THE WILD FAWN

BOOKS BY
MARY IMLAY TAYLOR

A CANDLE IN THE WIND
THE IMPERSONATOR
THE REAPING
CALEB TRENCH
THE MAN IN THE STREET

THE
WILD FAWN

BY
MARY IMLAY TAYLOR
AUTHOR OF “A CANDLE IN THE WIND,” “THE IMPERSONATOR,” “THE
REAPING,” “CALEB TRENCH,” “THE MAN IN THE STREET”

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1920

Copyright, 1920, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

THE WILD FAWN

THE WILD FAWN

I

Mrs. Carter looked up from her breakfast and glanced anxiously at the clock.

“I wonder where that postman can be!” she exclaimed fretfully. “He’s always late nowadays.”

“Nonsense!” retorted her husband, unfolding his newspaper. “It’s because you want a letter from William. The postman will be along all right.”

Mrs. Carter sighed. She could not understand the gap in her son’s correspondence. William was her eldest and the pride of her heart. At twenty-seven he had been a success in business. He had dominated the family, advising his stout, deliberate father, overwhelming his lame brother Daniel, and bossing the two younger children, Leigh and Emily, until, goaded to frenzy, first one and then the other of the worms turned. As the only girl in the family, Emily reached the limit of her endurance long before Leigh came into the battle as a feeble second.

But not even Emily could stem the tide of Mrs. Carter’s devotion to her first-born. It had cost her many a sleepless night when, more than a year ago, William Henry Carter had been selected by a well-known mercantile firm to go to Japan. It had been a crowning opportunity for William; to his mother it was a source of mingled pride and anguish. She packed his trunk with unnumbered socks and collar-buttons—she was sure he couldn’t get them in Japan—and she smuggled in some jars of strawberry jam, “the kind that dear Willie always loved.”

Afterward her only solace had been his letters. She overlooked his ungrateful wrath when the jam jars broke into the socks, and fell back on her pride in his continuing success, and on the fact that he had been permitted to come home via the Mediterranean, and was to act for his firm in Paris.

Now, after an absence of fourteen months, he might be home at any moment; but there had been a gap in the correspondence—no letters for more than two months. The maternal anxiety would have communicated itself to the family, if it had not been that William’s company had heard from the young man in the interim, and could assure the anxious Mr. Carter that his son was well and doing business with eminent talent and success. Mr. Payson, the head of the establishment, lived in town, and he was liberal in his praise.

Mrs. Carter’s mind dwelt upon this with a feeling of maternal pride, still tempered with anxiety, when she became aware that Emily and Leigh were quarreling openly because of the latter’s unfeeling remark that a girl with a snub nose and freckles should never do her hair in a Greek knot.

“It’s enough to make a cat laugh,” said Leigh. “What have you got to balance that knob on the back of your head?”

“Leigh, dear, don’t plague sister so,” Mrs. Carter remonstrated mildly.

“As if a boy like Leigh knew anything about a girl’s hair!” cried Emily indignantly. “It’s a psyche-knot.”

Leigh laughed derisively; but at this moment, when the quarrel had become noisy enough to disturb Mr. Carter, it was interrupted by the entrance of the morning mail. Miranda, the colored maid of all work, appeared with a replenished coffee-pot and a letter for Mrs. Carter.

The anxious mother gave a cry of joy.

“My goodness—it’s from Willie!”

The interest became general, and five pairs of expectant eyes focussed on Mrs. Carter as she opened the envelope, her fingers shaking with eagerness. Miranda, to whom the fifth pair of eyes belonged, became unusually attentive to Daniel, and insisted on replenishing his coffee-cup.

“This was written in Paris,” Mrs. Carter exclaimed eagerly, “and—and posted in New York! I wonder! ‘Dear mother,’” she began reading aloud, her voice tremulous with joy, “‘I’m coming home on the Britannic, and I’m bringing you the—the——’”

She stopped short, her mouth open like a fish’s, and a look of horror glazing the rapture in her eyes.

There was a profound and expectant pause. Daniel, the least interested member of the group, managed to drink his hot coffee with apparent relish, and sixteen-year-old Emily ate a biscuit, but Mr. Carter, who had laid down his newspaper to listen, became impatient.

“What’s the matter, mama?” he asked peevishly. “You look scared. Is William going to bring you a crocodile from the Nile?”

Mrs. Carter rallied.

“N-no, not exactly—that is——” She looked absently at the maid. “Miranda, go down to the ice-box and look it through. Let me know just what’s left over. I’ve got to ’phone to the market immediately.”

“Yes’m.”

Miranda, descrying a sensation from afar, retired reluctantly. She couldn’t hear quite as well in the kitchen entry when all the windows were open.

Mrs. Carter waited until the pantry door closed behind the maid; then she turned her horrified eyes upon her family.

“William’s married!” she gasped.

“Married?” echoed Mr. Carter angrily. “You’re crazy! William’s got too much sense. You haven’t read it straight. Give me that letter!”

He stretched out a fiercely impatient hand, but Mrs. Carter ignored his order.

“Listen! I did read it right. I know my own boy’s writing. I’ll read it aloud—listen!”

Mr. Carter thumped the table.

“Why in thunder don’t you read it, then? We’re listening! Of all the crazy notions! Married—you’ll find it’s ‘meandered.’ Go ahead!”

Mrs. Carter rallied her forces again, aware that Daniel and Leigh and Emily were gaping in amazed incredulity. She turned the letter over to the first page, caught her breath, and began.

“‘Dear mother,’” she read again, unsteadily this time, “‘I’m coming home on the Britannic, and I’m bringing you the sweetest daughter-in-law in the whole world. Her name is Fanchon la Fare, and she’s the cleverest, the dearest, the most devoted girl in France. I can’t tell you how beautiful she is, but you’ll fall in love with her at first sight—just as I did. She’s small, “just as high as my heart,” mother, and she’s got the eyes of a wild fawn——’”

“Wild fawn—thunder!” ejaculated Mr. Carter, unable to restrain himself. “Give me that letter!”

This time Mrs. Carter surrendered it. She passed it down via Daniel, who was looking unusually pale. His face startled her, and, while Mr. Carter was reading the letter, she met her second son’s eyes. They gave her another shock.

“Dan,” she whispered in an awe-struck voice, “I—do you think he was engaged to—to——”

She mouthed a name, unable to finish her sentence under the young man’s look. Daniel frowned, his white lips closing in a sharp line, but Emily spoke up unabashed.

“Willie’s engaged to Virginia Denbigh. She’s got his ring. I’ve seen it on her finger.”

“Oh, Emily!” her mother sank back in her chair, feeling weaker than ever. Her boy, her Willie! She couldn’t believe that he would do anything like that. She shook her head indignantly at Emily. “Hush!” she whispered.

“He is, too!” her daughter insisted. “Why, mama, you know he is!”

Mrs. Carter cast a miserable glance at her husband, who was still reading the letter. He was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a ruddy face and bristling gray hair. Although usually a man of fairly equable temperament, his expression at the moment was almost ferocious. He had grown very red, and his eyebrows were bushed out over the bridge of his nose in a scowl that transformed him.

Leigh nudged the unsympathetic Emily under the table.

“Gee, look at father!” he murmured.

Emily, who had resumed her breakfast, nodded with her mouth full. She had played the trump card, and she was quietly observing Daniel. He was as white as a sheet, she thought, and those big eyes of his had a way of smoldering.

“It’s because he’s had a bad night, I suppose,” Emily mused, “or else——”

She speculated, gazing at him; but she did not arrive at any conclusion. She was interrupted by a furious sound from the foot of the table. It was fortunately smothered, but it had the rumble of an approaching tornado.

“The young donkey!” Mr. Carter exclaimed aloud. “My word, I thought William Carter had sense!”

Mrs. Carter’s amiable, distressed face emerged a little from behind the big silver hot-water urn which had descended in the family, along with a Revolutionary sword and the copper warming-pans.

“Can you find out anything, Johnson?” she asked faintly. “I—I can’t! He doesn’t even say where they were married or—or anything.”

“Married in a lunatic asylum, I suppose,” Mr. Carter returned fiercely. “He says—as plain as can be—that he hasn’t known the creature three months!”

“Good gracious! I didn’t get as far as that, I——”

William’s mother stopped short; she was afraid of making matters worse. Emily, who had stopped eating to listen, came suddenly to the surface.

“Listen, mama! She’s French, isn’t she?”

“I—I suppose so, dear.” Mrs. Carter shuddered slightly. “I’m afraid she is.”

“Then I don’t see how Willie did it in three months. I read somewhere—in a magazine, I think—that it took months and months to court a French girl, and both parents have to say ‘yes,’ and you’ve got to have birth certificates, and the banns have to be posted for three weeks, and even then you can’t do it in a hurry; you’ve got to have a civil marriage and a religious marriage, and—and everything!”

“Good Lord, Emmy! How does a fellow run away with his best girl?” Leigh asked.

“He can’t!” Emily, having the floor, held it proudly. “He just can’t! It wouldn’t be legal; he’s got to have his birth certificate.”

“Humph!” Mr. Carter glared over the top of William’s letter at his wife. “William didn’t happen to carry his birth certificate hung around his neck, did he?”

Mrs. Carter shook her head, her eyes fixed on Emily. For the first time she felt it was to be her portion to hear wisdom from the mouths of babes and sucklings.

“Emmy, are you sure you read all that?” she inquired anxiously.

“Of course she did, mother,” said Daniel, speaking for the first time, his low, deep voice breaking in on the shrill excitement of the family clamor. “It’s French law.”

That settled it. Daniel had studied law in old Judge Jessup’s office, and there was nothing in law, domestic and international, that Judge Jessup didn’t know. Mr. Carter turned his distorted countenance upon his second son.

“Is that really a fact, Dan?”

Dan nodded. He was not eating. He had thrust aside an almost untouched breakfast. The hand that he stretched out now for a glass of water was a little unsteady, but his father did not notice it. Mr. Carter was scowling at the letter again.

“It’s as plain as day here, he’s known her less than three months. Take three weeks for the banns out of that, and you get seven or eight weeks. The young donkey! Where were her people, I’d like to know?”

Mrs. Carter gasped. Horrible thoughts had been assailing her from the first, and she could no longer suppress them.

“D-do you think she can be respectable?” she quavered tearfully.

Mr. Carter was mute. He had no adequate language in which to express his own views upon that point, but his gloomy look was eloquent.

There was a horrible pause. Leigh and Emily exchanged glances. There was a little satisfaction in hers; she had exploded a bombshell second only to William’s letter, and now she interrupted her father’s forty-second perusal of that document.

“Papa,” she said in her solemn young voice, “Willie was engaged to Virginia Denbigh, and I don’t believe she’s broken it off at all!”

“Hush up, Emmy!” cried Daniel angrily. “Leave Virginia Denbigh out of it. You’ve no right to talk about her. William’s married!”

“I guess I’ve got a right to tell the truth!” Emily flared up. “Willie was engaged to Virginia Denbigh up to last week—and I know it!”

But, to her surprise, it was Leigh who broke out suddenly.

“What does it matter?” he cried. “If William’s fallen in love at first sight, he can’t help it, can he? It’s too much for a fellow, isn’t it? When a man sees a woman he loves at first sight—it’s—it’s like a tornado, it bowls him over!”

“Eh?”

Mr. Carter turned and stared at his youngest son. So did his mother. Leigh was a high-school boy preparing for college. Emily, blond and snub-nosed and honest, had missed beauty by the proverbial inch that’s as good as a mile, but Leigh was a handsome boy. He had the eyes of a girl, too.

“Love at first sight?” bellowed Mr. Carter, getting his breath. “What d’you know about it, you—you young idiot?”

Leigh reddened, but he held his ground.

“I know—how I’d feel,” he replied hotly.

“Oh, Leigh!” his mother smiled indulgently. “You’re such a child!”

“I’m not!” he retorted with spirit. “I’m eighteen—I’m a man!”

Emily giggled provokingly, and Mr. Carter struck the table with his fist.

“Shut up!” he roared. “I’ve got one donkey—I don’t want another! What did you say, Emily?”

“I said Willie was engaged to Virginia Denbigh and——”

Daniel, with a suppressed groan of anger, rose from the table; but his father stopped him.

“Wait!” he said sharply. “I want to get the stuffing out of this. What do you mean, Emily?”

“I mean just exactly what I say, papa,” cried his daughter, giving Daniel a look of triumph. “Virginia’s got Willie’s ring on the third finger of her left hand, and he wrote her letters—love-letters—from Japan. I guess I know; I saw her reading one. I guess any girl could tell that!”

“You’re nothing but a child!” Mr. Carter exclaimed angrily, but he was searching back in his own mind. He had always planned this match between his favorite son and Virginia Denbigh, and Emily’s words went home. He reddened. “Dan, do you know anything about this?” he demanded, turning on his son.

Daniel, who was standing with his hand on the back of his chair, just as he had risen, averted his eyes.

“I’d rather not say anything about it, father,” he replied after a moment. “It’s—it’s not fair to Miss Denbigh, is it, to discuss it?”

His father, who had been observing him narrowly, thrust William’s letter into his pocket.

“I see it’s true,” he remarked dryly, “Emily’s got more candor than you have, that’s all.”

Daniel made no reply to this. He reached for his cane and moved silently toward the door, aware of Emily’s cryptic gaze.

Mr. Carter, meanwhile, broke out stormily again, striking the edge of the table.

“I’m ashamed of William!” he growled. “My son—and no sense of honor! I—I’d like to thrash him!”

No one replied to this. Daniel opened the door, went out, and closed it gently behind him. In the pause they heard his slow, slightly halting tread as he went across the hall to the front porch and descended the steps. As the last echo of his footsteps died away, Emily turned to her father.

“Why, papa, didn’t you know why Dan wouldn’t tell about Willie and Virginia?” she asked wisely.

Her father cast a startled look at her, his eyes still clouded with wrath and mortification.

“No. Why?”

Emily smiled across at Leigh.

“Dan’s in love with Virginia himself, and Willie cut him out. That’s why!”

Mr. Carter stared at her with exasperation. She was going a little too far, and her annihilation was impending when Mrs. Carter suddenly uttered a cry of horror. She had picked up the newspaper. It was local, but it often copied bits from the New York dailies, when the bits were likely to interest the town.

“Oh, good gracious, here’s a marriage notice from a New York paper!” she cried, pointing it out with a shaking forefinger: “‘William Henry Carter and Fanchon la Fare.’ Papa, they weren’t married until they got to New York—the very day Willie posted that letter!”

Mr. Carter snatched the paper from her hand and read the notice; then he slammed it down on the table with a violence that made all the dishes rattle. He was fairly choking with rage now.

“Came over on the steamer with him, of course!” he shouted. “You get the idea, mama? A French girl! Came over on the same steamer—seven—nine days at sea—and got married in New York. My word!” he fairly bellowed. “What kind of a daughter-in-law d’you think we’ve got? I ask you that!”

“Oh, papa—sh!” gasped his wife weakly. “Think of these children——”

“Sh?” he shouted. “Sh? With this thing out in black and white? D’you think people haven’t got eyes? The whole town’ll read it—trust ’em for that! French laws—birth certificates—banns—chaperons—I’d like to see ’em—wow!”

There was a crash of china, and Mrs. Carter rose and fairly thrust Leigh and Emily out of the room. For the first time in her experience with him, Mr. Carter had become volcanic.

II

Daniel Carter, having left the family conclave so abruptly, descended the steps to the garden-path and walked slowly—almost painfully, it appeared—to the gate.

He was a tall young man of twenty-five, thin from long suffering, and a little angular, and he was lame. He was not using a crutch now. Dr. Barbour had succeeded in alleviating the old trouble and Daniel could do very well with a walking-stick. But his face, pale and hollow-cheeked, showed the lines of old suffering, and to-day there were dark rings around his fine eyes. The fact was that, at that moment, his heart was beating so heavily that its clamor seemed to fill his ears. A strange thing had befallen him. He had been stricken with horror and anguish at an insult to one he loved, and—almost at the same instant—he had felt a wild, unreasoning relief. It would not do, he must not let his mind dwell upon it. The habit of repression, the habit of endurance, the older habit of suffering, came to his aid. He set his teeth and walked straight out of the front gate and down to the end of the street. Then he paused almost unconsciously, because this spot, at the side of a hill, gave him a wide view of the town, and he often stopped here a moment on his way to and from Judge Jessup’s office, just to catch this glimpse of his native hills. The poet in Daniel loved this view.

The sun was on the hills to-day, except where the shadow of a passing cloud moved across the wide vista like a pillar of smoke to guide the wayfarers toward the Promised Land. The sun shone, too, on the roofs of the houses that clustered at Daniel’s feet, and it caught the gilt on a cross-crowned spire and flashed it against the background of the trees. The only vivid thing, it seemed, in the whole scene, where the gray of old shingled roofs and the sober tints of the time-worn houses blended with the greens and browns of nature. For it’s an old town, nestled in the hills, at the southern edge of one of the Middle States. A State, by the way, that is a good deal more southern than middle. So old is the town, indeed, that its tree-embowered streets have been trodden by the valiants of other days. The early settlers came here and found the spot fair, Indian traders bartered here, and heroes of the Revolution lie buried in the quaint old cemetery. The place has been long asleep, napping sweetly in the southern sunshine, drowsy and fragrant and restful—of a summer day. But lately the stirring of greater things has begun in the town. Life has grown busier, more noisy, more insistent. The ancient aristocracy has begun to feel the wave of democracy at its threshold, the old kernel is bursting and the strong young oak is thrusting its tap-root down into the rich black loam of the ages. But the background is unchanged, the fond heart can still dwell on the lovely profile of the blue hills, melting at noon into the more ineffable blue of the sky, and upon the dark green cloak of verdure that enfolds the foot-hills, and unrolls its ample edges to the very rim of the meadows.

The grape-vines still blossom fragrantly in the backyards of the old-fashioned dwellings, where negro slaves used to flit in and out, and, at evening still, sweet negro melodies float along the highways. Awhile ago, when Johnson Carter was a child, turbaned mammies used to fry chickens and make beaten biscuits to sell at the railway station—then a mere wayside shed with a platform. They saved many a famished traveler in the days when dining-cars were few and far between. Though, curiously enough, there were never any parts to a chicken but its legs. Tradition paints them as chicken centipedes, though hunger relished even a drumstick and a soggy, beaten biscuit. Little pickaninnies hung about, too, peddling chincapins, while an elderly matron of a sow disported herself in the adjacent gutter. But behind them, and in spite of them, the town stood enfolded in its lovely verdure and its blossomings, like an ancient bride in a constantly rejuvenated wedding garment, smiling and peaceful and secure.

Daniel Carter loved the town. Ambition might lead him elsewhere, but his heart would linger affectionately here. There was an unbreakable tie—he had suffered here, both in the flesh and in the spirit. He had lived his happy childhood here, whole and sound. He had climbed the hills and raced across the meadows. Then came his accident, the long interval of pain, and the deadly certainty, at last, that he was crippled. But through it all the trees had rustled their new leaves and the heavenly hills had lifted up their heads. Pain forges a tie deeper than the ties of joy. Dan loved the town.

As he walked down the old street to-day its familiarity eased the pang at his heart. His pain was vicarious, he imagined how Virginia Denbigh would suffer when she knew. He raged, too, against his brother—the brother whom he had always loved and trusted! For there had been a bond between the two elder Carter boys, cemented by the death of the two children who came between Daniel and Leigh. Now, a reflection of his father’s anger at William sent the blood up to Daniel’s pale forehead. He was very sensitive for the honor of the Carters, and William’s conduct—in Daniel’s eyes—constituted a high breach of honor, it was conduct, in fact, unbecoming a gentleman.

And Virginia Denbigh——?

Words failed; a kind of blind fury seized him; he longed to cross the ocean, or to meet the steamer in New York, and drag the strong, powerfully built William all the way upon his knees to Virginia’s feet, to beg her pardon.

He was thinking this, with a stinging and humiliating consciousness of his own physical disability, when he finally turned from his post of observation and began to descend the hill which led to Judge Jessup’s office. It was a curious fact that his mental state had an effect on his bodily affliction, and, when his mind was in conflict, his limp—usually no more than a slow, halting step—became almost painful. He was limping very badly and leaning on his cane when he saw an equipage approaching that was as unmistakable as Noah’s ark would have been, had it been harnessed to a couple of stout old dappled grays and started on the turnpike to Ararat. This was an old-fashioned wagonette, drawn by two elderly grays, and driven by George Washington Lucas, old Uncle Plato’s grandson, a coal black negro, attired in a rubbishy bottle-green livery and a white straw hat.

Alone on one of the rear seats, which ran length-wise in the wagonette, was a slim figure in a flowered organdy, with a wide leghorn hat looped down at the sides by the broad pink ribbons that were knotted coquettishly under her chin. It was an old hat, made to do, if the truth be told, but it framed a charming face, and shaded the eyes that were greeting Daniel Carter.

At a word from her Lucas drew rein and she leaned forward, smiling.

“Let me give you a lift, Dan,” she called to him, sweetly.

For the first time in his life Daniel’s heart sank at the sound of Virginia Denbigh’s voice. He came up, hat in hand, to answer her, and Virginia was startled, in her turn, for Daniel was blushing. He was red to his hair and it gave a bizarre effect to his usually pale face. “He’s hurt because he thinks I pity his lameness,” Virginia thought.

“We’re going the same way, Dan. Get in, I feel queer sitting here all by my lonesome,” she said gaily. “Grandpa couldn’t come to-day.”

But he could not get in. The thought of taking advantage of her kindness when he knew what his brother had done, was too much for Daniel.

“Thank you a thousand times, but I’ve only got a few steps to go now, Virginia,” he replied, forcing a smile though his lips felt stiff. “The colonel isn’t ill, is he?”

“No, he’s planting,” she laughed, puzzled by the young man’s manner. What could be the matter with him? she wondered. “I’ve got to do the marketing, get the mail and buy a newspaper. Some one stole ours this morning. Has—have you heard from William yet, Dan?”

Daniel had laid one hand on the edge of the wagonette while they spoke, it tightened now—as something seemed to tighten about his heart. He couldn’t tell her!

“Mother got a letter this morning.”

Virginia’s clear eyes fixed on him, discerning something behind his words. She blushed suddenly and painfully, leaning back in her seat.

“I’m so glad! Mrs. Carter was so anxious. I haven’t heard myself for a long time,” she added steadily, bending another searching look on William’s brother.

Daniel could not meet it; he flinched. “He’s quite well,” he said thickly, “he’s in New York now, I think. He was to sail on the Britannic. She ought to be in.”

“Oh!”

Virginia’s exclamation was involuntary, but it died in her throat. What could it mean? No letter and William in New York? Then suddenly she colored with happiness, her heart beating wildly. Of course! She understood it now; it accounted for the silence, too. She leaned forward, her clasped hands on her knees, her eyes—beautiful and soft and caressing—dwelling upon the unhappy Daniel.

“I know—he means to surprise me!” she cried. “Dan, you shouldn’t have told.”

Daniel experienced a feeling of dissolution. He withdrew his hand from the wagonette, and leaned heavily on his cane. To let her think this, and to-morrow——!

“I—I don’t think that’s just the idea, Virginia,” he said gravely.

She met his eyes, still radiant; then, slowly, reluctantly, the light faded from hers, and the color receded from her cheeks, even from her lips. She gasped. Then she glanced around at the stout, unmoved back of George Washington Lucas. To her aroused perception even his ears seemed to move, and she was heavily aware that the nigh horse was stamping an impatient foot, troubled by an insistent fly. She moved nearer to the end of the wagonette and bent over Daniel, her eyes fixed on his face again.

“Did—did he speak of me, Dan?” she asked in a low voice.

Daniel swallowed the lump in his throat. “I—I don’t know—I didn’t see the letter.”

She drew back, blushing as quickly as she had paled. With an odd little groping gesture she put up her hand and pulled at the pink bow under her chin. Then she laughed, and the sound of her laughter hurt him like a blow.

“I’m keeping you,” she said lightly. “Give my love to your mother. I’m sorry you won’t come with me. Drive on, Lucas.”

Daniel stood back, bare-headed, following her with his eyes, his heart in a tumult. He felt as if he had struck her, and yet he had not told her the worst.

As the old horses started, Virginia remembered him. She looked back and waved her hand.

“Goodbye!” she called to him, and, after a moment: “Good luck!”

Daniel stood gazing after her. He found himself, for the moment, unable to move. He watched until the old wagonette, with that slim young figure so erect at the side of it, vanished in a cloud of dust in the distance. It seemed to him that his heart stood still, too, within him. For the first time in his life he felt helpless, he felt physically as if he had been beaten. Why had he been forced to do it? Why, he stormed inwardly, was it his lot to give her the first warning? How she would hate him! Hereafter he would be in the same class with William, she would despise the whole family. He stood there shuddering, and he might have remained there a long time if old Mrs. Payson had not driven past in her new motor-car and shrilled to him that it was a “fine morning,” and she had seen something—he didn’t catch what it was—in the morning paper.

It roused him, he straightened himself and walked on, as fast as his limp permitted.

Judge Jessup was already at his desk when Daniel opened the door. He growled a greeting, sorting his mail. The judge had a high Roman nose and the kind of chin we associate with Benjamin Franklin. Owing to a formidable growth of eyebrow, his expression was sometimes abnormally fierce. But this morning there was a gleam of triumph in his eye.

“We’ve won that Ryan appeal,” he announced in his deep voice. “Judge Loomis handed down his decision just before court adjourned yesterday. Hear about it, Dan?”

“Yes, sir.”

The judge went on opening his letters, while his young pupil and associate took off his coat, hung it up and sat down at his own desk in his shirt sleeves. He was very pale now and he began to work mechanically, scarcely aware of the older man’s fiery way of disposing of his own business.

“Old man Barbour has kicked up another shindy with Allen,” the judge continued. “I reckon we’ll get that case, too. By the way, did you look up that option for Allen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Humph!” the judge rubbed his chin and turned his swivel chair slightly. He could see Daniel now sitting at his desk, his white face set and his hands lying idle on a folded sheet of paper. He was staring straight in front of him. The judge prodded again.

“Kenslaw wants you to handle his case. I reckon you’d like that, eh?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

The judge eyed the young man critically.

“What’s the matter, Dan? Got the pip?”

Daniel, a little startled, smiled and shook his head.

“Nothing the matter, Judge.”

The judge shrugged, turned to his desk and spread out the morning paper. His eye fell suddenly on that item in the column of personal mention which had already smitten the Carter family. He stared at it a moment in silence. Then he began to whistle softly, and his eyes fixed themselves on a spot at the far end of the tree-shaded street. It was a white guide-post and on it was printed, in large black letters, the magic words:

“1½ miles to Denbigh Crossing.”

III

Colonel Denbigh was walking to and fro at the back of his house, considering it. There was no doubt at all that it needed a new coat of paint. It needed it almost as much as the colonel needed the extra money to pay for it. He chuckled a little, pulling at the ends of his long white moustache.

“Neither of us likely to get it,” he thought, “and I reckon I look almost as much out of repair as the old place does anyway!”

Then his eye traveled down the long road which led to the town. He was expecting his granddaughter and the morning newspaper. Viewed from this angle, the road was a thing of beauty. It turned a curve above the crossing and passed through a grove of chestnuts. They were yellowish-white now with bloom. Beneath them the road ran like a ribbon, while on either hand the colonel glimpsed the friendly roofs of his neighbors’ houses. The farthest one, set back among the trees, was Johnson Carter’s. Over there was Judge Jessup’s; beyond that was the spire of the oldest church. In the graveyard behind it four generations of Denbighs lay buried. At the corner of Mrs. Payson’s place a blossoming pear tree stood like a lovely ghost. The warm, still atmosphere was filled with the fragrance of early blossomings, here and there a field was pink with clover. There was a warmth, a stirring, the promise of a hundred springs in the rich loam, where the new grass thrust up its strong young blades, and in the old apple-tree that showered the colonel’s shoulder with its falling petals. He found some of them on his sleeve and looked at them musingly; he was thinking of the days when he had gathered apples from that tree for his wife. Mrs. Denbigh had been dead many years, and their only son and his wife. Gone, too! The old man took off his hat and passed his hand absently over his white head, a little sadness in the very gesture. Virginia and he were the only ones left, he reflected, and then he smiled. He always smiled when he thought of Virginia. He was very proud of his young granddaughter.

“There’s a girl for you!” he thought fondly, “pretty as a picture. A straight-thinking kind of a young creature, too, bless her heart!”

He was sorry that his estate did not warrant a little of the old-time style for her. She deserved it, but—the colonel shook his head, eying the house again. It was a rambling, old-fashioned affair with a belvidere on the flat roof and two verandas. It had a beauty of its own, fortunately, for it had lost a good deal of its exterior decorations and it was deplorably weather-stained on the north side.

The colonel was still viewing it when the dogs began to bark at the lower gate. He turned quickly and saw his two big pointers greeting Mr. Carter. But that gentleman did not notice them as much as usual. There was, indeed, something odd about him. His stout, middle-aged figure seemed to sag down a little at the shoulders and his head drooped. He looked, as he came slowly up the path, like the bearer of bad tidings. He shuffled as he walked and seemed interested in his feet.

The colonel, a little surprised at this early visit, shouted a greeting to him.

“Hello, Carter! What’s the matter? You’re walking as if”—the colonel chuckled—“as if you had a bunion.”

Mr. Carter raised his abashed eyes reluctantly to the old man’s fine, smiling face.

“I declare I felt as if I’d been stealing his chickens!” he told Mrs. Carter afterwards. However, he achieved a moment of cordiality as he shook the colonel’s hand.

“I—I was coming this way,” he said a little hoarsely; he wasn’t a good liar. “I thought I’d just drop in. How’s the garden coming on? I’ve put in my limas.”

The colonel, eying him, pulled his moustache.

“They’ll rot. It’s too early. Plato told me that the peas were up well and we’ve got spinach. Sit down, Carter, I’ll call Plato. Have a julep? Or is it too early?”

“Too early altogether. I—the fact is, I can’t stay but a minute. I——” Mr. Carter glanced around wildly, groping for a topic, any topic, to introduce his subject. His choice wasn’t exactly an apt one. “I see that speckled hen of yours gets out of the coop still.”

His host looked around.

“So she does! Can’t keep her in at all. Kind of strong-minded. She’s got fifteen chicks, too. Wanting a setting of leghorn eggs, Carter? I can give you one. Got the finest lot of layers in the county.”

Mr. Carter continued to stare moodily at the speckled hen; she had led him astray.

“I don’t know,” he replied thoughtfully. “I’ll—I’ll ask Mrs. Carter.”

The colonel stared.

Plato, a gray-headed old negro, appeared.

“Wants yo’ juleps, Col’nel?”

“Not now, Plato. Mr. Carter says it’s too early.”

Plato grinned and bowed to the visitor.

“Howdy, suh. Hopes yo’-all is well. Heared from yo’ son, suh?”

Mr. Carter’s heart jumped and then sank with a thud. Plato had achieved it.

“This morning, Plato. He’s in New York now, I hope. He’s well, too, and—and——”

“I’se sho glad t’ heah it, suh,” said Plato and withdrew, still bowing.

Mr. Carter, with his mouth open, stared after him helplessly. He felt now that he should never get his news out unless some one shook it out of him! The colonel did not help him.

“So! Well, I’m glad William’s coming back. We’ve missed him. Judge Jessup was speaking of him last night. A fine fellow, he thinks him. By the way, Carter, Jessup gave me a young apple-tree last spring. There’s something the matter with it. I believe it’s got San José scale. Come here and look at it, will you?”

Mr. Carter trailed the colonel’s tall, thin figure across the lawn, and the two pointers came to meet them.

“Down, Jim! Down, Rover!” ordered the colonel, reaching the tree. “There—if you’ll look close along that lower limb—see?”

His visitor approached the limb indicated and stared at it moodily. Then he swallowed hard.

“Think it’s scale?” the colonel asked anxiously.

“Darned if I know!” said Mr. Carter violently. “Denbigh, I came to tell you—— The fact is, my son’s made an ass of himself. He——”

“Yes?” the colonel stood still, politely amazed. “Which son, Carter?”

“William. He—he’s married!”

There was a little silence and then the colonel laughed dryly.

“Was that what ailed you? On my word, Carter, I began to think you’d got creeping paralysis of the brain. Who’s he married?”

“I don’t know.”

“What!”

“No, I don’t! It’s some French girl—Fanchon—there, I can’t remember! We just heard this morning. The—the young donkey hasn’t known her three months.”

Colonel Denbigh broke off a twig and began to whittle it.

“Case of love at first sight, I presume,” he commented calmly. “I wouldn’t take it so hard, Carter, you may like her.”

Mr. Carter made an inarticulate sound which ended in his throat. His eyes avoided the colonel’s.

“Mrs. Carter’s all broken up,” he said hoarsely. “It’s a shock. Of course we don’t know anything. But—that is—I—I’m afraid, William’s behaved badly. Virginia, you know?”

Colonel Denbigh started slightly. Then he closed his pocket-knife and put it in his pocket.

“What about Virginia?” he asked quietly.

Mr. Carter hesitated, then he reddened. “You know how we all love you and Virginia,” he said hurriedly. “We—we hoped there was something—the fact is, Emily says William was—was engaged to Virginia. I—I want to know, Colonel. I want to know if my boy’s behaved like that?”

“You’re mistaken, Mr. Carter,” replied the colonel loftily. “No man who was engaged to Virginia Denbigh could, or would, forget it.”

“But, Colonel, I thought——” Mr. Carter was purple now with embarrassment.

“You’re mistaken, sir,” the colonel held his head high, “entirely mistaken.”

Mr. Carter felt like a gold fish splashed out of its globe. He gasped and swallowed hard. He remembered, too, that his wife had told him not to come. “You’ll only make a mess of it, papa,” she had warned him, between her sobs, “You’re always putting your foot in it!”

“I beg your pardon, Colonel. I—well, you see—it was because I think so much of her—of Virginia, I mean, that I came. I—I thought if my boy—my boy, William Henry Carter, had done a thing like that— Well, sir, I’d feel like disowning him!”

The colonel stood still. He had thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and his eyes were fixed on the distant road.

“You were mistaken, sir, that’s all. There comes Jinny now.”

Mr. Carter, following his eyes, saw the ancient wagonette entering the old gateway. Lucas was driving placidly, the old grays were ambling up the broad moss-grown driveway to the front door. Alone in the back sat a slim young figure. Virginia was reading a newspaper. Mr. Carter remembered that fearful item in the personals and cold perspiration stood out in beads on his forehead.

“I’ll have to go,” he said thickly. “I’m late now at the office. We’ve been all upset.”

“Better look at this San José scale,” said the colonel grimly, his eyes still on the wagonette.

Lucas had stopped half-way to the house and Virginia jumped down. She was coming toward them now. In one hand she held the newspaper, in the other some hothouse roses. Mr. Carter, making hot-foot for the gate, came full upon her.

“Why, Mr. Carter!” she smiled radiantly. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I—I stopped by to get a setting of leghorn eggs,” said Mr. Carter, mopping his forehead. “It’s a hot day, Virginia.”

She laughed. “I thought it was cool. Please take this rose to Mrs. Carter from me, won’t you? Mrs. Payson just cut them for me; they’re from her new greenhouse. She calls them ‘Kentucky Sunsets.’”

Mr. Carter took the rose and stumbled blindly for the open. He was suffocating with mortification. If William wasn’t engaged to her, he, Johnson Carter, had made a donkey of himself, and if William was engaged to her! Mr. Carter wiped his forehead again, absently thrust the rose inside the crown of his hat and set the hat firmly on his head with the rose leaves hanging out at the back—like the tail of a kite. They were still fluttering there as he plodded down the road toward his office, his face red and his heart sore.

Meanwhile, Colonel Denbigh had crossed the lawn to meet his granddaughter. Virginia gave him the newspaper without comment and retired to an old stone bench near the rustic table which served her grandfather as a writing-desk and refreshment table in summer time. She was engaged now in arranging Mrs. Payson’s roses while the colonel pretended to read the news. They both heard the horses going around to the stable and Lucas’ voice as he called to them to go into their stalls.

The colonel rustled the newspaper and laid it down. Then he took off his hat and pushed back his white hair. He was a brave man, but he was perspiring at every pore.

“Jinny,” he said at last, so abruptly that she started and looked around. He caught her eye, winced, and plunged in. “Mr. Carter was here just now.”

“Yes?” Virginia listened expectantly, a little flush on her cheeks.

The colonel wiped his forehead. “It’s a hot day!” he observed. Then, casually: “Yes; he’s heard from his son. He’s coming home with——”

“Yes?” Virginia drew her breath quietly, averting her eyes. “Soon, grandpa?”

The colonel choked. He had to go to the table and drain a glass of water. “Yes. He—he’s made a darned fool of himself, Jinny, he’s—he’s married.”

“I know,” Virginia rejoined in a low voice. “I just read it in the newspaper.”

The colonel, looking into the bottom of his tumbler, was aware that the bees had got into the honeysuckle. They sounded like a full brass band in his ears. He could not stand it any longer, he looked sideways at Virginia. She was still sitting on the old stone bench, her roses in her lap. She wasn’t looking at him and he could see her profile. It was very pale now, but she still had an adorable nose. It came from her mother’s side; the Denbighs had long ones with a hump, called politely Roman. Her grandfather, watching her intently, saw her slip a ring from her finger and put it into her pocket. As she said nothing, the colonel got his breath. “She’ll want to know, I’ll tell her the rest now,” he thought. “It’s like pulling a tooth—better get it over.”

“He’s married a French girl. Only known her three months. He’s bringing her home.”

Virginia rose quietly, gathering up her roses. She started to speak, but her lips trembled and she gave it up. She put the roses in the bowl on the colonel’s table and filled the bowl with water. Her hands were quite firm.

“I hope she’s nice,” she said at last, in a low voice.

The colonel, who had caught her eye, made a rash movement, he was going to take her in his arms. But she straightened herself.

“Please d-d-don’t!” she gasped, and ran up the steps into the house.

Colonel Denbigh stood, looking after her, his eyes full. Then he smoothed his hair again and put on his hat. Thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat he walked up and down.

“She’s game!” he thought proudly. “By gum, she’s a Denbigh. God bless her!”

At this moment Plato emerged from the house with a tray.

“It am time fo’ yo’ julep, Col’nel,” he remarked, setting down a glass that showed a green sprig of mint in crushed ice.

“Plato,” said the colonel thoughtfully, “what was it you used to tell me about old Colonel Colfax and his daughter?”

Plato flicked a little dust off the edge of the table and showed his ivories.

“Yo means ’bout Miss Ann an’ dat Mist’ Gibbie?”

The colonel nodded, his eyes on the far end of the sunny path to the orchard.

“Mist’ Gibbie was courtin’ Miss Ann, suh. He warn’t no ’count at all, no, suh, but Miss Ann, I reckon she thought a heap of him. Anyways, Col’nel Colfax, he didn’t say noffin much, no, suh, he jest kinder watched ’em. Den, ’bout six months after Mist’ Gibbie come courtin’, jest when we was all expectin’ a weddin’, come t’ find out Mist’ Gibbie was hangin’ round widder lady. Yes, suh, she’d come t’ town from New York, an’ she hab a heap ob money. Dey got talkin’ round at de clubs an’ de hotels an’ so on, suh, ’bout how Mist’ Gibbie done gib Miss Ann Colfax de mitten ’long ob dis lady. De col’nel—yo’ remembers him, suh? Well, de col’nel comes in one day, walkin’ kinder ob straight-like an’ sets down on de porch. ’Peared like to us, suh, we was all down in de kitchen, an’ de kitchen got a bead righ’ on de side porch—it ’peared like t’ us dat de col’nel was expectin’ company. Miss Ann, she was up-stairs, way back, lyin’ down wid a headache. Been cryin’, so Sally Johnson, her maid, say. Well, suh, it got on t’ ’bout two o’clock, an’ it was one ob dese yere white dust days. De rooster out in de road, he’d been dustin’ himself righ’ smart. Mr. Gibbie comes up. He comes ’long quiet-like, suh, expectin’ t’ see Miss Ann, an’ we was watchin’ because we done know de col’nel had seed him out wid de widow. De col’nel gits up, suh, an’ stands wid his hands in his pockets, awaitin’, terr’ble quiet. An’ Mist’ Gibbie, he comes up an’ asks fer Miss Ann. De col’nel, he look him up an’ down an’ he done say noffin, noffin at all. Den Mist’ Gibbie, he comes up de steps an’ he asks fer Miss Ann agin. Says he: ‘I was engaged t’ yer daughter, suh, an’ I wants ter see her.’ ‘Yo’ can see me, suh,’ says de col’nel. Den we didn’t heah what Mist’ Gibbie says. All t’ once, Col’nel, dere was somet’ing doin’. Col’nel Colfax, he lets fly one foot, suh, an’ Mist’ Gibbie, he lands smack on top of de rooster in de dust an’ dey rolls ober togedder. Dat was de las’ time Mist’ Gibbie asks fer Miss Ann Colfax, suh, it sho was.”

Colonel Denbigh pulled his moustache thoughtfully.

“Did he kill the rooster, Plato?” he asked solicitously.

Plato laughed. “No, suh, he was a heap more scared den de rooster.”

The colonel sighed. “Those were great days, Plato.”

“Dey sho’ was, suh!”

“I wish they’d come back,” Colonel Denbigh added regretfully, shaking his head.

IV

It was a clear, starry night, and the long black plume of smoke from the engine was plainly visible as the train rounded the curve and came slowly up to the station. It seemed to approach solemnly, with a certain portentous stateliness, its long line of lighted cars mysteriously welded together and suggesting a giant caterpillar suffering from internal conflagration.

The soft spring night, so illusive in its fragrance and its stillness, was suddenly riven by the fierce clamor of the monster’s bell, and the long platform of the station shook and trembled under foot.

Mr. Carter and Daniel waited at the gates, detailed for this painful duty by the panic-stricken Mrs. Carter. The train was late, and they had been waiting fifteen minutes. Daniel patiently leaned on his cane, while his father gripped the iron bars at times with the air of an exasperated tiger looking for a victim. Aware of other people also waiting and within ear-shot, they had said little to each other; but as the train finally approached, Mr. Carter broke out with a suppressed rumble.

“The young donkey!” he said for the hundredth time. “I—I wonder what I’m here for, anyway?”

Daniel, who had borne a good deal already, pulled at his sleeve.

“They’ll hear you. For Heaven’s sake, make the best of it!”

Mr. Carter gave utterance to a sound that seemed to be a cross between a grunt and a bellow, but the thunderous arrival of the engine drowned all other noises, and he fell silent while he stared gloomily down the long aisle between the tracks where the passengers were disembarking.

“There’s William,” said Daniel in his ear.

“Where?” Mr. Carter experienced a strange, sinking feeling around the diaphragm. “Oh, I see!”

The two stood silent, trying to get a good view through the crowd.

“My word, Dan, has he married a kid? She’s no size at all!”

Dan went forward, his halting walk jarring anew on his father. Mr. Carter hated to have one of his boys a cripple, but to-night he felt that Daniel was heroic. He followed in a panic.

William saw them.

“Hello, Dan! How d’you do, father? Here—here’s your new daughter,” he added in a lower, more vibrant tone, drawing his wife forward, pride in his face.

Mr. Carter made a desperate plunge, tried to think of something to say, stumbled badly, and surprised himself and both his sons by suddenly kissing the bride.

“Welcome home!” he said loudly. “We’re all mighty glad to see you. We——”

He stopped short with his mouth open, amazed at his own performance. He had never intended to do anything of the kind. He was suffering from stage fright, his mind became a blank, and he simply stared.

But the bride was not at loss. His greeting seemed to touch her. She held out both hands with a fluttering, birdlike gesture, one to him and one to Dan, and she lifted a lovely, animated face.

“Vous parlez Français?” she cried eagerly, with shining eyes.

Mr. Carter looked about aghast.

“Good Lord, William! Can’t she speak English?”

He was answered with a chorus of laughter. Young Mrs. Carter, William, and Daniel giggled outrageously.

“Of course she does, father! She’s half American,” replied William.

But the laugh had broken the ice. Mr. Carter looked more narrowly at his daughter-in-law, and discovered that her eyes were lovely. She raised them to his now with a look that suddenly recalled William’s description. They were soft and brown and tender, with something sylvan and untamed in their lucid depths.

“By George, a wild fawn, of course, of course!” thought Mr. Carter, and he offered her his arm.

She took it, clinging to him a little with a touch at once soft and confiding. There was the ghost of an elusive fragrance in her hair, and in the light veil that floated across his shoulder. It suggested violets wet with dew, and even Mr. Carter was intuitively aware that there was something unique, something distinguished and amazing about the small figure, so slight and graceful, and the delicately poised head.

“Of course I speak English,” she murmured softly in his ear as they threaded the crowd, followed by William and Daniel and two porters with innumerable bags. “Mais, hélas! I wanted to speak French to you because I love it. It’s the language of my heart, and you”—there was a lovely tremor in her voice—“you’re so good to me here in this smoky place—like a father! I—oh, I know—je t’adore!”

Mr. Carter, unaccustomed to the language of extravagance, had a pleasurable feeling of elation. Hitherto, his performances in the social line had been unappreciated, even in the bosom of his family. He had frequently felt like a dancing bear, but now all was changed; this little French girl knew a good thing when she saw it.

“That’s all right, you’re William’s wife,” said Mr. Carter, “and I’m mighty fond of William. His mother thinks he’s a chip of the moon, I’ll tell you that!”

“Tiens!” The girl drew in her breath quickly. “Then I’m afraid—she will never like me!”

Mr. Carter, who felt that this time he had really put his foot in it, covered his confusion by hustling her into a waiting taxi. Daniel and he had secured one, but it was necessary to take another for the hand-luggage, and Daniel rode home in that, alone with the bags and umbrellas, while his father and William sat with the bride.

Daniel, who had exchanged a word or two with his brother as they crossed the station together, was aware of William’s uneasiness. In the familiar station, confronted with his father and his brother, and all the old realities of his home life, William must have suffered some kind of a shock. He had even said, rather thickly, as they walked along: