E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Josephine Paolucci,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(https://www.pgdp.net)

FOR WOMAN'S LOVE

A NOVEL

By MRS. E.D.E.N. SOUTHWORTH, author of "The Hidden Hand," "Only a Girl's Heart," "Unknown," "The Lost Lady of Lone," "Nearest and Dearest," etc.

NEW YORK AND LONDON
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS

1890

FOR WOMAN'S LOVE.

[CHAPTER I.]
[CHAPTER II.]
[CHAPTER III.]
[CHAPTER IV.]
[CHAPTER V.]
[CHAPTER VI.]
[CHAPTER VII.]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
[CHAPTER IX.]
[CHAPTER X.]
[CHAPTER XI.]
[CHAPTER XII.]
[CHAPTER XIII.]
[CHAPTER XIV.]
[CHAPTER XV.]
[CHAPTER XVI.]
[CHAPTER XVII.]
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
[CHAPTER XIX.]
[CHAPTER XX.]
[CHAPTER XXI.]
[CHAPTER XXII.]
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXV.]
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
[CHAPTER XXX.]
[CHAPTER XXXI.]
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]

CHAPTER I.

A BRILLIANT MATCH.

"I remember Regulas Rothsay—or Rule, as we used to call him—when he was a little bit of a fellow hardly up to my knee, running about bare-footed and doing odd jobs round the foundry. Ah! and now he is elected governor of this State by the biggest majority ever heard of, and engaged to be married to the finest young lady in the country, with the full consent of all her proud relations. To be married to-day and to be inaugurated to-morrow, and he only thirty-two years old this blessed seventh of June!"

The speaker, a hale man of sixty years, with a bald head, a sharp face, a ruddy complexion, and a figure as twisted as a yew tree, and about as tough, was Silas Marwig, one of the foremen of the foundry.

"Well, I don't believe Regulas Rothsay would ever have risen to his present position if it had not been for his love of Corona Haught. No more do I believe that Old Rockharrt would ever have allowed his beautiful granddaughter to be engaged to Rothsay if the young man had not been elected governor," observed a stout, florid-faced matron of fifty-five. "How hard he worked for her! And how long she waited for him! Why, I remember them both so well! They were the very best of friends from their childhood—the wealthy little lady and the poor orphan boy."

"That is very true, Mrs. Bounce," said a young man, who was a newcomer in the neighborhood and one of the bookkeepers of the great firm. "But how did that orphan get his education?"

"By hook and by crook, as the saying is, Mr. Wall. I think the little lady taught him to read and write, and she loaned him books. He left here when he was about thirteen years old. He went to the city, and got into the printing office of The National Watch. And he learned the trade. And, oh, you know a bright, earnest boy like that was bound to get on. He worked hard, and he studied hard. After awhile he began to write short, telling paragraphs for the Watch, and these at length were noticed and copied, and he became assistant editor of the paper. By the time he was twenty-five years old he had bought the paper out."

"And, of course, he made it a power in politics. I see the rest. He was elected State representative; then State senator."

"Yes, indeed. You've hit it. And now he is going to marry his first love to-day, and to take his seat as governor to-morrow," continued the matron, with a little chuckle.

"Regulas Rothsay will never take his seat as governor," spoke a solemn voice from the thicket on the right of the road along which the party were walking to the scene of the grand wedding. All turned to see a strange form step out from the shelter of the trees—a tall, gaunt, swarthy woman, stern of feature and harsh of tone; her head covered with wild, straggling black hair; her body clothed in a long, clinging garment of dark red serge.

"Old Scythia," muttered the matron, shuddering and shrinking closer to the side of the bookkeeper, for the strange creature was reported and believed by the ignorant and superstitious of the neighborhood to be powerful and malignant.

"Regulas Rothsay will never take his seat as governor of this State!"

As the beldame repeated and emphasized these words, she raised her hand with a prophetic gesture and advanced upon the group of pedestrians.

"Now, then, you old crow! What are you up to with your croaking?" demanded Mr. Marwig. "Look here, Mistress Beelzebub! Do you know that you are a very lucky woman to live in a land where not only may a barefooted boy rise to the highest honors by talent and perseverance, but where a malignant old witch may torture and terrify her neighbors without fear of the ducking stool or the stake?" he demanded.

The beldame looked at him scornfully, and disdained to reply.

"Wait!" said a stout, dark, middle-aged, black-whiskered man, Timothy Ryland by name, and one of the managers of the "works" by state. "Wait, I want to question this miserable lunatic. She may have got wind of something. Tell me, old mother, why will not the governor-elect take his seat to-morrow?"

"Because Fate forbids it," solemnly replied the crone.

"Will the governor be—murdered?"

"No; Regulas Rothsay has not an enemy in the world!"

"Will he be killed on the railroad, or kidnapped?"

"No!"

"Will he be taken suddenly ill?"

"No!"

"What then in the fiend's name is to prevent his taking his seat to-morrow?" impatiently demanded the manager.

"An evil so dire, so awful, so mysterious, that its like never happened on this earth!"

"Arrest her, Mr. Ryland! She ought to be locked up until she could be sent to the asylum!" exclaimed old Marwig.

"I have no power to do so, my friend," replied the manager.

"Why, where is she?" inquired Mrs. Bounce, trembling. "Who saw her go?"

No one answered, but every one looked around. Not a trace of the witch could be seen. She had passed like a dark cloud from among them, and was gone.

It was a glorious day in June. A long, deep, green valley lay low between two lofty ridges of the Cumberland mountains, running north and south for ten miles, and near the boundary lines of three States. This lovely vale was watered by a merry, sparkling little river called the Whirligig, which furnished the power for the huge machinery of the great firm of Rockharrt & Sons, proprietors of the Plutus iron mines and the North End foundries, which supplied the mighty engines on the great lines of railroad from the East to the West, and whose massive buildings, forges, furnaces, store-houses and laborers' cottages occupied all the ground between the foot of the mountain and the banks of the river, on both sides of the Whirligig, at the upper or north end of the valley, where a substantial bridge connected the two shores.

This settlement, called, from its position, North End, was quite a thriving little village. North End was not only blessed with a mission church, having a schoolroom in its basement, but it was provided with a post-office, a telegraph, a drug store, kept by a regular physician, who dispensed his own physic (advice and medicine, one dollar), and a general store, where everything needed to eat, drink, wear or use (except drugs), was kept for sale.

On this bright June morning, however, the great works were all stopped. There was a general holiday, and as this was at the cost of the firm, it gave general satisfaction. All the people of North End, except the aged, infirm and infantile, were trooping down the valley, on the rough road between the foot of the West Ridge and the side of the river, to a fete to be given them at Rockhold on the occasion of the marriage of old Aaron Rockharrt's granddaughter, Corona Haught, to Regulas Rothsay, the governor-elect of the State.

It was a marriage of very rare interest to the workmen and their families. To the men, because the governor-elect had been one of their own class. The elders remembered him from the time when he was a friendless orphan child, glad to run the longest errand or do the hardest day's work for a dime, but also a very independent little fellow, who would take nothing in the shape of alms from anybody. To the women, because he was going to marry his first and only sweetheart, and on the very day before his inauguration, so that she might take part in the pageantry that was to be his first great success and triumph.

On one side of the river, at the foot of the East Ridge, stood Rockhold, the country seat of the Rockharrts, in its own park, which lay between the mountain and the river. The house itself was a large, heavy, oblong building of gray stone, two stories high, with cellar and garret. From the front of the house to the edge of the river extended a fair green lawn, shaded here and there by great forest trees. Under many of these trees, tables with refreshments were set, and seats were placed for the accommodation and refreshment of the out-door guests. In sunny spots, also, some white tents were raised and decorated with flags.

As a group of working men and women sat on the west bank of the river, waiting impatiently for the return of the ferryboat, they saw, from minute to minute, carriages drive up the lawn avenue, discharge the occupants at the main entrance of the house, and then roll off to the stable yard in the rear.

These seemed to come in a slow procession.

"Only the nearest relations and most intimate friends of the family are invited to the ceremony. There have only been five carriages passed since we have been sitting here, and I don't believe there was one come before we came, or that there'll be another come after that last one, which was certainly the groom's," said Old Marwig.

"Oh! was it, indeed? But how do you know?" demanded Mrs. Bounce.

"It is the new carriage from North End Hotel! And he and his groomsmen had engaged it. That's how I know! Here comes the ferryboat! Now for it!"

The boat touched the banks, and as many as could find room crowded into it, and were speedily rowed across the river and landed on the other side, where they found a few of the lawn party there before them.

"There is Mr. Clarence Rockharrt coming toward us!" said Mrs. Bounce, as the party walked up from the landing, and a medium-sized, plump, fair man of middle age, with a round, fresh face, a smiling countenance, blue eyes and light hair, and in "a wedding garment" of the day, came down to meet them, and shook hands with all, warmly welcoming them in the name of his father. Then he led them up to the lawn and gave them chairs among the unoccupied seats at the various tables.

"If you please, Mr. Clarence, is the groom in good health and sperrits?" meaningly inquired Mrs. Bounce.

"Mr. Rothsay is in excellent health and spirits, thank you," replied the gentleman, looking a little surprised at the question: an then moving off quickly to receive some new arrivals.

The guests for the lawn party were constantly arriving, and the ferryboat was kept busy plying from the shore to shore.

It is time now to introduce our readers to the house of Rockharrt.

Old Aaron Rockharrt, the head of that house, was at this time seventy-five years of age and a wonder of health and strength. He was called the "Iron King," no less from his great hardihood of body and mind than from his vast wealth in mines and foundries. In size he was almost a giant, with a large head covered by closely-curling, steel-gray hair. His character may be summed up in a very few words:

Aaron Rockharrt was an incarnation of monstrous selfishness.

His manners to all, but especially to his dependants, were arrogant, egotistical and overbearing. He was utterly destitute of sympathy or compassion. There was no room for either in a soul so full of self. In his opinion there was no one on earth, neither king nor Kaiser, saint nor hero, so important to the universe as Aaron Rockharrt, head of Rockharrt & Sons.

Yet Aaron Rockharrt had two redeeming points. He was strictly truthful in word and honest in deed.

His wife was near his own age, a quiet, gentle, little old lady, small and slim, with white hair half hidden by a lace cap. If she ever had any individuality, it had been quite crushed out by the hard heel of her husband's iron will. Their eldest son and second partner in the firm was Fabian Rockharrt, a fine animal of fifty years old, though scarcely looking forty. He had inherited all his father's great strength of body and of mind, with more than his father's business talent; but he had not inherited the truth and honesty of his father.

Yet there is no one wholly evil, and Fabian Rockharrt's one redeeming quality was a certain good nature or benevolence which is more the result of temperament than of principle. This quality rendered his manner so kind and considerate to all his employes that he was the most popular member of his family.

Clarence, the second son, was much younger than his elder brother, and so diametrically opposite to him and to their father, both in person and character, that he scarcely seemed to come of the same race.

He was really thirty-five years old, but looked ten years less, and was a fair blonde, medium-sized and plump, with a round head covered with light, curling yellow hair, a round, rosy face as bare as a baby's and almost as innocent. He had not the satanic intellect of his father or his brother, but he had a fine moral and spiritual nature that neither could understand or appreciate.

There were yet two other exceptions to the family character of worldliness and selfishness. There were Corona and Sylvanus Haught, a sister and brother, orphan grand-children of Aaron Rockharrt, left him by his deceased only daughter. Sylvanus, a fine, manly young fellow, resembled his Uncle Clarence in person and in character, having the same truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, but with a mocking spirit, which turned evil into ridicule rather than into a subject of serious rebuke. He was three years younger than his sister. Corona was a beautiful brunette, tall, like all the Rockharrts, with a superbly developed form, a fine head, adorned with a full suit of fine curly black hair, delicate classic features, straight, low forehead, aquiline nose, a "Cupid's bow" mouth, and finely curved chin. This was her wedding-day and she wore her bridal dress of pure white satin, with veil of thread lace and wreath of orange buds. Hers was the very triumph of a love match, for she was about to wed one whom she had loved from earliest childhood, and for whom she had waited long years.

Here was Corona Haught's great victory. She had seen his opponents, her own family, bow down and worship her idol. Yet, at the culmination of her triumph, on this her bridal day, why did she sit so pale and wan?

From her deep, sad reverie she was aroused by the entrance of her six gay bridesmaids.

"Corona, love, good morning! Many happy returns, and so on!" said Flora Fields, the first bridesmaid, coming up to the pale bride and kissing her.

All the others followed the example, and then Miss Fields said:

"Cora, dear, 'the scene is set'—otherwise, the company are all assembled in the drawing-room. Grandpapa and grandmamma are in their seats of honor. The bishop, in his canonicals, is waiting; the groom and his groomsmen are expectant. Are you ready?"

"I know getting married must be a serious, a solemn, even an awful thing when it comes to the point. And most brides do look pale! But you—you look ghastly! Come, take some composing spirits of lavender—do!"

"Yes; you may give me some. You will find the vial on the dressing-table."

The restorative was administered, and then the "bevy of fair maids" left the chamber and went down stairs.

There, in the great hall, they met the bridegroom and his six groomsmen; for it was the custom of that time and place to have a groomsman for each bridesmaid. The bridegroom and governor-elect was not a handsome man—that was conceded even by his best friends—but he was tall and muscular, with a look of strength, manliness and nobility that was impressive. A son of the people truly, but with the brain of the ruler. The whole rugged form and face assumed a gentleness and courtesy that almost conferred grace and beauty upon him, as he advanced to greet his bride.

Why did she shrink from him?

No one knew. It was only for a moment; and happily, he, in the simplicity of a single, honest heart, had not seen the momentary shudder.

He drew her hand within his arm, looked down on her with a beam of ineffable tenderness and adoration, and then waited, as he had been instructed to do, until the groomsmen and bridesmaids had formed the procession that was to usher them into the drawing-room and before the officiating bishop. They entered the crowded apartment. The bishop, in his white robes, stood on the rug, supported by the Rev. Mr. Wells, temporary minister of the mission church at North End, and the ceremony began. All went on well until he came to that part where the officiating minister must read—though a mere form this solemn adjuration to the contracting lovers:

"'I require and charge ye both, as ye shall answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know just cause why ye may not be united in matrimony, ye do now declare it.'"

There was a pause, to give opportunity for reply, if any reply was to be made—a mere form, as the adjuration itself was. Yet the bride shuddered throughout her frame. Many noticed it, but not the bridegroom.

The ceremony went on.

"'Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?'"

Old Aaron Rockharrt, who stood on the right of the bridal party, stepped forth, took his granddaughter's hand, and placed it in that of the groom, saying, with visible pride:

"I do."

The rites went on to their conclusion, and the whole party were invited into the dining-room, where the marriage feast was spread, where the revelry lasted two full hours, and might have lingered longer had not the bride withdrawn from the table, and, attended by her bridesmaids, retired to her chamber to change her bridal robes for a plain traveling suit of silver gray silk, with hat and gloves to match.

There the gentle, timid, old grandmother came to bid her pet child a private good-by.

"Are you happy, my love—are you happy?" she inquired. "Why don't you answer?"

"My heart is full—too full, grandma," evasively answered Corona Rothsay.

"Ah, yes; that is natural—very natural. 'Even so it was with me when I was young,'" sighed the old lady, who detected no evasion in the words of her darling.

The bride went down stairs, where the bridegroom awaited her. There, in the hall, were collected the members of her family, friends, neighbors and wedding guests.

Some time was spent in bidding good-by to all these.

"But it is not good-by, really; for the majority of us will follow by a later train, and be on hand for the inauguration to-morrow," said old Aaron Rockharrt, who seemed to have recovered his youth on this proud day.

"And, grandpa, be sure to bring grandma. Don't say that she is too old, or too feeble, or too anything, to travel, because she is not; and she has set her heart on seeing the pageantry to-morrow. Promise me before I leave you," pleaded the bride.

"Very well; I will bring her," said Mr. Rockharrt, who would have promised anything to his granddaughter on this auspicious occasion.

"You will find your traps all right, Cora. They went off by the early train this morning," said Mr. Clarence.

"And I trust, Rothsay, that you will find my town house comfortably prepared for your reception," said Mr. Rockharrt.

The bridegroom handed his bride into the carriage that was to convey them to the railway station. The carriage crossed the ferry, and in a few minutes reached the other side, and rolled toward the railway station.

The road was at this hour very solitary, and the bridegroom and his bride found themselves for the first time that day tete-a-tete. He turned to her, and drew her head to his heart and whispered:

"Cora, speak to me! Call me your husband!"

"I—cannot. My heart is too full," the girl muttered evasively.

But his grand, simple, truthful spirit perceived no prevarication in her words. If her heart was full, it was with responsive love of him, he thought. He bent his face lower over her beautiful head, that lay upon his bosom, and kissed her.

Soon they reached North End, where all the aged, infirm and infantile who could not come to the wedding were seated at their cottage doors, to see the carriage with the bridegroom and bride go by.

Smiling and bowing in response, the pair passed through the village and went on their way toward the station which they reached at half-past one o'clock.

They had to wait about ten minutes for the train to come up. They remained in the carriage; for here, too, a small crowd of country people had collected to see the bride and the bridegroom, who was also the governor-elect.

The train from the East ran into the station. The bridal pair left the carriage and went on the cars, and the governor-elect and his bride set out for the State capital. It was a long afternoon ride, and the sun was low when the train drew in sight of the State capital, and slowed into the station.

An immense crowd had gathered to welcome the governor-elect, and as he stepped out upon the platform, and stood with his bride on his arm, the cheers were deafening. When these had in some measure subsided, the hero of the hour returned thanks in a simple little speech. Then the committee of reception came up and shook hands with the governor-to-be, who next presented them in turn to his wife.

At last the pair were allowed to enter the carriage that was in waiting to convey them to the town house of Aaron Rockharrt. Other carriages containing members of the committee attended them. They passed through the main street of the city.

The procession of carriages passed until it reached the Rockharrt residence, opposite the government mansion, where the committee took leave of the governor-elect and his bride, who entered their temporary home alone, to be received and attended by obsequious servants.

There we also will leave them.

Visitors to the inauguration were arriving by every train.

Among the arrivals from the East came Aaron Rockharrt, with his wife, his two sons, Fabian and Clarence, and his grandson, Sylvan, the younger brother of Cora.

The main door of the mansion was open, and several gentlemen, wearing official badges, stood without or just within it.

"By Jove! we are just in time, and it has been a close shave! That is the committee come to take him to the State house!" exclaimed old Aaron Rockharrt as he stepped out of the carriage, and helped his feeble little wife to alight. He led her up the steps, followed by the other three men of his party.

"Good morning, Judge Abbot. We are just in time, I find. We came up by the night train, and a close shave it has been. Well, a miss is as good as a mile, and we are safe to see the whole of the pageant," said the old man, speaking to a tall, thin, gray-haired gentleman, who wore a rosette on the lapel of his coat.

"Yes, sir; but here is a very strange difficulty—very strange, indeed," replied the official, with a deeply troubled and perplexed air, which was shared by all the gentlemen who stood with him.

"What's the trouble, gentlemen? Is the chief justice ill, that his honor cannot administer the oath, or what?"

"It is much worse than that—if anything could be worse," gravely replied one of the committee.

"What is it then? A contested election at this late hour?"

"The governor-elect cannot be found. No one has seen him since eleven o'clock last night. He is missing."

CHAPTER II.

A LOST GOVERNOR AND BRIDEGROOM.

"Missing!" echoed old Aaron Rockharrt, drawing up his huge frame to its fullest height, and staring with strong black eyes in a defiant and aggressive manner. "Missing! did you say, sir?" he repeated sternly.

"Yes, Mr. Rockharrt; ever since last night," replied Judge Abbot, chairman of the committee, in much distress and anxiety.

"Impossible! Never heard of such a thing in the whole course of my life! A bridegroom lost on the evening of his marriage! A governor lost on the morning of his inauguration! I tell you, sir, it is impossible—utterly and entirely impossible! How do you know, sir, that he has not been seen by some one or other since last night? How do you know that he cannot be found, somewhere, this morning?"

"All his household have failed to find him. Our messengers have been sent in every direction without discovering the slightest clew to his—fate," gloomily replied the judge.

Mr. Rockharrt turned to the porter, who was still in attendance at the door, and demanded:

"Where is your mistress?"

The man, a negro and an old family servant of the Rockharrts, replied:

"The young madam is in the back drawing room, sir; and if you please, sir, I think she would be all the better for seeing the old madam."

"Who is with her now?" shortly demanded Mr. Rockharrt, ignoring his servant's suggestion, although Mrs. Rockharrt looked nervously anxious to follow it "There is no one with her, sir."

"Alone! Alone! My granddaughter left alone on the morning after her marriage? What do you mean by that? Where is your master?

"Show me in to your mistress at once. I will get at the bottom of this mystery, or this villainy, as it is more likely to prove, before I am through with the matter. And if my granddaughter's husband is not to be found before the day is out, I will have all concerned in the plot arrested for conspiracy!" exclaimed Mr. Rockharrt, with that utter recklessness of assertion to which he was addicted in moments of excitement.

The dismayed negro lowered his eyes and led the way. Aaron Rockharrt strode on, followed by his timid and terrified old wife, his stalwart sons, his mocking grandson, and the members of the committee. But the old man, not liking such an escort, turned upon them, and said, with sarcastic politeness and dignity:

"Gentlemen, permit me. It is expedient, under existing circumstances, that I should first see my granddaughter alone."

The members of the committee bowed with offended dignity and withdrew to the front of the hall.

Meanwhile Aaron Rockharrt sent back the members of his own family, and strode solemnly into the drawing room, which was half darkened by the closed window shutters.

"Now leave the room, sir; shut the door after you and stand on the outside to keep off all intruders," commanded Mr. Rockharrt to the servant who had admitted him.

When the door was closed upon him, Aaron Rockharrt discerned his granddaughter, who sat in an easy chair in a dark corner of the back drawing room, which was divided from the front by blue satin and white lace portieres. Her deadly pallid face gleamed out from the shadows in startling contrast to her jet black hair and the black dress which, against all precedent, she wore on this the morning after her marriage.

The old man of iron went up and stood before her, looking at her in silence for a few moments.

"Corona Rothsay," he began, sternly, "what is the meaning of this unparalleled situation?"

"I—I—do not know."

"You do not know where your husband is on the morning after his marriage and on the day of his expected inauguration?"

"No; I do not know."

"You seem to take this desertion or this death very quietly."

"What would be gained by taking it any other way?" she murmured, though indeed she was not taking the situation quietly, but controlling herself.

"How dare you say so to me?" severely demanded the old man, scarcely able to control his wrath, though at a loss to know against whom to direct it.

"You ask me a direct question. I give you a truthful answer."

"Answer me, truly!" rudely exclaimed Aaron Rockharrt, giving way, in his blind egotism, to utter recklessness of assertion, to gross injustice and exaggeration. "What have you done to him, Corona? Tell me that!"

She started violently and looked up quickly; her face was whiter, her eyes wilder than before.

"What—have—you—done to him?" he sternly repeated, looking her full in the deathly face.

"I? Nothing!" she answered, but her voice faltered and her frame shook.

"I believe that you have! You look as if you had! I have seen the devil in you since we brought you home from Europe against your will; especially within the last few days!"

Having hurled upon her this avalanche of abuse, he turned and strode wrathfully up and down the room until he had got off some of his excitement. Then, he came and stood before his granddaughter.

"How long has your husband been missing?" he abruptly inquired.

"Since last night," in a very low tone.

"When did you see him last? Tell me that!"

"I have already told you—last evening."

"Tell me all that has occurred from the time you both left Rockhold to the time you entered this house which I placed at your disposal and to which I sent you, to save you from the noise and bustle and excitement of a crowded hotel, and to give you rest and quiet and seclusion. Yes! and this the result! But go on and tell me. From the time you left Rockhold to this time, mind you!"

"Very well, sir, I will tell you. Our journey, a series of ovations. Our reception in this city was a triumph. We were met at the depot by a great crowd, and by the committee with carriages, and we were escorted to this house by a military and civil procession with a band of music. They left us at the gate.

"We entered, and were received by the servants. As soon as I had changed my dress we went down to dinner. After dinner we went into the drawing room. A gentleman was announced on official business connected with the ceremonies of to-day. He was shown into the library, and my husband went to him. Many callers came. They talked with Mr. Rothsay in the library. I remained in this room. At last the crowd began to thin off, and soon all were gone. Mr. Rothsay came into this room—and sat down by my side. We talked together for an hour or more. Then a card was brought in. Mr. Rothsay took it, looked at it, and said:

"'I will see the gentleman. Show him into the front room.'

"Mr. Rothsay arose and went into the front room to receive his visitor. It was late, and I was very tired, so I went up stairs to my chamber and retired to bed. I have never seen my husband since."

And Corona dropped her face upon her hands and sobbed as if her heart would break. She had utterly broken down for the first time.

"Good heavens! I don't understand it all! Had you had a lover's quarrel now in that hour when you talked together in this parlor?" inquired the old gentleman, his insane anger being now merged in wonder. "Had you reproached him for spending so much time with his political friends while you were waiting here alone?"

"Oh, no, no," replied Corona, between her convulsive sobs.

"Good heavens!" again exclaimed the old man. "When did you first miss him?"

"When I came down in the morning. I thought then that he had been kept up all night by his friends, and that I should meet him at breakfast. He did not appear at breakfast. The servants searched for him all over the house, but could not find him. I waited breakfast until I was faint with fasting and suspense. Then I took a cup of coffee. On inquiry it was found that Jasper had been the last to see him, and that he had not seen him since he showed the visitor in. He did not show the visitor out. He waited some time to do so, and fell asleep. When he awoke the visitor had gone, and the drawing rooms were empty. The man supposed that Mr. Rothsay had seen his friend to the door, and had then retired to bed. And so he shut up the house and went to his room. No one discovered that Mr. Rothsay was missing until this morning. When the inaugural committee came two hours ago, the servants told them all that I have just told you."

"Who was the last visitor? He might throw some light upon this dark, evil subject. Who was he?" abruptly demanded Aaron Rockharrt.

"I do not know. No one seems to know. Jasper says he never saw him before, nor ever heard his name."

"Couldn't he see it on his card?"

"Jasper cannot read, you must remember."

"Where is that card? Let me see it!"

"It cannot be found."

"Conspiracy! Treason! Murder!" interrupted Aaron Rockharrt. "The governor-elect has been decoyed away from the house by that last caller, and has been murdered! And the people in the house may not be as innocent or ignorant as they pretend to be. I will go out and take counsel with the committee," he said, and he turned and strode out of the drawing room.

When he reached the hall, however, he found that the officials had gone to pursue their search for the missing man elsewhere. The men of his own party were nowhere to be seen. The porter, Jasper, was the only occupant of the hall, and Aaron Rockharrt opened the hall door and walked out. The military and civil escort were still on parade before the house, waiting for the governor-elect.

Mr. Rockharrt's carriage was standing before the door. He entered it and ordered the coachman to drive to police headquarters.

The hour for the inauguration of the new governor was approaching. The procession to the State house should have been in motion by this time. The people on the sidewalks, at the doors and windows, on the balconies, and on the roofs, all along the line of march, were beginning to be weary of waiting.

The officials who had the ceremonies of the occasion in hand waited until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then, as the governor-elect was nowhere to be found, as the necessity was imminent, the inaugural procession was ordered to begin its march.

"Where is he? Where is Rothsay?" demanded the spectators one of the other.

No one knew. No one had seen him. No one could, therefore, answer.

When the procession reached the State house, the lieutenant-governor, Kennelm Kennedy, was sworn in, and the military companies and the civic societies and the spectators all dispersed.

But where was the governor? That was the question of the hour. Why had he not been inaugurated? was asked by everybody of everybody else. The secret of his total and unexplained disappearance had not, indeed, been closely kept. His intimate friends, his household servants and the public officials knew it, but the general public did not.

The next morning the news came out, and the papers had sensational head-lines and long accounts of the sudden and mysterious disappearance of the governor-elect on the eve of his inauguration and of a bridegroom on the evening of his wedding day.

Also there were rewards offered for any intelligence of Regulas Rothsay, living or dead, and for the identification of the unknown visitor who was supposed to have been the last to have seen him on the night of his disappearance.

Days passed, and nothing came in answer to the advertisements. The public at length reached in theory this conclusion: that the governor-elect had been decoyed from the house by his latest visitor, and had been secretly murdered in some remote quarter.

The Rockharrts did not return to Rockhold, but remained in town through all the heat of that hot summer, because Aaron Rockharrt thought he could best pursue his investigations on the scene of the mystery. But he sent his sons to North End to look after the works.

Corona would see no one save the members of her own family. She kept her room, and grieved without ceasing. On the ninth day after the disappearance of her lover-husband she made an effort and came down into the drawing room, to please the gentle old grandmother.

She sat there with the old lady, reading to her, until Mrs. Rockharrt was called out by her tyrant to get something, it might be a book or a paper, a cigar or a pipe, that he himself or a servant might have got just as well, except that Aaron Rockharrt liked to have the ladies of his family wait upon him.

What happened during the hour of the old lady's absence from the drawing room no one knew, but when she returned she found her granddaughter in a swoon on the carpet. In great alarm she called the servants to her assistance. The unconscious girl was laid upon a sofa, and all means were taken to restore her to her senses. Corona recovered her faculties only to fall into the most violent paroxysms of anguish and despair.

From her ravings and self-reproaches Mrs. Rockharrt gathered that the unfortunate girl had heard, or in some way learned, some fatal news.

She sent all the servants out of the room, locked the door, administered a sedative to her child, and then, when the latter was somewhat calmer, questioned her as to the cause of her distress.

"I have nothing to tell—nothing, nothing to tell! But take me away from this place! Take me home to Rockhold, where I may be alone!"

"I will do all I can to comfort you, my dear," said Mrs. Rockharrt. "I will speak to Mr. Rockharrt when he comes in."

No one but the snubbed, brow-beaten and humiliated wife knew all that she engaged to suffer when she promised to speak to her lord and master.

Corona, soothed by the sedative that had been given her, and consoled by the love and sympathy that had been lavished upon her, grew more composed, and finally fell into a deep sleep from which she awoke refreshed. But a rumor went through the house that the young lady had got news which she did not choose to communicate.

Later in the day Mrs. Rockharrt deferentially proposed to the domestic despot that they should return to Rockhold, as the weather was so oppressive and the town house was so obnoxious to dear Corona, which was quite natural under the trying circumstances.

Aaron Rockharrt glared at her until she cowered, and then he told her that he should direct the movements of his family as he thought proper, and that any suggestions from her or from his granddaughter were both unnecessary and impertinent.

So they both had to bend under the iron will of Aaron Rockharrt.

At length, however, something happened to relieve them.

Mr. Rockharrt had not been neglecting his own business, while looking after the missing governor-elect, nor had he been leaving it to his sons and partners, whom he refused to trust. He had been corresponding with his chief manager, Ryland. This correspondence had not been entirely satisfactory, so at length he wrote to Ryland to come to the city for a business talk. It was about the middle of August that the manager arrived and was closeted with his chief. After two hours' discussion of business matters, which ended satisfactorily, the manager, rising to leave the study, observed:

"This is a bad job about the governor, sir!"

"I do not wish to talk of this matter," said Mr. Rockharrt.

"Very well, sir, I am dumb," replied the manager, taking up his hat to leave the house.

"Do you go back to North End by the night train?" inquired Mr. Rockharrt.

"Yes, sir! I must be at my post to-morrow morning, in order to carry out your instructions."

"Quite right," said the head of the great firm. Then with strange inconsistency, since he had declared that he wished to talk no more on the subject of the lost governor, he suddenly inquired:

"What do the people of North End say about the disappearance of Governor Rothsay?"

"Some say he was beguiled away by that man who called on him late at night, and that he was murdered and his body made away with. But I beg your pardon, sir, for repeating such dreadful things."

"Go on! What else do they say?"

"Well, sir, one says one thing, and one another; but they all agree that Old Scythia could tell something if she chose."

"Old Scythia? And what has she to do with the loss of the governor?"

"Nothing that I know of, sir. But the people at North End say that she has."

"Why do they say it?"

"Because, sir, on the day of the wedding, and the eve of the inauguration, she did foretell, in the hearing of a score, that Mr. Rothsay would never take his seat as governor."

"What! Absurd! Preposterous!"

"Of course it was, sir! Yet she did say that, sir, in the hearing of twenty or more of us, and it was a strange coincidence, to say the least, that her words came true. She said it in the presence of many witnesses on the day before the intended inauguration, and when there seemed no possibility of her words coming true. And strange to say, they have come true."

Old Aaron Rockharrt mused for a few minutes and then replied:

"There is no such thing as divination, or soothsaying, or prophesy, or fortune telling in this world. It is all coarse imposture, that can deceive only the weakest mortals. You know that, of course, Ryland. It follows, then, that this old woman could have had no knowledge of what was going to happen unless she was in league with conspirators who had planned to kidnap or murder the governor-elect."

"But, sir, if Old Scythia had been in league with any conspirators, would she have betrayed them—beforehand?"

"No; unless she was too crazy to keep their secret. But—she may have got wind of their plots in some way without their knowledge."

"Yes, sir," said Manager Ryland, who agreed to every opinion advanced by his chief.

"Well, then, I shall go down to Rockhold to-morrow, and investigate this matter for myself. In my capacity of justice of the peace I shall issue a warrant to have that woman brought before me on a charge of vagrancy, and then I shall examine her on this point. But, Ryland, you are to be careful not to drop even a hint of my intention."

"Of course I will not, sir," replied the manager, and then, as there seemed no more to do or say, he took his leave.

Old Aaron Rockharrt strode into the drawing room where his wife and granddaughter sat, and astonished them by saying:

"Pack up your things this afternoon. We leave for Rockland by the first train to-morrow morning."

He deigned no explanation, but turned and stalked off.

The three reached North End at noon. As their arrival was to be a surprise, no carriage had been ordered to meet them. But the large, comfortable hack from the North End Hotel was engaged, and in it they rode on to Rockhold, where they pulled up two hours later, to the astonishment and consternation of the household, who, be it whispered, had almost as lief been confronted with his satanic majesty as to be surprised by their despotic master.

Leaving his womenkind to get domestic affairs into order, the Iron King went to the little den at the end of the hall, which he called his study, and there made out a warrant for the arrest of Hyacinth Woods on the charge of vagrancy. This he directed to William Hook, county constable, and sent it off to the county seat by one of his servants. He waited all the rest of the day for the return of the warrant with the prisoner, but in vain.

The next day, in the afternoon, Constable Hook made his appearance before the magistrate without the prisoner, and reported:

"She cannot be found. I went first to her hut on the mountain, but it was in ruins. It had fallen in. I searched for the woman everywhere, and only found out that she had not been seen by anybody since the day of the grand wedding here," replied the officer.

"The old crone is lost on the same day that the young governor was missing, eh? Very significant. I want you to take a paper for me to the Peakeville Gazette. I will advertise a thousand dollars reward for the discovery of that woman. She knows the fate of Rothsay."

CHAPTER III.

A MOUNTAIN IDYL—THE GIRL AND THE BOY.

On a fine day near the end of October, several years before the opening of this story, the express train from the southwest was speeding on toward North End. In one of the middle cars, which was not crowded, nor, indeed, quite full, sat a girl and a boy—both dressed in deep mourning, and both in charge of a tall, stout gentleman, also in deep mourning. These children were Corona, aged seven, and Sylvanus, aged four, orphans and co-heirs of John Haught, a millionaire merchant of San Francisco, and of his wife, Felicia, only daughter of Aaron and Deborah Rockharrt, of Rockhold. They had lost their parents during the prevalence of an epidemic fever, and had been left to the guardianship of Aaron Rockharrt. They were now coming, in charge of their Uncle Fabian—who had been sent to fetch them—to their grandparents' house, which was to be their home during their minority.

In front of these children sat a man of middle age and a boy of about twelve years. They seemed to belong to the honorable order of working men. Their clothing was old, worn and travel-stained. They had been picked up only at the last past station, and looked as if they had tramped a long way—weary and dejected. Each wore on his battered hat a little wisp of a dusty black crape band. This was a circumstance which much interested the little girl, Corona, who had a longer memory than her baby brother, and had not yet done grieving after her father and her mother, and she wanted to speak to the poor boy, and to tell him how very sorry she was for him, but was much too timid for such a venture. Neither the boy nor the man looked behind them, and so the children never saw their faces during the ride to North End. Both parties got out at the station. The Rockhold carriage was waiting for Fabian and his charges. Nothing was waiting for the tramp and his son. Mr. Fabian looked at them, and took in the whole situation. He put his nephew and niece into the carriage, told the coachman to wait for him, and then went up to the tramps.

"Looking for work?" he said, addressing the elder.

"Yes, sir," replied the latter, touching his old hat. "I have come a long way to look for it, and I am bound now for Rockharrt & Sons' Locomotive Works. Could you be so kind as to direct me where to find them?"

"About three miles down this side of the river. You cannot miss them if you follow this road. Stay—I am one of the firm. We have rather more men than we want just now, but I will give you a line to our manager, and he will find a place for you, and the boy, also," said plausible, good-natured, lying, dishonest Fabian Rockharrt, as he drew a card from his pocket and just wrote above his name:

"Take the bearer and his boy on."

Then on the opposite side of the card he wrote the superscription: "Timothy Ryland, Manager North End Foundries."

He gave this to the tramp, who touched his hat again, and led off his boy for their long walk to the works.

Fabian Rockharrt, with his nephew and niece, reached Rockland two hours later.

Aaron Rockharrt and his younger son, Clarence, were absent, at the works; but little Mrs. Rockharrt was at home.

Little Cora became the constant companion of the grandmother, who found her well advanced in learning for a child of seven years. She could read, write a little, and do easy sums in the first four simple rules of arithmetic.

A school room was fitted up on the first floor back of the Rockhold mansion. A nursery governess was found by advertisement.

She was a young and beautiful girl of the wax doll order of beauty, and of not more than sixteen years of age. In person she was tall, slim and fair, with red cheeks, blue eyes and yellow hair. Her very name, as well as her presence, was full of the aromas of Araby the Blest. It was Rose Flowers.

Rose smiled and bloomed and beamed on all, but most of all on Mr. Fabian, who was at that time a very handsome and fascinating man of no more than thirty, and to do her justice, she brought her young pupils well on in elementary education.

No more was seen or heard of the tramp and his boy, who had come to seek work at the foundries. They seemed to have been forgotten even by the little girl whose sympathies had been touched by their appearance on the train with their own party.

But early in February a catastrophe occurred which brought them back most painfully to, her memory. There was an explosion in the foundry, by which the man was instantly killed.

"Uncle Clarence," asked Cora of that person, "where is the boy belonging to the poor man that was killed? You know they came in the cars with us to North End Station. Oh! and they were so poor! Oh, and the boy had a bit of old crape on his old hat! Oh, and I know he had no mother! But I don't know whether the man was his father or his uncle. But, oh, Uncle Clarence, dear, where is the boy?"

"I don't know anything about the boy, little one, but I will inquire and tell you. I think the little chap has two more friends left, dear. You are one. I am the other."

"Oh, Uncle Clarence, you are a dear ducky-ducky-darling! And when I am a grown-up woman, I will marry you."

"Oh! well, all right, if you remain in the same mind, and—"

"I will never, never change my mind. I love you better than I do anybody in the world, except Sylvan and grandma, and Miss Flowers and Tip!"

Clarence kept his word with the child about making inquiries as to the fate of the boy in whom she was interested.

The boy was motherless, and, by the death of his father, had been left utterly destitute. He had found a home with Scythia Woods, an eccentric woman, who lived in a hut on the mountain side, half way between North End and Rockhold, and he supported himself in a poor way by running errands and doing little jobs about the works.

Little Cora Haught listened to this account of the poor, friendless, self-reliant lad with the deepest sympathy.

"Uncle Clarence," she pleaded, "you are so rich. Why don't you give that poor boy clothes, and shoes, and hats, and all he ought to have?"

"My good little girl, nothing would give me more delight, but that fellow would see Rockharrt & Sons swallowed up by an earthquake before he would take a cent from them that he had not earned."

"Oh, I like that—that is grand! But why don't you take him on and give him good pay?"

"But, my dear, he is a boy, and cannot do regular heavy work. He is quite uneducated, and cannot do any other except what he does."

Two months later, one lovely spring day, she saw him again for the first time since their meeting on the train six months previous. He came to Rockhold one Saturday afternoon to bring a letter from the manager to the head of the firm. He came to the back door which opened from the porch. He sent in his letter by the servant who came at his knock, and he said he was to wait for an answer. Cora, in the back parlor, saw him, recognized him, and ran out to speak to him.

Perhaps the tiny lady had some faint idea of the duties and responsibilities of wealth and station. So she spoke to the boy.

"Are you Regulas Rothsay?" she inquired, in a soft tone.

"Yes, miss," replied the boy.

There was an awkward pause, and then the little girl said slowly:

"You won't let anybody give you anything, although you have no father nor mother. Now, why won't you?"

"Because, I can work for all I want, all—but—" the boy began, and then stopped.

"You have all but what?"

"A little schooling."

"Here's the answer, Rule! You are to run right away as fast as you can and take it to Mr. Ryland," said a servant, coming out upon the porch and handing a letter to the boy.

It was a week after this interview with the lad before Cora saw him again.

He was on the lawn in front of the house. She was at the window of the front drawing room. As soon as she espied him she ran out to speak to him, and eagerly begged that she might teach him to read.

The boy, surprised at the suddenness and the character of such an offer, blushed, thanked the little lady, and declined, then hesitated, reflected, and then, half reluctantly, half gratefully, consented.

Cora was delighted, and frankly expressed her joy.

"Oh, Regulas, I am so glad! Now every afternoon when I have done my lessons—I am in Comly's first speller, Peter Parley's first book of history, and first book of geography, and I am as far as short division in arithmetic, and round hand in the copy book—so as soon as I get through with my lessons, and you get through with your work, you come to this back porch, where I play, and I will bring my old primer and white slate, and I will teach you. If you get here before I do, you wait for me. I will never be long away. If I get here before you, I will wait for you," she concluded.

The Iron King, Mr. Fabian, or Mr. Clarence, passing out of the back door for an afternoon stroll in the grounds, would see the little lady seated in one of the large Quaker chairs, her feet dangling over its edge, busy with her doll's dresses, and furtively watching her pupil, who, seated before her on one of the long piazza benches, would be poring over his primer or his slate.

As time went on every one began to wonder at the earnestness and constancy of this childish friendship.

So the lessons went on through all the spring and summer and early autumn of that year.

Before the leaves had fallen Regulas had learned all she could teach him.

Then their parting came about naturally, inevitably. When the weather grew cold, the lessons could no longer be given out on the exposed piazza, and the little teacher could not be permitted to bring her rough and ragged pupil into the house.

Cora begged of her kind Uncle Clarence some of his old school books, which she knew to be among the rubbish of the garret, which was her own rainy-day play room in summer, and offered the books to the boy as a loan from herself, because she dared not offer the lad a gift.

Later, she loaned him a "Boy's Life of Benjamin Franklin." It was that book, perhaps, that decided the boy's destiny. He read it with avidity, with enthusiasm. The impression made upon his mind was so deep and intense that his heart became fired with a fine ambition. He longed to tread in the steps of Benjamin Franklin—to become a printer, to rise to position and power, to do great and good things for his country and for humanity. He brooded over all this.

To begin, he resolved to become a printer.

So, when the spring opened, he came to Rockhold and bade good-by to his little friend, and went, at the age of fourteen, to the city to seek his fortune, walking all the way, and taking with him testimonials as to his character for truth, honesty, and industry.

There were at that time three printing offices in that city. Rule applied to the first and to the second without success, but when he applied to the third—the office of the Watch—and showed his credentials, the proprietor took him on.

He and his little friend corresponded regularly from month to month.

No one objected to this letter writing, any more than to the lesson giving. It was but the charity of the little lady given for the encouragement of the poor, struggling orphan boy.

It was nearly four years after the departure of Rule from the works at North End to seek his fortune in a printing office of the neighboring city. He had never yet returned to see his friends, though his correspondence with Cora had been kept up.

In the four years that Rose Flowers had lived at Rockhold she had won the hearts of all the household, from the master down to the meanest drudge. She was, indeed, the fragrance of the house. All admired her much and loved her more, and yet—

And yet in every mind there was a latent distrust of her, which seemed unjust, and for which all who felt it reproached themselves—in every mind but one.

The Iron King felt no distrust of the submissive, beautiful creature, whom he continually held up to other members of his family as the very model of perfect womanhood.

He did not see, he said, why she should now, when it was finally decided that Cora should be sent to the young ladies' institute, at the city, why Rose should leave the house. She might remain as companion for Mrs. Rockharrt. But when this was proposed to Miss Flowers, the young governess explained, with much regret, that, not anticipating this generous offer, she had already secured another situation.

With tears in her beautiful eyes, Rose Flowers took the old man's hand and pressed it to her heart and then to her lips as she bent her head and cooed:

"I will remember all you have told me—all the wise and good counsel you have ever given me, all the precious acts of kindness you have ever shown me. And when I cease to remember them, sir, may heaven forget me!"

"There, there, my child. You are a baby—a mere baby!" said the Iron King, as he patted her on the head and left her.

This interview occurred a few days before Christmas.

It was now Christmas morning, nearly four years after the departure of Rule Rothsay. It was a fine clear, cold day. Bright with color was the village of North End, where all the houses were decorated with holly, and the people, in their Sunday clothes, were out in the streets on their way to the church, which had been beautifully decorated for the occasion.

The Rockharrt family—with the exception of old Aaron Rockharrt, who did not choose to turn out that day, and Miss Rose Flowers, who stayed home to keep him company and to wait on him—came early in their capacious and comfortable family carriage. They had a large, square, handsomely upholstered pew in the right-hand upper corner of the church.

When they were all quietly settled in their seats and the voluntary was going on, the elders of the party bowed their heads to offer up their preliminary prayers. But Cora, girl-like, looked about her, letting her glances wander over the well-filled pews, and then up toward the galleries. A moment later she suddenly gave a little start and half-suppressed exclamation of delight.

Mrs. Rockharrt, who had finished her prayer, looked around in surprise at the girl, who had committed this unusual indecorum.

"Oh, grandma, it is Rule! Rule, up there in the boys' gallery—look!" Cora whispered, in eager delight.

The old lady raised her eyes and recognized Regulas Rothsay—but so well grown, so well dressed, and well looking as to be hardly recognizable, except from his strong, characteristic head and face. He wore a neatly fitting suit of dark-blue cloth; neat woolen gloves covered his large hands; his hair was trimmed and as nicely dressed as such rough, tawny locks could be.

At length the beautiful service was finished, and the congregation filed out of the church into the yard, where all immediately began shaking hands with each other.

Presently Cora saw the youth come out of the church, look earnestly about him until he descried her party, and then walk directly toward her.

"Oh, Rule, I am so glad to see you! When did you get here? Why didn't you come straight to Rockhold? Why didn't you write and tell me you were coming?" Cora eagerly demanded, as she met him, and hurrying question upon question before giving him time to answer the first one.

The youth raised his cap and bowed to the elder members of the party before answering the girl. Then he said:

"I did not know that I could come until an hour before I started. I came by the midnight express, and reached here just in time for church. I have not seen, or I should say, I have not spoken to, any one here yet except yourself.

"Last evening, being Friday evening, we were at work very late on our Saturday's supplement, and a Christmas story in it. Very often we have to work on Christmas night, if the next day is a week day; and every Sunday night—that is, from twelve midnight, when the Sabbath ends—we have to work to get out Monday morning's paper."

"Oh, yes; of course," said Fabian.

"Well, I never have had a whole holiday since I have been in the Watch office; but last night, about half-past ten, after the paper had gone to press, the foreman came to me, paid my wages up to the first of January, and told me that I need not return to the office at midnight after Sunday, but might have leave of absence until Monday morning, so as to have time to go and spend Christmas with my friends if I wished to do so."

Just then Clarence Rockharrt joined them and said, anxiously:

"Mother, dear, I think you had better get into the carriage. It is very bleak out here, and you might take cold."

Mrs. Rockharrt at once took the arm of her youngest and best-beloved son and let him lead her away to the spot where the comfortable family coach awaited them.

Mr. Fabian started to follow with Cora.

"Come with us to the carriage door, Rule," said the girl, looking back and stretching her hand out toward the youth.

"Yes! Come!" added pleasant Mr. Fabian.

Regulas touched his hat and followed. Fabian put his niece in the seat beside her grandmother, and then turned to the youth and inquired:

"What are you going to do with yourself to-day?"

"I shall go down to my old home, sir, Mother Scythia's hut."

"Oh! Ah! Yes; I remember. You are going to stop there?"

"Yes, sir; but I shall try to see all old friends to-day or to-morrow, and I should like to go to Rockhold to thank all the friends there who have been kind to me, and to tell Mrs. Rockharrt and Miss Cora, who were kindest of all, how I have got on in the city."

"Certainly! Certainly, Rule! Come whenever you like! And see here! It is a long, rough road from here to old Scythia's Roost, which is right on our way to Rockhold. Sorry we cannot offer you a seat in the carriage but you see there are but four seats and there are already five people to fill them."

"Oh, sir, I should not expect such a thing," said the youth.

"But I was about to say if you will mount to a seat beside the coachman, you will be heartily welcome to what used to be my own 'most favoryte' perch in my younger days. And we can set you down at the foot of the path leading up to old Scythia's hut," concluded Mr. Fabian.

"Oh, do, Rule! Please do!" pleaded Cora.

Regulas, with his sturdy independence of spirit, would most likely have declined this favor had not the girl's beseeching face and voice persuaded him to accept it.

"I thank you very much, sir," he said, and promptly climbed to the seat.

Three miles down the road the carriage was pulled up at the foot of the highest point of the mountain range, and Rule came down from his perch beside the coachman, stepped up to the carriage window, took off his hat, thanked the occupants for his ride, and then drew a neat, white inch-square parcel from his vest pocket, and holding it modestly, said:

"I hope you will accept this, Miss Cora."

The girl took it with a smile, but before she could open her lips to express her thanks, the youth had bowed, turned from the carriage, and was speeding his way up the rough mountain path, springing from crag to crag up to the ledge on which old Scythia's hut stood.

Cora opened the parcel and found an inch-square little casket of red morocco. She opened this with a spring, and found a small gold heart reposing in a bed of white satin.

"How pretty it is!" she said softly to herself, as she took the trinket from its case. "Look, grandma, what Rule has brought me for a Christmas gift! A little gold heart! A pure gold heart! His is a pure gold heart, is it not?" she added, earnestly, as she placed the trinket in the lady's hand.

Mrs. Rockharrt looked at it with interest, and then passed it on to her eldest son.

The ride was continued, and presently the carriage was driven off the boat and up the avenue leading to the house. As the vehicle drew up before the front doors, a pretty picture might have been seen through the drawing-room windows.

A bright fireside, an old man reclining in his luxurious arm-chair; a beautiful girl seated on a hassock at his feet, reading to him, and at intervals lifting her lovely blue eyes in childish adoration to his face. They might have been grandfather and granddaughter, but they were, in fact, old Aaron Rockharrt and Miss Rose Flowers—Merlin and Vivien again, except that the Iron King was rather a rugged and unmanageable Merlin.

Meanwhile, Regulas Rothsay had climbed the rugged mountain path that led to Scythia's hut. On the back of the broad shelf of rock on which the hut stood was a hollow in the side of the precipice. Scythia had cleared out this hollow of all its natural litter. Before this apartment she had built another room, with no better material than fragments of rock found on the spot, and filled in with earth, moss and twigs. She had roofed this over with branches of evergreens piled thick and high, to keep off rain and sun. A heavy buffalo robe, fastened with large wooden pins at its top to the roof of the hut, served for a door. There was no window. In the inner or cavernous apartment she had built a rude fire-place and chimney going up through a hole in the rock. A pallet of rough furs and coarse blankets lay in one corner of this room, and a few rude cooking utensils occupied another. In the outer room there was a rough oak table and two chairs.

Up before the edge of this natural shelf on which the hut stood appeared the tops of a thicket of pine trees that grew on the mountain side fifty feet below. Up behind this shelf arose other pines, height above height, until their highest tops seemed to pierce the clouds.

When Rule reached this shelf, he found the tops of the pine trees, the ground, and the hut all covered with snow.

"Good morning, mother! A merry Christmas to you!" said Rule, gayly.

"I hope you have made yourself as comfortable as possible in this place," said the youth, anxiously.

"Yes, Rule! always as happy and as much at ease as my past will permit."

"Oh! what is—what was this terrible past?" inquired the youth—not for the first time.

"It was, it is, and it ever will be! This past will be present and future so long as I live on this earth. And some day, when time and strife and woe have made you strong and hard and stern, I will lift the veil and show you its horrible face! But not now, my boy! not now! Come in."

As the weird woman said this she led the way into the hut, where the rude table stood covered with a coarse white cloth and adorned with two white plates and two pairs of steel knives and forks. Here the Christmas dinner was eaten, and afterward the two began a close conversation.

"Mother," said the youth, "I shall have to leave here to-morrow night. I should go away so much more contented if I could see you living down in the village among people. Here you are dwelling alone, far from human help if you should require it. The winter coming on!"

"Rule! I hate the village! I hate the haunts of human beings! I love the wilderness and the wild creatures that are around me!"

"But, mother, if you should be taken ill up here alone!"

"I should get well or die; and it would not in the least matter which."

"But you might linger, you might suffer."

"I am used to suffering, and however long I might linger, the end would come at last. Recovery or death, it would not matter which."

"Oh, Mother Scythia!" said the youth, in a voice full of distress.

"Rule! I am as happy here as my past will permit me to be. I abhor the haunts of the human! I love the solitude of the wilderness. The time may come when you too, lad, shall hate the haunts of the human and long for the lair of the lion! You will rise, Rule! As sure as flame leaps to the air, you will rise! The fire within you will kindle into flame! You will rise! But—beware the love of woman and the pride of place! See! Listen!"

The face of the weird woman changed—became ashen gray, her form became rigid, her eyes were fixed, her gaze was afar off in distant space.

"What is it, mother?" anxiously demanded the youth.

"I see your future and the emblem of your future—a splendid meteor, soaring up from the earth to the sky, filling space with light and glory! Dazzling a million of eyes, then dropping down, down, down into darkness and nothingness! That is you!"

"Mother Scythia!" exclaimed the youth, in troubled tones.

The weird woman never turned her head, nor withdrew her fearful, far-off stare into futurity.

"That is you. You are but a poor apprentice. But from this year you will soar, and soar, and soar to the zenith of place and power among your fellows! You will be the blazing meteor of the day! You will dazzle all eyes by the splendor of your success, and then, 'in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye,' you will drop into night, and nothingness, and be heard of no more!"

"Mother! Mother Scythia! Wake up! You are dreaming!" said Rule, laying his hand on the woman's shoulder and gently shaking her.

"Oh, what is this? Rule! What is it?"

"You have been dreaming, Mother Scythia."

"Have I?" said the woman, putting her hands to her forehead and stroking away the raven locks that over-shadowed it.

And gradually she recovered from her trance and returned to her normal condition. When Rule was quite sure that she was all right again, he said:

"Mother Scythia, I am going to Rockhold to see the friends there who have been kind to me. But I will come back to spend the night with you."

"Well, lad, go. Why should I try to hinder you? You must work out your destiny and bear your doom," she said, wearily, with her forehead bowed upon her hands, as if she felt the heavy prophetic cloud still over-shadowing and oppressing her.

"Mother Scythia, why do you speak so solemnly of me, and I only in my nineteenth year?" gravely inquired the youth, who, though he had been accustomed to the weird woman's strange moods and stranger words and deemed them little less than the betrayals of insanity, yet now felt unaccountably troubled by them.

"Yes; you are young, but the years fly fast; and I—I see the future in the present. But go, my boy! enjoy the good of the present—your best days, lad!—and come back this evening and you shall find your pallet of sweet boughs and soft blankets ready for you," she said.

Rule stooped and kissed her corrugated forehead and then left the hut.

The sun was setting behind the mountain, which threw a dark shadow over Scythia's Ledge and Rule's path, as he ran springing from rock to rock down the precipice to the river's side. It was dark when he reached the spot. But the lights from the windows of Rockhold on the opposite shore gleamed out upon the snow with splendid effect.

Every window in the front of the building was shining with light that streamed out upon the snow; for the shutters had been left unclosed on purpose, this Christmas night.

Rule crossed the ferry and went, as he had been used to go, to the back door, opening on the back porch, where, four years before, Cora used to keep school for her one pupil. He rapped at the door, and Sylvan sprang up and opened it. He was warmly welcomed, and spent a pleasant evening. The rest of his vacation was spent in a way equally pleasant, and at seven a.m., Monday, Rule was at work, type-setting in the Watch office.

On the third of January following that Christmas there were three departures from Rockhold. Miss Rose Flowers went East to enter upon her new engagement. Corona Haught, in charge of her grandmother and her Uncle Clarence, went West to enter the Young Ladies' Institute, in the capital, and Master Sylvanus Haught went North, in the care of his Uncle Fabian, to enter a boy's school.

CHAPTER IV.

A RETROSPECT.

It was near the close of a cold, bright day early in January, that Mrs. Rockharrt and Corona Haught, escorted by Mr. Clarence, stepped from the train at the depot of the capital city of their State—which must, for obvious reason, be nameless—and were driven to the Young Ladies' Institute, where the girl was left, and as the adieus were being said it was explained to Cora that discretion and social conventionality dictated that her correspondence with young Rothsay should cease. Clarence stated that he would write to the youth and explain that the rules of the school, also, forbade such a correspondence.

"I will also tell him that he can continue to send the Watch to you, with his own paragraphs marked as before," said Corona's uncle. "There can be no law against that. I will correspond with Rule occasionally, and keep you posted up as to how he is getting on. There can be no school law against your uncle writing to you."

Cora Haught graduated when she was eighteen. In all these years she had not seen Rule Rothsay. She only heard from him through his letters to her Uncle Clarence, reported second hand to herself. She knew that in these five years Rule had risen, step by step, in the office where he had begun his apprenticeship; that he had risen to be foreman, then sub-editor, and now he was part proprietor and one of the most powerful political writers on the paper.

The workingmen's party wished to put him up as a candidate for the State legislature. What a power he would have been for their cause in that place! but when the subject was proposed to him, he admonished the spokesman that he was, as yet, a little less than of legal age for an office that required its holder to be at least twenty-five years old.

After Cora's graduation the Rockharrt family spent a week in their town house, preparatory to a summer tour through the Northern States and Canada.

One morning, while the whole family were sitting around the breakfast table, old Aaron Rockharrt suddenly spoke:

"Fabian! Now that my granddaughter has left school, she will want a companion near her own age. Miss Rose Flowers would suit very well. Have you any idea where she is?"

"Miss Rose Flowers, my dear sir, is now Mrs. Slydell Stillwater, the—"

"Married!" interrupted all voices except that of the Iron King, who bent his heavy gray brows as he gazed upon his son.

"Stuff and nonsense! How did you know anything about her marriage?" demanded old Aaron Rockharrt.

"In the simplest and most natural way, sir. I saw it in the newspapers, about three years ago. And, in point of fact, I forgot it and should never have thought of it again but for your inquiries about the young woman this morning. Her husband is Captain Slydell Stillwater, captain and half owner of the East Indiaman Queen of Sheba," replied Mr. Fabian.

"Poor child! To be parted from her husband more than half her time. Is Captain Stillwater now at sea?"

"I think he must be, sir, as there has hardly been time for his return since he sailed soon after his marriage."

"Do you know where Mrs. Stillwater lives?"

"I do not, sir; but I might find out by inquiring of some mutual acquaintance."

"Do so. And, Mrs. Rockharrt," the King added, turning to his little old wife, "you will write a note to Mrs. Stillwater, inviting her to join our party for a summer tour, and as our guest, remember. Fabian, you will see that the note reaches the lady in time."

"I will do my best, sir," said Mr. Fabian.

"Very well," said the wife.

The note of invitation to Mrs. Stillwater was written. Mr. Fabian used such dispatch in his search for the lady that his efforts were soon rewarded with success. A letter came from Mrs. Stillwater, postmarked Baltimore, in which she cordially thanked Mrs. Rockharrt for her invitation, gratefully accepted it, and offered to join the Rockharrt party at any point most convenient to the latter. This answer was communicated to the family autocrat, who thereupon issued his commands:

"Write and say to Mrs. Stillwater that we will stop at Baltimore on our way, and call for her at her hotel on Friday; but say that if she should not be ready, we will wait her convenience."

This letter was also written and sent off.

Three days later the whole family left the capital for Baltimore, which they reached at night. They went directly to the hotel where Mrs. Stillwater was staying, and engaged rooms for their whole party.

They scarcely took time enough to wash the travel dust from their faces and brush it from their hair, and change their traveling suits for fresher dresses, before they hurried down stairs to their private parlor, whence Mrs. Rockharrt sent her own and her granddaughter's cards to Mrs. Stillwater's room.

A few minutes after, the young siren appeared.

"Heavens! how beautiful she is! More beautiful than before! Look, Cora! Was there ever such a perfect creature?" said Mr. Clarence, under his breath.

Cora looked at her former governess with a start of involuntary wonder and admiration. Rose Stillwater was more beautiful than ever. Her exquisite oval face was a little more rounded. Her fair complexion had a richer bloom on the cheeks and lips. Her hair was darker in the shade and brighter in the light; her blue eyes were softer and sweeter; her graceful form fuller. She was dressed in some floating material that enveloped her figure like a cloud.

She came, blooming, beaming, smiling, into the room, where all arose to meet her. She went first to Mr. Rockharrt, and bent and almost knelt before him, and raised his hand to her lips as if he had been her sovereign; and then, before he could respond—for she saw that he was slightly embarrassed as well as greatly pleased by this adoration—she turned and sank into the arms of old Mrs. Rockharrt, and cooed forth:

"How sweet of you to remember your poor, lonely child and call her to your side!"

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to be married, my dear?" was the practical question of the old lady.

"It was shyness on my part. I dared not obtrude my poor affairs on your attention until you should notice me in some way," she meekly replied, and then she gracefully slipped out of Mrs. Rockharrt's embrace and went and folded Cora to her bosom, murmuring:

"My own darling, how happy I am to meet you again! How lovely you are, my sweet angel!"

"Oh, why did you not write to me that you were going to be married? I should have so liked to have been your bridesmaid!" complained Cora.

"Sweetest sweet, if I had dreamed such honor and happiness were possible for me, I should have written and claimed them with pride and delight. But I dared not, my darling! I dared not. I was but a poor governess, without any claims to your remembrance, and should not now be with you had not the dear lady, your grandmamma, kindly recalled her poor dependant to mind and brought me into her circle."

"Oh, Rose, do not speak so! I should hate to hear even the poorest maid in our house speak so. You were never grandma's dependant, or anybody's dependant. You were one of the noble army whom I honor more than I do all the monarchs on earth," said Cora earnestly.

With remembrances and delightful chat the evening was wearing away, and it was time for the party to retire to rest.

Two days after this the Rockharrts, with Cora Haught and Mrs. Stillwater, left Baltimore for the North, en route for Canada and New Brunswick.

The party went first directly to Boston, where they stayed for a few days, to attend the commencement of the collegiate school at which Master Sylvanus Haught was preparing himself to become a candidate for admission to the military academy at West Point; but where, as yet, he had not distinguished himself by application to his studies.

On promising to do better, Sylvan was permitted to accompany his friends on their summer tour.

The party spent the season in traveling, and it was not until the 15th of September that they set out on their return South. They reached Baltimore late in September, yet found the weather in that latitude still oppressively warm, and roomed at a hotel.

Here it had been tacitly understood from the first that Mrs. Stillwater was to remain, while the rest of the party should proceed on their journey West.

But the family despot had become so habituated to the incense hourly offered up to his egotism by Circe, that he felt her society to be essential to his contentment. So he issued his commands to his wife to invite Mrs. Stillwater to accompany the family party to Rockhold for a long visit.

The old lady very willingly obeyed these orders, for she also desired the visit from the fascinator, whose presence kept the tyrant in a good humor and on his good behavior. So she pressed Rose Stillwater to accompany them to their mountain home.

Rose Stillwater raised her beautiful soft blue eyes, brimming with tears that ever came at will, gazed sorrowfully, penitently, deprecatingly, into the lady's face and cooed:

"I feel as if it were a sin to refuse you! You who have been a mother to me. And, oh! how dearly I should love to stay with you and wait on you forever and forever! I could not conceive a happier life! But duty constrains me to deny myself this delight, and to wrench myself away from all I love."

"Duty? What duty, my dear girl? I do not understand that. You have no children to take care of, no house to look after, no husband to please, for Captain Stillwater is at sea. What duty, then, can you have which is so pressing as to keep you away from your friends?"

"The Queen of Sheba was spoken and passed by the Liverpool and New York ocean steamer Arctic on Saturday, within three days' sail of land. And he may arrive here any hour. I must wait to receive him."

"Indeed! I did not know that. My dear, I congratulate you on your coming happiness. I can urge you no more, of course. It is a sacred duty as well as a sweet delight for you to remain here and meet your husband. So, of course, we must resign ourselves to our loss; but I hope, my dear, that you and your husband will come together at an early date and make us a long visit."

"I hope so, too, dearest lady!"

When, a little later in the evening, the Iron King heard the result of this interview, he was—as his wife had feared—dreadfully disappointed, and consequently in one of his morose and diabolical tempers, and sullenly set his despotic will against the reasonable wishes of everybody else. He announced that they should all set forward the next day. It was high time they should all be at home looking after house and business. So it was settled.

As the party needed rest, they retired very early.

That night Cora Haught had a rather strange adventure, to relate which intelligibly I must describe the situation of their rooms.

The suite occupied by the Rockharrt party was on the third floor of the house, and consisted of five rooms in a row, on the left hand side of the corridor, from the head of the stairs. The front room, overlooking an avenue, was tenanted by Mr. and Mrs. Rockharrt, the next one was occupied by Cora Haught, the third room was the private parlor of the suite, the fourth room was that of Mrs. Stillwater, and the fifth, and largest, was a double-bedded room, tenanted jointly by Mr. Fabian and Mr. Clarence. All these rooms had doors communicating with each other, and also with the corridor, all or any of which could be left open or made fast at discretion.

Cora's room, between her grandparents' bed-chamber and their private parlor, was the smallest, the closest and the warmest of the suite. That September night was sultry and stifling. Scarcely a breath of air came from without.

The girl could not sleep for the heat. Anathematizing her room as a "black hole" of Calcutta, she lay tossing from side to side, and listening for the hourly strokes of a neighboring clock, and praying for the night to be over. She heard that clock strike eleven, twelve, one.

At length Cora thought that she would go into the private parlor next her own room to get a breath of fresh air. She felt sure that there she should be perfectly safe from intrusion, as she knew that the door leading from the parlor into the corridor was secured from within by a strong bolt, and the other two doors led, the one into her own little room, and the other, on the opposite side, into Mrs. Stillwater's. So that she would be as secluded as in her own chamber.

She slipped on a thin, dark blue silk dressing gown, thrust her feet in slippers, opened the door and passed into the parlor.

The room was very dark, still and cool. The two side windows overlooking the alley were open, and a rising breeze from the harbor blew in. Cora went and sat down in an easy chair in the angle of the corner between an open side window and her own room door.

The room was pitch dark. The darkness, the coolness, and the stillness were all so soothing and refreshing to the girl's heated and excited nerves that she sank back in her high, cushioned chair and dozed off into sleep—into such a deep and dreamless sleep that she knew nothing until she was awakened, or rather only half awakened, by the sound of a key turning in a lock and a door creaking upon its hinges. The sound seemed to come from the direction of Mrs. Stillwater's room; but Cora was still half asleep, and almost unconscious of her whereabouts. As in a dream, she heard some one tiptoe slowly across and jar a chair in the deep darkness. She heard the bolt of the door leading into the corridor grate as it was slipped back. This awakened her thoroughly. She was about to call out:

"Who is there?"

Then a voice that she recognized even in its low, whispering tones spoke and arrested the words on her lips. It said:

"Fabe! Fabe! is that you?"

"Yes. Is all quiet?"

"Yes; and has been so for hours. Come in. Pass around, feeling by the wall until you reach the sofa. If you attempt to cross the room, you may strike a chair or table and make a noise, as I did."

The unseen man cautiously crept around by the wall, feeling his way, but occasionally striking and jarring a picture frame or looking glass as he passed, and muttering good-humored little growls of deprecation, and finally making the sofa creak as he struck and sat heavily down upon it.

Cora was wide awake now, and quite cognizant of the identity of the invisible persons in the room as that of Mr. Fabian Rockharrt and Mrs. Rose Stillwater.

It did not once occur to the girl that she was doing any wrong in remaining there, in the parlor common to the whole party. Surprise and wonder held her spellbound in her obscure seat.

The sofa on which they sat was between the two windows. She reclined in the easy chair in the corner between the right-hand window and the door of her room. She was so near them that she might have touched the sofa by stretching out her hand.

Without dreaming of harm, she overheard their conversation.

Mr. Fabian was the first to speak.

"I say, Rose," he began, "I have a deuce of a hard time to get a tete-a-tete with you. This is the first we have had for two months."

"And we could not have had this but for the accidental arrangement of these convenient rooms," she whispered.

"Exactly. We must arrange for future plans to-night. I understand that the old folks have been trying to persuade you to return home with us?"

"Yes; but, of course, I shall not go."

"Of course not; but how did you get out of it?"

"Oh, by raising the old gentleman."

"Do you mean the—the—the—de—"

"Certainly not. I mean my husband, the gallant Captain Stillwater, of the East Indiaman Queen of Sheba, who has been spoken within three days' sail of port, and is expected here every hour. So that, you see, I must remain here to welcome my husband. It is my sacred duty," said the woman demurely.

"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Mr. Fabian, in a low, half-suppressed chuckle.

"Hush! Oh, be careful! You will be heard!" murmured Rose Stillwater, in a frightened whisper.

"What! at this hour? Why, everybody in this suite is in his or her deepest sleep. I say, Rosebud."

"What?"

"His Majesty the King of the Cumberland Mines has been in a demoniac humor ever since he learned that you were not coming home with us."

"I know it, and I am very sorry for it, especially on his family's account, but I could not help it."

"Certainly not. It would have been inconvenient and embarrassing. Look here, Rosalie."

"Well?"

"If the aged monarch was not such a perfect dragon of truth, honesty and fidelity, and all the cast-iron virtues, I should think that he was over head and ears in love with you."

"Nonsense, Fabian! Mr. Rockharrt is old enough to be my grandfather, and his hair is quite gray."

"If he were old enough to be your great-grandfather, and his hair was quite white, it need make no difference in that respect, my dear. The fires of Mt. Hecla burn beneath eternal snows."

"What rubbish you are talking, Fabian! But—to change the subject—when will my house be ready? I warn you that I will not go back to that brick block on Main Street in your State capital."

"You should not, Rosebella. Your home is finished and furnished; and a lovelier bower of roses cannot be found out of paradise! It is simply perfection, or it will be when you take possession of it."

"Yes; tell me all about it," whispered the lady, eagerly.

"It is a small, elegant villa, situated in the midst of beautiful grounds in a small, sequestered dell, inclosed with wooded hills rising backward into forest-crowned mountains, and watered by many little springs rising among the rocks and running down to empty into a miniature lake that lies shining before the house. It seems to be in the heart of the Cumberlands, in the depth of solitude, yet it is not fifteen minutes' walk by a forest footpath to the railway station at North End."

"What shall we name this little Eden?"

"Rose Bower, and the locality Rose Valley."

"And when may I take possession?"

"Whenever you please. All is prepared and waiting the arrival of Mrs. Stillwater, who has taken the house and engaged the servants through her agent, and who is expected to reside there during the absence of her husband, Captain Stillwater, on long voyages."

"How long are these false appearances to be kept up, and when are our true relations to be announced?"

"Before very long, my sweet!"

"I hate this concealment! I know that I am a favorite with your father and mother, so I cannot see why you have not told them and will not tell them."

"Now, Rosamunda, don't be a little idiot! Be a little angel, as you always have been! Am I not doing everything I can for your comfort and happiness, only asking you in turn to be faithful and patient until I can make you my wife before the whole world? My father does not like the idea of my marrying—anybody! If he knew we were engaged to each other, he would never forgive me, and that means he would cut me off from all share in the patrimony. And we could not afford to lose that! Let me tell you a secret, Rose. Though our firm does business under the name 'Rockharrt & Sons,' yet 'Sons' have a merely nominal interest in the works while Rockharrt lives. So you see, I have very little of my own, and if the autocrat should learn, even by our own confession, that we had been—been—been—concealing our engagement from him, he would never forgive either of us."

At this moment a step was heard passing along the corridor outside.

It caused the two unseen inmates of the parlor to shrink into silence, and even when it had passed out of hearing it caused them, in renewing their conversation, to speak only in the lowest tones, so that Cora could no longer catch a word of their speech.

She would before this have risen and retired to her own room; but she was afraid of making a noise, and consequently causing a scene.

Were those two, her Uncle Fabian and Mrs. Stillwater, only secretly engaged? Secretly engaged? But whoever heard of a betrothed lover providing a home for his betrothed bride to live in before marriage! And then, again, was her Uncle Fabian really so dependent on his father as he had represented to Rose? Cora had always understood that he had a quarter share in the great business, and that Clarence had an eighth. And, worse than all, had they been so deceived as to the condition of Rose that, if she was Mrs. Stillwater at all, she was the widow and not the wife of Captain Stillwater, since she was engaged to be married, if not already married, to Mr. Fabian Rockharrt?

Altogether the affair seemed a blinding and confusing tissue of falsehood and deception that amazed and repulsed the mind of the girl.

Bewildered by the mystery, lulled by the hum of voices whose words she could not distinguish, fanned by the breeze from the harbor, and calmed by the darkness, the wearied girl sank back into her resting chair, closed her eyes, and lost the sequence of her thoughts in dreams—from which she presently sank into dreamless sleep, which lasted until she was awakened by the noise of the hotel servants moving about on their morning duties, opening windows, rapping at doors to call up travelers for early trains, dragging along trunks, and so on.

At breakfast Cora watched Mr. Fabian and Rose, because she could not help doing so, and she certainly discovered signs of a secret understanding between them—signs so slight that they would have been unnoticed by any one who had not the key to the mystery. But how sickening and depressing was all this! Rose Flowers, or Stillwater, or Rockharrt—whichever name she could legally claim—was a fraud. Mr. Fabian Rockharrt was another fraud. Those two were secretly engaged or secretly married.

After breakfast the party were ready for their journey Then came the leave-taking.

Every one, except Cora Haught, shook hands warmly with Rose Stillwater. Mrs. Rockharrt embraced and kissed her fondly, and renewed and pressed her invitation to the beauty to come and make a long visit.

Rose put her arms around the old lady's neck and clung to her, and, with tearful eyes and trembling tones and loving words, assured her that she would fly to Rockhold on the first possible opportunity, and, after many caresses, she reluctantly turned away and went toward Cora.

The girl had lowered her blue veil, and tied it mask-like over her face, in a way that women often do, but which Cora never did, except on this occasion, when she wished to evade the sure to be offered kiss of Rose Stillwater.

But Rose embraced her strongly and kissed her through the veil, endearments which the young girl could not repel without attracting attention, but which she only endured and did not return.

The party reached Rockhold on the evening of the second day's travel.

Old Aaron Rockharrt found himself so weary of traveling that he announced his intention of remaining in Rockhold for the entire winter, nor leaving it even to go to his town house for a few weeks during the session of the legislature.

Cora was disappointed. She longed to go to Washington for the season—to go into company, to go to balls and parties, concerts and operas, to see new people and make new friends, perhaps to attract new admirers; and as she was now nineteen years of age, she need not be too severely criticised for so natural an aspiration.

Mr. Fabian was the most zealous and active member of the firm. He would go to North End and stay two days at a time to be near his scene of duty.

Time passed, but Rose Stillwater did not make her promised visit.

Old Aaron often referred to it, and worried his wife to write to her and remind her of her promise. The old lady always complied with her husband's requirements, and wrote pressing letters; but the beauty always wrote back excusing herself on the ground of "the captain's" many engagements, which confined him to the ship and her to his side.

So time passed, and nearly another year went by. The Rockharrts were still at Rockhold.

A political crisis was at hand—the election for the State legislature.

The candidate for representative of the liberal party in that election district was Regulas Rothsay.

The election day came at length, as anxious a day for Cora Haught as for any one.

It was a grand success, a glorious triumph for the printer boy and for the workingmen's cause as well. Rule Rothsay was elected representative for his district in the State legislature by an overwhelming majority.

Cora was destined to a joyful surprise the next morning, when the domestic autocrat suddenly announced:

"I shall take the family to my town house on the first of next week. My last bill, which was defeated last year, may be passed this session."

Cora now, on the Irishman's principle of pulling the pig backward if you want him to go forward, ventured on the assurance of counseling her grandfather by saying:

"I would not approach Mr. Rothsay on the subject of this bill, if I were you, sir."

"But you are not I, miss!" exclaimed the old man, opening his eyes wide to stare her down. "And the new man is the very one to whom I shall first speak. He is the most proper person to present the bill. He represents my own district. His election is largely due to the men in my own employ. I am surprised that you should presume to advise upon matters of which you can know nothing whatever."

Cora bowed to the rebuke, but did not mind it in the least, since now she felt sure of meeting Rule Rothsay in town.

On the following Monday the Rockharrts went to town.

Mr. Rockharrt met and compared notes with some of the lobbyists.

One veteran lobbyist gave him what he called the key to the riddle of success.

"You appealed to reason and conscience!" said he. "My dear sir, you should have appealed to their stomachs and pockets. You should have given them epicurean feasts, and put money in your 'purse' to be transferred to theirs!"

"Bribery and corruption! I would lose my bill forever! And I would see the legislature—exterminated, before I would pay one cent to get a vote," said the Iron King. And he used a much stronger as well as much shorter word than the one underscored; but let it pass.

As soon as the morning papers announced—among other arrivals—that of the new assemblyman, the Hon. Regulas Rothsay, Aaron Rockharrt sought out the young legislator, and explained that he wished to get a charter for a railroad that he wished to build. The company—all responsible men—had been incorporated some time, but he had never succeeded in getting a charter from the legislature.

Rule saw that the enterprise would be a benefit to the community at large, and especially to the workingmen, the farmers, shop keepers and mechanics; so when he had heard all the old Iron King had to say on the subject, he promptly gave a promise which neither favor, affection nor self-interest could ever have won from him, but which reason, conscience and the public good constrained him to give—namely, to present the petition for the charter to the assembly, and to support it with all his might.

After this Regulas Rothsay came often and more often, until at length he passed every evening with the Rockharrts when they were at home. Old Aaron Rockharrt esteemed him as he esteemed very, very few of his fellow creatures. Mrs. Rockharrt really loved him. Mr. Fabian and Mr. Clarence liked him. Cora admired and honored him. He was made so welcome in the family circle that he felt himself quite at home among them.

On the second of January the first business taken up was that of the bill to charter the projected railroad. It was presented by Mr. Rothsay, and referred to the proper committee.

The charter bill was reported with certain amendments, sent back again and reported again, with modified amendments, laid on the table, taken up and generally tormented for ten days, and then passed by a small majority.

Rule had conscientiously done his best, and this was the result: Old Aaron Rockharrt thanked him stiffly.

"You have worked it through, sir! No one but yourself could have done it! And it is a wonder that even you could do so with such a set of pig-headed rascals as our assemblymen. And now, will it pass the senate?"

"I believe it will, Mr. Rockharrt. I have been speaking to many of the senators, and find them well disposed toward it," said Rule.

To be brief, the bill was soon taken up by the senate; and after much the same treatment it had received in the assembly, it came safely through the ordeal, and was passed—again by a small majority.

Old Aaron Rockharrt was triumphant, in his sullen, dogged and undemonstrative way.

But having gained his ends, for which alone he had come to the city, he ordered his family to pack up and be ready to leave town for Rockhold the next day but one.

But the worst was to come.

When all the household were assembled at luncheon, he shot his last bolt.

"Now look you here, all of you! We are going to Rockhold to-morrow. I do not wish to have any company there. I am tired of company! I hate company! I am going to the country to get rid of company. So see that you do not, any of you, invite any one to visit us."

The next morning the Rockharrt family left town for North End, where they arrived early in the afternoon.

A monotonous season followed, at least for the two ladies, who led a very secluded life at the dreary old stone house on the mountain side.

Winter, spring, summer and autumn crept slowly away in, the lonely dwelling. In the last days of November he announced to his family, with the usual suddenness of his peremptory will, that he should go to Washington City for the winter, taking with him his wife and granddaughter, and leaving his two sons in charge of the works, and that they would be joined in Washington at Christmas by his grandson, for whom he was about to apply for admission into the military academy at West Point.

Regulas called frequently, and his attentions to Cora were marked.

The Rockharrt party went to Washington on the first of December, and took possession of the suite of rooms previously engaged for them at one of the large West End hotels.

One morning, when Rule was out of the way, being on a canvassing round with Mr. Rockharrt among such members of Congress as had remained in the city, Sylvan suddenly asked his sister:

"Cora, what's to make the pot boil?"

"What do you mean?" inquired the young lady, looking up from "Bleak House," which she was reading.

"Who's to get the grub?"

"I—don't understand you."

"Oh, yes, you do. What are you and Rothsay to live on after you are married? He is poor as a church mouse, and you are not much richer. You are reported to be an heiress and all that, but you know very well that you cannot touch a cent of your money until you are twenty-five years old, and not even then if you have married in the interim without our great Mogul's consent. Such are the wise provisions of our father's will. Now then, when you and Rule are married, what is to make the pot boil?"

"There is no question of marriage between Mr. Rothsay and myself," replied Cora, with a fine assumption of dignity, which was, however, quite, lost on Sylvan, who favored her with a broad stare and then exclaimed:

"No question of marriage between you? My stars and garters! then there ought to be, for you are both carrying on at a—at a—at a most tremendous rate!"

Cora took up her book and walked out of the room in stately displeasure.

No; there had been no question of marriage between them; no spoken question, at least, up to this day.

This was true to-day, but it was not true on the following day, when Cora and Rule, being alone in the parlor, fell into thoughtful silence, neither knowing exactly why.

This was broken at last by Rule.

"Cora, will you look at me, dear?"

She raised her eyes and meet his fixed full and tenderly on hers.

"Cora, I think that you and I have understood each other a long time, too long a time for the reserve we have practiced. My dear, will you now share the poverty of a poor man who loves you with all his heart, or will you wait for that man until he shall have made a home and position more worthy of you? Speak, my love, or if you prefer, take some time to think of this. My fate is in your hands."

These were calm words, uttered with much, very much, self-restraint; yet eyes and voice could not be so perfectly controlled as language was, and these spoke eloquently of the man's adoration of the woman.

She put her hand in his large, rough palm—the palm inherited from many generations of hard workers—where it lay like a white kernel in a brown shell, and she answered quietly, with controlled emotion:

"Rule, I would rather come to you now forever, and share your life, however hard, and help your work, however difficult, than part from you again; or, if this happiness is not for us now, I would wait for years—I would wait for you forever."

"God bless you! God bless you, my dear! my dear! But is not this in your own choice, Cora?"

"No; it is in my grandfather's."

"You are of age, dear."

"Yes. But not because I am of age would I disobey his will. He has always done his duty by me faithfully. I must do mine by him. He is old now. I must not oppose him. He may consent to our union at once, for you are a very great favorite with him. But his will must be consulted."

"Of course, dear. I meant to speak to Mr. Rockharrt after speaking to you."

"And to abide by his wishes, Rule?"

"If I must. But I would rather abide by yours only, since you are of age," said the young man.

And what more was spoken need not be repeated here. The next day Rule Rothsay called early, and asked to see Mr. Rockharrt.

"Ah! Ah! You come to tell me that you have seen Hunter, I suppose? How does he stand affected toward my bill?" exclaimed the Iron King, pointing to one chair for his guest and dropping into another himself.

"The truth is, Mr. Rockharrt, I came to see you on quite another matter—"

The young man paused. The old man looked attentive and curious.

"It is a matter of the deepest interest to me—"

Again Rule paused, for Mr. Rockharrt was looking at him with bent brows, staring eyes, and bristling iron gray hair and beard, or hair and beard that seemed to bristle.

"Your granddaughter—" began Rule. "Your granddaughter has made me very happy by consenting to become my wife, with your approbation," calmly replied Rule.

"Oh!" exclaimed the old man, in a peculiar tone, between surprise and derision. "And so you have come to ask my consent to your marriage with my granddaughter?"

"If you please, Mr. Rockharrt."

"And so that is the reason why you worked so hard to get my railroad bill through the legislature. Well, I always believed that every man had his price; but I thought you were the exception to the general rule. I thought you were not for sale. But it seems that I was mistaken, and that you were for sale, and set a pretty high price upon yourself, too—the hand of my granddaughter!"

The young man was not ill-tempered or irritable. Perfectly conscious of his own sound integrity, he was unmoved by this taunt; and he answered with quiet dignity:

"If you will reflect for a moment, Mr. Rockharrt, you will know that your charge is untrue and impossible, and you will recall it. I took up your railroad bill because I saw that its provisions would be beneficial to the small towns, tradesmen and farmers all along the proposed line—interests that many railroads neglect, to the ruin of parties most concerned. And I took up this cause before I had ever met your granddaughter since her childhood or as a woman."

"That is true. Well, well, the selfish and mercenary character of the men, and women, too, that I meet in this world has made me, perhaps, too suspicious of all men's motives," said the champion egotist of the world, speaking with the air of the great king condescending to an apology—if his answer could be called an apology.

Rule accepted it as such. He knew it was as near to a concession as the despot could come. He bowed in silence.

"And so you want my granddaughter, do you?" demanded the old man.

"Yes, sir; as the greatest good that you, or the world, or heaven, could bestow on me," earnestly replied the suitor.

"Rubbish! Don't talk like an idiot! How do you propose to support her?"

"By the labor of my brain and hands," gravely and confidently replied Rule.

"Worse rubbish than the other! How much a year does the labor of your brain and hands bring you in?—not enough to keep yourself in comfort! And you would bring my granddaughter down to divide that insufficient income with you"

"My income would provide us both with modest comforts," replied Rule.

"I think your ideas and our ideas of comfort may differ importantly. Now see here, Mr. Rothsay, I do believe you to be a true, honest, straightforward man; I believe you are attracted to Cora by a sincere preference for herself, irrespective of her prospects; and you are a rising man. Wait a year or two, or three. Take a few steps higher on the ladder of rank and fame, and then come and ask me for my granddaughter's hand, and if you are both of the same mind, I will give it to you. There!"

"Mr. Rockharrt—" began Rule.

"There, there, there! I will not even hear of an engagement until that time shall arrive. How do I know how you will pass through the ordeal of a political career, or into what bad company, evil habits, riotous living, dissipation, drunkenness, bribery and corruption, embezzlements, ruin and disgrace you may not be tempted?"

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Rule.

"Amen! I believe you will stand the test, but I have seen too many brilliant and aspiring young politicians go up like a rocket and come down a burnt stick, to be very sure of any man in the same circumstances."

"But, Mr. Rockharrt, such men were most probably brought up in wealth and luxury. They were not trained, perhaps, as I have been, in the hard but wholesome school of labor and self-denial."

"There may be something in that; but if you advance it as an argument for me to change my mind in this matter of a prudent delay, it is thrown away upon me. You should know me well enough to know that I never change my mind."

Rule did know it. But he answered earnestly:

"I accept your conditions, Mr. Rockharrt. I will wait and work as long for Cora as Jacob did for Rachel, if necessary. Cora has been the inspiration of all that I have wrought, endured and achieved—and she was all that to me long before I dreamed of aspiring to her hand in marriage, and she will be as long as we both shall live in this world or the world to come."

Rule bowed and left. He at once recounted to Cora the interview and the condition imposed on him.

When the short season ended, and the city was tilted upside down and emptied like a bucket of half its contents, the Rockharrts went with the rest.

Old Aaron was in his very worst fit of sullen ferocity. He had not been able to get a charter for clearing out the channel of the Cumberland River (another pet project of his), or even to form a company strong enough to undertake the enterprise.

After a while, out of restlessness, he started with his wife, granddaughter and grandson for a tour to the Northern Pacific Coast. He spent some time in traveling through that region of country, and returned East.

He stopped at West Point to leave Sylvan Haught, who had successfully passed his examination and received his appointment at the military academy.

Then he took his womenkind home to Rockhold.

A few days later young Rothsay was elected senator.

Some weeks later Rothsay again pressed his suit on the attention of Mr. Rockharrt.

But the old man was adamant.

"No, sir, no! You must have a firmer foundation to build upon than the fickle favor of the public. Wait a year or two longer. Let us see whether your success is to be permanent."

"But," urged Rule, "my chosen bride is twenty-three years of age, and I am twenty-seven. Time is flying."

"What has that got to do with the question? If you were to marry this morning, would that stop the flight of time? Would not time fly just as fast as ever? Suppose you should not marry for two years? My granddaughter would then be twenty-five and you thirty, and many wise philosophers think that such are the relative ages at which man and woman should marry. Then the Iron King cast a thunderbolt. He said:

"I am going to take my girl on a trip to Europe this summer. When we return, it will be time enough to talk about marriage."

Rule bowed a reluctant admission to this mandate. He knew well that argument would be thrown away upon the Iron King, and he knew that, even if he himself were tempted to try to persuade Cora to marry him at present, she would not do so in opposition to her grandfather's will.

Mr. Rockharrt had not as yet said one word to his family concerning his intended trip to Europe, although he had been thinking of it, and laying his plans, and making his arrangements, preparatory to the voyage, all the winter.

So it was with amazement that Cora first heard of the matter from Rule Rothsay, who came to her to report the result of his last attempt to gain the consent of the old gentleman to his marriage with the granddaughter.

A few days later the family despot announced to his subjects that he should start for Europe in two weeks, taking his wife and granddaughter with him, and leaving his two sons in charge of the works.

Active preparations went on for the voyage. Mr. Rockharrt went every day to the works to lay out plans for the summer to be completed during his absence.

Mrs. Rockharrt and Cora had few arrangements to make, for the autocrat had warned them that they were to take only sufficient for the voyage, as they could buy whatever they needed on the other side.

A few days before they left Rockhold, Rule Rothsay came uninvited to visit his beloved Cora.

Mr. Rockharrt happened to be the first to see him, and received him well.

When they were seated, Rule said:

"You refused to allow me to marry your granddaughter at present, and—"

"Now begin all that over again, Rothsay. I said that in two years you can marry her and take her fortune, if you both choose, whether I like it or not. That is all."

"Do you, however, sanction our engagement, Mr. Rockharrt? Shall your granddaughter and myself be betrothed, openly betrothed, so that all may know our mutual relations, before the ocean divides us? That is what I would know now. That is what I have come down here to ask."

The old man ruminated for a few moments, and then answered:

"Well, yes; you may be, with the understanding that you will wait to marry for two years longer. These two years will be a probation to both. If you fulfill the promise of your youth, and rise to the position that you can, if you will, attain, and if you remain faithful to her, and if she remains true to you, you may then marry. With all my heart I shall wish you well. But if either of you fail in truth and fidelity, the defaulting one, whether it be you or she, shall never look me in the face again," concluded the Iron King.

Rule's eyes lighted up with the fire of love and faith. He seized the hand of the old man and shook it warmly, saying:

"You have made me very happy by your words, Mr. Rockharrt, and I assure you, by all my hopes on earth or in heaven, that whatever may change in time or eternity, my heart will never vary a hair's breadth from its fidelity to its queen."

"I believe you, or rather I believe you think so."

A kind impulse, a rare one, moved the old man. Perhaps he reflected that these two young people might, have defied him and married without his consent had they pleased to do so; but they had submitted themselves to his will, and as his favorite motto told him that "Government is maintained by reward and punishment," he may have reasoned that this was an occasion for reward. So he said to the young man, who had risen, and was standing before him:

"Rothsay, we shall leave here for New York on Tuesday, to sail by the Saturday's steamer for Liverpool. If your engagements admit of it, and if you would like to spend the intervening time near Cora, we should be pleased to have you stay here."

Rule spent three happy days at Rockhold, and in the evening of the third day, the evening before they were to leave for Europe, he asked Mr. Rockharrt if he might have the privilege of attending the travelers to the seaport, and seeing them off by the steamer.

The Iron King found no objection to this plan. Mrs. Rockharrt was pleased, and Cora was delighted with it.

Accordingly, on the next morning, they left Rockhold for New York, where they arrived on the evening of the next day.

And on Saturday morning they went on board the steamer Persia, bound for Liverpool.

They bade good-by to Regulas Rothsay, on the deck, at the last moment.

The signal gun was fired, and our party sailed away to a new life, in which the faith of a woman was to be tempted and lost, and the career of a man was to be wrecked.

It was in the third year of their absence that they returned from the Continent to England. They reached London in February, in time to see the grand pageant of the queen opening parliament. After which they attended the first royal drawing room of the season, on which occasion Mrs. Rockharrt and Miss Haught were presented to her Majesty by the wife of the American minister.

Cora Haught was a new beauty and a new social sensation. She was, indeed, more beautiful than she had been when she left America. A richly colored Southern brunette was unique among British blondes. It was for this, perhaps, she was so much admired.

Moreover, she was reported to be the only descendant of her grandfather and the sole heiress of his fabulous wealth.

There was at this time another debutant in society, a young man, the Duke of Cumbervale, who had lately reached his majority and come into his estates, or what was left of them—an ancient castle and a few barren acres in Northumberland, an old hall and a few acres in Sussex, and a town house in London; but his title was an historical one. His person was handsome, his manners attractive, and his mind highly cultivated.

Cora met him first at the queen's drawing room, and afterward at every ball and party to which she went.

It was, perhaps, natural—very natural—that the handsome blonde man should be attracted by the beautiful brunette woman, without thought of the supposed fortune that might have redeemed his mortgaged estates and supported his distinguished title. But why should the betrothed of Regulas Rothsay have been fascinated by this elegant English aristocrat?

Surely no two men were ever more diametrically opposite than the American printer and the English duke.

Regulas Rothsay was tall, muscular, and robust, with large feet and hands, inherited from many generations of hard-working forefathers. His movements were clumsy; his manners were awkward, except when he was inspired by some grand thought or tender sympathy, when his whole person and appearance became transfigured. His sole enduring charms were his beautiful eyes and melodious voice.

The Duke of Cumbervale was slight and elegant in form, with small, perfectly shaped hands and feet—derived from a long line of idle and useless ancestors—finely cut Grecian profile, pure, clear, white skin, fine, silken, pale yellow hair and mustache, calm blue eyes, graceful movements, and refined manners.

Regulas Rothsay was a man of the people, who did not know any ancestry behind his laboring father, who could not have told the names of his grandparents.

The Duke of Cumbervale was descended from eight generations of noblemen.

Cora Haught saw and felt this contrast between the two men, so opposite in birth, rank, person, manner, character, and cultivation.

Not all at once could she become an apostate to her faith, pledged to Rule. But, in truth, she had always loved him more as a sister loves a dear brother than as a maiden loves her betrothed husband. She had not seen him for three years. And she had seen so much since they had parted! In truth, his image had grown dim in her imagination.

She wrote to him briefly from London that her engagements were so numerous as to preclude the possibility of her writing much, but that at the end of the London season they expected to return home. This was before she had—

"Foregathered with the de'il,"

in the shape of the handsome, eloquent, and fascinating Duke of Cumbervale.

Afterward a strange madness had seized her; a sudden revulsion of feeling, amounting almost to repugnance, against the rugged man of the people who had hewn out his own fortune, and who looked, she thought, more like a backwoodsman than a gentleman. Yes; it was madness—such madness as is sometimes the wreck of families.

The duke grew daily more impressive in his attentions, and Cora more delighted to receive them. So the season went on. People began to connect the names of the Duke of Cumbervale and the beautiful American heiress.

Just about this time old Aaron Rockharrt walked into the breakfast room of their apartments at Langham's with an American newspaper, which had just come by the morning's mail, in his hands.

"Here is news!" he said. "Rothsay has been nominated as governor of ----! But perhaps this is no news to you, Cora. You may have received a letter?" he added, turning to his granddaughter.

"I had a letter from Mr. Rothsay yesterday, but he said nothing on the subject," replied the girl somewhat coldly.

"Well, if he should be elected—and I really believe he will be, for he is the most popular man in the State—I shall throw no obstacles in the way of your immediate marriage with him. You have been engaged long enough—long enough! We shall set out for home on the first of next month, and so be in full time for the election."

Cora did not reply. She grew pale and cold.

The Iron King looked at his granddaughter, bending his gray brows over keenly penetrating eyes.

"See here, mistress!" he said. "You don't seem to rejoice in this news. What is the matter with you? Have any of these English foplings and lordlings, with more peers in their pedigrees than pennies in their pockets, turned your head? If so, it is time for me to take you home."

Cora did not reply. Only the night before, at the ball given by the Marchioness of Netherby, the Duke of Cumbervale had proposed to her, and had been referred to her grandfather. He was coming that very morning to ask the hand of the supposed heiress of the Iron King. Cora was that very day intending to write to Rule and tell him the whole truth, and ask him to release her from her engagement; and she knew full well that he would have no alternative but to grant her request.

"Why do you not answer me, Corona? What is the matter with you?" again demanded old Aaron Rockharrt.

But at that moment a waiter entered, and laid a card on the table before the old gentleman. He took it up and read:

The Duke of Cumbervale.

"What in the deuce does the young fellow want of me? Show him into the parlor, William, and say that I will be with him in a few minutes."

The waiter left the room to do his errand, and was soon followed by Mr. Rockharrt, who found the young duke pacing rather restlessly up and down the room.

"Good morning, sir," said old Aaron, with stiff politeness.

The visitor turned and saluted his host.

"Will you not be seated?" said Mr. Rockharrt, waving his hand toward sofa and chairs.

The visitor bowed and sat down. The host took another chair and waited. There was silence for a short time. The old man seemed expectant, the young man embarrassed. At length, when the latter opened his mouth and spoke, no pearls and diamonds of wisdom and goodness dropped from his lips; he said:

"It is a fine day."

"Yes, yes," admitted the Iron King, taking his hands from his knees, and drawing himself up with the sigh of a man badly bored—"for London. We wouldn't call this a fine day in America. But I have heard it said that it is always a fine day in England when it don't pour."

"Yes," admitted the visitor; and then he driveled into the most inane talk about climates, for you see this was the first time the poor young fellow had ever ventured to

"Beard the lion in his den,"

so to speak, by asking: a stern old gentleman for a daughter's hand, and this Iron King was a very formidable-looking beast indeed.

At length, Mr. Rockharrt, feeling sure that his visitor had come upon business—though he did not know of what sort—said:

"I think, sir, that you are here upon some affairs. If it is about railway shares—"

The old man was stopped short by the surprised and insolent stare of the young duke.

"I know nothing of railway shares, sir," he answered.

"Oh, you don't! Well, I did not think you did. In what other way can I oblige you?"

Indignation generally deprives a man of self-possession, but on this occasion it restored that of the embarrassed lover. Feeling that he—the descendant of a dozen dukes, whose ancestors had "come over with William the Conqueror," had served in Palestine under King Richard, had compelled King John to sign the Magna Charta, had gained glory in every generation—was about to do this rude, purse-proud old tradesman the greatest honor in asking of him his granddaughter in marriage, he said, somewhat coldly:

"Miss Haught has made me happy in the hope of her acceptance of my hand, pending your approval, and has referred me to you."

The Iron King stared at the speaker for a moment, and then said, quite calmly:

"Please to repeat that all over again, slowly and distinctly."

The duke flushed to the edges of his hair, but he repeated his proposal in plain words.

"You have asked Cora Haught to marry you?" demanded the Iron King.

"Yes, sir."

"What did she say?"

"She did me the honor to give me some hope, and she referred me to you, as I have already explained."

"I don't believe it!" blurted the old man.

"Sir!" said the duke, in a low voice.

"I don't believe it! What! My granddaughter—mine—break her faith and wish to marry some one else?"

"Mr. Rockharrt," began the duke, in a smooth tone—though his blood was hot with anger—"I am sorry you should so forget the—"

"I forget nothing. I remember that you charge my granddaughter—mine—with unfaithfulness! It is an insult, sir!"

"Really, Mr. Rockharrt, I do not understand you."

"I don't suppose you do! I never gave your order much credit for intelligence."

Is this old ruffian mad or drunk? was the secret question of the duke, whose tone and manner, always calm and polite, grew even calmer and more polite as the Iron King grew more sarcastic and insulting.

"I would suggest that you speak to Miss Haught on this subject, that she may confirm my statement," he said.

"I shall do nothing of the kind! I shall not entertain for an instant the thought of the possibility of my granddaughter breaking her plighted faith."

"I never knew that she was engaged. May I ask the name of the happy man?"

"Regulas Rothsay; he is not a duke; he is a printer; also a senator, and nominated for governor of his native State; sure to be elected, and then he is to marry my granddaughter, who has been engaged to him many years."

"But Miss Haught certainly authorized me to ask her hand of you."

When did this extraordinary acceptance take place?"

"Yesterday evening, at Lady Netherby's ball."

"After supper?"

"After supper."

"That accounts for it! You took too much wine, and misunderstood my granddaughter's reply She must have referred you to me for an explanation of her engagement, and consequent inability to entertain any other man's proposal. That was it!"

"May I refer you to Miss Haught for confirmation of my words?"

"I say, as I said before, no."

"May I see the young lady herself?"

"No; but I will tell you something that may console you under your disappointment. I have seen in several of your papers, in the society columns, my granddaughter referred to as my sole heiress. I do not know who is responsible for these reports, but you may have believed them, though there is not a word of truth in them. My granddaughter is not my sole heiress; not my heiress in the slightest degree. I have two stalwart sons, partners in my business, both now in charge of the works at North End, Cumberland mountains, and managing them extremely well, else I could not be taking a long holiday here. These sons are heirs to all my property. Nor is my granddaughter the heiress of her late father. She has a brother, now a cadet at our military academy at West Point. He inherits the bulk of his father's estate. My granddaughter's fortune is, therefore, very moderate—quite beneath the consideration of an English nobleman," concluded the old man, very grimly.

The young duke heard him out, and then answered;

"I trust, sir, that you will credit me with better motives in seeking the hand of the young lady. It was her charm of person and of mind that attracted me to her."

"Of course, of course; but, my dear duke, there is a plenty of sole heiresses among the wealthy trades-people of London who would be proud to buy a title with a fortune. Let me advise you to strike a bargain with one of them. Now, as I have pressing business on hand, you will excuse me."

The young duke arose, with a bow, and left the room, muttering to himself: "What an unmitigated beast that old man is! I do like the girl; she is a beautiful creature, but—I am well out of it after all."

Old Aaron Rockharrt made no false pretense of business to get rid of his unwelcome visitor; he never made false pretense of any sort for any purpose. He had pressing business on hand, though it was business which had suddenly arisen during his interview with the duke, and had in fact come out of it. No sooner had the young man left the house than the Iron King went to the agency of the Cunard line, and secured staterooms for himself and party in the Asia, that was to sail on the following Saturday from Liverpool for New York.

When he re-entered his parlor at the Langham, he found his wife and Cora seated there, the girl reading the Court Journal to her grandmother.

"Put that tomfoolery down, Cora, and listen to me, both of you! This is Wednesday. We leave London for Liverpool on Friday morning, and sail from Liverpool for New York on Saturday. So you sent that man to me, mistress?"

"Yes, sir," without looking up.

"For my consent to a marriage with him!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then the fellow did not mistake your meaning! Cora Haught! I could not have believed that any girl who had any of my blood in her veins could be guilty of such black treachery as to break faith with her betrothed husband, and wish to marry another, just for the snobbish ambition to be a duchess and be called 'her grace'!" said the Iron King, with all the sardonic scorn and hatred of any form of falsehood that was the one redeeming trait in his hard and cruel nature.

"Grandpa, it was not so! Indeed, it was not! Oh, consider! I had known Rule Rothsay from my childhood, and loved him with the affection a sister gives a brother; I knew of no other love, and so I mistook it for the love surpassing all others that a betrothed maiden should give her betrothed. But when I met Cumbervale and he wooed me, I loved truly for the first time! loved, as he loves me!" she concluded, with trembling lips and downcast eyes and flushed cheeks.

"Stuff and nonsense! Don't talk to me about love or any such sentimental trash! I am talking of good faith between man and woman—words of which you don't seem to know the meaning!"

"Oh, grandpa! yes, I do! But would it be good faith in me to marry Rule Rothsay, when I love Cumbervale?"

"It would be good faith to keep your word, irrespective of your feelings, and bad faith to break it in consideration of your feelings! But you are too false to know this!"

"Oh, sir! pray do not set your face against my marriage with Cumbervale, or insist on my marrying Rule! It would not be for Rule's good," pleaded Cora.

"No; Heaven knows it would not be for his good! It had been better for Rothsay that he had been blown up in the explosion that killed his father, than that he had ever set eyes on your false face! But you have given him your word, and you must keep it, or never look me in the face again! You shall be married as soon as we reach Rockhold."

Cora raised her tearful face from her hands, and looked astonished and wretched.

"Oh, you may gaze, but it is true. The fortune hunter has discovered that he is on a false scent. There is no fortune on the trail. I told him everything about you. I told him that you were not my heiress at all, because I had two sons who would inherit all my property; that you were not even your father's heiress, because you had a brother who would inherit the larger portion of his; that, in point of fact, you were only moderately provided for. He was startled, I assure you. I also told him that for years you had been engaged to a young printer in your native country, who would probably be the next governor of his native State. He bowed himself out. I engaged our passage to New York by the Saturday's steamer. You will never see the little dandy again. He was after a fortune, and finding that you have none, he has forsaken you—and served you right, for a base, treacherous, and contemptible woman, unworthy even of his regard; for you are much lower in every way than he is, for while he was seeking a fortune and you were seeking a title, you were concealing from him the fact of your engagement to Rule Rothsay. You were doubly false to Rule and to Cumbervale. Oh, Cora Haught! Cora Haught! Are you not ashamed of yourself! Ashamed to look any honest man or woman in the face! Ah! you do well to hide yours!" he concluded, for Cora had lost all self-control, dropped her head upon her hands, and burst into hysterical sobs and tears.

Did you ever see a small bantam hen ruffle up all her feathers in angry defense of her chick? So did poor little, timid Mrs. Rockharrt in protection of her pet. She ventured to expostulate with her tyrant for, perhaps, the first time in their married life.

"Oh, Aaron, do not scold the child so severely. She is but human. She has only been dazzled and fascinated by the young duke's rank, and beauty, and elegance. She could not help it, being thrown in his company so much. And you know they say that half the girls in London society are in love with the handsome duke. We will take her home, and she will come all right, and be our own, dear, faithful Cora again, and—"

Old Aaron Rockharrt, who had gazed at his wife in speechless astonishment at her audacity in reasoning with him, now burst forth with:

"Hold your jaw, madam," and strode out of the room.

A minute later a waiter came in and laid a note on the table before Cora and immediately withdrew.

Cora took the missive, recognized the handwriting and seal, tore it open and eagerly ran her eyes along the lines. This was the note:

Cumbervale Lodge, London,
May, 1, 18—

Miss Haught: For my indiscretion of last evening I owe you an humble apology, which I beg you to accept with this explanation, that, had I known, or even suspected, that your hand was already promised in another quarter, I should never have presumed to propose for it. I beg now to withdraw such a false step.

Accept my best wishes for your happiness in a union with the more fortunate man of your choice, and believe me to be now and ever,

Your obedient servant,

Cumbervale.

Scarcely had Cora's eyes fallen from the paper when Lady Pendragon's carriage drove up to the door.

Glad of the interruption that enabled her to escape from the parlor, and give way to the passion and grief and despair that were swelling her heart to breaking, Cora hastened to her bed chamber and threw herself down upon the couch in a paroxysm of sobs and tears.

Mrs. Rockharrt waited in the parlor to receive the visitor, but no visitor came up. Only two cards were left for the two ladies, and then the Countess of Pendragon rolled away in her carriage.

On Friday morning the Rockharrts left London. And on Saturday morning they sailed from Liverpool. After a prosperous voyage of ten days they landed at New York.

"My soul! there is Rothsay on the pier, waving his hand to us!" exclaimed the Iron King, as he led his little wife down the gang plank, while Cora came on behind them.

Yes; there was Rule, his tall figure towering above the crowd on the pier, his rugged face beaming with delight, his hand waving welcome to the returning voyagers. He received his friends as they stepped upon the pier. He shook hands warmly with Mrs. Rockharrt, heartily with the Iron King, and then, behind them, with Cora, and before Cora knew what was coming she was folded in the arms and to the faithful breast of her life-long lover—only for a moment; and then he drew her arm within his own and led her on after the elder couple, whispering:

"Dear, this is the happiest day I have ever seen as yet, but a happier one is coming—soon, I hope. Dear, how soon shall it be?"

"You must ask my grandparents, Rule. Their judgment and their convenience must be consulted," she answered in a low, steady tone.

She had no thought now of breaking her engagement with Rule, though her heart seemed breaking. She still loved that rugged man with the sisterly affection she had always felt for him, and which, in her ignorance of life and self, she had mistaken for a warmer sentiment, and resolved, in wedding him, to do her whole duty by him for so long as she should live, and she hoped and believed that that would not be very long.

Rothsay led the way to a carriage. When all were seated in this, the old man leant toward the young one, and said:

"Well, I haven't had a chance to ask you yet. The election is over. How did it go? Who is their man?"

"They chose me," answered Rothsay, simply.

Cora Haught's bosom was wrung by hopeless passion and piercing remorse.

Yet she tried to do her whole duty.

"If it craze or kill me I will wed Rule, and he shall never know what it costs me to keep my word," she said to herself, as she lay sleepless and restless in her bed on the night before her wedding morn. "Yes; I will do my duty and keep my secret even unto death."

"'Even unto death!' but unto whose death?" whispered a voice close to her ear—a voice clear, distinct, penetrating.

Cora started and opened her eyes. No one was near her. She sat up in bed, and looked around the apartment. The night taper, standing on the hearth, burned low. The dimly lighted room was vacant of any human being except herself.

"I have been dreaming," she said, and she laid down and tried to compose herself to sleep again. In vain! Memories of the near past, dread of the nearer future, contended in her soul, filling her with discord. When Cora arose on her wedding morning, she said to herself:

"Yes, this day I am going to marry Rule, dear, loving, faithful, hard-working, self-denying Rule! A monarch among men, if greatness of soul could make a monarch. In that sense no woman, peeress or princess, ever made a prouder match. May Heaven make me worthier of him! May Heaven help me to be a true, good wife to him!"

She said these words to herself, but oh! oh! how she shuddered as she breathed them, and how she reproached herself for such shuddering! The girl's whole nature was at war with itself. Yet through all the terrible interior strife she kept her firm determination to be faithful to Rule; to go through the ordeal before her, even though it should cost her life or reason.

The external circumstances of this wedding were given in the first chapter, and need not be repeated here.

My readers may remember the marble-like stillness of the bride as she sat in her bridal robes, looking out from the front window of her chamber on the bright and festive scene below, where all the work people from the mines and foundries were assembled; they will remember how she shivered when she was summoned with her bridesmaids to meet her bridegroom and his attendants in the hall below; how when she met him at the foot of the stairs she shrank from his greeting—emotion in which he in his simple, loyal soul saw no repugnance, but only maiden reserve to be reverenced, as he drew her arm within his own to lead her before the bishop; how she faltered during the whole of the marriage ceremony; how like a woman in a trance she passed through the scenes of the wedding breakfast and those that immediately followed it; how in her own room, where she went to change her wedding dress for a traveling suit, and whither her gentle old grandmother had followed her for a private parting, she had answered the old lady's anxious question as to whether she was "happy," first by silence and then by muttering that her heart was too full for speech; how when the bridegroom and the bride had taken leave of all their friends at Rockhold, and were seated tete-a-tete in their traveling carriage, bowling along the river road, at the base of the East Ridge toward the North End railway station, when he passed his arm around her and drew her to his heart and murmured of his love and his joy in her ear, and pleaded for some response from her, she had only said that her heart was too full for speech, and he in his confiding spirit had perceived no evasion in her reply, but thought, if her heart was full, it was with responsive love for him.

My readers will recollect the railway journey to the State capital; the procession through the decorated streets between the crowded sidewalks from the railway station to the town house of Mr. Rockharrt, which had been placed at the disposal of the governor-elect for the interval between his arrival in the State capital and his inauguration.

The committee of reception escorted them to the gates of the Rockharrt mansion and left them at the door. There we also left them, in the second chapter of this story—and there we return to them in this place.

CHAPTER V.

THE GREAT RENUNCIATION.

When the governor-elect and his bride entered the Rockharrt town house, they were received by a group of obsequious servants, headed by Jason, the butler, and Jane, the housekeeper, and among whom stood Martha, lady's maid to the new Mrs. Rothsay.

"Will you come into the drawing room and rest, dear, before going upstairs?" inquired Mr. Rothsay of his bride, as they stood together in the front hall.

"No, thank you. I will go to my room. Come, Martha!" said the bride, and she went up stairs, followed by her maid.

Rule stood where she had so hastily left him, in the hall, looking so much at a loss that presently Jason volunteered to say:

"Shall I show you to your apartment, sir?"

"Yes," answered Mr. Rothsay. And he followed the servant up stairs to a large and handsomely furnished bed chamber, having a dressing room attached.

Jason lighted the wax candles on the dressing table and on the mantel piece, and then inquired:

"Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?"

"No," replied Mr. Rothsay.

And the servant retired.

Rothsay was alone in the room. He had never set up a valet; he had always waited on himself. Now, however, he was again at a loss. He was covered with railway dust and smoke, yet he saw no conveniences for ablution.

While he stood there, a shout arose in the street outside. A single voice raised the cheer:

"Hoo—rah—ah—ah for Rothsay!"

He went to the front window of the room. The sashes were hoisted, for the night was warm; but the shutters were closed. He turned the slats a little and looked down on the square below. It was filled with pedestrians, and every window of every house in sight was illuminated. When the shouts had died away, he heard voices in the room. He was himself accidentally concealed by the window curtains. He looked around and saw his bride emerge from the dressing room, attired in an elegant dinner costume of rich maize-colored satin and black lace, with crocuses in her superb black hair. She passed through the room without having seen him, and went down stairs followed by her maid.

He saw the door of the dressing room standing open and went into it. It was no mere closet, but a large, well lighted and convenient apartment, furnished with every possible appurtenance for the toilet. Here he found his trunk, his valise, his dressing case, all unpacked—his brushes and combs laid out in order, his dinner suit hung over a rack—every requirement of his toilet in complete readiness as if prepared by an experienced valet. All this he had been accustomed to do, and expected to do, for himself. Who had served him? Had Corona and her maid? Impossible!

He quickly made a refreshing evening toilet and went down stairs, for he was eager to rejoin his bride. He found her in the drawing room; but scarcely had he seated himself at her side when the door was opened and dinner announced by Jason.

They both arose; he gave her his arm, and they followed the solemn butler to the dining room, which was on the opposite side of the front hall and in the rear of the library.

An elegant tete-a-tete dinner but for the presence of the old butler and one young footman who waited on them.

They did not linger long at table, but soon left it and returned together to the drawing room.

They had scarcely seated themselves when the door bell rang, and in a few moments afterward a card was brought in and handed to Mr. Rothsay, who took it and read:

A.B. Crawford.

"Show the judge into the library and say that I will be with him in a few moments," he said to the servant.

"He is one of the judges of the supreme court of the State, dear, and I must go to him. I hope he will not keep me long," said Mr. Rothsay, as he raised the hand of his bride to his lips and then left the room.

With a sigh of intense relief Cora leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

People have been known to die suddenly in their chairs. Why could not she die as she sat there, with her whole head heavy and her whole heart faint, she thought.

She listened—fearfully—for the return of her husband, but he did not come as soon as he had hoped to do; for while she listened the door bell rang again, and another visitor made his appearance, and after a short delay was shown into the library.

Then came another, and still another, and afterward others, until the library must have been half full of callers on the governor-elect.

And presently a large band of musicians halted before the house and began a serenade. They played and sang "Hail to the Chief," "Yankee Doodle," "Hail Columbia," and other popular or national airs.

Mr. Rothsay and his friends went out to see them and thank them, and then their shouts rent the air as they retired from the scene.

The gentlemen re-entered the house and retired to the library, where they resumed their discussion of official business, until another multitude had gathered before the house and shouts of—

"Hoo-rah-ah ah for Rothsay!" rose to the empyrean.

Neither the governor-elect nor his companions responded in any way to this compliment until loud, disorderly cries for—

"Rothsay!"

"Rothsay!"

"Rothsay!"

constrained them to appear.

The governor-elect was again greeted with thundering cheers. When silence was restored he made a short, pithy address, which was received with rounds of applause at the close of every paragraph.

When the speech was finished, he bowed and withdrew, and the crowd, with a final cheer, dispersed.

Mr. Rothsay retired once more to the library, accompanied by his friends, to renew their discussion.

Cora, in her restlessness of spirit, arose from her seat and walked several times up and down the floor.

Presently, weary of walking, and attracted by the coolness and darkness of the back drawing room, in which the chandeliers had not been lighted, she passed between the draped blue satin portieres that divided it from the front room and entered the apartment.

The French windows stood open upon a richly stored flower garden, from which the refreshing fragrance of dewy roses, lilies, violets, cape jasmines, and other aromatic plants was wafted by the westerly breeze.

Cora seated herself upon the sofa between the two low French windows, and waited.

Presently she heard the visitors taking leave.

"The committee will wait on you between ten and eleven to-morrow morning," she heard one gentleman say, as they passed out.

Then several "good nights" were uttered, and the guests all departed, and the door was closed.

Cora heard her husband's quick, eager step as he hurried into the front drawing room, seeking his wife.

She felt her heart sinking, the high nervous tension of her whole frame relaxing. She heard the hall clock strike ten. When the last stroke died away, she heard her husband's voice calling, softly:

"Cora, love, wife, where are you?"

She could bear no more. The overtasked heart gave way.

When, the next instant, the eager bridegroom pushed aside the satin portieres and entered the apartment, with a flood of light from the room in front, he found his bride had thrown herself down on the Persian rug before the sofa in the wildest anguish and despair and in a paroxysm of passionate sobs and tears.

What a sight to meet a newly-made, adoring husband's eyes on his marriage evening and on the eve of the day of his highest triumph, in love as in ambition!

For one petrified moment he gazed on her, too much amazed to utter a word.

Then suddenly he stooped, raised her as lightly as if she had been a baby, and laid her on the sofa.

"Cora—love—wife! Oh! what is this?" he cried, bending over her.

She did not answer; she could not, for choking sobs and drowning tears.

He knelt beside her, and took her hand, and bent his face to hers, and murmured:

"Oh, my love! my wife! what troubles you?"

She wrenched her hand from his, turned her face from him, buried her head in the cushions of the sofa, and gave way to a fresh storm of anguish.

When she repulsed him in this spasmodic manner, he recoiled as a man might do who had received a sudden blow; but he did not rise from his position, but watched beside her sofa, in great distress of mind, patiently waiting for her to speak and explain.

Gradually her tempest of emotion seemed to be raging itself into the rest of exhaustion. Her sobs and tears grew fainter and fewer; and presently after that she drew out her handkerchief, and raised herself to a sitting position, and began to wipe her wet and tear-stained face and eyes. Though her tears and sobs had ceased, still her bosom heaved convulsively.

He arose and seated himself beside her, put his arm around her, and drew her beautiful black, curled head upon his faithful breast, and bending his face to hers, entreated her to tell him the cause of her grief.

"What is it, dear one? Have you had bad news? A telegram from Rockhold? Either of the old people had a stroke? Tell me, dear?"

"Nothing—has—happened," she answered, giving each word with a gasp.

"Then what troubles you, dear? Tell me, wife! tell me! I am your husband!" he whispered, smoothing her black hair, and gazing with infinite tenderness on her troubled face.

"Oh, Rule! Rule! Rule!" she moaned, closing her eyes, that could not bear his gaze.

"Tell me, dear," he murmured, gently, continuing to stroke her hair.

"I am—nervous—Rule," she breathed. "I shall get over it—presently. Give me—a little time," she gasped.

"Nervous?" He gazed down on her woe-writhen face, with its closed eyes that would not meet his own. Yes, doubtless she was nervous—very nervous—but she was more than that. Mere nervousness never blanched a woman's face, wrung her features or convulsed her form like this.

"Cora, look at me, dear. There is something I have to say to you."

She forced herself to lift her eyelids and meet the honest, truthful eyes that looked down into hers.

"Cora," he said, with a certain grave yet sweet tone of authority, "there is some great burden on your mind, dear—a burden too heavy for you to bear alone."

"Oh, it is! it is! it is!" she wailed, as if the words had broken from her without her knowledge.

"Then let me share it," he pleaded.

"Oh, Rule! Rule! Rule!" she wailed, dropping her head upon his breast.

"Is your trouble so bitter, dear? What is it, Cora? It can be nothing that I may not share and relieve. Tell me, dear."

"Oh, Rule, bear with me! I did not wish to distress you with my folly, my madness. Do not mind it, Rule. It will pass away. Indeed, it will. I will do my duty by you. I will be a true wife to you, after all. Only do not disturb your own righteous spirit about me, do not notice my moods; and give me time. I shall come all right. I shall be to you—all that you wish me to be. But, for the Lord's love, Rule, give me time!" she pleaded, with voice and eyes so full of woe that the man's heart sank in his bosom.

He grew pale and withdrew his arm from her neck. She lifted her head from his breast then and leaned back in the corner of the sofa. She trembled with fear now, lest she had betrayed her secret, which she had resolved to keep for his own sake. She looked and waited for his words. He was very still, pale and grave. Presently he spoke very gently to the grieving woman.

"Dear, you have said too much and too little. Tell me all now, Cora. It is best that you should, dear."

"Rule! oh, Rule! must I? must I?" she pleaded, wringing her hands.

"Yes, Cora; it is best, dear."

"Oh, I would have borne anything to have spared you this. But—I betrayed myself. Oh, Rule, please try to forget what you have seen and heard. Bear with me for a little while. Give me some little time to get over this, and you shall see how truly I will do my duty—how earnestly I will try to make you happy," she prayed.

"I know, dear—I know you will be a good, dear wife, and a dearly loved and fondly cherished wife. But begin, dear, by giving me your confidence. There can be no real union without confidence between husband and wife, my Cora. Surely, you may trust me, dear," he said, with serious tenderness.

"Yes; I can trust you. I will trust you with all, through all, Rule. You are wise and good. You will forgive me and help me to do right." She spoke so wildly and so excitedly that he laid his hand tenderly, soothingly, on her head, and begged her to be calm and to confide in him without hesitation.

Then she told him all.

What a story for a newly-married husband to hear from his wife on the evening of their wedding day!

He listened in silence, and without moving a muscle of his face or form. When he had heard all he arose from the sofa, stood up, then reeled to an arm chair near at hand and dropped heavily into it, his huge, stalwart frame as weak from sudden faintness as that of an infant.

"Oh, Rule! Rule! your anger is just! It is just!" cried Cora, wringing her hands in despair.

He looked at her in great trouble, but his beautiful eyes expressed only the most painful compassion. He could not answer her. He could not trust himself to speak yet. His breast was heaving, working tumultuously. His tawny-bearded chin was quivering. He shut his lips firmly together, and tried to still the convulsion of his frame.

"Oh, Rule, be angry with me, blame me, reproach me, for I am to blame—bitterly, bitterly to blame. But do not hate me, for I love you, Rule, with a sister's love. And forgive me, Rule—not just now, for that would be impossible, perhaps. But, oh! do forgive me after a while, Rule, for I do repent—oh, I do repent that treason of the heart—that treason against one so worthy of the truest love and honor which woman gives to man. You will forgive me—after a while—after a—probation?"

She paused and looked wistfully at his grave, pained, patient face.

He could not yet answer her.

"Oh, if you will give me time, Rule, I will—I will banish every thought, every memory of my—my—my season in London, and will devote myself to you with all my heart and soul. No man ever had, or ever could have, a more devoted wife than I will be to you, if you will only trust me and be happy, Rule. Oh!" she suddenly burst forth, seeing that he did not reply to her, "you are bitterly angry with me. You hate me. You cannot forgive me. You blame me without mercy. And you are right. You are right."

Now he forced himself to speak, though in a low and broken voice.

"Angry? With you, Cora? No, dear, no."

"You blame me, though. You must blame me," she sobbed.

"Blame you? No, dear. You have not been to blame," he faltered, faintly, for he was an almost mortally wounded man.

"Ah! what do you mean? Why do you speak to me so kindly, so gently? I could bear your anger, your reproaches, Rule, better than this tenderness, that breaks my heart with shame and remorse!" cried Cora, bursting into a passion of sobs and tears.

He did not come near her to take her in his arms and comfort her as before. A gulf had opened between them which he felt that he could not pass, but he spoke to her very gently and compassionately.

"Do not grieve so bitterly, dear," he said. "Do not accuse yourself so unjustly. You have done no wrong to me, or to any human being. You have done nothing but good to me, and to every human being in your reach. To me you have been more than tongue can tell—my first friend, my muse, my angel, my inspiration to all that is best, greatest, highest in human life—the goal of all my earthly, all my heavenly aspirations. That I should love you with a pure, single, ardent passion of enthusiasm was natural, was inevitable. But that you, dear, should mistake your feelings toward me, mistake sisterly affection, womanly sympathy, intellectual appreciation, for that living fire of eternal love which only should unite man and woman, was natural, too, though most unfortunate. I am not fair to look upon, Cora. I have no form, no comeliness, that any one should—"

He was suddenly interrupted by the girl, who sprang from her seat and sank at his feet, clasped his knees, and dropped her head upon his hands in a tempest of sobs and tears, crying:

"Oh, Rule! I never did deserve your love! I never was worthy of you! And I long have known it. But I do love you! I do love you! Oh, give me time and opportunity to prove it!" she pleaded, with many tears, saying the same words over and over again, or words with the same meaning.

He laid both his large hands softly on her bowed head and held them there with a soothing, quieting, mesmeric touch, until she had sobbed, and cried, and talked herself into silence, and then he said:

"No, Cora! No, dear! You are good and true to the depths of your soul; but you deceive yourself. You do not love me. It is not your fault. You cannot do so! You pity, you esteem, you appreciate; and you mistake these sentiments as you mistook sisterly affection for such love as only should sanctify the union of man and woman."

"But I will, Rule. I will love you even so! Give me time! A little time! I am your own," she pleaded.

"No, dear, no. I am sure that you would do your best, at any cost to yourself. You would consecrate your life to one whom yet you do not love, because you cannot love. But the sacrifice is too great, dear—a sacrifice which no woman should ever make for any cause, which no man should ever accept under any circumstances. You must not immolate yourself on my unworthy shrine, Cora."

"Oh, Rule! What do you mean? You frighten me! What do you intend to do?" exclaimed Cora, with a new fear in her heart.

"I will tell you later, dear, when we are both quieter. And, Cora, promise me one thing—for your own sake, dear."

"I will promise you anything you wish, Rule. And be glad to do so. Glad to do anything that will please you," she earnestly assured him.

"Then promise that whatever may happen, you will never tell any human being what you have told me to-night."

"I promise this on my honor, Rule."

"Promise that you will never repeat one word of this interview between us to any living being."

"I promise this, also, on my honor, Rule."

"That is all I ask, and it is exacted for your own sake, dear. The fair name of a woman is so white and pure that the smallest speck can be seen upon it. And now, dear, it is nearly eleven o'clock. Will you ring for your maid and go to your room? I have letters to write—in the library—which, I think, will occupy me the whole night," he said, as he took her hand and gently raised her to her feet.

At that moment a servant entered, bringing a card.

Mr. Rothsay took it toward the portiere and read it by the light of the chandelier in the front room.

"Show the gentleman to the library, and say that I will be with him in a few minutes," said Rothsay.

"If you please, sir, the lights are out and the library locked. I did not know that it would be wanted again to-night. But I will light up, sir."

"Wax candles? It would take too long. Show the gentleman into this front room," said the governor-elect.

The servant went to do his bidding.

Then Rothsay turned to Cora, saying:

"I must see this man, dear, late as it is! I will bid you good night now. God bless you, dear."

And without even a farewell kiss, Rothsay passed out.

And Cora did not know that he had gone for good.

She rang for her maid and retired to her room, there to pass a sleepless, anxious, remorseful night.

What would be the result of her confession to her husband? She dared not to conjecture.

He had been gentle, tender, most considerate, and most charitable to her weakness, never speaking of his own wrongs, never reproaching her for inconstancy.

He had said, in effect, that he would come to an understanding with her later, when they both should be stronger.

When would that be? To-morrow?

Scarcely, for the ceremonies of the coming day must occupy every moment of his time.

And what, eventually, would he do?

His words, divinely compassionate as they had been, had shadowed forth a separation between them. Had he not told her that to be the wife of a husband she could not love would be a sacrifice that no woman should ever make and no man should ever accept? That she should not so offer up her life for him?

What could this mean but a contemplated separation?

So Cora lay sleepless and tortured by these harrassing questions.

When Rule Rothsay entered the front drawing room he found there a young merchant marine captain whom he had known for many years, though not intimately.

"Ah, how do you do, Ross?" he said.

"How do you do, Governor? I must ask pardon for calling so late, but—"

"Not at all. How can I be of use to you?"

"Why, in no way whatever. Don't suppose that every one who calls to see you has an office to seek or an ax to grind. Though, I suppose, most of them have," said the visitor, as he seated himself.

Rothsay dropped into a chair, and forced himself to talk to the young sailor.

"Just in from a voyage, Ross?"

"No; just going out, Governor."

Rothsay smiled at this premature bestowal of the high official title, but did not set the matter right. It was of too little importance.

"I was going to explain, Governor, that I was just passing through the city on my way to Norfolk, from which my ship is to sail to-morrow. So I had to take the midnight train. But I could not go without trying for a chance to see and shake hands with you and congratulate you."

"You are very kind, Ross. I thank you," said Rothsay, somewhat wearily.

"You're not looking well, Governor. I suppose all this 'fuss and feathers' is about as harassing as a stormy sea voyage. Well, I will not keep you up long. I should have been here earlier, only I went first to the hotel to inquire for you, and there I learned that you were here in old Rockharrt's house, and had married his granddaughter. Congratulate you again, Governor. Not many men have had such a double triumph as you. She is a splendidly beautiful woman. I saw her once in Washington City, at the President's reception. She was the greatest belle in the place. That reminds me that I must not keep you away from her ladyship. This is only hail and farewell. Good night. I declare, Rothsay, you look quite worn out. Don't see any other visitor to-night, in case there should be another fool besides myself come to worry you at this hour. Now good-by," said the visitor, rising and offering his hand.

"Good-by, Ross. I wish you a pleasant and prosperous voyage," said Rothsay, rising to shake hands with his visitor.

He followed the young sailor to the hall, and seeing nothing of the porter, he let the visitor out and locked the door after him.

Then he returned to the drawing room. Holding his head between his hands he walked slowly up and down the floor—up and down the floor—up and down—many times.

"This is weakness," he muttered, "to be thinking of myself when I should think only of her and the long life before her, which might be so joyous but for me—but for me! Dear one who, in her tender childhood, pitied the orphan boy, and with patient, painstaking earnestness taught him to read and write, and gave him the first impulse and inspiration to a higher life. And now she would give her life to me. And for all the good she has done me all her days, for all the blessings she has brought me, shall I blight her happiness? Shall I make her this black return? No, no. Better that I should pass forever out of her life—pass forever out of sight—forever out of this world—than live to make her suffer. Make her suffer? I? Oh, no! Let fame, life, honors, all go down, so that she is saved—so that she is made happy."

He paused in his walk and listened. All the house was profoundly still—all the household evidently asleep—except her! He felt sure that she was sleepless. Oh, that he could go and comfort her! even as a mother comforts her child; but he could not.

"I suppose many would say," he murmured to himself, "that I owe my first earthly duty to the people who have called me to this high office; that private sorrows and private conscience should yield to the public, and they would be right. Yet with me it is as if death had stepped in and relieved me of official duty to be taken up by my successor just the same—"

He stopped and put his hand to his head, murmuring:

"Is this special pleading? I wonder if I am quite sane?"

Then dropping into a chair he covered his face with his hands and wept aloud.

Does any one charge him with weakness? Think of the tragedy of a whole life compressed in that one crucial hour!

After a little while he grew more composed. The tears had relieved the overladen heart. He arose and recommenced his walk, reflecting with more calmness on the cruel situation.

"I shall right her wrongs in the only possible way in which it can be done, and I shall do no harm to the State. Kennedy will be a better governor than I could have been. He is an older, wiser, more experienced statesman. I am conscious that I have been over-rated by the people who love me. I was elected for my popularity, not for my merit. And now—I am not even the man that I was—my life seems torn out of my bosom. Oh, Cora, Cora! life of my life! But you shall be happy, dear one! free and happy after a little while. Ah! I know your gentle heart. You will weep for the fate of him whom you loved—as a brother. Oh! Heaven! but your tears will come from a passing cloud that will leave your future life all clear and bright—not darkened forever by the slavery of a union with one whom you do not—only because you cannot—love."

He walked slowly up and down the floor a few more turns, then glanced at the clock on the mantel piece, and said:

"Time passes. I must write my letters."

There was an elegant little writing desk standing in the corner of the room and filled with stationery, mostly for the convenience of the ladies of the family when the Rockharrts occupied their town house.

He went to this, sat down and opened it, laid paper out, and then with his elbow on the desk and his head leaning on the palm of his hand, he fell into deep thought.

At length he began to write rapidly. He soon finished and sealed this letter. Then he wrote a second and a longer one, sealed that also. One—the first written—he put in the secret drawer of the desk; the other he dropped into his pocket.

Then he took "a long, last, lingering look" around the room. This was the room in which he had first met Cora after long years of separation; where he had passed so many happy evenings with her, when his official duties as an assemblyman permitted him to do so; this was the room in which they had plighted their troth to each other, and to which, only six hours before, they had returned—to all appearance—a most happy bride and groom. Ah, Heaven!

His wandering gaze fell on the open writing desk, which in his misery he had forgotten to close. He went to it and shut down the lid.

Then he passed out of the room, took his hat from the rack in the hall, opened the front door, passed out, closed it behind him, and left the house forever.

Outside was pandemonium. The illuminations in the windows had died down, but the streets were full of revelers, too much exhilarated as yet to retire, even if they had any place to retire to; for on that summer night many visitors to the inauguration chose to stay out in the open air until morning rather than to leave the city and lose the show.

Once again the hum and buzz of many voices was broken by a shrill cry of:

"Hooray for Rothsay!" which was taken up by the chorus and echoed and re-echoed from one end to the other of the city, and from earth to sky.

Poor Rothsay himself passed out upon the sidewalk, unrecognized in the obscurity.

An empty hack was standing at the corner of the square, a few hundred feet from the house.

To this he went, and spoke to the man on the box:

"Is this hack engaged?"

"Yes, sah, it is—took by four gents as can't get no lodgings at none of the hotels, nor yet boarding houses—no, sah. Dere dey is ober yonder in dat dere s'loon cross de street—yes, sah. But it don't keep open, dat s'loon don't, longer'n twelve o'clock—no, sah. It's mos' dat now, so dey'll soon call for dis hack—yes, sah!"

Rothsay left the talkative hackman and passed on.

A hand touched him on the arm.

He turned and saw old Scythia, clothed in a long, black cloak of some thin stuff, with its hood drawn over her head.

Rothsay stared.

"Come, Rule! You have tested woman's love to-day, and found it fail you; even as I tested man's faith in the long ago, and found it wrong me! Come, Rule! You and I have had enough of falsehood and treachery! Let us shake the dust of civilization off our shoes! Come, Rule!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE WIDOWED BRIDE.

The amazement and confusion that followed the discovery of the mysterious disappearance of Governor-elect Regulas Rothsay, on the morning of the day of his intended inauguration, has been already described in an earlier chapter of this story.

The most searching inquiries were made in all directions without any satisfactory result.

Then advertisements were put in all the principal newspapers in all the chief towns and cities throughout the country, offering large rewards for any information that should lead to the discovery of the missing man or of his fate.

These in time drew forth letters from all points of the compass from people anxious to take a chance in this lottery of a reward, and who fabricated reports of the lost governor having been seen in this, that, or the other place, or of his body having been found here, there or elsewhere.

Prompt investigation proved the falsehood of these fraudulent letters in every instance.

No one really knew the fate of the missing man. No one but Cora Rothsay had even the clew to the cause of his disappearance; and she—from her sensitive pride, no less than from her sacred promise not to reveal the subject of her communicaton to her husband on that fatal evening of his flight or of his death—kept her lips sealed on that subject.

Days, weeks and months passed away without bringing any authentic news of the lost ruler.

At length hope was given up. The advertisements were withdrawn from the papers.

Still occasionally, at long intervals of time, vague rumors reached his friends—a sailor had seen him in the streets of Rio de Janeiro; a fur trader had found him in Washington Territory; a miner had met him in California—but nothing came of all these reports.

One morning, late in December, there came some news, not of the actual fate of the governor, but of the long-lost man who had seen the last of him alive.

Despite the bitter pleading of the poor, bereaved bride, who dreaded the crowded city and desired to remain in seclusion in the country, old Aaron had removed his whole family to their town house for the winter.

They had been settled there only a few days, and were gathered around the breakfast table, when a card was brought in to Mr. Rockharrt.

"'Captain Ross!' Who, in the fiend's name, is Captain Ross? And what does he want at this early hour of the morning?" demanded the Iron King, after he had read the name on the card. Then, as he scrutinized it, he saw faintly penciled lines below the name and read:

"The late visitor who called on Governor-elect Rothsay on the evening of his disappearance."

"Show the man in the library, Jason," exclaimed old Aaron Rockharrt, rising, leaving his untasted breakfast, and striding out of the room.

In the library he found a young skipper, tall, robust, black bearded and sun burned.

"Captain Ross?" said the old man, interrogatively.

"The same, at your service, sir—Mr. Rockharrt, I presume?" said the visitor with a bow.

"That's my name. Sit down," said the Iron King, pointing to one chair for his visitor and taking another for himself.

"So you were the last visitor to Mr. Rothsay, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, can you give any information regarding the disappearance of my grandson-in-law?"

"No, sir; but learning that I had been advertised for, I have come forward."

"At rather a late date, upon my soul and honor! Where have you been all this time?"

"At sea. When I called upon Mr. Rothsay, it was to congratulate him on his position and to bid him good-by. I was on the eve of sailing for India, and, in fact, left the city by the night's express and sailed the next morning. I think we must have been out of sight of land before the news of the governor's disappearance was spread abroad."

"What explanation can you give of his sudden disappearance?"

"None whatever, sir."

"Then, in the demon's name, why have you come forward at all at this time?"

"Because I was advertised for."

"That was months ago."

"But months ago I was at sea and knew nothing of the matter. I have but just returned from a long voyage, and hearing among other matters that Governor Rothsay had been missing since the day of his inauguration, that Governor Kennedy reigned in his stead, and that the latest visitor of the missing man had long been wanting, I have come."

"Do you appreciate the gravity of your own position, sir, under the circumstances?" sternly demanded the Iron King.

"I—don't—understand you," said the skipper, in evident perplexity.

"You don't? That is strange. You are the last man—the last person—who saw Governor-elect Rothsay alive, at eleven o'clock on the night of his disappearance. After that hour he was missing, and you had run away."

The young sailor smiled.

"Steamed away, and sailed away, you should say, sir. I see the suspicion to which your words point, and will answer them at once: On that night in question I was a guest of the Crockett House. I was absent from that house only half an hour—from a quarter to eleven to a quarter after eleven—during which time I walked to this house, saw the governor-elect, and walked back to the hotel, only to pay my bill, take a hack and drive to the railway station. Do you think that in half an hour I could have done all that and murdered the governor, and made away with his body besides, Mr. Rockharrt?"

"You would have to prove the truth of your words, sir," replied the Iron King.

"That is easily done by the people at the hotel. I did not tell them where I was going. I never even thought of telling them. But they know I was only gone half an hour; for before going out, or just as I was going out, I ordered the carriage to be ready to take me to the depot at a quarter past eleven."

"They may have forgotten all about you."

"Not at all. I am an old customer, though a young man. They know me very well."

"Then it is very strange that when every anxious inquiry was made for this latest visitor of the governor-elect, these hotel people did not come forward and name you."

"But I repeat, sir, that they did not know that I was that latest visitor. I did not think of telling any one that I was going to see Rothsay before I went, or of telling them that I had been to see him after I went. They had no more reason to identify me with that late caller than any other guest at the hotel, or, in fact, any other man in the world. Come, Mr. Rockharrt, you have complimented me with one of the blackest suspicions that could wrong an honest man, but I will not quarrel with you. I know very well that the last person seen with a missing man is often suspected of his taking off. As for me, I invite the most searching investigation."

"Why did you come here, after so long an interval?" demanded the Iron King, in no way mollified by the moderation of his visitor.

"As I explained to you, I come now because I have just heard that I had been advertised for; and after this long interval because I have been for months at sea. I had, however, another motive for coming—to tell you of the strange manner of Regulas Rothsay during my interview with him—a manner that does not seem to have been observed by any one else, for all speak and write of his health and extraordinarily good spirits on the evening of his arrival in the city only a few hours before I saw him, when he seemed very far from being in good health or good spirits. In fact, a more utterly broken man I never saw in my life."

"Ah! ah! What is this you tell me? Give me particulars! Give me particulars!" said the Iron King, rising and standing over his visitor.

"Indeed, I do not think I can give you particulars. The effect he seemed to produce was that of a general prostration of body and mind. On coming into the room where I waited for him, he looked pale and haggard; he tottered rather than walked; he dropped into his chair rather than sat down in it; his hands fell upon the arms rather than grasped them; he was gloomy, absent-minded, and when he spoke at all, seemed to speak with great effort."

"Ah! ah! ah!" exclaimed the Iron King.

"I thought the fatigue and excitement of the day had been too much for him. I made my visit very short, and soon bade him good-night. He wished me a prosperous voyage, but did not invite me to visit him on my return—a kindness that he had never before omitted."

"Ah, ah ah!" again exclaimed old Aaron Rockharrt.

"Then I thought his manner and appearance only the effect of excessive fatigue and excitement. Now, seen in the light of future events, I attach a more serious meaning to them."

"What! what! what!" demanded the Iron King.

"I think that some fatal news, from some quarter or other, had reached him; or that some heavy sorrow had fallen upon him; or, worse than all, sudden insanity had overtaken him! That, under the lash of one or another, or all of these, he fled the house and the city, and—made away with himself."

"Now, Heaven forbid!" exclaimed old Aaron Rockharrt, dropping into his chair.

"One favor I have to ask you, Mr. Rockharrt, and that is, that the most searching investigation be made of my movements on that fatal evening of the governor's disappearance."

"It shall be done," said the Iron King.

"I shall remain at the David Crockett until all the friends of the late governor are satisfied so far as I am concerned. And now, having said all I have to say, I will bid you good morning," concluded the visitor as he arose, took up his hat, bowed, and left the room.