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 PS 1244.B9 
 
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 DATE PUE; 
 
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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021995620 
 
'BTLOJF HILL 
 
By GEORGE W. CABLE 
 
 y Bylow Hill. Illustrated in color by 
 
 F. C. Yohn. I1.25. 
 ^ The Cavalier. Illustrated by H. C. 
 Christy. |i.5o. 
 John March, Southerner. $1.50. 
 Bonaventure. $1.50. 
 Dr. Sevier. $1.50. 
 The Grandissimes. $1.50. 
 \j Old Creole Days. $1.50. 
 -/ Strong Hearts. $1.25. 
 
 Strange True Stories of Louisiana. 
 
 Illustrated. $1.25. 
 The Creoles of Louisiana. Illustrated. 
 
 $2.50. 
 The Silent South. With Portrait. 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 The Negro Question. 75 cents. 
 
"Father," laughed the daughter, "isn't this rather youngish?" 
 
"BTLOW HILL 
 
 "By 
 QEO^F^GE W. CA'BLE 
 
 friTH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR 
 
 •By F. C. rOHN 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NE W YORK:::::::::::::::: MCMII 
 
 r 
 
 C 
 
/yj: 
 
 -^ 
 
 ^■35^715 
 
 Copyright, 1902, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Published, May, 1903 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTrNG AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Ruth and Godfrey ... i 
 
 11. Isabel 14 
 
 III, Arthur and Leonard . . 29 
 
 IV. And Bring Down the Re- 
 mainder 43 
 
 V. Sky and Pool 56 
 
 "VI. In the Public Eye ... 70 
 
 VII. The Hour Strikes ... 80 
 
 VIII. Give You Five Minutes . 88 
 
 IX. The Young Year Smiles . 97 
 
 X. The Storm Regathers . . 105 
 
 XI. Has it Come to This? . 115 
 
 XII. The Lantern Quenched . 126 
 
 XIII. Baby 137 
 
 XIV. The Talkative Leonard . 145 
 
 V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XV. The Thin Ice Breaks . 152 
 
 XVI. Must Give You Up . .160 
 
 XVII. Sleep, of a Sort , . . 170 
 
 XVIII. Missing 178 
 
 XIX. A Double Still Hunt . 186 
 
 XX. A Double Return . .194 
 
 XXI. Evening Red .... 204 
 
 XXII. Morning Gray .... 210 
 
 VI 
 
ILL USr RATIONS 
 
 " Father/' laughed the daughter, 
 
 "isn't this rather youngish?" Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Indeed it was clear that to go away 
 would be unfair 64 
 
 "Arthur Winslow, I give you five 
 minutes" 94 
 
 "But to know every day and hour 
 that I'm watched" 154 
 
 "I am waiting busily for her slayer" 192 
 
 "Arthur! Arthur! can't you speak?" 206 
 
 VIJ 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 RUTH AND GODFREY 
 
 ' I ^HE old street, keeping its New 
 -*- England Sabbath afternoon so 
 decently under its majestic elms, was 
 as goodly an example of its sort as 
 the late seventies of the century just 
 gone could show. It lay along a 
 north-and-south ridge, between a 
 number of aged and unsmiling cot- 
 tages, fronting on cinder sidewalks, 
 and alternating irregularly with about 
 as many larger homesteads that sat 
 back in their well-shaded gardens 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 with kindlier dignity and not so 
 grim a self-assertion. Behind, on 
 the west, these gardens dropped 
 swiftly out of sight to a hidden 
 brook, from the farther shore of 
 which rose the great wooded hill 
 whose shelter from the bitter north- 
 west had invited the old Puritan 
 founders to choose the spot for their 
 farming village of one street, with a 
 Byington and a Winslow for their 
 first town officers. In front, east- 
 ward, the land declined gently for a 
 half mile or so, covered, by modern 
 prosperity, with a small, stanch town, 
 and bordered by a pretty river wind- 
 ing among meadows of hay and 
 grain. At the northern end, instead 
 of this gentle decline, was a precipi- 
 tous cliff side, close to whose brow a 
 
RUTH AND GODFREY 
 
 wooden bench, that ran half-way 
 round a vast sidewalk tree, com- 
 manded a view of the valley em- 
 bracing nearly three-quarters of the 
 compass. 
 
 In civilian's dress, and with only 
 his sea-bronzed face and the polished 
 air of a pivot gun to tell that he was 
 of the navy, Lieutenant Godfrey 
 Winslow was slowly crossing the 
 rural way with Ruth Byington at 
 his side. He had the look of, say, 
 twenty-eight, and she was some four 
 years his junior. From her father's 
 front gate they were passing toward 
 the large grove garden of the young 
 man's own home, on the side next 
 the hill and the sunset. On the 
 front porch, where the two had just 
 left him, sat the war-crippled father 
 3 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 of the girl, taking pride in the pla- 
 cidity of the face she once or twice 
 turned to him in profile, and in the 
 buoyancy of her movements and 
 pose. 
 
 His fond, unspoken thought went 
 after her, that she was hiding some 
 care again, — her old, sweet trick, and 
 her mother's before her. 
 
 He looked on to Godfrey. 
 " There's endurance," he thought 
 again. " You ought to have taken 
 him long ago, my good girl, if you 
 want him at all." And here his re- 
 flections faded into the unworded be- 
 lief that she would have done so but 
 for his, her own father's, being in 
 the way. 
 
 The pair stopped and turned half 
 about to enjoy the green-arched vista 
 4 
 
RUTH AND GODFREY 
 
 of the Street, and Godfrey said, in a 
 tone that left his companion no room 
 to overlook its personal intent, " How 
 often, in my long absences, I see this 
 spot!" 
 
 " You wouldn't dare confess you 
 didn't," was her blithe reply. 
 
 " Oh yes, I should. I've tried 
 not to see it, many a time." 
 
 " Why, Godfrey Winslow ! " she 
 laughed. " That was very wrong ! " 
 
 " It was very useless," said the 
 wanderer, " for there was always the 
 same one girl in the midst of the 
 picture ; and that's the sort a man 
 can never shut out, you know. I don't 
 try to shut it out any more, Ruth." 
 
 The girl spoke more softly. " I 
 wish I could know where Leonard 
 is," she mused aloud. 
 5 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " Did you hear me, Ruth ? I say 
 I don't try any more, now." 
 
 " Well, that's right ! I wonder 
 where that brother of mine is ? " 
 
 The baffled lover had to call up 
 his patience. " Well, that's right, 
 too," he laughed ; " and I wonder 
 where that brother of mine is ? I 
 wonder if they're together?" 
 
 They moved on, but at the stately 
 entrance of the Winslow garden they 
 paused again. The girl gave her com- 
 panion a look of distress, and the 
 young man's brow darkened. " Say 
 it," he said. " I see what it is." 
 
 " You speak of Arthur " — she be-- 
 gan. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " What did you make out of his 
 sermon this morning ? " 
 
RUTH AND GODFREY 
 
 " Why, Ruth, I — What did you 
 make out of it ? " 
 
 " I made out that the poor boy is 
 very, very unhappy." 
 
 " Did you ? Well, he is ; and in a 
 certain way I'm to blame for it." 
 
 The girl's smile was tender. " Was 
 there ever anything the matter with 
 Arthur, and you didn't think you were 
 in some way to blame for it ? " 
 
 " Oh, now, don't confuse me with 
 Leonard. Anyhow, I'm to blame 
 this time ! Has Isabel told you any- 
 thing, Ruth ? " 
 
 " Yes, Isabel has told me ! " 
 
 " Told you they are engaged ? " 
 
 " Told me they are engaged ! " 
 
 " Well," said the young man, 
 
 "Arthur told me last night; and I 
 
 took an elder brother's liberty to tell 
 
 7 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 him he had played Leonard a vile 
 trick." 
 
 " Godfrey ! " 
 
 " That would make a much hap- 
 pier nature than Arthur's unhappy, 
 wouldn't it ? " 
 
 Ruth was too much pained to reply, 
 but she turned and called cheerily, 
 "Father, do you know where Leonard 
 is?" 
 
 The father gathered his voice and 
 answered huskily, laying one hand 
 upon his chest, and with the other 
 gesturing up by the Winslow elm to 
 the grove behind it. 
 
 She nodded. " Yes ! . . . With 
 Arthur, you say ? . . . Yes ! . . . 
 Thank you ! . . . Yes ! " She passed 
 with Godfrey through the wide gate. 
 
 " That's like Leonard," said the 
 
 8 
 
RUTH AND GODFREY 
 
 lover. " He'll tell Arthur he hasn't 
 done a thing he hadn't a perfect right 
 to do." 
 
 " And Arthur has not, Godfrey. He 
 has only been less chivalrous than w^e 
 should have liked him to be. If he 
 had been first in the field, and Leonard 
 had come in and carried her off, you 
 would have counted it a perfect mercy 
 all round." 
 
 " Ho-oh ! it would have been ! 
 Leonard would have made her happy. 
 Arthur never can, and she can never 
 make him so. But what he has done 
 is not all : look how he did it ! 
 Leonard was his beloved and best 
 friend " — 
 
 " Except his brother Godfrey " — 
 
 " Except no one, Ruth, unless it's 
 you. I'm neither persuasive nor kind, 
 9 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 nor often with him. Proud of him I 
 was, and never prouder than when I 
 knew him to be furiously in love with 
 her, while yet, for pure, sweet friend- 
 ship's sake, he kept standing off, stand- 
 ing off." 
 
 " I wish you might have seen it, 
 Godfrey. It was so beautiful — and 
 so pitiful ! " 
 
 "It was manly, — gentlemanly; 
 and that was enough. Then all at 
 once he's taken aback ! All control 
 of himself gone, all self-suppression, 
 all conscience "• — • 
 
 " The conscience has returned," 
 said the girl. 
 
 " Oh, not to guide him ! Only to 
 goad him ! Fifty consciences can't 
 honorably undo the mischief now 1 " 
 
 " Did I not write you that there 
 
 lO 
 
RUTH AND GODFREY 
 
 was already, then, a coolness between 
 her and Leonard?" 
 
 " Yes ; but the whole bigness and 
 littleness of Arthur's small, bad deed 
 lies in the fact that, though he knew 
 that coolness was but a momentary 
 tiff, with Isabel in the wrong, he 
 took advantage of it to push his suit 
 in between and spoil as sweet a match 
 as two hearts were ever making." 
 
 " It was more than a tiff, God- 
 frey ; it" — 
 
 " Not a bit more ! not — a — bit ! " 
 
 " Yes ! — yes — it was a problem ! 
 a problem how to harmonize two 
 fine natures keyed utterly unlike. 
 Leonard saw that. That is why he 
 moved so slowly." 
 
 " Hmm ! " The lover stared away 
 grimly. " I know something about 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 slowness. I suppose it's a virtue — 
 sometimes." 
 
 " I think so," said the girl, caress- 
 ing a flower. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " responded the other. 
 " She has chosen a nature now that — 
 Oh me ! . . . Ruth, I shall speak 
 to her mother ! I am the only one 
 who can. I'll see Mrs. Morris some 
 time this evening, and lay the whole 
 thing out to her as we four see it 
 who have known one another almost 
 from the one cradle." 
 
 Ruth smiled sadly. " You will 
 fail. I think the matter will have 
 to go on as it is going. And if it 
 does, you must remember, Godfrey, 
 we do not really know but they may 
 work out the happiest union. At 
 any rate, we must help them to try." 
 
RUTH AND GODFREY 
 
 " If they insist on trying, yes ; 
 and that will be the best for Leon- 
 ard." 
 
 " The very best. One thing we 
 do know, Godfrey : Arthur will al- 
 ways be a passionate lover, and dear 
 Isabel is as honest and loyal as the 
 day is long." 
 
 " The day is not long ; this one is 
 not — to me. It's most lamentably 
 short, and to-morrow I must be gone 
 again. I have something to say to 
 you, Ruth, that " — 
 
 The maiden gave him a look, of 
 sweet protest, which suddenly grew 
 remote as she murmured, " Isabel 
 and her mother are coming out of 
 their front door." 
 
 13 
 
II 
 
 ISABEL 
 
 ' I ^HERE were two dwellings in the 
 -*- Winslow garden, — one as far 
 across at the right of the Byington 
 house as the other was at the left. The 
 one on the right may have contained 
 six or eight bedchambers; the other 
 had but three. The larger stood with- 
 drawn from the public way, a well- 
 preserved and very attractive exam- 
 ple of colonial architecture, refined 
 to the point of delicacy in the grace 
 and harmony of its details. Here 
 dwelt Arthur Winslow, barely six 
 weeks a clergyman, alone but for 
 two or three domestics and the rare 
 visits of Godfrey, his only living rela- 
 H 
 
ISABEL 
 
 tion. The other and older house, in 
 the garden's southern front corner, 
 was a gray gambrel-roofed cottage, 
 with its threshold at the edge of the 
 sidewalk ; and it was from this cot- 
 tage that Isabel and her mother 
 stepped, gratefully answering the af- 
 fectionate wave of Ruth's hand, — 
 Mrs. Morris with the dignity of her 
 forty-odd years, and Isabel with a 
 sudden eager fondness. The next 
 moment the two couples were hid- 
 den from each other by the umbra- 
 geous garden and by the tall white 
 fence, in which was repeated the ar- 
 chitectural grace of the larger house. 
 Mother and daughter conversed 
 quietly, but very busily, as they came 
 along this enclosure ; but presently 
 they dropped their subject to bow 
 IS 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 cordially across to the father of Ruth, 
 and when he endeavored to say some- 
 thing to them Mrs. Morris moved 
 toward him. Isabel took a step or 
 two more in the direction of the 
 Winslow elm and its inviting bench, 
 but then she also turned. She was 
 of a moderate feminine: stature and 
 perfect outline, her step elastic, her 
 mien self-contained, and her face so 
 young that a certain mature tone in 
 her mellow voice was often the cause 
 of Ruth's fond laughter. As winsome, 
 too, she was, as she was beautiful, and 
 " as pink as a rose," said the old-time 
 soldier to himself, as he came down 
 his short front walk, throwing half 
 his glances forward to her, quite un- 
 aware that he was equally the object 
 
 of her admiration. 
 i6 
 
ISABEL 
 
 Though white-haired and some- 
 what bent he was still slender and 
 handsome, a most worthy figure 
 against the background of the red 
 brick house, whose weathered walls 
 contrasted happily with the blossom- 
 ing shrubs about their base, and with 
 the green of lawn and trees. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Isabel. I was 
 saying to your mother, I hope such 
 days as this are some offset for the 
 Southern weather and scenery you 
 have had to give up." 
 
 " You shouldn't tempt our Southern 
 boastfulness. General," Isabel replied, 
 with an air of meek chiding. She 
 had a pretty way of skirmishing with 
 men which always brought an apolo- 
 getic laugh from her mother, but 
 which the General had discovered she 
 17 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 never used in a company of less than 
 three. 
 
 " Oh ! ho, ho ! " laughed Mrs. 
 Morris, who was just short, plump, 
 and pretty enough to laugh to advan- 
 tage. "Why, General," — she sobered 
 abruptly, and she was just pretty and 
 plump and short enough to do this 
 well, also, — " my recovered health is 
 offset enough for me." 
 
 " For us, my dear," said the daugh- 
 ter. " My mother's restored health 
 is offset enough for us. General. In- 
 deed, for me " — addressing the dis- 
 tant view — " there is no call for 
 off-set ; any landscape or climate is 
 perfect that has such friends in it as 
 — as this one has." 
 
 " Oh ! ho, ho ! " laughed the 
 mother again. Nobody ever told the 
 
 iS 
 
ISABEL 
 
 Morrises they had a delicious South- 
 ern accent, and their words are given 
 here exactly as they thought they 
 spoke them. 
 
 " My dear," persisted Isabel, rebuk- 
 ingly, " I mean such friends as Ruth 
 Byington." 
 
 Mrs. Morris let go her little South- 
 ern laugh once more. " Don't you 
 believe her. General — don't you be- 
 lieve her. She means you every bit 
 as much as she means Ruth. She 
 means everybody on Bylow Hill." 
 
 " I'm at the mercy of my inter- 
 preter," said Isabel. " But I thought " 
 — her eyes went out upon the skyline 
 again — " I thought that men — that 
 men — I thought that men — My 
 dear, you've made me forget what I 
 thought ! " 
 
 '9 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 They laughed, all three. Isabel, 
 with a playful sigh, clutched her 
 mother's hand, and the pair drew off 
 and moved away to the bench. 
 
 " He puts you in good spirits," 
 said the mother, breaking a silence. 
 
 " Good spirits ! He puts me in 
 pure heartache. Oh, why did you 
 tell him?" 
 
 " Tell him ? My child ! I have 
 not told him ! " 
 
 " Oh, mother, do you not see 
 you've told him point-blank that it's 
 all settled ? " 
 
 " No, dearie, no ! I only see that 
 your distress is making you fanciful. 
 But why should he not be told, 
 Isabel?" 
 
 " I'm not ready ! Oh, I'm not 
 ready ! It may suit him well enough 
 
ISABEL 
 
 to hear it, for he knows Leonard is 
 too fine and great for me ; but I'm 
 not ready to tell him." 
 
 " My darling, he knows you are 
 good enough for any Leonard he can 
 bring." 
 
 " Oh yes, on the plane of the Ten 
 Commandments." The girl smiled 
 unhappily. 
 
 " But precious, he loves Arthur 
 deeply, and thinks the world of him." 
 
 " Mother, what is it like, to love 
 deeply ? " 
 
 The query was ignored. " And the 
 old gentleman is fond of you, sweet- 
 heart." 
 
 " Oh, he likes me. What a tame 
 old invalid that word ' fond ' has 
 grown to be ! You can be fond of 
 two or three persons at once, nowa- 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 days. My soul ! I wish I were fond 
 of Arthur Winslow in the old mad way 
 the word meant when it was young ! " 
 
 " Pshaw, dearie ! you'll be fond 
 enough of him, once you're his. 
 He's brilliant, upright, loving and 
 lovable. You see, and say, he is so, 
 and I know your fondness will grow 
 with every day and every experience, 
 happy or bitter." 
 
 " Yes. . . . Yes, I could not en- 
 dure not to give my love bountifully 
 wherever it rightly belongs. But oh, 
 I wish I had it ready to-day, — a fond- 
 ness to match his ! " 
 
 " Now, Isabel ! Why, pet, thou- 
 sands of happy and loving wives will 
 tell you " — 
 
 " Oh, I know what they will tell 
 me." 
 
ISABEL 
 
 " They'll not tell you they get 
 along without love, dearie. But ten 
 years from now, my daughter, not 
 how fond you were' when you first 
 joine.d hands, but what you have" — 
 
 " Oh yes, — been to each other, 
 done for each other, borne from each 
 other, will be the true measure. Oh, 
 of course it will ; but there's so much 
 in the right start ! " 
 
 " Beyond doubt ! Understand me, 
 precious : if you have the least ground 
 to fear " — 
 
 " Mother ! mother ! No ! no ! 
 What ! afraid I may love some one 
 else ? Never ! never ! Oh, without 
 boasting, and knowing what I am as 
 well as Leonard Byington knows" — 
 
 " Oh, pshaw ! Leonard Byington ! " 
 
 " He knows me, mother, — as if he 
 23 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 lived at a higher window that looked 
 down into my back yard." The 
 speaker smiled. 
 
 " Then he knows," exclaimed the 
 mother, " you're true gold ! " 
 
 " Yes, but a light coin." 
 
 " My pet ! He knows you're the 
 tenderest, gentlest dear he ever saw.' 
 
 " But neither brave nor strong." 
 
 " Oh, you not brave ! you not 
 strong ! You're the lovingest, tru- 
 est "— 
 
 " Only inclined to be a bit too 
 hungry after sympathy, dear." 
 
 "You never bid for it, love, never." 
 
 " Well, no matter ; I shall never 
 love any one but myself too much. 
 I think I shall some day love Arthur 
 as I wish I could love him now. I 
 
 never did really love Leonard, — I 
 
 24 
 
ISABEL 
 
 couldn't ; I haven't the stature. That 
 was my trouble, dearie : I hadn't the 
 stature. I never shall have ; and if 
 it's he you are thinking of, you are 
 wasting your dear, sweet care. But 
 he's going to be our best and nearest 
 friend, mother, — he and Ruth and 
 Godfrey, together and alike. We've 
 so agreed, Arthur and I. Oh, I'm 
 not going to come in here and turn 
 the sweet old nickname of this happy 
 spot into a sneer." 
 
 " Then why are you not happy, 
 precious ? " 
 
 " Happy ? Why, my dear, I am 
 happy ! " 
 
 " With touches of heartache ? " 
 
 " Oh, with big wrenches of heart- 
 ache ! Why not ? Were you never 
 so ? " 
 
 25 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " I'm SO right now, dearie. For 
 after all is said" — 
 
 "And thought that can't be said" 
 — murmured Isabel. 
 
 " Yes," replied the mother, " after 
 all is said and thought, I should rath- 
 er give you to Arthur than to any 
 other man I know. Leonard will 
 have a shining career, but it will be 
 in politics." 
 
 " I tried to dissuade him," broke 
 in the daughter, " till I was ashamed." 
 
 " In politics," continued Mrs. Mor- 
 ris, — " and Northern politics, Isabel. 
 Arthur's will be in the church ! " 
 
 " Yes," said the other, but her whole 
 
 attention was within the fence at their 
 
 side, where a rough stile, made in 
 
 boyhood days by the two brothers 
 
 and Leonard, led over into the gar- 
 26 
 
ISABEL 
 
 den. She sprang up. " Let's go, 
 mother; he's coming ! " 
 
 " Who, my child ? " 
 
 " Both ! Come, dear, come quick- 
 ly ! Oh, I don't know why we ever 
 came out at all ! " 
 
 " My dear, it was you proposed it, 
 lest some one should come in ! " 
 
 The daughter had moved some 
 steps down the road, but now turned 
 again ; for Ruth and Godfrey, re- 
 turning, came out through the gar- 
 den's high gateway. However, they 
 were giving all their smiles to the 
 greetings which the General sent 
 them from his piazza. 
 
 " Come over, mother ! " called Isa- 
 bel, in a stifled voice. " Cross to the 
 hill path ! " But before they could 
 reach it Arthur and Leonard came 
 27 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 into full view on the stile. Isabel 
 motioned her mother despairingly 
 toward them, wheeled once more, 
 and with a gay call for Ruth's notice 
 hurried to meet her in the middle of 
 the way. 
 
 z8 
 
Ill 
 
 ARTHUR AND LEONARD 
 
 /GODFREY passed over to the 
 ^^ General, who had walked down 
 to his gate on his way to the great 
 elm. Out from behind the elm came 
 the other two men, Arthur leading 
 and talking briskly : — 
 
 " The sooner the better, Leonard. 
 Now while my work is new and 
 taking shape — Ah ! here's Mrs. 
 Morris." 
 
 Both men were handsome. Ar- 
 thur, not much older than Ruth, was 
 of medium height, slender, restless, 
 dark, and eager of glance and speech. 
 Leonard was nearer the age of God- 
 frey ; fairer than Arthur, of a quieter 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 eye, tall, broad-shouldered, powerful, 
 lithe, and almost tamely placid. Mrs. 
 Morris met them with animation. 
 
 " Have our churchwarden and our 
 rector been having another of their 
 long talks .? " 
 
 The joint reply was cut short by 
 Godfrey's imperative hail : " Leon- 
 ard!" 
 
 As Byington turned that way, Ar- 
 thur said quietly to Mrs. Morris, 
 " He's promised to retain charge " — 
 and nodded toward Isabel. The nod 
 meant Isabel's financial investments. 
 
 " And mine ? " murmured the well- 
 pleased lady. 
 
 " Both." 
 
 The two gave heed again to God- 
 frey, who was loudly asking Leonard, 
 " Why didn't you tell us the news?" 
 
 3° 
 
ARTHUR AND LEONARD 
 
 " Oh," drawled Leonard smilingly, 
 " I knew father would." 
 
 " I haven't talked with Godfrey 
 since he came," said Mrs. Morris ; 
 and as she left Arthur she asked his 
 brother : " What news ? Has the 
 governor truly made him " — 
 
 " District attorney, yes," said God- 
 frey. " Ruth, I think you might 
 have told me." 
 
 " Godfrey, I think you might have 
 asked me," laughed the girl, drawing 
 Isabel toward Arthur and Leonard, in 
 order to leave Mrs. Morris to God- 
 frey. 
 
 Arthur moved to meet them, but 
 Ruth engaged him with a question, 
 and Isabel turned to Leonard, offering 
 her felicitations with a sweetness that 
 gave Arthur tearing pangs to overhear. 
 31 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " But when people speak to us of 
 your high office," he could hear her 
 saying, " we will speak to them of 
 your high fitness for it. And still, 
 Leonard, you must let us offer you 
 our congratulations, for it is a high 
 office." 
 
 " Thank you," replied Leonard : 
 " let me save the congratulations for 
 the day I lay the office down. Do 
 you, then, really think it high and 
 honorable .? " 
 
 " Ah," she rejoined, in a tone of 
 reproach and defense that tortured Ar- 
 thur, "you know I honor the pursuit 
 of the law." 
 
 Leonard showed a glimmer of 
 drollery. " Pursuit of the law, yes," 
 he said ; " but the pursuit of the law- 
 breaker " — 
 
 32 
 
ARTHUR AND LEONARD 
 
 " Even that," replied Isabel, " has 
 its frowning honors." 
 
 " But I'm much afraid it seems to 
 you," he said, " a sort of blindman's 
 buff played with a club. It often 
 looks so to the pursued, they say." 
 
 Isabel gave her chin a little lift, and 
 raised her tone for those behind her : 
 " We shall try not to be among the 
 pursued, Ruth and Arthur and I." 
 
 The young lawyer's smile broad- 
 ened. " My mind is relieved," he said. 
 
 " Relieved ! " exclaimed Isabel, 
 with a rosy toss. " Ruth, dear, here 
 is your brother in distress lest Arthur 
 or we should embarrass him in his 
 new office by breaking the laws ! Mr. 
 Byington, you should not confess such 
 anxieties, even if you are justified in 
 them ! " 
 
 33 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 His response came with medita- 
 tive slowness and with playful eyes : 
 " Whenever I am justified in having 
 such anxieties, they shall go uncon- 
 fessed." 
 
 " That relieves my fears," laughed 
 Isabel, and caught a quick hint of 
 trouble on Arthur's brow, though he 
 too managed to laugh. Whereupon, 
 half sighing, half singing, she twined 
 an arm in one of Ruth's, swung round 
 her, waved to the General as he took 
 a seat on the elm-tree bench, and so, 
 passing to Arthur, changed partners. 
 
 " Let us go in," whispered Leonard 
 to his sister, with a sudden pained look, 
 and instantly resumed his genial air. 
 
 But the uneasy Arthur saw his mov- 
 ing lips and both changes of counte- 
 nance. He saw also the look which 
 
 34 
 
ARTHUR AND LEONARD 
 
 Ruth threw toward Mrs. Morris, 
 where that lady and Godfrey moved 
 slowly in conversation, — he ever so 
 sedate, she ever so sprightly. And 
 he saw Isabel glance as anxiously in 
 the same direction. But then her 
 eyes came to his, and under her 
 voice, though with a brow all sun- 
 shine, she said, " Don't look so per- 
 plexed." 
 
 " Perplexed ! " he gasped. " Isabel, 
 you're giving me anguish ! " 
 
 She gleamed an injured amazement, 
 but promptly threw it off, and when 
 she turned to see if Leonard or Ruth 
 had observed it they were moving to 
 meet Godfrey. Mrs. Morris was join- 
 ing the General under the elm. 
 
 " How have I given you pain, dear 
 heart .? " asked Isabel, as she and 
 35 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Arthur took two or three slow steps 
 apart from the rest, so turning her 
 face that they should see its tender 
 kindness. 
 
 " Ah ! don't ask me, my beloved ! " 
 he warily exclaimed. " It is all gone ! 
 Oh, the heavenly wonder to hear you, 
 Isabel Morris, you — give me loving 
 names ! You might have answered 
 me so differently ; but your voice, 
 your eyes, work miracles of healing, 
 and I am whole again." 
 
 Isabel gave again the laugh whose 
 blithe, final sigh was always its most 
 winning note. Then, with tremen- 
 dous gravity, she said, " You are very 
 indiscreet, dear, to let me know my 
 power." 
 
 His face clouded an instant, as if 
 the thought startled him with its 
 36 
 
ARTHUR AND LEONARD 
 
 truth and value. But when she added, 
 with yet deeper seriousness of brow, 
 " That's no way to tame a shrew, my 
 love," he laughed aloud, and peace 
 came again with Isabel's smile. 
 
 Then — because a woman must 
 always insist on seeing the wrong 
 side of the goods — she murmured, 
 " Tell me, Arthur, what disturbed 
 you." 
 
 " Words, Isabel, mere words of 
 yours, which I see now were meant 
 in purest play. You told Leonard " — 
 
 " Leonard ! What did I tell Leon- 
 ard, dear ? " 
 
 " You told him not to confess cer- 
 tain anxieties, even if they were justi- 
 fied." 
 
 " Oh, Arthur ! " 
 
 " I see my folly, dearest. But 
 37 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Isabel, he ought not to have answered 
 that the more they were justified, the 
 more they should go unconfessed! " 
 
 " Oh, Arthur ! the merest, idlest 
 prattle ! What meaning could you " — 
 
 " None, Isabel, none ! Only, my 
 good angel, I so ill deserve you that 
 with every breath I draw I have a 
 desperate fright of losing you, and a 
 hideous resentment against whoever 
 could so much as think to rob me of 
 you." 
 
 " Why, dear heart, don't you know 
 that couldn't be done ? " 
 
 " Oh, I know it, you being what 
 you are, even though I am only what 
 I am. But, Isabel, you know he loves 
 you. No human soul is strong enough 
 to blow out the flame of the love you 
 kindle, Isabel Morris, as one would 
 38 
 
ARTHUR AND LEONARD 
 
 blow out his bedroom candle and go 
 to sleep at the stroke of a clock." 
 
 " Arthur, I believe Leonard — and 
 I do not say it in his praise — I believe 
 Leonard can do that ! " 
 
 " No, not so, not so ! Leonard is 
 strong, but the fire of a strong man's 
 love, how^ever smothered, burns on 
 without mercy, my beautiful, and you 
 cannot go in and out of that burning 
 house as though it were not on fire." 
 
 " And shall Leonard, then, not be 
 our nearest and best friend, as we had 
 planned ? " 
 
 " He shall, Isabel. Ah yes ; not 
 one smallest part of your sweet friend- 
 ship will I take from him, nor of his 
 from you. For, Isabel, though he 
 were as weak as I " — 
 
 "As weak as /, you should say, 
 39 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 dear. You are not weak, Arthur, are 
 you r 
 
 " Weak as the bending grass, Isabel, 
 under this load of love. But though 
 he, I say, were as weak as I, you — 
 ah, you ! — are as wise as you are be- 
 witching ; and if I should speak to 
 you from my most craven fear, I 
 could find but one word of warning." 
 
 " Oh, you dear, blind flatterer ! 
 And what word would that be ? " 
 
 "That you are most bewitching 
 when you are wisest." 
 
 As Isabel softly laughed she cast a 
 dreaming glance behind, and noticed 
 that she and Arthur were quite hid- 
 den in the flowery undergrowth of 
 the hill path. They kissed. 
 
 " Beloved," said her worshipper, 
 
 with a clouded smile, as he let her 
 40 
 
ARTHUR AND LEONARD 
 
 down from her tiptoes, " do you know 
 you took that as though you were 
 thinking of something else ? " 
 
 " Did I ? Oh, I didn't mean to." 
 
 Such a reply only darkened the 
 cloud. " Of whom were you think- 
 ing, Isabel ? " 
 
 She blushed. " I was think — 
 thinking — why, I was — I — I was 
 think — thinking" — she went redder 
 and redder as he went pale — " think- 
 ing of everybody on Bylow Hill. 
 Why — why, dear heart, don't you 
 see ? When you " — 
 
 " Oh, enough, enough, my angel ! 
 I take the question back ! " 
 
 " You made me think of everybody, 
 
 Arthur, you were so sudden. Just 
 
 suppose I had done so to you ! " 
 
 They both thought that worthy of 
 
 41 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 a good laugh. " Next time, dear," 
 added Isabel, — "no, no, no, but — 
 next time, you mustn't be so sudden. 
 There's no need, you know," — she 
 blushed again, — " and I promise you 
 I'll give my whole mind to it ! Get 
 me some of that hawthorn bloom 
 yonder, and let's go back." 
 
 42 
 
IV 
 
 AND BRING DOWN THE REMAINDER 
 
 'T^HIS "hill path" was a narrowed 
 -*■ continuance of the street, that led 
 gradually down along the hill's steep 
 face to reach the town and the river 
 meadows. Godfrey, halting before 
 Ruth and her brother, watched the 
 blooming hawthorn, over there, bend 
 and shake and straighten and bend 
 again, above Arthur's unseen hands. 
 Then, glancing furtively back toward 
 Mrs. Morris, he muttered to Ruth, 
 while Leonard gravely looked out 
 across the landscape, " I live and 
 learn." 
 
 " So we learn to live," was Ruth's 
 43 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 playful reply. To her it was pain- 
 fully clear that Mrs. Morris, very 
 sweetly no doubt, had eluded God- 
 frey's endeavors to inform her of any- 
 thing not to his brother's unqualified 
 praise. In the Bylow Hill group, 
 Ruth had a way of smiling abstract- 
 edly, which was very dear to Godfrey 
 even when it meant he had best say 
 no more ; and this smile had just said 
 this to him when Isabel and Arthur 
 came into view again. As the two 
 and the three drifted toward each 
 other, Ruth let Leonard outstep 
 her, and joined Godfrey with a light 
 in her face that quickened his 
 pulse. 
 
 After a word or two of slight im- 
 port she said, as they slowly walked, 
 "Godfrey." 
 
 44 
 
THE REMAINDER 
 
 " Yes," eagerly responded the lover. 
 
 " Down in the garden, awhile ago 
 — did I — promise something?" 
 
 " You most certainly did ! " She 
 had promised that if he would let a 
 certain subject drop she would bring 
 it up again, herself, before he must 
 take his leave. 
 
 "And must you go very soon, 
 now ? " she asked. 
 
 " I've only a few minutes left," said 
 the lover, with a lover's license. 
 
 " Well, I'm ready to speak. Of 
 course, Godfrey, I know my heart." 
 
 The young man smiled ruefully. 
 " I've known mine till I'm dead tired 
 of the acquaintance." 
 
 Other words passed, her eyes on 
 the ground as they loitered, and after 
 a pause she murmured : — " But I've 
 45 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 known my heart as long as you've 
 known yours." 
 
 " You've known — What do you 
 — Oh, Ruth, look at me ! " 
 
 She looked, very tenderly, although 
 she said, " You forget we are ob- 
 served." 
 
 " Oh, observed ! Do you mean 
 hope — for me — after all?" 
 
 " I mean that if you will only wait 
 until we can get a clear light on this 
 matter of Isabel's — which will most 
 likely be by the next time you 
 come " — 
 
 " Oh, Ruth, Ruth, my own Ruth 
 at last ! " 
 
 " Please don't speak so. I'm not 
 engaging myself to you now." 
 
 " Oh yes, you are ! Yes, you are ! 
 
 Yes — ^you — are ! " 
 46 
 
THE REMAINDER 
 
 " No — no — no — listen ! Listen to 
 me, Godfrey. I think that now, 
 among us all, we shall manage Isabel's 
 affair well enough, and that the very 
 next time — you — come " — She be- 
 gan absently to pick her steps. 
 " What — what then ? " 
 " Then you may ask me." 
 The response of the overjoyed lover 
 was but one or two passionate words, 
 and her sufficient reply, as they halted 
 among their fellows, was to look 
 across the valley with her meditative 
 smile. Isabel took note, but kindly 
 gave a long sigh of admiration, and 
 with an exalted sweep of the hand 
 drew the gaze of the five to the 
 beauties of the scene below. The 
 day was near its end. The long 
 shadow of the great cliff behind By- 
 47 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 low Hill hung over the roofs of the 
 town and over the hither meadows. 
 The sun's rays were laying their last 
 touches upon the winding river, and 
 upon the grainfields that extended 
 from its farther shore. In the upper 
 blue rested a few peaceful clouds, 
 changing from silver to pink, from 
 pink to pearly gray, and on the sky- 
 line crouched in a purpling haze the 
 round-backed mountains of another 
 county. 
 
 To Mrs. Morris and the General 
 the sight, from the old elm-tree seat, 
 was even fairer than to the youthful 
 group whose forms stood out against 
 the sky, the floral colors of the girls' 
 draperies heightened by the western 
 light. For a while the two sitters 
 
 gave the perfect scene the tribute of 
 
 48 
 
THE REMAINDER 
 
 a perfect silence, and then the Gen- 
 eral asked, as he cautiously straight- 
 ened his impaired frame, "Has not 
 Isabel been making some — eh — news 
 for herself — and us ? " 
 
 The lady's lips parted for their 
 peculiar laugh of embarrassment, but 
 the questioner's smile was so serious 
 that she forced her sweetest gravity. 
 " Why, General, according to our 
 Southern ways," she said, — every 
 word mellowed by her Southern way 
 of saying it, — " that's for Isabel to 
 tell you." 
 
 " Then why does she not do it, 
 Mrs. Morris .? " asked the veteran, 
 who had been district attorney him- 
 self once upon a time, and was clever 
 with witnesses. 
 
 " Why, really. General, Isabel 
 
 49 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 hasn't had a cha — Oh ! ho, ho ! I 
 oughtn't to have said that ! " Mrs. 
 Morris had a kilHng dimple, but 
 never used it. 
 
 " I suppose — of course" — said the 
 General, " she will say it's — eh — 
 Arthur ? " 
 
 " Now you're making me tell," she 
 laughed, " and I mustn't ! General, 
 Godfrey seems to be going." 
 
 In fact, Godfrey was shaking hands 
 with Ruth and Leonard. Now he 
 took the hands of Arthur and Isabel 
 together, and Mrs. Morris laughed 
 more sweetly and with more oh's and 
 ho's than ever ; for Isabel sedately 
 kissed Arthur's brother. 
 
 Ruth made signs to her father, who 
 answered them in kind. " What does 
 she say, Mrs. Morris ? Can you hear ? " 
 50 
 
THE REMAINDER 
 
 " She says they're singing * your 
 hymn ' down in a church under the 
 hill." 
 
 "Ah yes." He beamed and nod- 
 ded to Ruth ; but when Mrs. Morris 
 once more laughed, his brow clouded 
 a trifle. " Your daughter, Mrs. 
 Morris " — 
 
 The lady broke in with a note of 
 bright surprise, rose, and took an un- 
 conscious step forward. The five young 
 friends were advancing in a compact 
 cluster, with measured pace. Ruth and 
 Isabel, in front abreast, and making 
 happy show of the hawthorn sprays, 
 were just enough apart to conceal, ex- 
 cept for their superior height, the 
 three lovers, and in lowered tones, but 
 with kindling eyes, the five, incited 
 by Ruth, were singing the song they 
 5' 
 
B y L OW HILL 
 
 had caught up from the valley, — the 
 old man's favorite from the days of 
 his own song-time. The General got 
 himself hurriedly to his feet ; the 
 shade passed from his brow^. The 
 group came close ; he stepped out, 
 and Isabel, meeting him, laid her tvi^o 
 hands in his, while the halting cluster 
 ceased their song suspensively on a 
 line that pledged loves and friendships 
 too ethereal to clash. 
 
 " Isabel," — he turned up a broad- 
 ened palm, — " here's my amen to that 
 line ; where's yours ? " 
 
 With blushing alacrity she laid her 
 hand on his. 
 
 "Arthur ! " he called, and the lively 
 lover added his to the two. " Now, 
 Ruth ! " 
 
 " Father ! " laughed the daughter, 
 52 
 
THE REMAINDER 
 
 " isn't this rather youngish ? " But she 
 laid her hand promptly upon Arthur's, 
 and the lines of the General's face 
 deepened playfully, and Mrs. Morris's 
 dimple did the same, as Godfrey 
 thrust his hand in upon Ruth's, un- 
 asked. The matron laughed very ten- 
 derly on the key of O while she 
 added her hand, and received Leon- 
 ard's heavy palm above it. Then Ar- 
 thur clapped a second hand upon 
 Leonard's, and Leonard was about to 
 lay a second quietly upon Arthur's, 
 when Isabel, rose-red from brow to 
 throat, gayly broke the heap and em- 
 braced Ruth. 
 
 "Well, honey-girlie," said Mrs. 
 Morris, as she and Isabel reentered 
 their cottage, " wasn't it sweet of 
 53 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 them all, that ' laying on of hands,' 
 as Arthur called it ? " 
 
 "Yes," replied the Southern girl, 
 starting up the cramped old New Eng- 
 land stairway to her room. " It was 
 child's play, but it was very sweet 
 of them, and especially of the Gen- 
 eral." 
 
 The mother detained her fondly. 
 "And still, my child, you're not satis- 
 fied.?" 
 
 " Ah, mother, are you blind, stone 
 blind, or do you only hope I am ? " 
 
 " My dearie ! " 
 
 " Why, mother, excepting Leon- 
 ard, we haven't had one word of true 
 consent from one of them." 
 
 " Oh, now, Isabel ! They'll all be 
 glad enough by and by." 
 
 " Yes," said the daughter, from the 
 54 
 
THE REMAINDER 
 
 landing above, " I've no doubt of 
 that." 
 
 She passed into her room, closed 
 the door, and standing in the middle 
 of the floor, w^ith her temples in her 
 palms, said, " O merciful God ! Oh, 
 Leonard Byington, if only that second 
 hand of yours had hung back ! " 
 
 5S 
 
V 
 
 SKY AND POOL 
 
 \ RTHUR and Isabel were mar- 
 ■*- ^ ried in their own little church 
 of All Angels, at the far end of the 
 old street. 
 
 " I cal'late," said a rustic member 
 of his vestry, " th' never was as pretty 
 a weddin' so simple, nor as simple a 
 weddin' so pretty 1 " 
 
 Because he said it to Leonard By- 
 ington he ended with a manly laugh, 
 for by the anxious glance of his spec- 
 tacled daughter he knew he had 
 slipped somewhere in his English. 
 But when he heard Leonard and Ruth, 
 in greeting the bride's mother, jointly 
 repeat the sentiment as their own, he 
 
 S6 
 
SKY AND POOL 
 
 was, for a moment, nearly as happy 
 as Mrs. Morris. 
 
 " Such a pity Godfrey had to be 
 away ! " said Mrs. Morris. It was 
 the only pity she chose to emphasize. 
 
 Godfrey was on distant seas. The 
 north -bound mid -afternoon express 
 bore away the bridal pair for a week's 
 absence. 
 
 " Too short," said a friend or so 
 whom Leonard fell in with as he 
 came from the railway station, and 
 Leonard admitted that Arthur was 
 badly in need of rest. 
 
 At sunset Ruth came out of her 
 gate and stood to welcome her bro- 
 ther's tardy return. Both brightly 
 smiled; neither spoke. 
 
 When he gave her a letter with a 
 foreign stamp her face lighted grate- 
 
 57 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 fully, but Still without words she put 
 it under her belt. Then they joined 
 hands, and he asked, " Where's fa- 
 ther ? " 
 
 " Inside on the lounge," she re- 
 plied. Her lips fell into their far- 
 away smile, to which she added this 
 time a murmur as of reverie, and 
 Leonard said almost as musingly, 
 " Come, take a short turn." 
 
 They moved on to the Winslow 
 gate, and entered the garden by a path 
 which brought them to a point mid- 
 way between the old cottage and the 
 larger house. There it crossed under 
 an arch transecting an arbor that ex- 
 tended from a side door of the one 
 dwelling to a like one of the other, 
 and the brother and sister had just 
 passed this embowered spot and were 
 58 
 
SKY AND POOL 
 
 Stepping down a winding descent by 
 which the path sought the old mill- 
 pond, when behind them they ob- 
 served two women pass athwart their 
 track by way of the arbor, and Ruth 
 smiled and murmured again. The 
 crossing pair were Mrs. Morris and 
 Sarah Stebbens, the Winslows' life- 
 long housekeeper, deeply immersed 
 in arranging for Isabel to become lady 
 of the larger house, while her mother, 
 with a single young maidservant, was 
 to remain mistress of the cottage. 
 
 The deep pond to whose edge 
 Leonard and Ruth presently came 
 was a narrow piece of clear water 
 held in between Bylow Hill and the 
 loftier cliff beyond by an old stone 
 dam long unused. Rude ledges of 
 sombre rock underlay its depths and 
 59 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 lined and shelved its sides. Broad 
 beeches and dark hemlocks overhung 
 it. At every turn it mirrored back 
 the slanting forms of the white and 
 the yellow^ birch, or slept under green 
 mantles of lily pads. It bore a haunt- 
 ed air even in the flow^eriest days of 
 the year, vv^hen every bird of the wood 
 thrilled it with his songs, and it gave 
 to the entire region the gravest as 
 well as richest note among all its 
 harmonies. Down the whole way 
 to it some one long gone had gar- 
 dened with so wise a hand that later 
 negligence had only made the wild 
 loveliness of this inmost refuge more 
 affluent and impassioned. 
 
 At one point, where the hemlocks 
 hung farthest and lowest over the 
 
 pool, and the foot sank deep in a 
 60 
 
SKY AND POOL 
 
 velvet of green mosses, a solid ledge 
 
 of dark rock shelved inward from the 
 
 top of the bank and down through 
 
 the flood to a depth cavernous and 
 
 black. Here, brought from time to 
 
 time by the Byington and Winslow 
 
 playmates, lay a number of mossy 
 
 stones rounded by primeval floods, 
 
 some large enough for seats, some 
 
 small ; and here, where Ruth had last 
 
 sat with Godfrey, she now came with 
 
 her brother. 
 
 The habitual fewness of Leonard's 
 
 words was a thing she prized beyond 
 
 count. It made Mrs. Morris nervous, 
 
 drained her mind's treasury, and sent 
 
 her conversational powers borrowing 
 
 and begging ; Isabel it awed ; Arthur 
 
 it tantalized ; to Godfrey it was an 
 
 appetizing drollery ; but to Ruth it 
 6i 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 was dearer and clearer than all spoken 
 eloquence. 
 
 The same trait in her, only less 
 marked, was as satisfying to him, and 
 from one rare utterance to another 
 their thoughts moved like consorted 
 ships from light to light along a home 
 coast. A motion, a glance, a gleam, 
 a shade, told its tale, as across leagues 
 of silence a shred of smoke may tell 
 one dweller in the wilderness the way 
 or want of another. Such converse 
 may have been a mere phase of the 
 New Englander's passion for econo- 
 my, or only the survival of a primi- 
 tive spiritual commerce which most 
 of us have lost through the easier use 
 of speech and print; but the sister 
 took calm delight in it, and it bound 
 
 the two to each other as though it 
 62 
 
SKY AND POOL 
 
 were itself a sort of goodness or great- 
 ness. 
 
 "They have it of their mother," the 
 old General sometimes said to himself. 
 
 There were moments, too, when 
 their intercourse was still more sub- 
 tle, and now they sat without ex- 
 change of glance or gesture, silent as 
 chess players, looking up the narrow 
 water into a sunset exquisite in the 
 delicacy of its silvery plumes, fleeces 
 pink and dusk, and illimitable dis- 
 tances of palest green seen through 
 fan-rays of white light shot down 
 from one dark, unthreatening cloud. 
 
 " Leonard," at length said the sis- 
 ter, as if she had studied every possi- 
 bility on the board before touching 
 the chosen piece, " couldn't you go 
 
 away for a time ? " 
 63 
 
jbYlow hill 
 
 And with deliberate readiness the 
 other gentle voice replied, " I don't 
 think I'd better." 
 
 While they spoke their gaze rested 
 
 on the changing beauties of pool and 
 
 sky, and after the brief inquiry and 
 
 response it still remained, though the 
 
 inner glow of their mutual love and 
 
 worship deepened and warmed as did 
 
 the colors of the heavens and of the 
 
 glassing waters. The brother knew 
 
 full well Ruth's poignant sense of his 
 
 distresses ; and to her his mute tongue 
 
 and unbent head were a sister's con- 
 
 vincement that he would endure them 
 
 in a manner wholly faithful to every 
 
 one of the loved hands that had lain 
 
 under his the evening Godfrey had 
 
 said good-by. 
 
 " Indeed, it was clear that to go 
 64 
 
Indeed it was clear that to go away would be unfair. 
 
SlCY AND POOL 
 
 away — unless he honestly felt too 
 weak to remain — would be unfair to 
 almost every person, every interest, 
 concerned ; and such a step was but 
 second choice in Ruth's mind, con- 
 ditioned solely on any unreadiness he 
 might have uprightly to bear the bur- 
 den brought upon him by — well, 
 after all, by his own too confident 
 miscalculations in the game of hearts. 
 To him such flight signified the 
 indeterminate continuance of his sis- 
 ter's maiden singleness and a like pro- 
 longation of her lover's galling sus- 
 pense. To Ruth it stood not only 
 for the loss of her brother, but for 
 the narrowing of their father's already 
 narrowed life, — a narrowing which 
 might come to mean a shortening as 
 well ; and it meant also the leaving 
 6s 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 of Isabel and Arthur to their mistake 
 and to their unskilfulness slowly and 
 patiently to work out its cure. To 
 go away were, for him, to consent to 
 be the one unbroken string on a no- 
 ble but difficult instrument. These 
 thoughts and many more like them 
 passed to and fro, out through the ab- 
 stracted eyes of the one, across to the 
 fading clouds, and back through the 
 abstracted eyes and into the respond- 
 ing heart of the other. 
 
 At length the sister rose. " I must 
 go to father," she said. 
 
 The brother stood up. Their eyes 
 exchanged a gentle gaze and tenderly 
 contracted. 
 
 " I will come presently," he re- 
 plied, and was turning toward the 
 
 water, when he paused, threw a hand 
 66 
 
SKY AND POOL 
 
 toward the steep wood across the pool, 
 and silently bade her listen. 
 
 The note he had remotely heard 
 was rare on Bylow Hill since the town 
 had come in below, and one of the 
 errands which oftenest brought the 
 hill's dwellers to this nook in solitary 
 pairs was to hearken for that voice of 
 unearthly rapture, — a rapture above 
 all melancholy and beyond all mirth, 
 — the call of the hermit thrush. 
 
 Now the waiting seemed in vain. 
 The brother's hand sank, the sister 
 turned, and soon he saw her pass from 
 view among the boughs as she wound 
 up the rambling path toward the three 
 homes. 
 
 At the top she halted, still longing 
 
 to hear at his side that marvellous 
 
 wood-note, and was just starting on 
 67 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 once more, when from the same 
 quarter as before it came again, with 
 new and fervent clearness. With 
 noiseless foot she sprang back down 
 the bendings of the path, having no 
 other thought but to find her brother 
 standing as she had left him, a rapt 
 hearer of the heavenly strain. 
 
 She reached the spot, but found no 
 hearkening or standing form. The 
 young man's stalwart frame lay prone 
 on the green bank, where he had 
 thrown himself the moment she had 
 left his sight, and his face was buried 
 in the deep moss. 
 
 The stir of her swift coming 
 
 reached his ear barely in time for him, 
 
 as she choked down a cry that had 
 
 all but escaped her, to turn upon his 
 
 back, meet her glance, and drive the 
 68 
 
SKY AND POOL 
 
 agony from his face with a languorous 
 smile. The melting song pervaded 
 the air, but neither of them lifted a 
 noting finger. 
 
 Leonard rose to his feet. Ruth gave 
 him a hand and then its fellow, and 
 as he pressed them together she said, 
 " I wish you would go away for a 
 time." 
 
 He dropped one of her hands, and 
 keeping the other, started slowly 
 homeward ; and it was not until they 
 had climbed half the ascent that, with 
 his most remote yet boyish smile, he 
 replied, "I don't think I'd better." 
 
 69 
 
VI 
 
 IN THE PUBLIC EYE 
 
 A UGUST, September, October, 
 -^ ^ November, — so passed the 
 year in gorgeous recession over Bylow 
 Hill. Among their dismantled trees 
 the three homes stood unveiled to the 
 town on the meadows and to travellers 
 who looked from train windows while 
 crossing the river bridge. To those 
 who inquired whose they were there 
 was always some one more than ready 
 to give names and details, and to tell 
 how perfect a bond ever had been — 
 how beautiful a fellowship was yet, 
 now — up there. 
 
 Sevenfold they called it, although 
 one of the seven was away ; namely, 
 70 
 
IN THE PUBLIC EYE 
 
 Lieutenant Godfrey Winslow, of the 
 navy, famed for his splendid behavior 
 in the late so-and-so affair. That 
 stately house at the right, they said, 
 was his home what brief times the 
 sea was not. 
 
 There lived, it would be added, his 
 younger brother, so rapidly coming 
 into note, — the eccentric but gifted 
 rector of All Angels ; whose great 
 success in the heart of a Congrega- 
 tional community was due hardly 
 more to his high talents than to the 
 combined winsomeness and practical 
 sympathies of his beautiful bride, or 
 to the resourceful wisdom and zeal of 
 his churchwarden, Leonard Byington. 
 
 "Any relation to Byington, your 
 new political leader in these parts.?" 
 
 " Same man," the answer would 
 71 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 be, and there the narrator was sure 
 to fall into a glowing tribute to the 
 ideal companionship existing between 
 the rector, his bride, the young dis- 
 trict attorney, and Ruth Byington. 
 
 What made this intimacy the more 
 interesting was, in the eyes of a grow- 
 ing number of observers, that, as they 
 said, " Arthur Winslow was not always 
 an affable man, and was much more 
 rarely a happy one." 
 
 Behind and above this popular ver- 
 dict was that of the old street behind 
 and above the town, — a sort of revised 
 version, a higher criticism. If the 
 young rector, this old street explained, 
 oftener looked anxious than compla- 
 cent, so in their time, most likely, 
 did St. Paul and St. Peter. If he was 
 not always affable, why, neither are 
 72 
 
IN THE PUBLIC EYE 
 
 volcanoes ; the man was all molten 
 metal within. Anyhow, he filled his 
 church to the doors. 
 
 Coaching parties of the vastly rich 
 made the town their Sunday stopping 
 place purely to hear him ; not so 
 much because the boldness of his 
 speculations kept his bishop frightened 
 as because he always fused those spec- 
 ulations on, white-hot, to the daily 
 issues of private and public life, in a 
 way to make pampered ladies hold 
 their breath, and men of the world 
 their brows. Such a man, to whom 
 the least sin seemed black and bot- 
 tomless, yet who appeared to know 
 by experience the soul's every throe 
 in the foulest crimes, was not going 
 to show his joys on the surface in 
 quips and smiles. 
 
 73 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " You should have heard," said the 
 old street, " his sermon to husbands 
 and wives ! His own bride turned 
 pale. He turned pale himself." 
 
 It was wonder enough that even 
 the bride could be happy, at such an 
 altitude, so to speak ; immersing her- 
 self utterly, as she did, in the inter- 
 ests that devoured him. All Angels 
 forgot his gloom in the radiance of 
 her charms, — the sweet genuineness 
 of her formal pieties, the tender glow 
 and universality of her sympathies, 
 the witchery of her ever ready, never 
 too ready playfulness. It was capti- 
 vating to see how instantly and en- 
 tirely she had fitted herself into a 
 partnership so exacting ; though it 
 was pitiful to note, on second glance, 
 how the tint and contour of her cheek 
 
 74 
 
IN THE PUBLIC EYE 
 
 were losing their perfection, and her 
 eyes were showing those rapid aher- 
 nations of languor and vivacity which 
 story-tellers call a " hunted look." 
 Yet, oh, yes, she was happy ; the pair 
 were happy. It was as a pair that 
 they were happiest. Else, said the 
 old street, they could not keep up 
 the old Winslow-Byington alliance so 
 beautifully. 
 
 To the truth of this general outline 
 the three homes' domestics, dominated 
 by Sarah Stebbens, certified with cor- 
 dial and loyal brevity. Yet when 
 Ruth wrote Godfrey how well things 
 were going, there lurked between her 
 bright lines one or two irrepressible 
 meanings that locked his jaws till they 
 creaked. 
 
 In fact, both his brother and hers 
 75 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 were " ailing." Both carried a jaded, 
 almost a broken look, and Arthur was 
 taking things to make him eat and 
 sleep ; while Leonard had daily ac- 
 cepted more and more of the young 
 rector's complicating cares, until he 
 was really the parish's chief burden- 
 bearer. 
 
 "No," he said to his father, "Ar- 
 thur carries his whole work manfully 
 on his own shoulders." 
 
 " But, my son," replied the old 
 General, " don't you see you're carry- 
 ing Arthur?" 
 
 " No, I sha'n't do that," dryly re- 
 sponded the son ; but Ruth saw a 
 change on his brow as on that of a 
 guide who fears he has missed the path. 
 
 The four young friends spent many 
 
 delightful evenings together in the 
 
 76 
 
IN THE PUBLIC EYE 
 
 Winslow house, with Mrs. Morris 
 and the General on one side at crib- 
 bage. Ruth had frequent happy 
 laughs, observing Isabel's gift for 
 making Leonard talk. It gave her a 
 new^ joy in both of them to have the 
 lovely hostess draw him out, out, out, 
 on every matter in the wide arena to 
 which he so vitally belonged ; elicit- 
 ing a flow of speech so animated that 
 only afterward did one notice how 
 dumb as any tree on Bylow Hill he 
 had been in regard to himself. 
 
 " They are bow and violin," said 
 Arthur to Ruth, with his dark, un- 
 smiling face so free from resentment 
 that she gratefully wondered at him, 
 and was presently ashamed to find 
 herself asking her own mind if he 
 was growing too subtle for her. 
 n 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 On these occasions Isabel was wont 
 to court Ruth's counsel concerning 
 her wifely part in Arthur's work, thus 
 often getting Leonard's as well. 
 Sometimes she impeached his mas- 
 culine view of things, in her old 
 skirmishing way. Then she would 
 turn rose-color once more and mirth- 
 fully sigh, while Ruth laughed and 
 wished for Godfrey, and Mrs. Morris 
 breathed soft ho-ho's from the crib- 
 bage board. 
 
 So came the Thanksgiving season, 
 with strong, black ice on the mill 
 pond, where the four skated hand in 
 hand. Then the piling snows stopped 
 the skating with a white Christmas, 
 the old year sank to rest, the new 
 rose up, and Bylow Hill, under its 
 bare elms and with the pine-crested 
 78 
 
IN THE PUBLIC EYE 
 
 ridge at its back, sat in the cold sun- 
 shine like a white sea bird with its 
 head in its down. And when the 
 nights were frigid and clear its ruddy 
 lights of lamp and hearth seemed to 
 answer the downward gaze of the 
 stars in silent gratitude for conditions 
 of happiness strangely perfect for this 
 imperfect world, and the town mar- 
 velled at the young rector's grasp of 
 his subject when his text was, " The 
 heart knoweth his own bitterness." 
 
 79 
 
VII 
 
 THE HOUR STRIKES 
 
 T3UT on a day in the very last of 
 -'-' winter, when every one was in 
 the thick of all the year's tasks and 
 cares, there came to Leonard this let- 
 ter : — 
 
 Leonard Byington, Esquire : 
 
 Sir, — I find myself compelled to ask 
 that you consider your acquaintanceship 
 with my wife at an end. Doubtless this re- 
 quest will give you more relief than sur- 
 prise. The visible waste of your frame and 
 the loss of her exquisite bloom are proof 
 enough that both you and she have long 
 been in daily dread of a far worse visita- 
 tion. It is not worse, because I know 
 how sentimental your impotent and con- 
 80 
 
THE HOUR STRIKES 
 
 science-plagued interchanges of affection 
 have been. I shall permit and assist you 
 to keep this matter a secret. To let it be 
 known would instantly wreck your own 
 career, and would blast at a breath the 
 fortunes of our church and of every one 
 of both our kindreds. I will therefore not 
 at this time require you to resign your 
 church office or to break off those business 
 intimacies with me which, though no longer 
 founded in personal esteem, are vital to 
 interests that common decency must move 
 you to shield from new peril. 
 
 I ask for no repair of the inextinguish- 
 able wrong you have done me. I only 
 ask you not to fancy that I am to be be- 
 guiled by arguments or denials or moved 
 by threats, or that one word I here write 
 is founded on conjecture or inference. 
 Grovelling at my feet, in sobs of shame 
 and with prayers for pardon, Isabel has 
 told me all. Has told me all, Leonard 
 Byington, my once trusted friend. Now, 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 though prostrated on her bed, she rejoices 
 in the double forgiveness of her husband 
 and her priest, blessing him for deliverance 
 from the misleadings of one who — great 
 God ! must I write it ? — might at last have 
 dragged her into crime. It is her request, 
 as it is my command, that you darken our 
 threshold no more, and that as far as prac- 
 ticable you keep yourself from her sight. 
 Faithfully, 
 
 Arthur Winslow. 
 
 With his swivel-chair overturned 
 behind him the young lawyer stood 
 at the desk of his inner ofHce, read 
 this letter through at headlong speed, 
 turned it again, and re-read it slowly, 
 searchingly, from his own name to 
 its writer's. 
 
 Then readjusting his chair he 
 stepped to a door, asked a clerk in 
 
THE HOUR STRIKES 
 
 the outer office to order his cutter, 
 turned back, and was closing his desk, 
 when his partner came to him. 
 
 " Byington, are you ill ? " asked 
 the fatherly man. 
 
 " No ; I'm only going out on some 
 business. I'll be back about " — He 
 looked at his watch. 
 
 " Byington, don't go. You're ill. 
 You don't realize how ill you are. If 
 you go at all, go home, and let me 
 send some one with you. Why, your 
 hand is as cold" — 
 
 " I'm all right," said the young 
 man, freeing his hand and smiling 
 with white lips. He took his hat 
 and passed out. 
 
 Meanwhile Isabel lay on her bed 
 too overwhelmed to rise. In his room 
 adjoining, with doors locked, Arthur 
 83 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 paced the floor. He had spent the 
 first half of the night in an agonizing 
 interview with his wife, and the sec- 
 ond half in writing and rewriting the 
 letter to Leonard. 
 
 Now Isabel noticed the cessation 
 of his steps. In the door between 
 them the key turned ; then the door 
 opened, and he stood, haggard and 
 dishevelled, gazing on her. She sat 
 up in the bed, wan, tear-spent, her 
 glorious hair falling over the em- 
 broideries of her nightdress. 
 
 " Arthur, dear, I am sorry for every 
 angry word I have spoken. But the 
 things I have denied I must deny for- 
 ever. 
 
 " If you should wait till doomsday, 
 I could confess no more. 
 
 " I have never harbored one throb 
 
 84 
 
THE HOUR STRIKES 
 
 of unworthy or unsafe regard toward 
 any man in this wide world. 
 
 " For me to say differently would 
 be to lie in God's own face. 
 
 " I have had great happiness of 
 Leonard's companionship, and I have 
 been proud to be myself a proof that 
 a man and a woman can be close, 
 dear, daily friends without being lov- 
 ers or kin, and earth be only more 
 like heaven for it, to them and all 
 theirs. If Leonard has confessed 
 one word more than that for me, — 
 or even for himself, Arthur, dearest, 
 — he has lost his reason. It's a 
 frightful explanation, but I find no 
 other. 
 
 " Leonard Byington is not wicked, 
 and if he were he wouldn't be so in 
 a dastard's way. 
 
 85 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " Never since the day I first 
 plighted my faith to you, dear heart, 
 has he given me one sign of a lover's 
 love. 
 
 " Oh, Arthur, I do love my hus- 
 band ! This night has proved it to 
 me as I never knew^ it before ; and if 
 you will only believe me and go back 
 to Leonard, I believe he can tear the 
 mask oif this horrible mystery." 
 
 Arthur turned and once more 
 locked the door. His w^ife flamed 
 red and hearkened, and the light foot- 
 fall which had tortured her for hours 
 began again. Suddenly she left the 
 bed and hurried to dress. 
 
 At the mirror, with her hair lifted 
 
 on her hands, she paused and again 
 
 hearkened. Sleighbells stopped at 
 
 the front door. 
 
 86 
 
THE HOUR STRIKES 
 
 Now some one was let in down 
 there, and now, at her husband's room, 
 Giles, his English man of all work, 
 announced Mr. Byington : — 
 
 " Yes, sir, but he says if you can't 
 come down 'e will 'ave to come 
 up, sir." 
 
 87 
 
VIII 
 
 GIVE YOU FIVE MINUTES 
 
 A S Arthur entered the library 
 -^ ■*- Leonard came from its farther 
 end, and they halted on opposite sides 
 of a large table. Arthur w^as flushed 
 and looked fearfully spent. Leonard 
 was pale. 
 
 " I have your letter, Arthur." 
 The rector bowed. He gave a 
 start, but tried to conceal a gleam 
 of triumph. 
 
 Leonard ignored it and spoke on : — 
 " A gentleman, Arthur, — I mean 
 any one trying to be a whole gentle- 
 man, — is a very helpless creature, now- 
 adays, in matters of this sort." 
 
 He looked formidable, and as he 
 
GIVE YOU FIVE MINUTES 
 
 lightly grasped a chair at his side 
 it seemed about to be turned into a 
 weapon. 
 
 " The old thing once called satis- 
 faction," he continued, " is something 
 one can no longer either ask or offer, 
 in any form. He can neither rail, nor 
 strike, nor spellbind, nor challenge, 
 nor lampoon, nor prosecute." 
 
 " Nearly as helpless as a clergy- 
 man," said Arthur. 
 
 " Almost," replied the visitor. 
 " No, there is no more satisfaction in 
 any of those things, for him, than if 
 he w^ere all a clergyman is sup- 
 posed to be. There is none even in 
 saying this, to you, here, now, and I'm 
 not here to say it. Neither am I here 
 to vindicate myself — no, nor yet Isabel 
 
 — with professions or arguments to 
 89 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 you ; I might as well argue with a 
 forest fire." 
 
 " Quite as well. What are you 
 here for ? " 
 
 " Be patient and I'll tell you ; I'm 
 trying to be so with you." 
 
 " You — trying " — 
 
 " Stop that nonsense, Arthur. Ah 
 me, Arthur Winslow, I have no wish 
 to humiliate you. Through the loy- 
 alty of your wife's pure heart, what- 
 ever humiliates you must humiliate 
 her. Oh, I could wish her in her 
 shroud and coffin rather than have 
 her suffer the humiliation you have 
 prepared for yourself and for her 
 through you." 
 
 Arthur showed a thrill of alarm. 
 " Do you propose to go down to pub- 
 lic shame and drag us all with you?" 
 90 
 
GIVE YOU FIVE MINUTES 
 
 " No, nor to let you, if I can pre- 
 vent you. Arthur, you have allov^ed 
 a base jealousy to persuade you, in the 
 face of every contrary evidence, that 
 your fair young wife has lost her 
 loyalty — and your nearest friend the 
 commonest honesty — in a clandestine 
 love. Under the goadings of that 
 passion you have foully guessed, have 
 heartlessly accused, have brazenly lied. 
 Isabel has confessed nothing to you, 
 and I know by your lies to me how 
 pusillanimously you must have been 
 lying to her. Had your guess been 
 right, I should not have known you 
 were only guessing, and your success- 
 ful iniquity would have remained 
 hidden from everybody but yourself 
 — I still do you the honor to believe 
 you would have realized it. Now the 
 9» 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 vital question is, do you realize it, 
 and will you undo it ? " 
 
 Arthur was deadly pale ; his point- 
 ing finger trembled. " Leave " — he 
 choked — " leave this house." 
 
 Leonard turned scarlet, but his tone 
 sank low. " Arthur, I don't believe 
 your soul is rotten. If I did, I should 
 not be such a knave or such a fool as 
 to make any treaty with you that 
 would leave you in your pulpit one 
 Sabbath Day." 
 
 " What do you — what do you mean 
 by that ? " 
 
 " I mean that such a treaty would 
 be foul faith to everybody." 
 
 " So, then, you do propose one 
 common shipwreck for us all." 
 
 " Quite the contrary. To trust the 
 
 fortunes of our loved ones to any 
 92 
 
GIVE YOU FIVE MINUTES 
 
 treaty with a rotten soul would in- 
 deed be to launch them upon a 
 stormy sea in a rotten boat. But I 
 do not believe your soul is so. I be- 
 lieve it is sound, — still sound, though 
 on fire ; and so, to help you quench 
 its burning, I give you my pledge to 
 be from this day a stranger to your 
 sweet wife. And now will you do 
 something for me, to prove that your 
 soul is sound and is going to stay 
 sound ? It shall be the least I can 
 ask in good faith to the world we 
 live in." 
 
 "What is it?" asked Arthur. 
 There was no capitulation in his face 
 or his voice. 
 
 " I want you to make to Isabel a 
 full retraction and explanation of 
 every falsehood you have uttered to 
 93 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 her or to me in this matter." Leon- 
 ard was pale again ; Arthur burned 
 red a moment, and then turned paler 
 than Leonard. 
 
 " You fiend ! " gasped the husband. 
 " I am to exalt you, and abase my- 
 self, to her ? " 
 
 " No. No, Arthur. Women are 
 strange ; every chance is that in her 
 eyes I shall be abased." The speaker 
 went whiter than ever. 
 
 " But be that as it may, you shall 
 have lifted your soul out of the mire. 
 You must do it, Arthur ; don't you 
 see you must ? " 
 
 Arthur sank into the chair at his 
 side. He seemed to have guessed 
 what Leonard was keeping unsaid. 
 A moisture of anguish stood on his 
 brow. Yet — 
 
 94 
 
' Arthur Winslow, I give you five minutes." 
 
GIVE YOU FIVE MINUTES 
 
 " I will die before I v^^ill do it," 
 he said. 
 
 Leonard drew forth the letter, and 
 then his watch. " Arthur Winslow, 
 I give you five minutes. If you don't 
 make me that promise in that time, 
 I shall this day show this letter to 
 your bishop." 
 
 The rector sat clenching his fingers 
 and spreading them again, and staring 
 at the table. 
 
 A bead of sweat, then a second, 
 and then a third started down his 
 forehead. 
 
 Presently he clutched the board, 
 drew himself to his feet, and turned 
 to leave the chair, but fell across its 
 arms, slid heavily from them, and 
 with one rude thump and then an- 
 other lay unconscious on the floor. 
 95 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Leonard sprang round the table, 
 but when he would have lifted the 
 fallen head it was in the arms of Isa- 
 bel, and her dilated eyes were on him 
 in a look of passionate aversion. 
 
 " Ring ! " she cried. " Ring for 
 Sarah — and go ! 
 
 " No ! stop ! don't ring ! he's com- 
 ing to ! Only go ! go quickly and 
 forever ! Say not a word, — oh, not 
 a word ! I heard it all ! Despise me 
 too, for I listened at the door ! 
 
 " Oh, my husband ! Arthur, look 
 at me, Arthur. Look, Arthur ; it's 
 your Isabel. Oh, Arthur, my hus- 
 band, my husband ! " 
 
 96 
 
IX 
 
 THE YOUNG YEAR SMILES 
 
 MARTIN KELLY, pious Irish- 
 man and out-door factotum 
 of the Byington place, paused from 
 the last snow-shovelling of the season 
 to reply to a wandering salesman of 
 fruit trees. 
 
 "Mr. Airthur Winslow or Mr. 
 Linnard Boyington, — naw, sor ! ye 
 can see nayther the wan nor th' other, 
 whatsomiver ! How can ye see thim, 
 moy graciouz ! whin 'tis two weeks 
 since the two o' thim was tuck the 
 same noight wid the pneumonias, boy 
 gorra ! and the both of thim has thim 
 on the loongs ! " 
 
 The nursery agent asked how it 
 had happened so. 
 
 97 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " Hawh ! ask yer grandmother ! All 
 ye can say is they was roipe to catch 
 the maladee, whatsomiver ! Ye can- 
 not always tell how 'tis catched, and 
 whin ye cannot tell, moy graciouz ! 
 ye have got the wurrst koind ! " 
 
 The two sick men recovered very 
 nearly at the same time. 
 
 One day when Leonard had read 
 all his accumulated mail and had seen 
 three or four men officially in his 
 bedchamber, he told Ruth that a cer- 
 tain criminal case, the trial of which 
 had been waiting for his recovery, 
 would take him to the county-seat, 
 and would keep him there many 
 days, probably weeks, except for brief 
 visits to his office and yet briefer 
 moments at home. 
 
 Ruth gave him a look of tender 
 98 
 
THE YOUNG YEAR SMILES 
 
 approval, laid a hand in his, and bent 
 into the evening fire her far-ofF smile. 
 Thus, and only thus, he knew she 
 had divined what had befallen. 
 
 A day or two afterward Mrs. Mor- 
 ris brought him a note from Arthur. 
 He wrote an answer while she stayed, 
 and while Ruth listened elatedly to 
 her sprightly account of how well 
 Isabel still bore the burden of nursing 
 a most loving but most nervous hus- 
 band. 
 
 The missive from Arthur was a 
 short but complete and propitiative 
 acknowledgment of his error and 
 fraility. It offered no change in the 
 agreement as to Isabel, but it pro- 
 fessed a high yet humble resolve to 
 fall no more, and it ended with a 
 manly offer to resign his pulpit, and 
 99 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 even to lay aside his sacred calling, if 
 Leonard retained any belief in the 
 moral necessity of his so doing. 
 
 Leonard's reply was a very brief 
 exhortation to his friend to put away 
 all thought of resigning, and to take 
 up his work again with the zeal with 
 which he had first entered upon it. 
 
 Mrs. Morris went away refreshed, 
 and left the Byingtons equally so. 
 Her buoyancy had been as prettily 
 restrained, her sympathies as sweet, 
 her dimple as unconscious, her belief 
 in everybody's wit and wisdom ex- 
 cept her own as genuine, and her 
 timid dissimulations as kindly meant 
 and as transparent, as ever. Yet 
 there was an unspoken compassion 
 for her when she was gone, for in the 
 parting words with which she playful- 
 
THE YOUNG YEAR SMILES 
 
 ly vaunted her ignorance of the cor- 
 respondence she was bearing, it was 
 clear, even to the General, that behind 
 that small ignorance she had a larger 
 knowledge, — a fact that made her 
 dainty cheerfulness seem very brave. 
 
 The freshets swept down the val- 
 leys, the myriad yellow twigs of the 
 brookside willows turned green, a 
 cheery piping rose from the ponds, 
 the last gleam of snow passed from 
 the farthest hills, the bluebird sang, 
 the harrow followed the plough, 
 Ruth's crocuses shone above the 
 greening sod, and down by the old 
 mill-pool and on the steep hillside 
 beyond it she and Isabel gathered 
 arbutus, anemones, and the yellow 
 violet. Spring had come. 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Then through the thickening 
 greenery the dogwood shone like 
 belated drifts, the flashing warblers 
 passed on into the north, the bobolink 
 had arrived, the robin was already 
 overeating, the whole chorus of 
 birds that had come to nest and stay 
 broke forth, and it was summer. 
 
 Leonard was back in his own 
 town, enriched with new esteem 
 from the public and from the men 
 of his profession. The noted case 
 was won, a victory for the peace and 
 dignity of the state, due wholly, it 
 was said, to the energy and sagacity 
 of the young district attorney. A 
 murder had been so cunningly done 
 that suspicion could fasten nowhere, 
 until Byington laid his finger upon a 
 man of so unspotted a name that no 
 
THE YOUNG YEAR SMILES 
 
 one else had had the mental courage 
 to point to him. Through a long and 
 masterly untangling of contradictions 
 the state's counsel had so overwhelm- 
 ingly proved him guilty that he had 
 confessed without waiting for the 
 jury's verdict. 
 
 " Yes," said many, " it was a great 
 stroke, Leonard's management of that 
 thing." And not a few added that it 
 had made him an older man — " that 
 or something." Those who were of 
 his politics, and even some who were 
 not, stopped him in Main Street and 
 State Street to " shake " and to say, 
 without too much care for logical 
 sequence, how soon, in their opinion, 
 he would be the commonwealth's 
 " favorite son." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Morris," said the 
 103 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 General, " every town has at least 
 one." But even Mrs. Morris could 
 see the father's faith and pride 
 through the old soldier's satire. 
 
 104 
 
X 
 
 THE STORM REGATHERS 
 
 ON the Other hand, things were 
 going ill with the little church 
 of All Angels. Arthur kept his peo- 
 ple as tensely strung as ever, but he 
 no longer drew from them the chords 
 of aspiration and enterprise. It was 
 a sad disenchantment, and none the 
 less so because no one seemed to 
 know what the matter was. One 
 darkly guessed he was writing a book, 
 and the vestryman who had praised 
 the lovely simplicity of the wedding 
 lucidly explained that the young rec- 
 tor had " lost his grip." 
 
 At times there were flashes of re- 
 covery. One Sabbath the whole 
 
 congregation came out under his 
 los 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 benediction uplifted by his word that 
 " loving is living." 
 
 " The more w^e love," they quoted 
 him on their various ways home, 
 " the more we live. The deeper we 
 love, the deeper we live. The more 
 selfishly or unselfishly, the higher, 
 the broader, the purer, the wiser, we 
 love, the more selfishly or unselfish- 
 ly, the higher, the broader, the purer, 
 the wiser, we live ! " The rector's 
 gentle wife was visibly and ever so 
 prettily rejoiced. 
 
 True, but hardly the whole truth. 
 
 In her mother's cottage her smiles 
 
 were almost sad, and when she had 
 
 crossed the garden and got into her 
 
 own room she dropped upon her bed 
 
 and wept. Yet she quickly ceased, 
 
 and put on again a brave serenity, for 
 1 06 
 
THE STORM REGATHERS 
 
 a very tender reason which forbade 
 such risks. 
 
 A bunch of the church's best men 
 got together and agreed that all Ar- 
 thur needed was rest ; that this bright 
 moment was the right one in which 
 to offer him a vacation ; that his 
 physician should flatly order him to 
 take it ; and that Byington should 
 arrange the matter. 
 
 Leonard accepted the task, the 
 physician spoke with startling flat- 
 ness, and the whole kind plot worked 
 well. Arthur consented to go away 
 up into the hills beyond all the jar of 
 the busy world's unrest. 
 
 Isabel was to go with him, and 
 they were to sojourn at some point 
 where she would still be within 
 
 prompt reach of medical skill, yet 
 
 107 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 from which he could make long 
 jaunts into the absolute wilds. 
 
 Mrs. Morris was far from well 
 when they left, and the day after- 
 ward she was seriously ill. That 
 night Ruth sat up with her, and the 
 next day she was worse, yet begged 
 that no telegram be sent to her 
 daughter. 
 
 At the close of the day there came 
 a letter from Isabel. It said that 
 Arthur, "already a new man," would 
 start the next morning at dawn for a 
 three days' trip into the wilderness. 
 He went ; and he had not been three 
 hours gone when Isabel received a 
 dispatch calling her to her mother. 
 The only day train would leave in a 
 few minutes, and she had the fortune 
 to catch it. 
 
 io8 
 
THE STORM REGATHERS 
 
 Ruth met her at the station with 
 the blessed word " better." They 
 went up from the town in Ruth's 
 carriage, Martin Kelly driving, who 
 let it be known that though the doc- 
 tor's name, " moy graciouz ! " were 
 signed to the telegram seven times 
 over, the actual painstaker and sender 
 was " Linnard Boyington, whatsom- 
 iver ! " 
 
 Still Ruth called it the doctor's tele- 
 gram, and said it made no difference 
 who sent it ; but she saw Isabel was 
 disturbed. "Well, Martin, Doctor 
 will have to wait on himself to-mor- 
 row ; Leonard will be out of town." 
 
 That evening, alone with her 
 brother, she said, " But I thought 
 you were to be out of town to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 109 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " No," he replied, " I don't think 
 I'd better." 
 
 Another day passed, another came, 
 and Mrs. Morris was still in danger. 
 Isabel wrote Arthur that she would 
 be with him the moment the peril 
 was over, if he needed her ; but if 
 he did not, she would stay on for her 
 mother's fuller recovery. Her letter 
 had barely gone when she received a 
 pencilled line brought in to the moun- 
 tain hotel by a chance messenger and 
 sent on to her, saying he would be 
 out on his tramp five days instead of 
 three. On the fifth day she tele- 
 graphed that her mother was getting 
 well so fast that she would come, 
 now, at his word. 
 
 The next morning she betrayed to 
 Ruth a glad sense of relief as she 
 
THE STORM REGATHERS 
 
 showed her a dispatch from Arthur, 
 which read : " Going on another trip 
 to-morrow. Stay till I write," 
 
 Ruth repeated it to her father and 
 brother at their noonday meal. Leon- 
 ard made no comment, but the Gen- 
 eral asked pleasantly — 
 
 *• Is she certain he won't come in 
 on this evening's express ? " He was 
 discerning more than any one wanted 
 him to. 
 
 However, at dusk came the train, 
 took water at the tank, stopped at the 
 station, and passed on, and Arthur 
 did not appear. 
 
 « Well, I'll go to bed," blithely 
 
 spoke the General. " I'm not so old 
 
 as I used to be, but I'm tired, after 
 
 writing that letter this afternoon — to 
 
 Godfrey. Good-night." So he gave 
 III 
 
B Y L O W HILL 
 
 fair notice that he had moved in this 
 matter, himself. 
 
 " I didn't know father had re- 
 ceived a letter from Godfrey," said 
 Ruth, shading her face from the lamp, 
 and lifting to Leonard a smile which 
 implied that it would have been but 
 fair for him to have told her, 
 
 " It came the day before Arthur 
 went away," replied Leonard, and 
 Ruth reluctantly chose a new topic. 
 
 They rarely had an evening to- 
 gether thus, and with a soft rain fall- 
 ing at the open windows they sat and 
 talked on many themes in what was 
 to them a very talkative way. When 
 something brought up the subject of 
 the late noted trial, Ruth asked her 
 brother how it had first come to him 
 to suspect so unsuspected a man. 
 
 112 
 
THE STORM REGATHERS 
 
 His reply was tardy. " Partly," 
 he said, and mused while he spoke, 
 " because I am so unsuspected a man 
 myself." 
 
 He looked up with a smile, half 
 play, half pain. " I know what the 
 mind of an unsuspected man is capa- 
 ble of — under pressure." 
 
 The questioner looked on him with 
 fond faith, and then, dropping her 
 eyes to her needlework, said, " That 
 wasn't all that prompted you, was it ? " 
 
 " No," replied the brother, again 
 musing. " I had noticed the singular 
 value of wanton guesswork." 
 
 " I thought so," said the sister. 
 Her needle flagged and stopped, and 
 each knew the other's mind was on 
 the implacable divinations of one 
 morbid soul. 
 
 113 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Leonard leaned and fingered the 
 needlework, — a worsted slipper, too 
 small for most men, too large for 
 most women. " Is that for him ? " 
 
 " Yes," apologized Ruth ; " it's the 
 thing every clergyman has to incur. 
 But I'm only doing it to help Isabel 
 out ; she has the other." 
 
 The evening went quickly. When 
 Leonard let down the window sashes 
 and lowered the shades, Ruth, stand- 
 ing by the lamp as if to put out its 
 light, said, " I'll not go up for a mo- 
 ment or two yet." 
 
 She sent him an ardent smile across 
 the room and turned to a desk. 
 
 114 
 
XI 
 
 HAS IT COME TO THIS ? 
 
 "D UTH wrote to her lover. Her 
 •*-^ father's keeping secret his re- 
 ceipt of Godfrey's letter until he had 
 mailed its answer, could mean only 
 that the answer was for Godfrey to 
 come home. The General's talk of 
 being tired by the writing of it was 
 a purely expletive irony, for he had 
 written with the brevity of an old 
 soldier to a young sailor ; but he had 
 written that trouble was impending, 
 that its source was Arthur, and that 
 the last hope of removing it lay with 
 him, Godfrey. 
 
 A line from Ruth, pursuing after 
 this message, would be one steamer 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 behind it all the way, but it would 
 reach the far wanderer before any 
 leave would permit him to start 
 homeward. 
 
 So, now, what should she write ? 
 If her father had discerned so much 
 more than he had let any one know 
 he had discerned, how about others ? 
 How about the kind whose chief joy 
 is ruthless guesswork ? That need of 
 haste was one she had overlooked. 
 Wise father ! 
 
 And yet — haste itself is such a 
 hazardous thing ! Ah, if Arthur had 
 come in on that evening express, what 
 to write were an easier question. The 
 minutes sped by ; her pen overhung 
 the paper with the opening sentence 
 unfinished, and every moment the 
 thought she kept putting away came 
 ii6 
 
HAS IT COME TO THIS? 
 
 back : " Leonard ! — Leonard ! — God- 
 frey's summons should go to him 
 from Leonard ; and it should flash 
 under the seas, not crawl across 
 them ! "—Hark ! 
 
 She rose and glided to the door 
 through which her brother had gone. 
 There she was startled by the sight 
 of him speeding cautiously down the 
 stair. 
 
 On entering his unlighted room 
 Leonard had moved across it to a 
 front window, where, veiled by the 
 chamber's dusk, he stood looking out 
 into a night dimly illumined by the 
 overclouded moon. The Winslow 
 house widened palely among its sur- 
 rounding trees. The servants' rooms 
 
 were remote as well as on the farther 
 117 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 side, and on the nearer side no lamp- 
 light shone. A short way down the 
 street a glow came from the Morris 
 cottage. Evidently Isabel was with 
 her mother. 
 
 He stood and mused, unconscious- 
 ly lulled by the cool drip of myriad 
 leaves, and with his mind poised mid- 
 way between emotion and thought. 
 To yield to emotion would have been 
 to chafe against the bands that knitted 
 his life and hers to every life about 
 them. To yield to thought would 
 have been to think of her as no more 
 to be drawn from these surrounding 
 ties than some animate rainbow- 
 fringed flower of the sea can be torn 
 from its shell without laceration and 
 death. To give thought word would 
 have been to cry, " Oh, truest of 
 
HAS IT COME TO THIS? 
 
 womankind, where would this unsus- 
 pected man, this Leonard Byington, 
 be if you were other than you are ? " 
 Yet the suspense between avoided 
 feeling and avoided thought held him 
 where he stood. 
 
 So standing, it drifted idly into his 
 mind that yonder arbor must be very 
 wet to-night, and the cinder sidewalk 
 out here much drier. As the thought 
 moved him to draw one step back, 
 the glow from the cottage broadened. 
 Its front door had opened, and Mrs. 
 Morris's young maid came out with 
 a lantern, followed by Isabel saying 
 last fond words to her mother as the 
 convalescent closed the door. 
 
 " Good-night ! " she called back. 
 
 In one great wave the young man's 
 
 passion rolled over its bounds and 
 119 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 brought him to his knees with arms 
 outstretched. " Oh, Isabel ! " he 
 murmured. " Oh, my God ! Oh, 
 Isabel ! Isabel ! if I had but lost you 
 fairly ! " 
 
 The two slight figures came daintily 
 along the wet path in single file, the 
 maid throwing the lantern's beams 
 hither and yon as she looked back 
 to answer Isabel's kindly questions ; 
 Isabel one moment half lost in the 
 gloom of the trees, and then so 
 lighted up again from foot to brow 
 that it was easy to see the very lines 
 of her winsome mouth, ripe for com- 
 passion or fortitude, yet wishful as a 
 little child's. 
 
 Her secret observer moaned as he 
 stood erect. The fury of his soul 
 seemed to enhance his stature. He 
 
HAS IT COME TO THISf 
 
 did not speak again, but, " Oh, Isa- 
 bel ! harder to strive against than all 
 the world beside ! " was the unuttered 
 cry that wrote itself upon his tortured 
 brow. " If your unfair winner would 
 only hold you by fair means ! Yet I 
 too was to blame ! I too was to 
 blame, and you alone were blame- 
 less ! " 
 
 Opposite his window Isabel ceased 
 her light talk with the maid, halted, 
 bent, and scanned something just off 
 the firm path, in the clean wet sand. 
 
 The maid turned and flooded her 
 with the light of the lantern just as 
 she impulsively lifted an alarmed 
 glance to Leonard's window and as 
 quickly averted it. "Go on," said 
 the mistress. " I can walk faster if 
 you can." 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 The girl quickened her steps, but 
 had not taken a dozen when Isa- 
 bel stopped again. " Wait, Minnie. 
 Now you can run back, thank you." 
 She reached for the lantern. 
 
 " I — I thought I was to go all the 
 way, and — and bring the lantern 
 back." 
 
 " No, I'll keep the lantern ; but 
 I'll stay here and throw the light 
 after you till you get in. Run 
 along." 
 
 Minnie tripped away. As she 
 came where they had first halted, a 
 purposely belated good-night softly 
 overtook her ; and when she looked 
 back, Isabel, as if by inadvertency, 
 sent the lantern's beam into her eyes. 
 So too much light sent the maid by 
 the spot unenlightened 
 
HAS IT COME TO THIS? 
 
 Leonard drew aside lest the beam 
 swing next into his window. But 
 the precaution was wasted ; the glare 
 followed Minnie. 
 
 Isabel also followed, slowly, a few 
 paces, and then moved obliquely into 
 the roadway and toward the window. 
 Only for a moment the ray swept 
 near her unseen observer, and, light- 
 ing up the rain-packed sand close 
 before herself, revealed a line of foot- 
 prints slanting toward her from Leon- 
 ard's own gate. 
 
 As the cottage door shut Minnie 
 
 in, Isabel, reassured by the brightness 
 
 of the Byingtons' lower windows, 
 
 stopped for a furtive instant, and 
 
 holding in her hand the fellow of 
 
 the slipper so lately in Ruth's fingers, 
 
 exactly fitted it to one of these foot- 
 123 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 prints. Then, with the lantern on 
 her farther side, and every vein surg- 
 ing w^ith fright and shame, she made 
 haste toward the open gateway of the 
 Winslow house. 
 
 A short space from it she recoiled 
 with a gesture of dismay and self- 
 repression, and her light shone full 
 upon a man. He stepped from the 
 garden, his form tensely lifted, his 
 face aflame with anger. 
 
 But her small figure straightened 
 also, and swiftly muffling the lantern 
 in a fold of her skirt, she exclaimed, 
 audibly only to him, though in words 
 clear-cut as musical notes, " Oh, Ar- 
 thur Winslow, has it come to this ? " 
 
 She arrested his resentful answer 
 by the uplift of a hand, which left 
 
 the lantern again uncovered. " In- 
 
 124. 
 
HAS IT COME TO THIS? 
 
 side ! In the house ! " she softly 
 cried, starting on. " Not here ! 
 Look ! — those upper windows ! — 
 we're in full view of them ! " 
 
 Quickly she remuffled the lantern, 
 but not in time to hide his motion as 
 he threw out an arm and pushed her 
 rudely back, while he exclaimed, " In 
 full view of them answer me one 
 question ! " 
 
 It was then that Leonard went 
 hurriedly downstairs. 
 
 izs 
 
XII 
 
 THE LANTERN QUENCHED 
 
 I WILL answer you nothing ! " 
 murmured Isabel, still facing her 
 husband as she moved round into the 
 garden driveway. " Arthur Win- 
 slow, it is you who are on trial, 
 not I ! " 
 
 "I on trial! God, listen to that!" 
 He sprang after her, gripped her 
 shoulders, and hung over her, snarl- 
 ing, " You two-faced runaway ! what 
 have I done but suffer ? " 
 
 She kept the lantern hid. " What 
 have you done ? Oh, my husband, 
 will you hear if I tell you ? You 
 have hung the fates of all of us, liv- 
 ing or yet to live, on one thread, — 
 126 
 
THE LANTERN QJJ E N C H E D 
 
 please, dear, don't bear so heavily on 
 me, — on one poor thread which the 
 jar of another misstep will surely 
 break. Oh, let us not make it ! 
 Come, Arthur, — my husband, — into 
 the house; maybe we can yet save 
 ourselves and our dear ones ! Ar- 
 thur, you're hurting me dreadfully. 
 If you press me down that way, you'll 
 force me to my knees." 
 
 Still she spoke in undertone, and 
 still she muffled the light, while 
 steadily the weight of his arms in- 
 creased. Suddenly he crowded her 
 to the earth. " Arthur," she mur- 
 mured, " Arthur, what are you going 
 to do ? Don't kill me here and 
 now, Arthur ; wait till to-morrow. 
 I have that to pass through to-night 
 
 which may end my life peaceably in 
 
 127 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 bed ; and if it should, then there will 
 be no infamy on any of us, — on you 
 or our child, living, or on me, dead ; 
 and Godfrey, and Ruth, and mother, 
 and all can be " — 
 
 " Give me that lantern ! " He 
 held her with one hand, snatched the 
 light from cover, and thrust it into 
 her face. " So this is what you sig- 
 nal him with, is it ? " 
 
 " Oh no, no ! Arthur, dear, no ! 
 Before God's throne, no ! " 
 
 He lifted it as high as his arm 
 would go, and with all his force 
 swung it down, crashing and 
 quenched, upon her head. 
 
 She gave a gentle sigh and rolled 
 at his feet. Groaning with horror 
 and fright, he lifted her in his arms 
 and bore her to her room and bed. 
 
 iz8 
 
THE LANTERN QJT E N C H E D 
 
 There she presently opened her 
 eyes to find him laving her face and 
 head, moaning, covering them v(^ith 
 kisses, and imploring her forgive- 
 ness in a thousand hysterical repeti- 
 tions. 
 
 " Hush, dear," she w^hispered. " I 
 see how^ it all happened. Does any- 
 body know^ ? Oh, God be thanked ! 
 don't let any one find out ! It was 
 all a misunderstanding. So many 
 things crov^ded together to mislead 
 you ! 
 
 " Oh yes, so many, many things at 
 once, my treasure! Oh yes, yes!" 
 
 " Call Sarah, w^ill you, dear ? " 
 
 " Oh, beloved, why should I ? You 
 don't need Sarah for anything." 
 
 "Yes, I need her. I must send 
 
 her for mother — and Ruth — I prom- 
 129 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 ised Ruth; and you must send Giles 
 for the doctor ; my hour is come." 
 
 In the Byington house Ruth and 
 her brother met at the foot of the 
 stairs. 
 
 "Leonard," she whispered, "what 
 is it ? Is father ill ? Leonard ! Oh, 
 what have you seen ? " 
 
 " Let me pass ! quick ! " He would 
 have pressed her aside, but she laid 
 hands on him. 
 
 " What has Arthur done ? " she 
 asked. " What is he doing ? " 
 
 *' Ruth ! Ruth ! he is putting her 
 out of his own gate ! " The brother 
 extended both hands to turn the sis- 
 ter from his path, but she twined her 
 arms on his. 
 
 " Leonard ! Leonard ! for the love 
 
 130 
 
THE LANTERN QJU E N C H E D 
 
 of heaven, let him do it ! She has 
 only to go to her mother ; let her 
 go ! It's the last hope. But she'd 
 better be dead, and she'd a hun- 
 dred times rather be dead, than that 
 Leonard Byington should be her 
 rescuer ! Come in here a min- 
 ute." 
 
 Slipping both hands into his she 
 drew him into the lighted room, 
 adding as they went, " In a few min- 
 utes I can make some errand to her 
 and find how matters stand " — 
 
 They stumbled over a disordered 
 rug. She fell into a chair ; he sank 
 to his knees, and with his face in her 
 hands he moaned, " Oh, Ruth ! Oh, 
 Ruth ! it's my fault after all ! I 
 should have gone away at the begin- 
 ning ! " 
 
 131 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Ruth and Arthur met face to face 
 in the Winslow garden. " I was just 
 coming for you," he said, excitedly. 
 
 " For Isabel ? " 
 
 " Yes, her mother is with her, and " 
 — a sound of wheels — " here's Giles, 
 now, off for the doctor." 
 
 The servant passed. " Yes, I got 
 here by the sunset express. I couldn't 
 stay away — with this impending." 
 
 *' I didn't see you come." 
 
 " No, of course you didn't see me, 
 for I didn't go to the station, and so 
 I didn't pass anywhere near your 
 house. I got off at the tank and 
 came up the hill path," 
 
 " You must have got drenched ; 
 you are drenched." 
 
 " Oh no ! I got in before the rain 
 began. Let myself in without seeing 
 132 
 
THE LANTERN QJJ E N C H E D 
 
 any one, and found Isabel was over at 
 her mother's. So I waited here." 
 
 " Didn't let her know you were 
 home ? " asked Ruth, with a pene- 
 trating gaze. 
 
 " No, I haven't been off the place 
 since I came, but I stepped out so 
 many times into the garden to see if 
 she was coming that I'm soaking 
 wet." 
 
 They entered the lighted house, 
 and he turned upon her a glance 
 heavy and wavering with falsehood. 
 His tongue ran like a terrified horse. 
 " Oh — eh — before you go upstairs — 
 Ruth — there's one thing I'm dis- 
 tressed about. I've told Mrs. Mor- 
 ris, and she's promised to see that 
 the doctor understands it perfectly, — 
 though I shall explain it to him my- 
 •33 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 self the moment he comes. And 
 still I wish you'd see that he under- 
 stands, will you ? " 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " Why, at last, as I was waiting for 
 Isabel, and saw her coming, I went 
 to meet her. Unfortunately she took 
 me for a stranger, turned to run, and 
 tripped and fell headlong ! She some- 
 how got her lantern between the base 
 of a tree and the crown of her head, 
 smashed the lantern, and cut and 
 bruised her head pitifully ! " 
 
 To hide her start of distress Ruth 
 moved up the stair ; but after a step 
 or two she turned. " Arthur, why 
 say anything about it, if nothing is 
 asked ? " 
 
 The husband stared at her and 
 turned deadly pale. 
 '34 
 
THE LANTERN QJU E N C H E D 
 
 " Th — that's tr — true ! " he said, 
 with an eager gesture. " I'll not 
 mention it. And — Ruth!" — she 
 was leaving him — " you might s — say 
 the same to Mrs. Morris ! " 
 
 She nodded, but would not trust 
 her eyes to meet his. He was right ; 
 she had divined his deed. 
 
 He went loiteringly into the li- 
 brary and gently closed the door. 
 Then he turned the light low, paced 
 once up and down the room, and all 
 at once slammed himself full length 
 upon a lounge, and lay face up, face 
 down, by turns, writhing and tearing 
 his hair. 
 
 Soon again he was pacing the floor, 
 and presently was prone once more, 
 and then once more up. 
 
 Giles, his English man, brought 
 '35 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 the doctor, and Arthur heard him 
 discoursing as the vehicle drew up. 
 
 " Yes, sir, quite so ; quite so, sir. 
 And yet I beheve, sir, if h-all money 
 and lands was 'eld in common, the 
 'ole 'uman ryce would be as 'appy as 
 the gentlemen and lydies on Bylow 
 '111 ! " 
 
 The young husband met the phy- 
 sician cheerily, sent him up, and went 
 back to his solitude. 
 
 An hour passed, and then Sarah 
 Stebbens knocked and leaned in. 
 " Mr. Arthur ! " 
 
 "What, Sarah?" 
 
 "Oh! I didn't see you. All's 
 well, and it's a daughter." 
 
 136 
 
XIII 
 
 BABY 
 
 TT was most pleasant, being asked 
 -■- by everyone, even by General 
 Byington, how it felt to be a grand- 
 mother. " Oh ! ho, ho ! " Mrs. Mor- 
 ris's unutilized dimple kept itself busy 
 to the point of positive fatigue. 
 
 Even more delightful was it, when 
 the time came round for the totality 
 of her sex — the only sex worth con- 
 sidering — to call and see the babe 
 and mother, to hear them all proclaim 
 it the prettiest infant ever seen, and 
 covertly pronounce Isabel more beau- 
 tiful than on her wedding day. 
 
 In a way she was ; and particularly 
 when they fondly rallied her upon 
 137 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 her new accession of motherly prac- 
 tical manner, and she laughed with 
 them, and ended with that merry, 
 mellow sigh which still gave Ruth 
 new pride in her and new hope. But 
 another source of Ruth's new hope 
 was that Arthur, who had written to 
 the bishop and resigned his calling 
 the day after Mrs. Morris's little 
 namesake was born, had at length 
 withdrawn his letter. 
 
 " It is to your brother we owe its 
 withdrawal," said the bishop, pri- 
 vately, to Ruth. 
 
 She beamed gratefully, but did not 
 tell him that, after the long, secret 
 conference between her brother and 
 the rector, Leonard had come to her 
 and wept for Arthur the only tears he 
 had ever shed in her presence. Now 
 138 
 
BABY 
 
 Leonard had found occasion to go 
 West for a time, though he still held 
 his office ; and Arthur was filling the 
 rectorate almost in the old first way. 
 On some small parish matter the rus- 
 tic vestryman with the spectacled 
 daughter came to Arthur's library in 
 better spirits than he had shown for 
 months, and by and by asked conjec- 
 turally, " I — eh — guess you don't 
 keep any babies here you're ashamed 
 to show, do ye ? " and held his mouth 
 very wide open. 
 
 The infinitesimal was brought. 
 
 " Well, I vum ! Why, Miz. Win- 
 slow, I don't believe th' ever was a 
 pretty baby so puny, nor a puny baby 
 so pretty ! Now, if it's a fair ques- 
 tion, I hope y' ain't tryin' to push in be- 
 tween this baby and the keaow, be ye ? " 
 
 •39 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " No," laughed Isabel. "I'm not 
 that conceited. I should only be in 
 the way." 
 
 " Well," he said as they parted, 
 shaking Arthur's hand to the end of 
 his speech, " I like to see a baby re- 
 semble its father, and that's what 
 this 'n 's a-tryin' to do, jest 's hard 's 
 she can." 
 
 So went matters for a time, and 
 then, while the babe began to fill out 
 and lengthen out, Isabel showed her- 
 self daily more and more overspent. 
 The physician reappeared, and spoke 
 plainly : — 
 
 " And if your cousin down South 
 
 is so determined to have you at her 
 
 wedding, why, go ! Leave your 
 
 baby with your mother ; she's older 
 
 in the business than you are." 
 140 
 
BABY 
 
 But the cousin's wedding was weeks 
 away yet, and Isabel clung to her wee 
 treasure, and temporized with the 
 aunts and cousins in the South and 
 with her mother and Ruth at home, 
 until the doctor spoke again. 
 
 " Let's see," he said to Arthur. 
 " This is November, baby's five 
 months old. Send your wife away. 
 Put her out ! Something's killing 
 her by inches, and I believe it's just 
 care o' the nest. We must drive her 
 off it, as I drove Leonard Byington 
 off, — which, you remember, you, 
 quietly, were the first to suggest 
 to me to do. . . . Coming 
 back, you say, — Byington ? Yes, 
 but only for a day or two, — election 
 time." 
 
 It did not occur to the doctor that 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Arthur was secretly keeping his wife 
 from going anywhere. 
 
 The night Leonard came home 
 the old pond, for the first time in the 
 season, froze over, and through Giles's 
 activities it was arranged next day 
 that Martin Kelly, Sarah Stebbens, 
 Minnie, and he should go down there 
 after supper and skate by the light of 
 fagot fires made out on the ice. Giles 
 piled the fagots; but at a late mo- 
 ment, to the disgust of Giles and 
 Minnie, the older pair pitilessly 
 changed their minds, and decided 
 they were too old to make such 
 nincompoops of themselves. Min- 
 nie would not go without Sarah, 
 for Minnie was up to her pretty 
 eyebrows in love with Giles, as 
 
 well as immensely correct ; and so 
 142 
 
BABY 
 
 there, as it seemed, was the end of 
 that. 
 
 At tea Arthur told Isabel he was 
 going for a long walk down through 
 the town and across the meadows, 
 and would not be home before bed- 
 time. Isabel approved heartily, and 
 said Sarah would stay near the sleep- 
 ing babe, and she would spend the 
 evening with her mother. She and 
 Arthur went together as far as the 
 cross-paths in the arbor, and there, in 
 parting, he clasped and kissed her 
 with a sudden frenzy that only added 
 one more distressful misgiving to the 
 many that now haunted her days. 
 
 She found her mother alone. They 
 sat down, hand in hand, before an 
 open fire, and had talked in sweet 
 quietness but a short while, when a 
 
 '43 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 chance word and the knowledge that 
 this time they would not be inter- 
 rupted made it easy for Isabel to say 
 things she had for weeks been trying 
 to say. 
 
 144 
 
XIV 
 
 THE TALKATIVE LEONARD 
 
 ACROSS the street the father of 
 Leonard and Ruth, already 
 abed, lay thinking of their tribula- 
 tion and casting about in his mind 
 for some new move that might help 
 to end it happily. Godfrey had not 
 come. He had not looked for him 
 to appear w^ith a hop, skip, and a 
 jump, " a man under authority " as 
 he was ; but here were five months 
 gone. 
 
 " I can't clamor for him," thought 
 he, and feared Ruth had written him 
 that the emergency was past. And 
 so she had, in those days of new hope 
 and new suspense which had followed 
 
 H5 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 for a while Arthur's withdrawal of 
 his resignation. 
 
 At the fireside below sat Leonard 
 and Ruth, not hand in hand, like 
 Isabel and her mother, yet conversing 
 on the same theme as they. 
 
 Leonard had spent the day at the 
 polls ; his party had won an easy 
 victory ; and, though not on the 
 ticket, he was now awaiting a tele- 
 graphic summons to the state capi- 
 tal. His fortunes were growing. 
 Yet that was not a thing to be wordy 
 about, and now, when the murmur 
 of his voice continued so long and 
 steadily that it found even the dulled 
 ear of the aged father in the upper 
 room, that father knew what the 
 topic must be. On all other matters 
 the son and brother had become more 
 1+4 
 
THE TALKATIVE LEONARD 
 
 silent than ever, — was being nick- 
 named far and near, flatteringly and 
 otherwise, for his reticence ; but let 
 Ruth sit down with him alone and 
 barely draw near this theme, — this 
 wound, — and his speech bled from 
 him and would not be stanched. 
 
 " I can admit I have made the 
 mistake of my life," he said, " but I 
 cannot and will not, even now, give 
 up and say there is nothing to be 
 saved out of it. It's a mistake that 
 has bound me to her, to you, to 
 Godfrey, to him, to all, and demands 
 of me, pinioned and blindfolded as I 
 am, every effort I can make, every 
 device I can contrive, to compel him 
 to free her and you and all of us 
 from this torture. 
 
 " He shall not go on eating out 
 147 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 our lives, I have daw^dled with him 
 weakly, pitifully, but I did it in my 
 hope to save him. I tried to save 
 him for his own sake, Ruth, truly, — 
 as truly as for her sake and ours ; and 
 I wanted to save his work with him, 
 — his church, his and hers ; so much 
 of it is hers. Oh, Ruth, I love that 
 little bird-box, spite of all its spunky 
 beliefs and twittering complacencies. 
 I wanted to save it and him ; and 
 over and over there has seemed such 
 good ground of hope in him. It's 
 been always so unbelievable that he 
 should utterly fail us. Ruth, if you 
 could have seen his contrition the 
 night I tore up that shameful, servile 
 resignation ! I don't need to see Isa- 
 bel to know he is wearing the soul 
 
 out of her. You needn't have an- 
 
 14S 
 
THE TALKATIVE LEONARD 
 
 swered one of my questions, — which 
 I honor you for answering so unwill- 
 ingly ; Mrs. Morris gave me their 
 answer in five minutes, though we 
 talked only of investments. And 
 Mrs. Morris needn't have given it ; 
 to see Arthur himself is enough. All 
 the genuineness has gone out of the 
 man, — out of his words, out of his 
 face, out of his voice. I wonder it 
 hasn't gone from all of us, driven out 
 by this smirking masquerade into 
 which he has trapped us." 
 
 " Have you determined what to 
 do ? " asked the sister, gazing into 
 the fire. 
 
 " Not yet. But I sha'n't go back 
 West. Flight doesn't avail. And, 
 Ruth "— 
 
 " Yes, brother ; you've cabled ? " 
 149 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 " I have. He'll come at once, 
 this time." A step on the porch 
 drew the speaker to the door. 
 
 The telegram from the capital had 
 come. But until its bearer had gone 
 again and was out of hearing down 
 the street the young man lingered in 
 the porch. His mind was wholly on 
 that evening when Isabel had passed 
 with the lantern. Would she pass 
 now ? From the idle query he turned 
 to go in, when Ruth came out, and 
 they stayed another moment to- 
 gether. Presently their ear caught a 
 stir at the side of the Morris cottage. 
 
 " Hmm," murmured Ruth half 
 consciously, and, with a playful shud- 
 der at the cold, whispered, " Come 
 in, come in ! " 
 
 But then quickly, lest this should 
 150 
 
THE TALKATIVE LEONARD 
 
 carry a hint of distrust, she tripped 
 in alone, closed the door, and glided 
 to the bright hearth. There a mo- 
 ment of waiting changed her mind. 
 She ran again to the door, and began 
 to say as she threw it open, " My 
 brother ! you'll catch your " — 
 But no brother was there. 
 
 'SI 
 
XV 
 
 THE THIN ICE BREAKS 
 
 ISABEL, who had never confessed 
 her trouble to her mother until 
 now, had this evening told all there 
 was to tell. 
 
 " No, no, my dear," she said as she 
 moved to go, " I have no dread of 
 his blows. I don't suppose he will 
 ever strike me again. Ah, there's 
 the worst of it ; he's got away, away 
 beyond blows. I wish sometimes 
 he'd brain me, if only that would 
 stop his secretly watching me. 
 
 " If he'd never gone beyond blows, 
 
 I would have died before I would 
 
 have told ; not for meekness, dearie, 
 
 nor even for love, — of you, or my 
 
 152 
 
THE THIN ICE BREAKS 
 
 child, or any one, — but just for pride 
 and shame. But to know, every day 
 and hour, that I'm watched, and that 
 every path I tread is full of traps, — 
 there's what's killing me. And I 
 could let it kill me and never tell, if 
 being killed were all. But I tell you 
 because — Oh, my poor little 
 mother dearie, do I wear you out, 
 saying the same things over and 
 over ? 
 
 " This is all I ask you to remem- 
 ber : that my reason for telling you 
 is to save the honor of my husband 
 himself, and of you, dear heart, and 
 of — of my child, you know. For, 
 mother, every innocent thing I do is 
 being woven into a net of criminat- 
 ing evidence. Sooner or later it's 
 certain to catch me fast and give me 
 153 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 over, you and me and — and baby, to 
 public shame." 
 
 As they went toward the arbor 
 door Isabel warily hushed, but her 
 mother said : " There's no one to 
 overhear, honey-blossom ; Minnie's 
 at your house with Sarah," 
 
 But neither was there more to be 
 said. The daughter shut herself out, 
 and stood alone on the doorstep pon- 
 dering what she had done. For she 
 had acted as well as spoken, and, 
 without knowledge of Leonard's 
 move, was calling Godfrey home 
 herself. Her mother was to send 
 the dispatch in the morning. 
 
 So standing and distressfully mus- 
 ing, she heard the click of the By- 
 ingtons' door as Ruth left Leonard 
 on the porch. But her thought 
 154 
 
But to know every day and hour that I'm watched." 
 
THE THIN ICE BREAKS 
 
 went after Arthur. Where was he ? 
 That he had honestly gone where he 
 had said he was going she painfully 
 doubted. She stirred to move on, 
 but had not taken a step when a fem- 
 inine cry of terror set her blood leap- 
 ing and sent her flying down the ar- 
 bor, and where the two paths crossed 
 she and Leonard met at such a speed 
 that only by seizing her with both 
 his hands did he avoid trampling her 
 down. The scream was repeated 
 again and again. 
 
 " It's Minnie ! " cried Isabel as 
 they sprang down the path to the 
 mill pond ; and Leonard, outrunning 
 her, called back, — 
 
 " We'll get her out ! She's not 
 gone under!" 
 
 The next moment he, and then 
 155 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 she, were on the scene, Minnie 
 stood on the firmer ice away from 
 the bank, moaning in continued agi- 
 tation, but already rescued. It was 
 Arthur Winslow who had saved her. 
 
 Now he gained the bank with the 
 dripping girl, where he yielded her 
 to his wife, and without a word from 
 him, from Isabel, or from Leonard to 
 any one but the incessantly talking 
 maid, the four hurried up the path. 
 When they reached the arbor Ruth 
 had joined them, and there the 
 three women turned to the cottage. 
 Leonard passed on toward his home. 
 Arthur went into his own house. 
 
 In the cottage, while being hur- 
 ried into dry clothes, Minnie more 
 coherently explained her mishap. 
 
 Wishing to play a joke on Giles, she 
 
 156 
 
THE THIN ICE BREAKS 
 
 had slipped away from the fireside 
 company of him and Sarah to put a 
 match to his fagots on the pond, run 
 back with word that they were burn- 
 ing, and laugh with Sarah while Giles 
 should plunge out to find the incen- 
 diaries. But she had forgotten how 
 frail good ice may be against a warm 
 bank, and leaping down, had prompt- 
 ly broken through. She had had the 
 fortune to hold on by the ice's outer 
 edge until Arthur, whom she felt 
 sure only Providence could have sent 
 there, drew her out. She was tear- 
 fully ashamed, yet not so broken in 
 spirit but she fiercely vowed she 
 would get even with Giles for this 
 yet. 
 
 Leonard went to his room, Arthur 
 to his, and each in his way shut him- 
 157 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 self in to darkness, silence, and the 
 fury of his own heart. 
 
 One of the things most harrowing 
 to Leonard was that, at every turn, 
 the active part fell to Arthur, while 
 him fate held mercilessly to the pas- 
 sive ; and his soul writhed in un- 
 worded prayer for any conceivable 
 turn of events that would give him 
 leave to act, to do ! 
 
 But all he could do was done. God- 
 frey was sent for : everything must 
 await his coming. Heaven hold Ar- 
 thur's hand till Godfrey could come ! 
 
 Ruth returned home and began to 
 
 lock up the house. When, presently, 
 
 she tapped at her brother's door and 
 
 looked in, he had lighted the room 
 
 and was reading his telegram. 
 
 " All right over the way," she said, 
 158 
 
THE THIN ICE BREAKS 
 
 and to hurry on over the grim un- 
 truth repeated briefly Minnie's story. 
 " Good-night. You go — to-morrow ? 
 Well, you'll make haste back." 
 
 She left him, but later returned. 
 
 " Leonard." At the slightly opened 
 door she thrust in her Bible, with a 
 finger on the line, " My soul, wait 
 thou only upon God." 
 
 " Thank you," said the brother. 
 " Good-night. I'm afraid we've kept 
 Him waiting on us." 
 
 >59 
 
XVI 
 
 MUST GIVE YOU UP 
 
 /^VER on the Winslow side of 
 ^^ the way, Isabel, having tarried 
 in the cottage to explain to her 
 frightened mother how perfectly nat- 
 ural it was that Arthur, after his 
 tramp across the meadows, should 
 have made a circuit to the upper side 
 of the old mill pool, went pensively 
 home. Presently, holding a lamp, 
 she stood in the door between her 
 room and Arthur's, lifted the light 
 above her head, and, shading her 
 brows, called his name. Hidden in 
 the gloom, silent and motionless, he 
 stared for a moment on the beautiful 
 
 apparition, and then moved without 
 i6o 
 
MUST GIVE YOU UP 
 
 a sound into the beams of the lamp, 
 a picture of misery and desperation. 
 
 " Why in the dark ? " amiably in- 
 quired the wife. 
 
 With widening eyes and spectral 
 motions he drew near. 
 
 " In the dark? " he asked. "Why 
 in the dark ? The darkness is in me, 
 and all the lamps that light the 
 world's ships into harbor could not 
 dispel it." 
 
 All at once he went to his knees, 
 " Oh, my wife, my wife ! save me, 
 save me ! Hell is in my soul ! " 
 
 She drew back, and with low ve- 
 hemence urged him to his feet. " Up ! 
 up ! My husband shall not kneel to 
 me!" 
 
 Laying her hand reverently upon 
 
 his shoulder she pressed him into his 
 i6i 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 room, set the lamp aside, and let him 
 clasp her wildly in his arms. 
 
 " Save me, Isabel," he moaned 
 again. " Save me." 
 
 " From what, dear heart, — from 
 what can I save you?" She drew 
 him to a seat and knelt beside him. 
 
 " From the green-eyed demon that 
 has gnawed, gnawed, gnawed at my 
 heart till it is rent to shreds, and at 
 my brain — my brain ! — till it is al- 
 most gone." His brow drooped to 
 hers. "Almost gone, beloved; my 
 brain is almost gone." 
 
 " No, Arthur, dearest, no, no, no ; 
 
 your heart is torn, but your mind, 
 
 thank God, is whole. This is only 
 
 a mood. Come, it will pass with 
 
 one night's sleep." 
 
 Still he held her brow beneath his. 
 162 
 
MUST GIVE YOU UP 
 
 " Save me, Isabel ; my soul is almost 
 gone. Oh, save me from the fiends 
 that come before me and behind me, 
 by night and by day, eyes shut or 
 eyes open." 
 
 " My husband ! my love ! how^ can 
 I save you ? How can I help you ? 
 Tell me hovv^." 
 
 " Hear me ! hear me confess ! That 
 will save me, oh, so sweetly, so sweet- 
 ly ! That will save me from the 
 faces — the white, white faces that 
 float on that black pool down yon- 
 der, and move their accusing lips at 
 me : his face — and mine — and thine. 
 Oh, Isabel, until you stood before me 
 in the golden light of your lamp, 
 transfigured into a messenger from 
 heaven, it was in my lost soul to do 
 
 the deed this night." 
 163 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 The wife laid her palms upon her 
 husband's temples, and putting forth 
 her strength lifted them and looked 
 tenderly into his eyes. 
 
 " Dear heart, you do not frighten 
 me. You know how unaccountably 
 fear deserts me in fearful moments. 
 But I know there's nothing for either 
 of us to fear now. This is all in 
 your tortured imagination, and there, 
 though you had not seen me, it would 
 have stayed ; you never would have 
 come to the act. Arthur, your soul 
 is not lost. You who have pointed 
 the way of escape and deliverance so 
 clearly and savingly to so many, you 
 need not miss it now yourself." 
 
 " Idle words, Isabel, — idle, idle 
 
 words. The very words of Christ 
 
 are idle to me until I give you up." 
 164 
 
MUST GIVE YOU UP 
 
 " Give me up, my husband ? Dear 
 love, you cannot ! You shall not ! 
 I w^ill not be given up. You haven't 
 the cause, and I haven't the cause." 
 
 " Oh, Isabel, I stole you ! And 
 the curse of God has gone with the 
 theft, and w^ith every step of the thief, 
 from the first day till now. From 
 the first day until now God has lifted 
 that other man up and brought me 
 down. And yet, before God who 
 said. Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 
 bor's wife, he loves you this moment 
 — now ! — with the love of a man for 
 a woman." 
 
 " Arthur, no ! If he did " — 
 
 " Isabel, if he did not — if he did 
 not love you yet as before he lost 
 you — oh ! if he did not love you in- 
 finitely more now than then — he 
 i6s 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 would not be Leonard Byington, 
 That is all my evidence, all my ar- 
 gument, all the ground of my hate ; 
 and I hate him with a hatred that 
 has finished — finished! — with my 
 heart, and is devouring my brain." 
 
 "Oh, my poor husband, listen to" — 
 
 " Listen to me ! " he broke in. 
 " Listen before I lose the blessed im- 
 pulse to say there is but one cure. I 
 must give you up to Leonard Bying- 
 ton. Oh, let me speak ! I took you 
 from him by law ; by law I will give 
 you back." 
 
 " Do you mean divorce, Arthur?" 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " On what ground ? " 
 
 " On the ground of ill treatment. 
 You shall bring suit ; I will plead 
 guilty." 
 
 1 66 
 
MUST GIVE YOU UP 
 
 She rose, with his temples still in 
 her hands. " Ah ! whose words are 
 idle now ? " 
 
 She bent over him with eyes of 
 passionate kindness. " You did not 
 take me from him. You asked me 
 to take you, and for better for worse, 
 till death us do part, I took you, 
 Arthur, knowing as much of any 
 other man's love for me as I know 
 at this hour. You could not steal 
 me ; the shame would be mine, to 
 have let you. You are no thief! I 
 am no stolen thing ! You shall be 
 happy with me ; you shall not give 
 me up ! " 
 
 He leaped to his feet and snatched 
 her into his arms. The babe cried 
 sleepily from its mother's room. 
 
 She tenderly disengaged herself, left 
 
 167 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 him in the door, moved on to the 
 child's crib, and in the dim light of 
 the bedside taper, facing him from 
 beyond it, soothed the little one by 
 her silent touch. 
 
 To Arthur, wan and frail though 
 she was, the sight was heavenly fair, 
 a vision of ineffable peace to which 
 it seemed a sacrilege to draw nearer; 
 but she beckoned, and he stole to the 
 spot. With the quieted babe in its 
 crib between them, the pair knit arms 
 about each other's neck and kissed. 
 
 " My own ! my own at last ! " 
 murmured the husband. " I never 
 had you until now! " 
 
 " The cure has worked, dear heart," 
 breathed the wife, — " worked with- 
 out surgery, has it not ? " 
 
 " The cure has worked," he re- 
 
 168 
 
MUST GIVE YOU UP 
 
 plied, — " worked without the sacri- 
 fice. Oh, the sudden sweet ease of 
 it!" 
 
 Whispering a fervent good-night in 
 response to hers, he covered her head 
 and brows with caresses ; then stole 
 away with eyes still fastened on her, 
 and at the dividing threshold waved 
 a last parting and closed the door. 
 
 169 
 
XVII 
 
 SLEEP, OF A SORT 
 
 TSABEL went to her couch in 
 -■- great heaviness and agitation. 
 Her sad confidings to her mother, 
 Minnie's adventure, Arthur's pitiful 
 if not alarming condition, she strove 
 to reconsider duly and in their order ; 
 but perpetually there interfered, with 
 its every smallest detail thrillingly 
 clear and strong, that moment which 
 had thrown her once more into the 
 company, tossed her into the very 
 clutch, of Leonard Byington. She 
 turned her face into her pillow and 
 prayed God for other thoughts and 
 visions, and at length, while charging 
 
 herself to see her mother in time to 
 
 170 
 
SLEEP, OF A SORT 
 
 postpone the sending of her dispatch 
 to Godfrey, she slept. 
 
 Sleep, of a sort, came also to Ar- 
 thur, though not before many an evil 
 imagination had come back to tease 
 and sting his galled mind. 
 
 What chafed oftenest was the fact 
 that Isabel, had he allowed it, would 
 have sought to argue down his belief 
 that Leonard loved her. Great 
 heaven ! what must be her feeling 
 toward him, that she should offer to 
 argue such a question ? She might 
 truly deny all knowledge of his pas- 
 sion, but oh, where were her quick 
 outcries of womanly abhorrence? 
 Where was the word that Leonard 
 Byington was no more to her than 
 any other man, — that word which 
 would have been the first to flash 
 171 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 from her if conscience had not 
 stopped it ? Twice he sprang up in 
 his bed, whispering : " They love ! 
 They love ! Each knows it of the 
 other ! They love ! " 
 
 The second time, as he stared, sud- 
 denly he saw them ! They stood 
 just beyond the foot of his couch, 
 wrapped in each other's arms. Chok- 
 ing with wrath, freezing with hor- 
 ror, he slid to the floor; but at his 
 first step they floated apart. Isabel 
 glided toward her own door, fading 
 as she went, and dissolved in a broad 
 moonbeam. Leonard, as he receded, 
 grew every instant more real, until, 
 at his pursuer's second step, he melted 
 through a window and was gone. 
 Arthur sprang to the spot and stared 
 out and down ; but all he saw was 
 172 
 
SLEEP, OF A SORT 
 
 the moon, the frosty night, and the 
 silent, motionless garden. 
 
 With a whisper of fierce purpose he 
 turned and noiselessly threw on his 
 clothes, then clutched his head in his 
 hands in a wild effort to recall what 
 the purpose was, and by and by lay 
 quietly down again on his bed. He 
 could not recollect ; but the inner 
 tumult quieted more and more, and 
 after a time, without putting off any 
 part of his dress, he drew the bed- 
 covers over himself, and in a few 
 moments was partially asleep. So 
 for an hour or more he lay in half- 
 waking dreams, ghastly with phan- 
 toms and breathless with dismay of 
 his own ferocious strivings. Then 
 he rose once more, and, with the 
 noiselessness which habit had per- 
 173 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 fected, left his room, moved down 
 the upper hall and the stair, and let 
 himself out into the garden. Wadded 
 in his arms he bore one or two of 
 the coverings from his bed. He 
 took his way to the pond. 
 
 He was walking in his sleep. 
 
 At an earlier day Isabel would have 
 been awakened by her husband's soft- 
 est movement ; but now, used to his 
 stirrings, weary in body and mind, 
 and in some degree reassured, she 
 slept on unstartled until Arthur's re- 
 turn. 
 
 He came as silently as he had gone, 
 and was empty-handed. He had tied 
 a great stone in the two bed-cover- 
 ings, and through the thin new ice 
 of the hole where Minnie had broken 
 in had sunk them in the black depth 
 174 
 
SLEEP, OF A SORT 
 
 under the shelving rock. He was 
 still asleep. 
 
 The door between the two cham- 
 bers gave a faint sound as he opened 
 it, yet neither mother nor child 
 moved. A moment passed, and he 
 had reached the bed. Another went 
 by, and Isabel was awake, wildly but 
 vainly trying to scream, to rise. A 
 knee was on her bosom, two hands 
 grappled her throat, and two out- 
 starting eyes were close to hers. 
 Her husband was strangling her. 
 
 Then he too awoke. With a hor- 
 rified cry he recoiled, and she, for the 
 first time in her life in a transport of 
 terror, hurled him, in the strength of 
 her frenzy, to the farther side of the 
 bed, and writhing out on the oppo- 
 site side, crept under it and lay still. 
 175 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 In a torture of bewilderment and re- 
 morse Arthur buried his face in the 
 bedside. Then, helpless to distin- 
 guish what he had done from what 
 he had dreamed, he sprang back, to 
 the place where Isabel had lain sleep- 
 ing, and lo, it was empty. 
 
 " Oh, was it thou, was it thou ? " 
 he wailed, in a stifled voice. " Was 
 it not he ? " 
 
 Whispering and moaning her 
 name, hearkening and groping, he 
 sought her from corner to corner, 
 first of her room and then of his 
 own, and then went to the hall and 
 to other rooms in the same harrow- 
 ing quest. 
 
 Isabel crept forth and darted to 
 her babe. Yet as she leaned to take 
 
 it in her arms her better judgment 
 
 176 
 
SLEEP, OF A SORT 
 
 told her the child was safe. The 
 husband too, and every one beside, 
 were safer from his jealous wrath 
 while the babe remained. With one 
 anguished knitting of her hands over 
 it she left it, and fled in her night- 
 dress. Arthur's course was made 
 plain by his moanings, and easily 
 avoiding him, she glided down a 
 back stair, out into the arbor, and 
 across to her mother's cottage and 
 bed-chamber. As she did so he re- 
 turned hurriedly to his room, with 
 low cries of less wretched conviction, 
 and looked eagerly under his bed and 
 then under hers. Thereupon the 
 last hope died, and he dropped to his 
 face on the floor in abject agony. 
 
 177 
 
XVIII 
 
 MISSING 
 
 \ FTER a time a new conjecture 
 -*- ^ brought him to his feet. To 
 solve it he would go to the pond. If 
 he had truly been there and done 
 this appalling thing, he would know 
 it by the empty imprint of the boul- 
 der he had taken from its resting 
 place of years. If he had not, then 
 Isabel had fled to her mother and 
 would be found with her in the 
 morning, and the blot of her mur- 
 der, though it blackened his soul, 
 was yet not on his hands. 
 
 He went to the water, and soon he 
 came again with the step and face of 
 
 one called out of his grave. Slowly 
 178 
 
MISSING 
 
 he counted the disordered coverings 
 of his wife's couch, stood a moment 
 in desolate perplexity, and then went 
 quickly and counted those of his 
 own. A sheet and a blanket were 
 gone. He turned to a closet and 
 supplied the lack, and then paced the 
 floor until dawn. 
 
 Before the servants were fairly 
 astir he laid away the clothing Isa- 
 bel had put off, and contrived to 
 leave the house and pass through the 
 arbor unseen until he reached its far- 
 ther end ; but there Mrs. Morris, in 
 a dressing gown, opened to him be- 
 fore he could knock. She forced 
 her usual laugh, but he saw the 
 white preparedness of her face. 
 
 " She knows my crime," he 
 
 thought, and was in agony to guess 
 179 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 how she had got the knowledge and 
 what she would do with it. 
 
 " Why, Arthur," she sweetly be- 
 gan, " what brings you" — But her 
 throat closed. 
 
 " Mother," he interrupted emo- 
 tionally as they shut themselves in, 
 " is Isabel here ? " 
 
 " Isabel ? — No-o ! Why — why, 
 Arthur, she went home last night 
 before ten o'clock ! " The little 
 lady knew her acting was not good, 
 but it was better than she had hoped 
 to make it. " Arthur Winslow ! 
 don't tell me my child is not at 
 home ! Oh, my heavens ! " 
 
 "Wait, mother ; listen. I beseech 
 you. Do you absolutely know she's 
 not here? " 
 
 " I know it ! Oh, Arthur, are 
 
MISSING 
 
 you only trying to break bad news 
 to me by littles ? Has Isabel de- 
 stroyed herself? Has she fled?" 
 The inquirer played well now ; her 
 pallor, that had seemed to accuse 
 him, was gone, and her question 
 offered a cue which he greedily 
 took. 
 
 " Fled ? Isabel ! Destroyed her- 
 self, — that spotless soul ? Oh no, no, 
 no ! But Oh merciful God ! I am 
 afraid she has been stolen ! " He 
 sank into a seat and dropped his face 
 into his hands. 
 
 The maid's steps sounded over- 
 head, and he started up. Mrs. Mor- 
 ris laid a hand on his arm. She was 
 pale again, but her words were re- 
 assuring. 
 
 " It's Minnie," she murmured : 
 
B Y L OW HILL 
 
 " let me go and see her. She'll not 
 be surprised ; I'm always the first 
 one up." She went, and was soon 
 back again. 
 
 " There is no time to lose " — 
 Arthur began. 
 
 " No, you must go. Go search 
 for every clue that will tell us a word 
 of her ; but, whatever you do, let no 
 one, not even Sarah, know she is 
 missing, until we know enough our- 
 selves to protect her from every 
 shadow of reproach ! " 
 
 " True ! true ! right ! right ! " said 
 Arthur, while with secret terror he 
 cried to himself: "This woman 
 knows ! She knows, she knows, and 
 all this is make-believe, put on to 
 gain time ! " 
 
 But he saw no safer course than to 
 
 182 
 
MISSING 
 
 help on the sham. " Right," he said 
 again ; " only, mother, dear, how 
 shall we hide her absence ? " 
 
 "We needn't hide it. You know 
 she got another telegram last night, 
 begging her to come at once to the 
 wedding. We can say she went on 
 this morning's train, before day ; it 
 makes such good Southern connec- 
 tions. And now go ! make your 
 search with all your might ! and af- 
 ter a while I'll come over and pack 
 a trunk full of her things, and ex- 
 press it South, just as if she were 
 there, and had gone so hurriedly 
 that — Don't you see ? " 
 
 Arthur said he saw it all, but he 
 
 did not ; he saw much that was not, 
 
 and much that was he saw not. He 
 
 did not see that the dust of the old 
 
 183 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Street, and of the new town as well, 
 was on Mrs. Morris's shoes ; and that 
 Isabel, in a gown which she had left 
 at the cottage when she went to be 
 mistress of his home, was really on 
 the train, bound South. 
 
 Dropping all pretence of having 
 any search to make, he hurried back 
 to his own room, and by and by told 
 the pleasantly astonished Sarah and 
 Giles the simple truth as Mrs. Mor- 
 ris had put it into his mouth, but 
 told it in the firm belief that he was 
 covering a hideous crime with an all 
 but transparent lie. 
 
 After a false show of breakfasting 
 
 he went into his study, — " to work 
 
 on his sermon," he said ; but did 
 
 nothing there but pace the floor, hold 
 
 his head, and whisper, " It will not 
 184 
 
MISSING 
 
 last an hour after he has heard it," 
 and, " O God, have mercy ! Oh, my 
 wife, my wife ! Oh, my brain, my 
 brain !" 
 
 185 
 
XIX 
 
 A DOUBLE STILL HUNT 
 
 MRS. MORRIS'S task was too 
 large for her. She had al- 
 ways taken such care of her inno- 
 cence that her cultivation of the virtues 
 had been only incidental. Hence, 
 morally, she had more fat than fibre ; 
 and hence again, though to her mind 
 guilt was horrible, publicity was so 
 much worse that her first and ruling 
 impulse toward any evil doing not 
 her own was to conceal it. That 
 was her form of wordliness, the only 
 fault she felt certain she was free 
 from. And here she was, without a 
 helping hand or a word of counsel, 
 laboring to hide from the servants 
 
 i86 
 
A DOUBLE STILL HUNT 
 
 and from the dear Byingtons, from 
 the church and from a scoffing world, 
 the hideous fact that Isabel was a 
 fugitive from the murderous wrath 
 of a jealous husband, and that the 
 rector of All Angels had crumbled 
 into moral ruin. 
 
 "And oh," she cried, "is it the 
 worst of it, or is it the best of it, that 
 in this awful extremity he keeps so 
 sane, so marvellously sane ? " She 
 said this the oftener because every 
 few hours some new sign to the con- 
 trary forced itself upon her notice. 
 Oblivion was her cure-all. 
 
 For a while after his conference 
 with Mrs. Morris Arthur made some 
 feeble show — for her eye alone — of 
 looking after clews, and then, as much 
 to her joy as to her amazement, told 
 187 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 her it was a part of his detective 
 strategy to return into his study, and 
 seemingly to his ordinary work, until 
 time would allow certain unfoldings 
 for which he looked with confi- 
 dence. 
 
 " Have you found out anything ? " 
 she asked, with a glaringly false ea- 
 gerness that gave him a new panic of 
 suspicion and whetted his cunning. 
 
 He said he had, but must beg her 
 not to ask yet what it was. Then 
 he inquired if any neighbor had left 
 town that morning for Boston, and 
 her heart rose into her throat as she 
 marked the subtlety he could not 
 keep out of his dark face. 
 
 " Why, ye — yes — n — no, no one 
 that I know of ex — except Leonard 
 Byington," she replied, and thought. 
 
A DOUBLE STILL HUNT 
 
 " If he should accuse Leonard, we 
 are undone ! " 
 
 To avoid that risk she would have 
 told him, then and there, all she 
 knew, had she not feared she might 
 draw his rage upon herself for aiding 
 the wife's flight. She must, must, 
 must keep on good terms with him 
 till she and Isabel could somehow 
 get the child. So passed the awful 
 hours, mother and husband each 
 marvelling in agony over the ghastly 
 puzzle of the other's apathy. 
 
 Later in the day she knocked tim- 
 orously at his study door. She had 
 come with a silly little proposition 
 that he let her take the infant and go 
 South as if to join Isabel. Thus the 
 trunk would not lie in the express 
 
 office down there, unclaimed and 
 189 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 breeding awkward inquiries, and she 
 from that point, with him at this, 
 could keep up the illusion they had 
 invented until Isabel herself should — 
 eh — return ! 
 
 But when he let her in, he stood 
 before her a silent embodiment of 
 such remorse and foreboding that 
 she could have burst into sobs and 
 cries. 
 
 Yet she broached her plan, trem- 
 bling visibly, while he heard her 
 through with melancholy deference. 
 
 In reply he commended it, but 
 called to her notice how much bet- 
 ter it would be for her to go alone. 
 Then the babe, left behind, would 
 be an unspoken yet most eloquent 
 guarantee that its mother would soon 
 reappear. 
 
 190 
 
A DOUBLE STILL HUNT 
 
 " Very true," responded the em- 
 boldened lady; "yet on the other 
 hand "— 
 
 He put out an interrupting touch. 
 " The child is as safe with me as if 
 it were in its mother's bosom." 
 
 " Oh, it isn't so much a question 
 of safety as " — 
 
 The father interrupted again, with 
 a gleam in his eyes like the outflash- 
 ing of a knife. " I hold the child 
 against all comers, and would if I 
 had to slay its mother to do it." 
 
 Mrs. Morris stifled an outcry and 
 would have left him, but he would 
 not let her. 
 
 " Stay ! Oh, listen to a soul in 
 torment ! The babe is already moth- 
 erless. Isabel can never return, moth- 
 er ; she is with the dead. I am not 
 191 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 waiting idly here for her ; I am wait- 
 ing busily — for her slayer. He has 
 fled ; but when he sees he is not pur- 
 sued he will come back to the spot, 
 — to the black, black hole. He can- 
 not help it. I know that. Oh, how 
 well I know it ! And the moment 
 he comes he is caught, — caught in 
 the web of proofs I am weaving ! " 
 
 He held her arm and gazed into 
 her gazing eyes in ferocious fear of 
 the web she might be weaving for 
 him ; while she, reeling sick with 
 fear of him, tried with all her shaken 
 wits to sham an impassioned accord. 
 
 " And you will wait ? " she ex- 
 claimed approvingly. " You will 
 not stir till the thing is sure ? " 
 
 He would not stir till the thing 
 
 was sure. 
 
 192 
 
" I am waiting busily for her slayer." 
 
A DOUBLE STILL HUNT 
 
 As soon as it was dark enough to 
 slip over to the Byingtons' unseen, 
 she went, bearing to Ruth Isabel's 
 apologetic good-bys, trying her small 
 best to play at words with the Gen- 
 eral, and quickly getting away again, 
 grateful for a breath of their atmos- 
 phere, though distressfully convinced 
 that Ruth had divined the whole 
 trouble, through the joy betrayed by 
 herself on hearing that Leonard 
 would be away for a week. 
 
 She went home and slept like a 
 weary child, and neither the next 
 day nor the next, nor the next, was 
 so awful as this first had been ; they 
 lacked the crackle and glare, and the 
 crash, of the burning and falling 
 temple. 
 
 •93 
 
XX 
 
 A DOUBLE RETURN 
 
 LET us not attempt the picture of 
 Isabel keeping the happy guise 
 of a wedding guest among her kin- 
 dred and childhood playmates while 
 her heart burned with perpetual mis- 
 ery, yearning, and alarm. " My 
 baby, my baby ! " cried her breast, 
 while the babe slept sweetly under 
 faultless care. 
 
 Nor need we draw a close portrait 
 of her husband's mind, if mind it 
 could longer be called. A horror of 
 sleep, a horror of being awake and 
 aware, remorse, phantoms, voices, 
 sudden blazings of wrath as suddenly 
 
 gone, sweating panics, that craven 
 
 194 
 
A DOUBLE RETURN 
 
 care of life which springs so rank as 
 the soul decays, and a steady, cun- 
 ning determination to keep whole the 
 emptied shell of reputation and rank, 
 — these were the things that filled his 
 hours by day, by night ; these, and a 
 frightful expectance of one accusing, 
 child-claiming ghost that never came. 
 The air softened to Indian summer ; 
 the ice faded off the pool ; a million 
 leaves, crimson and bronze, scarlet 
 and gold, dropped tenderly upon its 
 silvering breadth and lay still ; and 
 both the joyless master of the larger 
 house and the merry maid of the cot- 
 tage asked Heaven impatiently if the 
 pond would never freeze over again. 
 It was Saturday afternoon when 
 Giles, asked by Sarah Stebbens where 
 Mr. Arthur was, told her he was 
 195 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 again, as he had been so many times 
 the last three days, down by the 
 water, sitting at the edge of the 
 overhanging bank ; or, as the Eng- 
 Hshman expressed it, " ' dreamink 
 the 'appy hours aw'y.' " So the 
 week passed out ; a second came in, 
 and the rector of All Angels went to 
 his sacred office. 
 
 He knew, before he appeared in 
 the chancel, that Mrs. Morris was in 
 her accustomed place, and Ruth and 
 her father in theirs, and that Leonard 
 was not yet reported back nor looked 
 for ; but exactly as he began to read, 
 " ' Dearly beloved brethren, the Scrip- 
 ture moveth us, in sundry places, to 
 acknowledge and confess our mani- 
 fold sins and wickedness, and that we 
 
 should not dissemble nor cloak them 
 196 
 
A DOUBLE RETURN 
 
 before the face of Almighty God our 
 heavenly Father ' " — a sickness filled 
 Mrs. Morris's frame, a deathly hue 
 overspread the minister's face, and 
 Leonard came in and sat beside his 
 father and sister. 
 
 Yet the service went on. The 
 people knelt. 
 
 " ' Almighty and most merciful 
 Father ; We have erred, and strayed 
 from thy ways like lost sheep. We 
 have followed too much the devices 
 and desires of our own hearts ' " — 
 
 Thus far the rector's voice had led, 
 but here it sank, and the old Gener- 
 al's, in a measure, took its place. 
 
 Then it rose again, in the confes- 
 sion, "There is no health in us," 
 and in the supplication, " Have mercy 
 upon us, miserable offenders." 
 197 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 There once more it failed, while 
 the people, faltering with distress, re- 
 peated, " That we may hereafter lead 
 a godly, righteous, and sober life. To 
 the glory of thy holy Name. Amen." 
 
 At this the farmer with the spec- 
 tacled daughter stepped nimbly over 
 the rail and caught Arthur as he 
 rose and staggered. Leonard was 
 hurrying forward, and half the peo- 
 ple kneeling, half standing, when 
 Mrs. Morris vacantly stopped his way 
 with a face so aghast and words so 
 confused that he had to give her 
 over to Ruth. Then he hastened on 
 to where Arthur was being led into 
 the vestry by his physician and others. 
 
 But now he was turned back by the 
 doctor, requesting him to dismiss the 
 
 congregation ; which he did, with 
 
 198 
 
A DOUBLE RETURN 
 
 the physician's assurance that the 
 trouble was no more than vertigo, 
 and that Arthur was even now quite 
 able to proceed home in the farmer 
 vestryman's rockaway. The people 
 noticed that the physician went with 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Morris followed on foot with 
 the farmer's daughter, and with Ruth 
 and the General, and Leonard went 
 into town to telegraph Isabel, in her 
 mother's name, to come home. As 
 he was starting, Mrs. Morris drew 
 Ruth aside and whispered something 
 about Godfrey. To which Ruth 
 softly replied, with an affectionate 
 twist in her smile, " It couldn't hurry 
 him ; he's already on the way." 
 
 In the room next that in which 
 
 her son-in-law lay asleep under ano- 
 199 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 dynes the little mother's odd laugh 
 was turned all to moan. " Oh ! — ho 
 — ho ! " she sighed in solitude, " if 
 Arthur could have learned from God- 
 frey how to wait, or even if Isabel 
 could but have learned from Ruth 
 how to keep one waiting ! " 
 
 She paused at a window that looked 
 over the garden and into the street. 
 Leonard passed. She turned quickly 
 away, only sighing again, " Oh ! — 
 ho — ho ! " Her thought might have 
 been kinder had she known he was 
 stabbing himself at every step with 
 blame of all this woe. 
 
 " I ought to have foreseen," was 
 his constant silent cry. " I am the 
 one who ought to have foreseen." 
 
 Lack of Sunday trains and two 
 failures to connect kept Isabel from 
 
A DOUBLE RETURN 
 
 arriving until nightfall of the third 
 day, Wednesday. Arthur knew Mrs, 
 Morris had telegraphed for her ; but 
 to him that was only part of the play 
 under which he thought he and she 
 were hiding the frightful truth. 
 
 On this day he had so outwitted 
 his village physician as to be given 
 the freedom for which he ravened ; 
 liberty to take the air in his garden, 
 as understood by the doctor, but by 
 him liberty to stand guard down at 
 the edge of that dark pool which 
 would not freeze over, — liberty to 
 take an air sweet with the odors of 
 the parting year, but crowded also 
 with distended eyes and strangling 
 groans. 
 
 He was down there in the early 
 starlight when Ruth drove softly into 
 
BYXOW HILL 
 
 the garden, bringing Isabel. Warily 
 the mother came out into the pil- 
 lared porch, and silently received the 
 house's mistress into her arms. 
 
 " He doesn't know," she said. " I 
 couldn't tell him till you should 
 come, for fear of disappointing him." 
 
 The argument seemed strained, but 
 no one said so, and with a whispered 
 good-night Ruth drove away, and the 
 two went in. As they stole upstairs 
 they debated how Isabel had best re- 
 veal herself. " I'm terribly afraid 
 that won't work, blessing," said Mrs. 
 Morris ; " you'd better let me break 
 it to him, first." 
 
 " No, dearie, I don't think so. I 
 haven't the shadow of a fear " — 
 
 " Oh, my darling child, you never 
 have ! " 
 
A DOUBLE RETURN 
 
 " But I know him so well, moth- 
 er. We have only to come unex- 
 pectedly face to face and — Oh, I've 
 seen the effect so often I " They en- 
 tered her room whispering : " I'll 
 change this dress for the one he last 
 saw me in, and stand over here by 
 the crib where I stood then, and — 
 Oh, sweet Heaven ! is this my little 
 flower sleeping just as I left her ? " 
 With clasped hands and tearful eyes 
 she bent over the child. 
 
 203 
 
XXI 
 
 EVENING RED 
 
 'T^HEN she began to unrobe, but 
 -*- stopped to throw her arms 
 about her mother's neck. 
 
 " Now, dearly beloved, you hurry 
 away down the path and persuade 
 him up and send him in. I'm only 
 afraid you'll find him chilled half to 
 death, it's growing cold so fast. And 
 you can follow in after him, dearie, 
 if you wish, — only not too close." 
 
 The mother went, and had got no 
 farther than the cross-path when she 
 came all at once upon the master of 
 the house. 
 
 " Oh ! ho, ho ! here you are ! I 
 
 was just — Arthur, dear, where is 
 
 204 
 
EVENING RED 
 
 your overcoat ? Do go right up to 
 your room, my son, till I can get 
 Sarah to have a fire started in the 
 library." She multiplied w^ords in 
 pure affright, so drawn w^as his face 
 with anguish, and so wild his eyes 
 with aimless consternation. 
 
 Without reply he passed in and 
 went upstairs. Mrs. Morris remained 
 below. 
 
 Isabel's heart beat fast. She had 
 made her change of dress, and in a 
 far corner of her room, with her face 
 toward the open door that let into his, 
 was again leaning with a mother's 
 ecstasy over the sleeping babe, when 
 she heard his step. 
 
 It came to his outer door, which 
 from her place could not be seen. 
 
 Did he stop, and stand there ? No, 
 
 205 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 he had not stopped ; he was only 
 moving softly, for the child's sake. 
 
 She stood motionless, listening and 
 looking with her whole soul, and 
 wishing the light were less dim in 
 this shadowy corner, but knowing 
 there was enough to show her to 
 him when he should reach the nearer 
 door. The endless moment wore 
 away, and there on the threshold he 
 stood — if that — Oh merciful God ! 
 — if that was Arthur Winslow. 
 
 His eyes fell instantly upon her, 
 yet he made neither motion nor 
 sound, only stayed and stared, while 
 an unearthly terror came into his 
 face. 
 
 Care of the child kept her silent, 
 but in solemn tenderness she lifted 
 her arms toward him. 
 206 
 
CL, 
 tn 
 
 3 
 O 
 
EVENING RED 
 
 He Uttered a freezing shriek and 
 fled. In an instant his tread was re- 
 sounding in the hall, then on two or 
 three steps of the stair as she hurried 
 after, and then there came a long, 
 tumbling fall, her mother's wail in 
 the hall below, and a hoarse cry of 
 dismay from Giles as he rushed out 
 of the library. 
 
 " He's only stunned, mum," Giles 
 was saying as Isabel reached the spot. 
 " He's no more nor just stunned, 
 mum." 
 
 He had lifted the fallen man's 
 head and shoulders, and Mrs. Steb- 
 bens came, dropping to her knees 
 and sprinkling water into the still, 
 white face. 
 
 Isabel threw herself between. 
 " Arthur ! Arthur ! can't you speak .? 
 Z07 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 Oh, let US move him into the li- 
 brary ! " 
 
 " Yes, um ! " exclaimed Giles. 
 " 'E'll come to in there ; you can 
 see 'e's only stunned." 
 
 He tried to raise him, and Isabel 
 and Sarah moved to help ; but the 
 wife turned on hearing Ruth's voice 
 at her side, and Leonard Byington 
 lifted the limp man in his arms unaid- 
 ed, and bore him to the library lounge. 
 
 " Arthur," he pleaded, with arms 
 still under him, " can't you speak to 
 us, dear boy ? Say at least good-by, 
 can't you, Arthur ? " He parted the 
 clothing from neck and breast, and 
 laid an ear to his heart. 
 
 " Do you hear it, Leonard ? " cried 
 
 the wife. " Oh, you do hear it, 
 
 don't you, Leonard ? " 
 208 
 
EVENING RED 
 
 There was no answer. For a mo- 
 ment Leonard's own form relaxed, 
 and he turned his face and buried it 
 in the unresponsive breast. Then he 
 lifted it again, and taking the other 
 face between his hands he sank his 
 brow to the brow upturned and 
 cried : " God rest your soul, Ar- 
 thur ! Oh, Arthur, Arthur, God 
 rest your soul ! " 
 
 209 
 
XXII 
 
 MORNING GRAY 
 
 MRS. MORRIS gave the physi- 
 cian her account of the acci- 
 dent, the physician gave the reporters 
 his, and no other ever got into the 
 old street or the town it looks dow^n 
 upon with such sweet superiority. 
 
 Said the rustic vestryman to an- 
 other pall-bearer, as they turned tow- 
 ard their homes, " Many's the time 
 All Angels 's been craowded, but I 
 never see it craowded as 'twas this 
 time." 
 
 The new mound was white under 
 January snows when Godfrey and 
 Isabel first stood beside it together ; 
 and when summer had come and 
 
 2IO 
 
MORNING GRAY 
 
 gone again, and at last the time drew 
 near when, by the regular alterna- 
 tions of the service, the ocean wan- 
 derer's three years afloat were to be 
 followed by three ashore, it was be- 
 side that mound that Ruth let 
 him ask the long-withheld ques- 
 tion. 
 
 And once more the new year fol- 
 lowed the old. 
 
 On one of its earliest days, " I 
 cal'late," a certain somebody began 
 to say to General Byington, " th' 
 never was a happier weddin' so quiet, 
 nor a qui — " But he caught the 
 sheen of his daughter's spectacles 
 and forebore. 
 
 And still moved on the heavenly 
 procession of the seasons ; and as each 
 new one passed with smile and song. 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 and strewed its flowers or fruits on 
 Bylow Hill, the memory of one who 
 after life's fitful fever slept soundly at 
 last was ever a sweet forgetting of all 
 that had once been bitter, and a 
 sweeter and sweeter remembrance of 
 whatsoever things had been pure, 
 lovely, and of good report. 
 
 One day the travelling salesman of 
 fruit trees came again. This time 
 he met Minnie, some of whose in- 
 formation puzzled him. 
 
 " But I thought you said the young 
 Mrs. Winslow lived in the large 
 house on this side." 
 
 " Yes, but that's the other one ; 
 that's Mrs. Isabel Winslow, the 
 widow. Captain Winslow, he's so 
 much o' the time to the navy yard 
 that him and his wife they just keep 
 
MORNING GRAY 
 
 their home along with her father 
 and Mr. Leonard." 
 
 " And who is it that, I understand, 
 a Mr. Giles over here is about to 
 marry ? " 
 
 For reply Minnie covered her 
 mouth and nose with her hand, sput- 
 tered, and shut the door in his face. 
 
 Another year went by, yet another 
 
 followed, and still Ruth — daughter, 
 
 sister, wife, and mother — remained 
 
 the happy mistress of the house in 
 
 which she was born, and Leonard 
 
 remained one of her household. 
 
 Mrs. Morris turned the cottage over 
 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Giles — hem! — and 
 
 dwelt in the Winslow house with 
 
 Isabel ; who, even the young said, 
 
 grew more beautiful and lovable all 
 
 the time. 
 
 213 
 
BYLOW HILL 
 
 But there came a day, after all, — 
 year uncertain, — when Leonard, with 
 Mrs. Morris's little namesake on his 
 knee, asked Isabel if she did not 
 think it would be well for him to go 
 away for a while ; and Isabel mur- 
 mured no. 
 
 So by and by the Winslow pair 
 went to live in the Winslow house, 
 and the Byington pair in the Bying- 
 ton house ; and if you listen well, 
 you may hear an aged voice, a voice 
 with a brogue, saying : — 
 
 " Ay ! there's a Linnard Winslow, 
 now, and there's a Godfrey Boying- 
 ton. And there's still an Isable 
 Winslow and a Ruth Boyington. 
 But the mother of Ruth Boyington 
 is she that wor Isable Winslow, moy 
 graciouz ! and the mother of Isable 
 214 
 
MORNING GRAY 
 
 Winslow is she that wor Ruth Boy- 
 ington. And so there he's an Isable 
 in the wan house and an Isable in th' 
 other ; and there he's a Ruth in the 
 wan house and a Ruth in th' other, 
 moy graciouz ! and there's an Air- 
 thur in each, whatsomiver ! " 
 
 END 
 
 215 
 
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