her pony to claim my acquaintance, and to-night 
 when you saw us together." He said all this very 
 quietly, but Isabel saw how steadfastly his eyes 
 were fixed upon her in the dimness as he added : 
 " We are not friends, however." 
 
 " But you are not enemies ? " ventured Isabel. 
 
 " I am no one's enemy, I hope," he said, putting 
 out his hand for farewell. "And least of all 
 would I wish to be any woman's. . . Good-night, 
 Miss Coggeshal. I shall hold you to your pleas- 
 ant promise about letting me visit you "... 
 
 Brockholst soon went back along the lonely 
 road, under the brooding mellowness of the stars, 
 to Mrs. Bondurant's cottage. He regretted, while 
 he did so, having allowed one suggestive word to 
 leave his lips on the subject of whatever relations 
 
166 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 existed between himself and the lady whose dwell- 
 ing he and Isabel had just quitted. Entire 
 silence would surely have been better, as he 
 realized now. Only that afternoon he had told 
 himself, with a qualm of annoyance, how incon- 
 veniently small a sphere was this planet in which 
 he abode. He had not wanted to keep his ap- 
 pointment for that evening ; he had even been on 
 the verge of sending an excuse for absence. And 
 yet future meetings would be inevitable ; destiny 
 had played one of its most elfin pranks ; it would 
 perhaps be nothing but the most ordinary wis- 
 dom to accept this wretched coincidence phleg- 
 matically. 
 
 ' I hated to think of that girl calling me Alma 
 Bondurant's friend,' he now reflected. ' I had got 
 to feel certain that she herself was never the 
 friend of such a woman. The two Poles are not 
 further apart than those two. One has truth in 
 her eyes and voice; the other — well, I see now 
 why it was that I let even that slender hint slip 
 forth.' 1 
 
 He had great reluctance to anything like pri- 
 vate converse with Mrs. Bondurant, and yet he 
 saw that some such interview must occur. She 
 had evidently made up her mind to discuss with 
 him a question which he had once considered 
 burning enough, but which had long ago ceased 
 to give out anything save an occasional sickly me- 
 morial flash. And yet this project of tearing a 
 
TUE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 167 
 
 corpse from its grave with no imaginable motive 
 except to put it back again after remarking the 
 inroads made by decay, had for Brockholst an ex- 
 asperating Heedlessness. He saw no shadow of 
 benefit in the whole performance. A good deal 
 of manly indignation had died among the ashes of 
 his perished love ; and he was by no means cer- 
 tain that in raking these ashes too recklessly he 
 might not encounter some undelectable sparks 
 there. He did not by any means wish to deal in 
 either reproaches or pardon. The first, as a po- 
 tential course of action, held no more value for 
 him, now, than if it were the dry and hollow shell 
 of something which had once borne vital breath 
 and movement within ; and as to forgiveness of 
 the treachery which had seemed so near shatter- 
 ing Ms faith in all womanhood, he could best 
 measure his indifference toward that old wrong by 
 the frozen apathy of his present feeling toward its 
 perpetrator. 
 
 She was waiting for him in the dim-lighted 
 doorway of her little house as he mounted the 
 steps from the tiny garden below. The lines of 
 her tall figure were well brought out by the softly 
 illumined background, and perhaps there had been 
 distinct premeditation in her posture, put thus 
 effectively en silhouette. She had left her rocking- 
 chair some few minutes ago. The air had of late 
 grown damp and cool ; our inconstant climate was 
 undergoing one of its abrupt caprices. A cluster 
 
168 THE HOUSE AT HIGH Ji RIDGE. 
 
 of entangled heliotrope had begun to diffuse its 
 rich and oppressive perfume amid the humid dark- 
 ness. Brockholst felt the luxurious odor affect 
 him with almost a sense of sickliness as he drew 
 nearer, watching the shape in the doorway. He 
 had never before thought of disliking this odor; 
 he had always loved all the flowers that breathe 
 fragrance — the flowers with souls in them. But 
 just then this pungency, floating out on the night 
 from the hidden purple of the plant, appealed to 
 him as though it were an unwholesome, voluptu- 
 ous outflow from the nature and actuality of the 
 woman who waited to receive him. Until now he 
 had not realized how keen was the suggestion of 
 tropic indolence and abandonment, of the drowsy 
 lures and spells with which legend has enwrapped 
 evil when it would subtly enchant against con- 
 science, to be found in these unique, delicious 
 blooms. At this moment they seemed to speak in 
 as clear terms of analogy for what life holds of the 
 intoxicating and the wantonly luxurious, as a star 
 that shoots its sharp ray from a winter heaven 
 seems to typify health, energy and chastity. 
 
 " I was sure you would come back," she said to 
 him, as he joined her at the threshold. " Let us 
 go in again." She had lifted her hand, as if to 
 have it rest in his own, but the dimness may have 
 prevented him from seeing this token of renewed 
 welcome. He followed her into the little sitting- 
 room, where a gentle memory of the departed 
 
TUE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 169 
 
 Isabel yet pleasantly lingered for him. " What a 
 relief that it has grown so much- cooler ! " she said, 
 as they re-seated themselves. She had sunk into 
 a chair quite near the one he selected ; if this were 
 not accident she rather prettily contrived to make 
 it thus appear ; and almost immediately she broke 
 into a laugh so full of some blithe apparent relish 
 that he turned and looked at her with eyes of 
 blank inquiry. 
 
 "I — I was thinking of how true were the 
 things you said about the weather a little while 
 ago," she exclaimed, "and of how soon I'm testing 
 its convenience as a refuge from — well, from em- 
 barrassment." She looked many shades more 
 serious just at the end of her sentence than she 
 had done at its beginning. 
 
 " I did not know you were often embarrassed," 
 said Brockholst, coldly and indiflferently, without 
 meeting her eyes. " I thought self-possession was 
 nearly sure to go hand-in-hand with "... he 
 paused an instant . . " experience." 
 
 She bit her lip. This had an unpromising 
 sound. She swiftly asked herself if he might not 
 have come back simply to tell her that he would 
 never come back hereafter. Was it not credible 
 that his clemency paused at these limits and these 
 alone ? 
 
 "I've certainly had experience enough," she 
 said, with tragedy sighing and trembling in her 
 voice. "I don't think you quite realize," she 
 
170 TnE HOUSE AT IlIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 went on, " the monstrous amount of trouble I have 
 passed through. I don't believe — " 
 
 " Yes," he broke in curtly, " I do realize it very- 
 well indeed." 
 
 " Ah ! then perhaps you think it my fitting 
 punishment." 
 
 He turned in his chair and looked at her with a 
 very faint smile, where she seemed to see only 
 delicate irony. "Your punishment for what?" 
 he asked mildly. 
 
 He puzzled her. She could not be sure if his 
 manner meant complaisance or mockery. " Can't 
 you guess for what ? " she said. 
 
 "No. My memories of your virtues, you know, 
 put those of your few faults quite in the shade." 
 
 The sarcasm stung her, bxit a good deal less 
 acutely than she chose to pretend that it did. 
 " Oh, how can you ! " she faltered. " That wasn't 
 like you ; if anyone else had said it, all well 
 enough. But you! Still, of course I deserve it. 
 I deserve everything you can hurl at me in the 
 way of reproaches." 
 
 "I'm not at all good at hurling reproaches," 
 Brockholst said dryly. 
 
 " I see. You'd forgiven me, I suppose, because 
 you'd forgotten me. That was how matters lay, 
 was it not ? " 
 
 " I don't know that I had forgiven you," he an- 
 swered, half smiling again. " But I didn't cherish 
 any vengeful animosity against you. And yet I'd 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 171 
 
 by no means forgotten you. How shall I just ex- 
 press to you my quiescent state? No doubt it 
 would interest a psychologist — the arrest of in- 
 dignation without its decay. I've never yet con- 
 sulted one on the subject." 
 
 " You talk of yourself as if you had a disease 
 for the doctors to look after." 
 
 "No — I'm cured." 
 
 " You — you suffered, then ? " 
 
 " Pshaw," he returned, a little scornfully, " why 
 don't you ask whether a knife can cut ? " 
 
 " It can't," she said, slightly drooping her head, 
 " unless it has a sharp enough blade." 
 
 He gave a weariedly irritated motion. " Don't 
 try. Alma, to play the coquette with me at this 
 late hour. There is something — to be quite frank 
 — really ghastly in your doing so." He now looked 
 at her very steadily indeed, with his lips meeting 
 in a firm line, devoid of the least smile. 
 
 She sank back in her chair, with a large, flut- 
 tered sigh of obvious disappointment. 
 
 "I see," she broke forth, almost gasping the 
 words, "you — you hate me." 
 
 " I hate no one — I hope." 
 
 " You despise me, then." 
 
 " I trust that if I did I would be too decent in 
 my breeding to tell you so." 
 
 She sprang, with almost a feline movement, 
 from her chair, and faced him. Her frame was 
 quivering with agitation. "I — I thought," she 
 
172 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 said, very brokenly, "that you were willing to 
 come back after that girl had left us, in order that 
 we could be alone together and talk over the past 
 rationally and sensibly." 
 
 He rose while she was thus speaking. " I don't 
 want to talk over the past," he said, in a voice that 
 was hard and cold. " I didn't come for that." 
 
 "Then . . then," she replied, while they both 
 stood peering into one another's faces, " why did 
 you come back to-night at all ? " 
 
 " To tell you," he said, measuring each word, 
 "that our good-by must be spoken to-night. I 
 mean as far as any future visits are concerned." 
 He took a step or two toward the door, but she 
 lifted a hand, detaining him by its faint pressure, 
 set full against his breast. And then, while her 
 hand dropped, as if in mortified afterthought, she 
 cried miserably : 
 
 " It's horrible for you to go like this ! It's cruel ! 
 . . Oh, I know very well that I've no right to speak 
 of cruelty. But a woman has so much less time 
 to be happy in than a man has ! A man has al- * 
 most his whole life. I've flung away mi/ life, if 
 you choose, in — in treating you as I did ! If I'd 
 married you, Lloyd, all those years ago, we might 
 now be talking so differently together ! " 
 
 " True enough," he said implacably. 
 
 " I was frightfully wrong. I admit that I 
 was. If it were not so ridiculously romantic, 
 I'd throw myself at your feet and implore your 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 173 
 
 pardon. But I know you'd hate that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 "Yes — I would." 
 
 " And you're going to leave me without a word, 
 except to say that you will never come here 
 again ! " 
 
 ' " Yes. I don't see the use of staying longer on 
 any more polite pretext. Do you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I see an immense reason for you to stay, 
 just as I see an immense reason for you now to 
 be my friend ! Admit that I treated you shame- 
 fully. . ." 
 
 " I do admit it." 
 
 " But I was the most senseless, idiotic girl ! 
 Eugene Bondurant had suddenly fascinated me." 
 
 " I know he had." 
 
 " Ah, there lies your grievance ! " 
 
 " Pardon me — I have no grievance." 
 
 " Of course you have not. You've outlived 
 it!" 
 
 " Yes. I've outlived it." 
 
 "But it must have tortured you once. You 
 loved me once. I know that so well ! " 
 
 " Of course you know it." 
 
 She leaned her body toward him, and stared up 
 into his face with her dark eyes, yet rich in charms 
 of sleepy fire. "And that love is dead? Is it 
 quite dead ? " 
 
 " Yes, dead. Brutally killed, long ago. Treach- 
 ery killed it." 
 
174 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 She recoiled before the shock dealt by these 
 quiet -words. "Treachery?" she said, in bitter 
 chagrin, below her breath. 
 
 " Yes. That. I think there is no more use of 
 talk between you and me. It was all a good while 
 ago. Old wounds may be touched, Alma, but the 
 rheum and bane in them has flown away to make 
 other foolish lovers' wounds burn and smart. 
 There's the correlation and conservation of forces, 
 you know. Modern science, and all that. We 
 live in a scientific age. We don't merely tear 
 butterflies to pieces; we put the dust of their 
 wings under a microscope, and chemically analyze 
 it." 
 
 His foot had almost reached the threshold of 
 the door. " You came here simply to exult over 
 me and laugh at me," she cried to him, "in my 
 wretchedness ! " 
 
 Her intensity, if real or feigned, told with him. 
 " Your wretchedness ? " he repeated. 
 
 She saw a point gained. She knew that he 
 meant to leave her forever, and this perception 
 nerved her to the sort of supplication which tact 
 convinced her would tell, while the easy depths 
 of her own self-pity might be stirred at her will 
 into turbid violence. 
 
 " Call it my anguish ! " she exclaimed, stretch- 
 ing both arms toward him, just as his foot had 
 almost met the threshold of the door. " I was a 
 girl — a silly, vain girl. Bondurant came with 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 175 
 
 his Byronic, sensational eyes, and his neat blague 
 of love-making. I had always loved you, Lloyd. 
 He tempted me away from you — there are things 
 a woman, if her sense of shame isn't a cipher, can't 
 express. But I always loved you. I — " 
 
 "That is false," Brockholst struck in. He 
 might have been speaking the most ordinary 
 phrase. 
 
 " It is not false, Lloyd ! Listen to me. Don't 
 go. Or, go afterward, if you will, but listen to 
 me now ! I was engaged to marry you. Bon- 
 durant (you know all that has happened since !) 
 was hke a devil coming between us. I suddenly 
 told you, one day, that I cared for him, that I must 
 break with you, but it was not myself that spoke, 
 Lloyd ! It was the voice of — of — " 
 
 " Good-night," he said, with a very cold tone. 
 He crossed the threshold, but as he did so she 
 flung herself forward and caught one of his hands 
 between both her own. Her form swayed, and in 
 another minute, still retaining his hand, she had 
 sunk on her knees before him. Then she pressed 
 the hand against her lips, kissing it. 
 
 "Good-night," said Brockholst, trying a little, 
 but not over-strongly, to draw the hand away. 
 
 " You — you will not forgive me ? " she pleaded, 
 clinging to his hand. 
 
 " It is not that," he said. 
 
 " What is it then ? " she appealed, with uplifted 
 face ; and at this moment her dark gaze was swim- 
 
176 THE HOUSE AT HIGH SBIDGE. 
 
 ming in a tender glory where memories of past 
 passion lit for him its potency of supplication. 
 
 " What is it, Lloyd ? I have sinned against you 
 — horribly, I grant it ! I am weak, even contempt- 
 ible ! But I am not so changed that you can still 
 refuse to see I am myself ! And since I've passed 
 through all this torment — oh, you can't ever 
 dream what it was till I've told you ! — why not be 
 friends with me — only friends — now that chance 
 has thrown us together like this ? " 
 
 The clutch of both her hands about his own 
 discomfited Brockholst while it did not emotion- 
 ally move him. He was a man, and this contact, 
 so fervid and so insistent, wrought its due results 
 with mere sense alone. But he smiled at the 
 recollection of what that same impetuous pressure 
 might have aroused in sentiment and in spiritual 
 ecstasy long ago. It was this recollection that 
 strengthened him now against the force which 
 could only reach him through grosser mediums. 
 
 He shut his teeth, for an instant, swiftly re- 
 minding himself that here was the woman who 
 had vowed love to him with hundreds of eager 
 protestations years since, and who had suddenly 
 shattered both faith and dream by one calmly 
 agonizing announcement. The suffering seemed 
 so remote to Brockholst, now ; it was like the 
 pang, fraught with speedy lulling tears, of early 
 childhood. The pain, the looking about one and 
 feeling that all sky and earth were equal as null, 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 177 
 
 neutral environments ; the desire to die ; the de- 
 sire to let some few sympathetic hearts know why 
 and for what fond cause one had died — all this 
 actual record of life lived by him in other times 
 took outline of shadow separate from his vivid 
 and present individuality. Was this the Alma of 
 his old adoration who now kneeled to him ? And 
 whence had flown that ardor of unquestioning 
 sympathy which would have raised her with 
 kisses and declarations of fealty ? 
 
 " I am still your friend, if you choose," he said. 
 " Or, rather, I mean by this that I am not your 
 foe. . . Good-night." He snatched his hand away 
 from the clinging clasp of both her own, and hur- 
 ried out into the hall, soon afterward descending 
 the steps that led to the little heliotrope-scented 
 garden. 
 
 He had left her still kneeling at the threshold 
 of the sitting-room. If he had seen the look that 
 came into her face as she rose and passed back 
 toward the chamber they had quitted, he might 
 perhaps have been spared even the slight con- 
 science-pang that was then assailing him. 
 
 ' Bah ! ' he said to his thoughts, as he strode 
 briskly along the darkened avenue leading home- 
 ward, 'she is only Alma Hudsonbank — Alma 
 Bondurant ! I know her so well ! It was so like 
 her to kneel to me ! She was always reminding 
 one of the footlights! I know her feints and 
 tricks so well — to my cost ! ' 
 
178 TEE BOUSE AT HIGH BBIBGE. 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant had meanwhile thrown her- 
 self into tlie rocking-chair near the gayly-shaded 
 lamp. She moved her frame excitedly to and fro. 
 Her eyes were set on the opposite wall, her hands 
 were clenched together in her lap. 
 
 ' What a failure,' she mused. . . And somehow, 
 for no very logical reason, her perturbed thoughts 
 wandered to Isabel. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 179 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " You are home earlier than I expected," saiH a 
 voice to Brockholst amid the dimness of his 
 uncle's hall, which he had just entered. Carolan 
 stood in the doorway of the lighted library. 
 
 "Yes," returned Brockholst. He at once passed 
 into the library, with that frankly genial air which 
 he so often employed unconsciously even toward 
 men whom he held in no great esteem, and which 
 made nearly everybody with whom he came into 
 contact decide that he was companionable and 
 attractive before reaching any other clear decision 
 in respect to him. " It's cosey and comfortable 
 here, isn't it?" he continued, dropping into a 
 soft, wide chair near the lamplit table. 
 
 " Both," said Carolan, taking another chair, not 
 far away. " I've spent some pleasant hours here 
 among the books. There's no comfort to a man 
 like reading. It can make him snap his fingers at 
 the tedium of solitude." 
 
 Brockholst lit one of his excellent cigars and of- 
 fered another to Carolan, which the latter accepted 
 with evident satisfaction. " I suppose you have a 
 good deal of solitude to contend with here," said 
 Brockholst, as he began to smoke. 
 
180 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " Oh, a vast amount of it. The place is dull 
 beyond conception. I'm still young enough to 
 feel the need of amusements and distractions. As 
 for employing my leisure in something literary, I 
 begin to feel that when you've dashed off journal- 
 istic trifles for quite an age with a fatally glib pen, 
 you may find that habit has put a rather wide gulf 
 between ambition and ability." 
 
 Brockholst gave a civil little nod. He had 
 already made up his mind that an apt talent for 
 producing " copy " would mark the mos^ probable 
 terminus of Cardan's choicest achievement. 
 
 " I hope your discovery," he said, " hasn't cost 
 you any severe sense of defeat." 
 
 " Oh, no " returned Carolan jovially. " I've 
 been spared that anguish. If the truth must 
 dawn on me that I'm only a scribbler and not a 
 genius, I'm sure that I've got nerve enough to 
 accept such a fate with stoicism. It would have 
 prevented so many bad books, you know, if more 
 human beings had recognized their own medioc- 
 rity in the proper season." Carolan had inten- 
 tionally turned the talk into just this particular 
 channel, and he now went on, with a clear pur- 
 pose that he tried to veil under the most ordinary 
 conversational carelessness. " It certainly is 
 astonishing how many men and women rush into 
 authorship nowadays without the least actual 
 qualification for such office. There's altogether 
 too much boldness and too little genuine merit 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 181 
 
 among modern authors. Don't you agree with 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Brockholst. " But I dare say it 
 has always been that way. Literature is like 
 nature ; it has its thousands of nipped blossoms 
 and blighted fruits. The many fail ; the one 
 succeeds. That appears to be the inevitable cer- 
 tainty. But a large, continual effort is no doubt 
 best. Art gains by it in the end." 
 
 "Still, a little more modesty would prove re- 
 freshing," said Carolan, while he looked at his 
 companion with a scrutiny whose covert keenness 
 was far from being suspected. "I should feel 
 gratefuUy surprised, for example, to hear of any- 
 body who had written something which he was 
 willing to let lie unpublished, and which he could 
 frankly confess that he did not believe society 
 would be any wiser or better for having read." 
 
 Brockholst gave a slight start, and then blew a 
 smoke-cloud of undue volume, which almost hid 
 his face as he replied : 
 
 « And do you hold such a miracle of humility 
 impossible ? " 
 
 " Yes — like all miracles." 
 
 Brockholst laughed. " I might be able to dissi- 
 pate your scepticism, perhaps," he said. 
 
 Carolan assumed to be greatly surprised by 
 these words. "You?" he asked, with a sort of 
 jocose innocence. "How?" 
 
 His companion was perfectly deceived. This 
 
' 182 TUE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Irishman always had arts of pretended frankness 
 and sincerity at command which could catch trip- 
 ping the surest experience. 
 
 " Well," said Brockholst, leaning back a little in 
 his chair, with the manner of one to whom rumi- 
 nation was not just then uncongenial, " what if I 
 should tell you that I had written something iu 
 my younger years which I thought so poorly of 
 that I never even made an effort to print it ? I've 
 no doubt, when I recollect the thing now, that it 
 was fairly readable. I can't help believing that 
 there must be stuff at the book-stalls to-day quite as 
 crude, sentimental and unwholesome. But I did 
 it, and after it was done I simply threw it aside. 
 It was a novel — of course. Why do fledgling 
 authors always write novels ? I suppose that be- 
 cause of all conceivable crafts for the man who 
 would write capably, that of the novel needs a 
 most true native gift. Perhaps I had some such 
 feeling of self-scorn — I hope that I was sensible 
 enough to have it — when I flung aside ' Marian 
 Moore,' without an effort to get the' story put 
 between covers." 
 
 " That was the name, then — 'Marian Moore ' ? " 
 said Carolan. He spoke in the most natural tone 
 of inquiry. 
 
 " Yes. It must be among Uncle Andreas's odds 
 and ends of waste matter, somewhere. Or per- 
 haps he has destroyed it. I wonder if he would 
 remember about it if I should ask him." 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 183 
 
 " No ; I don't think he would remember any- 
 thing like that," said Carolan. 
 
 "I mentioned it to Miss Coggeshal to-night," 
 resumed Brockholst. "I walked home with her 
 from Mrs. Bondurant's." 
 
 " Ah? yes ? " answered Carolan pleasantly. He 
 felt for a few seconds as if the room were whirl- 
 ing round with him. 
 
 " It came up during a little talk we had about 
 novels and critics, and all that. She is really a 
 very agreeable girl. I quite indorse your opinion 
 of her." 
 
 " Indeed ? " said Carolan, looking at his cigar. 
 
 "And her father? Is he a clever writer, 
 really?" 
 
 " He has capacity — considerable of it." 
 
 " She seems to be very proud' of him." 
 
 " Oh, that's natural enough." 
 
 " But she strikes me as a girl of nice taste and 
 judgment in nearly everything." 
 
 "I should say she was." 
 
 " Have you read any of her father's books ? " 
 
 " Yes — several." 
 
 " He's recently written one, I hear, which has 
 made a popular hit. Do you know it ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What is its name ? I heard, but I forget." 
 
 " It is called ' Rachel Rand,' " said Carolan. 
 He wondered if there were not a little tremor in 
 his voice as he thus spoke. The truth was past 
 
184 TUE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 all shadow of doubt, now. It seemed to glare at 
 him from every square-inch of the walls, the car- 
 pet, the furniture. 
 
 " ' Rachel Rand? ' " repeated Brockholst. " That 
 has a neat, trim suggestion about it One some- 
 how thinks of a Boston girl. It's much less ro- 
 mantic than ' Marian Moore.' " 
 
 '(jrood God!' thought Carolan. 'If he knew 
 it was ' Marian Moore ' what might he not do ? ' 
 
 "I suppose," Brockholst proceeded, "that it's 
 something after the modern American school; 
 eh?" 
 
 " I'm afraid ,1 don't just know what the modern 
 American school is," replied Carolan. 
 
 He was asking himself, at the same moment, if 
 from all the innumerable different sequences of 
 circumstance fate had ever yet devised one resem- 
 bling that which he was now suddenly and most 
 tryingly called upofi to face. What had lately 
 struck him as a suspicious coincidence in the way 
 of handwriting had abruptly become vivid, alarm- 
 ing fact. He had already felt the self-protective 
 impulse, but it had gone with a mortified thrill at 
 the thought of Coggeshal perhaps revealing just 
 what share he himself had taken in the whole 
 craven fraud. Such new peril of betrayal did 
 not at all harmonize with Cardan's high-flown 
 ideal of the passion-goaded delinquent. On hear- 
 ing the truth Brockholst might easily include 
 within his summary definition of scoundrelism 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 185 
 
 the temptation which had preceded the theft. 
 Guilt quickly strives to build for itself barriers 
 of defence. Carolan, with a sense of things crash- 
 ing about his ears, had already thought of how 
 he could save himself from the least real hurt. 
 Yes, it could only be in one way : entire denial of 
 complicity. And yet the man whose brain-labor 
 had been stolen might retort by simply declating : 
 " You sanctioned the crime with your silence. 
 Knowing it, you should have exposed it, and 
 your neglect to do so has put a dark blot on your 
 honesty." And then — Isabel ! What eartlily in- 
 ducement could she now have for joining her for- 
 tunes with his own? This whole affair of the 
 larceny might now end for himself in nothing but 
 sickening disaster. These considerations were all 
 assailing the man's mind at once, and seemed to 
 whirl through it with the speed of a gust bred by 
 tempest. And meanwhile the composed, reflective 
 tones of Lloyd Brockholst were saying near by, 
 with placidity enough to make it appear as if his 
 zones of mental calm had never been ruffled by a 
 hint of emotional storm : 
 
 " The modern American school, I should put it, 
 is a kind of Zola-ism at once spiritualized and 
 made more commonplace. In any event, it is 
 extraordinarily French; I am beginning to feel 
 more and more amazed at the whole exotic quality 
 of its development. Nothing can be harder to 
 reconcile with our limitless topography, our im- 
 
186 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BEIDGE. 
 
 mensity of lakes and prairies, our general national 
 spaciousness, than are at once the minute regard 
 for trifles and the close analyses of human motive 
 shown by this sudden unaccountable crop of 
 writers." 
 
 He paused, expecting that Carolan would either 
 differ from him or else amplify what he had just 
 rather indolently hazarded as an opinion. The 
 Irishman had always before been of so expansive 
 a turn; he had required so little encouragement 
 for the outflow of facile pros and cons. But Caro- 
 lan merely bowed his head somewhat absently, 
 murmuring : 
 
 "Yes. I see your meaning, now. I hadn't 
 thought of it in that . . a . . curious light." 
 
 Brockholst shifted in his chair, and gave a 
 glance at his watch. It had occurred to him that 
 his uncle's loquacious henchman was not disposed 
 to be very entertaining this warm and drowsy 
 evening. "By the way," he said carelessly, 
 "have you a copy of this 'Rachel Rand'? I 
 should like to take a look at it." 
 
 Carolan felt himself turn pale. The book-laden 
 table was between Brockholst and himself, within 
 easy reach of either. As Carolan's eyes now swept 
 the contents of the table he perceived the book in 
 an instant ; he knew its cover at a glance ; and 
 then he recalled how he himself had placed it 
 there but a day or two ago. It chanced to lie as 
 far away as possible from the hand of his compan- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 187 
 
 ion, and this discovery, which would have been as 
 nothing only a slight time before, now held the 
 value of a special providence for Carolan. 
 
 "No," he answered; "there isn't a copy of it 
 here at the cottage." 
 
 " I suppose I can borrow it some time to-mor- 
 row from the author himself," said Brockholst. 
 
 " Oh, no doubt. Did you intend to call on them, 
 over there ? " 
 
 " Yes. Miss Coggeshal was good enough to ask 
 me. Still, now that I recollect, it will not be to- 
 morrow — at least not during the day-time. I've 
 an engagement which will take me into town. 
 Well, I'll get the book at some shop. I suppose 
 it's procurable nearly everywhere, as it's so 
 popular ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes." 
 
 Brockholst had risen, and thrown away his half- 
 smoked cigar. " I feel a little tired," he said, and 
 the words were true, although he was well aware 
 that his interview with Alma Bondurant had 
 stirred depths in him which sleep was not des- 
 tined quickly to pacify. "Shall you sit up for 
 an hour or two longer and read ? " he continued 
 to Carolan. " I suspect that is your intention." 
 
 "Well . .yes . . perhaps," Carolan replied ; and 
 a few seconds later, when Brockholst had left the 
 room and was clearly heard by him ascending the 
 stairs, he wondered just what reply he had really 
 given. 
 
188 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 And then, in another instant, he sprang up 
 from his chair, caught the copy of " Rachel Rand," 
 and had soon torn both its leaves and binding 
 into almost unrecognizable fragments, holding the 
 book over a waste-basket while he thus mutilated 
 it. 
 
 A sense of how utterly futile was this act tor- 
 mented him during its brief accomplishment. His 
 pillow that night was visited with far less of 
 sleep than Brockholst's, for all that the latter had 
 memories of past pain to haunt him. Carolan 
 felt a fierce antagonism against the man who had 
 thus dawned suddenly upon' the scene of his pro- 
 posed triumph. Before dawn it was hostility that 
 had blackened into hatred, since fear was not the 
 least of the bitter agencies that fed it. When the 
 truth transpired, as now there seemed no preven- 
 tive against its promptly and inevitably doing, 
 Coggeshal's bruited guilt must of necessity smirch 
 himself. Almost cursefuUy he already found his 
 thoughts dwelling upon Brockholst. Had not 
 this favorite of destiny, with his thousands a year 
 and his command of nearly every mundane pleas- 
 ure, some less horrid office to fill than that of 
 tearing Isabel out of his own future? For that 
 was what a simple glance at the stolen book 
 by Andreas Chadwick's nephew must, in ruining 
 Coggeshal, certainly effect. Suppose that he even 
 forgave Coggeshal, through pity for his family — 
 or solely through pity for the very daughter whom 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 189 
 
 he had just met and liked. Where, even in that 
 juncture, would Cardan's hope remain tangible ? 
 Would not such a merciful attitude on Brockholst's 
 part make the man who had been an abettor in 
 the crime if not a committer of it, powerless to 
 assume any other rfile except that of grateful 
 escape ? It could be no longer he himself saving 
 Isabel on his own terms — to put the matter with 
 a brutality that now but faintly resembled the old 
 theatrical glamour by which it was before en- 
 veloped ; it would be Brockholst saving her on his 
 own terms, through leniency to both criminal and 
 accomplice. And he, Carolan, had unquestionably 
 been the last. Under no circumstances would 
 Brockholst, learning just who had had the custody 
 of his uncle's papers, take any less austere view. 
 
 Meanwhile the distressed and thwarted plotter 
 had concluded that to inform Coggeshal of his own 
 danger would be worse than folly. Who could 
 say what precipitate confession he would then 
 make, and thus disregard the sole happy contin- 
 gency that Brockholst might never read the book 
 at all? His reading of it might fail to occur. 
 True, a single effort toward securing that end 
 , might hasten the dreaded opposite, and yet there 
 was one method which could harmlessly be 
 employed. 
 
 Carolan possessed four or five of Coggeshal's 
 authentic novels. Their perusal had bored him 
 more than a little, since he was unable to win 
 
190 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 pleasure from the evident purity of their art, and 
 found in their repose, their lack of surface-glit- 
 ter, a monotony which wiser critics would by no 
 means have condemned. But Carolan was no 
 critic at all, except where grace and color and 
 sparkle were concerned, and his favorite novelist 
 was one who makes all his characters talk with an 
 equal dash of epigram and locates them all amid 
 surroundings of an equal attraction. This morn- 
 ing he had risen at quite an early hour, and spent 
 considerable time before breakfast in marking cer- 
 tain passages of two novels by Coggeshal which 
 he considered least insufferably dull. He knew 
 the fascination that a marked book can exert over 
 most readers. Taking for granted that Brockholst 
 would pronounce both these volumes as stupid as 
 he also had done, Carolan nevertheless clung to 
 the straw-like hope that his employer's kinsman 
 would be delayed by an examination of them from 
 immediately procuring " Rachel Rand." And such 
 delay might mean indefinite procrastination ; who 
 could truly prophesy that it would not so mean ? 
 Then, a mere glance at his own story would not 
 assure Brockholst of the lie used. Every name 
 of every personage had been changed, and he 
 must give more than a superficial glance at the 
 work, after all these years, for the sheath of de- 
 ceit now wrapping it to fall apart under his 
 scrutiny. 
 
 Carolan sent the two books to Brockholst's room, 
 
Tnn HOUSE AT HIGH BJtIDGE. 191 
 
 and then took his solitary breakfast with an appe- 
 tite none the better for worriment and trepidation. 
 He had scarcely got through his meal when Mr. 
 Chadwick's bell rang. He went iip-stairs with 
 more briskness than spurred his usual obedience to 
 the summons; impending duties would perhaps 
 partially benumb him as regarded the menace of 
 near events. 
 
 Mr. Chadwick had to be put into his flowered 
 dressing-gown, with various menial acts of service 
 before such result was reached. No one but Caro- 
 lan could perform these requirements, and even as 
 the adept he was tacitly esteemed scarcely any- 
 thing that he did went unassailed by a turbid 
 flow of peevishness. But after the invalid had 
 been placed in his chair near a window that looked 
 upon the sightly, drab-tinted arches of High 
 Bridge, with their undulate and sylvan stretch of 
 intermediate country, and had got his slice of 
 toast and his cup of cocoa, he was nearly always 
 in a much milder humor. Then, as this morning, 
 he would commence to babble his irrelevancies, 
 his vagaries, \as,fade reminiscences, his errant and 
 fortuitous impressions, between the sips of the 
 cocoa and the nibbled morsels of the toast. 
 
 " Bless my soul," he now began, with the little 
 nodding of his bare, pink, glazed head, at either 
 of whose temples bushed forth a tuft of hair as 
 white as carded wool, " I'm very glad that Lloyd 
 has come back from Europe — .very glad indeed . . 
 
192 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Isn't that toast rather tough this morning ? and the 
 butter . . are you sure it's real Philadelphia but- 
 ter ? That was what I always had at the Metro- 
 politan Club — nice Philadelphia butter. They 
 had it there to perfection . . I remember when 
 the butter in New York was all bad — as bad, 
 bless my soul, as could possibly be ! That was an 
 age ago, though, 'way back in Eighteen-Fifty-One. 
 No, I'm inclined to think it was a good deal earlier. 
 None of the best New York people knew how to 
 eat. I taught 'em, Carolan." (He always remem- 
 bered Carolan's name, though there was scarcely 
 a single other which he could infallibly recall.) 
 "It was after I first came back from Europe. 
 You're good at figures; you can calculate how 
 long ago it is between the year Thirty-Four and 
 now. . What a voyage home I had, that first 
 time ! Forty days from . . from Southpool. . . 
 No, bless my soul, not quite so long as that, 
 was it ? And is it Southpool ? ' Yes — no. Is it, 
 Carolan?" 
 
 " Liverpool," said Carolan, officially and per- 
 functorily. He had done this sort of thing so 
 many times before ; it was such an old story to 
 him. This morning he perhaps did it with less 
 than his habitual languor. The end of all associa- 
 tion with Andreas Chadwick, as either valet, see^ 
 retary or counsellor, seemed now so imminent an 
 event ! 
 
 "Oh, yes — Liverpool. Bless my soul, I hope 
 
THE HOUSE AT IIIGII lililDGE. 193 
 
 rm not losing my memory! No, it was only a 
 slip. We're all liable to a slip. Isn't that so, 
 Carolan? A slip of . .of the tongue — that's it. 
 Is slip of the tongue right, or slip of the pea — 
 which?" 
 
 " Both, sir." 
 
 " Both, eh ? " He laughed a wheezy, rasping 
 laugh, that seemed the very burnt-out embers of 
 all human mirth. His profile, seen sharp against 
 the lucid window, had a forlorn, shattered-looking 
 beauty. He had once been very handsome ; the 
 contour of 'his shrivelled profile, where not a ves- 
 tige of whisker or moustache lingered, still told of 
 its vanished aquiline delicacy. A flower had been 
 put into the button-hole of his dressing-gown, a 
 few inches from his wrinkled, attenuated chin ; it 
 was one of his vassal's regular tasks alwaj's to put 
 that flower there ; he would have been inconsola- 
 ble without it; his cocoa and toast would have 
 tasted ill to him unless he had been decked with 
 it. 
 
 " Both right," he went on, nodding, and laugh- 
 ing deep down in his throat. " Trust me for 
 memory. I only wish my legs were as strong as 
 my head. I'd like to stroll about more; I'd like 
 to take a walk in Broadway, and cross over from 
 Bowling Green to the Battery, and see all the 
 pretty girls there of an afternoon , . Bless my soul, 
 how I used to flirt with 'em, Carolan ! There was 
 Eliza Van Corlear ; they said we'd make a match. 
 
194 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 But it fell out — and all through that trouble 
 about the Trinity Church pew. You see, her 
 father, old Peter Van Corlear, had rented — But 
 never mind about the Van Corlear pew in Trinity. 
 I'm sick and tired of that story ; everybody is, 
 by this time ; ain't you, Carolan ? Oh, I forgot ; 
 you ! you ! why, how I'm a - wandering ! You 
 must have been a baby over in Ireland, then, if 
 you was born at all. . What was I saying be- 
 fore that? What . . what . . er . . was I talk- 
 ing about? Bless my soul if I . . er . . just 
 recollect." 
 
 "You spoke of your toast being tough, sir," said 
 Carolan, with less than his ordinary mechanical 
 phlegm. He was thinking how soon all image of 
 this pathetic and ridiculous old man might be laid 
 among the shadows of his own past. " And you 
 said, sir, that people here in town didn't really 
 know about eating till you taught them." 
 
 "Oh . . ah . . yes . . did I say that? Well, 
 bless my soul, it's true. They used to dine on 
 chops and steaks at two o'clock. I showed 'em 
 what a late dinner was, with a nice, clear soup 
 and a little good claret. That was before the 
 Metropolitan Club came 'way up town into Fifth 
 Avenue — bless my soul, yes! And then, you 
 see, society got changing. Folks popped up as 
 nabobs that nobody'd ever heard of before. We 
 old Knickerbockers made a stand — yes, we did ! 
 We wouldn't have 'em, and we didn't have 'em. 
 
THE HOUSE AT IIIGH BRIDGE. 195 
 
 Mrs. Bleecker Houston — Mary Van Courtlandt 
 that was — she just sifted right and left, and I 
 helped her sift, too. Bless me, if I didn't ! She 
 gave a party, and didn't invite one of the upstart 
 folks. They were mad as hornets, but we didn't 
 care. There wasn't any . . any Wall Street to 
 speak of then. Lots of new folks got in that way 
 ... I was a middle-aged man when we Knicker- 
 bockers took our stand and made our fight, but 
 afterward I quit the whole damned business. 
 They said I was a purse-proud snob; I didn't 
 like that, when I heard it, and my gout was 
 beginning about that time, and Maria Bleecker — 
 she was Maria Houston before she married — had 
 gone off quite suddenly, and I . . I pulled in my 
 horns and didn't care any more. I let the new 
 folks have their own way. They had it, too. 
 They've got it now, I suppose. There's hardly 
 any of the old stock left . . hardly a bit ! . ." 
 
 A little later Brockholst knocked at his uncle's 
 door. Carolan, while receiving him with quiet 
 courtesy, felt his very presence act like an offen- 
 sive jeer. 
 
 Mr. Chadwick welcomed his nephew with pro- 
 fuse cordiality. Brockholst had to hear lengths 
 of voluminous discourse about his parents' past 
 life and that of half his relations, before he found 
 himself enabled to ask with any surety of being 
 heeded : 
 
 " Uncle Andreas, do you recall my once having 
 
196 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 written a novel, which I left with you just as I 
 was going to Europe the last time ? It was a love- 
 story, you know, and I told you to look it over, if 
 you cared to do that, and if not to save it for me 
 among your papers, so that 1 might have the sober 
 fun at some future day of seeing what buncombe 
 I'd been guilty of in my earlier manhood. Do 
 you remember, uncle Andreas ? " 
 
 He stood beside his uncle's chair as be thus 
 spoke, with one hand resting on the old man's 
 thin, frail shoulder. Mr. Chadwick looked up 
 into his nephew's clear, healthful eyes with his 
 own of so hazy and faded a blue. Then he slowly 
 shook his head. " No, my boy," he answered, hesi- 
 tatingly and with a little quiver or two of his 
 pale lips that signified qualms of dismay. " Bless 
 my soul, Lloyd, you — you don't mean I've for- 
 gotten a thing like that ! I sometimes do wonder 
 if my head isn't at times a little bit cloudy. But 
 Carolan says not, don't you, Carolan ? " Here he 
 looked up again, very wistfully, and with what 
 seemed to his nephew a world of involuntary self- 
 pity. " Now and then," he went on, " those old 
 days do seem all jumbled together, as might be 
 said — like things we've dreamed about and yet 
 can't quite remember." He drooped his head and 
 tapped one of his temples with one withered and 
 veiny hand: " A novel of yours . . a love-story . . 
 Lydia's son, Lloyd, wrote it . . now it seems to 
 me as if I did recollect something about your put- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 197 
 
 ting it in my charge." He glanced up suddenly, 
 with a spark pricking tinily the filmed, murky 
 color of his eyes. "It was written in French, 
 wasn't it ? " 
 
 But meanwhile Carolan had managed to catch 
 the glance of Brockholst and had made him a 
 quick, admonitory duo of gestures, first touching 
 his own forehead and then sleepily drooping his 
 lids. Brockholst at once understood that he 
 meant these efforts of memory might bring about 
 injurious fatigue. 
 
 " Never mind bothering yourself with the mat- 
 ter at all, uncle," he said in the most gently 
 soothing tones, which still carefully avoided any 
 of that overt compassion so especially disliked, 
 sometimes, by the old when ill. " It really isn't 
 of the least consequence. Mr. Carolan will let 
 me. rummage among your old papers, no doubt, 
 and there I may find my youthful scroll." He 
 now turned to Carolan. "You'll aid me in the 
 search, will you not ? " he asked, smiling. 
 
 " Certainly," said Carolan. 
 
 Not long afterward he conducted Brockholst 
 to the attic, where two large chests were, in one 
 of which had been found the manuscript its author 
 had so lightly and unsuspectingly mentioned. 
 
 " I don't think you will come across anything 
 of that kind here," he told Mr. Chadwick's 
 nephew, with his tones very steady, and schooled 
 to counterfeit thorough indifference. " It seems 
 
198 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 to me that in going over what both the chests 
 contain I would have noticed a . . work such as 
 you describe." His voice faltered a little, toward 
 the end of the last sentence, in spite of his con- 
 trol. He dared not trust himself to speak further 
 on the subject; already, perhaps, it occurred to 
 him, he had said too much. His most ordinary 
 comment might only sink him deeper in convic- 
 tion hereafter ; even the greater his coolness, his 
 freedom from the faintest perturbation, such com- 
 mand might weigh more damagingly against him 
 to-morrow. He had soon lifted both the rather 
 heavy lids, and brought from a corner one or two 
 remnants of old carpet, spreading these in front 
 of the two open chests. Then he prepared to slip 
 down-stairs in silence. 
 
 " I should know my great masterpiece the minute 
 I lighted on it," laughed Brockholst, as he set his 
 knees to the carpet with that gingerly reluctance of 
 posture by which the modern male shows his re- 
 spect for our prevalent stringencies of tailoring. 
 "It was a rather bulky mass of foolscap, and its 
 top leaf bore only the name of the romance, with 
 a modest suppression of the author's." 
 
 Carolan, standing behind him in the little hot, 
 sunlit garret, almost bit his lip till the blood 
 came. 
 
 " Did you have time to glance over either of 
 the books I sent you ? " he asked. " I suppose 
 not Mr. Brockholst." 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 199 
 
 " Oh, yes," answered Brockholst, who was now 
 peering into one of the chests, and removing doc- 
 ument, pamphlet, old newspaper, whatever came 
 first to hand , " pray excuse me for not having 
 thanked you sooner. I looked through the smaller 
 of the books, and read two or three chapters at 
 breakfast; I'm a speedy reader, you know, but 
 please acquit me of being one of those irritating 
 skimmers. I've read every word as far as I've 
 got, and I've been most agreeably surprised." 
 He paused, for a moment, and then looked over 
 his shoulder toward Carolan. "I can't explain, 
 by the by," he added, " why on earth I should 
 put it that way, never having even met Mr. 
 Coggeshal. My agreeable surprise would cer- 
 tainly strike him as a most impertinent piece of 
 patronage. But no doub't an author of his appar- 
 ent productiveness must have learned before now 
 what it is to be praised with a big pinch of conde- 
 scension." 
 
 " You liked what you read, then ? " 
 " Oh, yes ; decidedly." Brockholst had re-begun 
 his quest. " The man writes with ease and style. 
 I should say, however, that it was for old heads 
 rather than young ones, and for quiet tastes in 
 fiction rather than the cravers after sharp excite- 
 ments. Yes, he pleases me so far ; he has studied 
 good modelsi Of course, I don't know yet how 
 he deals with character, but he certainly impresses 
 me as promising well." 
 
200 THE BOUSE AT EIGB BBTDGE. 
 
 Carolan left tlie attic soon afterward, saying 
 that he had some affairs requiring attention below. 
 In less than an hour Brockholst joined him, and 
 of coiirse announced that his search had been a 
 failure. "But it's not of the slightest conse- 
 quence," he continued. " Those are all of uncle 
 Andreas's papers that you know about, by the 
 way ? " 
 
 " Yes, all," said Carolan, feeling how this false- 
 hood might tell against him when the crash came 
 — if it did come. 
 
 Brockholst took out his watch, saying with a 
 dry hint of fun that he feared his ardor to gaze on 
 the fruit of his perished youtli might make him 
 late for an appointment with his lawyer ; and im- 
 mediately he passed out on the High Bridge road- 
 side, now almost as breezy as it had yesterday been 
 breathless. His walk to the station of the Ele- 
 vated Road soon brought him in front of the 
 Coggeshals' house. No face was at any of its 
 windows, though all were open, and at some of 
 them he saw the loops of muslin curtains swaying 
 in the pleasant wind. He thought of Isabel's 
 sweet face, and would have liked to see her just 
 then and exchange a bow with her. His would 
 have been an affable bow: perhaps if she had 
 been on the porch he would have stopped at the 
 gate, regardless of that legal appointment, and ex- 
 changed a few words with her as well. Such an 
 occurrence, imagined swiftly during his progress 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 201 
 
 past the house, took most welcome hues, and van- 
 ished from fancy with a little touch of genuine 
 disappointment. 
 
 But Isabel was at that moment with her father 
 in his study. She was looking at him, too, with 
 shocked surprise, for he had just said something 
 which to her judgment warranted both surprise 
 and annoyance. 
 
 "Mr. Carolan, papa!" she was exclaiming. 
 " You can't be serious ! " 
 
 "I am serious," replied Coggeshal. "You 
 might care for a very much worse man, pray let 
 me tell you." 
 
 "But I don't care for him the least in the 
 world ! " asserted Isabel, with her best maidenly 
 haughtiness. 
 
 Coggeshal shrugged his shoulders. He had 
 shifted his position several times since his conver- 
 sation with Isabel had begun, and he was now 
 erect, looking out on the rear enclosure, where the 
 red turrets of the hollyhocks trembled in th^ 
 breeze and the bright disks of the marigolds had 
 got a new burnish from the altered weather. It 
 was a day to lift heavy spirits, with its movement 
 and shine after the lethargy and dimness of yes- 
 terday. But it had not lifted the spirits of 
 Coggeshal. Something had occurred to him, dur- 
 that talk there in the starlight, which made him 
 proof against all barometric enlivenments. He 
 turned to Isabel as she spoke those last words, 
 
202 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 and there was a light of disapproval playing 
 coldly in his eyes and seeming to reflect its harsh- 
 ness into the very crevice of his closed lips. The 
 girl drew several steps back from him without 
 consciousness of the recoil. But her father saw it 
 very plainly, and it did not seem at all to please 
 him. 
 
 " Oh, build your matrimonial castles if you 
 will," he said, with a laugh that rang almost cyni- 
 cally to Isabel's hurt ears. " When you're a 
 Spinster of forty-five, my dear, you'll see the full 
 value of such airy architecture ! " 
 
 Isabel felt the mist rise in her sight as her heart 
 sank. These words were so unlike her father! 
 She swallowed her gathering tears bravely, though, 
 and said with what seemed only the heat of vexa- 
 tion: 
 
 "I never built any matrimonial castles, papa, 
 and you know it. I never feared to be a spinster 
 at forty-five, or at any other age. Indeed, I've 
 always said, since I began really to reflect on 
 this subject, that if marriage were not made 
 the be-all and end-all of a girl's existence she 
 might find time to think of many other things 
 quite as essential to her real happiness. . How- 
 ever, that does not concern my relations to Mr. 
 Carolan in the slightest degree ; for the idea of 
 my marrying Mm never even remotely entered my 
 brain, and never would have entered it, if you had 
 not burst it upon me, just now, to my piercing 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 203 
 
 amazement. Not," pursued Isabel, a little wildly 
 and unsettledly, " that I dislike him in the least. 
 I" — 
 
 " Evidently you like him very much ! " broke in 
 her father, as if to himself now, still staring out of 
 the window in sombre reverie. 
 
 " No — not that I dislike him in the least, papa. 
 But he falls wholly beneath any ideal that I could 
 possibly have ! " 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 The little word, spoken by her father with a 
 slow, latent belligerence, cut her to the heart. He 
 had never been like tliis to her of old. He had 
 always brimmed toward her with tenderness, pro- 
 tectiveness and sympathy. She turned pale, now, 
 and went iip much closer to him. 
 
 " Papa," she began, " you told me a short time 
 ago that you thought Mr. Carolan liked me — 
 ■ that he had said to you he liked me. Did he say 
 also that he wanted to marry me ? " 
 
 " He said something not very far away from 
 it." 
 
 "But did he say If.?" 
 
 "Well . . yes." 
 
 Isabel's eyes swept her father's face in a dubi- 
 ous, puzzled, startled manner. " And you ? " she 
 murmured. "Papa, what answer did you give 
 him ? " 
 
 Coggeshal met her anxious and imperative gaze 
 with one that was vacillating and evasive ; but 
 
204 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 the sternness still lingered about his lips as he 
 replied : 
 
 " I told him to plead his own suit. That is 
 always the best answer in such cases." 
 
 " Did you say that, papa ? " cried Isabel. " Did 
 you tell him that, when you knew — ? " She sud- 
 denly paused, but the penetration of her look was 
 now more reproachful while it was equally keen. 
 
 " Knew what ? " he asked. 
 
 " Never mind," she faltered, turning away and 
 walking toward the door of the study. 
 
 Coggeshal dropped into the seat beside his desk. 
 "You might just as well not pose impossible 
 questions to me," he exclaimed, with what he 
 meant to pass for a grim candor. " Carolan cer- 
 tainly doesn't insult you by wanting to marry you. 
 I think I am as good a judge on that point as you 
 are, Isabel." He raised both hands, and waved 
 them before him in a nervously scornful fasliion.' 
 "Act as you please, however. Treat, him with 
 your best contempt if you think he has ever done 
 any thing to merit it . . There, I shall not speak 
 another word on the subject." 
 
 Isabel remained scanning his face for several 
 moments. Then, as if stirred by a very impetuos- 
 ity of feeling, she came with haste toward him till 
 she stood close at his side. She placed a hand on 
 either of his shoulders and peered into his 
 features. 
 
 " You are so changed ! " she cried. " You are 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 205 
 
 different in every way from what you once were ! 
 You would not have spoken to me like this a few 
 weeks ago ! And lately you have done much, you 
 have said much, papa, that I could not account 
 for ! Haven't we talked together, before now, of 
 — of this Bourke Carolan ? Is he to be any rea- 
 son why we shouldn't remain the dear, devoted 
 friends we've always been ? Have you meant, all 
 this time, papa, that you were sorry I thought him 
 light and — and insincere ? Do answer me ! Do 
 answer me as you know I want you to answer ! 
 Don't look at me in that cold way ! If he — if 
 that man — has . . has got any power over you, 
 papa, why, tell me — tell me all — and I . . ." He 
 pushed her from him, and as he did so his face 
 was more angry than she had ever seen it. 
 
 "Any power over me," she heard his lips repeat, 
 in a half-whisper. But at once he spoke aloud. 
 
 " You talk as if you were crazed, Isabel — or as 
 if I were." He was still seated, and the chair he 
 had taken was the easy-wheeling one that fi-onted 
 his desk. He made his body swerve routid in it, 
 and went on speaking while he seized a pen from 
 the desk and dipped it into his inkstand. " I 
 have my work to do. Don't stay any longer — 
 you'U disturb me. And cut Carolan dead the next 
 time you meet him, if you think best. . There, 
 now, my child, I told you I would not speak an- 
 other word on the subject, and I've done so. But 
 this, I promise you, is my last ! " 
 
206 THE HOUSE AT BIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 His face was averted from her as he bent over 
 the desk. He waved dismissal to her with one 
 hand. Soon afterward he heard her leave the 
 room. When certain that she had closed the door 
 behind her, he rose, and with tremulous lips and 
 an attitude of entire dejection, murmured louder 
 than his disarray permitted him to know : " Poor 
 Isabel ? How nearly right the girl's love for me 
 made her guess ! " Then he slipped toward the 
 door, in act to lock it. 
 
 But Isabel, her heart sick with longing to learn 
 more than she had learned, was lingering in bitter 
 concern at the outer threshold. And those few 
 words, uttered aloud by her father, had reached her 
 ears. 
 
 'It is Carolan,' she thought, gliding away. 
 ' He would never have spoken to me like that 
 without some reason. There has been a mystery, 
 a secret, from the first ; and I believe now that 
 Carolan is behind it all.' 
 
 Isabel did not realize what a cogent human force 
 she might suddenly have become, in thus silently 
 avowing herself a woman with a secret which she 
 desired eagerly to discover. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 207 
 
 IX. 
 
 The next few hours of the day were for Isabel 
 big with social requirements. Clarry Coulter, by 
 some particular leniency of his employers at the 
 bank, had obtained the rare boon of a day's release. 
 His betrothed had conceived the idea of "enter- 
 taining " his mother and sister at luncheon. Sa- 
 die looked upon this feast as an affair of ritual 
 in|fressiveness. It was to be episodical, com- 
 memorative ; it was to record the alliance of two 
 families, not socially equal, but now bonded by the 
 mutually approved terms of graciousness from one 
 and deference from the other. 
 
 The Coulters, mother and daughter, were pre- 
 pared to exhibit a good deal of solid deference. 
 Mrs. Coulter had an impassioned regard for both 
 her children. She thought the beauty of her 
 daughter, Lauretta, angelical, and that of her son, 
 Clarence, phenomenal. The virtues of both were 
 to her extraordinary ; this adoring mother was 
 never tired of mingling rosy encomium with the 
 most every-day accounts of their doings. "My 
 Clarry " and " my Retta " could not walk a mile, 
 so to speak, but they were accredited by their 
 
208 THE HOUSE AT IIIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 mother with marvellous endurance or exceptional 
 speed in a journey of ten. If Retta danced at 
 an evening entertainment (of which there were 
 a forlorn few during the winter months at High 
 Bridge) some enraptured male was sure to re- 
 mark in Mrs. Coulter's hearing that "the young 
 lady with the dark eyes that flashed so was 
 the most elegant lady-dancer he had ever seen," 
 — or something similarly rich in its eulogy. 
 If Clarry accompanied his mother and sister to 
 church of a Sunday morning (which it cannot be 
 chronicled of even so model a son and brother 
 that he infallibly did) somebody was almost cer- 
 tain to pronounce him " stylish-looking as he could 
 be" or "a real lady-killer," within the distinct 
 hearing of his mother. It may have been that 
 this all-comprehending maternal regard had its 
 own airy familiars who whispered to her these 
 praises of her pets, and that apart from such 
 imaginative authority the loving lady had none 
 whatever for the statements made regarding her 
 progeny. And if this were true it is only addi- 
 tional proof of how hardy and flourishing had 
 always been the stems and leaves of her really 
 splendid optimism. Many another woman would 
 long ago have sunk in hopeless collapse under 
 that relentless continuance of troubles which had 
 left her still young and not seldom merry-hearted 
 as well. But Mrs. Coulter had preserved an in- 
 variable buoyancy against all the pressures of 
 
TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 209 
 
 calamity. She had been the literal sport and 
 butt of a husband who had married her with 
 protestations of deceit, and who had finally aban- 
 doned her, to die as a debauchee, shot in a Chicago 
 gambling-hell under conditions of glaring shame. 
 But she had never lost her clinging tenderness for 
 her dead lord. He had been mislead ; he was not 
 half so bad as he had seemed ; he had not deserted 
 her except with an idea of coming back wealthy 
 from his mining-schemes in Nevada. Meanwhile 
 she would have starved under such desertion but 
 for the aid of a more prosperously married sister, 
 who had aided her with more calculation than 
 promptitude. But Mrs. Nevins, who had married 
 a ready-made-clothing tailor of striking enterprise, 
 and who occupied a narrow but very ornate brown- 
 stone residence in One-Hundred-and-Sixth Street, 
 not far from Third Avenue, was to the eyes of 
 Mrs. Coulter a source of perpetual rebuke. Not 
 that she ever told her sister, Susan, how very dif- 
 ferent it might have been if their positions were 
 reversed. Oh, no — indeed no ! "I would rather 
 bite my tongue off than let Susan know what I 
 feel" Mrs. Coulter had more than once averred. 
 This was before " my Clarry " grew up and got 
 into his present place at the bank. By about the 
 same time Retta had developed a talent for those 
 kinds of effective needle-craft which the shops 
 were willing to purchase. Now, with very much 
 less help from her luckier sister, Mrs. Coulter was 
 
210 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 enabled to preside over her modest but proudly 
 genteel little household. And she exulted in her 
 present dearly-bought security. She had not for 
 years had any thing half so solvent, so serene, so 
 unvexed. No souvenirs of financial embarrassment 
 ever haunted her. She was getting along fa- 
 mously, and had everything on earth to be thank- 
 ful for. She was exceedingly pious, having long 
 ago become a convert to the Baptist Church. She 
 often openly wondered how anybody could for an 
 instant doubt the great goodness of God. She 
 was very easily moved to tears by anything which 
 seemed to her "affecting" in a sermon, but al- 
 though she had been known to sob audibly in her 
 pew-seat over the eloquence of her High Bridge 
 pastor, she had always managed to see — through 
 her blinding tears, as it were — the last tasteful 
 novelty in a fellow-worshipper's bonnet or gown. 
 She was by no means insincere ; her heart bounded 
 with sympathy at a tale of suffering, and her aid 
 was ready at the least call of those whom it could 
 profit. She had often sacrificed her rest in the 
 nursing of the sick, and there were few humane 
 tasks whicli she had ever dreamed of shirking, if 
 once clearly convinced that no better hands than 
 hers could perform them. But with all her in- 
 trinsic goodness and sweetness of soul, she was 
 outwardly clad in artificiality and pretension. 
 She aspired as much to beam and tower in the 
 little world where circumstance had set her, as 
 
THE HOUSE AT TIIGE BRIDGE. 211 
 
 if she had been some leader of society in Fifth 
 or Madison avenues, with power by a nod of the 
 head to let X — , Y — or Z — obtain a card for the 
 next select meeting of Delmonico "Patriarchs" 
 or " Assemblies." Indeed, wherever she was, there 
 lay her social vantage-ground. She wanted to be 
 a great person in the little village-like place where 
 destiny had now drifted her, just as much as if 
 she had found it her right to be a great person 
 under conditions of the most patrician emjpresse- 
 ment elsewhere. 
 
 She thought Clarry's engagement a very honor- 
 ing event, and she carried her head higher for 
 several days on account of it. She could not 
 endure Mr. Herbert Coggeshal's novels (and she 
 was both a reader and a lover- of certain novels) 
 until she felt assured that Clarry was really to 
 wed Sadie. Then she not only read every line 
 Coggeshal had written, but declared vehemently 
 that its author was a master of his craft. " Rachel 
 Rand " amazed her by the popularity it had won. 
 Oh, yes! The others were so much "deeper," and 
 full of such "beautiful language " I She made her 
 daughter read the works likewise, and then at 
 once gave out, among the little pseudo-aristocracy 
 which she had created for herself in the neighbor- 
 hood, that Retta thought Mr. Coggeshal the great- 
 est author anjrwhere to be found. Retta, like 
 herself, secretly preferred such tales as those of 
 Mrs. May Agnes Fleming ; but to thrill over the 
 
212 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 anguish of Olivia the Deserted or Constantia the 
 Bride of an Hour was a very different thing from 
 having " our Clarry " become the husband of the 
 daughter of a highly intellectual man. Clarry had 
 never eared for May Agnes Fleming's productions. 
 He had thus far, with his mild cult for Thackeray 
 and George Eliot, represented a kind of literary 
 undiscovered country to his mother and sister. 
 
 Mrs. Coulter had been perfectly candid with 
 Isabel on their first meeting. Isabel was the 
 " smart sister " whom Clarry had spoken of, and 
 since the engagement was now a fait accompli, 
 Clarry's mother saw no reason why candor should 
 be at all evaded. 
 
 " Nobody in High Bridge knows we're poor," 
 she had said to Isabel. She rolled her handsome 
 eyes — still so full of luminance, as they beamed 
 from her small, fine-featured face — toward this 
 other highly intellectual member of the Cogge- 
 shal family. " We are poor. Miss Coggeshal, but 
 nobody knows it ! I won't keep any thing from 
 you, now. Not that we're ever necessiated. Still 
 whatever good appearance we make is on very 
 little. Oh, yes, very. But we do make it, and 
 I suppose you're glad to hear that there's nobody 
 in High Bridge who thinks we're not very well 
 off indeed." 
 
 Isabel had expressed no delight at all at this 
 intelligence, but Mrs. Coulter had continued con- 
 fidentially : 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 213 
 
 "Why, last week, Mrs. Delahanty dropped in 
 one morning. You may know Mrs. Delahanty ; 
 she lives a little way up on the hiLl, in that pink 
 house with the blue shades. The Delahantys are 
 very fine people indeed. Se^s in the hardware- 
 business." This was said as grandly as if it had 
 been : " He's a partner of Brown Brothers, the 
 Wall Street bankers." " I asked Mrs. Delahanty 
 to stay to lunch. She's a superb-looking elderly 
 lady ; we got acquainted with her at church ; she 
 was a . . a Miss Smith of Hoboken, you know; 
 the Smiths (or Schmitts, I believe you should call 
 them — they're of German descent) have a large 
 brewery there. She wears her hair in two big 
 gray puffs, and gets all her dresses made down at 
 the city. . Well I asked Mrs. Delahanty to stay 
 to lunch, without actually thinking that we had 
 nothing much in the house but some cold ham and 
 stewed prunes. When she accepted I felt real 
 frightened ; you know how you do get feeling. 
 But I just slipped away for a few minutes and left 
 her with Retta, and went down into the kitchen, 
 and knocked up a pan of sponge-cake, and put it 
 into the oven. Then I came back, and Retta, she 
 slipped off and saw that the cake didn't burn or 
 any thing, and at lunch our Jane served it nice and 
 hot, and Mrs. Delahanty — why, she eat three 
 pieces and said it was light as a feather and melted 
 in her mouth. I gave our Jane the wink (she's 
 as 'cute a girl as you ever saw) and "Oh, yes, 
 
214 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 ma'am," said Jane, speaking to me, as meek as 
 Moses, " I hadi very good luck to-day." Now I 
 feel sure that Mrs. Delahanty believes we have 
 sponge-cake nearly all the time. Poor ! Why she 
 don't dream we are ! " 
 
 " I can't help being sorry," Isabel had answered, 
 " that you should have been troubled by putting 
 forth any effort to conceal your poverty. It cer- 
 tainly isn't a thing to be ashamed of, Mrs. Coulter. 
 And you must let me tell you that I can't think 
 w'hat you have possibly gained by seeking to hide 
 it." 
 
 These, and a few similar remarks on the part of 
 Isabel, had made Retta say to her mother, after 
 the first interview with Sadie's sister had ended : 
 "Well, dear me! Where's Queen Victoria now, 
 ma, Fd like to know ! " 
 
 " I don't believe. Ret," said Mrs. Coulter, with 
 oracular gravity, " that she's really stuck up. It's 
 only a way. Some people have it. They get it 
 by going to Europe sometimes." 
 
 " Well!" declared Retta, who had a blooming 
 face and a luxuriously moulded figure, and whose 
 beaux in High Bridge were already numerous not 
 to say ardent. " I think I never saw a girl give 
 herself more airs ! Why, Sadie said we wouldn't 
 like her much, perhaps, at first; but I guess I 
 won't like such a high and mighty piece as she is 
 any more to-morrow than I do to-day ! " 
 
 Sadie had meanwhile captivated both mother 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 215 
 
 and daughter. They thought her "just too sweet," 
 and exchanged mysterious hints of thanks that 
 "our Clarry" had chosen her instead of Isabel. 
 It seemed to both their fond hearts that if Clarry 
 had set his "bewildering eye upon Isabel she must 
 have succumbed just as Sadie had done. 
 
 The invitation to luncheon was an affair of vast 
 importance to the whole Coulter household. Clarry 
 had secured his holiday, and Retta had her blue 
 muslin with the white-edged flounces; but Mrs. 
 Coulter had nothing to wear except her old and 
 almost painfully familiar black barege with the red 
 spots. A good many ladies would either have 
 worn the barege or else remained at home. But 
 Mrs. Coulter preferred to do neither. The dresses 
 of her sister, Mrs. Nevins, fitted her almost per- 
 fectly ; their figures were very nearly alike. Two 
 or three days before the Coggeshal luncheon Mrs. 
 Coulter called on " Sister Susan," and with a 
 gradual crescendo of lamentation bewailed the 
 scantiness of her wardrobe. Mrs. Nevins's mouth 
 began to take a certain hardness, as though she 
 knew quite. well what was coming. And presently, 
 with a nervous ripple of laughter, such as some 
 women will give before the utterance of something 
 for which they expect to be violently snubbed, 
 Mrs. Coulter exclaimed: "I was thinking, Susan, 
 that p'aps you might have enough pride about my 
 going over there looking all right, as to lend me 
 your lilac silk." There was an awful pause, and 
 
216 TUB ItOVB^ AT BIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 then Mrs. Coulter gave another tittering laugh, 
 and set her head sideways as if in embarrassment 
 at her own temerity. But she had made her re- 
 quest, and she had come there that day with the 
 fixed intention of making it. She was quite rec- 
 onciled to rebuff, moreover, so long as she secured 
 the loan of the lilac silk. And she did secure it, 
 though "Sister Susan" said with a mixture of 
 regret and sarcasm, after consenting to lend the 
 garment : " / don't mind, Caroline, if i/ou don't. 
 But upon my word, I should think you would." 
 
 Mrs. Coulter did not, however. She was per- 
 fectly willing to shine in borrowed finery rather 
 than not shine at all. She was just as much lack- 
 ing in the delicacy which should have laid a veto 
 upon the assumption of clothes not her own, as 
 she was endowed with virtues of amiability and 
 tenderness which often accompany the nicest re- 
 finement. She wore Mrs. Nevins's dress, and with 
 what she felt sure was a much more effective air 
 than " Sister Susan " ever could have worn it. She 
 entirely forgot that it was not hers, and indeed 
 said, during the course of the luncheon, when 
 some one spoke of how agreeably the weather had 
 changed: "Yes, it had got so much cooler by, 
 noon that I found I'd be comfortable in this silk 
 instead of something thinner." But she had 
 meant to wear the silk if the weather had been 
 tropical, all the same. 
 
 It was to Isabel a most dreary entertainment. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 217 
 
 At any other time the fictitious and spurious ele- 
 ment that she so clearly discerned in both Mrs. 
 Coulter and Lauretta would have amused her to 
 no small extent. But at present, the effect of her 
 recent talk with her father had been to bathe her 
 spirit in ominous anxiety. She had always thought 
 the intimacy with Carolan a somewhat unexplain- 
 able one. And now that her father should have 
 used words which made it seem as if he were 
 desirous of serving Carolan in this new and 
 piercingly unforeseen way, pointed with dark sug- 
 gestiveness at all those past weeks of worriment, 
 abstraction and mental gloom. Naturally Isabel 
 had imagined the one solution of financial em- 
 barrassment, and the contraction of some weighty 
 debt to the secretary of old Mr. Chadwick. But 
 her fears had already gone further ; she was ready 
 enough, somehow, to distrust Carolan 's principle 
 at a moment's notice, though unswerving as to the 
 faith which she reposed in her father's. But there 
 were such things as honesty becoming entangled 
 and involved by too rash an association with its 
 complete opposite. There might lie the whole 
 bitter kernel of the conjectured misfortune. 
 
 And yet was she not recklessly plunging into 
 shadows that her own fancy had summoned ? Her 
 father looked and acted quite cheerfully, now, 
 during the luncheon. It might all be a mere 
 effort with him, and yet he treated Mrs. Coulter 
 as if he thought her a very diverting person. As 
 
218 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 for that lady herself, she was evidently delighted 
 by the privilege of breathing his rarefied atmos- 
 phere. The quick little sips of tea which she 
 took from one of her hostess's pretty china cups 
 appeared to stimulate her like an elixir. She be- 
 came reminiscent, and perhaps pardonably menda- 
 cious. It was to her so memorable a day ! All 
 our worldly triumphs are strictly relative to our 
 environments, and what may be a mere fillet for 
 one of us will serve as a tiara for another. She 
 had never dreamed, poor woman, that "my 
 Clarry " would ally her with a family like this, 
 whose head rose majestically into the mists of 
 literary eminence. With a resolution, a dogged- 
 ness, a self-preservative instinct wholly American, 
 she had kept herself and her children unassailed 
 for years by the great calamitous wave which 
 bears so many lives out on the vast shoreless 
 ocean of utter poverty. She had clung to some- 
 thing that she both called and believed respecta- 
 bility, and she had clung in the teeth of untold 
 buffetings. The Coggeshals were very humble 
 people, from a general social point of view, and 
 ■the novelist who presided over his board to-day, 
 there in his little house at High Bridge, was a 
 gentleman who had not yet secured even that 
 meagre guerdon of distinction which our country 
 sometimes accords to her literary sons. But Mrs. 
 Coulter thought them by no means a humble fam- 
 ily. They were several rungs of the ladder higher 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 219 
 
 than herself. " Sister Susan " had waked sensibly 
 to this fact. She would never have loaned the 
 lilac silk if she had not. She had dropped a pal- 
 pable hint, too, that she would like to meet the 
 Coggeshals. Such a hint, emanant from the 
 brown-stone dignities of One-Hundred-and-Sixth 
 Street, had given Mrs. Coulter an exquisite tingle. 
 She had pretended that the hint had quite miscar- 
 ried. She was waiting for another, that she might 
 tingle again. 
 
 " I may say that I've been thrown among writ- 
 ing persons before now," she told Mrs. Coggeshal, 
 with an expressive side-glance at that lady's hus- 
 band. 
 
 "Yes?" said Mrs. Coggeshal encouragingly. 
 
 "Oh, 1/es" continued Mrs. Coulter. "Your 
 grandfather, Clarry — my own late father, as I 
 may say — used to be . . a . . in that line a good 
 deal." 
 
 " In that line a good deal " struck her as dread- 
 fully awkward, just as the expression "writing 
 persons" had done. But although "literary" 
 and " literature " were both skulking, so to speak, 
 on the outskirts of her memory, she could not 
 induce them, at this brief notice, to slip inside. 
 She was indeed in temporary doubt as to whether 
 the noun were not " literalogy," or something like 
 that, while vapors of forgetfulness wrapped the 
 adjective' altogether. 
 
 " You mean that he wrote books ? " asked Sadie, 
 
220 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 with light thrills of misgiving hurrying electrically- 
 through her ; for perhaps something might be said, 
 now, which " papa and Isabel " would think mon- 
 umentally funny; and Sadie did want things to 
 go off all right just this once. 
 
 "No, not books," reijlied Mrs. Coulter. "My 
 father used to write . . ." She paused and 
 looked at Clarry, who colored, and then at Retta, 
 who never dreamed of coloring, and thought that 
 her mother was making a very creditable appear- 
 ance indeed. " Poetical suffusions," the speaker 
 presently announced. " That was what my father 
 wrote. Gracious! I've known him to knock off 
 a long piece of poetry in just as short a time as it 
 took him to write it down." 
 
 " In an album, I suppose," said Coggeshal spec- 
 ulatively. 
 
 " Oh, yes — and anywhere ! He'd just take a 
 stray scrap of paper and do it as easy as wink. A 
 good many of the ladies in our neighborhood, when 
 we were residing in East Broadway, used to beg 
 my father for pieces of poetry." 
 
 " My ! " said Mrs. Coggeshal sociably ; " what 
 did your mother say to that ? " 
 
 " Oh, I guess he scribbled off a good many on 
 the sly ! " said Mrs. Coulter, and then the two 
 ladies put their heads together for an instant and 
 exchanged a laugh of fathomless congeniality. 
 Mrs. Coulter already felt very intimate with 
 Sadie's mother ; she had pronounced her won- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 221 
 
 drously unassuming for the wife of a celebrity; 
 she herself would have carried the relationship 
 with a much loftier head. jft' 
 
 "I presume you know how fashionable a part 
 of the city East Broadway used to be," she pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 "It's pretty shabby now, ma," smiled Retta, 
 with a timorous inflection. 
 
 "Times change things, though," said Clarry, 
 with a venturesome glance at Coggeshal, as if in- 
 secure about the solidity of this epigram. But 
 Sadie, who sat next him, swiftly confirmed its 
 excellence by a little commendatory nod. 
 
 " We resided there for a number of years," said 
 Mrs. Coulter, whose mother had kept a large 
 boarding-house there, under circumstances of 
 wearing pecuniary drawback. "My father trans- 
 acted business in a street convenient to it." 
 (This bad been Grand Street, and the " business," 
 in which he at last wofuUy failed, through recur- 
 ring spasms of intemperance, had been repre- 
 sented by a modest tobacco-shop.) " It was a 
 very tony locality then — oh, very tony indeed. 
 Several gentlemen and ladies there kept their 
 carriages and horses. But as my Clarry says, 
 times do change things. I presume I should be 
 real seared if I was to go back there now." 
 
 "I'll take you there some day," said Clarry, 
 with the manner of one who feels that a note of 
 gayety is needed to make the talk livelier. " You 
 
222 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 might find the old house turned into a liquor- 
 saloon." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Mrs. Coulter and Retta in concert, 
 with an immediate look from both of them straight 
 at Sadie, as though she would best appreciate this 
 burst of humor on the part of their son and 
 brother. 
 
 "I guess ma'd faint away if she was to see 
 that ! " declared Retta ; and Mrs. Coulter expedi- 
 tiously added : " Our old family-mansion ! Clarry, 
 you limb, you ! you don't mean it. Gracious ! it 
 would be heart-rendering to me, I can tell you, 
 after all the happy hours I've spent there ! " 
 (She had lived a life of maidenly drudgery, poor 
 harmless romancer, in that East Broadway board- 
 ing-house of her dead mother's ! ) 
 
 " Oh, never mind what he says," exclaimed Mrs. 
 Coggeshal, reaching for the empty tea-cup of ■ 
 Mrs. Coulter. And then in a whisper: " We 
 know his funning ways by this time, don't we ? " 
 
 Mrs. Coulter became radiant with mirth, and 
 nodded again and again toward her hostess. " It's 
 in him to be comical, you know ; he can't help it ; 
 his father used to be just the same." Then she 
 gave a look of tentative raillery toward Mr. Cog- 
 geshal, and at once re-addressed his wife. " But 
 it don't seem right when he's here, does it ? " 
 
 " Oh, he can take a joke as well as anybody," 
 said Mrs. Coggeshal, with another very intimate 
 nod as she poured out the tea. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 223 
 
 " Can he ? " queried Mrs. Coulter, in a murmur. 
 "Oh, he does look so like a gentleman we used 
 to know, a few years ago in Weehawken." Here 
 the murmur grew to a loud tone. " Mr. Ira B. 
 Sangster. You remember, Retta, we spoke of it 
 when we first made Mr. Coggeshal's acquaintance. 
 Oh, you resemble Mr. Sangster so much, sir ! 
 Haven't we remarked it, Retta ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," acquiesced Retta. " About the eyes 
 and forehead, ma, particu^ly." 
 
 " Mr. Sangster was a widower, sir," said Clarry, 
 experimentally, to Coggeshal, "and we used to 
 think my sister wanted to set her cap for him." 
 
 Mrs. Coggeshal and Mrs. Coulter now uttered a 
 scream of sympathetic laughter, in which Sadie 
 and Retta joined, a trifle less vociferously. 
 
 " My ! " exclaimed Mrs. Coggeshal to Mrs. 
 Coulter, as soon as quiet had come. " I'll have to 
 look out for that girl of yours, won't I ? " And 
 then there was more laughter. But Mrs. Coulter 
 was not to be deprived so soon of Ira B. Sangster 
 as an opportunity for making his importance trans- 
 pire in the light of a previous notable acquaint- 
 ance. She dilated on the subject of his having 
 been an alderman, a common-councilman, or some 
 one of that magisterial quality, with as much ve- 
 hemence as though she were stating that he had 
 been a prince of the blood. She rapidly wove 
 such a nimbus of repute and distinction about Mr. 
 Ira B. Sangster that his not being known by 
 
224 TSE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 everybody at table besides herself and her chil- 
 dren took the shape of a most regretted fact. 
 In the minds of almost all who had ever come 
 across him, Mr. Ira B. Sangster had been held 
 commonplace and a nobody. But Mrs. Coulter 
 required him, so to speak, as an aristocratic mem- 
 ory, a majestic association of the past — and that 
 was quite enough. Presto ! his pedestal was 
 ready, and he took his place upon it. 
 
 " He was such a beautiful converser," she de- 
 clared, while Mrs. Coggeshal listened with long, 
 slow, complaisant dippings of the head, having 
 discovered that no other of her tea-drinkers whose 
 cup was " out " would care to replenish it. " He 
 could talk politics so as a child could understand 
 him, and in the most elegant language! Why, 
 I've known summer evenings when our front 
 stoop, there at Weehawken, was just crowded 
 with neighbors — those I allowed myself to be on 
 calling-terms with, you understand — all listening 
 to Ira B. Sangster hold forth. Retta and Clarry, 
 will you ever forget the night we heard that Gar- 
 field had been shot ? Of course all Weehawken 
 was topsy-turvy with excitement. Ira B. came 
 out and stood on his piazza-steps. They'd asked 
 him to express his sentiments about the assassina- 
 tion. Well, he just threw his head back, and put 
 one hand into the breast of his coat — like pic- 
 tures you've seen of Daniel Webster — and then 
 the language just rolled out! Ret, do you re- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 225 
 
 member that sentence about the tears that must 
 have dropped from the angels round Gawd's 
 throne when the craven blow was struck? No, 
 that wasn't it, either. How did it go ? " 
 
 "It went kind of like that," said Retta. "It 
 was too lovely for anything." 
 
 "Clarry," appealed his mother, with a little 
 flush in both cheeks, because they were letting 
 her talk, letting her exploit herself, letting her 
 show them how much she liked " society " and 
 how she could hold her own there as well as the 
 next — "Clarry, you remember, don't you? . . 
 Oh, sakes ! He hasn't heard a word I've been 
 saying ! He and Sadie, there, have been whisper- 
 ing their pretty things together, haven't they?" 
 — with a sudden mirthful swerve toward Mrs. 
 Coggeshal : " Well, I guess we behaved just as bad 
 to our elders in our day, on'y we won't acknowl- 
 edge it now. Ain't I right, think ? " 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said the ever-sympathetic Mrs. 
 Coggeshal. " Young folks will be young, won't 
 they?" 
 
 Isabel wondered if her father were not secretly 
 chafing under all this. For her own part she 
 would not have done so in a less perplexed and 
 preoccupied state of mind. Retta Coulter had of 
 course wronged her in having pronounced her 
 even slightly arrogant. She was enough aloof 
 from Mrs. Coulter's mode of thought, action and 
 speech to see the humorous side of all three, but 
 
226 THE MOUSE AT UIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 on this account her humanity, her fellowship, her 
 feminine comprehension of how much true nature 
 underlay such foibles and educational shortcom- 
 ings, had not suffered the least abatement. The 
 Coulter ladies would have been amazed indeed if 
 they could have read her reflections just then, for 
 she was almost morbidly telling herself what a 
 rude blow would be dealt their pride in this 
 marriage of Clarry and Sadie, if some ugly scan- 
 dal were really at the root of her father's inti- 
 macy with that man, Carolan ! 
 
 She felt a great relief when the luncheon was 
 OTer. It seemed to her that her father must inev- 
 itably have felt the same. She managed to follow 
 him quite naturally out upon the porch as soon as 
 she saw him go there, while the others made a 
 little circle together in the front parlor. He was 
 standing with his hands behind him and his gaze 
 fixed on the fresh, green view of country beyond. 
 She had drawn close to his side before he knew 
 of her presence. 
 
 " Mrs. Coulter's very funny, isn't she, papa ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said. 
 
 " You might make a study of her for one of 
 your stories. I wondered, once or twice, whether 
 she would strike you in that way." 
 
 " N , . no," he said. That was all, and Isabel 
 cast a furtive, almost a piteous look at his half- 
 averted face. The pause grew, and as it grew she 
 thought of twenty commonplace thing's thct sVa 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDOE. 227 
 
 might say to break it. And at last she ventured, 
 quite abruptly, but with a good deal of tenderness : 
 
 " Papa, you're not angry with me, are you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, Isabel," he replied, not turning to look 
 at her, and with a tone that she thought. both 
 weary and haughty. 
 
 " I was wrong to speak as I did," she went on, 
 with gentle penitence. " Forgive me. But you 
 surprised me so. You know why. I — I didn't 
 think, papa, that you could . ." (she hesitated a 
 little, and then got the words out, though with a 
 strong inward aversion for them) "care to have 
 me ever marry Mm." 
 
 He turned to her then. She knew him so well 
 that she saw trouble of spirit in the look which 
 he was trying to make free from the least betrayal 
 of it. 
 
 " How could I know, myself," he said, in a much 
 softer voice, and with a sudden lifting of his 
 shoulders and both his hands, — " how could I 
 know, myself. Belle, what my feelings on the sub- 
 ject would be, until the subject, so to speak, was 
 presented? " 
 
 She bit her lip, but stealthily. " I see, papa." 
 She was sure that he now gave a rapid look 
 down into her face, though she had drooped her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Perhaps the whole idea may startle you less," 
 she heard him say, " when you've grown more used 
 to it." 
 
228 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " She felt how much she was playing a part, 
 then, and in her native sincerity hated herself for 
 playing it, as she slowly answered : 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I — I was a great deal 
 startled at first. You must have seen that." 
 
 " I did," he said, using' an eagerness that made 
 her heart beat with quickened suspicion of some 
 unguessed motive in him for just those words and 
 just that new, conciliating voice. " But I couldn't 
 help being sure. Belle, that there . . there was 
 nobody else, child." She remained impassive, and 
 he reached out his hand, taking hers. "If there 
 had been anyone else I was almost certain that I 
 must have known it." 
 
 She felt like tearing her hand away from his. 
 He pleaded for Carolan in this fashion — he ! And 
 for Carolan! When she had called the man 'his 
 friend ' in almost jocular contempt, he had never 
 even upbraided her for it. He had let it pass, as 
 a bit of natural pleasantry. There had been the 
 silent concession between them that here was a 
 character made up of three parts vapor to one of 
 substance, three parts brass to one of gold. If 
 this father of hers had not despised him outright it 
 was because he had forgotten to treat him with 
 any such weighty sort of animadversion. He had 
 merely regarded him from a good steep height of 
 superiority. If he had asked for her hand in mar- 
 riage then, how disdain would have struggled 
 with astonishment in the answer given him ! And 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 229 
 
 now he had lately won her father for his very- 
 advocate ! 
 
 " There has never been any one else, papa," said 
 Isabel, letting him keep her hand. " Of course 
 you must know that." 
 
 He played with her fingers for a few minutes. 
 His hands were feverishly hot. There was some- 
 thing positively supplicating — she might even 
 have called it wheedling, were he another — '■ about 
 the way in which he now said : 
 
 " Then why don't you make up your mind, my 
 dear, to . .to ponder this question fairly and with- 
 out prejudice ? T must tell you that I think sim- 
 ple justice requires you to take such a course . . 
 And as for what you said this morning — " He 
 broke into a laugh so full of odd tremors and 
 quavers, here, that Isabel could at first hardly 
 credit it as his own ; and then he dropped her 
 hand, doing so with an assumption of good-natured 
 repulse entirely unlike him. " You know, of course, 
 what I mean," he hurried on. " About my being 
 in — in Carolan's power. That you couldn't have 
 meant. You — you must have said it, my dear, in 
 the most stupidly random way. Come, now, con- 
 fess that you did ! " 
 
 " I did, papa," she allowed. 
 
 It was a falsehood ; but when she noted the 
 alacrity with which he stooped and put his lips to 
 her cheek — as if in grateful recognition of her 
 laconic amends — it did not seem at all the kind 
 
230 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 of falsehood for whicli conscience must reserve 
 any future scourge. 
 
 ' He says he told that man to plead his own 
 suit,' was now speeding through Isabel's thoughts. 
 ' I mean to let him ! ' 
 
TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 231 
 
 Brockholst kept his resolve, that evening. He 
 called, and was shown into the little front parlor, 
 where Coggeshal was seated beside the low light, 
 seeming as if he read from a magazine, and Isabel 
 was pretending to hear respectfully the rather ful- 
 some panegyrics which both Sadie and her mother 
 delivered upon Mrs. Coulter and Lauretta. It 
 amused Isabel to remark the challenge toward 
 herself in her mother's and Sadie's tones. The 
 domestic air was evidently pulsating with mild 
 prophecies of rebellion. It had been taken for 
 granted, past doubt, that Isabel would have some 
 decidedly opposite attitude to assume, or at least 
 some distinct little vantage-ground of adverse 
 opinion. She felt even more amused, after a 
 while, to observe the curious effect of disappoint- 
 ment created by her own reticence. 
 
 'Am I so hard a critic?' the girl asked her- 
 self, as the small purling current of eulogy flowed 
 on. And a sort of pang assailed her as she pres- 
 ently thought of how, at a moment when her 
 vicious contradictory tendencies were in better 
 workuig-order, she might have flatly refused to 
 
232 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 hear either Mrs. Coulter or Lauretta so beautifully 
 rhapsodized over. 
 
 " Belle, of course," Mrs. Coggeshal had at last 
 said, with a direct attack upon the masked foe, 
 " mai/ think that neither of them is just up to 
 what she calls the right style." 
 
 " Right style ? " murmured Sadie, with a provoc- 
 ative meekness entirely her own. She concealed 
 a yawn. She was tired, and sat in one of her most 
 reposeful postures against the cushioned end of a 
 sofa. The exigencies of the luncheon, with Clarry 
 there to whisper at incidentally and a great deal 
 of Clarry for the interchange of adoring remarks 
 afterward, had made demands upon Sadie's never 
 too vigorous nervous forces. But she was none 
 the less prepared for a skirmish with Isabel. 
 "Why, what do you mean, mamma," she added 
 lazily, "by 'right style'? I'm sure Belle hasn't 
 said any thing like that. I don't see why she 
 should." 
 
 " Neither do I," laughfed Isabel, brightening with 
 a sudden vivacity which she really felt in no mood 
 to exhibit. " But upon my word, you both of you 
 act as if you had some sort of guilty feeling about 
 my having held my tongue." 
 
 "Guiltj' feeling?" repeated Sadie, in a slug- 
 gishly affronted way, straightening herself a little 
 on the sofa and giving Isabel a full, serious 
 look. '•'■Bear! Why guilty. Belle, I should like 
 to know?" 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 233 
 
 Isabel laughed again. The little war was about 
 to begin. She never, waged battle underhandedly, 
 and both Sadie and her mother knew it — as she 
 was very well aware that they knew it. If they 
 wanted to get her opinion of the Coulters for the 
 purpose of arguing against it, she was perfectly 
 willing to meet them both fairly and stoutly, as 
 was her habit always to meet everybody. She 
 had a number of good things which she could 
 honestly say of Clarry's kinswomen, and a few 
 unfavorable ones which she could as honestly give 
 utterance to. And since she had too apparently 
 been teased, in this covert and left-handed way, 
 for the expression of a judgment, she determined 
 to air one that would be as little wounding to 
 Sadie as the bounds of candid veracity should 
 permit. 
 
 " Now you both know perfectly well," she be- 
 gan, "that you're vexed because I haven't come 
 out and said precisely what I think. And you 
 both feel irritated with me because you construe 
 my silence into censure of the Coulters. But 
 that's thoroughly unfair of you, Sadie, and of you, 
 mamma, as well. I don't like some things about 
 them. For instance — " 
 
 But the battle (if such it would indeed have 
 proved, and if the word be not ill-chosen where 
 two such loving contestants as Isabel and her 
 mother represented opposite sides) was destined 
 not to occur on that evening at least. 
 
234 THE HOUSE at high bridge. 
 
 For just then a sound of steps plainly could be 
 heard on the near porch, beyond the light sum- 
 mer blind-doors ; and immediately afterward there 
 came that wildly loud peal which a door-bell gives 
 when pulled at night in a still country-house. 
 
 It proved to be Brockholst. For a good half- 
 hour after his appearance Isabel was secretly im- 
 patient and annoyed. Sadie, who would probably 
 not have done much talking under any circum- 
 stances whatever, now showed her fatigue by 
 an almost dead silence, and a series of stares 
 which began at the visitor's head and riveted 
 themselves on various parts of his figure and 
 costume until they had reached the terminus of 
 his boots. These stares aggravated Isabel ; they 
 were so exhaustive yet so coolly and unconsciously 
 imperious; and meanw;liile (as she. was almost pre- 
 pared to state on oath) they were all the conse- 
 quence of an ardent comparative tendency which 
 became more and more gratified in its discovery 
 how totally the charms of Clarry eclipsed those of 
 Brockholst. Clarry Coulter and Lloyd Brockholst ! 
 What a chasm of difference yawned for Isabel be- 
 tween the two personalities conjured up by these 
 two names ! And that Sadie should be dull enough 
 not to properly recognize this difference, sitting 
 there with so much unconcealed observation in 
 her sleepy velvet eyes, and so much indolent 
 security about her sans gine pose, affected Isabel 
 as an irritating piece of bigotry. Her mother had 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 235 
 
 never been at all socially assertive ; slie generally 
 required to be drawn out and made much over, 
 just as Mrs. Coulter had acted toward her that 
 same day. If you liked her she invariably liked 
 you in return, but failing to find that you espe- 
 cially sought her company — she let her entire 
 individuality melt into a domestic background 
 against which the three figures of her husband 
 and her daughters rose with separate phases of 
 distinctness. 
 
 Isabel now felt really thankful when both Sadie 
 and her mother had passed from the room, leaving 
 after them that lurking uncertainty as to whether 
 they would return immediately, presently, or not 
 at all, which is perhaps the most decorous manner 
 of bidding a premature good-night. 
 
 She had seen that Brockholst had already roused 
 her father's interest, but she somehow wanted him 
 to rouse it still more, and doubted if he would be 
 enabled to do so while two members of their little 
 company preserved a silence which might be inter- 
 preted un congenially by so complete a stranger. 
 Mere habit formed the chief incentive of Isabel ; she 
 had never in her life met and liked anyone whom 
 she had not speedily wanted her father to meet 
 and like as well. ' What would papa say ? — what 
 would he think ? ' had always crept into her mind 
 on such occasions. She had meant, on entering 
 his study that morning, to tell him a great deal 
 about her new acquaintance , but the conversation, 
 
236 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 as we know, had taken quite another turn — one, 
 indeed, whose painful astonishment still hauntingly 
 dwelt with her, as it is needless to record. A 
 very little while after her mother's quiet with- 
 drawal had followed that of Sadie, Isabel said, 
 with a look toward their guest while she addressed 
 her father : 
 
 "Mr. Brockholst has some very original views 
 on the subject o^ critics, papa, which I hope he 
 will give you the benefit of." 
 
 " I shall be very glad to hear them," said Cogge- 
 shal, who had begun rather rapidly to make up his 
 mind that here was a gentleman with perhaps 
 original views on more than a single subject. 
 
 But Brockholst laughingly shook his head. 
 "No, Mr. Coggeshal," he declared, "I won't 
 repeat my theory of extermination. Since talking 
 with your daughter I have read one of your books 
 — or nearly read it — and it has convinced me 
 that the existence of critics must be a matter of 
 strong artistic indifference to you." 
 
 " One of papa's books ? " murmured Isabel. 
 Her face quickly glowed with pleasure. There 
 was no mistaking this compliment. And she did 
 not at all realize how Brockholst, though yet only 
 the acquaintance of a few hours' duration, had 
 managed to make his opinion for good or ill some- 
 thing of note and moment in her own estimate. 
 
 " To which of my books do you refer ? " Cogge- 
 shal asked; and his query, if not Tin duly sharp, 
 
TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 237 
 
 had a slight jar in its tones of abruptness and 
 constraint. 
 
 Broekholst named one of the novels which Caro- 
 lan had loaned him. 
 
 "Ah," Coggeshal said, seeming to brighten. 
 He leaned forward, with a soft flash of awakened 
 satisfaction in his weary eyes, whose resemblance 
 to Isabel's their present observer had already 
 noticed — outside of the weariness and a certain 
 occasional uneasy droop as well. " And did you 
 really like that story ? " 
 
 " I liked it greatly," Broekholst replied. " Many 
 of its scenes are strongly touched." He spoke 
 with that sincerity which carries its own gentle 
 defiance against distrust; his hearer, as he pro- 
 (3eeded, felt that his words would never have been 
 uttered at all unless an honest admiration had 
 formed the sole spur to their delightful frankness. 
 " The book pleased me by its nice repose, and its 
 freedom from all uneven forces in its narrative 
 development. Thus far (and I am almost at the 
 third chapter from the end, if I don't mistake) it 
 seems rather to grow so than to be written so. It 
 has all the care that good literary things have, 
 without any of the finical over-elaboration that 
 acts disguisingly on a number of poor things. 
 There is no great storm, no turbid upheaval of 
 human deeps, no profound agony — and yet I sup- 
 pose I mention the absence of these points because 
 it strikes me as a book where they might have 
 
238 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 been brought in — that is, if you had been a writer 
 who wanted to create effects like that — to em- 
 poigner your public by creating them — to prendre 
 les choses au tragique, as it were. But I should 
 say that you did not want to do it, and I therefore 
 like the story better on this account. Quietude 
 in letters as in life (and of course life and letters 
 should be correlative) always affects me more than 
 tempestuousness, no matter how well the last is 
 done. They have had some people in France who 
 have done it wonderfully well. But it always 
 verges so dangerously on hysteria. Perhaps I've 
 fed too much on French novels, however," Brock- 
 hoist concluded, with a smile. "They're apt, in 
 the end — even the masterpieces, I fancy — to go 
 wrong with a foreign digestion." 
 
 Coggeshal had listened attentively to all this, 
 and with changes of expression on his face which 
 were keenly welcomed by Isabel. She loved him 
 so fondly that it charmed her to see him so taken 
 out of himself — out of his latter, recent self — 
 and made to look just like the man of a few 
 gloomy weeks ago. Nothing, since the beginning 
 of that doleful change, had so warmed him, so 
 vivified him, before. She heard with throbs of joy 
 the hearty, exclamatory sound of his dear, familiar 
 voice, as he now answered Brockholst : 
 
 " Yes — yes ; I can understand your feeling. I 
 believe the true secret of art in the story-teller is 
 repose — repose and self-control. But passion, 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 239 
 
 imagination — both held well in leash — must be 
 with him too. He must no more be ordinary than 
 he must be theatrical ; he can't afford to be either. 
 The great naturalists and realists of to-day don't 
 understand that it's their high peaks of truth that 
 make them such remarkable reading, and not their 
 valleys of fact. Such men as Zola and Daudet, 
 and even two or three strong American story-tell- 
 ers whom I could name, are forever pointing to 
 their low slopes and their table-lands. 1 admit that 
 the pretty play of light and shade is there, but 
 the^/ don't seem to admit that they've really put in 
 the snow-crowned summits as well. . /think they 
 have, in many cases ; I see them, if they don't, 
 and if their critics don't. . Now, I'm not a realist. 
 Perhaps I studied my art a little too early (for an 
 American) to catch that fever. But I have always 
 tried to get the broad strokes in with the delicate 
 and the dainty ones." Coggeshal paused for a mo- 
 ment, here, and his eyes wandered excitedly round 
 the room, seeing nothing, it may have been — not 
 even seeing Isabel's face, though she nodded and 
 smiled to him. " I don't say that I've done it," he 
 went on eagerly, letting his look rest full, once 
 more, upon Brockholst ; " but I've tried. And I 
 should be sorry to think I had completely failed." 
 He sank back in his chair, with a long, soft exha- 
 lation of the breath. " That book you've spoken 
 of is my best — my very best. I sometimes think I 
 shall never do any thing even as good as that again." 
 
240 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 " It isn't by any means a high-tide mark to be 
 ashamed of," said Brockholst, who had found him- 
 self stirred and diverted by what he had just 
 heard, and yet who had already deplored his own 
 critical survey as quite too candid for a member 
 of the traditional genus irritdbile. 
 
 "You're very kind to tell me that," replied 
 Coggeshal, with an ingenuous accent that made 
 his visitor feel what stabs of compunction he 
 would 'have undergone if his praise had been only 
 polite artifice. " Or, no, perhaps I should not call 
 it kind ; for if I thought it nothing more I should 
 put a light enough value upon it. You spoke of 
 critics, I believe "... 
 
 "Oh, no," broke in Isabel, laughing, "Jspoke 
 of them, papa." She did not want to be wrapped 
 in too dense a mantle of silence ; she thought it 
 best to make one's self heard, now and then, if one 
 could do this without detriment to the nice har- 
 monious intercourse by which her father's clouded 
 spirits appeared to be so brightly profiting. 
 
 " I care nothing for the passing comment of the 
 newspaper critic," Coggeshal declared. " Not that 
 I at all despise his opinion ; I am very far from 
 doing so; I have known instances where it has 
 been shrewd, penetrative, and in its way even wise. 
 But it is of the time, the hour ; it concerns itself 
 with the fashion, the vogue, that is now uppermost. 
 I have no regard at all for such aims. If I were 
 going to the North Pole I would not drop in at a 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 241 
 
 modish tailor's and order a great-coat. And that 
 is how it has always been with me, in literature ; 
 I have always been going to the North Pole — or 
 the South, or somewhere like that." His figure 
 had again straightened itself ; he sat erect in his 
 chair; Brockholst remarked with admiration his 
 blue, lucid, enkindled eye. " Pray don't think I 
 have ever despised form in my work. Without 
 symmetry nothing permanent can be accomplished. 
 But I have striven to make this constantly a sec- 
 ondary trait of my writings. It has often seemed 
 to me only a little beyond the very material neces- 
 sities of one's craft — the pen, the ink and the 
 paper. Far beyond it, in turn, has stood the de- 
 sire to give a bold, secure impression of life. 1 
 have no sympatliy with those men who set the 
 phrase, the treatment, above the idea. What I 
 have always put uppermost is the idea. I never 
 yet wrote a novel which I did not feel impelled to 
 write. Some human problem has appealed to me, 
 and I have sought either to solve it or to hint at 
 its ultimate chances of solution. A mere story — 
 let the popular fictionist tell that, if he will. I've 
 no wish to seem as if I were under-rating the skill 
 requisite for such performance. But the grassy 
 little pathway where the sheep-bell tinkles isn't 
 the cliff where the eagle lights. Life may be an 
 unfathomable ocean, but the operation of dropping 
 plummits into it attracts me all the more on that 
 account. Alas ! there are no doubt a good many 
 
242 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 people who consider my books leaden enough to 
 make admirable plummets." 
 
 " Papa ! " cried Isabel in gay reprimand. " You 
 mustn't run yourself down so soon after Mr. 
 Brockholst has so handsomely praised you. It 
 sounds highly uncivil to him. As a matter of 
 hospitality you should now pay yourself only 
 marked compliments." Just during the past few 
 minutes he had grown so like the parent of old 
 that she found herself dropping back into a jocose 
 manner with him which not long ago had fitted 
 their intercourse neatly and flexibly, but which 
 had of late seemed out of keeping as a last year's 
 garment on some shrivelled form. 
 
 " Oh, I feel satisfied that your father's method 
 of work is both a liberal and laudable one," said 
 Brockholst. " As far as I can judge from my 
 limited experience of the existent American ideals 
 in literature, I should be inclined to think that a 
 rather hot war is now waged between realism and 
 romanticism. And I suppose that the truth lies 
 mid-way for both contestants, as it so often does 
 in all questions where angry sides are taken." 
 
 He said this carelessly enough ; he knew that it 
 was a somewhat irrelevant answer to Coggeshal's 
 late bit of rather striking egotism. But the man 
 interested him, and he wanted to put a little 
 vagueness into his answer for that reason. The 
 vagueness might draw Coggeshal out still further. 
 Brockholst himself had once been concerned with 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 243 
 
 these questions of how to -write a story best or 
 worst. But that indolence which so nimbly waits 
 on wealth and so swiftly breeds artistic indiffer- 
 ence with all except the few rare legitimate sons 
 of the Muses, had effectually deadened his activi- 
 ties years ago. They had never been deep or 
 sustained ones. He had written his " Marian 
 Moore " with the empirical languor of a really 
 able and gifted intelligence which half doubted 
 and half trusted its own capacity. After finishing 
 it he had proved something to himself, or dis- 
 proved it; he had not had the final commercial 
 energy necessary to decide just which it was, 
 through the practical medium of publication. 
 And besides, he had put something into the tale 
 — a chronicle of personal sorrow, of past or pass- 
 ing agony, in fact — which had made it seem 
 almost like a vulgarity to let the manuscript see 
 print at all, even if it were worthy of such pub- 
 licity. Latterly he had skimmed over a sufficient 
 number of the American newspapers in Paris to 
 discover that certain novel-writers were being 
 loudly denounced and as loudly discouraged for 
 the abandonment of old " thrilling " or even 
 " moving " technical traditions ; that they were 
 making their books out of life as they saw it and 
 not out of life as dream and fancy distorted it, 
 however picturesquely and winsomely. In his 
 adopted France the whole discussion had become 
 rather old to him. It had been waged so hotly 
 
244 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 there that this American fervor wore a lack-lustre 
 pallor beside it. But after crossing the ocean he 
 had found curiosity quicken. It was exceedingly- 
 pleasant to meet a fellow countryman like Cogge- 
 shal, who could speak on the question from a 
 standpoint of such close creative intimacy with its 
 nicest concerns. He wanted Coggeshal to talk a 
 great deal more than he had yet done. Isabel's 
 little interruptions were also very agreeable to 
 him. He was not sure that he would be enjoying 
 his evening half so much if she were not there, 
 with her faintly lambent gray eyes and her fresh, 
 frank smile. 
 
 Coggeshal had leaned back in his chair again, 
 and had ruminatively joined the fingers of both 
 lifted hands together at their tips. Isabel secretly 
 rejoiced in the gesture ; she knew it so well ; he 
 had so often made it in their old absorbing talks 
 together ! 
 
 "I have watched the contest of which you 
 speak," Coggeshal said, in the tone of one who 
 enjoys the reflection to which he gives utterance. 
 " I have watched it with keenest interest. And I 
 believe that the surrender will in the end come 
 from the side of the so-called naturalists in 
 fiction." 
 
 He paused, and Isabel, wishing to stimulate 
 him into a little more of his former enthusiasm, 
 and feeling that the thread of his discursive talk 
 had been snapped by Brockholst's too general 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 245 
 
 and indirect words, here broke in, lightly and 
 briskly : 
 
 " Oh, papa, you're sometimes a naturalist, too ! 
 I read in some magazine, the other day, that real- 
 ism imbued the very air of this age and that none 
 of our best novelists could help breathing it in. 
 And when I think of one book you wrote, I can't 
 but feel like endorsing this creed." 
 
 Coggeshal gave an abrupt start and looked 
 sharply at her. "Which book? "he asked. 
 
 Isabel started, also, now; for such an unex- 
 pected change had swept over his whole demeanor. 
 
 " Why, ' Rachel Rand,' " she returned, at first 
 almost faltering the answer, because a swift dread 
 had assailed her lest the change might somehow 
 be one which would strike darkeningly upon his 
 new, sunnier mood. " Of course, papa, there's a 
 great difference between that and your other sto- 
 ries ; you know this better than I can tell you." 
 Poor Isabel had seen from her father's face that 
 matters had somehow been wretchedly mismanaged 
 by her ; and yet she went desperately on, in the 
 forlorn hope of once again bettering them. " Of 
 course," she continued, " I've never heard you say 
 just how or why you did come to write ' Rachel 
 Rand ; ' but I suspect you may have done it with 
 the idea of proving to yourself, papa, that this 
 modern realism wasn't outside of your powers, 
 and that — " 
 
 " My dear child," now came Coggeshal's inter- 
 
246 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 ruption, curtly and impatiently spoken, " you are 
 in great error if you think that book anything of 
 the sort. There isn't the first principle of realism 
 about it. If done to demonstrate a single in- 
 ventive tendency, it was done to — to show the 
 extraordinary influence which attitudinizing and 
 ' gush ' may exert over- the reading-masses." Cog- 
 geshal now turned to Brockholst ; the sweet bells 
 of his former mood were indeed jangled ; a latent 
 acerbity had replaced his cordial flush and glow ; 
 instead of the hearty expansiveness which had so 
 lately belonged to his manner, he now indicated a 
 reserve equally pronounced ; you might have said 
 that something acid, mordant or caustic had sud- 
 denly entered the sweet waters of a most amiable 
 spirit, to leave them curdled, beclouded, fermented. 
 " I draw a sharp line between that book and all 
 my others," he continued, addressing Brockholst. 
 " I am annoyed at my daughter having mentioned 
 it in your hearing. Her doing so exhibits, I fear, 
 a lack of delicacy — of taste — of true kindness. 
 I — " 
 
 "Papa!" broke in Isabel, astonished and 
 wounded. " How can you speak like that ! " Al- 
 ready her eyes were glistening moistly, her lips 
 were trembling. " And why should I not mention 
 a book which has been preferred by thousands for 
 the tenderness, the truth — yes, even for the help 
 they found in it ! " 
 
 It amazed Brockholst to observe the mixture 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDQE. 24:7 
 
 of haughtiness and bitterness with which Isabel's 
 father received these words. He rose from liis 
 chair while regarding her with a cold smile of 
 exasperation and rebuke. " If you are unable to 
 give my better books even your lukewarm praise," 
 he said, " I must endure that calamity with as 
 much stoicism as I can muster. But I shall beg 
 you, nevertheless, Isabel, to spare an inferior book 
 the ridiculous fate of being over-lauded. And you, 
 Mr. Brockholst," he went on, after a brief pause, 
 during which Isabel stared at him in a kind of wild, 
 hurt wonder; — "pray oblige me by not ever think- 
 ing again of the book thus heedlessly referred to." 
 He went to the lamplit table and with tremu- 
 lous fingers disordered a little pile of newspapers 
 and pamphlets there. He broke into a nervous 
 laugh while he did this, abruptly veering round 
 and fronting his guest a moment afterward. " It's 
 dispiriting, discouraging, you know, to be brought 
 down from one's high horse — one's Pegasus — 
 by a commonplace rebuff." His manner was flut- 
 tered, and his words were almost stammeringly 
 given, now. He appeared to be sensible, for the 
 first time since this unhappy manifestation of ill- 
 timed annoyance, how cold a pall of awkwardness 
 he had spread over their whole little social trio. 
 The harsh note had gone from his voice; he 
 looked embarrassed, even abashed. Before he 
 could speak again Isabel had sprung from her 
 chair and hurried up to him. 
 
248 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " Papa ! " she exclaimed eagerly. "Forgive me 
 if I said any thing to displease you ! Why, you 
 can't believe that I meant to do it ! " 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed her fore- 
 head. " My dear," he murmured, with extreme 
 unsteadiness, " it's I who have been wrong — only 
 I ! Forgive me ! " Then he at once released Isa- 
 bel. He next spoke to Brockholst, yet so swiftly 
 and so agitatedly that the latter could catch but 
 one or two short and very fragmentary sentences, 
 in which lay the admission of a foolish proneness 
 to take offence and the regret for weakened and 
 overstrained nerves. Brockholst, as it seemed, 
 had hardly heard his flurriedly muttered " good- 
 night " before being also aware that he had glided 
 from the room. 
 
 Isabel sank into her seat, a minute afterward, 
 with a heavy and prolonged sigh. " Poor papa ! " 
 she said, under her breath. Her companion saw 
 that she was pale and distressed; the apologetic 
 earnestness that immediately followed in her 
 tones touched him by its quiet simplicity of pa- 
 thos. " He would never have acted that way if he 
 had been himself — if he had been well. His 
 health is failing — I have watched him for some 
 time past. It's his nature to be the soul of kind- 
 ness — and especially toward me, in everything. . 
 You noticed, though, how quickly he gi-ew sorry, 
 and — and came to his right senses, as it were ? " 
 
 "Yes," Brockholst said; and I noticed more, 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 249 
 
 Miss Coggeshal, if you will let me tell you so : — 
 your decidedly lovely tolerance in dealing with 
 him." 
 
 "Tolerance?" she repeated. "With papa? 
 Oh, you don't know how easy that must always 
 come to me." This little spontaneous expression 
 of her love, so slight and yet so richly suggestive, 
 charmed him. 
 
 'And they often sneer, over in Europe,' he 
 thought, 'at the relations between American 
 daughters and their parents I ' " Your father is 
 unstrung, debilitated," he said aloud. " Have you 
 asked him to see a physician yet, or does he see 
 one who has failed to benefit him ? " 
 
 Isabel shook her head. " He insists that there 
 is no real trouble," she sighed ; and then, as her 
 thoughts flew toward the subject of her new evil 
 prophecies, a most melancholy look crossed her 
 face. . . 
 
 But before very long Brockholst had dispelled 
 the look. All tact of the consoler's office came 
 readily to him in this instance, for it was chiefly 
 shown by securing the attention of his auditor 
 as regarded topics of a more cheerful kind, and 
 Isabel, liking him as she already did, let the 
 current of his talk soon drift her into brighter 
 air. . . 
 
 This became the first of a series of meetings 
 between Isabel and himself, as a month slipped 
 placidly onward. It was at least a serene month 
 
250 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 for Brockholst; he remained unconscious of any- 
 serious disturbance threatening to succeed it. 
 
 For all that he knew, events at High Bridge 
 were working themselves out with the most idyllic 
 sort of monotony. He had thought of getting 
 away, that summer, to Long Branch, to Saratoga, 
 perhaps even to the still more remote region of 
 Newport, since his uncle's health continued un- 
 raenaced by any fatal lapse, and a telegram could 
 do such marvels in the way of prompt future sum- 
 mons. But he had somehow contented himself 
 very adequately, after all, here in his present sub- 
 urban quarters. At first his conferences with Isa- 
 bel were separated by intervals which gave him 
 full chance for reflection as to how grateful or the 
 opposite it would seem if they could be materially 
 lessened. He was a man who had seen many 
 differing ty^pes of womanhood under conditions 
 both nutritive and imperilling to their best in- 
 stincts. He had even passed through several sin- 
 ister stages of misogyny, from the bovine quality 
 of cynicism which made some Frenchman call 
 woman la femelle de Vhomme to a contempt which 
 dealt in far daintier ironies of aspersion. There 
 had really been an excuse with him for much of 
 this nonsensical playing at life. The jilt whose 
 guile was a poison acrid enough to have stilled a 
 feebler heart for all time, had made his throb on in 
 a sick way through many dreary months, with brain 
 and vision to suffer from its fitfulness. Then had 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 251 
 
 come resuscitation, rehabilitation, health. He had 
 seen not a few women, since his convalescence, 
 who pleased him, and he would have had the most 
 gloomy feelings, no doubt, regarding the reality 
 and permanence of liis recovery if none of these 
 had been able to do more. But not one had pos- 
 sessed just the same blending of mental and per- 
 sonal graces, he had come slowly to tell himself, 
 as that which he found in Isabel. The attributes 
 which he most respected in woman, and those 
 Avhich he held most luring and lovable without its 
 being a matter of respecting them or otherwise, 
 appeared correspondingly hers. When her little 
 charities transpired, he had felt a suspicious thrill 
 and an immediate retrospective impulse, for both 
 of which he had soon cordially hated himself. 
 And yet he had basely asked his own thoughts 
 what bit of sentiment he could have let fall which 
 might have induced her to show him this glimpse 
 into her moral and duteous young soul. But he 
 applied a stout scourge of self-reprimand, soon 
 afterward, for what he denounced within his own 
 heart as a most ignoble piece of misanthropy. 
 Isabel was of flawless honesty; her visits to the 
 poor and the suffering were neither concealed nor 
 avowed. They had come to her new friend's 
 knowledge in the natural deepening and widening 
 of acquaintanceship. The trouble, as Brockholst 
 soon declared to his own heart, was with himself 
 entirely, and never with Isabel. Her sweet, maid- 
 
252 TUE HOUSE AT niGH BBIDGE. 
 
 enly sincerity guarded her against one evil ray 
 of his own worldliness. If she had known what 
 sometimes came so balefuUy creeping across the 
 benign satisfaction which he had begun to take in 
 her company, she would almost certainly have re- 
 coiled with shame and pain. And it was precisely 
 such ascetic visitations as these which made 
 Bjockholst occasionally fear lest, after all, those 
 lurid and crucial weeks in Paris had not somehow 
 left him spiritually maimed. But by degrees he 
 found it impossible to look into Isabel's eyes, as 
 he and she sat or walked together, without fiercely 
 reproaching himself for his own frigid views. He 
 had lived so much in the gross, big world, he had 
 heard so much, by whisper or by open speech, of 
 his fine eligibility as a marrying bachelor, worth 
 thousands a year (the trumpeters of gossip always 
 made it many thousands more than fact allowed), 
 that he was prepared for untold matrimonial ap- 
 proaches. All these feelings now became, iu the 
 lapse of days, repellent to Brockholst. He soon 
 found it difficult to conceive of Isabel except as 
 wholly exempt from any but the most natural and 
 wholesome influences. 
 
 His remembrance of being a "catch," a parti, 
 with his fifteen thousand a year and his unim- 
 paired good-looks, became for him an association 
 of his foreign days alone. Over there the girls 
 were always regarding marriage commercially — 
 or their mothers and fathers were doing it for 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 253 
 
 them. Here he began to see that it might be re- 
 freshingly different. And Isabel helped him to 
 believe so, with her wise and sweet ardors, her 
 feminine yet assertive opinions. Other women 
 had sought him for his security of income and his 
 reputed excellence of transpontine station. But 
 here was a woman who knew nothing and obvi- 
 ously cared nothing about such fortuitous gifts. 
 
 Their walks were frequent, through the brakes 
 and dells or along the open roadside of High 
 Bridge. But they often would spend hours in 
 Isabel's home as well. Broekholst had won a 
 palm of popularity there. Mrs. Coggeshal's ap- 
 proval of him had not been at all speedy, and 
 that of Sadie had revealed the protracted indecis- 
 ion peculiar to nearly all important law-making. 
 But her judgment had been finally reached. Isa- 
 bel's new friend had become always most heartily 
 welcome. On his own side he privately marvelled 
 at the difference between herself and the two 
 other ladies of her household. It was amazing; 
 it was almost unaccountable. She was her father's 
 daughter; he at length reached this explanation 
 of the mystery and stopped there for want of a 
 better one. Coggeshal had meanwhile greatly 
 attracted and engaged him. The man's mind 
 was to Broekholst a surprisingly fresh and subtle 
 object for study, and his fits of gloom and de- 
 pression wakened a respectful pity in their ob- 
 server. Perhaps this pity would have been less 
 
254 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 keen but for the evident warnith of Isabel's filial 
 attachment. But in any case Coggeshal would 
 have roused his regard and esteem. The author 
 was so deeply in love with his art — so responsive 
 to theories or suggestions concerning it — so 
 eloquent, when the moment proved fairly pro- 
 pitious, in his defences, his arguments, his protes- 
 tations, his dogmas. Brockholst, who had always 
 liked men of letters, liked this one with an in- 
 creasing zest. 
 
 He had read three more of Coggeshal's novels, 
 and had reached an unflattering conclusion as to 
 the genuine inspiration which they indicated. 
 Every thing seemed to be in them and of them 
 except the sacred fire. That was wanting, and 
 its absence, furtively understood and regretted by 
 the writer of the tales, formed in Brockholst's 
 belief a reason for all the melancholy and spleen 
 which made Coggeshal their victim. If the father 
 of Isabel had been a successful creator — if he had 
 not been clad with the pathos of a lofty ambition 
 wedded to comparatively feeble accomplishment 
 — he would have addressed his new watcher as 
 a far less original and appealing figure. But his 
 insufficiency, his shortcoming, his bold reach and 
 insecure grasp, his valiant aspiration and partial 
 achievement, were a source of incessant curiosity 
 and reflection to Brockholst. In the sure hand 
 that carves a perfect statue from the rugged mar- 
 ble there is monotony of certitude. You become 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 255 
 
 SO confident it will never go wrong that you 
 almost lose concern in the perfection of its craft, 
 and think what a picturesque variety there would 
 be in one loose and nerveless blow of the chisel. 
 Coggeshal's failures made him more interesting 
 than if they had been the admirable reverse. 
 Besides, they were never absolute failures ; they 
 were constantly near enough triumph to render 
 them subjects for inquiry, speculation, analysis. 
 
 All this time Brockholst had never looked into 
 a copy of " Rachel Rand." His not having done 
 so was one of those purely circumstantial results 
 which for lack of a more cogent definition we 
 name accident. At any hour during this lapse 
 of days he might have come upon the book, taken 
 it up, opened it, and with the precipitate rush 
 and blare of bewildering discovery have known 
 all ! But as yet this event had held fire. With 
 Carolan waiting in sharp suspense, with Isabel and 
 her father both equally unconscious (though in 
 different ways) of any such possible calamity, 
 affairs had glided on, exempt from the least 
 perturbing ripple. And yet in the twinkling of 
 an eye the air might blacken with storm. Brock- 
 hoist stood close to the mere filmy veil that hid 
 from view an atrocious crime, committed against 
 himself. He had only to lift his hand for the 
 whole raw shame to glare at him grossly. But 
 he did not lift his hand. He held much agreeable 
 converse with the man who had dealt him a burn- 
 
256 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 ing wrong. He also began slowly to assure him- 
 self that he was falling in love with that man's 
 dear and amiable daughter. It was all indeed 
 like the volcano's edge, and yet he remained igno- 
 rant of the slightest peril. The tardier melting 
 of some small ice-block, the peculiar lodgement of 
 a few pebbles, may have temporary force to stay an 
 avalanche. What we think of as the unimpor- 
 tance of trifles we not seldom iind to be some- 
 thing in its way closely like their majesty. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 257 
 
 XI. 
 
 During this time Mrs. Bondurant and Brock- 
 hoist had met again, and more than once again, 
 at the house of the Coggeshals. Her manner to 
 him was coolly self-possessed, though she veiled 
 severe enough pangs of hvimiliation behind it. 
 He had dealt her an unpardonable wound ; and 
 yet of what moment to such as he was her pardon 
 or lack of pardon? She had fallen from her 
 heaven of social eminence ; her wings were clipped ; 
 she could never rise as of old in that shining air 
 of dominance and distinction. Her sole chance of 
 re-securing even a pale shadow of former glories 
 had lain in the forgiveness of Brockholst and the 
 unperished vitality of his love. This chance had 
 miserably and memorably failed with her, as we 
 know, and in her rageful feelings afterward she 
 had sneered at the very heights to which he could 
 by marriage have raised her. Bah ! when she had 
 had her millions of francs oversea among the stately 
 boulevards ! How much below all that would have 
 proved her position as his wife ! It would have 
 been like Chiselhurst and the condolence of Im- 
 perialists to the dethroned Eugenie. But it would 
 
258 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 nevertheless have been much beside the bleakness 
 and barrenness of her present lot. And then the 
 Brockholsts were of such excellent old stock ; one 
 would have the appearance of keeping so thor- 
 oughly within one's own set if one had become 
 Mrs. Lloyd Brockholst. He used to have about 
 fifteen thousand a year, and that sum would have 
 been quite enough in Paris for them to be Men 
 installes upon. The thing could'nt be done here, 
 but there it was different. Nearly all the great 
 people would have taken her up again. They 
 might have been a little difficiles at first, but she 
 would have brought them round ; she would have 
 managed all that. And then the small people 
 would have flocked to her ; they always did flock 
 to you again after you had got back among the 
 ruling swells. 
 
 But Brockholst had crushed all her hopes piti- 
 lessly that one evening. He had been iron. He 
 was a totally changed man. It was hard to realize 
 how a few years could have altered any one so 
 dreadfully for the worse. He had lost every atom 
 of his old fascination — oh, yes ! She would never 
 have cared for him the least in the world if he 
 had been like that when she was Alma Hudson- 
 bank. And she did care for him then, a good 
 deal, until Eugene Bondurant had come between 
 them. But Brockholst was like all men ; wound 
 a man's egotism and he never pardons you. She 
 had not been really more than half culpable — of 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BHIDGE. 259 
 
 course she hadn't ! How many hundreds of girls 
 would have acted precisely as she had done ! 
 Bondurant had cast a perfect spell over her ; it 
 had been like those stories of witchcraft that you 
 read when you are a child. And she was such a 
 child ! And then Lloyd Brockholst, though nice 
 and loving, never had had a particle of true 
 romance in his nature. He wasn't a man, either, 
 of any gayety, a man with whom on pent plaisanter, 
 as it were. And she was a girl so full of spirits 
 that she remembered how she had wanted this trait 
 in him, and missed awfully not having it . . Oh, 
 there had been so much excuse on her own side ! 
 Lots of little reasons for the whole unfortunate 
 rupture of the engagement were coming up to her 
 the more she thought of it. She began to feel 
 really convinced that when everything was con- 
 sidered he had been quite as much in fault as she. 
 Oh, quite ! 
 
 Following the audacity of these sophistries 
 came just what was to be expected from one 
 of Alma Bondurant's mental and moral calibre. 
 She was besieged by a vengeful and spleenful 
 rancor against Brockholst. He might have taken 
 compassion on her and saved her from uncle Stuy- 
 vesant's niggardly charities. It was detestable of 
 him not to let the dead past bury its dead, and 
 the living present transport both of them on a 
 kind of permanent bridal-tour to dear, adorable 
 Paris. 
 
260 TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Was he getting to like Isabel Coggeshal? It 
 looked very much as if he were. Mrs. Bondurant, 
 as she found means to watch him now and then 
 while with Isabel and to acquaint herself regard- 
 ing his attentions and deferences toward Herbert 
 Coggeshal's daughter, soon felt that she was being 
 made the very martyr of destiny. It was not 
 enough that she had fallen on her knees to him, 
 there in her own cottage that evening, and been 
 insultingly repulsed by him afterward. She must 
 now witness, but a stone's-throw away, his pointed 
 devotions to another woman. And he might 
 mean marriage, or discover in a few more weeks 
 that he meant it. Such a thing was quite possi- 
 ble with such a man. He had reached an age 
 when men sometimes behave in just this reckless 
 matrimonial fashion. He was interested in " ques- 
 tions," and all that, and the booky father might 
 lead him adroitly on. He might easily close his 
 eyes to the fact of Isabel's namby-pamby, unpre- 
 sentable mother, and her silly, rather common sis- 
 ter. He wouldn't encanailler himself by the 
 match, either. Isabel was good form enough, in 
 spite of her ponderous honesty and virtue, and 
 he, with his money and his assured position, could 
 marry very much as he liked. 
 
 Secret torments were now convulsing Mrs. 
 Bondurant. She had fully persuaded herself that 
 she was the most wronged and outraged of beings. 
 And just as this mood of mind had become som- 
 
THE nOUSE AT UIGU BBIDGE. 261 
 
 brely and distressingly permanent with her, she 
 was impelled, as if by one of fate's most careless 
 ironies, into a fancy, a doubt, a suspicion, that be- 
 wildered and thrilled her. 
 
 She had repeatedly taken up " Rachel Rand," 
 skimming a page or two here and there and then 
 neglecting to read more. She rarely read any- 
 thing except the most highly-colored French 
 novels, and even these, when she could procure 
 them nowadays, failed to entertain her. Hers 
 was not the bent of mind which enjoys imagina- 
 tive effort in others. Her chief craving was for 
 actuality, and she had a private creed that all the 
 embellishments which fiction can possibly produce 
 are nothing more than so much cheap stucco, fit 
 to be peeled off and tossed away wherever it en- 
 crusts the goodly solidity of fact. She was more 
 alive to the flimsiest of current gossip than she 
 would have been to some episode by a master 
 story-teller, for she missed the power of realizing 
 that truth may dwell where no tangible event 
 exists. In her festal days of prominence she had 
 been noted for the determination with which she 
 followed the hounds of scandal on their most un- 
 merciful scents, and there were occasions when it 
 would scarcely have been straining metaphor to 
 state that she was indeed in at the death. 
 
 This time she began " Rachel Rand " with the 
 intention of faithfully reading it through, and 
 hence she began at the beginning. She felt help- 
 
262 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 lessly, pitiably idle. It was enough to drive one 
 mad, she told herself, this being so absolutely 
 desoeuvree. It was about three o'clock in the 
 afternoon of a sultry day, and she had partaken of 
 a solitary though by no means a slender or very 
 digestible lunch. She had gone to lie on her bed 
 soon afterward, according to a recent custom 
 which was one of the results of her present lonely, 
 lazy and almost moping life, and she had taken 
 Mr. Coggeshal's book with her, expecting to fall 
 asleep over it as she had more than once done be- 
 fore now with this and other novels. That morn- 
 ing she had paid a visit at the Coggeshals', and had 
 met Brockholst there for the first time since the 
 little nocturnal bit of drama in her own sitting- 
 room. The conceivabUity of his marriage with 
 Isabel had just begun to dawn in a wicked, elfish 
 flicker upon her consciousness. She had felt the 
 torpid forces of malice move within her as a ser- 
 pent might move in its sleep. Isabel had talked 
 a great deal with Brockholst in a lowered voice ; 
 they broke into laughter occasionally, and ex- 
 changed mirthful or meaning looks. The widow 
 had passed a most intolerable morning. She had 
 given up Mrs. Coggeshal and Sadie in despair. 
 Sadie was to her thinking both vulgar and slug- 
 gish — a combination which had points of novelty, 
 it was true, but which nevertheless affected her in 
 its present example as disagreeably as if it had 
 resulted from bouncing and hilarious vivacity. 
 
THE HOUSE AT IIIGU BRIDGE. 263 
 
 Mrs. Coggeshal, on the other hand, was simply 
 maudlin ; she was one of those complete feminine 
 nonentities for whom clever men would sometimes 
 cast a slur upon the more rational portion of their 
 sex by unexplainably marrying. And then there 
 had been a Mrs. Coulter present, who was rotu- 
 ri^re beyond language, who told you every five 
 minutes that her son was going to marry Sadie 
 (as if it were an event for the Almanac de Gotha 
 to chronicle) and who referred to Tomlinson, the 
 clerk in the drug-store, as " such a stylish young 
 gentleman ! " Mrs. Bondurant had never met 
 so odd a creature as this Mrs. Coulter, or one 
 who perpetually floated in so celestial an atmos- 
 phere of made-to-order gentility. But instead of 
 amusing or interesting her, Mrs. Coulter bored 
 her more insupportably than any of the others. 
 Mr. Coggeshal had not appeared ; he usually did 
 not appear when she was there. Perhaps he 
 was too clever to appreciate the inanities of his 
 own household ; it was quite supposable that he 
 should shrink from them, and not be a great light 
 of wisdom or learning, either. Mrs. Coulter had 
 referred to him as though he were a slowly-devel- 
 oping Shakespeare, and once when she had re- 
 marked of him " I dare say he is drownded this 
 very minute in some of his grand thoughts," even 
 the magnificently confident reverence of his brain- 
 less wife hadn't prevented her from one of her pip- 
 ing, aggravating " My's ! " Oh, it had all been so 
 
264 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 immeasurably tedious ! It went on the long list 
 of wrongs inflicted by the cruel parsimony of 
 uncle Stuyvesant. But Mrs. Bondurant did not 
 intend that it should be her last visit. Decidedly, 
 no. She had her reasons for intending altogether 
 the opposite. 
 
 Her nap to-day has been briefer than usual. 
 She had curled herself within a sort of nest sunk 
 into one side of the yielding bed, and she now 
 opened "Rachel Rand" with a yawn in which 
 there was the least possible anticipation of being 
 diverted. She read the first four or five pages 
 with a wandering heed enough, but presently a 
 new passage sparkled upon her listless intelligence 
 unexpectedly. She read along, after that, for a 
 good many more pages without pausing to pro- 
 nounce the operation in any way burdensome. 
 By the time that she had reached the fourth chap- 
 ter she was anxious to acquaint herself with the 
 entire story. 
 
 It was a story which had charmed duller and 
 also much brighter minds than hers. It was one 
 of those very rare tales that possess the multiplex 
 characteristic of pleasing thousands in the genera- 
 tion for which they have been written. Its drama 
 was pungent enough for the yearners after a state 
 of tingling nerves ; its verisimilitude was suffi- 
 ciently exact to satisfy those who demand both 
 ' nature ' and probability ; its grace and punctilio 
 of style were so well removed from slovenly deal- 
 
THE nOUSE AT IlIGU BRIDGE. 265 
 
 ing as to propitiate the foes of erratic syntax. It 
 was distinctly literature, and yet it held sources of 
 enjoyment for readers in whom this note of excel- 
 lence could wake no responsive echo. Mrs. Bon- 
 durant, slight as was her regard for all books, had 
 in abundance the strange gift, half of brain and 
 half of eye, which permits rapid perusal. She was 
 soon following the fortunes of " Rachel Rand " 
 with avidity, and by six o'clock, the hour at which 
 she dined, she had completed the first half of the 
 volume. 
 
 During dinner she kept it at her side, occa- 
 sionally pausing in the meal and referring back to 
 certain scenes or incidents. After dinner she 
 went into her sitting-room, where the summer 
 sunlight was for a good while clear and high 
 enough to allow of her reading without a lamp. 
 But the lamp had been illumined for a considera- 
 ble time longer when at last she finished " Rachel 
 Rand." 
 
 She laid the book on the table beside her. The 
 little house was very still. A single cricket out in 
 the mild summer darkness was chanting dreamily 
 and pleadingly. She sat with drooped head in 
 the small, quiet room. She was thinking of the 
 story, and of the reminiscences it had vivified to 
 her. She had never before had an experience at 
 all resembling this one with "Rachel Rand." 
 Even the books which had given her pleasure had 
 almost never left behind them the least impres- 
 
266 THE nOVSE AT niGII BRIDGE. 
 
 sion of reality, of having borrowed their life from 
 the red-veined life of breathing men and women. 
 But now it seemed to her as if these lately-scanned 
 leaves were each of more than photographic im- 
 port — as if they had been literally steeped in 
 both the fleshly and spiritual vitality of the 
 lovers whose history they told ! 
 
 And who were those lovers? Did not she, 
 Alma Hudsonbank Bondurant, know them both? 
 It was not just what they were that pierced her 
 with a sense of similitude ; it was what they did. 
 Where could this or that record of happening 
 have been taken from if not from one of two ex- 
 periences ? The whole affair began to address her 
 in such confusing colors that she was prepared to 
 grant some ghostcraft as its origin. A shudder 
 crept through her frame as she made this conces- 
 sion to the powers of darkness, for those were 
 mysteries with her which, like the powers of light, 
 she had never done more than formlessly doubt. 
 During a few moments, in which she had quitted 
 her chair and begun to wander from object to 
 object about the limited room, a touch of positive 
 terror had laid itself coldly upon her sensibilities, 
 and she had asked of her thoughts if this man, 
 Herbert Coggeshal, could have used some satani- 
 cally clairvoyant means for arriving at the marvel- 
 lous knowledge he had shown. P"'ear ran hurrying 
 after fear, and her cheek grew white, while the 
 little chamber seemed never so deadly' still as now, 
 
THE UOUSE AT UIGU BRIDGE. 267 
 
 nor the darkness out of doors, where that one 
 cricket was droning its eerie song, so repellingly 
 dismal. She thought of ringing for the servant 
 below stairs ; she dreaded an exposure of hysteric 
 outburst before that coarse and unsympathetic 
 Joanna, with whom she had always thus far been 
 the incarnation of reticence and reserve ; and yet 
 to remain alone like this, with such portentous 
 excitements at work, was becoming swiftly un- 
 bearable. 
 
 Perhaps the reluctance to summon Joanna ex- 
 erted a sanely restorative effect. Her head being 
 a little cleared of the folly which threatened to be- 
 fog it, she saw the absurd side of her horrors and 
 set herself, with increasing strength of control, to 
 sensibly flout them. The whole thing was extraor- 
 dinary — alarmingly so. There were four or five 
 scenes in that book she had just read which 
 detailed exceptional occurrences between two of 
 its people. She had acted in precisely such scenes 
 with Lloyd Brockholst, during her engagement to 
 him. She had deliberately lied to him, once, 
 regarding a bouquet which Bondurant had given 
 her, and his manner of discovering the lie had 
 been identical with that described in Coggeshal's 
 absorbing story. This would not by itself have 
 been an astounding piece of vraisemhlance. But 
 the ensuing circumstances ! — had these ever be- 
 fore been linked together in just the same order 
 since woman was made out of the rib of man? 
 
268 THE HOUSE AT UIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 And then certain minor sayings, doings,- modes 
 of detection and evasion, arrangements of skir- 
 mish, defence, ambuscade, recrimination, reproach, 
 acknowledgment, defeat, defiance — covild mere 
 cliance have put all these into the inventive 
 capacity of some one who had never known that 
 they were as true as the sunrise yesterday and the 
 sunset afterward ? No, impossible ! What, then 
 was the solution of the enigma? Why, that 
 Coggeshal must have heard the whole tale of 
 Alma Hudsonbank's engagement to Lloyd Brock- 
 hoist. But who had told him this tale? She, 
 Mrs. Bondurant had never repeated it in full to a 
 soul, dead or alive. She had told it in her fash- 
 ion, with prevarication, with self -extenuation, but 
 never as it liad been told in "Rachel Rand." And 
 Brockholst — was it not almost incredible that he 
 could or would have made so exhaustive a confi- 
 dence ? He might have written down some such 
 thing in a diary . . Yes, he might have done that 
 . . He used to be a kind of scribbler in his way, and 
 he had more than once said to her that he would 
 like at some future time to write a novel. . . 
 
 She stopped there, in her reflections, and 
 dropped once again into her vacated chair, with 
 hands knotted together and her forehead in the 
 darkest of puzzled frowns. She felt as if a vague, 
 flitting thread dangled before her, which one for- 
 tunate clutch might seize and a thousand others 
 might miss, . 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 269 
 
 Suddenly it flashed upon her that Brockholst 
 had sailed from Paris to New York after the 
 breaking of his engagement, and had remained 
 there for some time in the society of his uncle, 
 Andreas Chadwick. 
 
 Her thoughts worked blindly yet nimbly then, 
 and with those leaps in their speculative progress 
 or recession, with that continued doubling upon, 
 losing and regaining the dim object of their pur- 
 suit, which we like (however unwarrantedly) to 
 call the illogical method of feminine intuition. 
 But in a little while Mrs. Bondurant felt as if she 
 might perhaps have caught her dangling thread. 
 She had read a novel of Herbert Coggeshal's 
 weeks before — or rather rushed haphazardly 
 through it, so as to be able to tell her new ac- 
 quaintance, Isabel, who had made her a present of 
 the copy, that she thought it " oh, so enormously 
 clever." But in reality she had thought it mourn- 
 fully dull. She hurried, now, to a book-stand in 
 the corner of her sitting-room and found the rec- 
 ollected volume. She set herself to read a chap- 
 ter or two of it, in search of resemblances. After 
 about a half-hour she flung the book aside. There 
 was not a shadow of evidence that the same hand 
 had vn-itten the two books. 
 
 But Lloyd Brockholst had only recently ar- 
 rived at High Bridge. His uncle, however, had 
 not recently arrived there, nor had the secretary, 
 valet, companion, of this uncle — Carolan. 
 
270 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 Carolan ! A flood of suspicion entered her mind 
 at the name. Isabel had long ago admitted Caro- 
 lan's intimacy with her father. Could the novel 
 have been some old manuscript of Brockholst's 
 left years since with his uncle and found by this 
 half-servant of his, now, when Andreas Chadwick 
 was an imbecile of forgetfulness, irresponsibility? 
 
 'I am tired thinking,' said Mrs. Bondurant to 
 herself, when it was almost midnight. ' But at 
 least T can go to bed with one definite idea. 
 This Carolan and I must become acquainted with 
 one another as soon as possible.' 
 
 She carried out her plan within the next three 
 days. It was not at all difficult. She had won 
 the marked admiration of the druggist's clerk, 
 Mr. Tomlinson, whom Mrs. Coulter had declared 
 to be so stylish. She had allowed this gentle- 
 man to prescribe for a rather severe cold caught 
 in the early spring. He would recommend these 
 trochees and that gargle to-day, only that he 
 might deplore their inefficiency and substitute 
 more potent remedies on the morrow. He con- 
 sidered that a chasm of social difference lay be- 
 tween Mrs. Bondurant and himself, and being a 
 young man of remarkably controlled impulses he 
 had paused upon the crater-edge of a passion 
 rather than be precipitated into the molten lava 
 below. He had an exceedingly thin, tall figure, 
 and a pale face as beardless as a maiden's, though 
 there was something quite the reverse of maidenly 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 271 
 
 about the bony angle of his jaw and the spheric 
 protuberance of his " Adam's-apple." His man- 
 ners, however, lacked manliness to a striking de- 
 gree, for his voice had in it few but treble notes, 
 and he was given to effeminate modes of speech 
 and phrasing. His two favorite exclamations were 
 "Don't say!" and "Go along!" The first he 
 was apt to utter in a generally colloquial way, as 
 an incentive to further conversation, a premium 
 of excellence put upon what you had just said, a 
 politely amazed doubt, because of its excessive 
 importance and value, that you or anybody else 
 could possibly have said it ; and he not often ac- 
 companied it by a little social tcJish, made with the 
 tongue against the teeth. He was constantly em- 
 ploying his "Don't say "with Mrs. Bondurant, 
 but he had never yet dared to approach those 
 bounds of intimacy which would authorize the ut- 
 terance of a " Go along." This expression signi- 
 fied with him, in a major sense, humorous discredit 
 of your veracity; but it had a score or so' of 
 minor meanings, whose variations could all be 
 referred to an equality between himself and his 
 interlocutor. There was indeed no such equality 
 in the case of the elegant and dazzling widow, 
 who seemed to him like an exile from one of those 
 groups of ladies in the colored fashion-plates of 
 Qodey^s Lady Boole, and who had more than 
 once given him very plainly to understand (even 
 if he had not understood it at a glance) that she 
 
272 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 was a bird of yery different feather from those 
 which ordinarily flew past his pharmacy. 
 
 On the present occasion she had no sooner 
 crossed its threshold than she observed Carolan 
 seated before one of the counters. He was wait- 
 ing until a prescription had been made up for his 
 employer, Mr. Chadwick ; there were several other 
 people also waiting in the shop. Mr. Tomlinson 
 had withdrawn from view, and was compounding 
 something for somebody amid the professional se- 
 clusion of rear regions. The moment that Mrs. 
 Bondurant appeared, however, he advanced to 
 meet her, becoming briskly visible and showing 
 that he must have some occult means for observing 
 all that went on during his incidental absences. 
 He at once devoted himself to Mrs. Bondurant, and 
 they spoke in murmurs together. She told him 
 that she felt enormously indebted to him for hav- 
 ing cured her cold, and that she considered it 
 would be grossly ungrateful for her not to assure 
 him that he alone had cured it. All the while she 
 was giving a sidelong glance at Carolan, who stood 
 not far away and perhaps felt a little wrath of the 
 hot but hidden sort for being thus promised further 
 detention. A stout woman, among the others 
 who waited, now bent on the widow's modish 
 and svelte figure something very like a scowl ; she 
 was the customer whose turn to be served had 
 now arrived, and of her malaria-ridden husband, 
 she had told Mr. Tomlinson already that "th' 
 
TBE nOVSE AT IIIGII BRIDGE. 273 
 
 owld man was took putty bad this mornin'." 
 She thought it an injustice that Mrs. Bondurant 
 should thrust others aside, and while this thought 
 crossed her mind there was a look on her puffy, 
 morose visage which might broadly be described 
 as communistic. 
 
 But Mr. Tomlinson profusely concerned himself 
 with his new visitor, nevertheless, and now gave 
 a falsetto laugh that was full of modest depreca- 
 tion. He always drew in his shoulders like an 
 embarrassed school-girl when he laughed, and 
 lifted one hand to his mouth. The latter gesture 
 was due, very probably, to a defective front tooth, 
 for whose partial ruin dentistry had long ago 
 made golden reparation ; but here was one of the 
 few cases in human nature where the possession 
 of gold stimulated no pride in him who had ac- 
 quired it. Meanwhile Mrs. Bondurant quickly, 
 changed the subject of gratitude for past favors 
 to a request for some service yet to be performed. 
 It was a very trifling service, though the drug- 
 gist's clerk received it with a secret pang of 
 jealousy. 
 
 " Oh, dear me, yes, certainly I will," he promptly 
 murmured, however, with a momentary sweep of 
 the eyes in Carolan's direction. "And I guess 
 he'll be glad enough, too ; for I've got to keep him 
 waiting ever so long. My employer, Mr. Wicks, 
 is always going to the city just when it's our busi- 
 est time, and leaving me to 'tend to things all 
 
274 THE nOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 alone, like as now. Oh, of course yes ! He'll be 
 delighted, I'm sure. So you'd reely and truly like 
 to make his acquaintance, ma'am ? Don't say ! " 
 
 Carolan was presently introduced, with cum- 
 brous and effusive formality on the part of Mr. 
 Tomlinson and a more settled scowl on that of 
 the stout watching dame, whose wronged soul 
 may now have throbbed under a sense of burn- 
 ing injury. When this event took place he mani- 
 fested much less delight than the kind of surprise 
 which narrowly misses being discourteous. 
 
 He knew just who Mrs. Bondurant was, having 
 learned weeks ago from Coggeshal. He thought 
 her chic a mere vulgar smartness, though he had 
 often granted that she sometimes looked the true 
 aristocrat. They had met constantly, as two resi- 
 dents of the same small place will of necessity 
 do. He felt as familiar with her pony-wagon, her 
 befeathered driving-hats, her fashionable patterns 
 of toilette, as he felt with the ever-assertive arches 
 of High Bridge itself. But though he would 
 have liked to become acquainted with her (chiefly 
 because aware that Isabel and she were on good 
 friendly terms) he had always fancied that she 
 regarded him as some one wholly beneath her 
 most passing concern. He had been perfectly 
 right in this feeling, which the widow's air of 
 serene indifference had through continuous tran- 
 sient encounters actively incited. And perhaps 
 Mrs. Bondurant, when she now began to treat him 
 
THE MOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 275 
 
 in her most genial and indulgent way, was fully 
 cognizant of self-wrought prejudices to be over- 
 come. 
 
 She overcame them with no difficulty whatever. 
 She had been quite certain that he would readily 
 yield to her bland overtures. And she made them 
 very bland indeed. He was just the sort of fellow 
 who would instantly respond to her honne mine 
 whenever she chose to assume one. She had not 
 had her followers, her dancers-in-attendance during 
 those gay Paris days for nothing. She would 
 turn him into one of these before ten minutes had 
 elapsed. He might not fall in love with her ; she 
 entirely hoped that he would not. But he would 
 like her ; he would be willing to drop in upon her 
 at the little cottage whenever she wished. And 
 she could bend him afterward to her own uses, 
 giving him his curt congS when she had got from 
 him all that she desired to get. 
 
 " It really must have struck you as too positively 
 frightful," she was soon saying to him, in well- 
 modulated undertone, " that I should have asked 
 poor Mr. Tomlinson to introduce us. But I have 
 seen you so often here, and have heard the Cog- 
 geshals all speak of you so much, that .1 fancied 
 you would be mercifully forgiving, don't you 
 know, if only on the plea of mere neighborly 
 sociability." 
 
 She looked at him a trifle languishingly, then, with 
 her black eyes, and thought how handsome he was 
 
276 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 on a near view and yet what thoroughly bad style. 
 There was something plebeian in the very tying 
 of his cravat. He might be a commis-voyageur., or 
 a person who roamed about, " working up " letters 
 for newspapers. How could women like men of 
 this stamp? But they undoubtedly did — and 
 women of the very best form, too. Who could forget 
 that little Comtesse X — at Nice, whose blood was 
 blue as any in Europe, and who ran away with an 
 Irish war-correspondent? He had short curls all 
 over his head, just like this fellow, and his trousers 
 always bulged at the knee, as though they needed 
 ironing. 
 
 While Carolan thought Mrs. Bondurant quite as 
 objectional as she thought him — while she seemed 
 for him to literally shed exaggerations as the scales 
 of a fish shed light, and to diffuse them as some un- 
 wholesome, gaudy-dyed flowers are forever diffusing 
 musky, oppressive scents, he found himself pleased, 
 notwithstanding, by what, as a journalist, he might 
 have called her entrie en matiSre ; and very soon a 
 considerable amount of personal dislike had fled 
 from his bosom. He was amazed to find that this 
 butterfly did not deem him a mere common weed, 
 after all, but was willing to poise above him thus 
 flatteringly. 
 
 Although feeling abashed, at first, for the proper 
 words of reply, he had soon cocked the hat of his 
 native gallantry, as might be said, jauntily and 
 characteristically on one side. He assured Mrs. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 277 
 
 Bondurant, in his mellow voice and with his blue 
 eye seeming to sparkle the purest sincerity, that it 
 had been a matter of real sorrow to him, this pro- 
 longed deprivation of an acquaintanceship in 
 which he had felt so deeply that he would be a 
 fortunate gainer. The widow realized that many 
 of her sex would have thought this charming 
 enough, while to her it all had a second-rate cachet 
 about it. But she straightway answered : 
 
 " Oh, if that is the case, Mr. Carolan, I do hope 
 we shall be friends. I haven't any thmg at all im- 
 mense to offer you in the way of hospitality. You 
 have seen my atom of a house ; and then at times 
 — toward the ends of the months, you know — I'm 
 often feeling so poor that it's weird. But I shall 
 be fascinated to have you comci and I'll try not to 
 make it too horrifyingly stupid. Of course I shall 
 expect to shock you with my lightness — you, a 
 savant, an homme d'esprit. But one needs a bit of 
 nougat or spun-sugar, now and then ; one can't 
 forever live on the heavy solids." 
 
 "Ah, lady," replied Carolan, with an old-time 
 touch about the politeness of this reply which some 
 hearers would have found nothing short of irresist- 
 ible, "I fear that you wholly under-rate your own 
 resources both of entertainment and instruction." 
 
 He was inclined to be rather stiffly ceremonious 
 with her during the earlier visits paid at her cot- 
 tage; but by degrees he settled into a far more 
 familiar manner, which made her like him less 
 
278 TUE HOUSE AT BIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 than she had previously done ; it was just as if he 
 had exchanged a dingy garment for one still more 
 rusty and shabby. But at the same time she per- 
 suaded him that his presence in the cottage was 
 always most valuably welcome — which, indeed, 
 for reasons unallied with any social preferment, it 
 undoubtedly was. 
 
 ' He is even cleverer than I thought,' she told 
 herself, as days glided on. ' If he knows anything, 
 he will guard it very shrewdly. He is suspicious 
 in the way that people are suspicious who have 
 guilty consciences. Something is on his mind, 
 worrying him stealthily. It isn't Isabel Coggeshal, 
 either, for he was perfectly bon camarade, the 
 other day, about telling me that he adored her. 
 What can it be ? I must deal with him very care- 
 fulty; I see that the least mis-step might spoil 
 everything." 
 
 At this same time Carolan sought her company 
 more than half with the desire to dissipate some 
 of his own gnawing anxiety. He watched every 
 movement of Brockholst that it was possible for 
 him to watch. At any hour — any moment, in fact 
 — he expected the unmasking and ruin of Cog- 
 geshal, accompanied by the disgrace of his own 
 implication. Incessantly the temptation came to 
 cast the dxist of High Bridge forever from his feet, 
 and slip forever from the ken of all who dwelt there. 
 
 He would have done this but for a single veto- 
 ing cause — Isabel. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BHIBGE. 279 
 
 XII. 
 
 All through these next few weeks the prepara- 
 tions for Sadie's wedding were gathering both 
 momentum and coherence. It was to be a very 
 small wedding, and yet the mere fact of any such 
 event occurring at all in an atmosphere so com- 
 pletely domestic as that of the Coggeshal house- 
 hold, had produced not a few singular perturba- 
 tions. Isabel would find herself earnestly solicited 
 for advice at one moment, and caustically repulsed 
 the next. A cry of horror went up from Sadie 
 and Mrs. Coggeshal when she suggested that the 
 bride should go to the little church near by in a nice 
 gray travelling-dress, instead of the more conven- 
 tional white silk one, with veil and orange-flowers. 
 Sadie's look of melancholy scorn dwelt with 
 Isabel for an hour or two afterward. 
 
 "Why don't you propose that I shall go off 
 some evenuig on the sly," Sadie had witheringly 
 retorted, " and meet Clarry near the church, some- 
 where, and come back as if nothing had happened, 
 like our waitress, Jane, last fall ? " 
 
 " I do think. Belle ! " struck in Mrs. Coggeshal 
 before Isabel had time to parry this attack. " Sa- 
 
280 TUE HOUSE AT HIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 die isn't a widow. I declare you sometimes just 
 tr^ yourself/" 
 
 " Don't join against me till my guilt is proven, 
 mamma," said Isabel. " I merely meant that every 
 thing is so quiet out here — that's all. A fully- 
 decorated bride, with a trail, will affect our modest 
 neighborhood almost as violently as a comet 
 might." 
 
 She afterward repented of her suggestion, and 
 especially as Sadie was amiably infuriated on ac- 
 count of it for some time afterward, never commu- 
 nicating with her except in monosyllables full of 
 patient resignation, and even passing her the butter 
 at breakfast with a bereaved air. But there were 
 other reasons why Isabel's conscience smote her, 
 and why she soon made Sadie the most direct and 
 humble apology, putting both arms about her sis- 
 ter's neck and giving her a conciliatory kiss which 
 was apathetically received. " "Why, I never dreamed 
 of being angry. Belle," Sadie had answered, with 
 torpid satire ; and " Oh, yes, you were," Isabel had 
 asserted, giving her another final kiss, " but it's all 
 right between us now, dear, I do hope ! " Privately 
 to her own thoughts Isabel had declared that she 
 had acted with a most inconsiderate want of feeling. 
 Of course Sadie desired to wear the accepted bridal 
 garments ; what young bride did not desire to wear 
 them ? It was a very just and sweet little budding 
 of sentiment, which she had met in a ruthless and 
 frosty manner. With the thought of her father's 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 281 
 
 hidden trouble now continually vexing her, and 
 with the harassment of deciding just how it would 
 be best to begin her new course of action toward 
 Carolan, she had let herself slip into a culpably- 
 indifferent state as regarded Sadie's great coming 
 happiness. And Sadie's happiness was so dear to 
 her ! Nothing except that of her father and mother 
 could be dearer ! It was one thing to disapprove 
 of Sadie's " way ", and often even to mentally groan 
 under its inflictions ; it was another not to cherish 
 for her sister the most loyal and inalienable fond- 
 ness! 
 
 As regarded Carolan, Isabel grew daily more 
 perplexed and disheartened. She wanted greatly 
 to meet him ; she had made up her mind that she 
 would employ the surest tact and cunning as soon 
 as they came face to face. She had already seen 
 him walk past the house, one evening, at Mrs. 
 Bondurant's side, and had marvelled accordingly 
 at this evidence of their acquaintanceship. But 
 Carolan now never sought her father. He afforded 
 her no opportunity of meeting him. The calls of 
 Brockholst were beginning to be more and more 
 frequent, but he seldom made the least mention 
 of his uncle's secretary. 
 
 "Carolan seems duller than when T first met 
 him," were his words one day to Isabel. " But 
 perhaps he has already passed the same comment 
 on myself ... who knows? Or perhaps," added 
 the speaker, not without a vague derision that rang 
 
282 TEH HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 discordantly at once to her wlio heard it, " he has 
 been letting himself fall hopelessly in love." 
 
 "In love?" echoed Isabel, while she colored, 
 remembering what she had learned not long ago 
 from her father. "You don't mean . . ? " And then 
 she came to a dead pause, feeling into what fatal 
 awkwardness her own honesty could sometimes 
 betray her. 
 
 Brockholst gave a hearty laugh. He was get- 
 ting used to this complete absence of coquetry, 
 and the more used to it he became the more it 
 exerted over him a delicate and indescribable 
 sorcery. " Oh, no," he cried, " I don't mean that 
 he's in love with you any more. I did think so, 
 ages ago — a whole fortnight ago if I'm not mis- 
 taken. But I don't think so any more. You 
 mustn't expect too much from male human nature, 
 you know." The derisive note crept into his voice 
 again, as he went on : " It appears to be Mrs. Bon- 
 durant, now." 
 
 " I saw them walking together yesterday," said 
 Isabel. " And it seemed so queer a thing for her 
 to treat him even civilly, after the scornful way in 
 which she used to speak of him." 
 
 " Oh, she's done queerer things than that in her 
 day," said Brockholst mystically. 
 
 Isabel gave him a very earnest glance while he 
 stroked his moustache and looked down, as though 
 quite unaware of the lovely eyes levelled on him. 
 
 "Do you believe," came the almost solemnly 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 283 
 
 serious question, "that she's ever done anything 
 which she herself thought to be thoroughly- 
 wrong ? " 
 
 Brockholst quickly lifted his eyes to those of 
 his questioner. Isabel's had so pure, cloudless, 
 unflinching a fixity, and yet a gaze so wholly free 
 from childishness on the one hand or conscious- 
 ness of self on the other, that he felt like a veteran 
 cynic while he was presently saying : 
 
 "Nearly everybody has done something, I should 
 say, at some time in his or her life, which was 
 thought to be thoroughly wrong." 
 
 "Ah, no, no," said Isabel, resolutely shaking 
 her head, while a look of real pain swept over her 
 face. " It's a bad enough world as it is. Don't 
 try to make it worse, pray. There are some peo- 
 ple in it (thank Heaven !) whom all the money in 
 it couldn't force to do anything they thought 
 thoroughly wrong ! " 
 
 " There may be a good many such people," said 
 Brockholst. " I hope there are. At present I 
 can't feel perfectly confident except on the subject 
 of one." 
 
 There was no mistaking his tone — or his under- 
 tone, either. " Pray don't even hint," said Isabel, 
 with her superb frankness, which often shattered 
 compliments like glass, notwithstanding that 
 Brockholst's were somehow rarely displeasing to 
 her — " pray don't even hint / am one of those 
 people ! I've never been tested yet. I've lived a 
 
284 TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 protected, tranquil, almost uneventful life. There's 
 no telling what I might do if I were really tempted." 
 
 "It seems to me that there is telling," said 
 Brockholst. " I mean as regards what you would 
 not do." 
 
 " Ah," she said, smiling slightly and drooping 
 her eyes for a moment. " That is kind of you . . 
 for I suppose you want it to be kind." 
 
 " I want it to be truthful. But have you any 
 human ideals in the way of stolid resistance to 
 temptation? Have you a friend, for example, 
 whom you would at all times and under all stress 
 of circumstances infallibly trust ? " 
 
 Her thoughts flew on wings of love to her 
 father. Whatever might be his implicating rela- 
 tions toward Carolan, they were surely nothing 
 which could ever jeopardize his honorable place 
 among his fellow-men. They might involve an 
 imprudence, an impolitic and even foolhardy step, 
 but by no possibility could they relate to any act 
 through which his high and secure moral standard 
 could be degi;aded. Her reflections had been al- 
 most inappreciably rapid, and hence with scarcely 
 a shade of hesitation she answered : 
 
 " I have one friend of that sort — one friend of 
 whom I feel entirely sure. My father." 
 
 " Ah," said Brockholst. . , 
 
 The next time he met her father a sort of ten- 
 der halo seemed to hover about the man. There 
 was a great deal in Coggeshal's personality, as it 
 
THE nOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 285 
 
 affected his daughter's admirer, to corroborate this 
 placid yet powerful confession of deep filial faith. 
 In proportion as he yielded to the spell of Isabel, 
 Brockholst now felt himself drawn toward one 
 whom so taintless and womanly a spirit could 
 approve and revere. 
 
 A day or two later, as Isabel was quitting the 
 house, about an hour after breakfast-time, for the 
 purpose of making some ordinary purchase in one 
 of the shops not far away, she discovered her fa- 
 ther talking with Carolan at the verge of the near 
 roadside. She drew back for an instant, doubtful 
 as to whether she should retrace her steps toward 
 the porch just descended or continue them till they 
 brought her in direct contact with the two speak- 
 ers. She swiftly decided to walk straight on, 
 and before she reached the limit of the meagre 
 lawn she saw Carolan move away in the same di- 
 rection that she herself had intended to take. 
 
 The meeting between the two men had been in 
 every way accidental, and to Carolan it had been 
 distressingly ill-timed. He had parted with Cog- 
 geshal, on their last interview, under conditions of 
 cold threat and supercilious challenge. But inter- 
 mediate developments had meanwhile wrought 
 wondrous change. Carolan had a turmoil of con- 
 sternation and misery to rouse if he had so chosen, 
 but he did not choose. The earthquake must be 
 brought about by another than himself; he had 
 been waiting its appearance. Coggeshal, who had 
 
286 THE HOUSE AT niGE BRIDGE. 
 
 simply met him by chance as he was taking a 
 morning stroll, must be the first one to tell of dis- 
 aster and open infamy. But Coggeshal had as yet 
 no such disastrous tidings to convey, and the result 
 had been that those few moments of converse were 
 fraught, on either side, with a miserable mutual 
 hanging of fire. 
 
 Isabel joined her father a few seconds after Caro- 
 lan had turned his back upon him. The Irishman 
 went up the road toward High Bridge, carelessly 
 swinging his stick and unaware, through some 
 chance failure to observe her, that she had come 
 forth from the house at all. But Isabel had already 
 made up her mind that her craved meeting with 
 Carolan must happen now. And so, as she met 
 her father face to face, she merely said : " A lovely 
 morning, isn't it, papa ? " and passed him, going 
 straight out upon the roadside. Let her father 
 think she was following Carolan, if he chose to 
 think so. Perhaps he wovild be glad to think so. As 
 it was, he did not detain her ; he let her move past 
 him and take the open road, while Carolan walked 
 with his springing step full in view before her. 
 
 'Shall I hurry?' thought Isabel. But just 
 then Carolan halted, tucked his stick under one 
 arm, thrust both hands into his pockets, and slowly 
 turned, with upraised head, as if to thoroughly 
 inhale the charms of the breezy and melodious 
 morning. A moment afterward he had seen Isabel, 
 and she had perceived by his prompt change of 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 287 
 
 attitude that he had seen her. She urged her 
 steps forward unhesitatingly. As she approached 
 him, Carolan raised his hat. 
 
 " Good - morning," he said, soon afterward. 
 " You're going my way ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Isabel. 
 
 " Do you object to my walking with you ? " 
 
 " Not at all. I'm very happy to have you do 
 so." The words, as she spoke them, brought a 
 pang of inward shame to her ; their falsity made 
 them hateful. " I saw you speaking with papa a 
 moment ago, did I not ? " 
 
 " Yes." He was watching her with the corners 
 of his eyes, and she noted this as he now proceeded : 
 " We did not talk very long, but we spoke about 
 you." 
 
 " About me ? " she said, starting, as they slowly 
 walked onward together. 
 
 " Yes. Your father was good enough to ask me 
 why I did not come oftener to his house. I told 
 him" — Here Carolan most abruptly paused. He 
 was thinking of what effective falsehood he could 
 coin. Whatever it would be, he was not afraid 
 that Coggeshal would refute it. The man's late 
 embarrassment during their brief accidental meet- 
 ing had convinced him of that. 
 
 " Well," said Isabel, turning her face and look- 
 ing at him with an expression that she could no 
 more have made encouraging or captivating than 
 she could have stilled or waked at pleasure the 
 
288 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 liquid bird-notes that were being trilled now from 
 adjacent trees. " What did you tell papa ? " 
 
 She did not want the words to fall too coldly on 
 his ear. She had already assured herself that she 
 would use with him tact, diplomacy, deception, 
 hypocrisy, any thing, to find out the secret of his 
 influence over her father. And yet here she was, 
 confronted by the imperiousness of her own hon- 
 esty. She had not yet begun to play her part, 
 and even now its enaction had grown detestable. 
 
 " I told your father," said Carolan, leaning a 
 little nearer to her, and letting his musical voice 
 take its deepest tone, " that you never treated me 
 as if you cared to have me for a visitor." 
 
 "I? "Isabel faltered. 
 
 He laughed, and slashed at a weed on the path- 
 border savagely with his cane. "Oh, yes — you! Is 
 it such a surprise for you to. hear this? Let me 
 tell you that it's an old — a miserably old, story to 
 me. Why, for the first three or four months after 
 I came here with Mr. Chadwick, I wouldn't let my- 
 self believe that you meant to repulse me, to give 
 me the cold shoulder. I fought against my own 
 conviction. But at last I had to knock under, for 
 there was no failing to see your — dislike. T can't 
 call it by any other word. I hate beating about 
 the bush. You do dislike me, and you know it. 
 I allow that it's your own affair if you do. It's 
 not a capital offence ; you can't even be punished 
 at all for it." His voice broke a little, just here. 
 
THte HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 289 
 
 "The punishment, as it might be said, falls on 
 somebody else." 
 
 Isabel had never seen him like this before. Al- 
 ways previously the meretricious aids of the poseur 
 had seemed to go with all that he said or did. Now 
 the truth unaffectedly clothed him, for if there is 
 one thing which love is eternally bent upon making 
 us it is ourselves. The worst egotist and the 
 most trained coquette are both instinctively aware 
 of this, and their arts never become so deft and 
 nimble as when (sometimes most unavailingly) 
 they struggle for the concealment of passion. 
 
 " I don't think I have ever failed in the proper 
 courtesy due you," said Isabel, "when you have 
 been a guest of ours. But if I have — if it has 
 appeared to you as though I disliked you and 
 wished such dislike to transpire — then I most 
 sincerely beg your pardon for my fault. And I 
 should rank it a most grave fault," she added 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Ah, good Heavens," Carolan murmured, with 
 a gesture of intense impatience, "what you say 
 sounds like the apology of a physician for per- 
 forming some act of surgery." 
 
 "Oh, I meant nothing so cruel as that," said 
 Isabel, with a little hopeless inflection. 
 
 " Surgery is never cruel ; it's always merciful." 
 
 "But it wounds. Not needlessly, it is true. 
 Still, I do not wish to wound at all. Life does 
 enough of that to everybody." 
 
290 TEE BOUSE AT UIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 "Right. It's pleasant to feel that yoii really 
 have some mercy toward me, however." 
 
 " I have it — toward the whole world, I hope." 
 
 Carolan gave a short, bitter laugh. " Ah, that 
 'whole world ' I " he exclaimed. " It strikes on me 
 like a blast of freezing air. Talk of wanting bread 
 and getting a stone ! " He laughed again, just as 
 briefly and joylessly as before. " Well, a man 
 can't be jealous of the whole world, can he? I 
 suppose, bj- the way, your philanthropy includes 
 Mr. Lloyd Brockholst?" 
 
 He said this too seriously and even sorrowfully 
 for her to resent it as an impertinence, or even 
 to realize, while she colored under it, that it was 
 one. 
 
 "Yes," she said, trying to smile and not suc- 
 ceeding at all well. " It includes him, I suppose, 
 together with the rest of the species." Then she 
 made sudden query : " Why do you mention Ms 
 name ? I hope he hasn't offended you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, he has, very much. He has commit- 
 ted the fault of making you civil to him." 
 
 She bit her lip. " I see you're bent on giving 
 me a bad character for exceptional politeness." 
 
 " No ; I never complained of your lacking po- 
 liteness. That is what you crushed me with — 
 your politeness ! " 
 
 They moved onward for some little time in 
 silence. Isabel felt that she was wofully devoid 
 of the equipments required of her by circumstance 
 
THE BOUSE AT UIGH lililDGE. 291 
 
 for dealing with this man. Finesse and strategy- 
 were not her gifts, and the tactics of coquetry lay 
 unreachably beyond her. If she adopted any dis- 
 tinct measure it must be that of plain appeal. 
 She had learned that Carolan wanted to marry 
 her. If so, there must be a fund of tenderness for 
 her in his soul. Why not make a demand upon 
 this, and get him to avow the truth regarding what 
 hold he might possess over her father? Just as 
 she had decided to speak again, Carolan said, in 
 a changed voice, where the tremor of emotion 
 was clearly evident : 
 
 " May I put a question to you ? " 
 
 "Yes. What question?" 
 
 " This : Has your father told you that I — I am 
 not happy because you care for me so little ? " 
 
 His pace had grown slower, and she now had 
 either to slacken hers or almost scornfully keep it 
 as it had been. " Yes," she answered, in lowered 
 tones and with drooping eyes, " Papa did say . . 
 something of that sort." 
 
 " He said the truth, then." A gap in the rich 
 leafage that bushed far down the slope at whose 
 edge their path lay, showed High Bridge, like a 
 picture, with its drab arches bathed in the fresh 
 morning glow, and the summer blue hollowed lu- 
 minously and peacefully beyond it. " He said the 
 truth," Carolan repeated. She heard the passion 
 in his voice, now, as any woman must have done. 
 " I love you. I am wretched because you do not 
 
292 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BlilBGE. 
 
 love me — -or perhaps I should say because you 
 cannot love me ! " 
 
 " I do not — and can not," Isabel replied. She 
 stopped, and looked full at him as he stopped also. 
 She was quite pale. " When my father said that 
 to me," she went on, "I was greatly surprised. 
 But something else surprised me still more. I 
 mean that papa should have seemed anxious to 
 have me return this . . this feeling of which we 
 now speak." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Carolan, with a look of fierce pain, 
 "you thought it strange he should want you to 
 marry a fellow like myself ! You wondered that he 
 shouldn't look higher for you than the dependent 
 on old beau Chadwick's whims — than beau Chad- 
 wick's paid servant, in fact ! " 
 
 "No such thought entered my mind," she re- 
 plied, with a gentle dignity of mien and speech 
 that became her to the eyes of her observer better 
 than she knew or would have cared to know. " I 
 simply remembered that papa, who has always 
 been like my second self, must long ago have seen 
 the truth, provided I ... I had cared for you at all 
 in that way. But, as it was, I could not help feel- 
 ing that some unguessed relation between you and 
 him had made him speak to me as he did." 
 
 Carolan drew backward as her last words were 
 given. " Some unguessed relation ! " he said, un- 
 der his breath. 
 
 "Yes," hurried Isabel. "You see, I conceal 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 293 
 
 nothing. I meet you as fairly as I can. I'll even 
 confess to you that after what papa told me I had 
 resolved to use a certain kind of . . of craft with 
 you, and by this means prevail on you to disclose 
 the secret, whatever it might be I But — " 
 
 " The secret ? " he broke in. She saw him change 
 color, and hastily straighten his figure as if against 
 the assault of some new-found antagonist. 
 
 " There is a secret I " she exclamied. " I am 
 certain of it I Papa has never even hinted to me 
 that there was ; don't suspect him or blame him. 
 But I feel that all this gloom of his — this abstrac- 
 tion, this lapse from his old self to a self as differ- 
 ent as day from night, is explainable only in one 
 manner." 
 
 " And that explanation . . ? " 
 
 " You can furnish it — not I," she quickly re- 
 turned. Her voice had become excited, and more 
 supplicatory in proportion. " I can only imagine, 
 speculate." 
 
 He nodded several times, with his eyes fixed on 
 her pale, determined yet wistful face. "I see. 
 You think I must have some private means of 
 badgering your father into indorsing me as your 
 possible husband. You don't believe that he could' 
 ever have made such a proposal to you unless act- 
 ual outside pressure had been brought to bear 
 upon him." Carolan had set his lips tightly to- 
 gether, and now he drew an audible breath through 
 his dilated nostrils, while both eyes momentarily 
 
294 THE HOUSE Af HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 closed. There was genuine suffering in all this ; 
 the poseur played no > part in it whatever. " Oh, 
 how exquisitely flattering!" he went on. "I 
 wonder if you quite appreciate the depth or 
 the delicacy of the compliment you are paying 
 me." 
 
 " I meant no compliment," said Isabel — " and 
 no insult, either." She spoke a little haughtily; 
 she was just the girl to ruin her cause by impolitic 
 anger. She had grown nettled at what seemed to 
 her the wilfulness of Carolan's misinterpretations 
 and the recurrence of his satirical reproaches. " I 
 might have taken a very different course from this 
 one. But I find that any thing except a straight- 
 forward course is next to impossible with me. I 
 do not believe you to be a bad man, Mr. Carolan, 
 but I shall almost believe it if you now persevere 
 in refusing to make plain the mystery between 
 yourself and my father." 
 
 He saw very clearly that she was becoming in- 
 dignant, and her being so struck him as a harsh 
 injustice. Could he help having loved her ? She 
 had always regarded him as some one hnt a little 
 above the dirt of the roadway — yes, he had slight 
 doubt of this, now, and he had always felt more 
 than merely suspicious of it. She had grown per- 
 suaded that some sort of queer proceeding with 
 himself must have threatened to compromise her 
 beloved father — and why? Because (O coolly 
 insulting deduction !) Coggeshal would never have 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 295 
 
 been willing, otherwise, that she should haye mar- 
 ried a poor Irish adventurer like himself. 
 
 If Isabel had exhibited anger, these quickly fer- 
 menting thoughts of Cardan's caused him to op- 
 pose it with an anger considerably more severe. 
 It is never difficult for a lover who knows himself 
 spiritually unworthy of the woman who refuses his 
 suit, to persuade himself that he is rejected because 
 of arrogance, ambition, or an over-weening egotism. 
 
 "Pray by what right," he said, with lips that 
 had Avhitened and begun to quiver a little, " do you 
 demand that I shall make anything plain which 
 may lie between your father and myself? Are 
 you aware that for you to prefer this demand at 
 this particular time speaks by no means hand- 
 somely for yoiu" taste ? And let me add, if you 
 please — " he lifted his hat, now, and took a step 
 or two forward, as though desirous of at once leav- 
 ing her — "that whatever I might know as to why 
 your father mopes or desponds, I should keep en- 
 tirely to myself. But I profess no knowledge 
 whatever on this point. Good-morning." 
 
 He had almost turned from her when Isabel 
 stretched out one hand, and indeed imploringly. 
 "Forgive me," she said, "if I have caused you 
 further annoyance." She had got a beautiful col- 
 or, now, and her eyes were star-like in their sweet 
 ardor. " It seems that I am fated to do nothing to- 
 day except offend you. You have told me that you 
 — you loved me, and I have given you all the an- 
 
296 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 swer I could give — all that I can ever give, though 
 we were both to have a hundred years of youth. 
 And now perhaps it is selfish for me to ask you if 
 you will give me an answer. You know what I 
 mean. And I don't think it selfish, either — I can't. 
 It springs from the love that I feel for him. His 
 peace of mind is immensely precious to me. If 
 there has been some imprudence — some folly — 
 some affair of debt, tell me ! I am always fancy- 
 ing that it is an affair of debt," she ran on quite 
 wildly at this point ; " I can hardly see how it can 
 be any thing else. He has never made his money- 
 concerns very clear to me ; he is naturally reticent 
 about; those. I mean he didn't speak of them at 
 much length, and we always used to have so many 
 other matters to talk about, papa and I. But in 
 every thing else he has been the soul of confidence 
 with me." 
 
 " And now he has ceased to be confidential," 
 said Carolan huskily, but with a palpable sneer. 
 " So you come to me for information — me, whom 
 you think despicable as a husband but good enough 
 to make a convenience of when the occasion suits ! " 
 
 "Ah," cried Isabel, recoiling, and looking ired 
 again. " You are incorrigible ! " 
 
 "And why?" shot Carolan, his voice tremu- 
 lous, his lips working. The raw, vulgar meanness 
 of his whole past motive in having tempted 
 Coggeshal to steal, now leapt from him, naked 
 and odious, in his rage. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 297 
 
 " Because I won't turn and kiss your hand after 
 it has slapped me in the face ! Your father's 
 trouble is no interest of mine. How should it 
 be ? He may be the saint you think him or — " 
 
 " I have never said he was a saint," Isabel broke 
 in. If it had not been for this very father, whose 
 source of distress she had sought with so pitifully 
 bungling a candor to discover, she would have 
 veered about, now, and left her companion with 
 scarcely another glance. " But I am certain that 
 no more honorable man lives than he," she con- 
 tinued, the accent of pride which went with this 
 sentence being as unconscious as the equally proud 
 lifting of her head. " I did not suppose him dis- 
 turbed by anything like repentance for — for" 
 (she paused, as if seeking a word respectful enough 
 while sufficiently strong) " a misdeed." 
 
 " No," retorted Carolan, with a kind of sardonic 
 toss of the head. "I can understand that per- 
 fectly. You thought he might be suffering from 
 some misdeed — as you prettily term it — done an 
 inferior creature like myself. Still, we all make 
 wonderful errors in these little life-times of ours. 
 You despise me — you can deny it as often as you 
 please, though I read it in you none the less clearly. 
 But perhaps you might better save a little con- 
 tempt for some one else — for your idol, your par- 
 agon, in fact! Go and teU him, if you choose, 
 that I said tliis ! " 
 
 He darted away from her the next minute. She 
 
298 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 stood watching tlie swift swing of his gait along 
 the tranquil, pastoral roadside. She grew pale 
 with a great, benumbing, deadening fear. The 
 fierce challenge in his final words haunted her 
 terribly. She felt faint and chilled in the gay, 
 warm summer sunshine. The very twitterings of 
 the birds from the bosky acclivity near by rang 
 with mockery in their music. 
 
 She had trusted her father so absolutely all her 
 life ! — as absolutely as from the first she had dis- 
 trusted this jaunty, voluble, plausible Carolan. 
 And now this same Carolan, who had been her 
 father's close associate for weeks, had not only 
 presumed to fling a slur upon Herbert Cogge- 
 shal's name, but had dared her, his daughter, to 
 repeat the insult. 
 
 'And I will repeat it,' Isabel passionately 
 thought, ' just as he gave it.' While this impetu- 
 ous resolve was being taken, she turned her steps 
 homeward once more, eager to find her father and 
 gain the untold relief of his denial, his refutation. 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 299 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Foe several days Carolan had not presented 
 himself at Mrs. Bondurant's cottage. She had 
 grown impatient at this wholly unexpected ab- 
 sence. It did not at all harmonize with her plans. 
 When Carolan had last left her she had begun to 
 assure herself that the end of her desire was per- 
 haps nearer attainment than logical survey might 
 concede. She had pleased him ; he might be in 
 love with Isabel Coggeshal, but this attachment 
 did not prevent him from warming very respon- 
 sively to her calculated blandishments. He was 
 far enough from nursing the least sentiment for 
 her except one of gallant admiration. She had 
 been grateful to Providence on this account — or 
 so she firmly induced herself to believe ; but 
 whether, in her present lonely lack of all court- 
 paying from the other sex, she would have found 
 pleasure in the amorous deportment of even a 
 man as distasteful to her as this semi-Bohemian 
 Irishman, is a question on which it would be rash 
 to build negative theories. In any case, she had 
 congratulated even a force as confessedly inimical 
 as her own destiny on the milder turn which thei*- 
 
300 THE HOVSE AT LIIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 current of acquaintanceship had taken. 'There 
 really seems no danger of his falling in love with 
 me,' she had of late . told her own thoughts ; 
 ' and it is indeed enormously fortunate that there 
 doesii't. I don't know what on earth I should 
 have done if he had developed an actual tender- 
 ness. It would have been like a compliment from 
 one's groom; he is so abominably second-rate. 
 However, all that is settled now.' 
 
 It was by no means settled, on the other hand, 
 that Carolan should stay away from the cottage as 
 at present. Mrs. Bondurant had just made up 
 her mind that she would send him a politely pro- 
 vocative little note regarding a magazine which he 
 had promised to loan her, when one cloudy, dull, 
 hot afternoon his foot sounded on the steps of her 
 porch. 
 
 She at once saw that he was distrait and out of 
 spirits. " I've had a fit of the blues," he replied 
 to her, when she reproached him for his desertion. 
 " I would have bored you miserably if I had come 
 any sooner." 
 
 " But it would not have bored me at all to ad- 
 minister consolation," she said. "I should have 
 doted on doing so." She gave a little soft sigh, 
 here. " Still, perhaps that would have been out 
 of my line altogether." 
 
 " Oh, no ; by no means," he answered. " I came 
 to you as soon as I felt myself able to walk with- 
 out'crutches." 
 
TUB HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 301 
 
 "I see. So you've received an injury. But it 
 hasn't lamed you for life ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid it has." 
 
 "You've received it from Isabel Coggeshal? 
 Come, admit that you have." 
 
 "Well . . perhaps." 
 
 "Then it's curable. You're too brilliant and 
 fine a fellow to suffer long when hurt from such a 
 source as that." 
 
 Carolan frowned a little. " You don't like her," 
 he said. "I've noticed that you don't." 
 
 " I don't like you to like her too much. There's 
 a difference. By the way, I dropped in to see the 
 Coggeshals yesterday. It was only for a petit 
 quart d'heure, you know; I was passing the house; 
 I had been taking a little stroll ; it was about your 
 time for taking one, and I thought I might meet 
 you. Well, I dropped in, as I said. That inex- 
 pressible Mrs. Coulter did not happen to be there, 
 talking over the grand alliance of her son with a 
 daughter of la race Coggeshal. I was so thankful; 
 that woman ! elle me donne des nerfs. But I had 
 to concern myself almost entirely with Mrs. 
 Coggeshal and Sadie. Isabel had her hands 
 full. Mr. Brockholst had brought her over a 
 book of his sketches and they were looking at 
 them together. He is so clever, that Brockholst. 
 He does nearly every thing, in a small sort of 
 way." 
 
 " Does he ? " said Carolan moodily. " I suppose 
 
302 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 he flirts in a small sort of way, too. Or is that a 
 large way ? " 
 
 " Flirt ? upon my word I don't know. We were 
 acquaintances long ago in Paris, as I believe I told 
 you." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then he was thought clever. And he is. He 
 draws a little, he paints a little, he rides, skates, 
 plays neatly the games men like . . and, by the by, 
 he writes, too, 1 believe." 
 
 " Ah, he writes, does he ? " muttered Carolan, a 
 little absently. 
 
 " I believe so . . . Isabel and he seem on very 
 good terms. The idea came to me, do you know, 
 that he might care to marry her." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 " Yes. Of course it would be a great chance, a 
 huge chance, for her, if he took the fancy." 
 
 Carolan lifted his shoulders and made a little 
 gesture with both haiads. " Yes," he said, " pro- 
 vided she took the fancy also." 
 
 " She ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bondurant, wide-eyed 
 and smiling. " Why, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " She has her . . her caprices — her prejudices. 
 I mean that." 
 
 The widow burst into a high, long laugh. " Do 
 you think she wouldn't marry Lloyd Brockholst if 
 he asked her? Can you think it, really? Ah, 
 give her the chance once — only once ! " 
 
 She saw that she was torturing him. She was 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 303 
 
 certain that some recent interview with Isabel 
 had soured and discomfited him. If he had any 
 scandalous knowledge regarding Coggeshal, this 
 was just the time to lure it from his lips. Piqued 
 and chagrined, he might make her his confidante 
 before he himself well realized that he had done 
 so. 
 
 " I don't want to give her the chance," he said, 
 lifting a little bronze paper-weight off the sitting- 
 room table near which his chair happened to be 
 placed, and tossing it aimlessly from one hand to 
 another. " But I suppose she will take it. I 
 agree with you t^at she will take it, if she gets it." 
 
 "What girl in her position wouldn't take it? 
 Think of how she is placed. They call her father 
 a successful novelist. But what does that mean ? 
 He may make a few thousands out of this last 
 book of his — the book that has sold so. But his 
 next book may be the dullest of failures." 
 
 " True." 
 
 " Still, Isabel is very proud of his success. I 
 really think she prides herself vastly on it. I 
 daresay she would answer Lloyd Brockholst quite 
 condescendingly if he should talk marriage to her, 
 simply because she is the daughter of the famous 
 gentleman who wrote ' Rachel Rand.' Have you 
 read that novel, by the way ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Carolan. " Have you? " 
 
 " Yes. It's bright, of course." 
 
 "Yes; it's bright." 
 
304 TBS HOUSE AT HIGU BRIDGE. 
 
 " I sometimes suspect that Isabel helped her 
 father with it. She might have done so. I never 
 dreamed of denying her brains, though she is so 
 proud." 
 
 "Proud?" 
 
 " Oh, dreadfully. Haven't you noticed it ? 
 But you're in love with her — lovers never see their 
 mistresses' faults till they become their husbands 
 and sometimes not even then. Now she's prouder 
 still because of the success that book has achieved. 
 I knew her before it appeared, and I've noticed the 
 difference it has made in her. She believes nobody 
 else in the world could have written it except her 
 father. Not very long ago she said to me : 
 ' Papa's genius doesn't really lie in the direction 
 of a popular book like that ; but he determined to 
 please the large mass for once, and his mind is So 
 rich a one that he had only to make the effort in 
 order to win the due reward.' Oh, yes ; she be- 
 lieves her father could produce twenty more 
 ' Rachel Rands ' if he only chose." 
 
 All this time Mrs. Bondurant was watching her 
 companion's face with a covert yet vigilant scru- 
 tiny. Every shade of expression there was ap- 
 parent to her. She was prepared, on this account, 
 for such angry words as the following, though not 
 for their acute suggestiveness : 
 
 "I didn't know her infatuation had reached 
 that absurd point. However, she may be un- 
 deceived soon enough." 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 305 
 
 " Undeceived ? " the widow repeated, with a soft 
 laugh. " Oh, that is hardly likely. He's her 
 father, you know. And then there is no denying 
 the ability displayed in that book." 
 
 "No," said Carolan, in tones that were curt and 
 almost surly as well. "There is no denying it. 
 You're quite right." 
 
 " Well, if she marries Brockholst he'll give money 
 and position, she'll give what one might call literary 
 prestige. That is what will be said, any way." 
 
 " Literary prestige ! " laughed Carolan, as if to 
 himself. He spoke theVords in so low a voice 
 that she could just catch them. He suddenly 
 gave Mrs. Bondurant a searching look, while she 
 sat quietly fanning herself, — with nothing in her 
 composed demeanor to even vaguely hint that she 
 would lose at least three months out of her life 
 could she but prick and spur him into some sort of 
 noteworthy disclosure. Then he drew his chair 
 closer to her own, and leaned forward, peering up 
 into her face, with both arms pressed against his 
 knees. 
 
 "It's a most infernal sensation," he said, "to 
 feel yourself held at a distance, repulsed, magnifi- 
 cently walked over, — and yet to be without re- 
 dress. That is my situation just now. But a 
 little while ago I — I held all the cards in the 
 game." 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant's heart began to beat. She did 
 not dare open her lips, but merely put into her 
 
306 THE IIOUSS AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 eyes as intelligent and yet as sympathetic an ex- 
 pression as she could muster, and slowly inclined 
 her head, letting the fan sink upon her lap. A 
 word too much, a word too little, perhaps any 
 word at all, might send the information which it 
 looked as if she were about to secure, darting off 
 into ambuscades of reticence again, with deer-like 
 celerity. 
 
 "Yes," Carolan went on, "Isabel Coggeshal 
 wouldn't have found it very easy, a comparatively 
 short interval ago, to flout me as though I had 
 been an amorous coachman. Or, if she had done 
 this, she'd soon have allowed her mistake." 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant smiled. " Ah, I don't think 
 you judge Isabel rightly," she now said. " Before 
 Brockholst came upon the scene she was very 
 much the same as she is at present." 
 
 "I don't allude to Brockholst," Carolan said, 
 stung afresh by this bit of counterfeited misunder- 
 standing on the part of his astute hostess. " I am 
 thinking of something wholly different from 
 Brockholst." He laughed more bitterly than she 
 had yet heard him. " Ah ! " he cried, with a re- 
 ally savage flash of the eyes, "you believe she 
 aims to marry that fellow, eh ? God help her, if 
 she does! I couldn't punish her better for her 
 scorn of me and my suit than to wish a marriage 
 with Brockholst should grow the ruling idea of her 
 life ! " 
 
 " You puzzle me," Mrs. Bondurant murmured. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 307 
 
 He looked at her steadily again. " Oh, I sup- 
 pose I do. Of course I must. It would be amaz- 
 ing if I didn't." 
 
 " But you talk as if there had been a time, not 
 very distant, when you could have forced Isabel 
 Coggeshal to become your wife." 
 
 Carolan's look sought the carpet. " Well . . and 
 if there was ? " 
 
 She leaned nearer to him and laid her hand on 
 his shoulder. "My good friend," she said, "let 
 me give you a piece of solid advice. I know you 
 wiU pardon me if I do so, for I have seen such a 
 vast amount of what is called the world ; I'm such 
 a war-worn old veteran at that sort of thing — or 
 amazon, I suppose some people would call me." 
 
 " Well ? " he said, meeting her glance. " Your 
 piece of advice is . . ? " 
 
 " This : Never say to any one else what you've 
 just said to me. Never let another soul imagine 
 that you had any compulsory power of that sort. 
 It would be ruinous to you." 
 
 "Ruinous?" 
 
 " In the way of ridicule — yes. Nobody would 
 believe you ; everybody would laugh at you. Now, 
 you're not offended with me, are you? I mean 
 it, you know, in nothing but the most friendly 
 spirit." 
 
 " Of course you do," he returned, with a sullen, 
 dogged tone. "And you are inwardly disbelieving 
 me yourself; you are inwardly laughing at me 
 
308 THE HOUSE AT BIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 yourself. You think my late declaration the merest 
 inane bravado." 
 
 She withdrew her hand from his shoulder ; she 
 leaned back in her chair again, and began indo- 
 lently to sway her fan ; she let a little treble ripple 
 of laughter leave her lips. " I think you are un- 
 happy," she said. " That is all. Or, if you would 
 like me to be more explicit, I'll add that I think 
 Isabel Coggeshal has been treating you rather 
 superciliously^" 
 
 He made an irritated gesture. "If I thought 
 you could keep a secret — " he broke forth, and 
 then stopped short. In an altered voice he pres- 
 ently continued: "But they say no woman 
 can." 
 
 She repeated her light, delicate little laugh. She 
 was playing her part well, and yet she had danger- 
 ously sunk her own individuality into it. Her 
 exaggerations, her expletives, her adjectives of in- 
 tensity and superfluity, had wholly died away. She 
 was far more artificial than she herself perceived. 
 Still, Carolan was in no mood for subtle observa- 
 tions. 
 
 " I can keep a secret," she said. " I've always 
 prided myself on that gift. But you have no se- 
 cret to reveal. You are merely trying to fool me. 
 You know, I told you some time ago that you were 
 a farceur., and you are one. Bah, mon cher ! You 
 never made Isabel Coggeshal compromise herself. 
 I'm too well acquainted with her to credit that. I 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 309 
 
 wouldn't believe it of her if you got down on your 
 knees and swore it." 
 
 " I never wanted you to even dream of such a 
 thing," he quickly retorted. 
 
 "No? Well, then, how could you have any 
 power over her ? You, or any one in all creation ! 
 There she stands, pure as snow and quite as cold, 
 with her faith in herself and her faith in the genius 
 of her father. As for the latter . . well, I don't 
 blame her for it. It seems to me that I would as- 
 sume airs, too, if I had had a father who could have 
 written a ' Rachel Rand.' " 
 
 " Did he write ' Rachel Rand ' ? " sped abruptly 
 from Cardan. 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant felt a thrill run through every 
 nerve in her body. " Good gracious ! " she said, 
 with a drawl that was the best touch of mimetic 
 art she had thus far shown. " You're not going 
 to tell me that i/ou wrote it ! I dare say you could 
 have done so. But no — preposterous I It's his ; 
 it's signed with his name." 
 
 Carolan kept silent . . Had she gone too far? 
 She had reached the very verge of discovery. 
 How exasperating if she should be driven back 
 at this momentous point in her careful efforts ! 
 
 " Yes, it's signed with his name," Carolan said, 
 as if he spoke the words between set teeth. And 
 then he suddenly rose. • " I must go," he said, 
 " good-day." He put out his hand to her, but she 
 did not take it. She remained seated, looking up 
 
310 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 at him placidly, though she felt like darting from 
 her chair and forcing him back into his own. 
 ■ " Are you going," she asked, " without telling 
 me your secret ? " 
 
 He appeared like a man whom some calming 
 visitation has newly influenced. " Pshaw, there 
 is no secret," he said. He took out his watch and 
 hurriedly glanced at it. " Mr. Chadwick will want 
 me in about ten minutes," he went on. " There 
 is an electrical doctor coming from town to put 
 him in some sort of a bath. I must be there for 
 my Rhadamanthus to snub me. His cure wouldn't 
 do him any good unless I was there for him to 
 snub me while I undressed him and to snub me 
 afterward because the bath hadn't sufficiently in- 
 vigorated him. Won't you shake hands with 
 me ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Bondurant. She saw her 
 defeat, now, and she never disliked Carolan as 
 much as she did at the present moment. 
 
 " No ? " he iterated, drawing back from her. 
 " And why not ? " 
 
 She rose. " You distrust me," she said, " you 
 treat me as if you thought me a mere toy for your 
 moods. But you have made one thing clear to 
 me : I mean your assertion, in so many words, that 
 Herbert Coggeshal did not vrrite ' Rachel Rand,' 
 and that you know who did." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Yes — you. That explains the power which 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 311 
 
 you stated that you held over Isabel Coggeshal. 
 You even boasted of that power. If you possessed 
 it once, why have you lost it now ? You need not 
 answer ; I don't want you to answer. You have 
 told me that I could not keep a secret. I mean 
 to show you now that I can at least expose brag- 
 gadocio." 
 
 She was trying threat as a sort of forlorn hope. 
 Several days ago she had said to herself : ' What 
 a fool I am, after all, to waste time with this un- 
 interesting Carolan ! I could send Brockholst a 
 note in a disguised handwriting, requesting him 
 to take a look into the pages of " Rachel Rand." 
 Though he might treat the note as anonymous, he 
 would still read the novel. And if he read the novel 
 he would certainly recognize it as his own — or not 
 so recognize it. But my only trouble would be, 
 in the event of his learning the fraud, that I must 
 deal my little telling blow of revenge from ambush 
 — d la dSrohSe, And I don't want to do that. I 
 want to be acquainted with the full details ; I 
 want to pay him back in person ; I want to see 
 how he receives the news that he has fallen in love 
 with the daughter of a forger — after having ex- 
 pressed his high and mighty reluctance to be 
 reconciled with me.' 
 
 But now she would write her anonymous note. 
 Let Carolan go. If this last attitude of menace 
 did not move him, well and good. She would 
 drop him as deliberately as she had taken him up. 
 
312 THE HOUSJE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 After all, he had been of service ; he had corrobo- 
 rated her suspicions ; he had made her more secure 
 than ever in her convictions that Isabel's father 
 had acted criminally. 
 
 She met the look that Carolan now gave her 
 with one of haughty indifference. But she saw 
 that it was a look fraught with both fear and 
 anger. 
 
 " How can you expose my braggadocio, as you 
 are pleased to call it ? " he demanded. 
 
 " How ? " she answered. " Why, by telling Isa- 
 bel that you have thrown doubts on her father's 
 right to the authorship of the last book published 
 under his name." 
 
 To her astonishment, he threw himself back into 
 the chair which he had so lately quitted. " You 
 are a very clever woman," he said. "But you 
 have the rapacious curiosity of all your sex. Still, 
 there is something about your present energy that 
 makes me sure mere curiosity is not its only mo- 
 tive. Don't imagine you have deceived me. You 
 did, at first, I admit. But on a sudden I felt you 
 were trying to use me, and I consequently re- 
 belled. That was natural enough." He paused, 
 looking up at her while she still stood at a slight 
 distance from his side, forbidding and unappeased. 
 " Tell me," he said ; " do you hate Isabel Cogge- 
 shal?" 
 
 « No." 
 
 " Do you love Lloyd Brockholst?" 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 313 
 
 She sank back into her own chair. Their eyes 
 met on a level, as it were, then. " I used to care for 
 him once — years ago — in Paris," she replied. 
 " But all that is past now. I — " 
 
 " You hate him now," he broke in. " There's 
 your motive. I've found it at last. Have I 
 not ? " 
 
 " My motive for what ? " she questioned parry- 
 ingly. 
 
 "For wishing to learn whether Isabel Cogge- 
 shal's father is a thief or not." 
 
 "Well . . perhaps, isheathief?" 
 
 " I thought so once." 
 
 " And now you doubt it ? " 
 
 " I have lost interest in the matter of his guilt 
 or innocence." 
 
 Her black eyes swept his face for an instant, and 
 very searchingly. " Why ? " she said. " Because 
 you knew ' Rachel Rand ' had not been written by 
 Coggeshal, and yet did not know who was its real 
 author till lately?" 
 
 He stared at her. " Are you a wizard ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " Never mind. You called me a clever woman. 
 I hug the compliment. Answer my question, 
 please." 
 
 " Do you know the real author ? " he said. 
 
 " You reply with a question, not an answer." 
 
 " I think you do know," he persisted, "for some 
 reason. How did you guess ? ' 
 
314 TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 She shook her head resolutely. " I shall only 
 be sure when you have told me." 
 
 "The truth will transpire soon enough. At 
 any moment it may transpire." 
 
 She leaned much nearer to him, and once more 
 she laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 "Do you mean that it will transpire when 
 Brockholst reads ' Rachel Rand ' ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then Brockholst wrote ' Rachel Rand ' ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant drew a long breath. The se- 
 cret was out at last ! Her forlorn hope had not 
 been so futile, after all ; it had achieved more than 
 her shrewdest niceties of tact had done. But all 
 had not been told yet. Her battle had been only 
 half gained. She saw distrust and regret already 
 in Cardan's face. He must not be allowed to re- 
 pent of his confidence so speedily ; it had not yet 
 been either sufficiently copious or succinct. 
 
 " My friend ! " she exclaimed. " You have told 
 me thus much. Tell me the rest ! " 
 
 "The rest?" 
 
 " Yes. Tell me all ! you have gone so far that 
 I shall believe you think me capable of meanly be- 
 traying you if you stop there." She gave a soft, 
 trembling sigh. "Whatever else I am, I'm not 
 deceitful. My worst enemy never said that of me. 
 Of course I would not have spoken a word relat- 
 ing to this matter. I was angry, a little while ago 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 315 
 
 simply because you hurt me to — to the very soul. 
 I — I thought we were such friends, you and 1 1 
 Once I had a feeling for Lloyd Brockholst, but all 
 that is quite dead and gone, now. You love Isa- 
 bel, and if you tell me everything I may help you, 
 my friend — my admired, talented, brilliant friend ! 
 — to win her, after all. You deserve her. Yes, 
 far more than he does ! " 
 
 All this was balm to Carolan's vanity. He had 
 thought of leaving High Bridge before the dis- 
 covery came, now that Isabel's indifference toward 
 him had appeared so unconquerable. But perhaps 
 if he made Mrs. Bondurant a full confidence her 
 woman's wit might suggest some new line of ac- 
 tion or defence undreamed of before . . . And 
 then she had professed such loyalty to him. Why 
 should she not admire him and think him brilliant? 
 If he had not been in love with Isabel he might 
 have shown her powers of personal fascination 
 which even then she was far from guessing. 
 
 He had set his eyes on the floor while she 
 addressed him, but he now lifted them. She saw 
 acquiescence in their look. She knew, then, that 
 she had played successfully with his vanity, and 
 that her complete triumph was near. 
 
 She was right. He had soon told her every 
 thing. 
 
316 THE HOUSE AT HIGH B JUDGE. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Leaving Carolan, that morning, Isabel had 
 hurried straight home. Her heart was throbbing 
 with a sense of insult and indignity all the stronger 
 because it concerned her father and not herself. 
 She recalled just what Carolan had said, and it 
 seemed as if her feet could not bear her fast 
 enough to Coggeshal's presence, in order that she 
 might repeat the outraging innuendo precisely as 
 it had been delivered. 
 
 But by degrees a change began to color Isabel's 
 resolve. Her step slackened its speed as she 
 walked onward. She must tell her father every- 
 thing or nothing. Would he care to hear that 
 she had asked Carolan for an explanation of the 
 mysterious bond between them? Might he not 
 even haughtily condemn her course in this respect 
 as unwarrantable interference? Isabel soon la- 
 mented her own blundering simplicity. Her 
 method had been the exact opposite of that which 
 we have seen Mrs. Bondurant employ. She had 
 really learned scarcely anything whatever, and 
 she had made her desire to learn a greal deal ap- 
 pear strikingly evident. As for the insinuation 
 
TSE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 317 
 
 against her father, to what had that truly 
 amounted ? Observed without the magnifying 
 force of her own filial partisanship, had it been so 
 highly terrible an assertion? Carolan had been 
 angered by what he believed her merciless and 
 scornful treatment of him. The sneer he had 
 flung at her father may have had no origin except 
 that of random and passionate resentment ; he had 
 seen that she was very vulnerable where it became 
 a question of paternal faultlessness. Decidedly, 
 if she were to tell her father all, a serious quarrel 
 might be the result. It was not so difficult to 
 quarrel with him now as it had been of old. No ; 
 she had failed — at least for the present — and 
 must accept the depressing consequences of her 
 failure. 
 
 But a new load of anxiety must henceforth 
 weigh upon her spirits. The possibility that Herr 
 bert Coggeshal might, after all, have soiled him- 
 self by some base act, would hereafter glide most 
 darkly between herself and the sun. On the fol- 
 lowing afternoon, when Brockholst proposed a 
 stroll as far as the Bridge, she wondered if her 
 gloomy and haunted state of mind would have 
 held such a diversion as even endurable had it 
 not been for that one especial personality. He 
 had asked her to go with him, and she had already 
 learned enough of the attraction which his society 
 could exert over her to feel that there was no 
 more potent way of forgetting all worriment than 
 
318 TEE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 by yielding herself to the delightful spell of his 
 conversation and his company. 
 
 But he noticed, just before they started on their 
 walk, that she had betrayed languor, taciturnity, 
 reserve, he could scarcely define just which it was. 
 "Are you not well to-day?" he asked, as they 
 were quitting the house side by side. 
 
 " Yes," she said ; " do I not seem so ? " 
 
 "You seem a little . . preoccupied," he an- 
 swered, as if glad to get the euphemistic and not 
 too convicting word. " That is all. But perhaps 
 my own dulriess is alone to blame." 
 
 "Your dulness?" she echoed, with what he 
 found a sweet compliment in the spontaneous in- 
 credulity of her accent. 
 
 " Oh, we're all chameleons, more or less, I begin 
 to believe ; we take the hues and tints of our 
 surroundings. And my domestic ones are certain- 
 ly not enlivening. There is uncle Andreas, with 
 whom I spend three or four good hours every day. 
 Matters usually begin rather well. The old gen- 
 tleman's early morning intelligence, if I may call 
 it that, is quite nimble and at times trustworthy. 
 His memory trips along very creditably ; it doesn't 
 want much of a stick. He talks about the past 
 (and he is always talking about the past, by the 
 by) with a rational respect for dates — a decent 
 avoidance of anachronisms. And then, all at once, 
 the mists begin to crowd in upon him. He is like 
 a day on some of the English sea-coasts j he begins 
 
THE UOVSE AT IIIGII BRIDGE. 319 
 
 well — shiningly, in fact ; but before long he is be- 
 fogged, and wearisomely so, after you grow accus- 
 tomed to the grotesqueness of it all — and the 
 pathos, too." 
 
 " I should not think one would ever grow accus- 
 tomed to the pathos," said Isabel. 
 
 Brockholst smiled. "A woman would not." 
 He paused for a little space. " A woman like you 
 never would," he added. " But we men, except 
 when we are poets, or beings of that generally 
 finer calibre, nearly always grow accustomed to 
 all pathos. We've a toughness that sometimes 
 ossifies into the most genteel sort of brutality." 
 
 " You may or you may not be wronging your 
 sex," said Isabel, with a prettily perverse gesture. 
 "I'm not woman of the world enough to argue 
 that point. But I feel very sure you are wrong- 
 ing one member of your sex." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean to paint myself a monster 
 of even the mildest complexion ; I'm afraid I have 
 quite too much vanity for that kind of self-depre- 
 ciation . . . Well, then there is Carolan, who im- 
 presses me, just now, as tedious and conventional. 
 I was prepared to be amused by him. He started 
 off, so to speak, with considerable dash and spirit , 
 but latterly he has become tame, at times almost 
 leaden. I don't think his health is just what it 
 was. I sometimes catch him staring at me, when 
 we are together, in a blank, purposeless fashion. 
 And we are a good deal together ; it's inevitable, 
 
320 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BHIDGE. 
 
 you know. Yesterday I asked him if lie had ever 
 had a touch of the malaria which they say thrives 
 here so vigorously — here, of all places on earth 
 for my poor invalid uncle to come, if it does ! But 
 Carolan roundly asserted that he never felt better 
 in his life. So I held my peace. I didn't say any- 
 thing about Mrs. Bondurant. He might have 
 taken it hard, so soon after my mention of 
 malaria." 
 
 " How you dislike that woman ! " Isabel 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Does it strike you that way ? " he said, with a 
 little careless laugh. "Oh, well, do not let us 
 exploit my dislike — if it exists; I don't really 
 grant that it does . . What a fine view of the 
 Bridge ! But we shall have a finer view, presently, 
 on the Bridge itself." 
 
 They soon stood there. The summer afternoon 
 had almost waned to twilight. The sky was ten- 
 derly blue, with some vapory films of cloud draped 
 along its lucid arch of color. Northward they saw 
 the river far below them glitter on between dark, 
 slopingbanks of leafage, with here and there a gleam 
 of roof and chimney to tell of some hidden home- 
 stead. Southward lay the huge city, with every 
 trait of ugliness mellowed and beautified by dis- 
 tance. A fresh breeze came hurrying from the 
 unseen sea, and as it delicately smote their faces - 
 a sense was conveyed to them, by this fluttering 
 and salubrious wafture, of the superb solidity on 
 
TnE nOVSE AT niGH BRIDGE. 321 
 
 which they were walking. "What might, what re- 
 sistance, what permanence, its monstrous span of 
 stone bespoke I How it would live on, ages after 
 the echoes of the countless feet which had paced 
 its firm, smooth path had died into eternal silence I 
 
 "Three or four centuries from now," said 
 Isabel, breaking a little pause, "people will be 
 walking here just as we are walking to-day." 
 
 " Say ten centuries from now," replied Brock- 
 hoist. " New York is out of what they call the 
 earthquake-belt, I believe, and nothing but an 
 earthquake could dislodge the huge buttresses 
 beneath us. But the most marvellous part of 
 the whole magnificent affair," he pursued, " is the ' 
 office which it performs. It is the very artery of 
 life to the enormous city lying just beyond it. 
 When we reach its further end we can hear the 
 water pulsing in the sluice-house on that Eastern 
 side. They tell me that a year or two ago you 
 could go inside of the stone vault and both hear 
 and see the water as it rushed fresh and vital 
 from Croton river; but I fancy that we must 
 merely listen to it, now, outside the grated iron 
 door." 
 
 This was true. The sluice-house had been 
 locked, and when they arrived at the further end 
 of the Bridge, they could only stand and hear the 
 hollow, throbbing, liquid gurgle within. 
 
 " What a chance for a supreme assassin ! " said 
 Brockholst. " Imagine a conspiracy to poison the 
 
322 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 whole city. A band of men creep here at mid- 
 night, and wrench open tliis iron door. Tliey are 
 provided with tons of arsenic or stryclmine. 
 They drop them into those waters which are rush- 
 ing now to quench tlie thirst of two millions of 
 people. . It's melodramatic, but it's genuinely 
 horrifying. It reminds one of Victor Hugo at his 
 most grandiose." 
 
 The sky had grown exquisitely peaceful as they 
 strolled back. No lights had yet appeared in the 
 vague city, but its clustered structures, viewed 
 from this commandant height, were bathed in 
 purplish hazes. A few row-boats on the glis- 
 tening river looked almost as minute as bunches 
 of drifted seaweed. The high leaf-clad banks 
 outlined themselves against the dusky azure of 
 the heavens with an untold solemnity of grace. 
 Brockholst and Isabel paused when they had 
 reached the centre of the Bridge, and leaned over 
 the ledge that borders it. 
 
 "A moment ago," said Isabel, "you spoke of the 
 chance for an assassin. When we look down, now, 
 and see those boats turned so tiny, I am tempted 
 to think of the chance for a suicide." 
 
 "True enough," he returned. "And yet there 
 are no such ghastly records connected with the 
 Bridge. I haven't heard of one ; have you ? " 
 
 " No," she answered. The word sounded weak 
 to him in its utterance, and suddenly he saw that 
 she had grown very pale. She moved dizzily back- 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 323 
 
 ward the next moment, and he at once put his arm 
 about her waist, quickly saying : 
 
 " You are ill." 
 
 " Yes — ill," she faltered. It was all she could 
 say. 
 
 " Take my arm," he ordered sharply, presenting 
 his arm to her on the instant. She slipped her 
 hand into it. " Can you walk ? " he went on anx- 
 iously, bending to look into her changed face. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said, though in the most inse- 
 cure tones. And immediately she burst into a 
 hysterical little laugh. "I — I can walk perfectly 
 well. My head is swimming — that is all . . and 
 I had a sort of ghastly idea . . Come ; let us get 
 off the Bridge — I will be better, then, I know." 
 
 He moved with her rapidly and in silence until 
 they had reached the roadway on the Western side. 
 She had walked capably enough, all this time, and 
 at length she withdrew her hand from his arm, 
 saying in a tone which would have been almost 
 her usual one but for a lingering trace of tremor : 
 
 " What a fool I have acted like ! It was all the 
 merest nonsense, you know. I fancied — " And 
 there she stopped, abruptly. 
 
 " That you might fling yourself off? " he ques- 
 tioned. " That is a nervous feeling quite common 
 with certain temperaments. I've even had it my- 
 self, in a mild way. I remember, once, on the 
 Eigi, there in Switzerland, I — " 
 
 "No, no," she interrupted. "It was not that 
 
324 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 feeling. It was more as if some one whom I loved 
 — some friend or relation — were . . ." But here 
 she broke off, with a self-irritated toss of the head. 
 " Oh, please don't think of it any more. Let us 
 speak of something else. I — I want to forget it." 
 
 During two or three of their subsequent inter- 
 views Brockholst referred to that little incident on 
 the Bridge, once jocosely quoting from Tennyson 
 and calling it her "weird seizure;" but Isabel 
 gave no encouragement to the jest, stingless though 
 it was plainly meant to fall. Her duties in the 
 way of .preparation for Sadie's wedding were now 
 onerous enough to prevent her from always seeing 
 Brockholst when he called. But on such occasions 
 he would frequently drop into Coggeshal's study, 
 greatly to his daughter's gratification. Isabel had 
 seen that the younger man had power to rouse and 
 please the elder; no one else produced just this 
 effect on her father, and indeed where could be 
 found in the whole neighborhood a man or woman 
 who possessed a tithe of Brockholst's intellectual 
 charm ? 
 
 Four or five days after the little episode at High 
 Bridge, on what happened to be a Sunday after- 
 noon, Brockholst was considerably surprised to 
 discover Isabel, as he looked through the green-blind 
 doors opening from porch to hall, in close conversa- 
 tion with Clarry Coulter. The new-comer gave a 
 violent cough and then put his head between the 
 doors, asking whether Mr. Coulter considered this 
 
TUE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 325 
 
 at all the proper kind of conduct on the eve of his 
 marriage to another lady. Clarry laughed ; he and 
 Brockholst were on the best of terms ; he thought 
 Isabel's friend a little too dandified ; still, Clarry 
 had a very wide charity, besides an expansive 
 knowledge of current human affairs. You had to 
 meet those kinds of fellows pretty often down at 
 the Bank, he had informed Sadie. They thought 
 themselves sweUs, and he supposed they were — if 
 it was anything, one way or another, to be a swell. 
 But Brockholst was better than the majority — oh, 
 yes ! He hadn't half the usual amount of conceit ; 
 in fact, it didn't look as if he had any conceit at 
 all. The sweetheart of Sadie might have used his 
 experience in reflecting -t- that although all ' swells ' 
 are by no means gentlemen, a combination of the 
 best elements that enter each class is entirely 
 conceivable. 
 
 " Clarry and I were having a most important con- 
 sultation together," said Isabel presently. " I hope 
 you don't mind my telling what it was about, 
 Clarry," she continued, looking full into the lat- 
 ter's good-humored face. 
 
 "Oh, no," said Clarry, with a mournful note 
 in his voice. " But it won't be of any use, Isabel, 
 if Mr. Brockholst should agree with you. Sadie 
 will have her own way, all the same." 
 
 "What is the mystery?" said Brockholst, who 
 had just seated himself, and who now crossed his 
 legs with the air of a man who wiU not bear it at 
 
326 THE HOUSE AT HIGH SBIDGE. 
 
 all resignedly if he is not entertained by com- 
 ing developments. " But I warn you beforehand, 
 Coulter," he continued, with a dark frown at 
 Clarry, " that I shall take the side of Miss Isabel 
 without the least regard to whether she strikes me 
 as being right or wrong." 
 
 " Sadie has resolved that Clarry shall be married 
 in a dress-coat," said Isabel, her voice dolefully 
 comic. " But the wedding is at one o'clock in the 
 day. I tell Clarry that he ought to put his foot 
 down." 
 
 " Yes, down on the dress-coat and keep it there," 
 said Brockholst, laughing. "It's evening-gear, 
 you know. Coulter," he added. " It's as black as 
 a bat, and only steals out after dark, just like one." 
 
 " Oh, I know all that," said Clarry serenely. He 
 had known nothing whatever on the subject until 
 Isabel had presented to him her elucidating coun- 
 sels. " But Sadie thinks it won't look right un- 
 less I have on a white cravat and a swallow-tail." 
 
 " You don't advise Sadie as to the quality of 
 her veil, do you ? " appealed Isabel. " You don't 
 interfere, do you, with the length of her train ? " 
 
 "Oh, good gracious!" exclaimed Brockholst; 
 " how can you talk to a bridegroom about interfer- 
 ing with his bride's train ? It's too awfully sug- 
 gestive. It's like dropping the ring, or kneeling 
 down at the wrong time." 
 
 Clarry and Isabel both laughed; but Isabel 
 soon said severely to the author of their mirth: 
 
TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BlilDGE. 327 
 
 "I'm afraid you are siding against me and not 
 with me." 
 
 " No, you're wrong," declared Brockholst. " And 
 I'm sure our persuasions must prevail in the end 
 with Coulter. He has, I feel certain, quite too 
 much real moral principle to walk up a church- 
 aisle at one o'clock a.m. in an evening-garment. 
 I am certain that his innate nobility of character 
 will finally help him through. I've great faith in 
 a clean conscience to resist even powerful tempta- 
 tions of this sort. Of course there can't be any 
 doubt as to the legality of the marriage if per- 
 formed under those terrible conditions. I will 
 admit that there ought to be, but I fear there isn't. 
 It's a matter of personal integrity rather than one 
 of legal right "... 
 
 " You have so turned the whole affair into ridi- 
 cule," said Isabel to him, some little while after- 
 ward, when life and she were alone together, " that 
 Sadie will no doubt gain a complete triumph, and 
 Clarry will allow himself to be married precisely 
 in the clothes she has selected for him. But very 
 probably Sadie would have had her way in any 
 case. She usually does have it." 
 
 " And after all," said Brockholst, with a shrug 
 of the shoulders, "why let so trifliiig a circum- 
 stance fret you for an instant ? " It was a deli- 
 cious afternoon, almost as cool as early Autumn, 
 with an Autumnal diamond light in the unclouded 
 sky and a great breezy pulsation on all the wooded 
 
328 THU HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 hillsides. Tliey had left the house, and had ram- 
 bled i'nto a glade where prongs of granite rock 
 broke the smooth short-grassed soil and some huge 
 murmurous chestnuts and hickories lifted their 
 gloss and vigor of umbrage. Isabel had found a 
 seat on one of the gray stone ledges, and Brock- 
 hoist sat facing her on the surprisingly comfortable 
 accommodation made by an old low tree-stump, 
 whose once hardy fibres were now more than half 
 a pulpy bronze-brown decay. It was Sunday, and 
 the musical merriment at the casinos floated to 
 them incessantly in by no means unpleasing echoes. 
 People were not far off, wandering in groups or 
 pairs through the leafy glades and passes. But 
 their own privacy was quite as secure as they 
 could have wished it just then. They were a part 
 of all the harmless rustic holiday and yet agreeably 
 exempt from its coarser popular features. " Sup- 
 pose your sister does win the day," he went on, 
 "and Clarry Coulter impiously lets the glare of 
 sunshine fall upon a suit of evening broadcloath. 
 Kingdoms will not shake on that account. Surely 
 you must pardon me for saying it, but I thought 
 you far too sensible for the voluntary waste of 
 time involved by such trivial details." 
 
 "They are trivial," she replied, looking down 
 at a little bunch of yellow wildflowers that she 
 had lately gathered. "But they mean a great 
 deal to me, somehow, placed just as I am 
 placed." 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 329 
 
 " What do they mean? " he asked softly. " Tell 
 me." 
 
 "You must understand — you must see," she 
 said, letting her eyes dwell for a moment intently 
 upon his. " A feather shows which way the wind 
 blows, and they are just the little insignificant 
 feathers that annoy me by making it evident how 
 different is my atmosphere of opinion, of associa^ 
 tion — yes, even of education as well — from that 
 of Sadie and mamma . . I sometimes regret those 
 days of schooling abroad — those chances which 
 have come to me for watching, even at such a dis- 
 tance as my present retirement necessitates, the 
 nicer usages and customs. If I had never known 
 any but the humdrum and ordinary phases of 
 living, I often tell myself that I could now live 
 much more contentedly. It isn't that I sigh for 
 the smartness and fashion with which many peo- 
 ple embellish all their abundant leisure. But the 
 outward air of things must always please or dis- 
 please me, now; I am sensitive to faults of taste 
 which I might never have noticed, lapses in deport- 
 ment which would not have caused in me a ripple 
 of annoyance. I speak of this difference between 
 us, but you must not fancy for an instant that 
 I do not dearly love Sadie and mamma." 
 
 "I do not even fancy it," he said. 
 
 " It is because I love them so that I can see more 
 plainly their little social shortcomings. Ah, what 
 a strange thing is this standard of manners that 
 
330 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 we set up for ourselves so arbitrarily, and how 
 we quarrel with any one who presumes to rebel 
 against its exactions ! Now, from a certain liberal 
 and far more natural view of the case, I can't but 
 think my interest in the cut of poor Clarry's 
 clothes at his wedding to be almost ridiculous. 
 And yet it's not the mere wearing of those clothes; 
 it's the thought of Sadie's marrying anybody to 
 whom the accepted conventionality of every-day 
 attire for such an hour isn't an easy and familiar 
 habit. I suppose there is no compromise between 
 all this and the charge of snobbery, frivolity. I 
 should be above these light details. And alas ! so 
 I would be if they were not always made to seem 
 unduly important on account of their neglect." 
 
 " It all comes to this, I should say," Brockholst 
 answered. " You are more your father's daughter 
 than your mother's, and with Sadie it is quite the 
 opposite." 
 
 " It is not wholly papa's influence, though very 
 possibly that is the origin of it. I have got to 
 feel that there are so many small definitions of 
 ' high-breeding ' besides the larger ones." 
 
 " And you've mastered them all." 
 
 She laughed a little wearily. " Oh, I dare say 
 I'm 'correct,' if you mean that. I wouldn't do 
 some of the things that Sadie does, for the world. 
 I wouldn't insist, as she does, that Clarry's card in 
 the wedding-invitation should be plain ' Clarence 
 Coulter,' without the ' Mr.' But Sadie will not 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 331 
 
 hear of the 'Mr.' She calls it 'stuck up.' The 
 bridegroom of a girl-friend of hers did not have 
 the ' Mr.,' and that is sufficient for Sadie. I can't 
 tell you how I hate to be obliged to argue these 
 minor objections, apart from making them ! And 
 especially as my arguments are nearly always 
 vain." 
 
 " There isn't any thing at all surprising about 
 your annoyance," said Brockholst. "What sur- 
 prises me more is the incompatibility of wliich 
 you speak. And yet you went abroad, while your 
 sister staid at home. You had 'advantages,' as 
 they call them ; you got quite out of the rural 
 ruts, so to speak. You acquired, perhaps without 
 knowing it, a distaste for provincialisms, and your 
 native aptitude did the rest. I agree with you that 
 you could never do a great deal that Sadie does. 
 You could never, for example, marry a Clarry 
 Coulter." 
 
 " Decidedly not ! " exclaimed Isabel. 
 
 "Perhaps you can never marry at all." 
 
 "I never marry? and why? " 
 
 " Because you will never like any man well 
 enough." 
 
 " Do you think me as cold as that ? " she asked. 
 
 " Not cold. We'll say — unvanquished." 
 
 She was looking down at her bunch of wildflow- 
 ers. " I don't ever remember being invaded." 
 
 "Don't you?" he said, rapping the point of his 
 cane rather fiercely, from where he sat just in 
 
332 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 front of her, against tlie yielding, inoffensive 
 sward. 
 
 " No," she quietly persisted. 
 
 " But you're not one of those who ever wilfully 
 shut their eyes to . . to the truth." 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 " Then you ought to have seen the . . the enemy 
 within your gates." 
 
 "The enemy?" 
 
 " I call him that. I take the attitude of humil- 
 ity. I've an idea that it's a becoming one. But 
 that isn't my sole reason for taking it. I've some- 
 how got the belief that it may be more successful." 
 
 She gave a despairing sigh, and he could not 
 make her eyes meet his own, though the seat he 
 occupied was one of excellent vantage for catch- 
 ing her glance unawares. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " she said. " It seems to me that 
 the better I know you the harder you are to un- 
 derstand ! " 
 
 " Ah, I wish I could conscientiously hold that 
 to be praise ! But I'm afraid it's no use trying — 
 although the vague is so often the profound." 
 
 " So is the jocose, when it springs at you from 
 the midst of something wholly unlike it." 
 
 " But I haven't been jocose once this morning — 
 intentionally," he said. He looked down at his 
 rustic, impromptu chair, and added : " Not since 
 I took the stump, as it were." 
 
 " And your harangue has certainly been a cloudy 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 333 
 
 one," she laughed. Their looks did meet, then, for 
 a second, and her laugh seemed to end weakly 
 and tamely to her own ears. There was, besides, 
 a trace of agitation in it which cost her a pang of 
 shame. For inwardly she was in the most turbu- 
 lent flutter; he had often framed courtly little 
 speeches before, but he had never done so in quite 
 the same voice and with just the same indication 
 of fervor. 
 
 " Have I really been so obscure ? " he asked. 
 " Well, you're wrong in supposing my opaqueness 
 resulted from misapplied humor ; it must have been 
 entirely owing to an excess of seriousness." His 
 tones had become unmistakably serious as he now 
 spoke, without the least play of that gentle levity 
 which was not always equally pleasing to Isabel. 
 
 " Seriousness ? " she repeated. 
 
 " Yes — I wished to discover something." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 " Whether you really believed that no one had 
 ever wanted to marry you." 
 
 She felt the color begin to mount and burn in 
 her face. She was telling herself that it must make 
 her look a foolish fright; but he, meanwhile, was 
 admiring the rosy change it wrought in her. 
 
 " I haven't the faintest excuse," she smiled, "for 
 imagining that any one ever did." 
 
 " Then you've never given the subject the least 
 consideration ? " 
 
 « Oh, I don't say that I What girl hasn't ? It's 
 
334 TBE HOUSE AT niGH BRIDGE. 
 
 SO dreadfully necessary that she should ! I mean, 
 society makes it so. Perhaps the future woman 
 will look back with wonder and horror on this 
 bigoted nineteenth century, when spinsterhood was 
 always thought to be compulsory (except where 
 the spinster had great wealth) and half ridiculous 
 as well. I'm sure I hope so." 
 
 "Not being the future woman," Brockholst 
 said, " you've decided to act with the living pres- 
 ent — to endure it, bigotry and all. In other 
 words, to marry somebody. Lucky somebody!" 
 he said, in a lowered voice. Then he quietly rose, 
 and reached her side, and stood there. Isabel 
 never understood how their hands came together, 
 after that. It seemed to her that he held her hand 
 and was tenderly pressing it without having taken it 
 at all. " Won't you tell me the somebody's name ? 
 Won't you whisper it ? " he asked. 
 
 " I can't," she faltered helplessly. 
 
 "Then may I tell you the name of the man 
 whom I should like it to be ? " 
 
 "Yes — if you please ..." 
 
 It was a little after sunset, that evening, when 
 Brockholst and Isabel paused at the latter's door- 
 way. Mrs. Coggeshal chanced to see them from 
 the hall. Sunday evening the family always drank 
 tea and ate cold meat, "preserves" and cake, in 
 place of the week-day six-o'clock dinner. Mrs. 
 Coggeshal now called out to Brockholst a most 
 
THE BOUSE AT BIGS BRIDGE. 335 
 
 cordial invitation for him "to stay and take 
 tea." 
 
 But Brockholst, with a smile, called back to the 
 lady, whose hospitality just then struck him as 
 something particularly precious and exquisite, tell- 
 ing her that he had promised himself to his uncle 
 for an hour or two that evening, but that he would 
 almost certainly return later. " I shall then have 
 important business with your father," he added, in 
 a voice which Isabel alone could hear. 
 
 She laughed. She was deliciously happy. It 
 had all come with such bewildering suddenness ! 
 He had asked her to be his wife, and she loved him 
 with her full heart. There lay enough bliss to 
 drown the whole world in light. It even flooded 
 with its radiance the darkness of her anxiety and 
 hidden fear. For a time at least, she had quite 
 forgotten both. 
 
336 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 XV. 
 
 When Brockholst got back to his uncle's house, 
 that same evening, he found waiting there a note 
 that sharply surprised him. It was from Mrs. 
 Bondurant, and ran thus : 
 
 "I wish very much to hold a little talk with you this 
 evening. It need not be one that will detain you long, 
 and I promise you that it shall not involve any of those rem- 
 iniscences which you found distasteful on our last inter- 
 view. But it is nevertheless very important — and more so 
 to yourself than to me. I shall be alone all the evening, in 
 my accessible little sitting-room, until eleven o'clock. If you 
 grant this request I promise you that it shall be the last of 
 the sort — the last of any sort — which I shall ask you to 
 grant. 
 
 "ALMA BONDUEANT." 
 
 This note affected Brockholst, after he had read 
 it over a second time, with a repugnance for what 
 he held to be sensational mysticism on the part of 
 its writer. As likely as not, he decided, there was 
 behind it all merely the most cool-headed trickery. 
 There were few falsehoods of which as ruses de 
 guerre in working out any pet end, he did not be- 
 lieve this woman capable. He soon decided that 
 he would not go to her cottage that evening, or at 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 337 
 
 any time. Merely meeting her elsewhere was un- 
 pleasant. She had doubtless invented some pretext 
 for entering into fresh relations with him. How 
 could he tell whether this pretext were not born 
 of a deliberately reflected scheme or plan from 
 which bitter mischief might afterward accrue? 
 Besides, her very personal nearness was offensive 
 to him; it must always continue a reminder of 
 how pitilessly and vulgarly he had once allowed 
 himself to be duped. And just now he was in too 
 thoroughly contented a mental state for the new 
 jar of such reminder not to prove additionally dis- 
 cordant. 
 
 He never found the vagaries and ruminations of 
 old Mr. Chadwick more wearisome than during the 
 next hour or two, and his conscience reproached 
 him more than once through the very force of 
 contrast between this pathetic human decrepitude 
 that still clung to life in so mournfully obstinate 
 a way and the rich joy which had filled his own 
 heart, imagination and temperament. But he cer- 
 tainly felt no pang of conscience in escaping from 
 Carolan, who had never struck him as more apa- 
 thetic and generally dispirited than while Mr. 
 Chadwick was babbling and maundering to both 
 of them. 
 
 It was indeed a blessed relief to break forth 
 upon the roadside, now lit by a softly brilliant 
 moon, and to reach, after a brief walk, the home of 
 Isabel. It seemed as if she had heard his foot 
 
338 TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 touch the lowest step of the porch, for she un- 
 closed the green-blind doors and met him as he 
 ascended. He could not see her face well ; all the 
 light of the inner hall was behind her. As he took 
 her hand (and with what a novel, tender ecstasy of 
 touch his fingers clasped it !) she said : 
 
 " I have been talking with papa." (Her trem- 
 ulous and dreary tones instantly made him start as 
 he heard them.) "I — I was so happy at what 
 occurred to-day that I had to tell him before — be- 
 fore i/ou did." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He met me so strangely I He — he refuses to 
 even hear of our engagement ! " 
 
 " Refuses ! " 
 
 " Yes. I don't know what it all means ! He 
 has been so strange for days and days — and now ! 
 . . . Oh, I told him that I loved you — that you 
 had made me happj' beyond any words. But he 
 simply repeated : ' No ; I can't hear of it ; no . . 
 no ! ' — until I grew angry and quitted him. He 
 is there, now, in the study. I have been all alone 
 here for some time ; I have been thinking such 
 horrible thoughts ! Shortly after you went mamma 
 began to feel wretchedly ill with one of her blind- 
 ing sick-headaches. There is no use doing any 
 thing with poor mamma at such a time except put 
 her right to bed. I did that, and left her in the 
 dark, upstairs, almost as comfortable as she can 
 possibly be until the attack passes. Then I stole 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 339 
 
 down to papa. I longed so to have him take me 
 in his arms and kiss me after I had told him about 
 our — about you ! " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Sadie, you know, went this afternoon with 
 Retta Coulter on a three-days' visit at the house 
 of Mrs. Coulter's sister, a Mrs. Nevins. All these 
 lower rooms seemed as silent as death wliile I 
 slipped downstairs. I missed Sadie's and Clarry's 
 low voices so, and thought how dreadfully un- 
 sympathetic I had been even sometimes to have 
 called their love-making monotonous, and like the 
 incessant purring of a large cat . . Oh, how my 
 heart was brimming with the joyful news as I 
 knocked at papa's door ! . . He turned very pale 
 when he had got the real sense of what I had come 
 to tell him. And then he pushed me from him, 
 violently shaking his head. ' It can't be,' were 
 his first words; and though again and again I 
 begged of him his reasons, he gave me none what- 
 ever. Perhaps if I had staid there and persisted 
 in questioning him, I might have gained some sort 
 of satisfactory answer. But I grew indignant. I 
 mean, on your account. It all appeared so insult- 
 ing to you ! I — " 
 
 " Never mind that," he broke in ; and there was 
 a mixture of firmness and feeling in his voice that 
 she seemed to love him all the more for uncon- 
 sciously showing. "I must see your father at 
 once. Can I ? " 
 
340 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " Yes. You know the study well enough, by 
 this time, surely ! He's there still." 
 
 " You will meet me here when I return ? " 
 
 "If mamma does not require me. She may. 
 She will ring if the pain becomes terrible, and 
 then I must soothe it by rubbing. That is the 
 only relief she gets, and she gets it from no one 
 half so quickly as from me. But any way I must 
 steal up for a few minutes and see how she is . . . 
 Don't quarrel with papa I " Isabel ended. " That 
 will be worse than useless." 
 
 "I shall not," said Brockholst. "But your 
 father may quarrel with me." He touched his 
 forehead meaningly. 
 
 " Oh, no, no," murmured Isabel. " You can't 
 think it's that ! " 
 
 " I can think it nothing else," he said. " What 
 sensible objection could he make to our marriage 
 — except that no man is good enough for you? 
 Not that you couldn't marry many and many a 
 worthier one than I am — but none who will guard 
 you, honor you, treasure you more I " 
 
 During these same moments Herbert Coggeshal 
 sat brooding in his study. He had been able to 
 give Isabel's proposition but one answer, for he 
 could think of nothing rationally explanatory, 
 he could find no plausible motive for his refusal 
 to let her become Brockholst's wife . . And now 
 he felt how pitiably insufficient had been that 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 341 
 
 answer. Of course Isabel would revolt ; no other 
 mode of action could be sensibly expected of her. 
 
 But if he told her everything ! 
 
 In the selfishness created by his own intense 
 dread of what Carolan might do, he was now 
 meditating upon just tliis course of action. Sup- 
 pose he were to bring on himself the jjotent humil- 
 iation of seeing those lovely, womanly eyes turn 
 horrified with the story of his disgrace. Was not 
 Isabel capable of making any sacrifice to avert 
 Carolan 's exposiu'e ? Would her demand for Ms 
 full renunciation of the false part he had assumed 
 really confront him as inflexibly as his past fears 
 had predicted ? Would not her affection drown 
 the dictates of sterner justice, of abstract and ideal 
 morality ? 
 
 But to what base depths had he fallen in even 
 pausing to weigh his own future safety against her 
 self-enforced marriage with a man whom she must 
 despise for his very willingness to contract it on 
 such mean terms ! And if she did preserve her 
 father's degraded honor from the public degrada- 
 tion it merited, what could that father's after-life 
 be except one continual pain of remorse whose 
 pangs would prove worse than any dealt by the 
 open unmasking of his guilt ? 
 
 'I must see Carolan once more — to-night, if 
 possible,' thought the wretched Coggeshal, as he 
 sat alone in the silent study, tortured by the new 
 misery that Isabel's confession of her love for 
 
342 THE SOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Brockholst had dealt. 'I must see Carolan to- 
 night, to-night,' kept repeating itself tlarough his 
 brain ; and yet he did not move, he sat in the one 
 same bowed posture by his desk, chilled with a 
 torpor that seemed half of the body and half of 
 the soul. 
 
 He had let days and days go by without visiting 
 Carolan, and yet feeling sure that a final and fateful 
 interview must soon be sought with himself. But 
 it had not' been sought. Carolan had remained 
 away. Still he must mean to come, sooner or 
 later, with his cruel requirements. That meeting 
 on the roadside, the other day, had shown him 
 Carolan, it was true, ill-at-ease and almost embar- • 
 rassed. But this demeanor may merely have been 
 the omen of mischief. The man's entire slow-laid 
 scheme, viewed now by the light his own cold, 
 terse, hateful admission had shed across it, indi- 
 cated too plainly that he would push it to but 
 one relentless termination. It was the old story 
 of selling one's self to the devil ; there was the re- 
 ward but there was also the forfeit. And Carolan 
 would unappeasably claim the forfeit. 
 
 What if it were not paid ? — as it should not be 
 paid ! (For now Coggeshal, although he still shrank 
 with all the cowardice of crime from sanctioning 
 Isabel's engagement to Brockholst, had reached in 
 his dark musings that stage of factitious bravery 
 when he could tell his tormented spirit that he 
 would bear the scoffs and jeers of all humanity 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 34:3 
 
 rather than let his daughter, lovhig another man, 
 avert paternal ruin at so frightful a price.) If the 
 forfeit were not paid, Carolan could securely enough 
 wreak his revenge. He held those fatally compro- 
 mising letters ; he had said so. It would be easy 
 indeed for him to assert before the world that he 
 had never encouraged the purloining of the dead 
 Arthur Lawton's novel ; and even if the world, or 
 a certain more carefully observant part of it, chose 
 to regard him as somewhat of an accomplice, how 
 slight would his fault look beside the one damn- 
 ing evidence of Herbert Coggeshal's name on the 
 title-page of " Rachel Rand " ! 
 
 And yet Coggeshal, if he had really been a man 
 hardened in sin and not one in whom its commis- 
 sion lay isolated as the single ugly blotch on a 
 character otherwise lacking the least deep stain, 
 might have seen more clearly that for Carolan to 
 divulge the secret would be practically to shed 
 social scandal upon himself. But Coggesiial was 
 ill-provided with the calculations of the more 
 ordinary wrongdoer. His crime was like tlie self- 
 inflicted wound whose red gash stares at a would- 
 be suicide after the mood of madness which caused 
 it has vanished. Its presence in his mind, liis life, 
 liis conscience, had of late been to him a perpetual 
 source of agonizing bewilderment. The seizure of 
 temptation had passed, and now he marvelled that 
 he could ever have yielded to its clutch. He had 
 never afterward been able coolly to weigh couse- 
 
344 tsjB house at eigh bridge. 
 
 quenees, accurately to examine probabilities. Ever 
 since the first piercing stab of repentance had 
 assailed him he had been wofuUy expectant of 
 some horrid, exacting penance. With Carolan's 
 threat the ominous tempest had seemed to give its 
 first growl, and ever since then he had crouched 
 waiting, as it were, for the lightning to leap on 
 him with its vengeful bolt. 
 
 He had locked his door, this evening, after Isabel 
 had left the study, and now, when a knock at this 
 door sounded, he rose with the idea that she had 
 returned. He unlocked the door, anticipating her 
 presence on its threshold. But instead of this he 
 saw Brockholst pass quietly into the room. 
 
 "Good-evening," the latter at once said. He 
 was both polite and tranquil, but without a hint of 
 undue effort to appear either. " I trust I am not 
 disturbing you, Mr. Coggeshal ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 Brockholst at once seated himself, after having 
 made sure that the door was closed. Coggeshal 
 had given his brief reply in a low, cold tone. He 
 sank into a chair, presently, but not until his visitor 
 had spoken more than one of the several sentences 
 which he now easily and civilly pronounced. 
 
 " I have just learned from your daughter some- 
 thing which has surprised and pained me. I will 
 be quite frank with you, and say that I was by no 
 means prepared for it. I will admit that my hav- 
 ing asked Miss Isabel to be my wife was one of 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 345 
 
 those sudden developments of sentiment for which 
 we ourselves are too often not securely forewarned. 
 But the sentiment shall miss neither sincerity nor 
 permanence on that account. I am able to provide 
 comfortably for your daughter — perhaps what 
 some people would term handsomely. She tells 
 me that she returns the attachment I have formed 
 for her, and yet that for no apparent reason she 
 suddenly finds this attachment vetoed by you. I 
 have come here to ask you if there is not a reason 
 on your own side, and to beg that if there be one 
 you will kindly state it." 
 
 Coggeshal answered promptly, but his uneasy 
 eye refused to look into Brockholst's even for an 
 instant, and his voice was literally hoarse with 
 agitation. 
 
 " It is not my wish that Isabel shall marry yet," 
 he said. He could find nothing more rational and 
 at the same time more comprehensive as explana- 
 tion. " She is still young. And then I . . I require 
 her companionship — at least for the present." 
 
 "Excuse me," returned Brockholst, after a slight 
 pause, during which he had watched the other's 
 restless hands as they were slid from place to place 
 on the leathern sides of the arm-chair that he was 
 occupying. " You will not necessarily be deprived 
 of your daughter's companionship through the 
 circumstance of her marriage. Or, if some such 
 result took place, the change might be only a par- 
 tial one. And, for the rest, you could surely find 
 
346 TSE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 consolation, Mr. Coggeshal, in the thought that 
 your daughter was happy with the man of her 
 choice." 
 
 This complete self-possession and irreproachable 
 courtesy jarred upon Coggeshal's tense-strung 
 nerves far more ihan the most defiant challenge 
 would have done. He felt that if Brockliolst sat 
 there much longer, with those placid manners, that 
 controlled Voice, and (most unendurable of all !) 
 that entire implied attitude of being in the right, 
 hostility, rudeness, insult might come of it. ' I am 
 not responsible for myself,' he thought. ' I shall 
 break down and behave like either madman or fool 
 if I do not somehow get him away.' 
 
 And so, instead of answering from the chair into 
 which he had lately dropped, Coggeshal rose first 
 and then began his response while pacing aimlessly 
 about the room, with hands locked behind him. 
 
 " I must ask your pardon," he said, "for not pur- 
 suing this subject further. It — it is a painful one 
 to me — more painful than I can just now express." 
 
 " It promises to become most painful to me also," 
 said Brockholst, with decision ; " and yet I must 
 pursue it further." 
 
 Coggeshal stopped short in his walk. " Do you 
 mean that you insist upon my continuing ■ our 
 conversation ? " 
 
 " Most certainly I do insist — until we arrive at 
 a clear mutual understanding." 
 
 " Understanding ? " Coggeshal muttered, almost 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 347 
 
 with surliness. " But I have explained my — my 
 objections." 
 
 " And in a most unsatisfactory way." 
 
 Coggeshal tossed his head a little haughtily. 
 "Unsatisfactory, no doubt, to you!" 
 
 " And to your daughter." 
 
 " Isabel usually follows my — my counsels." 
 
 " Permit me to tell you that even the great affec- 
 tion she bears for you — and I have never known 
 a child to love a father more devotedly than she 
 loves hers — will not command from her, in the 
 present case, blind obedience." 
 
 " Ah ! you call it blind obedience, then ? " 
 
 "Yes — I do." 
 
 " You — you think I have not the right to for- 
 bid her from marriage because she is too young for 
 it?" 
 
 " She is not too young to marry. We both know 
 her age. I am sure that the universal custom of 
 civilized races will support me in that humble 
 statement." 
 
 Coggeshal looked at him with a gloomy antago- 
 nism. "You came here, then, to — to browbeat 
 me into a consent ? " 
 
 " That is precisely what I did not do," replied 
 Brockholst, with an unmistakable emphasis amid his 
 composure. He now rose as he went on speaking. 
 " I am a man of the world, Mr. Coggeshal, and not 
 a particularly young one, either. I dofi't boast of 
 it; I've a good deal more reason to deplore it. 
 
348 THM BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 Certain facts about myself — worldly facts, let us 
 call them, for want of a neater adjective — are 
 most probably known to you. Your desire to re- 
 tain Isabel's companionship matrimonially unshared 
 I can both appreciate and sympathize with. But 
 you must acquit me of the least intention to wound 
 or annoy you when I state that such an inclination 
 is one which you no doubt possess in common with 
 many fond parents. That it should stand in the 
 way, however, of your daughter becoming the wife 
 of a man whom she herself is willing to accept as 
 a husband — a man eager and competent to pro- 
 tect her, cherish her, support her — " 
 
 " Enough, sir ! " cried Coggeshal, sinking into 
 the chair he had quitted, and waving one hand 
 imperiously before him. " I have told you that I 
 am not disposed to prolong this interview ! " The 
 lifted hand had already dropped at his side, but he 
 raised it to his throat as he proceeded to speak, 
 and with a gesture that his extreme pallor made 
 doubly significant . . And straightway his voice 
 lost the harshness which had gone with that recent 
 brusque interruption; an almost peevishly plain- 
 tive strain had entered it as he hurried on : "I — I 
 have no wish to appear arbitrary — ill-mannered. 
 I — I have have nothing to say against you, Mr. 
 Brockholst, as — as a lover of Isabel — as her future 
 husband. But I cannot speak further with you 
 now. Perhaps we may talk together at some future 
 time. I — I am not well this evening . . There ! " 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 349 
 
 he suddenly exclaimed, with a most sickly smile 
 flickering over his pale face for an instant and then 
 dying quite out. " On the plea of — of illness let 
 me postpone the remainder of — of all this till 
 some other time. That — that," he finished, as 
 though struggling miserably with each new word, 
 " is my concession. Look at it, if you will, in the 
 light of one." 
 
 " I will," said Brockholst, in a voice of patience. 
 He went toward the door and put his hand on 
 its knob. "If I had known that you were un- 
 well," he continued, " I would not have intruded 
 upon you." He at once opened the door and left 
 the room. 
 
 ' That man is either on the verge of madness,' 
 he said to himself, as he walked out on the porch, 
 'or — ' 
 
 He did not finish the reflection ; or, rather, he 
 finished it in a way which no written words can 
 make clear. Something in Coggeshal's manner 
 had roused scepticism as regarded this idea of his 
 insanity, after all. 
 
 Isabel was not on the porch. He stood there for 
 a little time ; the moon was now high enough to glo- 
 rify the whole land with its airy silver. He passed 
 into the hall again, where a great midsummer 
 moth was dying suicidally with flutters of anguish 
 in the pendent lamp. He took out his watch and 
 saw by the fitfully throbbing light of the lamp that 
 it was almost ten o'clock. He entered the parlor; 
 
350 TBE HOUSE AT BIGII BRIDGE. 
 
 it was dim and without occupant. Isabel must be 
 upstairs with her mother. As the extraordinary- 
 character of Coggeshal's treatment now returned 
 to him he felt an abrupt conviction that some ob- 
 stinately bafSing mystery lay behind it. He strove 
 to shake off this conviction, and might have done 
 so if the recollection of Mrs. Bondurant's note of 
 summons had not crept into his mind. He failed 
 to see the connection between these two occur- 
 rences, and yet one somehow haunted him because 
 of the other. If Isabel had been visible, just then, 
 he might not have yielded to the iinpulse of find- 
 ing out why Alma Bondxirant had solicited his 
 presence at her cottage. But, as it was, he deter- 
 mined to answer the note in person. He was too 
 much under the spell of our century's rationalism 
 to place the least credence in what is called pre- 
 sentiment : otherwise, perhaps, he- would have di- 
 vined some such weird cause for the attraction by 
 which he now felt himself drawn. After all, he 
 soon decided, as he passed out upon the moonlit 
 road, it was a thoroughly explainable tendency. 
 That note had breathed of tidings curious and 
 as yet occult. So, unquestionably, (unless he 
 were on the edge of a cerebral disorder) had the 
 conduct of Coggeshal breathed ! 
 
 Beyond Mrs. Bondurant's little garden, with 
 the moon on its tangled heliotropes, he could see 
 the lights of her two sitting-room windows. He 
 had almost a chill of repugnance as he passed up 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 351 
 
 the short path. Would she thi-ow herself on her 
 knees before him to-night? he ironically asked 
 himself. He was in no position to guess how re- 
 mote were Mrs. Bondurant's designs, that evening, 
 from any such emotional procedure. 
 
 She heard his step on the path, but did not go 
 forth to meet him as once before, not so very long 
 since. Yet she contrived that he should discover 
 her just at the threshold of the sitting-room as he 
 himself reached that of the small, open front 
 door-way. 
 
 " So you did come, after all my doubts of you," 
 she said, with a hard gayety in her voice that 
 might have told him, if he had cared to concern 
 himself with its origin, that she had now no fur- 
 ther aspirations for a second conquest. 
 
 "Were you doubtful on the subject? " he asked, 
 not shaking hands with her as they moved together 
 into the sitting-room. But for that matter, she 
 did not offer him her own hand ; she held it ready 
 to put within his at an instant's notice, however, 
 and to make it then appear as if hospitably meet- 
 ing his half-way. 
 
 " I thought you might not care to come," she 
 said. And then she pointed to a bamboo chair 
 near, one of the windows, with a little patch of 
 drifted moonlight on the floor below it that gave 
 the effect of some quaint gossamer rug. He took 
 the chair, and she seated herself at some little dis- 
 tance away, near the lamplit table. 
 
352 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 "You put your request rather strongly," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 " It was necessary. You would not have come 
 without it — you know that quite well. You 
 detest me ; you think me execrable ; you can't 
 conceive how you ever held me as even mildly 
 endurable . . There, you needn't take the trouble 
 to deny it. It's as true as that you are now in 
 love with Isabel Coggeshal.'' 
 
 "Is this the important information that you 
 wanted to give me ? " asked Brockholst, with a 
 smouldering sarcasm under his repose. 
 
 " Oh, no ! But it has . . well, it has, I should 
 say, something distinctly to do with Isabel, and 
 with the fact of your admiration for her, besides." 
 
 At any other time this childish attempt to whet 
 his appetite for hidden news would have made him 
 gently threaten Mrs. Bondurant with immediate 
 departure. But now he saw that except he culti- 
 vated a policy of something like moderate toler- 
 ance, his visit here might prove totally fruitless. 
 
 " Almost any thing that concerns Isabel Cogge- 
 shal," he answered, " must be of interest to me . . ." 
 
 " Because you are in love with her," his hostess 
 at once struck in, without giving him the chance 
 for another word. 
 
 " You seem very anxious to hear me say that I 
 am." 
 
 " I want you to admit it, — if you are." 
 
 "And why?" 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 353 
 
 " Because your being so or your not being so 
 concerns my secret." 
 
 " Ah ! you have a secret, then ? " 
 
 " My note must have told you that — or some- 
 thing very like it," she responded. Her black eyes 
 glittered in the lamplight balefuUy (or so he de- 
 cided) as she now swept his face with them. He 
 had the instinct of danger ; he had never so keenly 
 disliked her as now, when she tried to turn, it 
 might be said, a dark-lantern of discovery upon 
 emotions which he would at all times have deemed 
 sacred from her scrutiny ; he longed to pass out 
 of the chamber, quitting all the strategic falsity 
 which her very countenance suggested to him, and 
 meeting once more the sweet candor of the sum- 
 mer moonlight beyond. But longing like this 
 was of no use; she held him, for the present, 
 by a much stronger bond than mere curiosity. 
 
 " And you will not reveal your secret unless I 
 make it plain to you that I am or am not in love 
 with Miss Coggeshal?" Brockholst here slowly 
 said. 
 
 She laughed, and the laugh sounded like discord 
 to her hearer, though another might have thought 
 it musical. "Oh, you are so frightfully down- 
 right ; you're like a lawyer at a cross-examination. 
 I thought you would take my hint properly. Do 
 be bon enfant; I assure you I am playing no un- 
 friendly part ; I'm playing just the opposite of an 
 unfriendly part." 
 
354 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 "And your playing it depends upon that one 
 piece of knowledge?" 
 
 " You will see when you've answered me." 
 
 " Do you mean when I've answered you in the 
 affirmative ? " 
 
 She shook her head with a very doubtful smile. 
 " I'm afraid I shouldn't believe you unless you an- 
 swered in the affirmative." 
 
 " What makes you so certain that I am in love 
 with Isabel Coggeshal ? " 
 
 She leaned back a little in her chair and half 
 closed her eyes for a moment. " I've seen you two 
 together. I knew your look — I recognized it. It 
 took me back ten years." 
 
 He gave an irritated movement. " It's a very 
 different feeling from that one ! " he exclaimed, 
 and then stopped short, as if chagrined for having 
 made so much of a positive admission. 
 
 " There ! " she cried softly, changing her posture 
 in a trice. " You admit, then, that you are in 
 love!" 
 
 He paused before replying, but the pause was 
 brief. "I don't see the slightest earthly reason 
 for denying or prevaricating about the matter," he 
 said, suddenly, but with the coldness of dislike in 
 his voice. " I do care for Isabel, as I have never 
 cared for any other woman in my life. I mean to 
 marry her, too. I mean to marry her because she 
 is willing to marry me : I hope that fully satisfies 
 you." 
 
THE HOUSE AT BIGH BRIDGE. 355 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant drooped her head. She was 
 inwardly very triumphant, very exultant; but 
 now, as she slowly raised her head, the face that 
 she revealed to Brockholst would perhaps have 
 seemed full of genuine regret, and even of sorrow 
 as well, to any one except the man who now ob- 
 served it. 
 
 " I hope," she said, " you will not think me in- 
 sincere when I tell you how sad those words make 
 me feel. I was sure of your being fond of the girl ; 
 I did not know (how should I have known ?) that 
 there was yet anything like an engagement." 
 
 Brockholst sat perfectly silent. He was watch- 
 ing her with the intensest scrutiny, but he was 
 resolved to make no immediate reply. 
 
 Mrs. Bondurant reached out her hand and took 
 a book from the table near which she was seated. 
 She felt the keenness of a gratified revenge'as she 
 did so. It was a sensation that her brain was quite 
 small enough and her nerves, for all their apparent 
 sensitiveness of a certain sort, just coarse enough 
 to enjoy. She opened the book in her lap, and 
 looked down into it. 
 
 " Have you read this novel by Isabel's father ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " I have read one or two of his novels. To which 
 of them do you refer ? " 
 
 " This — ' Eachel Rand.' " 
 
 " ' Rachel Rand ' ? " he said, already wondering 
 whither this new train of talk would possibly lead. 
 
356 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " No ; I haven't read that yet. I have been in- 
 tending to do so for quite a little age." And then 
 it occurred to him that she was deliberately avoid- 
 ing the one subject on which any remark of hers 
 could be of the least worth. "Excuse me," he 
 pursued, " but we were speaking — " 
 
 " Of this book," she interrupted. She rapped 
 with one hand against a page of it as she spoke. 
 Then she fixed her eyes upon his face. " I thought," 
 she added, " that you had not read it. No — let 
 me say that I was perfectly certain you had not 
 read it." 
 
 "Why?" he inquired. 
 
 She drew a long sigh. " Because it is, in many 
 of its chapters, an almost exact account of just 
 what passed between you and myself, in Paris, 
 years ago." 
 
 "Ah?" he said, in a tone of such mingled in- 
 difference and satire that his listener felt the 
 hidden forces of her spite quicken with a new 
 vitality. " The parallel is of course accidental. 
 History repeats itself." 
 
 " Not in this way." She rose, and put forward 
 the open book, offering it to him. Her voice, as 
 she went on speaking, took a vibration, a thrill of 
 earnestness, that made it seem almost not her own. 
 " Read the title-page, which bears Herbert Cogge- 
 shal's name. Then read here and there in the story 
 itself, and then tell me, Lloyd Brockholst, if you 
 care to do so, who wrote ' Rachel Rand.' " 
 
TBE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 357 
 
 By this time she had given him the book. He 
 advanced -with it toward the light. She had re- 
 seated herself. She saw him read the title-page, 
 and then turn to the initial leaf of the narrative. 
 iShe was having, now, the first actual exquisite 
 throe of her revenge. 
 
 He read several consecutive pages. He had 
 changed color a little — or was this a fancy ? The 
 rose-tinted shade of the lamp prevented her from 
 securely judging. But he had not given a single 
 start as yet. That was strange, certainly. He now 
 re-opened the volume at about its middle portion. 
 He read a page or two there. Then he passed to 
 the final leaves, and turned these over, somewhat 
 hastily. Next he closed the book altogether and 
 tossed it upon the table. 
 
 After that he looked at her. She did not under- 
 stand his look at all. It flurried and amazed her. 
 
 " Well ? " she questioned. 
 
 " WeU ? " he said composedly. 
 
 " You know the truth now ! " 
 
 « What truth?" he replied. 
 
 She sprang to her feet, quivering. "What 
 truth ! " she exclaimed, almost savagely, in her 
 anger at his collected bearing. " Why, that Her- 
 bert Coggeshal never wrote that book at all ! That 
 you wrote it — every word of it — except the names 
 of the characters, which he altered ! " 
 
 Brockholst heard her with the manner of some 
 one who had listened to the most ordinary kind of 
 
358 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDQE. 
 
 language. He slowly advanced toward her as she 
 finished. 
 
 " Who told you this ? " he asked. 
 
 His calm question made her black eyes flash and 
 her cheek redden. "Who told me?" she began 
 heatedly. " Why, the book told me." 
 
 " Carolan told you," he said. 
 
 " Well," she cried, " and if he did ! I knew it 
 before that! I—" 
 
 "Pardon me . . but how could Carolan have 
 known it?" 
 
 She looked at him with a measuring, astounded, 
 scornful glance, from head to foot, and burst into 
 a laugh of mockery. 
 
 " Good Heavens ! " she exclaimed. " Is it pos- 
 sible that you are going to deni/ you wrote the 
 book?" 
 
 Just before he answered her she saw, now that 
 the light on his face was altered, how pale he had 
 really grown during these last few minutes. But 
 another change had come upon his face, setting 
 there a gravity, a dignity, a firmness, a manliness, 
 that she had never so plainly witnessed in it until 
 then. 
 
 " I do deny that I wrote the book," he said. 
 
 " You — you can't ! " she gasped, receding from 
 him. 
 
 " But I do," he persisted, letting his gaze dwell 
 on hers with a steady glow where it almost seemed 
 that ice and fire met. " I do deny it, and I think 
 
TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 359 
 
 neither you nor Carolan can prove that I am not 
 stating the truth. If you can, tell me how." 
 
 She sank back into her chair, clenching her 
 hands together and staring up at him in a dazed 
 way. She knew that he was uttering a falsehood, 
 but as he uttered it, in this wholly serene and 
 resolute voice, her petted and plotted revenge 
 appeared crumbling to ashes before her very 
 sight ! 
 
360 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 When Brockholst had departed from the study, 
 Coggeshal fell to pacing its floor again. Shame 
 stung him as he thought of the feebleness with 
 which he had behaved to his late guest. Yet 
 he had been powerless to act differently. The 
 thought of how this man, of all others, would scorn 
 him if he learned the very motive which he had 
 come to discover, was almost paralyzing in its 
 mortification. Brockholst appealed to him as just 
 the sort of husband he would have delighted in 
 for Isabel. Of fine mental breadth, admirably 
 cultivated, possessing high social prominence, en- 
 dowed with considerable wealth, and still young if 
 not absolutely youthful, Brockholst stood as much 
 for the delectable, ideal son-in-law as Clarry Coul- 
 ter misrepresented him. No wonder, bitterly med- 
 itated Coggeshal, that this rebuff had astonished 
 the man. And how many men of just his place in 
 the world would have shown indignation and 
 vanity to excess if treated thus by the father of 
 the girl they loved — especially when that father 
 was a scribbler for his bread in a little house at 
 High Bridge ? 
 
TBH HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 361 
 
 Thus, at least, Coggeshal now tormentedly 
 mused. He had never liked Brockholst so great- 
 ly as when the latter made his quiet and graceful 
 exit from the study that evening. It seemed that 
 with every exasperating excuse to conduct himself 
 otherwise, he had remained an almost unrivalled 
 gentleman. 
 
 The desire to see Carolan was now stronger in 
 Coggeshal's breast than ever. He left the study 
 about ten minutes after Brockholst had left the 
 house. Isabel was still absent from the lower hall, 
 and from any of its adjacent rooms. The truth 
 was that her mother's headache had reached a 
 veritable crisis of pain, and that Isabel was using 
 with the poor, half-blinded sufferer that mode of 
 remedy which we have heard her mention to 
 Brockholst. 
 
 Coggeshal passed down upon the moonlit road. 
 The Chadwick abode rose but a few steps away. 
 As he paused before it he saw a figure which he 
 instantly recognized as Carolan. 
 
 " I came to look for you," he said. 
 
 Carolan gave a short nod. " Suppose we go 
 inside," was his reply. 
 
 He conducted Coggeshal at once to the library, 
 on the ground-floor of the house. "You don't 
 smoke, I believe," he said, presently, after turning 
 up the light and offering his companion a comfort- 
 able chair. 
 
 Coggeshal sank into the chair, but made him no 
 
362 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 answer. He sat for some time staring straight 
 down at the carpet, as if one of the vivid ara- 
 besques he found there had oddly fascinated him. 
 Carolan meanwhile nonchalantly — a little swag- 
 geringly, perhaps — lit a cigar and strolled about 
 the room, with his hands in his pockets. At 
 length he paused quite close to where Coggeshal 
 sat. As he did so, Coggeshal raised his head, and 
 sweeping a glance right and left, said : 
 
 " Is this quite private ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," was the answer ; " quite." 
 
 "Where is . . Brockholst?" 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure." 
 
 " He hasn't returned yet ? " 
 
 " Returned from where ? " 
 
 " He was at my house a little while ago," said 
 Coggeshal sombrely. "He came to have a talk 
 with me — a talk of special meaning. You can 
 probably guess what meaning." 
 
 " I ? " said Carolan coldly. " How should I ? " 
 
 " This is a small place ; people's doings are no- 
 ticed in it. Brockholst and Isabel have been a 
 good deal together, of late. I thought you might 
 have suspected — " 
 
 " Good God ! " Carolan broke in, springing to- 
 ward him, and hurling his lighted cigar at a cus- 
 pedor, which it missed, with a little turmoil of 
 sparks on the grate below. " I never did more 
 than half suspect it ! And it's true, then ? — 
 true ? He wants to marry Isabel ? He ? " 
 
THM HOUSE AT HIGH BBIBGE. 363 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And what does she say ? " asked Carolan, with 
 a swift wildness. Then he made a contemptuous 
 gesture, walking away. " But of course she ac- 
 cepts him. A fellow like that ! Show me the giii 
 who would refuse him ! " Here he suddenly 
 wheeled round, facing Coggeshal with a most stern 
 aspect. "But the whole thing would be simply 
 horrible," he went on. 
 
 "Ah," said Coggeshal, with great bitterness, 
 and entirely misinterpreting these last words, as it 
 was only natural he should do, " I am prepared to 
 have you present decisive objections. Don't im- 
 agine that you surprise me." 
 
 " I could surprise you, if I chose," Carolan mut- 
 tered, his voice low and yet plainly audible. Cog- 
 geshal looked at him with a glance of dreary 
 inquiry which he might have put into words if the 
 speaker had not at once continued : " This match 
 can not take place, and Lloyd Brockholst would 
 be the first to say so, I believe, could he know the 
 actual facts." 
 
 " And you'll tell them, of course, if I don't for- 
 bid the marriage," Coggeshal replied, with a for- 
 lorn sneer on his pale, wearied face. 
 
 " I tell them ! " echoed Carolan. He looked 
 fixedly into the other's eyes, for a moment. " I 
 almost forgot," he said, "how little of the real 
 truth you know. Ah, Coggeshal," he proceeded, 
 with a shake of the head which had in it an 
 
364 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 element of grisly comedy because of the lamen- 
 tation it conveyed at the loss of a vicious and 
 malevolent power, " you can't imagine how matters 
 have changed since you and I parted, that evening, 
 a few weeks ago." 
 
 " Matters have changed ? " repeated Coggeshal. 
 "How changed?" 
 
 " Have you had no suspicion of any thing new 
 having occurred ? " 
 
 " Oh, I thought you might perhaps be plotting 
 some new deviltry." 
 
 " Thanks. You're scarcely in your most amiable 
 mood this evening. I have remained away from 
 your house for a number of weeks, have I not ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well — I've been waiting for something." 
 
 " For what ? " queried Coggeshal, with an in- 
 tonation of profound scorn. " For me to write 
 and teU you that Isabel was already nicely and 
 properly frightened into a consent to marry you ? " 
 
 " Pshaw," retorted Carolan, with cutting fierce- 
 ness ; " I should never have waited for it. It 
 would have been so much more entertaining to 
 have arranged all that without your help." 
 
 " Ah," said Coggeshal ; " then you have had 
 other reasons for your delay. Is that your mean- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Decidedly it is." 
 
 " You puzzle me, I confess." 
 
 Carolan threw himself into an easy-chair just 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 365 
 
 opposite Coggeshal. "Of course I puzzle you. 
 Look here, my friend. You came to me this even- 
 ing. Why did you come? Shall I inform you 
 why?" 
 
 " You can, if you please." 
 
 " I will. It was for this reason : You wanted 
 to ask me how I intended to act in case you sanc- 
 tioned this engagement between Brockholst and 
 Isabel. My dear friend, I shan't act at all. I shall 
 do nothing. Do you understand ? Nothing." 
 
 Coggeshal smiled in a forced, goaded way. 
 "You've something behind all this, I suppose. 
 You laid your plans too adroitly in the beginning 
 — you played the tempter too energetically then, 
 to retire harmless now. I should like to believe 
 it of you — God knows I should ! But I can't. 
 It's taking too human a view of you, altogether. 
 It's giving you credit for both a mercy and a man- 
 liness that you've shown me you don't possess." 
 
 "That's plain talk — from the author of 'Rachel 
 Rand,' " sneered Carolan. 
 
 " I want plain talk," exclaimed Coggeshal. " I 
 came here to give it and to get it." 
 
 "Ah . . you did?" 
 
 " Yes ! You've driven me into a hole. You've 
 placed me in the most despicable of positions. 
 You've turned me almost into a madman. It isn't 
 that I could not and would not bear any punish- 
 ment my own fault might inflict on myself. But 
 the fearful part of what you've forced me to en- 
 
366 . THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 dure is my desolation of some one else's hap- 
 piness — and that some one my own daughter ! 
 There you've shown a villany, Carolan, beyond 
 mine. I admit my villany to have been -such. 
 But — " 
 
 " Stop, if you please," Carolan broke in at this 
 point. " Look at me as I am, not as I was. There's 
 a monstrous gulf of difference. What have I just 
 said to you ? That my present attitude is one of 
 nullity. I don't oppose this marriage. Let it take 
 place. I shan't interfere. Circumstance may, how- 
 ever." 
 
 " Circumstance ? " 
 
 " Yes. And oh, such a slight one ! I've been 
 expecting it for a good many days. It's involved 
 in the merest accidental turn of affairs. I'm not 
 clear to you, eh? No, I fancied I would not be. 
 But Brockholst can't marry your daughter. I'll 
 hold my peace, Coggeshal. I'll never state who 
 wrote that book. But somebody will and can — 
 when he reads it. He hasn't even glanced at it 
 yet. But he must do so soon. That's what I mean 
 by an ' accidental ' turn of affairs." 
 
 Coggeshal rose from his chair, visibly trembling. 
 " Arthur Lawton wrote the book," he said huskily. 
 "A dead man wrote it. Was — was Brockholst a 
 friend of his ? " 
 
 " Oh, no." 
 
 " Then what is all this — this flourish of words ? 
 Answer me." 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. . 367 
 
 "Suppose that Brockliolst himself wrote the 
 book — years ago," said Carolan. 
 
 "Suppose!" Coggeshal cried. He clutched the 
 back of the chair from which he had just risen. 
 " I'll suppose no such absurd thing ! " 
 
 " Oh, you won't," murmured Carolan, with what 
 struck his hearer as an infernal nonchalance. 
 " Then that settles the matter." 
 
 A fire of passion seemed to replace Coggeshal's 
 temporary weakness. He hurried to Cardan's 
 side. His eyes were flashing. "Did Brockholst 
 write ' Rachel Rand ' ? " he exclaimed, gasping the 
 words. 
 
 " Yes — he wrote every line of it," said Carolan, 
 looking up into that pallid, twitching, tragically 
 perturbed face. 
 
 "You liar!" said Coggeshal, catching at his 
 arm where he sat. But Carolan leapt up on the 
 instant. 
 
 " None of that, Coggeshal, if you please ! " He 
 shook himself free while he spoke, and receded. 
 
 Coggeshal, with both hands clenched, again 
 rushed close to him. " Is this true ? You must 
 have known, then ! " 
 
 " I didn't know — till lately." 
 
 " You told me Arthur Lawton wrote it — a dead 
 man." 
 
 " I believed so." 
 
 " You say Brockholst hasn't even read it since 
 it was published." 
 
368 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " But he wrote it — years ago." 
 
 " What proof have you for saying this ? " 
 
 " Brockholst's own words . . Don't look so 
 demented, Coggeshal. The thing was a thunder- 
 bolt to me, just as it is to you. But it didn't un- 
 seat my reason ; I hope it won't do that to yours. 
 Listen. Brockholst told me one night, here in 
 this very room, that he had written a novel called 
 ' Marian Moore ' while stopping at his uncle's 
 house in town, and had given it to Chadwick to 
 read — tossed it carelessly away, in fact, forgetting 
 and ignoring it." 
 
 " Yes . . go on." 
 
 " Don't devour me with those eyes, please — 
 and don't keep grasping at my arm. It may amuse 
 1/ou, but it's deucedly unpleasant to me . . Yes, 
 Brockholst is the author. It was his manuscript. 
 He hasn't seen ' Rachel Rand ' yet. He hasn't 
 happened to see it. But he will. Of course he 
 will, sooner or later." 
 
 " And . . you told me, Carolan, that . . that 
 Arthur Lawton was surely the author ; you said 
 you'd even seen his letter to Mr. Chadwick ! " 
 Beads of sweat were now thick on Coggeshal's fore- 
 head ; he stood so close to Carolan that the heat 
 of his breath struck like air from flame on the lat- 
 ter's face. 
 
 " You're acting like a fool ! " said Carolan, draw- 
 ing back. " You — " 
 
 " Scamp that you are ! " shot from Coggeshal. 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 369 
 
 So this is why you kept from fulfilling your threat ! 
 You devil ! " 
 
 He sprang, the next instant, at Carolan's throat. 
 His strength was not that of the man he attacked, 
 but there was a murderous desperation in him that 
 gave him tremendous transient force. Carolan fell 
 beneath him, taken unawares, and in so falling 
 sustained a sharp blow on one temple from the 
 heavy oaken leg of a large arm-chair. Instant un- 
 consciousness was the result of this contusion. 
 Carolan lay as dead under the glaring eyes of his 
 assailant. 
 
 ' It may have killed him,' thought Cbggeshal, 
 standing over the inert shape. The torture of 
 Carolan's late revelation, and the sudden, dizzying 
 belief that his foe's death was perhaps added to 
 his hateful previous crime, gave Coggeshal, in his 
 agonized, maddened state, the impulse of suicide. 
 The nearness of High Bridge darted upon him as 
 a possibility of ending all his anguish. He rushed 
 from the room, and soon had quitted the house. 
 He would leap from the Bridge. There was no 
 other course to take. It would save Isabel — it 
 would fitly end so despicable a life as his own ! . . 
 
 He hurried wildly along the moonlit road. 
 The desire to die was dominant and imperative 
 with him. As he hastened on he saw a figure 
 advancing toward him. But he failed to notice, 
 in his turbulent excitement, whose figure it was. 
 
 Brockholst was returning from Mrs. Bondurant's 
 
370 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 cottage, and saw him, recognizing him, starting 
 back aghast at the wretched desperation which 
 one fleet glimpse of his face conveyed. For a 
 moment Brockholst stood still, observant of the 
 shape that had hurried past him. Then he fol- 
 lowed it. 
 
TBE BOVSE AT HIGH BBIDGE. 371 
 
 XVII. 
 
 High Bridge loomed picturesque and massively 
 beautiful under the midsummer moon. Intense 
 stillness reigned, not alone on the great solid span 
 of masonry itself, but among all its various and 
 pleasant approaches. 
 
 Brockholst had clearly seen Coggeshal strike 
 forth upon the bridge. He quickened his pace 
 when sure that this impression had not been il- 
 lusory. Coggeshal's form was soon quite distinct 
 to hiTTi in the moonlight. It fled along until 
 about the centre of the Bridge was reached. Then 
 it halted. 
 
 Brockholst halted too. He knew that he was 
 now so near Coggeshal as to make the discovery 
 of his presence inevitable should the man chance 
 to turn in his own direction. But Coggeshal did 
 not turn. He stood leaning over the low yet se- 
 cure barrier, gazing upon the silvered lapse of 
 stream below. 
 
 This was a supreme hour with him. He seemed 
 to have withdrawn from his own life, and to be 
 looking at its ruin. What foundations of resolve 
 he had laid, what walls of principle he had builded. 
 
372 THE SOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 what spires of purpose he had reared ! And now 
 what debasement and oTerthrow it had all become ! 
 Death had often enough wakened his awe, but 
 he had never been a man to greatly fear it. He 
 had clung to his earthly days because they had 
 brought him the hope of gratifying a literary am- 
 bition. But now death was like the beckoning 
 of a sweet, dusky hand, — like the promise of 
 a priceless relief. Besides, there was more mercy 
 to his family, he had rapidly decided, in his dying 
 than living. , The shame of his suicide would not 
 equal in any way the shame of his exposure as a 
 thief and swindler. And Lloyd Brockholst might 
 hold his peace, then ; surely at Isabel's appeal he 
 would do so, even if the sin of her father should 
 forever part them. Perhaps, too, Bourke Carolan 
 was now lying dead there in Mr. Chadwick's libra- 
 ry. And as the thought entered his mind that 
 this was probably true, Coggeshal felt no pang of 
 remorse, but rather a fierce exultation, a delirious 
 and vengeful Joy, The raging tumult in his soul 
 was not yet calm enough for horror to steal its 
 cold clasp about his heart. That must come later, 
 when his terrible present excitement had left him. 
 But would he then. be among breathing mortals at 
 all ? Certainly there was no evidence of, this in 
 the set, colorless face on which the moon was now 
 shining. The determination to die had set its seal 
 there. Between himself and the height from 
 which he had willed to leap rose the sturdy railing 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 373 
 
 that verged the bridge on either side. This he 
 prepared to scale ; it was low, and easy to clear. 
 But while he put himself in the attitude of sur- 
 mounting it and of reaching, the giddy ledge just 
 beyond, death, as a realization, a contact, an almost 
 tangible presence and influence, wrought in him an 
 unforeseen change. He was chilled, though not 
 by physical fear. To live on, stained and degraded, 
 an outcast and a criminal, remained for him de- 
 testable, unendurable. But the recollection of 
 Carolan, slain through the consequences of his own 
 assault, now smote him with a fearful pang. If the 
 man were dead at this moment, he had been mur-_, 
 dered, and himself, Herbert Coggeshal, was his 
 murderer. That spring at Carolan's throat, futile 
 though it might have become, had nevertheless 
 been stimulated by a single assassinating motive. 
 The wish to kill had fired him, swayed him, mas- 
 tered him. And he was about to dash himself, 
 with perhaps a new and hideous crime on his soul, 
 — whither ? He did not know ; he had never pre- 
 tended to know. Like so many men of inteUeet 
 who hold no religious creed, he had neither denied 
 nor asserted a future immortality. But in this 
 pause before the perpetration of his self-destruc- 
 tive act, the tender moonlight seemed to grow 
 ghastly with omen^ and the dark slopes of foliage 
 to lift black arms of threat. He had never been 
 so human as at this dread -time when he believed 
 himself to be possibly steeped in the worst sort 
 
874 THS BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 of guilt, when the world of men was receding from 
 him, when the very breath of eternity seemed 
 to blow upon his haggard face. It was now with 
 his nature as if every thrill of pity that he had 
 ever known since boyhood for the sufferings of 
 his own kind were repeated in tenfold its former 
 stress, and as if each were related to a sole object 
 — unspeakable commiseration and regret for the 
 man whom he had left prostrate and aidless ! To 
 have been sure that Carolan was living would have 
 made his intended suicide a happiness by contrast 
 with the despair in which it was now clad. His 
 grasp upon the railing relaxed. He drew back, 
 staggerijig, from the misty abyss into which he had 
 gazed. 
 
 'To hurl myself to God,' he thought, 'fresh from 
 the killing of a fellow-creature . . No, I cannot ! ' 
 
 But immediately the revulsion came. He re- 
 membered all that would await him if he should 
 still live on — the hateful publicity, the glaring 
 ignominy, contempt, ridicule. There would be at 
 least a kind of dignity in dying as he had meant 
 to die. If he staid to think, to reflect, he would 
 only feel this growing cowardice. And then would 
 come untold humiliation afterward. Better end 
 the abhorred possibility of that. One big effort 
 of the will, and all was over. It was just to vault 
 that railing, to stand for a second on the clean-cut 
 stone, at its further side, and to make the down- 
 ward plunge ! 
 
TBE BOUSE AT HIGH BSIDGE. 375 
 
 He darted back to his former place. He flung 
 one leg across the barrier. In another minute he 
 would have passed it. But during that minute a 
 form sped toward him, and a pair of strong arms 
 wrapped themselves around his body. In a trice, 
 as it seemed to him, he was on the solid flooring 
 of the Bridge again. The pressure of those bind- 
 ing arms had relaxed, but he had fallen, (still with- 
 in their clasp, which now had caught him at either 
 shoulder') having been tripped supine by a swift 
 trick of the wrestler's art. Past excitement had 
 so weakened him that he could scarcely answer 
 with more than one or two feebly resistant strug- 
 gles. And then he saw a firm face bent above 
 him, recognizing it and shuddering as he did so. 
 
 " Lloyd Brockholst," he said faintly ; " it's you ! 
 It's you of all men on earth I " , 
 
 "Yes — it's I," was the answer. 
 
 "You know about it all, I suppose. . You've 
 come here to kill me ? Well, I don't blame 
 
 you." 
 
 "I've come here, through some lucky chance, 
 to save you. Good God, man, you meant to leap 
 off this bridge ! Don't deny it — I saw it in your 
 face just now." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Look here, Coggeshal," said Brockholst, with 
 intensity of meaning but in tones that were well 
 below the ordinary pitch. "I'm a good deal 
 stronger than you are, and I can keep you here 
 
376 THE HOUSE AT EIGB BRIDGE. 
 
 all night if I choose. And I'll do it, too, unless 
 you swear to me that you will walk home peace- 
 ably at my side." 
 
 " But you . . you know about that book," fal- 
 tered Coggeshal, looking up at his captor with 
 eyes that sent a thrill to Brockholst's heart ; they 
 reminded him, there in the moonlight, so much of 
 Isabel's. " No," the fallen man went on, with 
 a sob breaking his next words, " you — you can't 
 have learned yet." 
 
 " I know the whole story," said Brockholst. He 
 set his lips together fiercely, for a second or two. 
 "Damn the book!" he continued. "Who cares 
 for it ? We'll talk of it, later, if you please. What 
 I want now is your promise to take my arm and 
 come home properly. Will you give me your oath 
 to that effect before I let you up ? I'll keep you 
 here till somebody comes, Coggeshal — on my 
 word, I will — if you don't promise. I'll keep 
 you here, if I have to wait hours . . Now, what 
 do you say?" 
 
 "I will go with yoTi," murmured Coggeshal, 
 after a little silence. "I promise." 
 
 Brockholst released him. Coggeshal rose with 
 difficulty and took the arm proffered him as though 
 he more than half needed its support. He sud- 
 denly turned toward Coggeshal as they walked 
 along together in the moonlight. 
 
 "You — you said you'd learned about the book, 
 Brockholst, and yet you . . you treat me like this ? 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 377 
 
 It is SO strange ! You must despise me past all 
 power of words." 
 
 " I despise what you did." 
 
 " No idea was further from my mind (as God 
 maybe listening now!) than that the book was 
 yours ! " 
 
 " You mean at the time you put your name to 
 it." 
 
 " Yes. And I don't mean to offer this fact as the 
 least excuse for my fault." 
 
 "It would not be one," said Brockholst, with 
 inflexible gravity. "I knew, howcTer, that you 
 believed it written by a dead man — by some one 
 called Arthur Lawton." 
 
 These words, though used with no subtle effect 
 of scorn or satire, were to him who listened like 
 so ,many thrusts of a dagger. He made a with- 
 drawing movement of his hand as it rested in 
 Brockholst's arm ; but the latter at once restrained 
 him from freeing the hand altogether. " Remember 
 your promise," he said, with sternness, at the same 
 time. 
 
 " It was not that," responded Coggeshal husk- 
 Uy. " I did not think of breaking my promise . . 
 You're right. I robbed the dead — in spirit, at 
 least. That man, Carolan, was to blame for my 
 believing the Arthur Lawton story." 
 
 " Carolan has been as much to blame all through 
 as you have been," cried Brockholst, with a great 
 deal more sign of inward agitation than he had 
 
378 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 yet revealed. " And when one thinks of his mo- 
 tive — pah ! It was sickening ! " 
 
 "But 1/ou! — how could you have learned all 
 these details ? " questioned Coggeshal. " What 
 wizardry has helped you to them? Surely Caro- 
 lan — " 
 
 " Carolan has not told me anything," Brockholst 
 broke in. " Never mind my source of information. 
 It wasn't at all a supernatural one, I assure you." 
 
 They had now left the Bridge, and were curving 
 their course past the high-service tower that stands 
 at its western end, dark against the luminous 
 heavens, now, in its graceful and delicate-tipped 
 slenderness. 
 
 " You've caught me back from the very bound- 
 ary-line of death, Brockholst," Coggeshal here 
 said. "When I first looked into your face and, 
 heard the sound of your voice I — I hated you for 
 doing me that most undesired favor. But some- 
 thing in your manner, your treatment, since then, 
 has touched me unutterably — has made me dream, 
 fancy, surmise, that you whose pardon alone I 
 could value, are, of all men, capable to — to ex- 
 tend it . . Ah, I don't say now; but hereafter, 
 perhaps. Yet a full restitution will be only just. 
 It will not be necessary for you to demand this of 
 me. I will give it unhesitatingly." He bowed 
 his head, then, and a shiver ran through his frame. 
 " It will torture me, and I may feel like rushing 
 again toward the death from which you snatched 
 
THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 379 
 
 me. Not. that the punishment will not be fair 
 enough. But to droop under the slow, heavy yoke 
 of it for years ! A prison could be no worse . . . 
 A prison ! " he broke off, with a laugh so hollow 
 and wretched that it seemed to echo an infinitude 
 of pain. "What am I saying?" He stopped on 
 the roadside which they had now reached, and 
 Brockholst let him disengage his hand from the 
 arm which had thus far firmly retained it. " Oh, 
 my God ! worse than a prison may be waiting me ! 
 This evening, for the first time, I heard from Car- 
 dan that yoM wrote ' Rachel Rand.' And then, 
 realizing how he had lied to me, I — I dashed my- 
 self upon him — I wanted to kill him. He's 
 stronger far than I, no doubt, but my attack sur- 
 prised him — he fell — and in falling his head 
 struck somewhere, so that he lost consciousness. 
 I left him senseless — I told myself that it was 
 better such a villain were dead. Perhaps the blow 
 killed him. If so, crime has begotten crime. He 
 tempted me — but how piteous is that for an ex- 
 cuse ! " 
 
 " You left him senseless, you say ? " Brockholst 
 now replied. This account had undoubtedly dealt 
 its due shock, but he had already steeled his 
 nerves, and moreover he was never the man to let 
 dismay too visibly control him. 
 
 " Yes ; he lay as if dead," exclaimed Coggeshal. 
 " I think that he was dead. As I told you, I wanted 
 him dead ! The truth, when I heard it from his 
 
880 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 lips, made me like a mad being." The next instattt 
 he burst into tears, hiding his face with both hands. 
 His form swayed so in its tremors that Brockh6lst 
 feared he would fall. He threw one arm about the 
 miserable sufferer's neck and put his lips so close to 
 Coggeshal's ear that they almost touched it. 
 
 "The chances are that jom haven't killed Car-i 
 olan," he said. " Come with me at once to my 
 uncle's, and we will see. A mere fall such as you! 
 described might have stunned him only a few 
 mtautes. And now . . as to that other matter. 
 I don't know what I would have done, Herbert 
 Coggeshal, if you had been any one else except the 
 man you are. I mean this in two ways; I have 
 seen something of you during the past few weeks^ 
 and I can't but feel that there is thrice as much 
 good in you as there is bad. You're one of the 
 bitterest examples, I think, that human nature can 
 possibly give of error: you went wrong with 
 a moral, an intellectual light pointing for you to 
 go otherwise. If you had been ignorant, or even 
 moderately cultured, the stooping to such an hypoc- 
 risy would have struck me as far less unfortunate. 
 But there is no charge I can make against you 
 which your own sense of right has perhaps not 
 made already. That is the sadly self-contradictory 
 part of your whole distressing action, and the ele • 
 ment of wilful baseness which I detect there might 
 have made me very unpitying. But I am quite 
 the opposite from unpitying^ or at least from- 
 
THE.HOirSE AT SIGH BRIDGE. 381 
 
 practically appearing so. Let me explain to you 
 why, if you have not guessed why already. I can 
 do this in one word, and that word is your daugh- 
 ter's name. That word is — Isabel!" . . . 
 
382 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A FEW minutes later, Brockholst and Coggeshal 
 entered the house of Mr. Chadwick. The front- 
 door had been closed, as if for the night, and 
 Brockholst had used his latch-key. The hall was 
 still lighted. Coggeshal's agitation had not yet 
 passed. He clung to his companion's arm in al- 
 most a desperate state of trepidation as they moved 
 together toward the library. 
 
 "It — it is lighted," Coggeshal gasped. "All 
 will be just as we left it — the servants have not 
 heard any thing — hfe will be lying there on the 
 floor, just as when ..." 
 
 Carolau now quietly appeared in the doorway of 
 the library. 
 
 As Coggeshal recognized him a moan of supreme 
 thankfulness sounded from his lips. But this one 
 spasm of joy shattered the already strained mind 
 that weeks of torment had cursed before this 
 luridly eventful night. 
 
 He reeled forward, and Brockholst caught him 
 as he was falling. His face was colorless and his 
 eyes were closed when Brockholst laid him upon 
 a sofa in the library, for a time forgetting the 
 
TBE HOUSE AT SIGH BRIDGE. 383 
 
 presence of Carolan while he bent above Isabel's 
 father. But suddenly he remembered it, and 
 turned, saying : 
 
 " Ring for a servant, please. There must be a 
 doctor got here at once. It looks to me as if Mr. 
 Coggeshal were very ill." 
 
 " Ring yourself, if you choose," retorted Carolan. 
 " I'll perform no services for that man — not even 
 if he's dying. He — " But Carolan paused there, 
 as he walked toward the further end of the library. 
 
 Brockholst hurried to the bell and rang several 
 sharp peals on it. As he did so he said, in a voice 
 very different from any that his present listener 
 had ever heard him use before : 
 
 " You can be perfectly outspoken with me, Car- 
 olan. I know how he assaulted you, and though 
 I'm thankful enough you were not killed, I think 
 you merited some kind of stringent punishment." 
 
 " For what ? " exclaimed Carolan, with a quick 
 step or two in the direction of the late speaker. 
 
 " Bah ! " said Brockholst, contemptuously. He 
 turned and stooped again over Coggeshal, lifting 
 one of the limp, chill hands that hung nearly 
 touching the floor. 
 
 "For what?" repeated Carolan, coming much 
 closer to where Brockholst stood. 
 
 The latter rose and turned once more, facing 
 Carolan. His voice was low but very clear, and 
 the look in his eyes had great firmness mixed with 
 disdain. 
 
384 THE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 " You're perfectly aware for what, Carolau. 
 This is a time to strip off all disgijiises with me. I 
 saw your friend, Mrs. Bondurant, this .evening; 
 she has rather played you false, I should imagine, 
 in a certain confidence you made her.; There's no 
 excuse for Coggeshal, but there's none for you, 
 either. You wanted to put this man in your power 
 for a certain most dishonorable reason, and you 
 coolly did it. You may not have known I was the 
 author of that manuscript, but you had no doubts 
 that the dead Arthur Lawton never wrote a line of 
 it. And in telling Coggeshal that he did write it 
 you spoke a cold-blooded falsehood . . Now, mark 
 my words, Carolan," Brockholst went on, with a 
 clouding face, " I deny that I wrote the book. , I 
 have denied it to-night to Mrs. Bondurant, and I 
 shall continue to deny it before the whole world, 
 if necessary. As for yourself, you had best take 
 my denial as a mercy. I don't mean it so to you, 
 but I mean it so. to others. If you shout- the truth 
 from the house-tops I shall see very clearly how to 
 deal with you afterward.- I'll press the whole 
 matter against you in a legal way, and I'll have 
 such facts wrung from you on a cross-examination 
 by the cleverest lawyers I can procure that in your 
 endeavor to take away some one else's character 
 you'll not escape without your own in shreds." 
 
 Carolan was pale with wrath and consternation 
 as -these woids came to an end. '/The blow from 
 his fall (which had not only temporarily stunned 
 
TBE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 385 
 
 him but had left him with a pain and a mental 
 confusion that days were yet needed to cure) made 
 his reply far less circumspect and controlled than 
 it might under other circumstances have been. He 
 sank into a chair, pressing one hand against the 
 injured and aching portion of his head, and cried 
 with a savage directness : 
 
 " Yes ! I see, Lloyd Brockholst ! You'U save the 
 father of the girl you're in love with. I cared for 
 her, too. Perhaps if I'd had your money she 
 would have made it much plainer sailing for me. . 
 Very well; if you choose to drag the thing into 
 the courts, so will I. Tear my character into 
 shreds, if you please. I'll go away in its tatters 
 for the sake of the satisfaction I get by proving 
 Coggeshal a thief ! " 
 
 But this was a mere threat in the air — a sputter 
 of angry bravado. Something iu the very tone by 
 which it was accompanied caused Brockholst to 
 more than suspect so, as he now re-concerned him- 
 self with the man lying so still and white there 
 on the sofa. Besides, he had long ago measured 
 the nature of Carolan. Vanity swayed him too 
 strongly for ruin of self to be sought at the price 
 of any secured vengeance, however delightful. 
 
 The physician who came, that night, after a 
 good deal of inevitable delay, found Coggeshal 
 most critically ill. He had recovered, by this time, 
 a kind of drowsy consciousness, but the evidences 
 of cerebral paralysis were soon sadly assertive 
 •i 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 The right side of his body had become almost 
 wholly torpid, and his attempts to speak were only 
 mumbling incoherence. 
 
 Brockholst, when the serious character of this 
 seizure was made known to him, felt as if he were 
 wronging Isabel by every minute that he kept her 
 in ignorance of it. Carolan had now quitted the 
 library, his exit taking place some time before 
 the appearance of the physician. Brockholst left 
 Coggeshal in the latter's care, and crossed the little 
 interval between the two houses. He found Isabel 
 in the lower, hall; her mother had fallen into a 
 blessedly relieving slumber, and she had descended 
 to learn if the interview between her lover and her 
 father were yet over, when the absence of both 
 had roused her surprise. 
 
 Brockholst told her the mournful news with all 
 the care he could employ, but no amount of char- 
 itable circumlocution could lessen the sting of 
 its pain when at last it had to be delivered. We 
 can first show the sword, in these cases, as well- 
 sheathed as may be ; but to deal the stab is per- 
 force to denude the blade. 
 
 " Taken suddenly ill — papa ? " she said, with a 
 quiver and a fall in her voice. " Dangerously, 
 you think? Oh, where is he?" And then she 
 clung with both hands to Brockholst's arm, and a 
 vague self-reproach passed through her breast; 
 for only a short time ago she would have been 
 more alarmed and hurt by news of this sort con- 
 
TBE BOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 387 
 
 cerning her father than if it had related to any 
 one else in the world. And now there was an- 
 other — dearer, as her heart had already made her 
 sure, than he had ever been or could ever be ! 
 
 " I have thought for some time," she went on, 
 with the lines of worriment and dread beginning 
 about her tremulous mouth, " that papa . might be 
 threatened by a paralytic stroke. Tell me — is it. 
 any thing like that ? Don't keep it from me if 
 you really think so ! " 
 
 He told her, as they hurried arm-in-arm out into 
 the moonlight, that there could be very little 
 doubt as to a severe paralysis. This gave him a 
 melancholy but divine excuse for stopping at his 
 uncle's door-step and kissing her again and again, 
 with entreaties that she would be brave for just a 
 little while longer, until she had seen her father 
 and they had got him home. Poor Isabel cried 
 very weakly indeed on her lover's shoulder, for 
 answer, during several good minutes ; but she 
 nevertheless felt his method of stimulating her 
 courage to be a most wise and efficient one. . . 
 
 Herbert Coggeshal never regained a more than 
 precarious health. His mind acquired a certain 
 lucidity, but it was always of a blurred and vapor- 
 ous kind at best. The calamity seemed more 
 horrible to Isabel, when it first occurred, than to 
 either her mother or Sadie ; for Mrs. Coggeshal's 
 grief was almost forgotten in the new opportunity 
 
388 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 offered her for a hundred tender ministrations, 
 and for blending her wifely affection with com- 
 passion instead of awe. As for Sadie, although 
 she never liked her father so much as now, in his 
 infantile meekness and helplessness, the postpone- 
 ment of the wedding was nevertheless a very ab- 
 sorbing affair to her ; and besides, Sadie had been 
 greatly affronted by Isabel, for perhaps the thou- 
 sandth time in both their lives, through a careless 
 remark the latter had made with respect to their 
 father's illness. "Oh, you needn't bother your- 
 self about coming into the sick-room at all," Isabel 
 had said ; " papa misses me when I'm not there, 
 and we've always been so incessantly together 
 that of course I'm everything to him now." She 
 regretted the words after they were spoken, and 
 saw that they had been most infelicitously put. 
 But there was no unsaying them, although she 
 had really meant them with no more mischievous 
 intent than to show Sadie that she and her treas- 
 ured Clarry need not feel in the least alienated 
 from each other's company by the family misfor- 
 tune. But Sadie had hidden a wound under a 
 resigned smile ever since ; she had cloaked with 
 the most dove-like amiability what in anyone else 
 would have passed for insupportable sulkiness ; 
 alid very probably this industrious nursing of her 
 cruel indignity may also have contributed to the 
 general alleviation of her grief. 
 
 A sudden event changed the whole current of 
 
TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 389 
 
 Isabel's feeling as regarded her father's disaster. 
 Brockholst had told her nothing of the real reason 
 for it. He had no fear that Carolan would do 
 so, and had coldly and summarily advised the 
 secretary of his uncle to seek some other means 
 of employment. 
 
 "If you don't go, Mr. Carolan," he had said, 
 " I will tell my uncle that you and I cannot live 
 beneath his roof, and that he must choose between 
 us. I think that I know just how Mr. Chadwick 
 will choose. Whimsical and tiresome he may 
 often be, yet you have not exhibited toward him, 
 for several weeks past, anything except a reluc- 
 tant and rather sullen bearing. He has com- 
 plained more than once to me of your conduct, 
 recently. You have only to inform me at your 
 leisure that you will quietly leave within three 
 days' time. On your doing so I will hand or send 
 you an amount equivalent to your salary for three 
 months from the present date. So please decide 
 as you think best." 
 
 "I decide now!" Carolan had retorted fierily. 
 " I'll go, but I'll never accept a dime from you ex- 
 cept what is my due. I want no hush-money for 
 keeping back the plain truth. When I leave this 
 house and go back to journalism, my pen will be 
 my own, sir — pray tax yourself to remember 
 that — and I shall use it as I feel inclined." 
 
 There may have been an awful threat in that 
 final sentence of Cardan's, but it was one which 
 
390 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 even his picturesque imagination could never after- 
 ward bring itself to execute. In the infliction of 
 a fine, brilliant, romance-tinted revenge, he might 
 have been equal to something like an almost note- 
 worthy sacrifice of repute before his fellows. He 
 sometimes read the tragedies in the newspapers 
 and secretly pronounced them magnificent epi- 
 sodes of human passion. Unfortunately, however,' 
 they were in the newspapers ; they were out of 
 consonance with the idea of being read by the 
 modern average citizen over his coffee and his roll ; 
 they should have been surrounded by an Athenian 
 or a mediaeval atmosphere. It is possible that after 
 discreetly slipping away from High Bridge and 
 breathing once more the air of his beloved Bohe- 
 mianism, Carolan began to perceive how deadly 
 prosaic it would be for him to publish a single 
 item of his mysterious knowledge concerning the 
 real authorship of " Rachel Rand." There were 
 editors in New York who would have paid him 
 exorbitantly for the scandalous chronicle in full, 
 and there were a few editors (with sorrow be it 
 recorded !) who would have so paid him without 
 too sharp an interrogation as to its exact authen^ 
 ticity. But Carolan, after that kind of reflection 
 which a completely vain nature can make when 
 devoid of guiding principle, could not at all dis- 
 cern himself, in the event of any such sensational 
 revelation, as the heroic figure that he would have 
 Uked to appear. The average citizen, reading 
 
THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 391 
 
 about it all over his coffee and roll, might be 
 disagreeably ratiocinative. The Athenian or me- 
 diseval atmosphere would be most inartistically 
 absent from the picture. And besides, there was 
 Lloyd Brockholst's distinct threat to be thought 
 of. Carolan would by no means have enjoyed 
 anything so personally dramatic as a cross-exam- 
 ination from a clever New-York lawyer as to how 
 he had first become the possessor of "Rachel 
 Rand." 
 
 But before quitting High Bridge (as he fervent- 
 ly hoped, forever, in spite of the sentiment with 
 which his thwarted passion for Isabel had connect- 
 ed it) he flung his irate rebukes at Mrs. Bondu- 
 rant. If there is any such left-handed kind of 
 morality as honor among thieves, Mrs. Bondurant 
 richly deserved these rebukes, having betrayed his 
 confidences to her in a spirit of the most frigid 
 treachery. But this lady had turned her back on 
 him and dismissed him, with an expression of con- 
 tempt which had shown him plainly what a tool 
 and fool she had unscrupulously made of him. 
 She had already become aware of how her own 
 vengeance had missed aim. Brockholst, on the 
 night of their interview together, had let her real- 
 ize that. But she hid her secret fury of defeat 
 from Carolan, whose departure would have been 
 materially if sombrely gladdened, could he have 
 guessed it. 
 
 She caused Isabel, however, to do more than 
 
392 TBE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 guess it. She was sick of ' High Bridge ; she 
 meant to try some other place of suburban or 
 rural habitation, and the letter which she soon 
 wrote Isabel was a venomous Parthian shaft. It 
 laid the whole story of her father's sin relentlessly 
 bare to the poor girl who was then a nurse at this 
 father's bedside. 
 
 And it was now that Isabel, for the first time, 
 had almost a sense of gratitude because of the 
 blow fallen upon her parent ! The darkened mind 
 could feel no more remorseful pangs ! The be- 
 numbed nerves could thrill no more under the 
 stress of guilty fear I She forgave him as she 
 looked on his terribly altered face, which was in 
 itself the solemn and sorrowful witness of his 
 atonement. And then with shudders, she thought 
 of herself — of her love for the man he had 
 wronged ! If they met once again, it must be for 
 the last time. A great sin lay between them, im- 
 passable, merciless ! 
 
 On the evening of that same day Brockholst 
 came at his usual hour. She received him with 
 Mrs. Bondurant's letter in her hand. They stood 
 alone together in the sitting-room. As he stooped 
 to kiss her lips he drew back, startled at the pallor 
 and sadness in her look. 
 
 " Is your father worse ? " he asked. 
 
 "No," she said brokenly. "You must read 
 this. I — I don't know that it will tell you 
 anything new." She held out the letter to 
 
THM HOUSE AT BIGB BRIDGE. 393 
 
 him. "It says that you know the whole misera- 
 ble story. Read it — and then we will talk 
 about it." 
 
 She sank into a chair after she had thus spoken, 
 and remained there with drooped head while 
 Brockholst took the letter to the lamp and read 
 it through. She heard an exasperated sigh leave 
 him more than once; then she heard the letter 
 crackle as he crushed it in one hand. 
 
 " It is just like her ! " he said. He hastened 
 toward Isabel the next instant. " I had hoped to 
 keep this a secret from you always ! There was 
 no use of your knowing — of anybody knowing 
 — except Carolan and that woman." 
 
 She looked up at him with moist and glowing 
 eyes. 
 
 " How good and generous of you, Lloyd ! " she 
 murmured. 
 
 He caught both of her hands and held them 
 tightly, standing beside her. " There is no danger, 
 Isabel," he said, with a voice full of earnest and 
 vital encouragement. " That woman has not a 
 vestige of proof except what Carolan has told her, 
 and I am nearly certain that Carolan will not dare 
 to join issue with her in any attempted exposure. 
 Besides, she will have nothing to gain, now. This 
 letter has been a mere spiteful thrust at you — its 
 very wording bears evidence of that." 
 
 " Yes," faltered Isabel. " I see spite plainly." 
 
 "And its cause," pursued Brockholst, "you can't 
 
394 TEE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 
 
 see. She leaves that out. But I will . explain it 
 all to you hereafter. It concerns an occurrence 
 between herself and me, years ago in Paris. You 
 shall judge just who was the wronger and who the 
 wronged. , But not now. I don't want to drag 
 up that hateful memory at this moment. I want 
 only to make you feel that I shall always do every 
 thing to shield Mm — as I shall do every thing to 
 shield 1/ou, my love, through the years of union 
 that God may give us both I " 
 
 She rose from- her chair, while he still grasped 
 her hands. 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! " she said. " It can't be, now I " 
 Her voice dropped to a trembling whisper ; she 
 tried, but without avail, to draw her hands away 
 from his. 
 
 " Isabel ! " he appealed. 
 
 " Such a crime as that ! " she went on. " And 
 for him to injure you — i/ou, of all others ! " 
 : "It was no real injury. I cared nothing for . . 
 for what was taken." 
 
 " Oh, Lloyd, you sai/ that ! " 
 
 " I mean it, from my soul ! . . Besides, Isabel, 
 think of his punishment now — if you choose to 
 call it such. Surely there has been expiation 
 enough ! His mind is shattered forever ! " 
 
 " I know . . I know. But my shame ! Oh, 
 how can I ever forget, that, when I look in your 
 face!" 
 
 He let go her hands and put his arms about her' 
 
TUB HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE. 395 
 
 drawing her close to his breast. " My Isabel ! " 
 he said. "I will make yoii forget this fancied 
 shame ! I will make you forget it in the remem- 
 brance that I shall always have of the sweet re- 
 ward you give me when giving me yourself! "