HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS

BY W. M. L. JAY

Author of "Shiloh," etc.

"Sin will pluck on sin."
King Richard III.

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY,
713 BROADWAY
1874

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
E. P. DUTTON & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

In sending forth another book belonging to the class known as religious novels, the author is moved to say a word to the critics who received a former one with so pleasant a mixture of praise and deprecation. As one of them frankly explained, "they like a pill none the better for being sugar-coated." It is not necessary to remind them that there may be younger (and possibly older) people who do. It is more to the point to state that persons to whom religion is a pill—a bitter, nauseous compound, to be bolted in sickness, and kept out of sight in health—are not the persons for whom the author writes.

There is another class of objectors. They talk solemnly of Art and its canons; they make a religion of it, having little other. One of these remarks, that "a tract in the hands of the Venus di Medici would be an impertinence." I quite agree with him. But why need he ignore the fact that the Venus is also the outcome of a religion? To the ancient sculptor, it was a goddess, not a woman, that grew under his hands; it was Devotion, working together with Genius, that produced the two or three statues which the world agrees to admire. So the few great poems of the world are religious poems. Why, then, should not the great novel of the world be a religious novel? Some day, be sure, a genius sweeter than Hawthorne's, more genial than Dickens', and subtler than Thackeray's, will arise to give it to us. Let me humbly help to prepare the way for him! Meanwhile, be it also understood that the persons to whom Art is a sufficing end, instead of a noble means, are not the persons for whom I write.

I do write for the "gentle reader" who enjoys religion in novels, as elsewhere. Be thus much said for his liking, even from the art side. There are two classes of novels—the descriptive and the analytical; one pictures real life, the other passions and motives. Religion has its rightful place in both, because it is an important part of real life, and controls both passions and motives. Finally (for the subject is much too wide for a preface), the modern novel being so potent a power,—for evil on the one hand, for social and civil reform on the other,—it is fair to suppose that it may do good service for religion.

In conclusion, I have to make two acknowledgments. The first to an unknown coadjutor, a hand that is doubtless mouldering into dust. Some years ago, a yellow, time-worn manuscript, purporting to be a veritable family history, fell into my hands. I am indebted to it for the main outline of my story. The second is to MISS FREEBORNE,—the only sculptor of our day, so far as I know, who has consecrated her genius to Christian Art. From her studio I have quietly abstracted the sculpture which lends its white grace to these pages. I should also have seized upon the slender figure of her St. Agnes, and the bowed head of her Martyr, had they been available to my purpose.

NEW YORK, July, 1874.

CONTENTS.

[INTRODUCTION]

PART FIRST.

A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.

I.—[Proverbs and the Interpretation]
II.—[Studying to Answer]
III.—[Pattern of Old Fidelity]
IV.—[A Goodly Heritage]
V.—[Waste Places]
VI.—[The Day of Temptation]
VII.—[A Bitter Draught]
VIII.—[As a Dream when one Awaketh]
IX.—[The Blot Cleaves]

PART SECOND.

THE FRUIT OF THE WAY.

I.—[Through a Mist]
II.—[Strengthened out of Zion]
III.—[Seeing, but Understanding Not]
IV.—[Patient Waiting]
V.—[Under the Oaks]
VI.—[Of Clay]
VII.—[Hidden Riches]
VIII.—[The Wind Changes]
IX.—[The First Links of a Chain]
X.—[Feeling His Way]
XI.—[Sleepless Nights Appointed]
XII.—[A Consultation]
XIII.—[Dinner-Table Talk]

PART THIRD.

THE IN-GATHERING.

I.—[Unfoldings]
II.—[The Foundations Fail]
III.—[Building Anew]
IV.—[A Sermon]
V.—[Partings]
VI.—[With a Double Heart]
VII.—[Overburdened]
VIII.—[A Business Letter]
IX.—[Smoother Than Butter]
X.—[A Wicked Device]
XI.—[A Clue]
XII.—[Too Late]
XIII.—[Escaped]
XIV.—[The Way Stopped]

PART FOURTH.

A NEW FIELD.

I.—[Alive in Famine]
II.—[New Acquaintances]
III.—[Farview]
IV.—[A Word in Due Season]
V.—[Intercepted]
VI.—[An Aimless Stroll]
VII.—[Ordered Steps]
VIII.—[Though He Slay]
IX.—[Mistakes]
X.—[Like a Thief in the Night]
XI.—[After Many Days]

PART FIFTH.

A BETTER HARVEST.

I.—[A Cloud for a Covering]
II.—[Swift Feet]
III.—[Fatality or Temptation]
IV.—[Blind]
V.—[More Mystery]
VI.—[A Clue]
VII.—[The Set Time]
VIII.—[Gift and Giver]
IX.—[Faithful unto Death]

HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS.

INTRODUCTION.

Very beautiful was the long vista of the elm-arched street. So irresistibly did it woo the eye to linger among its gray columns and green arches, or wander adown its fair, temple-like perspective to the hazy vanishing point, that the wayfarer might easily forget to observe what sort of dwellings were ranged along its sides. Nor did they seek to force themselves upon his notice. They were all plain, substantial structures, with no obtrusive marks of ostentation or of meanness about them; and they all stood a little back from the street, leaving room for a trim grass-plot, or a thicket of flowering shrubs, between them and the passer-by. They would impress him, collectively, as genuine, well-to-do homes, free alike from the struggles of poverty and the temptations of wealth, without troubling him to recognize them individually, or diverting his gaze from the over-arching elms that were so much better worth his looking at.

Such, at least, would be the fact, until he came to a certain corner; where a large square structure of stuccoed brick, coming boldly forward to the pavement, and planting its heavy steps thereon, would be sure to arrest his glance, and, perhaps, faintly stir his curiosity. It was too large for a private building, and too unpretending for a public one,—what was it? If he had put the inquiry into audible words, he would have been told that it was the Medical College. And if his interlocutor had chanced to be a white-haired, genial-faced old man, long ago flung aside from the stream of active life, and, consequently, with time on his hands for a little chat with a stranger,—he would, doubtless, have woven into his answer the popular witticism;—

"Everything here, sir, is arranged just as it should be. The divinity school is on the road to the poorhouse; the law-school adjoins the jail; and the medical college—this building before you, sir—is hard by the cemetery;—you can see the monuments rising above the hedge yonder."

But the young man now coming up the street, through the pleasant play of sunshine and shadow beneath the elms, would neither have asked the question, nor smiled at the answer. He knew the stuccoed building well, as a three years' occupant thereof must needs do; and he had heard and repeated the witticism too many times to leave it the faintest sparkle. It was doubtful, too, whether he gave a thought to the loveliness of the elm-arched vista that stretched before him,—partly by reason of his familiarity therewith, partly on account of a preoccupied mind, and still more, perhaps, because his bright, brisk, energetic temperament was not of the sort which is quickest to feel subtile charm, and recognize the delicate outline, of the spirit of beauty. He came on rapidly, with an elastic step and a cheery whistle, and, as he neared the college, he cast a quick glance at one of its upper windows. What he saw there would have been a pretty enough sight to most people,—merely a tiny brown bird hopping to and fro on the window-sill, and turning its small head briskly from side to side in its search for infinitesimal crumbs,—but it brought a shadow to his broad, frank brow.

"Not yet up," he muttered, "or that wren wouldn't be trotting up and down there so complacently! To be sure, he may have gone out, but it isn't likely."

Neither for the look nor the thought did he pause, but strode straight up two flights of stairs, his firm tread resounding loudly through the empty, uncarpeted halls, and knocked at the door of a front room. There was no response. He knocked again, with a somewhat impatient hand, tried the door and found it locked, waited a moment, beat a third emphatic rat-tat-too upon the panel, without eliciting other reply than a faint and dreary echo from the attic above; and, finally, turned on his heel, and walked down-stairs. At the head of the second flight, a thought seemed to strike him; after a moment of hesitation, he turned and knocked at a door close at hand. Scarcely waiting for the prompt "Come in!" he opened it, with the question,—"Have you seen Arling this morning?"

The occupant of the room was a broad-shouldered young man, sitting at a table covered with books and papers, and deeply absorbed in study. He only half turned his head, showing a regular, clear-cut profile, as he answered,—

"No. I left him so late last night that I overslept this morning, and have thought of nothing but making up lost time. And really, Trubie, a man might be excused for forgetting his best friend—if he had one—in examination week. But, is Arling any worse?"

"That's what I should like to know, Roath," returned Trubie, planting himself a little more firmly on the threshold, but taking no notice of the chair that the other had carelessly pushed toward him. "At any rate, he's out."

Roath started, and turned completely round, giving a view of a square-featured, somewhat moody, but still handsome, face. "Out!" he repeated, looking both amazed and startled.

"So it would seem. The door is locked, and I rapped and rattled loud enough to wake the dead."

"Oh," said Roath, with a prolonged falling inflection. And after a moment's consideration, he turned back to his books, as if there were no more to be said.

Trubie lingered. Not, evidently, from any special liking for Roath's society, but because he was undecided what to do next. "I don't understand it, Roath," he said slowly. "You know Arling was to have kept his room to-day, by way of gaining strength, and guarding against a relapse. And we were to have gone over 'Barnes' together this morning, so as to be all primed for Professor Beers to-morrow. What can he have done with himself?"

"Perhaps," said Roath, absently, with his eyes on his book, "some of the others may have seen him."

Trubie took the hint—if such it was meant to be—and withdrew. He spent the next half hour in knocking at sundry doors, and repeating, with slight variation, the questions and remarks wherewith he had favored Roath. No one had seen Arling; no one knew anything about him. All seemed surprised to learn that he had gone out; but all were laboriously cramming for the examinations in progress, and the surprise made but a faint and transient ripple on the surface of their troubled minds. Trubie's persistency impressed them much more strongly; they wondered that he had leisure to bestow upon any anxiety not connected with those dreaded examinations, any fear save that of failing to secure the right to sign himself, "Frank Trubie, M.D."

Nor—to represent him fairly—was the young man himself wholly insensible of his absurdity. "Well!" said he, at last, "I can't afford to spend my morning in this way. I must go back to my room, and set to work. When Arling comes in, tell him I've been here." And away he went through the dancing elm-shadows, more quickly than he had come.

Two hours passed. Then Roath closed his books, gathered up his papers, and took his way to the examination room, amid the groups of assembling students. Many eyes followed him, some with admiration, some with envy,—few or none, it was plain to see, with affection.

"No question but that he'll pass!" said one. "He's all brain,—I'd be content with half as much."

"And his memory!" exclaimed another. "It appears to be constructed on the principle of a rat-trap; ingress is easy, egress—not provided for!"

"No one can keep step with him but Arling," remarked a third; "if he gets well enough, there will be a close race between them."

"I bet on Arling," said a fourth,—a somewhat slender young man, with an easy, almost careless air, but a thoughtful face,—Mark Tracey by name.

"Eh! why?" asked the first speaker.

"Because, as you said just now, Roath is all brain. Whereas Arling, while he does not want for brain, has also a heart and a conscience. And in medicine, as in everything else, that wonderful trio are too strong for brain alone."

"Moralizing, as usual," returned the other with a light laugh.

"Not at all. It is plain common-sense. The history of the world shows it. Perhaps there is no better type of pure intellect than Satan. And Michael the archangel does very well for a representative of love, duty, and intellect, combined. You remember which beat?"

"It is not possible, Tracey, that you believe that fable!"

"Grant that it is a fable," replied Tracey, lifting his eyebrows;—"it nevertheless stands for the concrete wisdom of the ages which preceded it."

The last words were spoken on the threshold of the examination room, and, of necessity, closed the discussion.

Roath's examination, on this day, did not disappoint the general expectation. Although somewhat paler than ordinary, he was thoroughly self-possessed; his answers were clear and to the point; not once did his memory play him false; scarcely once did he hesitate for a word. He gave evidence not only of close study, but of careful analysis, and profound, sagacious thought. But he looked worn when it was over, as if the mental strain had been severe; and seemed scarcely to hear the comments and congratulations showered upon him.

Into the midst of these burst Trubie, with the old question, "Have you seen anything of Arling?" and hardly waiting for the general "No" which answered it, upstairs he rushed, three steps at a time, to the room of his friend. The stream of talk had scarcely resumed its flow, ere he was back again, with a hurried step, and a perturbed face.

"It's odd about Arling," he began, abruptly. "I can't get any answer, and there's nothing stirring in the room. But I looked into the keyhole, and the key is certainly inside."

Some few of the students, startled by his words, and the deep gravity of his look, gathered around him to discuss the matter, when a stout, gray-haired professor came out from the examination room.

"Good day, Mr. Trubie," said he, as he passed the group. "I hope your patient is doing well."

"I—I don't know, sir," faltered Trubie; "I have not seen him since yesterday, at dusk. And he is unaccountably missing this morning;—at least, I thought he must be out when I went to his room, at eight o'clock, and couldn't get in. But I have just been up again, and—and the door is certainly locked on the inside."

Being already in possession of the main facts of the case,—namely, that Alec Arling, one of the class of medical students now undergoing examination for their degree, had been suffering for some days from severe and increasing intestinal trouble, and had been advised by the faculty to keep his room for a day or two, under the care of his friend, Frank Trubie;—the professor now, by means of a few rapid questions, elicited the additional facts, that Trubie had been suddenly called away, on the previous evening, by family affliction, to his home in a near suburb, and had spent the night there, and that Edmund Roath, who had volunteered to keep a little watch over the sick-room during his absence, had remained with Arling till past midnight, engaged in comparing notes of clinical lectures, and in psychological talk (with which matters Arling would busy himself, in spite of remonstrance), and had then left him, recommending him to go to sleep at once, and had heard the door duly locked on his exit. Roath further stated that, in consequence of this protracted sitting, and previous hard work, he had slept late this morning; and, taking it for granted that Trubie, according to promise, was already back at his post, he had seated himself at his books, immediately upon rising. Very shortly after, Trubie had appeared, and informed him that Arling had gone out, whereat he had been considerably surprised,—not that the young man was unable to leave his room, but because it was inexpedient to do so. Nevertheless, he frankly acknowledged that his mind was too much preoccupied to give more than a passing thought to the matter, especially as he knew well that any remissness on his part was sure to be amply atoned for by Trubie,—he and Arling being, as everybody knew, the Damon and Pythias of the class.

The professor was a man of few words, quick conclusions, and prompt action. "There is but one way of getting at the bottom of the matter," said he, at the end of this rapid statement. "Let somebody bring a crowbar, and pry open the door."

Scarce sooner said than done. The door yielded easily to the rude implement, in Trubie's impetuous hands, and was followed by a rush of the assembled students toward the opening,—though, even in this moment of eager curiosity, the instinct of subordination allowed the professor to in first. He went straight to the bed, where was seen a human form, lying on its side, in an easy attitude of slumber. He bent for a moment above this form, while a sudden silence fell upon the startled spectators,—he touched the brow, lifted the hand, and then, turning slowly round, said, in deep, serious tones;—

"He is dead."

Trubie let fall the crowbar, darted forward, and caught the hand of his dead friend, with a kind of indignant incredulity. But the icy touch, the marble pallor, the lifeless weight, brought instant conviction. He stood as if stunned.

The professor had turned from the bed to the table, where a glass, a spoon, and four or five phials, stood within easy reach of the dead man's hand. He held the spoon to his nostrils, and then examined the phials, holding them up to the light. In one, labelled "Mag. Sol. Morph.," he seemed to find what he sought.

"Mr. Trubie," said he, turning round, with the open phial in his hand, "did your friend ever say anything to you, that indicated a disposition to suicide?"

The question roused the young man from his stupor, although it was a moment or two ere he seemed to comprehend its purport fully. "Never, sir!" he exclaimed, indignantly, a hot flush rising to his brow,—"Alec Arling would have scorned to do such a thing! He was neither a fool nor a coward, sir! Besides, there was no earthly reason why he should do it."

The professor shook his head. "He seems to have done it, nevertheless," said he, thoughtfully. "To be sure," he added, after a moment, "it is barely possible that he took it by mistake."

"Most likely, that is the real state of the case," remarked Roath, who was standing on the other side of the table, calmly and gravely observant of the scene.

In temperaments like Trubie's, the transition from grief to anger is often curiously direct; the one is the natural outlet of the other; and in this instance, the sound of Roath's voice seemed to afford the bereaved and horrified young man the object of indignation that he so sorely needed. Springing quickly forward, and clenching his fist, he confronted the speaker with a convulsive rage and excitement in strong contrast with Roath's grave composure.

"You know better!" he shouted. "It was neither a suicide nor a mistake. You killed him!"

Roath gave a violent start, and seemed about to speak, but his lips only trembled nervously. He was evidently confounded, almost bewildered, by the suddenness and fierceness of the accusation.

Trubie went on with scarce a moment's pause, and with, still hotter indignation, "You were last in his room—you acknowledge it. And you hated him."

Roath had regained his self-command,—which, to do him justice, he had but for an instant lost. "If you were not beside yourself with grief," said he, coldly, "there could be but one answer to such a charge as that. As it is—"

"'As it is,' I repeat it," interrupted Trubie, with bitter scorn. "I repeat it, and am ready to maintain it, always—anywhere—anyhow!"

Roath drew himself up. "I, too, am ready,"—he began, haughtily, but the professor interposed. "Mr. Roath," said he, with dignity, "I command you to be silent. Mr. Trubie,"—laying his hand on the shoulder of the agitated young man, and speaking in a tone of grave rebuke,—"much may be forgiven to the first excitement of sorrow and horror, but this is going too far. Such an accusation is not to be made lightly."

"Lightly!" repeated the frantic Trubie;—"he hated Alec, I tell you! He couldn't forgive him for rivalling him—aye, and beating him, too—everywhere; in scholarship, in popularity, in"—he hesitated for an instant,—"in love."

Roath's face grew dark; a frown traced a deep, vertical line between his brows; he set his teeth, and made a quick stride forward. But a dozen hands seized him, a dozen others laid hold of Trubie, and both were half forced, half led away to their rooms; while the faculty of the college, hastily called together, gathered around the corpse, to examine more minutely into the cause of death.

A coroner's jury was duly summoned. It examined the body, weighed the evidence, and being about equally divided in regard to the question of suicide, finally agreed upon "Accidental Death by Poison," as, upon the whole, the safer and less objectionable verdict. There seemed to be no good reason to suspect murder, nor any ground whatever for implicating Roath, or anybody else, as a perpetrator thereof.

Trubie, to be sure, persisted in his accusation; but it was with a vehemence and a dogmatism so unlike his wonted careless good nature, as to suggest the idea that his mind had been temporarily thrown off its balance by the shock of his friend's death. This idea gained color from the fact that all which he could offer, in support of so grave a charge, was the statement that he had long seen or suspected, in Roath a secret hatred of Arling, and a willingness to do him covert mischief. He had even mentioned the suspicion to his friend; but Arling—being of the most candid and generous, as well as unsuspecting temper, unable to conceive of any but an open, honorable enemy—had refused to entertain it for a moment. Trubie also solemnly affirmed that his passionate accusation of Roath, by the side of the newly-discovered corpse, was the involuntary result of an intuition so sudden, so clear, and so powerful, that, though little given to look for supernatural agencies in human affairs, he could not rid himself of the conviction that it was the direct inspiration of his dead friend. But it may readily be imagined how much weight a statement of this sort was likely to have with men of plain minds and sturdy understanding, searching among the external phenomena of the event for grounds upon which to base a reasonable verdict.

On the other hand, the theory of accidental poisoning was supported, negatively, by the lack of apparent cause for self-destruction; and positively, by the fact that on the dead man's table, side by side with the potent narcotic before mentioned, stood a phial of exactly the same size, and with equally colorless contents. Of this Arling had been accustomed to take two or three spoonfuls, mixed with a few drops of a third preparation of exceeding bitter flavor. A careless hand might have mistaken the one phial for the other. The taste of the morphine, so swallowed, would be much disguised; while the dose was sufficient, under the circumstances, to produce death. It will be seen, therefore, that the verdict rendered was the only one upon which a coroner's jury could well have been expected to agree.

The body was next solemnly laid in a vault, to await the disposal of the parents, who lived in a western state; and the widening circles of excitement, horror, curiosity, and regret, of which it had been the unconscious centre, rapidly subsided, or were effaced by the growing interests of the now imminent closing examination.

Even Trubie, though he flatly refused to acquiesce in the coroner's verdict, was forced tacitly to accept its results. He took refuge in a complete personal proscription of Roath; he neither spoke to him nor looked at him; he treated him precisely as if he did not exist. To a person of Roath's cold, hard, steely temper, and obtuse sensibilities, this demeanor was, perhaps, the most tolerable of which the circumstances admitted. It spared him the necessity of being either conciliatory or resentful; he was well content to ignore Trubie as completely as Trubie ignored him.

He soon found, however, that he had greatly underestimated the moral force of an abhorrence deeply rooted in immitigable distrust. Though largely given to psychological studies, and profoundly learned, for his years, in the intricacies and tendencies of the human mind, he was astonished to find how soon the atmosphere grew heavy around him, how quickly Trubie's dogged dislike communicated itself, more or less strongly, to others; while the increased cordiality of a few, though kindly intended to offset it, only served to point him out more clearly as one set apart, for the time, from life's ordinary course and level, by the force of an unenviable, if undeserved, notoriety. Not that he ever appeared to be conscious of either of these manifestations, or of their ultimate effect. Nature had given him a moral and intellectual fibre so tough, and he had trained himself to a control so perfect, that the keenest observer could not detect the least variation from his usual composed, concentrated, somewhat moody demeanor. Whatever of suffering, or of sin, lay at the bottom of his heart, not a shadow thereof was seen in his face.

It might well be, however, that he was glad when the examination was over, his degree obtained, and himself left free to depart by any one of the many paths which life opened before him.

Yet he was in no suspicious haste to be gone. His departure was fixed for an early hour on the following morning. Meanwhile, at dusk, he went out for his habitual solitary stroll. Never had he invited companionship, and was it thrust upon him. He had no intimate friend. Though he had been not only admired, but respected, by many, for his intellectual gifts, and for a certain firm, even texture of character, and dispassionateness of judgment, that often looked like virtue, whether such in reality or not, he was beloved by none.

Where he went, what he thought, is not to the purpose of our narrative. His walk was long, however; he did not return until dusk had deepened into clear and starry, but moonless night. As he came up through the great, dim elm-arches, with their solemn resemblance to a vast cathedral nave, a strange tremor seized him. A complete sceptic in regard to all superstitions and forebodings, he yet felt his nerves shaking with an undefined fear; he could not rid himself of the impression that something unprecedented and sinister was at that moment taking place. Reaching the college, he ascended the steps with a strange mixture of eagerness and reluctance; and immediately became aware of a subdued but excited murmur of voices in the upper hall. At the same moment, Mark Tracey came rushing down the stairs, carpet-bag in hand.

"What's up?" asked Roath, in a voice that trembled in spite of himself.

"I don't rightly know," responded Tracey, hurriedly,—"I am so late for the train, that I couldn't stop to hear. Something about a diamond that Trubie has found in Arling's glass—the one from which the poor fellow drank his death-draught, I believe. Good-by!" And away he went.

Had he waited but for an instant, he would have been startled and spellbound by the deadly whiteness of Roath's face. Through all the glimmering indistinctness of the dimly-lighted hall, his features were clearly discernible, by reason of that marble pallor. For the moment, he seemed to lose sense and consciousness; he would have fallen, except for the friendly support of the wall against which he leaned.

But it was only for a moment. The man's hard energy of character, his iron will, his rigid self-control, though they had gone down before the suddenness and severity of the shock, quickly rose again. With a mighty effort, he rallied his broken forces; back into his face came the look of purpose, the sense of power, the sternness of immitigable resolve; and this with so rapid and almost imperceptible a change, that it seemed as if the granite man must have stood there from the first, and the weak man not at all. While Tracey's receding footsteps still echoed faintly from without, going swiftly in the direction of the city's principal thoroughfare,—while the murmur of voices from above was still at its eager, wondering height,—he had turned, noiselessly descended the steps, and was gliding down through the sombre elm-arches, swift and stealthy as a phantom. The street was shadowy at best, but he chose the darker side; it was wellnigh deserted, at that hour, but he soon turned into a still less frequented one, and then struck into a more assured and less noiseless, as well as swifter, pace.

As he went, he drew a ring from his finger, and glancing hastily round, to make sure that he was unobserved, he flung it far into the dusky shadow of a garden thicket. Only the day before, a friend had said to him,—"Roath, do you know that the stone is gone from your ring?" and he had answered,—"Yes; and I am sorry to have lost it, for it was my father's." And he had proceeded to point out the antique setting, and to describe the peculiar shape and tint of the gem which it had inclosed. He gnashed his teeth as he recalled the short, but momentous conversation. But for that, he would not have fled.

The garden into which he had flung the ring adjoined a small cottage; and, at one of the open windows, a gray-haired dame sat in a high-backed chair, listening to the clear, musical voice of an invisible reader. This fragment of a sentence floated out to him on the dim night air,—"He shall be holden with the cords of—"

Even at that moment, the words struck him sharply. Involuntarily he slackened his pace, and half-turned to catch the remainder of the sentence, but it was inaudible. The uncertainty before him, the terror behind, were, for the time, almost forgotten in a certain chill curiosity. "Holden with the cords—holden with the cords," he repeated to himself, as he hurried on,—"I wonder what book she was reading! I should really like to hear the end of that sentence!"

Still keeping up his swift pace and vigilant glance, he nevertheless sank into a partial abstraction. Some disconnected sentences, breaking at intervals from his lips, served to show the current of his thoughts.

"Set it down, once for all," he muttered, "that crime—absolute crime, of which the law can take hold—is a mistake.—Into the best-laid scheme, the one most carefully framed and skilfully executed, Chance—many would say, Providence (can there be a Providence after all?)—drops some trivial, fortuitous circumstance, which disconcerts or betrays everything.—The question is, could it have been foreseen?—I have worn that ring for sixteen years.—No! no! it is too subtile and too intricate a matter to think about now. I have more pressing subjects of reflection.—Only, set it down, for future use, that the essential thing is to keep clear of crime."

"Holden with the cords!" echoed suddenly and pertinaciously through his memory, as if by way of defiant answer to the conclusion that he had reached. He set his teeth, and dashed more swiftly onward.

Ere long, he reached the railway depot. In a large, underground space, half-filled with smoke and steam, a train stood on the track, the engine fretting and snorting like a steed impatient to be off, and the bell ringing out a hasty summons, curiously typifying the sharp call to leap on to some favorable train of circumstances, and be borne away to fortune or to ruin, which life often gives us, at certain fateful moments of its rapid career. Roath sprang to the rear platform, and, on the instant, the train moved.

Swiftly it left the depot behind: decayed fences, rickety outhouses, heaps of rubbish and offal, quickly receded into a dingy perspective of backside city life; scattered coal-yards, and freight and engine-houses, succeeded; and then, the cool, moist air coming in at the windows, and a swift-gliding panorama of what looked like a terrestrial sky and stars, told him that he was being borne rapidly along the causeway that traversed the broad bay,—in the tranquil waters of which the fair night-heavens were faithfully mirrored. Hastily running his eye over his fifty or sixty fellow-passengers, and finding no familiar face, he settled himself back in his seat with a long-drawn breath of relief. He remembered that he was on an express train, with twenty miles between him and the next station; he could count upon a safe half hour, at least, for the working out of the difficult problem before him. To that problem he at once addressed himself, with the whole force of his intellect and will;—though ever and anon, that perplexing fragment of a sentence would float distractingly through his mind, saying itself over and over to the accompaniment of the sharp click of the rails,—"Holden with the cords—Holden with the cords!"

From that night, for many years, Edmund Roath disappeared as completely from the sight and search of all who had known him, as if the train wherein he sat had suddenly flung itself headlong from that narrow causeway, and those deep, silent, star-mirroring waters, closing above him, had steadfastly refused to give up their dead. In brief space of time, his very name, as well as the circumstances that had made it notorious, was forgotten by those who had been most diligent in passing it from mouth to mouth. Seldom was it recalled even by the few who had known him best, and had yielded the heartiest admiration to his rare intellectual gifts. Having never taken any real hold of any human heart, it was but natural that he should pass behind the first intervening cloud, and leave no vacancy.

Did he thereby escape the worst consequences of his sin?

PART FIRST.
A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.

I.
"PROVERBS, AND THE INTERPRETATION."

The road was straight, level, and monotonous. It seemed to stretch on for miles, walled in, on either hand, by the rank and profuse foliage of the South. Great cotton woods and water-oaks, walnuts, cypresses, larches, and junipers, stood side by side, with their brawny arms interlaced, and their trunks hidden in a dense and varied undergrowth; while jessamines and wild grapevines climbed up to meet the sunshine at their tops, and pendent moss hung their boughs with swaying drapery of gray-green leaves and filaments.

What lay beyond these walls of verdure was only to be guessed at from occasional and indistinct glimpses. Here, a transient view of corn or vegetable rows, and a sound of voices, gave token of the vicinity of a small plantation or market garden. There, a scarcity of deciduous trees and a predominance of evergreens, a more lush and succulent character of undergrowth, and a dark gleam of stagnant water, betrayed the proximity of an extensive morass. Frequently, the eye lost itself in the complicated vistas of thick pine-barrens, stretching far away to right and left. And, ever and anon, a sudden break in the long line of verdure, and the sight of a diverging wheel-track, quickly lost amid overhanging boughs, served to show in what direction some large rice or cotton estate lay hidden in the circumjacent forest.

It scarcely needs to be added that the road was pleasantly cool and shadowy in the late September afternoon. Even at midday, its track would present but few and scant patches of sunshine, alternating with dense masses of shadow or spots of flickering light and shade. Now, therefore, with the sun hanging red and low in the western horizon, scarce a fitful orange gleam fell athwart the path of the only traveller in sight,—a young man, of thoughtful face and stalwart figure, striding on at a firm, even pace, with a portmanteau strapped across his shoulder. Both the face and the portmanteau seemed to indicate that his walk was not for pleasure merely, but tended to some definite, anticipated goal; while the keen, observant glance with which he noted, not only every object of interest along his route, but the character of the soil beneath and the foliage overhead, showed that his road was as unfamiliar as it had been, for the most part, solitary. Since he left the outskirts of the city of Savalla behind, more than two hours ago, he had seen but three human faces. First, an old negro woman, wrinkled and white-haired, had ducked her decrepit form to him in what would have been, but for the stiffness of her joints, a most deferential courtesy. Later on, a teamster, of the same dependent and obsequious race, had doffed to him the ragged remnant of a palm-leaf hat, and uttered a civil, "Good ebenin', Massa." Lastly, a lank, listless, unkempt, sallow-skinned personage, in a white covered wagon, snapping a long-lashed whip at a nondescript team, and belonging to the curious class known as "crackers," had suddenly nodded to him, after a prolonged, and, at first, contemptuous stare, as if finally convinced of his claim to the civility.

For some time past, the road had led through a monotonous pine barren, and the traveller had fallen into a fit of thought. Raising his eyes, at last, from the path on which they had been fixed in abstraction, he saw that the long vista before him was once more enlivened by a moving object. His keen, far sight, trained in western wilds, easily made it out to be a half-obsolete kind of chaise, moving in the same direction as himself, but moving so slowly that he gained on it at every step. In a few moments, he was close behind it, quietly observing its superannuated style and condition, as well as the skinny little horse that furnished its motive power. Hearing the sound of his quick, firm tread, its occupant lifted his eyes from the tattered volume over which he was poring, and turned to look at him.

He himself, in a very different way, was well worthy of observation. He was small and spare, probably not more than sixty years of age, but looking much older. He had that parched and wizened look, oftenest the work of circumstances rather than years, which makes it difficult to realize that the possessor was ever young. His hair and complexion had once been light; the one was now gray, the other sallow, except for a faint suggestion of red at the tip of an otherwise handsome nose. His breath exhaled a perceptible odor of strong drink, surrounding him as with an atmosphere of inflammable gas. His dress was made up of divers ill-fitting garments that had doubtless accrued to him from cast-off wardrobes; not one of them bearing any relation to the other, but all being in an advanced stage of seediness well suited to the wearer. Something of the same fusing of special incongruities into general fitness also characterized his manner; wherein the mean and furtive air of the shiftless old vagabond was curiously blended with the pathetic dignity of the decayed gentleman.

He eyed the young foot traveller narrowly for a moment, though with a sidelong rather than a straightforward glance; then, bringing his willing horse to a stand by a jerk of the reins, and a sonorous "Whoa!" he lifted his hat and gravely accosted him:—

"Manus manum lavat. Men were meant to help each other. Have a ride, sir?"

The stranger hesitated, perhaps trying to reconcile the address and the speaker, perhaps with a natural enough doubt as to the character of the companionship thus offered. "Thank you," said he, at last, "but I doubt if it be worth while."

"'Good and Quickly seldom meet,'" responded the other, sententiously. "Besides," he added, seeing that the traveller was puzzled to understand the drift of his saw, "Pegasus—I call him Pegasus because he's not winged—is 'like a singed cat, better than he looks.' Moreover, Compagnon bien parlant vaut en chemin chariot branlant. Which may be freely translated, 'Good company shortens the road as much as a swift horse.'"

"Oh! I meant no disrespect to your equipage, I assure you," returned the young man, smiling. "Only, I supposed that I must be near my journey's end. Is it far to Berganton?"

"That depends. 'The last straw breaks the camel's back.' It is three miles, more or less. But I should have said, from your face, that you would want to stop this side of that."

"Do I look so tired? Indeed I am not."

"Um—no, I should say not. But faces show something besides weariness,—'like father, like son,' you know. If your looks are to be trusted, there's an old mansion about a quarter of a mile farther on, whose door ought to open to you of its own accord—if it can open at all."

The young man smiled and shook his head. "I am sorry that my looks should belie me," said he, "but I have no claim upon the said mansion's hospitality."

"Umph! 'tis a wise child that knows its own father. Tush, tush, man!" he added, hastily, seeing the young man's cheek flush, "I meant no harm; proverbs run from my tongue like water from a Dutch roof. Besides, Nao ha palavra maldita se naõ fora mal entendida,—that is to say, 'No word is ill-spoken which is not ill-taken.' But come! come! jump in! I'll carry you to Berganton, since that's your goal, and welcome. The night is drawing on apace; you'll be glad of my pilotage before we get there."

The young man glanced down the darkening road, from which the last ray of sunlight had vanished, and seemed still to hesitate; but finally sprang lightly into the chaise, and the horse jogged on.

"Proverbs," continued the old man, treating his three last sentences as mere parentheses, "have been the study of my life. I know Lord Chesterfield bans them as vulgar, but is he wiser than Solomon? or better authority than Cicero and Scaliger and Erasmus and Bacon and Bentley? Bah! the whole gist of his writings might be compressed into two or three of the maxims that he affects to despise. 'Fair-and-Softly goes far in a day,' will live when his 'Letters' are forgotten. And a good reason why. Proverbs are the royal road to wisdom. They're the crystallized experience of the ages. They epitomize the minds and manners of the people that brought them forth. Who but a 'smooth, fause' Lowland Scot, for instance, would have said 'Rot him awa' wi' butter an' eggs?' Who but a marauding Hielander would have declared, 'It's a bare moor that ane goes o'er and gets na a coo?' Who but poor priest-ridden, king-ridden Spain would have said, Fraile que pide par Dios, pide por dos, 'The friar that begs for God, begs for two;' Quien la vaca del rey come flaca, gorda la paga, 'He who eats the king's cow lean, pays for it fat;'—but I ought to beg your pardon, perhaps you know Spanish?"

"Not very well," good-naturedly replied the young man, taking pity on his companion's inveterate habit of translation, and the delight which it plainly afforded him.

"Well enough, I suppose, to know that it's a mine of wealth to the proverb-hunter," rejoined the old man graciously. "Here, now, is a good one, of a different character,—Adonde vas, mal? Adonde mas hay, 'Whither goest thou, misfortune? To where there is more?' And here is a pertinent question for people who live well without visible resources,—Los que cabras no tienen, y cabritos venden, de donde les vienen? 'They who keep no goats, and yet sell kids, where do they get them?' But, after all, for right sharp and serviceable proverbs, commend me to the Danish. Here is an old collection that I've lately picked up, printed at Copenhagen, in 1761;—-just let me read you two or three."

He opened the dingy volume aforementioned, and proceeded to read, translate, and comment, with infinite zest. "Ingen kommer i Skaden, uden han selv hielper til, 'No man gets into trouble without his own help'—(a moral which no one can point better than your humble servant); Naar det regner Voelling, saa har Stodderen ingen Skee, 'When it rains porridge, the beggar has no spoon'—(there's no contenting discontented people); Ingen Ko kaldes broget uden hun haver en Flek, 'A cow is not called dappled unless she has a spot'—(most gossip has some small foundation); Hvo som vil gjöre et stort Spring, skal gaae vel tilbage, 'He that would leap high must take a long run'—(else we should have bishops and judges without gray hairs); Det kommer igien, sagde Manden, han gav sin So Floesk, 'It will come back again, said the man, when he gave his sow pork:'—don't you see how the patient, shrewd, humorous character of the Danes peeps through them all?

"Yet, if some proverbs are national, others are cosmopolitan, and fit all generations, and all countries. For instance, there's the Greek saw, Archè êmisu pantós,—see how it comes down through every language under the sun, till, at last, it settles into terse English rhyme,

'Well begun
Is half done.'

Or, take that common saying, 'To carry coals to Newcastle,' which seems to have originated in the East. At least, we find it first in the Persian of Saadi, 'To carry pepper to Hindostan;' then the Hebrews have it, 'To carry oil to the City of Olives;' the Greeks, 'owls to Athens;' the Latins, 'wood to the forest;' the French, 'water to the river;' the Dutch, 'firs to Norway;' the Danish—Hallo! Pegasus! what are you about?"

The horse, being left to his own guidance while his master was riding his favorite hobby, had taken occasion to shoot off from the main road into an apparently little-used track, cut through a thick pine-barren at the left. He had made several lengths before his driver, taken at a disadvantage, could pull him up.

"Pegasus is of the opinion that 'the longest way round is the surest way home,'" remarked the old man, apologetically, as he scanned the narrow, tree-lined track, with a view to the possibility of turning safely around. "Or," he added, with a glance of sly humor at the traveller, "perhaps he thinks, as I did just now, that Bergan Hall is your natural destination."

"Bergan Hall," repeated the young man, in a tone of extreme surprise,—"is this the way to Bergan Hall? I thought you came to the village first, from Savalla."

"So you did, once," rejoined the old man, looking surprised, in his turn; "but that must have been before you were born, if your face doesn't belie your age. The road used to make a long elbow, to get round that swamp which you crossed a mile back. But it was straightened thirty years ago at least,—Autre temps, autre chemin,—a different time, a different road. And so you are going to Bergan Hall? Well, thanks to luck and Pegasus, you're in the right way."

"But I must not take you out of yours," responded the young man, good-naturedly. And he had jumped out of the chaise before its owner was well aware of his intention.

"Canis festinans coecos parit catulos," muttered the old man, in a tone of chagrin. "In other words, 'Look before you leap.' I'd as soon have gone this way as the other. My place lies between the Hall and the village, and the choice of roads isn't worth shucks,—at least, in comparison with a pleasant chat. However, you're out, and I suppose it's no use to ask you to get in again, since the Hall is but a few rods away. Keep straight ahead till you come to the old avenue, then turn to the left. Good day, il n'y a si bons compagnons qui ne se separent,—the best friends must part."

"Yes—to meet again," said the young man, pleasantly.

"Very true; les beaux esprits se rencontrent," returned the old man, slowly and cautiously backing his crazy vehicle around. And with another "Good day," and a parting gesture, he quickly disappeared among the fast-falling shadows.

The young man stood looking after him for a moment, with a smile half of amusement, half, of pity, upon his lips. But his features soon settled into something more than their accustomed gravity, and suddenly facing about, he pursued his way.

Ere long the tall, crowded pines of the barren gave place to various stubble and fallow grounds, with here and there a late crop waiting to be harvested; and shortly after, the narrow, irregular track that he had been following encountered a broader and more beaten one. Recognizing this, with some difficulty, as the "avenue" of which his late companion had spoken, he stopped, and gazed up and down with a look of surprise and pain.

It was bare of trees; but on either side extended a long row of live oak stumps, the size of which showed what massive trunks and far-reaching branches had once columned and arched it like a temple. Here and there, some forgotten bole or bough lay and rotted upon the very spot which it had formerly overhung with a soft canopy of verdure, and made beautiful with pleasant play of sunshine and leaf-shadow; while around it gathered a rank luxuriance of weeds, transmuting its slow aristocratic decay into teeming, plebeian life. In one or two cases, as if moved by an almost human sympathy, vines had sprung up around the bereaved stumps, and sought to soften their hard outlines with clinging drapery of leaves and tendrils. They had also done their best to cover up various unsightly gaps in the long lines of ruinous fence that divided the avenue from the open fields on either side. Yet the final effect of these gentle touches was only to deepen the painful impression of the scene. Where they did not reach, the bareness was so much more bare, the dilapidation so much uglier!

The young observer felt this bareness and dilapidation to his heart's core,—felt it all the more keenly because an image of the avenue's pristine grandeur, derived from the surrounding fragments (or from some other source), continually rose before his mind's eye, to heighten its present desolation by contrast. His brow contracted as he gazed; and the expression of his face changed rapidly from surprise to dissatisfaction, from dissatisfaction to perplexity, from perplexity to doubt. Once, he turned as if half-minded to retrace his steps; but the next moment, he shook off his irresolution with a gesture of disdain, and immediately hastened forward.

The avenue terminated in an open, circular space. Evidently, it had once been a lawn; but it was now covered with half-obliterated furrows, showing that at some not very remote period, it had been planted with corn. Around it stood a number of gigantic live-oaks, heavily draped with moss, and brooding dusky shadows under their massive boughs. Fronting upon it, was a large mansion of dark brick, consisting of an upright, two-story main building, with a huge, clustered chimney in the midst, and long, low, rambling wings on either side.

The whole place had a deserted and melancholy appearance. The moss on the live-oaks swayed slowly to and fro in the evening breeze, with a wonderfully sombre and funereal effect; and the mansion was dark and silent as any ruin. Not a light shone from the closed windows; not a sound came from the deep, shadowy doorway; and the unsteady stone steps, slippery with damp and green with moss, gave the impression of a spot where no human foot had left its print for many years.

The young man halted at a little distance from the dark building, and surveyed it moodily. "Can this be Bergan Hall?" he murmured. "Can this gloomy old ruin be the open, cheery, hospitable mansion, full of light and life, that my mother has so often described to me? It looks a habitation for ghosts—and for ghosts only! I wonder if any living being—"

Breaking off abruptly, he ascended the moss-grown steps, only to find that the vines which so heavily draped the portico, had woven a thick network across the door. It was plain that it had not been opened for months, perhaps years. Nevertheless, not to be easily daunted, he found and lifted the knocker. It fell with a dull lifeless sound, that smote the young man's heart like a sudden chill. A dreary reverberation came from within, and then died away into silence. He knocked again, and, listening intently, he fancied that he heard the sound of stealthy footsteps within, and a slight creaking of the floor. But so dead a silence followed upon these imaginary sounds, that he soon became convinced of his involuntary self-deception.

Turning from the door, he now noticed a little footpath running round the end of one of the long wings. Committing himself to this timely guide, he soon came in sight of the rear of the mansion, which looked upon a sort of court; where a few ornamental shrubs still held an uncertain tenure against the encroachments of divers sorts of lawless and vagrant vegetation. At a little distance, was a long range of dilapidated offices, showing upon what an almost princely scale the housekeeping had once been administered. But this part of the premises was not less dark, silent, and deserted, than the other.

The footpath still held on, however, past the court and the offices, toward a bright light at a considerable distance, "The negro quarter!" muttered the young man, recognizing the whereabout of one of the most salient features of his mother's well-remembered descriptions. "At least, I may learn there what it all means." And, quickening his steps, he soon came upon a busy and picturesque scene.

In the midst of a large, quadrangular space, flanked on three sides by double rows of negro-cabins, and on the fourth apparently sloping down to a water-course, was a rough sort of threshing-mill, now idle, but showing satisfactory results of its day's labor in a large heap of rice by its side. A crowd of negroes, of both sexes, coarsely and uncouthly clad, were busily filling odd, shallow baskets from this heap, which they then poised on their heads, and bore off down the slope to some unseen goal. There were two regular, silent files, the one coming, the other going; and the heap of grain steadily and even swiftly diminished. Near the mill, stood the only white person visible,—a large, powerfully-framed man, carelessly and even shabbily dressed, yet with the unmistakable air of ownership about him. At his left hand, a half-naked, impish looking negro boy was holding a blazing pitch-pine torch, by the light of which he seemed to be jotting down some sort of memoranda in a small book.

The scene was even more strange and weird than picturesque. The dark figures of the negroes, filing noiselessly up the shadowed slope, suddenly grew distinct, wild, and fantastic, within the circle of enchantment made by the flaring light of the torch, only to become dim and spectral again when received back into the dusk. They might have passed for embodiments of those vagaries of the mind, which come from no one knows whither, play their fitful parts within the illuminated circle of the imagination, and vanish as they came. The young man would almost have taken it as a matter of course, had the whole spectacle suddenly melted into thin air.

Yet, even in that case, he would have expected the masterful personage aforementioned to have remained, as the one tangible link between the phantasms and the earth. In truth, a single glance at his massive figure, which seemed to have been hewn out of the rock, rather than moulded from any softer material, went far to disenchant the scene. Here was a touch of the actual, the substantial, and the dogmatic, not to be mistaken; and serving as a clue to the reality of everything else.

Toward this personage, after a moment's scrutiny, the young man unhesitatingly made his way, with the air of one who has found something certain amid much that is confused, illusory, and perplexing. He was immediately spied by the negroes, and followed by their curious gaze; albeit, they ventured not to intermit their labor for an instant, but contented themselves with slowly and stiffly turning their burdened heads toward him as they marched on, and keeping their shining black eyes fixed on him to the last, in such that the heads of the retreating file seemed to have been set on backwards. The boy with the torch was perhaps the most wondering, open-mouthed gazer of them all.

As yet, the master of the premises had not been made aware of the stranger's approach; but, looking up to reprimand his torch-bearer for inattention, he observed the imp's dumbfounded gaze, and turned to see what had caused it.

"My uncle, Mr. Bergan, I presume," said the young man, taking off his hat, and bowing low: "I am Bergan Arling." And he added, after a moment, seeing that the other did not speak, "I bring you a letter from my mother."

II.
STUDYING TO ANSWER.

Major Bergan—to give him the title by which he was known throughout the country round—displayed no alacrity of welcome. He first scanned his visitor closely from head to foot, and then silently extended his hand for the letter which the young man had drawn forth from an inner pocket.

"Hold that light here!" were his first words, in a tone deep as a thunder-peal, and addressed not to Bergan Arling, but to the aforesaid torch-bearer. "And quit your staring, and mind your business, or I'll—"

The sentence died away in an inarticulate growl, but the boy was plainly at no loss to understand its purport. With a startled look, he fixed his eyes on the torch, and only ventured to withdraw them for an occasional, furtive glance at the object of his curiosity. Meanwhile, his master opened the letter, and read it deliberately from beginning to end. The light of the torch fell full upon his face as he did so, giving Bergan Arling an opportunity to study him, in his turn.

His face was a striking one; in youth it had doubtless been handsome. Now, his brow was too massive, his mouth too stern, his eyes too cold, his beard too gray and heavy, to bear any relation to mere personal beauty. All soft lights and lines had long gone out of them; what remained was hard, bold, and rugged, as a rocky headland in winter. The rude strength which was the marked characteristic of his form, repeated itself emphatically in his face. Comparing it with the mental portrait, carefully touched and retouched by his mother's hand, which Bergan had carried in his mind since childhood, he felt that the one resembled the other only as a tree in autumn, stripped bare of its foliage and its blossoms, resembles the same tree in its gracious summer bloom and verdure. Little trace of the frank, proud lineaments, the warm, yet generous temper, of that ideal picture, was to be found in this harsh, stubborn, sarcastic face; the face of a man long given over to the hardening influences of a solitary and a selfish life. In short, Major Bergan confirmed anew the old truth that no man can live long for himself alone, shutting out all gentler ties and amenities, and driving straight at his own practical ends, unmindful of either the ways, the opinions, or the feelings of others, without reaping his due reward in a loss of moral health, and a gradual decay of all his finer sensibilities and higher instincts.

The only point wherein the real man resembled the ideal one, was in a certain ineffaceable pride of birth, showing itself not only in his port, but darkening his harsh features with a heavy shade of hauteur.

Yet a smile might do much to light up and soften the Major's face; and the smile came when he had finished the letter, and did its work all the more effectually because it was a somewhat sad one.

"Forty and two years," said he, musingly, "since Eleanor went! Yet I can see her now, with her bright face and her arch ways! She was the sunshine of the old Hall; it has never been the same place since she left it. And she would hardly know it, if she were to come back now! But times change; and we are fools if we do not change with them. Well, my boy! I'm glad to see you, and that is not what I would say to many,—I'm not much in the way of having visitors. But Eleanor's son is heartily welcome to the old place."

He took his nephew's hand, shook it cordially, and continued to hold it in a vice-like grasp, while he once more attentively scanned the young man's features.

"You are a true Bergan," he said, at length, "I'm glad to see that! And you have her eyes, too. Ah, what eyes they used to be! as soft and bright as any fawn's! Well! well! it's no use to think of the old times—they can't come back. But I am right glad to see you, my boy; and I take it very kind of Eleanor to have sent you to me. Is she much changed?"

"I suppose so," said Bergan, smiling,—"that is, since you knew her. She has not changed greatly during my remembrance. She is a young-looking woman yet, for her years; her eyes are still bright, and her cheeks rosy. Our western climate and life have agreed with her well. Yet I cannot fancy her a young lady."

"Ah, but you shall see her as a young lady! There's a portrait of her in the old house, taken not long before she went away, that does everything but speak and move. Indeed, I used to imagine that it did both, when I had it in my quarters out here, as I did for a time. But it gave me the blues so, to look at it, and think how things used to be, and see how they had altered, that I finally sent it back to its old place in the portrait gallery. But how did you get here, at this hour?"

"I walked from Savalla, leaving my baggage—except this portmanteau—to come on by stage to-morrow."

"Walked! A nice little tramp of thirteen miles or more! Why in the name of sense didn't you ride?"

"I was too late for the stage, and could not readily find a hack. To be sure, I wasted but little time in looking for one; I do not mind walking, I am used to it."

"That may do very well for the West. But you'll lose caste, my boy, if you walk here. You must have a horse."

"When I can afford it," replied the young man, lightly shrugging his shoulders. "Meanwhile, doubtless I shall find my western habit useful, if vulgar. But I am not prepared to admit that it is vulgar. A young English nobleman, who spent some months in our neighborhood, was a practised walker; he thought nothing of fifteen or twenty miles, on occasion. And if it was 'caste' for him, why not for me?"

"Humph! we Southerners boast a good deal of our English ancestors, but we don't feel called upon to imitate them!"

With the softening recollections of his youth, the Major had also laid aside his unwonted gentleness of manner; and the freezing satire of his last words, though it was doubtful whether he meant it for himself or his nephew, pained the young man's ear. Instinctively he dropped the discussion.

"I forgot to mention," said he, "that I did not walk quite the whole distance. A queer old character whom I overtook, insisted upon giving me a lift to Berganton."

"To Berganton! What had you to do with Berganton, I should like to know?"

"I was not aware that the road had been changed; I supposed that I must needs pass through the village on my way to Bergan Hall. I intended to stay there over night, and come to you early in the morning,—I did not think it right to descend upon you suddenly, late at night. But finding myself unexpectedly on the road hither, and almost in sight of the Hall, I regarded it as an indication of Providence not to be misunderstood."

"And well you did!" returned the Major, with rude emphasis, "well you did! I should have taken it as a direct insult if my sister's son had slept anywhere in this region, but on the old place. I wish I could say, under the old roof," he went on, in a friendlier tone, "but that leaks like a sieve, and I quitted it long ago. Of course, it might have been mended; but, to tell the truth, the old house was much too big and gloomy and damp and disagreeable to keep bachelor's hall in comfortably, and I was glad to get out of it. Besides, I'd had all sorts of trouble with my overseers, and I decided that the only way to have things managed to my mind was to manage them myself. In order to do that, it was necessary to be on the spot. So I fixed up my overseer's cottage into a snug little box for myself, where I'm as cosey and comfortable as a rat in a rice-heap. But come in, and see for yourself how it looks. Jip, you rascal! why don't you take your young master's portmanteau?"

The torch-boy caught the portmanteau, and Bergan followed his uncle into a small cottage at one corner of the quadrangle, so situated as to command a view both of the mill and the cabins. The room into which he was ushered was plainly but comfortably furnished. A fire of pitch-pine knots blazed on the hearth, reddening the rough walls and the bare floor with its pleasant glow. A slipshod negress, with a gay turban, was busy laying the table for supper. The effect was, upon the whole, cheery, and ought to have been especially so to a tired and hungry traveller; yet Bergan looked around him with a manifest air of disappointment. His uncle noticed it, and remarked, apologetically,

"You would prefer to see the Hall, eh? Well, you shall see it in the morning, and I reckon you'll agree with me that it's anything but a cheerful-looking abode. Though, if I had known that a nephew of mine was coming to keep me company, I don't know but I should have stayed there."

The negress now signified that supper was on the table, the food having been brought in, ready cooked, from the nearest cabin; and Major Bergan pointed to a chair opposite his own.

"Sit down, Harry, and fall to. Your tramp must have given you a right sharp appetite."

"Thank you. But, uncle, my name is Bergan, not Harry."

"Not Harry!" repeated the Major, sharply,—"I should like to know the reason why! Didn't your mother write that she had named you for me?"

"Yes, certainly. But she regarded you as the head of the family, and in giving me the family name—"

"She named you for the whole breed—my degenerate half-brother and all!" interrupted the Major, bringing his clenched fist down upon the table with a force that threatened to demolish it. "I tell you what it is, sir, I shall not stand any half-way work! If you are named after me, you've got to go the whole figure. Harry Bergan Arling you are, and Harry Bergan Arling you shall be,—at least as long as you stay in these parts."

The imperious tone of this speech was by no means agreeable to Bergan's ear; it was not without an effort that he replied, pleasantly;—

"Call me what you like, uncle. I shall not refuse to answer to any name that you are pleased to give me."

Major Bergan was evidently much gratified. "That's right, my boy!—we'll shake hands upon that!" he exclaimed, heartily. "I'm glad to see that Eleanor has raised her son in the good old fashion of submission to elders. Bless my soul! I thought it was entirely obsolete. Young men round here know more at twenty than the fathers that begot them. As for obedience, they leave that to the negroes."

The meal was abundant and substantial. It consisted of a single course, of bacon, vegetables, and corn-bread, very simply, not to say rudely, served. It would seem that the master of the feast cared no more for refinements of table than of manner. Here, as elsewhere, were to be seen the pernicious effects of his solitary mode of life. He ate greedily; he forgot his duties as host, or they came but tardily to his remembrance; he fell into fits of abstraction, and started as from a dream at the sound of his nephew's voice. Yet tokens were not wanting that he had once been well versed in the art of external manners. At intervals, answering involuntarily, as it were, to the touch of Bergan's fine, natural courtesy, the gentlemanly instincts of earlier days revived, and flung a momentary grace around his words and actions. It was like the sunbeams that occasionally glimmer out over a cloudy landscape, attracting the gaze even more surely than any full blaze of splendor, yet causing a certain impatience, as if they ought either to kindle into satisfactory brightness, or be wholly extinguished. The rudeness of his ordinary manner was only thrown into bolder relief by these flashes of a half-extinct good breeding.

To meet the demands of thirst, a bottle of brandy, and another of water, stood by Major Bergan's plate; which, after filling his own glass, he pushed over to his nephew.

"There, Harry! that is what will put new life into you, after your journey."

"Thank you; but I seldom use brandy."

"A little too strong for you, eh?" returned the Major, indulgently. "Well, there's a stock of wine in the cellar of the Hall,—I reckon some of it must be fifty or sixty years old, it has been there ever since I can remember,—I'll send for a bottle or two of that." And he uplifted a stentorian call of "Jip," which brought that urchin-of-all-work to the door, in breathless haste.

"Uncle,"—began Bergan, but the Major was thundering out minute directions about cellars, and keys, and tiers, and labels, and either could not, or would not, hear.

"I am sorry that you have given yourself the trouble," said Bergan, when quiet was restored. "I do not care for wine."

Major Bergan set down his glass, and looked at his nephew sternly and gloomily. "Don't tell me that you are a mean-spirited teetotaller," he growled. "I can't say how I might take it. There never was a milksop in the family yet."

"No, I am hardly that. But I am not accustomed to use spirituous liquors of any sort. And I certainly do not need them. I am in perfect health; I hardly know what it is to feel tired."

"I wish I didn't!" muttered his uncle, a little less savagely. "I'm pretty hearty, for my years, to be sure. But an ache gets into my bones now and then, just to remind me that I am not so young as I was once. And the best thing to rout it is a good glass of brandy. Better take one?"

"Not if you will be so good as to excuse me," replied Bergan, with a smile so frank, and a gesture so courteous, that the Major was irresistibly mollified.

"A guest's wish is a command," said he, with one of his rare glimmers of courtesy. "But here comes the wine! I really cannot excuse you from that,—at least, I should be very loath to do so. I'll even join you in a glass. Here's to your mother's health and happiness!—you won't refuse to drink that, not on the place where she was raised."

If Bergan was annoyed by his uncle's persistency, he forebore to show it. But, having duly honored the toast, he pushed his glass aside, and declined every invitation to have it refilled.

"Well, well," said his uncle, at last, in a tone of resignation, "we won't quarrel about it now. But I see that your education is incomplete, and I shall take it upon myself to finish it. If I don't teach you to drink like a gentleman, in a month, I shall know that you are no true Bergan, in spite of your looks."

Bergan only smiled.

"Your temperance is the one thing I don't like about you," pursued his uncle, filling his own glass to the brim. "Ah, yes, there's one more;—your mother writes that you have studied law, and mean to practise it."

"Yes; I received my license just two months ago."

"Humph! it's well named! 'License,' indeed! Licensed to lie, cheat, steal,—or, at least, to help others to do so, which amounts to the same thing. No, no, Harry; it may be well to know law enough to keep from being imposed upon, but a Bergan can't stoop to practise it. Lawyers are, without exception, a set of miserable, lying, sneaking pettifoggers. You could drop the souls of a dozen into a child's thimble, and they'd rattle in the end of it after she had put it on her finger."

Bergan's cheek flushed a little, but he was more impressed by the comic than the provoking side of his uncle's dogged prejudice, and he only answered, good-humoredly;—

"I am sorry that you should have had occasion to think so badly of the profession. I shall feel that it is incumbent upon me to make you change your opinion."

"Never!" growled Major Bergan, with an oath. "You would find it easier to lift the Gibraltar rock on the point of a needle. Unless," he added, after a moment, "you can tell me how to make a suit lie against Godfrey Bergan. I've been trying it for ten years, and I've spent money enough to buy another plantation as large as this."

"My uncle Godfrey!" exclaimed Bergan, in much surprise. "Why, what has he done?"

"You had better not call him your 'uncle Godfrey' in my hearing," responded the Major, grimly. "In ceasing to be my half-brother, he ceased to be your uncle. Done! What hasn't he done? First, he got his head filled with cursed abolitionist notions, and freed all his slaves. Next, he offered the greater part of his land for sale at public auction;—just think of it! some of the old lands of Bergan Hall put up to be knocked down to the highest bidder! But I settled that business, by proclaiming far and wide that whoever bid for them might expect to reckon with me for his impertinence; and as I'm known to be a man of my word, no one dared to lift his voice at the sale, and I got them at my own price. Finally Godfrey capped the climax of his degeneracy by opening a hardware store in Berganton. Think of that, Hairy!—a Bergan of Bergan Hall, with a long pedigree of warriors and nobles at his back, standing behind a counter, selling hoes and tea-kettles to negroes and crackers!"

Bergan was silent. Though not without some touch of family pride, derived from his mother, he had nevertheless been taught to believe all upright labor honorable, to hold that life was ennobled from within, by its motive and aim, rather than from without, by its place and form. He could not help suspecting, therefore, that his host, deliberately leading the narrow life of an overseer of slaves, on his ancestral estate, was in reality a more degenerate son of his house than the relative whom he so bitterly contemned. Yet he foresaw that any attempt to defend Godfrey Bergan would but result in bringing down upon himself a torrent of fierce, half-drunken vituperation. Seasoned vessel though he were, the Major's repeated draughts of brandy, very little diluted, had not been without effect, in flushing his face, and inflaming his habitually irritable temper. His present mood would ill brook contradiction.

Fortunately, he neither expected nor waited for an answer. Hastily emptying his glass and filling it again, he went on.

"Now, Harry, if you can tell me any way by which I can ruin his business, turn him out of his house, and make him quit the country, I'll own that I've done the law an injustice, and give you a handsome fee besides. Can the thing be done?"

Bergan silently shook his head; he would not trust himself to speak.

"Just as I told you!" exclaimed the Major, with great virulence of expression. "The law has plenty of quibbles and quirks for the help of rogues and scoundrels, but it can't lend a hand to an honest cause, at a pinch! I'll none of it, Harry! I'll none of it! Get what you know of it out of your head as soon as you can."

The Major paused long enough to empty his glass, and then resumed, in a more amiable tone. "The best thing you can do, Harry, is to stay here with me; I'll make a rice-planter of you. It doesn't take a ninny for that, by any means; your talents will not be thrown away. And if we suit each other,—as I think we shall,—I'll give you Bergan Hall when my title to it expires. To be sure, I'm strong and hearty yet; but no one lasts forever. And as you are named for me, and I like your looks, I would rather give it to you than anybody else. In fact, I've had it in my mind, for some time, to write to Eleanor and ask her to do just what she has done,—send one of her boys to live with me, and be my heir."

"You mistake," said Bergan, quickly, "neither my mother nor myself had any such idea. She merely wished me to consult you about commencing my profession in—"

"Tut! tut! Harry," interrupted his uncle, "I meant it, if you and she did not. And I mean it more than ever now; that is, if you'll yield to my wish about the law. But if you persist in sticking to that, I give you up, once for all—mind, I give you up!"

"I should deserve to be given up," replied Bergan, smiling, "if I were lightly to forsake a vocation for which I am fitted both by taste and education, to enter upon one of which I know absolutely nothing. I may reasonably hope to succeed as a lawyer; I fear I should make but a poor planter. Moreover, it would not suit me to be dependent upon any one."

"Stuff! nonsense!" exclaimed Major Bergan, bluntly. "I defy you to make a poor planter under my tuition,—I claim to understand that business. As for dependence, never you fear but that I shall get aid and comfort enough out of you to make our accounts square. For, after all, Harry, it is a dreary kind of a life that I'm leading, without chick or child, kith or kin, to speak to, or to care for. I cannot help asking myself, sometimes, what is the good of it all, and how Is it to end. But with a fine young fellow like you here, to enter into my plans now, and carry them out after I'm gone,—why, it would be like a fresh lease of life to me! We'll rebuild the old house, you shall drop the 'Arling,' and behold the seventh Harry Bergan of Bergan Hall, on this side the water! And really, I don't see how you can do better, Harry. Here are wealth, position, influence, and a chance to oblige your old uncle,—ready to your hand. Stay, my boy, stay!"

The Major's bluff voice had sunken to a hoarse tone of sadness, in his confession of loneliness, and finally, to one of entreaty, that touched his nephew's heart. Nor was the prospect held up before him without its own peculiar and powerful attraction. He looked thoughtfully into the fire, debating with himself what and how he should reply. His uncle watched him keenly for a moment, and then said, in his kindest tone and manner;—

"Well, Harry, I won't press you for an answer, now. Stay here a month or two, and look around you; and then, we'll talk the matter over again, and see if we cannot settle upon something that shall be mutually satisfactory. For so long, surely, you can afford to be my guest."

III.
"PATTERN OF OLD FIDELITY."

Before Bergan could answer, there came a low tap at the door. A negro woman, of unusual height, and singularly venerable and dignified aspect, stood, courtesying slightly, on the threshold. She was plainly of great age,—her face was deeply furrowed, and her hair, where it could be seen under the dark blue kerchief that covered her head, was white as snow,—yet her shoulders had not bent under the burden of years, her tall frame, though gaunt, was little palsied by the touch of actual infirmity. Although she carried a cane, it was not so much for its support, as for its aid in feeling out her way along her accustomed paths; she had been blind for many years.

"Master Harry," said she, clasping her hands over the head of her cane, and speaking in slow, somewhat tremulous tones, but with neither the slovenly utterance nor the vicious pronunciation of the ordinary slave,—"Master Harry, excuse me if I interrupt you, but I could not wait any longer,—I wanted so much to see Miss Eleanor's son!"

"It is Maumer Rue," said Major Bergan, not only with unwonted kindness of tone, but with something akin to respect in his manner;—"your mother must have spoken to you of our old nurse, Harry?"

"Indeed she has!" exclaimed Bergan, earnestly, starting up to take the blind woman's hand. "Your name has always been a household word with us. The story of your devotion to my mother, in saving her from the flames, at the risk of your own life, and with the ultimate loss of your sight, was the one story of which we children never used to tire. Probably we felt, in our vague, childish way, that it was the one which came from the profoundest depth in her own heart,—since she could never tell it to us without a little tremor in her voice, and a soft dewiness in her eyes,—and that was the secret of its charm for us. You may be sure that she has never forgotten how much she owes you!"

The old woman's lips trembled, and large tears gathered in her sightless eyes. "The Lord bless my dear young lady!" she ejaculated fervently,—"I knew she would never forget her old maumer. And it's like her to make much of my little service; but I did nothing but what was my duty—nothing."

"She thinks otherwise," replied Bergan, kindly. "She regards it as one of those rare instances of courage and devotion, for which the whole world is better and brighter. She bade me give you her kindest love, and tell you that you must not despair of meeting her once more, even on this side the grave. When the new railroad is finished, as far as our place,—which it promises to be in a year or two,—she fully intends to revisit her childhood's home, and look once more upon the faces of her childhood's friends. She furthermore charged me to pay you an early visit, in your own quarters, and tell you everything about her western home and life that you might care to hear."

"How kind of Miss Eleanor to think of that!" responded the blind woman, delightedly. "It shows that she's just her own old self, always trying to think what everybody would like, and then doing her best to give it to them. Of course, there's a hundred questions that I should like to ask about her; and if you really don't mind answering them, and will do me the honor to step into my little cabin, some day when you're passing by, I shall be more obliged to you than I can rightly tell. But as to my ever seeing Miss Eleanor again,—I beg your pardon, sir; you see I've not yet learned to say Mrs. Arling,—though there's nothing on earth that would make me so glad as to meet her again, and hear the sound of her sweet, cheery voice, yet I'm getting to be too old to dare to reckon much upon the future. But the next best thing to meeting her, is to meet her son, here on the old place; and I thank the Lord that He has let me live long enough for that."

The old negress bent her head devoutly for a moment, and then turned to Major Bergan. "Does he favor Miss Eleanor much, Master Harry?" she asked.

"Yes, he is a good deal like her, maumer; he has her eyes exactly. But he is even more like what I was forty years ago; it really makes me feel young again to look at him. He's a real Bergan, I can tell you that."

Maumer Rue smiled as if well pleased; yet the smile seemed a little burdened with sadness, too; and Bergan saw that it was followed by a look of extreme wistfulness.

"Can I do anything for you?" he asked, kindly.

"Nothing, master,—unless—if it is not asking too much,—and if you would not mind the touch of an old woman's fingers, that have to serve her instead of eyes, I could get so much clearer an idea of your looks,—" and she finished the sentence by raising her hand significantly toward his face.

Bergan was much moved. "Of course I should not mind," said he, drawing near to her;—"examine me as closely as you like. It would be strange indeed if there were anything unpleasant to me in the touch of hands that have done so much for my mother!"

"It's easy to see that you are Miss Eleanor's son, you have just her kind, pleasant ways," responded the blind woman, gratefully. "He is a little taller than you, Master Harry," she continued, turning toward the Major, as she laid her hand on Bergan's head,—"yes, just a little taller, though not much."

"All the better for that," remarked the Major, parenthetically, "the Bergans must not degenerate."

Maumer Rue went on, without noticing the interruption; passing her fingers lightly over Bergan's features, as she spoke. "His brow is square and full, like yours, and he has the same straight nose; but his eyes are not so deep-set, nor his eyebrows so heavy. His jaw is like yours, too,—the set, square jaw of the Bergans,—but his mouth is more like Miss Eleanor's:—a sweet, pleasant mouth she had, the mouth of the Habershams, her mother's family. Yet it could be firm enough, too, when there was need; our Miss Eleanor had plenty of character. And I'm right glad to see that you are so much like her; you couldn't resemble any one better or handsomer."

She made a slight pause, and then added, in a half-humorous way,—"I reckon she couldn't give you any spice of the 'black Bergan temper,' as she had none of it herself."

"I am afraid she did," answered Bergan, laughing, yet coloring, too; "and many a scrape it has gotten me into, before now. But I hope that I am learning to control it a little."

"I don't see why you should," broke in the Major, gruffly. "The Bergan temper is an heir-loom to be proud of; it identifies the breed. It has run in the blood from time immemorial. A Bergan without it—that is, a male, of course a woman counts for nothing—would be no Bergan at all."

"You say true, Master Harry," rejoined Rue, composedly; "it's always run in the blood, and heated it more than was good for it, many a time. Yet, now and then, there has been a Bergan who has learned how to keep it under, and been all the better for doing it. You surely must recollect what a mild, kind gentleman your father was, young as you were when he died; and I've heard say that there never was a truer Bergan, or one more respected all the country through."

The Major made a grimace, and muttered something unintelligible, in a tone half of acquiescence, half of irritation.

Rue turned again to Bergan. "You have been very patient with an old woman's talk, and an old woman's infirmity," said she, with a kind of natural dignity,—"I will not trouble you any longer. Good night, and thank you, Master—what name shall I say?"

Bergan hesitated, and looked doubtfully at his uncle.

"He says his name is Bergan," explained the Major, shortly; "but I have given him to understand that he is to be known by my own name, Harry, while he stays here."

Rue shook her head. "There can be but one Master Harry for me," she said quietly,—"the one that I nursed as a babe and petted as a child, the one that I have lived with so many years, and who has always been so kind to me—kinder even than he has been to himself. So please let me call him Master Bergan; but, of course, the rest of the people will give him any name that you say."

"Of course they will," returned the Major, haughtily, "or I'll know the reason why. As for you, maumer, I shall let you do as you please; you've had your own way too long to be balked of it now. But take care that the others don't hear and imitate you,—or you know what they'll get.".

"Thank you, Master Harry," replied Rue, as gratefully as if the assent had been more graciously given,—"you are always good to your poor old maumer. Good night." And she turned to go.

But on the threshold, she paused, and lifted her sightless face toward the dim night-sky, across which dark clouds were swiftly scudding.

"Master Harry," said she, suddenly, "do you remember how I told you, six months ago, that the Bergan star was set, and how angry you were?"

"Yes, yes, I remember," exclaimed the Major, hoarsely and eagerly,—"what of it?"

She slowly raised her right hand, and pointed skyward, with a strange, intent, watchful expression in her uplifted "See! it is rising!" said she; "it comes up through the clouds,—they try to hold it back, but they cannot,—it grows brighter! it rises higher!—ah!"—drawing her breath hard and gaspingly,—"it stops—it goes down again!—the clouds cover it!—it is—No! it is not gone! it shines faintly behind the clouds—it breaks through—slowly, slowly, slowly,—it rises! it rises!"

Yielding, half-unconsciously, to the powerful influence of the blind woman's rapt, ecstatic manner, Bergan had drawn near to her, and now saw, with surprise, a single star shining for a moment through the rifts of the clouds. Glancing at the Major, whom he had before seen to be hanging with breathless interest upon the words of the old negress, he perceived that his eyes were fixed upon it also, with a gaze that was half-awed, half-triumphant. He knew not what to think.

Maumer Rue still stood in the same commanding attitude, with raised hand, and intent, uplooking face. Suddenly, her arm fell by her side; her head drooped on her breast; the majesty that had informed her pose and gesture went out like an expiring flame; she shivered, tottered, and would have fallen but for the Major's prompt support. Without a word, he guided her safely to the door of her cabin.

Coming back, he reseated himself at the table, which had been cleared of everything but the bottles and glasses, and hastily poured out and swallowed some raw brandy. Then he remarked, in a half-explanatory and half-apologetic tone,—

"She enjoys the reputation of a seer, or prophetess, among the negroes; and I really think she has some faith in it herself. Certainly, she seems to have strange visions now and then; and some of her predictions have come true; I confess she puzzles even me. At all events, she is the best and most faithful old creature that ever lived. She was born on the estate, brought up in the Hall with my father and his sisters, shared their education, is thoroughly steeped in the family traditions, duly infected with the family pride, and entirely devoted to the family interests. She is the only person that I allow to do pretty much as she pleases; her long and faithful services to my father, Eleanor, and myself, deserve that much, I think. And really, she is of great use to me; I scarcely know what I should do without her. The negroes all believe her to be a hundred years old—undoubtedly she is past ninety—and that, together with her reputation as a prophetess, gives her great power over them, and saves me a heap of trouble in managing them. She has very good judgment, too, in many things; I frequently take her advice, and never yet had occasion to regret doing so. Indeed, it was chiefly at her instigation and entreaty that I had made up my mind, as I told you, to write to your mother about sending me one of her sons."

He paused for a moment, and then asked, in a careless tone, but with a quick, keen glance at his nephew, from under his shaggy brows,—"Did you see that star?"

"Yes," answered Bergan. "It was a curious coincidence."

"Hum—very," returned his uncle, evidently not quite satisfied with this view of the matter. But he said no more.

The conversation now turned into various other channels. It touched for a brief space upon the indefatigable quoter of proverbs whom Bergan had overtaken on his way to the Hall; and whom the Major declared to be the only living representative of one of the oldest and most influential families in the county. He had been reared in affluence, had been educated in Europe, and had inherited a large fortune and a fine estate. But he had early fallen into bad habits,—not so much from viciousness of temper and taste, as from weakness of will and consequent inability to resist temptation,—had run a short, rapid career of folly, extravagance, and dissipation, in which he had frittered away his inheritance, and so had gradually sunken into his present state of semi-vagabondage. He lived, by sufferance, in a little cabin, on one corner of the estate which he had formerly owned. From his wholesale shipwreck of fortune, position, will, energy, and hope, he had saved but one thing—his love of proverbs. It had even grown stronger in proportion as other things wasted and failed,—like a plant striking deep root into soil enriched by the decay of many sister plants. He had learned several languages solely for the sake of their proverbs; he had even been seen to hesitate and waver long between the diverse, but powerful, attractions of a bottle of ardent spirits and a dingy, old collection of saws, when but one came within the compass of his purse; and he was known far and wide by the sobriquet of "Proverb Dick." His real name was Richard Causton.

In listening to this history, Bergan could not but be struck by the curiously discriminating character of the Major's animadversion. He had little, or nothing, to say in disapproval of the depraved and ungovernable appetite for strong drink which, it was easy to see, had played so important part in ruining poor Richard Causton; while he could find no words strong enough to express his bitter contempt for the flabby will, the pitiable irresolution, and the insane extravagance, which had joined hands with that appetite for his complete destruction. Tender, as a mother to her babe, over the fault which he knew himself to possess (if he secretly acknowledged it to be a fault), Major Bergan was merciless to the weaknesses from which he was saved by a hardier will and a more energetic temperament.

But as the evening wore on, and the brandy slowly worked its way up to the stronghold of his brain, the Major's talk grew discursive, profane, and incoherent; until Bergan, shocked and pained, and anxious to escape from the mortifying spectacle, pleaded fatigue, and begged permission to retire. Jip was accordingly summoned, and he was conducted to a little, low room under the cottage roof, where his portmanteau had been bestowed, and some little provision made for his comfort.

Here Bergan quickly threw himself on the bed, to find, for the first time in his life, that it was one thing to woo the fair maiden Sleep, and another to win her. Recollections of his western home, of his mother, of the ancestral traditions on which his childish imagination had fed, of his youthful studies and aspirations, of his recent journey, and the disappointment in which it had ended, mingled with half-conceived plans and half-acknowledged hopes,—a vague, changeable, teasing, tireless procession of thoughts and images,—filed slowly through his mind, compelling his reluctant gaze, and blocking up every avenue to Slumberland. And if, for an instant, the vexing march stopped, and the importunate images began to waver and blend, sounds of stamping feet, of jingling glass, of muttered oaths and sentences, or two or three half-sung, half-shouted lines of a drunken ditty, coming up from below, startled him once more into wakefulness, and told him that his uncle's solitary debauch was not yet ended. It was already gray dawn when, worn out with restlessness, he fell into a brief slumber, and dreamed that old Rue, with the Bergan star in her hand, was beckoning him to follow her over a dreary, desolate country, full of briers and pitfalls, wherein he was so constantly entangled that, in spite of his best endeavors, he could never get any nearer to her. Turning suddenly, she flashed the star into his eyes, and:—oh, horror of horrors!—he was blind!

Starting up, all in a tremble, he found that the risen sun was shining full in his face, through the uncurtained window. It was morning.

IV.
A GOODLY HERITAGE.

Early as was the hour, Bergan found the table already laid for breakfast in the room below, where he was soon joined by the Major. He brought with him (besides a noticeable odor of brandy), a cordial morning greeting, and a temper which, though by no means urbane, had a certain, flavor of bluff good nature, in pleasing contrast with his extreme irritability of the preceding evening. Encouraged by these and similar signs of a clearer mental atmosphere, Bergan ventured to mention his uncle Godfrey, and to remark that he had been charged with a letter to him from his mother, which he must take an early opportunity to deliver.

"Eh! what?" asked the Major, laying down his knife and fork, with the look and tone of a man who doubts the evidence of his own senses.

Bergan quietly repeated his words.

The Major's face grew dark, and his eyebrows met in a heavy frown. "I shall take it mighty hard of you, if you do," said he, sternly and gloomily. "I tell you, Harry, he is no Bergan at all, and he ought not to be treated like one. Eleanor would never have written to him, nor desired you to visit him, if she had known the true state of affairs;—you can safely take that for granted, and act accordingly. Besides," he went on, after a slight pause, "it is only fair to warn you that any one who goes from Bergan Hall over to Oakstead (that's what he calls his place), doesn't come back again,—with my consent. There's no relation, nor commerce, nor sympathy, nor liking, between the two places; and there never can be any while I live,—nor after I am dead, either, if I can help it. So just put that matter out of your head, Harry, and say no more about it."

Bergan looked down, and the color rose to his brow. Without seeking to know the merits of the quarrel between his two uncles, he nevertheless felt that the abject submission, the complete surrender of principle and will, expected of him by Major Bergan, was simply impossible; and he began to wonder if it were not his wisest course to place himself at once on tenable ground, by saying that, while he should always be glad of his uncle's advice, and ready to give all due and respectful consideration to his wishes, yet, in matters involving questions of right and duty, the final appeal must needs be to his own conscience. Something of this sort was upon his lips, when the Major spoke again, and in a more amiable tone.

"I am really sorry, for your sake, Harry, that things are just as they are," said he. "Of course, it is not agreeable to you to run thus unexpectedly against a family feud;—I really ought to have written Eleanor about it, but I thought to spare her the knowledge of her half-brother's disgrace. Besides, as Godfrey is our nearest neighbor, it might be pleasant to be on visiting terms, if he and his were only the right sort of company to keep."

"I think he has children near my own age," remarked Bergan.

"Not now. His two eldest died a few years ago."

"Ah, yes; I remember hearing of it when I was in college."

"He has but one left—a daughter," pursued the Major. "A pretty, bright little thing she was, too, as a child; I was really quite fond of her, and she used to spend half her time here,—that is, in the old Hall;—and Maumer Rue almost idolized her, because she fancied that she was something like what Eleanor was at her age. She even used to run away and come over here, after the trouble began; but I reckon they must have found it out, and put a stop to it." And the Major ground his teeth at the recollection, as if he owed his brother an especial grudge on this very head. "However," he went on, "it is better so; for though I could never have found it in my heart to be unkind to the child,—so fond of me as she was, too!—yet I want nothing to do with anybody, or anything, that belongs to Godfrey; and so I am glad, on the whole, that she stopped coming. Doubtless, she will soon merge the name of Bergan into Smith, or Brown, or something equally desirable; and as Godfrey has no son, to bear his patronymic and carry on his business, we may hope that there will be an end of them."

The last words were spoken with ineffable contempt. Then, suddenly rising, as if to dismiss the subject, the Major remarked, with an entire change of tone and manner:—

"But I must not sit here chatting any longer, for I suspect that Ben—that's my head driver—is waiting for instructions. Will you come with me, or do you prefer to amuse yourself about home?"

"I will go with you, uncle, if you are willing."

"Both willing and glad. Come on."

Bergan followed his uncle out into the quadrangle,—here called the "street,"—and found it to be, for the most part, silent and deserted. The cabins, many of which, on the evening previous, had been brightened by a little gleam of firelight within, or vivified by moving figures, were now closed and locked, the occupants being away at work in the fields. They were all neatly whitewashed; and they stood well apart from each other, leaving room for little gardens between, where vegetables, and, occasionally, flowers, were growing. Here and there, too, a pig rooted and grunted in a rude sty; or hens and chickens fluttered and cackled, in their busy, enlivening fashion, around the door.

One of the buildings, of considerable size, and two stories high, where several women and children, with peculiar haggard, heavy, listless, and withal resigned faces, were lying or sitting around the porch, Bergan easily recognized as the infirmary. Another, seemingly stuffed with babies and young children, under the charge of several half-grown girls and one superannuated old woman, he knew to be the day-nursery; for the safe bestowal of the infant population of the quarter, during their mothers' absence in the fields. Here, Maumer Rue seemed to be making a visit of inspection; though invisible herself, the slow tones of her voice, exhorting one of the young nurses to greater watchfulness, sounded distinctly from within; and becoming quickly aware of the approach of her master and his guest, she came to the door, and made them a stately courtesy, as they passed.

Quite apart from the quarter, yet within sight, stood a cabin of especially rude and forlorn aspect; the open door of which disclosed a strong stake driven into the ground in its centre, and divers rusty chains, handcuffs, padlocks, et cetera, hanging round its sides. This was the prison. Human justice being thus provided with a fitting abode, Bergan involuntarily looked around in search of a corresponding dwelling for Heaven's mercy, in the shape of a little cross-tipped church or chapel,—but saw none.

Major Bergan first stopped at the threshing-mill, where Engine (that is to say "Engineer") Jack, a remarkably intelligent negro,—and an exceedingly black one as well,—was waiting to bring to his master's notice certain slight repairs necessary to the machinery. While the needful discussion was going on, Bergan looked around him, the better to understand the topography of the place.

He observed that Bergan Hall, the roof of which he saw afar off, rising among the trees, was situated upon a considerable elevation,—a sort of bluff, overlooking a small inlet, or arm of the sea. To this circumstance, Major Bergan owed his ability to live upon his plantation throughout the year, instead of fleeing therefrom, like most of his class, at the approach of summer. For, just when the home-scenery takes on its most tender and fascinating grace,—when the rice-fields are green as the meadows of paradise,—when the temple-like oak-glades are most beautiful with gentle gloom and glinting sunshine,—when every thicket has its garland of bloom, and every tree has its clinging, flowering vine,—when the sweet-smelling pine-woods are glittering with the gorgeous coloring, and melodious with the multifarious voice, of thousands of birds and insects;—Just then, the rice-planter has to flee for his life from its final, treacherous charm—-the soft-shining mist, the deadly malaria, that creeps up at night from the marshes, and covers the land like a sea. If he lingers for but one ramble in the fair, moon-lighted, and moss-festooned avenues, through that silver haze, fever walks by his side under the grand arches, and death waits for him at the end of the alluring vistas.

From this terror and this necessity, the owner of Bergan Hall was free. His vast plantation stretched across the border-line which divides the pestilential rice-swamps from the healthful sea-islands; one extremity touching the river, and the other the ocean. At one time, its chief revenue was derived from the far-famed sea-island cotton, to the production of which its sea-board portion was well-adapted, but as that crop declined, and the rice-crop rose, in value, its neglected swamp-lands were gradually reclaimed and brought under cultivation; and were now the most valuable portion of the estate. Too remote from Bergan Hall to poison it, or its vicinity, with their malaria, they were yet quite near enough for necessary superintendence.

The negro quarter lay somewhat lower than the Hall. On its left, the ground sloped gradually down to a little creek; where lay several flat-boats loaded with rice, to show what had been the goal of the negro procession of the previous evening. Along the opposite bank ran a dark fringe of pines.

Horses were now brought. The one assigned to Bergan was a superb blooded filly, full of life and fire. While he stood taking delighted note of her many fine points, she sniffed round him in half-wild, half-curious fashion,—now starting quickly back, now timidly drawing near,—and ended by frankly putting her nose in his hand, as if in token of amity. Nor had he been long on her back, ere he felt, with an electric thrill of pleasure, that perfect sympathy between horse and rider, that singular blending of their identity, which is the purest delight of horsemanship, and best explains the fable of the Centaur.

"How do you like her?" asked his uncle, at this juncture.

"Exceedingly," replied Bergan, with enthusiastic emphasis. "I think that I never rode anything more admirable."

"Henceforth, then, she belongs to you. And never mind the thanks,—I am really glad to hand her over to a fitting master. She is too much given to dancing and frolicking for my use,—-my sober-paced stallion meets my wants a great deal better;—consequently, Vic—that's her name, short for Victoria,—Vic stands in the stable, eating her head and kicking her heels off, for the greater part of the time. She will be much happier in the hands of a master young enough to sympathize with her."

Bergan could not fail to be delighted with a gift so generous and so timely; bestowed, too, with a delicacy of manner, an appearance of asking a favor instead of conferring one, in strong contrast with his uncle's wonted bluntness. Visions of long, solitary rides of exploration rose fascinatingly before him. Nor would he suffer his pleasure to be alloyed by any insidious doubt lest the gift might some day take the form of an unpleasant obligation.

The road ran along the bank of the creek, passing divers fields under cultivation, and divers others long "turned out,"—that is, exhausted, and left to lapse back into their primitive pine-barrenness. In the course of an hour, the two gentlemen came upon a second negro quarter, considerably larger than the first, but with the same general characteristics, even to the threshing-mill. This one, however, ran by water power, instead of steam.

The horses were here left in charge of a negro, while the gentlemen walked over to the rice fields. They soon came into view, stretching, almost as far as the eye could reach, along the bank of a broad, turbid river. Bergan speedily became much interested in their complicated system of dykes, ditches, canals, and gates; as well as in watching the dusky laborers, both men and women, that were busy therein. Leaving details for results, however, he could not but be impressed with the fact that a vast amount of hard work was annually done, and a rich and remunerative crop annually reaped. Plainly, Major Bergan was an energetic, skilful manager.

On his part, the Major was greatly pleased with his nephew's intelligent interest, and predicted, more than once, that he would make a rice-planter of him, in due time, who would show his neighbors "what was what."

The sun was half way down the western slope, when the uncle and nephew returned to the cottage. Dinner over, the Major civilly expressed his regret that he was unexpectedly called to another part of the plantation. Bergan could accompany him; or—not to disappoint him of his promised visit to the old Hall—he could get the keys of Maumer Rue, and explore it by himself.

Bergan eagerly caught at the latter alternative. Nor, to do him justice, was the Major at all displeased thereby. Without troubling himself to analyze his own emotions, he yet felt an unconquerable aversion to the task of showing his nephew through the deserted home of his forefathers. Though little accustomed to care for the opinions or the feelings of others, he foresaw an inevitable mortification in looking with Bergan upon the ruin and desolation for which he knew himself to be so largely responsible; since, if he had not invited the ravages of time, he had put forth no hand to stay them. Perhaps this feeling was strong enough, even, to lend to the business that called him away, an imperative aspect which it might otherwise have lacked.

Bergan, on his part, was well content to dispense with his uncle's guidance. Not only would his presence be a constraint upon his own irrepressible emotions of sadness, regret, and, possibly, indignation; but there would be a rare, subtile charm in wandering alone through precincts at once so familiar and so strange, in finding out for himself (or led only by the shadowy image of his maiden mother), spots hallowed by the tender touch of oldtime joys and sorrows, and nooks and corners darkened not more by mould and cobwebs than by the clinging dust of immemorial family tradition.

First, however, Major Bergan requested his companionship as far as the stable. There they found a bright looking boy, somewhat older than Jip, who had just finished rubbing down the filly of which Bergan had so lately become the master, and now stood regarding the result with great apparent satisfaction.

"Well, Brick," said the Major, sternly, "I hope you've done better than you did last time."

"Yes, massa, she done berry fine, I'se sure,—spec' I put a right smart hour on her. Look a dar, now, don' she shine?"

The Major examined her carefully, and finding nothing to fault, silent. It was not his way to waste words in commendation. He merely turned from the horse to the negro, and asked, pointing to Bergan,—

"You see that young gentleman?"

"Yis, massa; sartin, massa." And Brick made an embarrassed bow, uncertain whither this conversation might tend.

"Well, that's Vic's master, and yours. It's your business to take care of her, and wait on him,—that is, do everything he tells you. Hereafter, you are to go to him for orders."

And quickly mounting his own horse, the Major rode off, without waiting for thanks or comments.

Bergan stood looking doubtfully at his new acquisition. Property of this kind gave him a novel sensation; he could not tell, on the instant, whether he liked it or no. Nevertheless, he recognized the inexpediency of discussing the matter with the dusky chattel himself; who, to represent him fairly, seemed in nowise displeased with his change of owners. He had opened his eyes a trifle wider at his sudden transfer, and uttered a mechanical, "Yis, massa,"—that was all. He now stood, tattered hat in hand, waiting for orders. Bergan was somewhat disconcerted to find that he had none to give. Finally, he asked,—

"What is your name?"

"Rubric, sah. But dey mos'ly calls me Brick."

"Ah, yes, I see. And your family name?"

"Hain't got no family, sah."

"Your father's name, I mean."

"Nebber had any fader, sah. He sold down souf, fore I's born."

"Your second name, then."

"Same's yours, massa, I s'pose."

"Hum—How old are you?"

Brick scratched his head reflectively. "Don' jes' know, massa, 'zactly. Spec' bout—bout—fifteen or—twenty, sah; jess 's massa likes."

Bergan bit his lip. Never had he met with such a spirit of accommodation.

"Well, Brick," he asked, after a moment, "if you had a half-holiday, now, what would you do with it?"

Brick's face grew radiant through all its dusk. "Go a-fishin', massa," he burst out, eagerly; "I jes' should!"

"Well, go fishing, then,—if you think you can be back by supper-time."

"Yis, massa. Tank you, massa." And Brick was off like an arrow from the string.

Bergan immediately sought out old Rue's cabin. Outwardly, it differed little from its neighbors; but its interior was not without evidences of thoughtful provision for the faithful old nurse's comfort. Having kindly answered all the questions that she chose to ask, in reference to "Miss Eleanor" and her western life, he made known his errand. She instantly took a key from her pocket, and was about to put it in his hand, when she suddenly drew back, exclaiming:—

"No, no, that will never do! I forgot. That is the key of the back door. You see, sir, I sometimes look into the Hall, and that way is most convenient."

"I assure you that it will serve me very well, too," replied Bergan. "It does not matter how I make my entrance."

Rue shook her head. "It is not fitting," said she, "that the son and heir of the house should first enter at the back, like a servant."

"The son, but not the heir," replied Bergan, smiling.

Rue turned quickly toward him. "Not the heir!" she exclaimed, as if greatly surprised. "And why not?"

The question was not easy to answer. Bergan could not say frankly, "Because such heirship must be bought at too high a price,—even the surrender of my profession, will, conscience, individuality." Nor did the answer present itself to his own mind in this definite form. He was conscious, at the moment, of nothing but a confused, hazy throng of doubts, fears, possibilities, and wishes.

Rue seemed quite satisfied with his silence. She turned to a bureau near by, and, after a little search, drew forth a large, rusty key, which she handed him with a kind of solemnity.

"It has waited long," said she, "for the hand that should rightfully put it into the lock, and let light and hope once more into the old house. I thank the Lord that I live to see the day."

Bergan was too much touched to answer. He walked quickly to the front of the deserted mansion, cut the vines from the door, and put the key in the lock. At first, it opposed a stubborn resistance to his efforts; then, suddenly, the bolt yielded, the door turned slowly on its long-unused hinges, and he stood, with a beating heart, in his ancestral hall.

V.
WASTE PLACES.

He was met by a swift gust of wind, so chill and vault-like, and hurrying past him with so woful a sigh, that it seemed like the rush of innumerable imprisoned ghosts, eagerly seizing upon the opportunity for escape. Involuntarily letting go the door, it fell to behind him with a clangor that reverberated loudly, for a moment, through the house, and then suddenly ceased, as if smothered in some remote corner by a lurking hand. The silence which followed was dreary and oppressive,—all the more, because Bergan, coming so suddenly from the outward sunshine, was altogether bedimmed by such density of gloom as brooded within, most of the windows being either darkened by blinds, or closed with heavy opaque shutters. For a single instant, he felt a thrill of unreasoning horror. The impenetrable gloom, the oppressive stillness, the damp, dead air (which might have come straight from the open mouth of a tomb), gave him a chill impression that he had committed sacrilege.

Quickly recovering himself, however, he again flung wide open the door, and fastened it back. By the light thus admitted, he easily found his way to a window at the other end of the hall, which he also opened. There was an immediate inward rush, not only of the sunny daylight, but of the sweet, warm air of the autumn afternoon, with its inevitable suggestions of tranquil sea, and tender sky, and slow-waving forest; quickly penetrating, he felt sure, to the uppermost corner of the long-deserted dwelling, and scattering everywhere some healthful, purifying, enlivening influence.

He could now see that he stood in a wide and lofty entrance-hall, decorated with a profusion of carved woodwork; panels, cornices, and casements, being ornamented with garlands of oaken roses, or quaint heads of animals, stiff as petrifactions, and almost ebon-black with time and rubbing. The furniture consisted of a small table, a cumbrous cabinet, and ponderous, high-backed chairs, of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, brought from England, as heir-looms, by the first emigrant Bergan. There was also a tall, spectral clock, which, to Bergan's intense astonishment, suddenly began to fill the hall with a loud, monotonous tick, as if the march of time, long ago arrested in the deserted mansion, was now duly resumed:—doubtless the rusty wheels had been jarred into spasmodic motion by the violent closing of the door. By way of decoration, there were a few dingy pictures, in dark, carved frames; and in two of the oaken panels hung complete suits of armor,—helmets, cuirasses, gorgets, greaves, and gauntlets,—memorials, not only of long-buried Bergans, but of long-vanished days.

Hesitating, for a moment, between two half-open doors, Bergan finally chose to enter the main parlor, a room full of a dusky, old-time grandeur. A piano stood between the windows, over the keys of which he ran his fingers, but found that its music had been imprisoned so long as to have grown hoarse and melancholy. So, doubtless, had that of the harp, which showed skeleton-like through its torn baize cover, and was flanked by a pile of music-books, the leaves of which were yellow with age. Odd, unwieldy chairs, covered with faded silk damask and a rich coat of dust, kept solemn state in the dim corners; ottomans and footstools, elaborately embroidered by forgotten fingers with birds, flowers, and other once cheerful devices, stood under the windows, or were scattered around the floor. On the walls, in frames of tarnished magnificence, hung two or three pictures in worsted, the designs of which, like the hands that had wrought them, were now faded beyond recognition. Just in proportion as these things had once helped to brighten the room, they helped to make it more sombre now. Like the images of vanished joys, they were all the gloomier because once so glad. Looking upon them, Bergan was painfully impressed with the latent identity of gayety and grief. Only give them time enough, and they merge into the same dull neutral tint!

Bergan next glanced into a second parlor, a dusky ante-room, and a dining-room, but leaving these places undisturbed in their dim and dusty sanctity, as not of pressing interest, he made his way to the library, on the other side of the hall. It was a large and lofty room, set round with ancient book-cases, above and between which hung rows of portraits, in frames of oak and gilt. These represented the early forefathers and later worthies of the Bergan lineage,—some in knightly armor, with mailed hands clasping a gleaming sword-hilt; some in the rich array of the Tudor or the Stuart court, with laced and plumed hats under their arms; some in the red coats and top-boots of English squires, with a favorite horse or hound looking out from one corner of the picture; some in the huge horsehair wigs and ermined robes of the judge's bench; and others in the cocked hats and knee-breeches of the Revolution, or in the modern black coat and pantaloons, seated in arm-chairs, with their backs to a crimson curtain. There were also dames to match, with towers of lace and curls upon their heads, ruffs, farthingales, and all manner of obsolete finery.

Most of the faces had the austerity of aspect common to old portraits, as if time had delighted to bring into clearer view the hard, stern traits of character which the painter had dared but faintly to delineate, and had even then done his best to cover up with pleasant coloring, and a final coat of lustrous varnish. Nowhere was this effect more striking than in the portrait of Sir Harry Bergan, earliest emigrant of the name, and father of the American line. The younger son of a noble English house, he had early fallen under the displeasure of a stern father, by reason of careless and spendthrift habits; and had finally been banished, in disgrace, to a small continental town, upon an allowance barely sufficient to keep body and soul together. Under this severe discipline,—smarting, too, with a rankling sense of injustice in the treatment that he had received,—his character underwent a complete transformation. His carelessness and extravagance, as well as the generosity and frankness of which they had been the rank, ill-trained outgrowth, fell from him like worn-out garments; he became bitter, morose, and dogged.

At this crisis, the sudden death of his mother placed him in possession of her own large fortune and family estate. Life once more opened before him; but no gentle affection called him back to the paternal neighborhood. On the contrary, he emigrated to Georgia, just then luminous with the career and the fame of General Oglethorpe; with the ambitious design of founding a Bergan lineage in the new world, which should equal, if not surpass, that of the old one. He bought a vast tract of land, and vigorously commenced the work of bringing it under cultivation; he distinguished himself both as soldier and citizen in the Spanish war and the colonial trials, and was knighted for his services; finally, he imported men and materials, and built Bergan Hall as nearly as was possible in the style of his early English home, and called it by the same name. The bricks, the tiles, the elaborate oak carvings, the door and window-frames, the furniture and decorations, the copies of ancestral portraits, were all brought from England, and put in their places by English artisans.

Scarcely was the work finished ere he died, bequeathing to his descendants, not only a vast estate, a splendid home, and an illustrious name, but, by a still stronger law of heirship, certain marked traits of character hereditary in himself,—indomitable energy, dogged independence, strong family pride, and an occasional lunacy of rage, familiarly known as the "Black Bergan temper," to which the race had been subject from time immemorial. These characteristics were to be traced, more or less distinctly through all the portraits of his successors; but in none did they seem to be so perfectly reproduced as in his present representative. In truth, Major Bergan might be regarded as the original Sir Harry over again; his harsh features and stern expression being shown in the old, time-darkened picture with a degree of prophetical accuracy little short of actual portraiture.

Other pictured faces there were, however, which time, still faithful to its work of bringing out the essential truth, had only touched into softer beauty. Such was the face of Eleanor, wife of Sir Harry; a woman of fair and noble presence, in the rich prime of her life, with a wise, strong, beautiful soul, shining out through her deep, soft eyes. Before this picture Bergan lingered long. Even in babyhood, his mother had resembled it strongly enough to make it seem most fitting that she should receive its name; and the likeness had so strengthened with years, that now, it might easily have passed for her portrait, painted from life.

Seeing how perfectly these twain of their ancestors were reflected in his mother and uncle, not only in features, but also in character, Bergan was suddenly seized with a nightmare of doubt and questioning. Was a man's good or evil, then, a mere matter of inheritance, an inevitable heirloom, handed down to him from a remote ancestry, by a more effectual law of transmission than has ever been established, in respect to more tangible property? If so,—if the defects and weaknesses, the depraved tastes and ungovernable passions, which characterized the father were inevitably passed on to the son, and the son's son,—if the moral disease under which this man groaned, as well as the sweet temper which made that woman a household sunbeam, were to be surely traced back to their ancestor of a hundred years ago; what became of individual worth, individual shame, and individual accountability?

Bergan shrank from the apparently inevitable conclusion. He felt, with an unutterable horror, its snaky coils tightening around him, squeezing the breath out of every noble aim and aspiration. He could only escape from it by an appeal from his reason to his consciousness.

"If," he asked himself, "I should now take that grim picture from the wall, and thrust it into the fire, in revenge for the pain which it has given me, should I not know, despite all reasoning to the contrary, that I—I alone, and not that bearded Sir Harry, was responsible for the foolish act? Certainly, I should; for whatever else he may have sent down to me, he did not give me either my will or my conscience. These are my own, and never Bergan of them all had them before me!" And he drew a long breath of relief.

His attention was now directed to the portrait of a young girl, at the end of the second row, nearest the window. It had an odd, illusive resemblance to some one that he had known,—a singular likeness in unlikeness, which puzzled while it attracted him. All at once, capturing the fleeting, familiar expression, as it were, by a swift side-glance, he recognized it as that portrait of his mother in her youth, of which Major Bergan had spoken. He stood gazing upon it long and earnestly, yet with a strange, undefinable feeling of sadness, too. For this bright, young being, with the smooth brow, the arch, dimpled face, and the unwakened soul dreaming at the depths of the soft eyes, was, after all, a stranger to him,—a being that he had never known, and never could know, any more than if she had been laid years ago under the sod, and her sweet substance gradually transformed into violets and daisies. He went back to the picture of Lady Eleanor, and felt, with a thrill of gladness, that he had found again the mother that he seemed, for a brief space, to have lost.

He now turned from the pictures to the book-cases, and found them to contain a heterogeneous collection of ancient and modern volumes, carelessly ranged upon the shelves, without reference either to age or theme. Latin and English classics stood shoulder to shoulder; law and poetry were harmoniously cheek by jowl; divinity and science amiably helped each other to stand upright; history, philosophy, morality, and controversy, met on the same plane, and sunk their differences under one uniform coat of dust. Geography that read like fiction, geology that had no interest except to the antiquarian, and infidelity that had not a peg left to stand upon, were huddled together in one corner, and (no doubt to their utter amazement) helped, in these latter days, to point the same moral.

Growing oppressed, at last, with the sight of so much hopelessly shelved thought, so many pages bearing the prints of a long succession of fingers now crumbled into dust, Bergan turned back to the hall, mounted the staircase, and glanced into two or three of the chambers. He found in all faded carpets, ancient bureaus, high-post bedsteads, shadow-haunted hangings, a thick coating of dust, and a heavy, breathless scent which, it seemed to him, death must needs have left there, in his oldtime visits. Indeed, he could almost have believed that the last occupant of each dusky cavern of a bed had stiffened into clay therein, and been left to choke the air, and coat the furniture, with his own mouldering substance. No lighter dust, he thought, could have made the atmosphere so thick, or caused him to draw his breath so heavily.

Opening the last door in the gallery, Bergan was startled to find a room with every appearance of recent occupancy. Not a speck of dust dimmed the carpet or the furniture; the curtains and the bed-drapery stirred lightly with the breeze from a half-open window; the soft pillows seemed waiting for the head that had dreamed upon them last night; a chair, with a shawl thrown carelessly over the back, stood where it must needs have been left a moment ago; an open workbox showed a suggestive confusion of spools of silk and bits of ribbon and worsted; a vase of flowers adorned the mantel; and a little white glove lay on the toilet-table, among brushes and scent-bottles, and was reflected in a small, bright mirror. Bergan hastily drew back, feeling intuitively that he had intruded upon a maiden's bed-chamber, keeping still the perfume of her sweet breath and happy thoughts.

Yet—the bed-linen, how strangely yellow!—the shawl, how dim and faded!—the flowers, how withered! He advanced again; he began to understand that the maiden who had dreamed on that pillow, whose hand had left its dainty mould in that glove, the sweetness of whose virgin breath still lingered in the room with the scent of the withered rosebuds, went out from it years ago,—a bride,—to be known thenceforth as wife and mother,—his mother! His eyes grew moist; one by one he touched the little possessions left behind with her girlhood, striving thus to come a little closer to the fair, shy image, that moved him with such unutterable tenderness, yet seemed so far beyond his ken. Reverently, at last, he closed the door, as upon a still, white, smiling corpse, at once ineffably beautiful and ineffably sad.

But who had cared for this one room so tenderly, while all the rest of the house had been left to go to ruin? The answer was plain. Old Rue, whose love for her young mistress was half a worship, had taken a sorrowful pleasure in keeping the room (with such help as she could easily command) in the exact state in which it had been left.

Bergan was in no mood for further exploration. He made his way back to the entrance-hall, and sat down in one of the antique chairs. He was not quite ready for the instant transition into the outward sunshine. His heart was too heavy. The ancestral home was only an ancestral tomb. Surrounded by memorials of the old state and splendor of Bergan Hall, he felt all the more keenly its present desolation and decay. Remembering the noble Bergan lineage, he was humiliated to the dust by the thought of its present representative.

And here, first, his uncle's offer rose before him in the dazzling garments of temptation. Was it, after all, an ignoble ambition to lift the family name out of the dust, to restore the family home, fill it again with social life and warmth, and make it the centre of purer, more refining, and more elevating influences than ever before? Was it not better than any mere personal ambition? Might it not be just the place which he was meant to fill, and which, if he declined to take it, would be left empty? From questions he went on to answers; and his thoughts shaped out a tempting vision of Bergan Hall restored, revivified. Light steps and rustling garments went up and down the broad staircase,—his mother sat smiling in her old room,—voices of children echoed through the large, sunshiny parlors,—guests came and went,—he himself sat in the library, crowned with honors as with years, and—

He was recalled to the present and the actual by a low rumble of thunder. The sunshine had faded from the sky; clouds were rolling up from the west; he hastened back to the cottage through the first drops of the rain.

The evening passed much like its predecessor. When, at last, he went up to his room, leaving his uncle to the dear companionship of his bottle and glass, he found it half-flooded with water from a newly sprung leak in the roof. Hastily declining the Major's hesitating offer of a share in his own apartment, he begged permission to quarter himself in the old Hall.

Major Bergan set down his glass, and looked at him with a mixture of wonder and admiration. "Certainly, Harry, if you are in earnest about it," said he. "But I must say that you are a brave fellow to choose to sleep alone in an old ruin like that,—haunted, too, the negroes say. But are you sure that you can find a room there any less leaky than your present one?"

"Quite sure. I noticed two or three, on the south side, which seemed to be in excellent condition."

"Very well; take your choice, and make yourself as comfortable as you can. Brick is under your orders, of course; and Maumer Rue will send you out one of the women, with what linen is needed. Good night."

The Major remained standing at the door, till he saw, first, a wandering gleam of light through the crevices of the old house, and then the steady beam of a candle, shining from an upper window.

"A light in Eleanor's room!—I never expected to see that again!" he murmured, and went back to his bottle, to drink all the deeper for some unwontedly sad and remorseful thoughts.

Meanwhile, Bergan had not once dreamed of appropriating that maiden sanctuary. He had merely chosen the room next to it; and the door between being transiently opened for better ventilation, Major Bergan had seen his light through the designated window.

It was not an easy task to make his dusty, mouldy room even tolerably habitable, but it was finally achieved; and, dismissing Brick, Bergan laid his head on his pillow, with a real satisfaction in being, at last, domiciled under his ancestral roof.

VI.
THE DAY OF TEMPTATION.

Two days of drizzling rain followed, and did their best to make the black roof and mouldy walls of Bergan Hall look more cheerless than ever. But a counteracting influence was busy within. An energetic young spirit was rapidly organizing a home for itself in one corner; turning the shadows out of nooks where they had lain so long as almost to have established a pre-emption right, and making short work with dust, mould, and dead air. And, in some inexplicable way, the whole house seemed to catch the pleasant infection, and to be faintly astir with life. A passer-by of delicate instincts would have seen at once that the long lease of silence and emptiness had expired. And in truth, it would have been strange if a dwelling, so old—so long familiar with human affairs and interests, the very timbers of which must have been oozy with the exhalations of a long succession of joys and sorrows—had not shown itself ready to sympathize with every passing phase of life, and especially to welcome back to its empty old bosom a fresh, young, beating heart.

That it did so, Bergan felt intuitively. In return, he did what he could to vivify with his single personality its whole wide indoor world. Having received unlimited discretionary powers from his uncle, in regard to choice of rooms and furniture, as well as the most unrestrained privilege of exploration, he went from room to room, ransacking and arranging, here picking up a quaintly carved chair, and there an absurdly contorted little table, and setting wide open doors and windows wherever he could find a reasonable excuse for doing so. He even mounted to the garret, a great twilight-hall, stored with the lumber of many vanished generations, and dived into nooks of dingiest obscurity, with the eager zeal of a discoverer; coming forth covered with dust and cobwebs, and laden with spoils. File upon file of yellow papers, having a possible interest as family annals, a curiously gnarled and twisted genealogical tree, a dust-choked flute, several Spanish songs in manuscript, a discolored sketch-book, and a quaint old secretary, from the innumerable pigeon-holes of which sprang a whole colony of alarmed mice,—these were among the treasures that he unearthed, and transferred to his own room for examination or use. Every hour, the home-feeling grew upon him. Despite the gray and dripping sky, and the disconsolate, water-soaked earth, these days had their own peculiar illumination and charm. Oldness and newness combined to produce one rich—albeit, a little heavy—atmosphere of enjoyment.

Occasionally, his uncle came to watch his progress, and favor him with half-serious, half-jocular commentary. He was both interested and amused to observe how readily the new inmate fitted himself into his surroundings, and what talent he displayed in organizing various crude and chaotic elements into one harmonious whole. By turns he adapted, invented, or altered, until his room presented an aspect of pleasantness, as well as an array of conveniences, in striking contrast with the rude accommodations of the cottage, and even with the oldtime appliances that had served former occupants. His uncle wondered and admired even while he shook his head over the un-Bergan-like trait, and questioned if, after all, it were not a sign of degeneracy. This doubt wellnigh culminated in conviction when, on the afternoon of the second day, in a lull of the storm, he discovered his nephew calmly seated astride the high ridge-pole, with a bundle of shingles and a pocketful of nails, stopping the leaks with which the long rain and his visits to the garret had made him acquainted; and accompanying his work with a very sweet and deftly executed whistle.

"That settles the question, Harry," he shouted to the amateur carpenter, a smile and a frown struggling for supremacy on his upturned face. "There never was a Bergan, from first to last, who could have done that!"

"Do not speak so disrespectfully of our common ancestors, uncle! As if they had not the use of their hands!"

"Humph! It's plain that you have the use of yours, and of your head, too! How in the world did you reach that dizzy altitude?"

Bergan laughed. "'Where there's a will there's a way.' What should you say to the chimney?"

"Nonsense! How did you get up there?"

"I really cannot answer that question as it stands. There is a mistake in the terms."

"You rascal! what do you mean?'"

"I did not 'get up;' I came down." And Bergan glanced at a great oak-bough, swinging full ten feet above his head.

The Major uttered a cry of admiration. "You are a Bergan, and no mistake!" he cried, emphasizing the statement with an oath. "You've got the real, old, brave Bergan stuff in you, Harry, and I'm proud of you, in spite of your tinkering. But that bough is now out of your reach; you cannot come down by that route."

"A new one will be more interesting. And the chimney has a most capacious throat; the builders must have contemplated the passage of other things than smoke."

"Harry! you'll break your neck! Don't you dare to come down till I send you a ladder! At the same time, I'll order the carpenter to finish up that job, if it must be done."

"He will be too late, uncle; I am just laying the last shingle."

"Speak lower, you scamp! lest the old portraits under your feet should hear you and blush."

"Their thanks would be much more to the point—especially Sir Harry's," coolly replied Bergan. "Two hours ago, the water from this very leak was pouring in a stream down his long ancestral nose; you would have said the picture had an influenza."

The Major emitted a sound between a laugh and a growl, and vanished.

Poor Brick was even more scandalized by his young master's plebeian readiness with his hands. The very ease with which Bergan performed his self-imposed, and, for the most part, unaccustomed tasks, misled the dusky spectator. To be sure, Brick was a little comforted to observe that those agile hands knew the trick of the ivory piano-keys full well, and could evolve soulful melody from the flute, that they were not ignorant of the mysteries of sketching, and betrayed a scholarly familiarity with books and papers, pen and ink; yet he doubted if even these gracious accomplishments could wash from them the stain of that dreadful manual labor in which they were erewhile engaged,—the only redeeming feature of which was that it was not done for bread.

Nevertheless, Brick loved his young master with all his heart. He had succumbed at once to the rare charm of Bergan's manner,—so grave and thoughtful for his years, yet so richly illuminated, at times, with soft gleams of humor, and always so genuinely kind. He followed him like his shadow; he could scarcely be happy out of his presence; and notwithstanding his own inward struggles with doubt and mortification, he continually held him up to the admiration of the quarter in the strongest language of encomium that he could command, as a "bery high-tone gemman, and jes' de bes' massa dat ebber stepped foot on de old place."

The appearance of this "high-toned gentleman" on the roof, in the humble rôle of carpenter, was, therefore, a rude shock to Brick's finer sensibilities. He watched him from the ground below, groaning simultaneously over probable fractures to his limbs, and certain damage to his reputation. It gave him some consolation to find that the Major was inclined to treat the matter in a jocular rather than a serious light; and he was profoundly impressed with his hearty admiration of the gymnastic feat with which the questionable performance had opened. That, at least, his own dusky friends of the quarter could understand and approve.

Brick was still further reassured by Maumer Rue, to whom he stood in the relation of grandson. On being consulted, she had replied, loftily,—

"A Bergan can do what he pleases, child. He is not obliged to walk by rule and measure, like people whose pedigree stops with their grandfathers. If a king chooses to make a box, a barrel, or a piece of furniture, for his own use, it is not a meanness, but an eccentricity." And the long word not only floored Brick's last remaining doubt, but furnished him with the means of silencing other critics. In view of carpentry and tinkering, dignified with the sonorous title of "exkingtricities," nothing was left to the quarter but to roll its eyes and shut its mouth in mute amazement.

On the morning of the third day, the sky pushed aside its gray veil of clouds, and smiled once more upon the wet and melancholy earth. Thereupon the latter quickly dried up some of its tears, and made what shift for joy it could with the remainder. Every pool reflected a bit of the sky's wide smile, or the pleasant stir of overhanging foliage. The grand old evergreen oaks around Bergan Hall shook from their far-reaching boughs broken sunlight and dancing shadows, fresh breeze and shining raindrops, in nearly equal measure. The whisper of the pine-woods became a song rather than a sigh;—or, if it were a sigh, it was of that pleasant kind which struggles up unconsciously from a heart a little overfull of pleasure. Even the long streamers of gray moss decked themselves with prismatic jewels, and forgot to be mournful.

"If you do not mind a little mud," said the Major, at the dinner-table, "we will order our horses, and ride over to Berganton this afternoon. You must be tired of being cooped up in the house, by this time, in spite of your ready knack at finding occupation and amusement where most people would gape their heads off with ennui. Besides, it is high time that you should see something of the neighborhood, outside our own plantation,—as well as the village which your ancestors founded. To be sure, there is precious little to see,—Berganton is not what it was once,—but I shall be glad to show you that little, and also, to introduce you to some of my old acquaintances."

As the two gentlemen were riding through the mutilated avenue, Bergan could not help asking if the trees which had formerly arched and shaded it had been felled on account of decay.

"No," replied the Major, a little gruffly, as if he suspected a latent rebuke in the question; "but they spoiled twenty or thirty acres of the best corn-land on the plantation, and were very valuable for timber, besides. And, about that time, I was bent on lifting a certain old mortgage off from the place, and getting generally forehanded with the world, at any sacrifice, short of selling land. However," he continued, his face clearing again, "if you will stay here, Harry, you shall replant the avenue, just as soon as you like, if that is your pleasure. The trees will not grow large enough to do much damage, in my time;—besides, I can afford the land now,—and almost anything else that you may happen to fancy. I have not saved and slaved all these years for nothing;—you may be certain of that. And, as I've said before, I don't believe in half-way work. If you stay here, it will be as my adopted son; and I mean to show myself an indulgent father."

A kindlier smile than was often seen on the Major's rugged features, lit up his face as he concluded. Then, suddenly turning to Bergan, and holding out his hand, he asked, in the husky tone of emotion, and with a look of entreaty,—

"Shall we shake hands upon it?"

Bergan was taken by surprise. In grateful recognition of his uncle's manifest kindness of intention, as well as of his unwonted softness of manner, he impulsively clasped the outstretched hand. At once he became aware that, in so doing, he had appeared to yield an unqualified assent to his uncle's wishes. Hurriedly casting about for inoffensive phraseology wherein to disavow any such intent, it was singularly hard to find. To increase the difficulty, Major Bergan was pouring forth his gratification that the matter was finally settled, in terms of unusual warmth and animation. It was evident, not only that the plan lay nearer to his heart than had hitherto appeared, but that he himself had taken stronger hold of his uncle's affections than he had imagined.

In fact, Bergan had come to the Major just at the auspicious moment when, having measurably accomplished the object which had absorbed all his thoughts and energies for many years, he was looking around him for something to fill its place in his life, and beginning vaguely to discern that his heart was empty, and his future aimless. The old family home was not the only thing that he had left to go drearily to ruin, while pursuing his own selfish ends in his own unscrupulous way.

Beholding, at this moment, a frank, brave, handsome youth by his side, full of talent and of promise, and singularly attractive in manner,—in whose veins, too, ran some of the same blood that filled his own, and whose features were moulded after the best ancestral type,—his dormant affections quickly awakened to fasten themselves pertinaciously around the timely object. His thoughts began industriously to shape out for himself a new future, which should embrace, as a setting its appropriate jewel, a brilliant and prosperous career for this young hope of his house. The unsuspected strength of these feelings now made itself clearly visible, both in the hearty grasp which he gave his nephew's hand, and in a sudden affectionateness of eyes, mouth, voice, gesture, and every indescribable manifestation, that Bergan had never seen in him before. Naturally enough, the young man shrank from the utterance of words certain to drive back on itself this outgush of the inestimable tenderness of a stern nature, to bring back the old sharpness and severity to eyes that now lay so soft and deep under their shaggy brows.

Moreover, he felt that his own resolution was wavering. Bergan Hall had grown strangely dear to him during his solitary occupation of its silent, but suggestive precincts. He might have been proof against every temptation that it could have offered in its grandeur and its prosperity; but in its loneliness and decay there was a pathetic appeal to much that was best and noblest in his nature. To this influence, a stronger one, even, was now added. Seeing the strength of his uncle's new-born affection, and its softening effect upon his face and manner, Bergan began to question within himself whether a still better and nobler work than the restoration of the ancestral home, might not here call for his hand—even the restoration of a human life. Those woful habits of intoxication and profanity, far worse than the dry-rot that gnawed at the timbers of the old Hall; that roughness and sordidness which had gathered over the once promising character, far sadder to behold than the mould and the dust that dimmed the ancestral grandeur;—were there not moral instruments available for the cure of the one, as there were artisan's tools able to remove all traces of the other.

To young minds there is always a strong fascination in the prospect of exerting a good influence upon others. Older heads—seeing how little is often effected by the best and most persistent endeavors, and sadly cognizant of the fact that influences are received as well as exerted (a long deterioration in one's self being sometimes the price of a little, brief improvement in another)—are not so ready to take upon themselves the responsibility of acting upon any human soul, nor so sanguine of success. But Bergan had none of this late wisdom,—if wisdom it be. Through his quiet character there ran the golden vein of a noble enthusiasm. He believed that it was his part and duty to make the world better for having lived therein. Still susceptible to influences himself, he had no conception of the iron bands, the indestructible tendencies, of evil habits indulged for years. He stood ready, at any time, and anywhere, to throw himself into the long conflict between Right and Wrong, and doubted not that the issue of the fray would turn upon his single sword.

Half-buried in thought, half-listening to his uncle's talk, he rode mechanically onward. On one side of his path, flowed the smooth, shining waters of the creek; on the other ran the Bergan estate, with its odd aspect of mingled thrift and neglect. He had often wondered at the singular blending, in his uncle's character, of the sturdy English energy inherited from that indefatigable Briton, Sir Harry, with the indifference and impromptitude induced by the climate. It was especially curious to note how these diverse qualities displayed themselves in different directions. With human beings, his laborers and dependents, and even with his animals, he was prompt, energetic, and exacting, accepting no excuses, and showing no indulgence; with inanimate things, he was often careless, negligent, and unobservant. On this portion of the estate, which seemed but little cultivated, fences were down or dilapidated, gates swung unwillingly on their hinges, and outbuildings seemed ready to fall with their own weight.

Soon, too, these things were made more noticeable by contrast, as a long line of neatly-kept grounds and well ordered fences came into view. Shortly after, a pleasant cottage, amply provided with broad, cool, vine-draped piazzas, appeared on the right; standing a little apart from the road, in the midst of a group of live-oak trees scarcely less grand and venerable than those which flung their heavy shadow over Bergan Hall. At sight of it, the Major's face grew dark again; especially as Bergan, pleased with its neat and cheerful aspect, turned to give it a second look.

"Yes," he burst forth bitterly, with a fearful oath, "that is where my brother, the hardware merchant, lives! I tell you what, Harry, the very first thing that you are to do, as soon as you get a chance (if I don't live to do it myself), is to buy out his heirs, and raze that impertinent shanty to the ground. Just recollect that, will you? if I should happen to forget to put it into my will."

Bergan forebore to reply. He was learning that it was his wisest course—at least, so he thought—to take no notice of his uncle's bitter wrath and prejudice, since he could not sympathize with them. If his growing wish to possess Bergan Hall lay at the bottom of this silence, he was as yet unconscious of it.

His uncle,—accepting his forbearance as a sign of acquiescence to his wishes,—now, for the first time, really exerted himself for his entertainment. He talked with vivacity, humor, intelligence, and much of the tone and manner of his earlier days. His better self revived, for a time; and Bergan recognized something of the refined, cultured, accomplished gentleman, of his mother's descriptions, whose lightsome flow of spirits, gay sparkle of wit, and frank, cordial address, had made him the life and soul of the circle wherein he moved. It was mournful to see him under this pleasant transformation, and think of him in his usual aspect. Bergan could not but wonder how he had ever fallen to that lower level. He had not seen the easy descent from gayety to dissipation of his younger days; nor could he understand how naturally, with years, drinking in frivolous companionship had been exchanged for drinking alone, lavishness for parsimony, the gay, aimless life of a man of the world for the steady, energetic pursuit of one selfish, isolated, exclusive object.

They now reached the village. As they rode through its principal street, which was wide and handsomely shaded, the Major pointed to one and another of the houses along its sides, and quietly named men and women that had occupied them in years agone; either forgetting, or unaware, that most of them were now tenanting that one earthly house, of whose narrow accommodations every mortal must needs have some experience,—namely, the grave.

Bergan, meanwhile, felt himself quite at home among names so often heard from his mother's lips; and momentarily expected that his uncle would stop at some one of these friendly dwellings, for the renewal of his own acquaintance, and the introduction of his nephew. But to his extreme surprise, the Major rode straight through the village, and dismounted, before a tavern, at its extreme end.

VII.
A BITTER DRAUGHT.

It needed but a glance to show Bergan that the tavern was of the lower sort. It was dingy and dilapidated without, and from its open windows were wafted sounds of hoarse voices, shouts of laughter, the jingling of glasses, and a strong odor of tobacco, betokening a corresponding amount of moral dinginess and dilapidation within. Bergan turned to his uncle with a disgust that he hardly attempted to conceal,—the natural disgust of a healthy body and mind for things coarse, foul, noisy, and vulgar,—and inquired;—

"Do you intend to stop here long?"

"Quite long enough for you to get off and stretch yourself," replied the Major, carelessly. "This is an old halting-place of mine, and looks as natural as possible, though it is a year or more since I have set eyes on it. No doubt I shall find some old acquaintances here. Come! don't sit there gaping at the outside, like a man trying to guess at the purport of a letter from the looks of the envelope, when the inside would tell him what he wants to know, in a jiffy; get off your horse, and come in."

Bergan obeyed, but with a manifest reluctance that brought a cloud to the Major's brow. Muttering something between his teeth, which had the tone and bitterness of a curse, but was unintelligible, the latter led the way to the bar-room.

Several varieties of the genus loafer, both of the genteel and vulgar species, were leaning over the counter, or seated in tilted-up chairs, puffing out tobacco smoke, and discussing matters of local interest. The appearance of the Major was greeted with enthusiasm,—all the more, that his first words, after a "How d'y" of very general application, were an order to the landlord to make a stiff bowl of punch, on a scale commensurate with the numbers of the party.

"This is my nephew, gentlemen," he went on, addressing the delighted audience,—"Harry Bergan Arling, as he now calls himself, or Harry Bergan, of Bergan Hall, as he is to be, in good time,—a real chip of the old family block, as you can see at a glance. I expect that you will all do me the honor of drinking his health in a bowl of the best punch that Gregg can concoct. Hurry up, Gregg! you know how I like it,—not too strongly flavored with our two days' drizzle;—was there ever a nastier spell of weather?"

"Never knew the sky so leaky in all my life," responded a languid loafer of the genteeler sort, too lazy to furnish his sentences with nominatives. "Begun to think, with Father Miller, 'twas getting worn out."

"It will last our time, I reckon," returned the Major. "And 'after us the deluge,' of course. I would not mind taking a swim in it myself, if it were of punch such as Gregg, there, is mixing. It looks like the real thing! Now, gentlemen, step forward and take your glasses. Here's to the health of my nephew,—Harry Bergan,—and may he unite in his single person all the virtues of all the Harrys of the line, from Sir Harry down;—yes, and all the vices, too, they are good Bergan stock, every one of them!"

A toast so perfectly in harmony with the corrupt atmosphere of the bar-room could but be received and drunk with acclamation. Bergan, perforce, lifted his glass to his lips, but the fiery draught, prepared with a single eye to the requirements of his uncle's sophisticated palate, was so little suited to his own purer taste, that he set it down with its contents very little diminished. Observing this, Major Bergan's face grew dark.

"That will never do, Harry," he growled, aside. "Don't disgrace me here, whatever you may do at home! I insist upon your emptying your glass like a man, and doing your part towards making things pleasant. Now, then, gentlemen," he continued, aloud, "be pleased to make ready for toast the second. We will drink success to my nephew's future proprietorship of Bergan Hall;—may it come late, and last long!"

The cords of conventionalism—even the conventionalism of a bar-room—are strong; and Bergan was somewhat young for complete independence of character. Nevertheless, he was quite capable of turning his back on the whole company of tipplers, both genteel and vulgar, indifferent alike to their wonder, censure, or scorn, had it not been for his uncle; whose wishes, in his double character of host and relative, seemed entitled to some degree of respect. Yet both instinct and principle revolted from the certain intoxication of the distasteful glass in his hand. By a quick and dexterous motion, he sent half its contents flying out of the window near which he stood, and supplied their place with water from a convenient pitcher. Flattering himself that he had done this unobserved, he tried to swallow his disgust at the place and the companionship in which he found himself with the diluted draught.

"That's pretty fair stuff," said the Major, setting down his empty glass; "it has just about the right snap in it. Is there enough for another round, Gregg?"

"Plenty, sir, and another one on the end of that. I knew you didn't like to see the bottom of the bowl, in a hurry, Major."

"You are another Solon, Gregg. Your wisdom is only to be equalled by your disinterestedness. Come, gentlemen, fill your glasses again! Harry, is your glass filled?"

As he spoke, the Major drew near, and fixed a keen eye on Bergan's glass, in a way which led the latter to suspect that his late manoeuvre had not been so successful as he had imagined. At any rate, it would not be easy to repeat it. Well, what matter? He had submitted to his uncle's tyranny long enough; he might as well free himself first as last. He would try to do so in the way least likely to give offence.

"Uncle," he pleaded, with a graceful frankness and courtesy that could scarcely have failed to reach the Major's better self, if it had been less under the vitiating influence of strong drink,—"uncle, I really must beg your kind indulgence. I am not accustomed to potations so many nor so strong; and whatever I may be able to do, in time, under your skilful guidance, I must now use a little discretion. Pray excuse me from taking any more at present."

"I'll be hanged if I do!" said the Major, bluntly. "If you don't know how to drink like a gentleman and a Bergan, it is high time you should learn. Fill up his glass, Gregg; he shall drink!"

Scarcely were the insulting words spoken ere Bergan felt, with a thrill of dismay, a hot tingling sensation in all his veins, as if the blood in them had suddenly been turned to fire. Too well he knew what it meant. The "black Bergan temper," which had been the one, great sorrow and struggle of his life, thus far, and which he had believed to be completely tamed, was stirring within him in a way to show that, if it were not instantly controlled, it would carry him, in its headlong fury, he knew not whither. Every other feeling, every other thought, were, for the moment, swallowed up in the instinct of self-preservation. He would submit to his uncle's imperious dictation, not that he either prized his love or feared his anger, but because that treacherous demon within must at once feel a firm foot upon its neck, and be shown that it could expect no indulgence, and no quarter.

At this moment, there was a slight bustle at the door, occasioned by an arrival; under cover of which he again turned to the friendly water pitcher, to make sure that, while fleeing from one fatal influence he was not running blindly into the leashes of another.

"Dimidium plus toto, I see," observed a well-remembered voice at his elbow, in a tone of good-natured sarcasm. "But you make a slight mistake in your practical translation; it is a 'half,' not a quarter (or I might say, an eighth) which is 'better than the whole.' And anyway, I doubt if old Hesiod meant his maxim to apply to punch."

Glad of anything that promised to create a diversion, Bergan turned and gave the hand of Richard Causton a much more cordial grasp than he would have been likely to do, under other circumstances. The old man, better accustomed to the cold shoulder from all reputable acquaintance, returned it with tears in his blear eyes, and for once, had no proverb at command wherein to do justice to his feelings. Before he could find one, Major Bergan came up, with a sly gleam of humor or of mischief, on his face. "What! you know Harry!" he exclaimed. "Oh! yes, I remember,—you helped him on his way to Bergan Hall. So much the better. You will be glad to know that it was my nephew to whom you showed that courtesy, and to drink to your better acquaintance. All ready?"

Bergan turned round for his glass, which he had left standing on the window-sill, and, the sooner to be done with the distasteful business, swallowed at a gulp what, it seemed to him, the next moment, must have been liquid fire. A loud laugh from his uncle told him to whom he was indebted for the substitution of raw spirit for weak punch. The passion which he had so promptly smothered, doubly inflamed by the consciousness of being betrayed and the instantaneous action of the potent draught, blazed up with sudden, ungovernable fury. Feeling that he was losing control of temper and reason together, he rushed toward the door. At a sign from the Major, two or three of the bystanders threw themselves in his way. They were instantly sent reeling right and left by two powerful blows. Dick Causton, catching hold of him with the friendly design of preventing him from doing more mischief and provoking more enmity, was shaken off with a violence that threw him in a disordered heap on the floor; over which Bergan strode wrathfully towards his uncle, who had planted himself in the doorway. The spectators held their breath to witness the expected encounter between uncle and nephew,—Bergan against Bergan, the blood of both up, the hereditary frenzy blazing in each pair of dark eyes.

But Bergan was not quite so mad as that. Seeing who it was that impeded his way, he turned and darted through a window close at hand, jumped over the piazza railing, sprang upon his horse, and was off before the bystanders had well recovered their breath, or Dick had picked himself up, with the caustic observation,—

"Perit quod facis ingrato,—'Save a thief from hanging, and he will cut your throat.'"

Poor Vic!—never in all her life had she been urged to such mad and merciless speed as on that ill-starred day. Protesting, at first, by various plunges and rearings, she finally fell in with her master's wild humor, and sped through the village at a pace that sent the foot-passengers to the fences in terror, and crowded the doors and windows with wondering gazers. Whether he were fleeing from destruction, or riding straight to it, was no affair of hers; in either case, she would do her best to meet his wishes. The village was quickly left behind; house after house, and field after field, slid by in a swift panorama; already they were turning the corner, toward the Hall, when Bergan's scattered senses were suddenly recalled by a stern "Halloo! what are you about?" mingled with a faint cry of alarm. To his horror, he saw himself to be on the point of riding down a young lady equestrian, who was on her way to the village, accompanied by her father. There was not an instant to lose, not a moment for reflection; the heads of the two horses were almost in contact. Putting his whole strength into one sudden, ill-considered jerk, Vic was thrown back on her haunches, and he and she rolled over in the mud together.

Fortunately, neither was much hurt, and both sprang to their feet considerably sobered by the shock. Bergan was deeply humiliated, also; he would gladly have compounded with his mortification for almost any amount of physical pain. No bodily injury could have made him writhe with so sharp a pang, as the conviction that he had flawed his claim to the title of gentleman. To have nearly ridden over a lady, in a blind frenzy of rage and semi-intoxication, was a disgrace that he could never forget. He would gladly have buried himself in the mud with which he was already tolerably well coated. Since he could not do that, he took off his hat to the horseman,—he dared neither address nor look at the lady,—and said, in a tone that trembled with shame and regret,—

"I beg your pardon, sir."

"You would have done better to look where you were going," replied the gentleman, with the unreasoning anger that often follows upon the reaction from fear and anxiety. "No thanks to you that my daughter is not maimed or killed!"

"I think you mistake, father," quickly interposed the young lady, in a low, sweet voice, tremulous from the recent shock to her nerves;—"did you not see how promptly the gentleman sacrificed himself to save me, as soon as he saw the danger? I hope you are not hurt, sir," she added, courteously, turning to Bergan.

"Thank you; not half so much as I deserve to be," replied he, only the more remorseful on account of the delicate consideration that she showed for him, while her cheek was still blanched, and her lips trembling, at her own narrow escape from danger caused by his rashness. And, feeling wholly unworthy to say another word to anything so pure and sweet, so utterly incompatible with the vile place and scene which he had just quitted, he stood aside, with uncovered head, to let her pass.

Apparently, she would have lingered long enough to make sure that he was really uninjured; but her father, who had been eyeing him keenly, hurried her away. "Do you not see," he inquired, sharply, as they rode on, "that the fellow is drunk?"

"Impossible, father! He had such a fine, noble countenance!"

"It will not be noble long," replied the father. "Neither will it be the first noble countenance that has been spoiled by drunkenness," he added, with a sigh.

Left alone, Bergan remounted Vic, though not without difficulty. The bewildering effect of his potent draught, which had momentarily been overcome by the excitement of his late adventure, now made itself felt again. As he rode along, his head began to swim; a deadly nausea seized him; his limbs seemed paralyzed. Arrived within the gates of his uncle's domain, he suffered himself to slide slowly from the saddle to the ground; and almost immediately, consciousness forsook him.

VIII.
AS A DREAM WHEN ONE AWAKETH.

When, in due course of time, Bergan came partially to himself, he found that he was lying on his own bed, with the twilight shadows gathering duskily in its hangings. But his mind was too dull and confused to trouble itself with the question how he came there, notwithstanding that his ears seemed still to retain the sound of low voices, and his limbs the pressure of careful hands. Scarcely had he unclosed his heavy eyes, ere he was glad to shut them again, and to sink anew into slumber.

But this time, it was not, as before, a profound stupor, a deaf, blind, torpid, state of nothingness. Though it lasted some hours, he never quite lost an oppressive sense of overhanging trouble, imperfectly as its nature was apprehended. Moreover, he was harassed by dreams of that most trying character, wherein varying images revolve around one fixed idea; combining the misery of continual change with that of ceaseless iteration into one intolerable horror.

Breaking, at length, from the teasing spell of these phantasms, he saw that it was past midnight. Through the opposite window, he beheld a pale, waning moon, and, by its light, a gray, dimly-outlined landscape,—a faint and lifeless sketch, as it were, of a once bright, breathing world. While he looked, over it came the black shadow of a wind-driven cloud, blurring the lines, here and there, into still grayer indistinctness, sweeping across the lawn, mounting the steps of Bergan Hall, and laying, at last, its thin, light hand over his own brow and eyes.

With it, as if by right of near kinship, a deep gloom fell upon his heart. Till now, it had not occurred to him why his head ached so heavily, nor what weary weight it was that burdened his mind. Yet he did not—as too many would have done, after a brief flush of shame, and a momentary feeling of regret—seek to throw off this burden by telling himself that his late aberration was, after all, a matter of small moment, since it was only what hundreds like him had done before, were now doing, and would continue to do till the end of time. Not of any such weak stuff, incapable of looking his own acts squarely in the face, and judging them according to their merits, was Bergan made. On the contrary, he felt as much humiliated as if he had been the first, last, only intoxicated young man in the universe.

And this, be it understood, was not so much because he had violated the higher law, as because he had broken his own law unto himself. With the Bergan temper, he had also inherited a fair share of the Bergan pride, and the Bergan strength of will. But, softened and guided by home influences at once wise and genial, the one had hitherto shown itself mainly in a lofty, almost an ideal, purity of character, and the other had expended its force chiefly upon himself. The two, therefore, had served him little less effectually, in keeping him free from current vices, than higher motives might have done. He had taken a stern, proud pleasure in knowing that he wore no yoke but such as it pleased him deliberately to assume. He would have scorned to say, what he often heard from the lips of his fellows,—"I cannot quit drinking, I cannot live without smoking, I cannot resist the fascinations of gambling," et cætera;—he would have felt it a woful slur upon his manhood to avow himself so abject a slave to his animal nature. So strong was this pride of character, that no sooner did he feel any habit, any appetite, any pleasure, however innocent in itself, taking firm hold of him, than he was immediately impelled to give it up, to refuse it indulgence,—for a time, at least,—just to satisfy one part of himself that its control over the other and baser part was still perfect. At whatever price, he was determined to be his own master.

It may be imagined, then, with what sharp sting of pride, what miserable sense of weakness and failure, he writhed, as Memory now flung open the doors of her silent gallery, and showed him sombre picture after picture, representing his own figure in divers humiliating positions. It shrank from the utterance of its strong convictions of right; it gave way to the assaults of a poor ambition; it drifted with circumstance; it was driven to and fro like a shuttlecock between outward temptation and inward passion; it was successively a fighting rowdy, a blind lunatic, an insensate drunkard.

Not that these representations were all true in tone, unexaggerated in color, and correct in sentiment. Often, there is nothing more difficult than to fix upon the exact point where the plain boundary line between right and wrong was crossed; and neither pride nor remorse is apt to do it correctly. Some steps may have been taken upon a kind of debatable ground; had the march been arrested at any one of these, its tendency would have been different. In reviewing his conduct, Bergan failed to do justice either to his uncle's undeniable claims to his respectful consideration, up to the point where he had been required to follow him into a low bar-room, or to the real beauty and worth of some of his own feelings and motives. Looking back, he saw—or seemed to see—only a pitiable career of irresolution and moral cowardice, ending in disgrace. Covering his face with his hands, as if to shut out the unwelcome sight, he groaned aloud.

To his surprise, the groan was distinctly prolonged and repeated. Was it the responsive wail of the ancestral spirits, mourning over their degenerate scion, or only the sympathizing echo of the ancestral walls? Springing to his feet, he beheld a tall, erect figure standing on the hearth, showing strangely weird and unearthly by the flickering blaze of a few dying embers. Not till it turned and came toward him did he recognize the dusky features and age-whitened hair of Maumer Rue.

"I hope that it is not on my account that you are up at this time of night," said he, gravely.

"You forget that night and day are both alike to me," she quietly answered. "Are you better?"

"Much better, thank you." And he added after a moment,—"How came I here?"

"Brick found you in the avenue. By my direction, you were brought in. At first, it was thought that you had been thrown from your horse, but—"

Rue paused.

"I understand," said Bergan, bitterly. "I was drunk."

Rue did not immediately answer. It was only after some moments that she said, earnestly;—

"Master Bergan, I am an old woman. I have seen four generations of your house,—I have nursed two,—and I have spent my life in its service. If it had been my own, I could not have loved it better, nor felt its welfare nearer my heart. If these things give me any right to say a word of warning to you, let me say it now!"

"Say whatever seems good to you," replied Bergan, gloomily, as he flung himself into a chair. "I doubt if you can say anything so hard to bear as what I have already said to myself."

"Is that so?" asked Rue, in a tone of relief—"is that really so? Then I need not say anything. It is a higher voice than mine that speaks within you; and my poor words would only weaken its effect. Only listen to it, Master Bergan, pray listen to it!" she went on, with tears streaming from her blind eyes. "If you stifle it now, it may never speak so clearly again!"

"Make yourself easy, maumer," answered Bergan, much affected, yet doing his best to speak cheerfully,—"I have not the least intention of stifling it. Moreover, I assure you that I am in no danger of repeating last night's miserable experience; drunkenness is not my besetting sin. I only wish I were as certain that I should never again give way to my temper."

"It has run in the blood a great while," remarked Rue, not without a certain respect for its length of pedigree; "it will be hard to get it out."

"It shall be gotten out, though," responded Bergan, knitting his brows and setting his teeth with true hereditary doggedness.

"Very likely it may," replied Rue, quietly, "if you take that tone. No doubt the Lord meant the Bergan will to conquer the Bergan temper—with His help. But I will not trouble you any longer, sir;—thank you for setting my mind at rest. And don't be offended if I recommend you not to come in your uncle's way this morning; give him a little time to get into a better mood. I will send your breakfast out to you."

Bergan's brow darkened. "I do not intend to come in his way," he answered a little shortly, "neither this morning, nor at any other time. My visit here is at an end. I leave this house directly."

"Oh, Master Bergan, I beg you will not do that!" exclaimed Rue. "Your uncle really loves you in his heart; he will soon forget all about his anger."

"It is not because I dread his anger that I go," replied Bergan, gravely; "it is because he has lowered me in my own eyes, and disgraced me in the eyes of others, in a way that I cannot forget. At least, not until I have proved to myself that I am neither a moral coward nor a miserable parasite, and to the world that drinking and fighting are not the essential conditions of my existence. I cannot well do either without leaving Bergan Hall. And I certainly shall not put myself in my uncle's way again, until he sees fit to apologize for what he did yesterday."

"Is the world turned upside down, then," asked Rue, with a kind of slow wonder, "that an old uncle must apologize to a young nephew?"

Bergan colored, and the unwonted bitterness and irritation of his manner gave way before the force of the implied rebuke.

"Thank you," said he, almost in his natural tone, "I see that I am—or, at least, that I was,—a little beside myself. Still, I must leave Bergan Hall. I cannot think it right or expedient to remain here longer. But when I have put myself in the way of living independently, and cleared up my reputation, I will do what I can, without loss of self-respect, to establish friendly relations with my uncle. Indeed, I do not mean to be foolishly resentful, nor unbecomingly exacting."

"May I ask what you are going to do?" inquired Rue, after a few moments of thought.

"Certainly. I am going to carry out my original plan, and my mother's express wish, by opening a law-office in Berganton, and doing my best to win fame and fortune in the place which my ancestors founded; and in which," he added, with a smile, "their shades may reasonably be expected to watch my career with especial interest, and also to do me a good turn, whenever they have it in their power."

"Well," said Rue, after a long pause, "perhaps you are right. I think I begin to see that it may be quite as well for you to go away, for a time. You shall not lose anything by it; I will take care of that. I have more influence with your uncle than you would think. And I promise you,—remember, I promise you," she repeated, with marked emphasis,—"whatever comes, you shall have Bergan Hall."

The young man shook his head. "I think not," said he. "Indeed, I have ceased to wish for it; I do not see any place for it in the life which I now contemplate. It was but a pleasant day-dream, at best; and it is over."

"It may be over for you," rejoined Rue, quietly, "but it is not over for me. And my dreams are apt to come true. I may not live to see it,—indeed, it is borne in upon me that I shall not,—but the Hall will surely be yours, one day."

Bergan again shook his head. Without making any pretensions to the prophetic gift, he thought he could foretell, better than old Rue, the effect of the course which he had marked out for himself, upon his uncle. But the blind woman could not see the gesture; and he forebore to put his doubt into words,—unless its subtle prompting was to be detected in his next apparently irrelevant sentence:—

"I shall think it one of my first duties to go and see my uncle Godfrey."

"I am glad to hear it," replied Rue, placidly. "He is a wise, just man; and no doubt he will give you good advice about setting up your profession. I have been hoping that, through you, this long family breach would be healed."

And here the conversation strayed off amid thick-growing family topics, where it is unnecessary to follow it.

Gray dawn was in the east when, after a long, lingering look at the ancestral portraits, Bergan went out from the old Hall. He could scarcely believe that it was less than a week since he first entered it. He had passed there one of those crises of life which do the work of years. His short occupancy had left its indelible impress upon his character, for good or evil.

Rue attended him to the door, and detained him for a moment on the threshold.

"If ever you are in need of a quiet place where you can feel perfectly at home," said she, "come here. Your room shall always be ready for you; and you might stay here for weeks together, and no one be the wiser,—rarely does any one but me come inside the door. And if ever you should be in any trouble, or in any want, come and see what the old, blind woman can do for you; she may be better able to help you than you think. And now, good-bye, and God bless you, my dear young master—the future master of Bergan Hall!"

She raised her withered hands and sightless eyes to heaven, as she ended; and when Bergan looked back from the farther verge of the lawn, she was standing there still, in the dim dawn-light, a gray, venerable, ghostly figure, framed in his ancestral doorway, calling down blessings on his head.

IX.
THE BLOT CLEAVES.

Youthful spirits have a natural buoyancy that floats them easily over the first wave of trouble, however severe. It is the long succession of wearing disappointments and corroding griefs, of anxious days and restless nights, of abortive aims and hopes deferred, which finally overcomes their lightsomeness, and sinks them fathoms deep under a smooth-flowing surface of gentle cheerfulness, a teasing ebb and flow of worriment, or an icy plane of despair.

But of this grievous iteration, and its depressing effect, Bergan, as yet, had no experience. His heart involuntarily grew lighter as he went down the long avenue. The old Hall, with its dust-clogged and tradition-darkened atmosphere, its dusky delights and duskier temptations, seemed to fade back again into the unsubstantiality of his childhood's visions. His sojourn there was, at best, but a brief, casual episode in an otherwise coherent life. He now recurred to the main argument. Not that he could foresee precisely how it was to be wrought out. But the very uncertainty before him was not without its own special and potent charm. It gave such unlimited scope to hope and imagination; there was in it so much room for sturdy endeavor and noble achievement, for an iron age of progress, and a golden era of fame!

It was still early when he reached the Berganton Hotel. The landlord was in the office; he was also in the midst of a prolonged matutinal stretch and yawn, when Bergan surprised him with a pleasant;—

"Good morning. Have you a vacant room for me?"

"Yes, sir,—that is, I will see," was the somewhat inconclusive reply; its first clause being due to the favorable impression made by Bergan's face and manner, and its last to prudential considerations arising from the quickly recognized facts that this prepossessing young man was on foot, and without baggage. "Do you want it long?"

"I can hardly tell,—some days, perhaps; possibly longer. I wish to see if it be worth my while to locate myself permanently here. My name is Bergan Arling. My baggage is to be sent over from Bergan Hall."

"Ah, I see," said the landlord, in a tone which implied that he had suddenly been lifted to a point of observation at once wide and unpromising. And almost immediately he added,—"On the whole, I believe I haven't got an eligible room to offer you. The one that I thought of at first is partially engaged; I cannot let it go till I know the gentleman's decision."

Bergan was gifted with perceptions too quick and fine not to notice the unfavorable effect produced by his frank explanation of himself. Nor was he slow to divine the cause. No doubt his name had been bruited abroad in connection with the disgraceful scenes of yesterday; and, as a natural consequence, in the very place where it would otherwise have been an advantage to him, it would now stand in his way. His heart sank a little to find that he had not left yesterday's acts so completely behind him as he had allowed himself to believe. He had still to endure his inevitable term of bondage to their evil consequences.

Yet herein, he remembered, was his strongest motive for perseverance in the path upon which he had entered. He could not leave a tarnished reputation behind him in the place founded by his ancestors,—the very dust of which, blowing about the streets, doubtless held many particles closely akin to his own earthly substance, and dimly capable of pride or shame on his account. At whatever cost of present pain or ulterior loss, he must stay in Berganton long enough to set himself right in the public eyes.

And loss, it was plain, there might be. Berganton was no longer the busy and prosperous town of his mother's reminiscences. All these years, it had been going backwards. Looking up and down its long, tame, principal street, with its scant and sluggish flow of human life, he could discover little field for energy, little scope for ambition. Were it not for the cords of obligation woven around him by yesterday's events, he would scarcely have stayed for a second look. But those cords held him firmly to his purpose.

"Do you know of any respectable family where I should be likely to obtain board, or, at least, lodgings?" was his next inquiry.

"I do not. I think they might take you in at the Gregg House, down at the lower end of the street."

The words were spoken carelessly enough, yet Bergan could scarcely fail to detect in them a covert insinuation, or to imagine one. His cheek crimsoned, and his eye flashed. Ere he could speak, however, a gentleman whom he had observed sitting near him, with a newspaper before his face, dropped the printed screen, and came forward.

"Mr. Arling can breakfast here, at any rate," said he, in the tone of a man accustomed to overcome all obstacles; "it will give me pleasure to have him for my vis-à-vis at the early breakfast that I have bespoken this morning, in order to gain time for a visit to a far-away patient. And you can at least give him the room of which you speak until it is called for; by that time, we will hope, he may be provided with one even more to his mind."

"Certainly, doctor," returned the landlord, looking a little crestfallen. "If I had known the gentleman was a friend of yours—"

"Hardly that yet," interposed the doctor, smiling, "though I trust he may be, in good time. I know your uncle very well," he continued, addressing Bergan, as the landlord moved away,—"indeed, I may say, your two uncles,—if that be any ground of acquaintance. But I have the advantage of you, in that I heard your name just now;—mine is Remy—Felix Remy—very much at your service. Not that this announcement places us on an equal footing; for, while your name puts me at once in possession of your antecedents, to a certain extent, mine tells you nothing about me except that I am of French descent. Are you willing to take the rest on trust, until a fitting time for a fuller explanation?" And the doctor held out his hand.

"Until the end of time," replied Bergan, grasping it warmly. "It would be strange if kindness were not its own sufficient explanation."

Doctor Remy shrugged his shoulders with a frank cynicism. "Perhaps so," said he. "Yet I make bold to confess that my own practice is to look kindness a little more closely in the face than its opposite. The latter generally wears its reasons openly on its forehead; but for the complicated motives at the bottom of the former, one needs to look long and deep."

"Do they pay for the trouble?" asked Bergan, smiling.

"Not unless you love knowledge for its own sake. As society is constituted, you cannot well act upon it. To apparent kindness, one has to return apparent gratitude."

"I trust I succeed in making mine 'apparent,'" said Bergan, falling into the doctor's humor.

"Perfectly. It could not be told from the genuine article."

"The same thing might be said of your kindness."

"Doubtless. But here comes Cato, to show you to your room. I think breakfast will be ready as soon as you are."

A very few moments sufficed for Bergan to remove the traces of his early morning walk, and rejoin his new acquaintance in the breakfast-room. The two gentlemen at once seated themselves on opposite sides of the table. An opportunity was thus afforded them to observe each other at their leisure, of which Bergan was first to avail himself. His interest had been awakened by the doctor's peculiar style of conversation.

He saw before him a man of medium height and compactly built figure. His locks had been touched by thought or care to a premature grayness, for he had scarcely yet entered upon middle age. His features were regular, and would have been handsome had they been less keenly and coldly intellectual,—the physical mould was forgotten in the mental one that made itself so much more manifest. Their expression was one of active intelligence and calm force, embittered, at the mouth, by a touch of scorn. Yet the face did not absolutely repel; for many minds, it would possess an inscrutable fascination. It provoked study; it challenged the imagination and the understanding.

The doctor's conversation was marked by a curious frankness, and an equally curious reserve. He made no scruple whatever of opening to the light of day shadowy recesses of motive and aim that most men would studiously close, nor of putting himself at odds with the world on various points of social or moral ethics, nor of boldly questioning and criticising much that mankind consents to hold in reverence. Yet, at the end of an hour's conversation, though he had talked readily and fluently on many subjects, and said something true, or profound, or brilliant, or suggestive, about each, his interested, amused, startled, and bewildered hearer could find almost no residuum of his real opinions about any of them. It was impossible to decide where he had been in jest, and where in earnest; through his most serious argument had run a vein of mockery, from under his profoundest thought had peeped forth a hidden sarcasm. His creed, social, moral, and political, continually slipped through the seeker's fingers in subtle, witty, or scornful negations and controversions.

Not that Bergan was conscious of this, at the moment,—nor, indeed, until after many days of familiar intercourse. He recognized in the doctor an intellectual cultivation of no ordinary depth and scope; he was interested and well-nigh dazzled by his originality of thought, the boldness of his attacks, and the freedom of his speculations; but the dubious aspect of his own affairs continually rose before him to harass his mind and distract his attention;—he was himself incapable of close observation or continuous thought. After a time, his glance sank upon his plate, or wandered aimlessly out of the window: though he forgot no requirement of courtesy, he was often in a state of semi-abstraction.

Then, in his turn, Doctor Remy fixed his eyes upon his companion. It was evident that to subjected him to a far more careful and penetrating scrutiny than he had sustained himself. He noted his looks, he weighed his words, he analyzed his turns of thought, in a way to indicate that exceeding "love of knowledge for its own sake," of which he had spoken, or some deeper motive than even his hardy frankness would care to divulge. Whether or no he liked what he saw, no mortal could have told. The doctor's face was a sort of mechanical mask, absolutely under his control; it expressed anything or nothing, according to his will.

One thing only would have been plain to the observer, that he was puzzled by something which he found, or did not find. After one of his deeply penetrating glances, he suddenly called for a bottle of wine, and, first filling his own glass, passed it across the table.

"I am fortifying myself for a harder day's work than usual," said he, as if by way of apology, if apology were needed. "Will you try it? I think I can assure you that it is tolerably good."

"Thank you; I never take wine at breakfast."

"Anything else that you would prefer—" began the doctor, courteously.

"Nothing whatever, thank you," replied Bergan, with a most conclusive wave of the hand.

"Then you do not hold the theory that a little good wine, or other spirits, after a meal, clears the brain, and aids the digestion?"

"Do I look as if I stood in need of either good office?" asked Bergan, smiling.

The doctor gave him a quick, critical glance.

"No, I cannot see that you do," he answered. "I should say that, in your case, Nature might safely be left to perform her own functions;—I do not think I ever saw human mechanism in a sounder condition, or animated by a richer vitality. Still, there can be no great harm in drinking in moderation. Of course, if one cannot do that, it is best to avoid it altogether."

Bergan looked up quickly,—almost angrily,—but there was nothing in the doctor's face or manner to indicate that his general remark was weighted with any ulterior meaning. He was holding his wine up to the light with the air of a connoisseur, and having sufficiently enjoyed its color and bouquet, he tossed it off with apparent relish. Yet Bergan could scarcely have failed to notice, had he been less preoccupied, that he then quietly pushed both glass and bottle aside, and seemed to forget their existence.

"Can I do anything for you, before I set off on my daily treadmill?" he asked, when the meal was ended.

"Nothing, thank you,—unless you can tell me where I shall be most likely to find lodgings and an office."

"An office, did you say? Do I behold in you a brother of the order of the Asclepiadæ?"

"No, I have not that honor. I am enrolled in the ranks of the Law."

"How many pegs shall I take myself down, in your estimation, if I proclaim myself a deserter therefrom?"

Bergan could not help looking the astonishment that he did not express.

"It is true," said the doctor, answering the look. "I studied law, and practised it for about two years. But it did not suit me."

"Would it be impertinent to ask why?"

"Not at all. It gave too much scope, or too little, to my natural antagonism of mind;—too little for mental satisfaction, too much for material advantage. For instance, I was always possessed with an insane desire to clear the guilty man, whether he were my client, or no."

"Yet you deny to yourself the credit of generous impulses!"

"Stay a little. I was often assailed with an equally insane desire to convict the innocent one—when he was not my client. Do not look so horrified, for the same motive was at the bottom of both. It was because I saw so clearly that, with an exchange of circumstances,—inherited traits, education, temptation, and so forth,—there would also be an exchange of persons."

"In that case, it would seem that neither should be convicted."

"Exactly. But it was Society that needed to be convicted and punished. There was a real satisfaction in reversing its unrighteous judgments."

Bergan felt that he was sinking in a kind of mental quicksand. "But," he objected, catching hold of the first twig of support that offered itself, "you count the man's will for nothing."

"With most men, it does count for nothing. Where one man performs either a good or a bad action deliberately, looking behind and before him, nine hundred and ninety-nine do it because of the pressure of outward circumstance."

"You think, then," said Bergan, after a moment's consideration, "that when a man wilfully embarks on the current which tends toward the Niagara cataract, it is his misfortune, and not his fault, if he finally finds himself at a point where the pressure of outward circumstance must needs carry him over the fall."

"In that case," said the doctor, "the responsibility shifts back to the power that made the current and the fall, and put them in his way."

Bergan saw the wide labyrinth of controversy opening before him, and tacitly declined to set foot in it. He was in no mood for polemics. He merely asked,—

"And in what way—if the question is admissible—do you find medicine more to your taste than the law?"

"In medicine, there is always a distinct and a legitimate foe to combat—disease. When one engages in a hand-to-hand fight with a fever, there are no side issues. Nor does it matter in the least, whether battle is to be done over the body of an incarnate demon or an angel unfledged,—in both cases, the treatment is identical, the physician's duty the same."

"I think I understand you," said Bergan, after a pause, during which he had been trying to reconcile these curious and half conflicting statements with some underlying principles, and finding it, at last, in his own heart, rather than in the doctor's words;—"a physician's professional and abstract duty are never at variance, while a lawyer must often be puzzled to decide if he is justified in using his legal skill to save a criminal from merited punishment."

"It is a question that puzzles few of them," remarked the doctor, dryly. "But in regard to this office, in posse, of yours;—I rent my own from a very respectable widow lady, whose house is much too large for the narrow income to which she found herself restricted, at her husband's death. I think she has another room, that she would be glad to let to an eligible tenant. Shall we go and see? It is quite in my way; I must visit my office before I set out on my rounds."

The house won Bergan's liking, at a glance. It stood on a corner; it was large and airy; double piazzas surrounded it on three sides; over it a hale old live-oak and half-a-dozen gray, decrepit china-trees flung their pleasant shade. In the rear, was a tempting thicket of a garden, which Art had first planted, and then handed over to Nature, to be taken care of at her leisure,—the result being an altogether admirable and Eden-like wilderness of boughs and vines, and, in their season, flowers and fruits, such as can be seen nowhere but at the South. The interior of the dwelling wore a most attractive look of neatness, comfort, and refinement, notwithstanding its extreme plainness of finish and furniture. Crossing its threshold, he felt that a true home had received him into its beneficent shadow. Nothing could be better for him, he thought, than to find an abiding place therein.

Nor was there any difficulty in the way. The doctor's magical touch arranged the preliminaries. Then, Mrs. Lyte,—a pale, sweet, fragile-looking woman, with the gentle gravity of manner that comes of sorrow at once incurable and resigned—yielded at once to the magnetism of Bergan's address,—the involuntary softening of tone wherewith he recognized the claim of her black garments upon his sympathies, the manifest deference which he paid to her loneliness, her bereavement, her sorrow. Since it was needful to sacrifice something of the home seclusion and sacredness to the necessity of daily bread, she could not hope for a more desirable tenant. The negotiations were quickly concluded. Not only was an office secured, but a lodging-room in its rear was also placed at his disposal; and he was to take his meals at the hotel.

Returning thither, and finding that his baggage had duly arrived from the Hall, Bergan's active temperament would not let him rest until he had transported it to his new quarters, and gotten them in tolerable order. In this business he consumed the greater part of the day. The sun was low in the horizon, when, by way of a finishing touch, he nailed a tin plate, bearing in gilt letters the words,—"BERGAN ARLING, ATTORNEY AT LAW," to his office window.

With the act, came a thrill of strange enjoyment. It was like the first breath of a new and invigorating atmosphere. That little sign imparted an element of solidity to his plans and aims, hitherto lacking. It marked an epoch in his life. Now, first, he flung himself, with all his strength and energy, into the great struggle of mankind.

To this pleasantly excited mood, motion was still desirable, weariness unfelt. He decided to pay a visit to his second, and yet unknown, uncle,—Godfrey Bergan. He quitted the village with the last, red sunbeams.

PART SECOND.
THE FRUIT OF THE WAY.

I.
THROUGH A MIST.

Oakstead, the estate of Godfrey Bergan, was separated from the lands of the Hall by the small river—or "creek," in local parlance—which has before been mentioned. The pleasant dwelling of the owner stood not far from a picturesque bend of the stream, commanding a view of its tawny, slumberous current for a considerable distance up and down,—a view made up of gentlest curves and softest coloring only, yet with enough of quiet beauty to arrest Bergan's feet, for some moments, on the oak-shadowed lawn.

The river's tide stole almost imperceptibly past, mirroring in its still bosom the sunset-painted sky, and the graver tinted objects of earth, with equal felicity,—like a gentle spirit, in whose well-ordered life the things of either world find their appropriate place and exquisite harmony. Just at that point of the upper stream where an artist would have placed it for the best pictorial effect, was the bridge of the main road, with rough abutments half-buried in wild foliage, and railings overrun with vines; and at a remoter point down its shining course, the slenderer span of a narrow footbridge, with a single rustic railing, was also seen, idealized by distance into an aerial passway fit for fairy feet. In the earlier days of Godfrey's proprietorship, while the half-brothers were yet on friendly terms, this latter structure had furnished the means of easy and frequent communication between the two households. On the cessation of intercourse, however, Major Bergan had threatened its destruction, and had even begun an attack upon his own abutment; but his operations being suddenly suspended, and no convenient opportunity occurring for their resumption, he had finally left the work of demolition to be finished by the wear and tear of the elements, and the slow tooth of time. Though in a somewhat ruinous condition, and but insecurely poised on the damaged abutment, the bridge was still passable, with due caution; and, doubtless, it served for the nocturnal visits of such negroes of the two estates as were not set at odds by the bitterness of their masters' feud.

At a little distance below the footbridge, the river made another graceful bend, and soon disappeared in the shadow of the pine forest,—behind and above the dark, swaying fringe of which, the posthumous glory of the sun was fading from the western sky. Against this flitting splendor, the turret-like summits of the chimneys of Bergan Hall were distinctly visible. A little saddened by the sight, as forcing back on his mind thoughts and images which he had partially succeeded in flinging off, Bergan turned and walked quickly up the path to the house. Voices met him as he drew near. In one end of the broad piazza, so shut in by interlacing vines as to constitute a kind of leaf-tapestried parlor, two gentlemen were talking.

"I am afraid the identity is only too certain," said the smooth, sarcastic voice of Doctor Remy. "But I doubt if the habit be a confirmed one,—certainly, the physical indications are lacking. At any rate, as I said before, he is evidently making an effort to overcome it."

"I wish that no such effort were necessary,"—began a different voice; but with the instinct of delicacy, Bergan set his foot upon the lower step of the piazza in a way to be distinctly heard, and would have done the same had he supposed that the conversation concerned him, which he did not. The voice ceased abruptly, and a gentleman, whom he instantly recognized as his uncle, advanced to meet him. Though he had enough of the Bergan cast of feature to identify him at the first, casual glance, as belonging to the race, it was lost, almost as soon as seen, amid traits widely differing from the ancestral pattern. He was a much more genuine outcome of American soil than the rest of Sir Harry's descendants,—in whom a childhood fed upon old-world family traditions, and a youth spent at Oxford or Cambridge, had availed to preserve the English mould from all but the more unavoidable modifications. The race had always been marked by a greater volume of muscle, a ruddier complexion, and a sturdier texture of character, than was exactly native to the soil. But, in Godfrey Bergan, these characteristics were lacking. Though tall and well-formed, he was spare in figure and thin in face. His complexion had the true American sallowness of tint. In matters of bulk, weight, and coloring,—all the purely animal characteristics,—he fell far below the standard of his half-brother. By way of indemnity, his figure had more litheness and grace; and his features were more clearly cut, and endowed with a keener vivacity of expression,—apparently, they were informed by a quicker and finer intellect, as well as a gentler spirit.

Altogether, it was a thoughtful, a refined, and a benevolent countenance, that confronted Bergan; yet not without certain firm lines about the mouth to indicate that its owner could be decided, if he chose, and perhaps severe. While it invited liking, it commanded respect.

It was with real pleasure that Bergan made his self-introduction to a relative with so many apparent claims to affection and esteem. Yet, even while he mentioned his name and relationship, and held out his hand, as to a stranger,—albeit a friend,—he was beset by an uneasy consciousness that he had met Mr. Bergan, or somebody very like him, before. But where? Sending a swift, retrospective glance through his life, he could find no clue to the perplexing feeling; and, having scant time for investigation, he quickly dismissed it as the offspring of some indefinite and elusive resemblance, perhaps to one of the ancestral portraits, perhaps to a half-forgotten acquaintance.

It was the more easily disposed of, that its place was soon filled by another shadowy vexation. His uncle's reception was both courteous and kind; yet he could not help feeling intuitively that it was lacking in some indefinable element of cordiality, even while he repudiated the intuition as a baseless figment of his own imagination. Certainly, there was no tangible coolness, not so much as a thin film of indifference, upon which to lay a plausible finger-tip; nothing that did not slip away from every attempt at analysis, and seem to resolve itself into a sickly humor of his own. At worst, he told himself, there was only some less definite expression of consanguineous sympathy, in the pressure of his uncle's hand, and in the modulations of his voice, than he had allowed himself to look for; and this was a mere matter of mood and temperament, the absence of which formed no good ground of complaint, whatever warmth and grace might have been contributed by its presence. No doubt, it would come in good time.

Meanwhile Doctor Remy, sending forth his keen glance from the shadowy end of the piazza, had recognized the new comer; and he now presented himself, hat in hand.

"The first meeting of near relatives," said he, with his indescribable mixture of seriousness and sarcasm, "is a scene upon which a third person is bound to pronounce his blessing, and—turn his back! Nay, no disclaimers; he is equally bound not to listen to them. Good evening, Mr. Bergan,—allow me to remark that good influences may avail much in the matter that we were talking of. Good evening, Mr. Arling,—it gives me pleasure to leave you in such agreeable quarters; Oakstead has manifold attractions, as you are in the way to discover."

And the doctor bowed, and descended the steps.

Mr. Bergan turned to his nephew. "I hope you left my sister well," said he.

"Quite well. I have a letter from her for you. I am ashamed that it has not been delivered before, but—"

Bergan hesitated; a further explanation would take him upon delicate ground.

"Never mind the sequence of the 'but,'" said his uncle, smiling, albeit a little gravely;—"I am aware that the road from Bergan Hall to Oakstead is not so smooth as could be wished. I"—there was a slight hesitation, as if a colder phrase had been sought, and not found,—"I am glad that you were able to surmount its difficulties so soon. A letter from Eleanor!" he went on, with a sudden change of subject,—"that will be a treat indeed! I take shame to myself that our correspondence has fallen into such desuetude. But what one ever did survive the lapse of forty-two years, without the reviving impulse of an occasional meeting? I hardly dare venture a question about my sister's family, lest I make some terrific blunder. I am not even sure about the present number of her children."

"There are six of us left."

"'Left' implies 'taken,'" said Mr. Bergan, with a sigh.

"We have lost two of our number."

"So have we," replied Mr. Bergan. "But we have not six left—we have only one. However, she is a host in herself,—at least, we think so,"—he added, with a smile at his own enthusiasm. "But, will you come in and see your aunt and cousin?"

He led the way to a small room, pleasantly furnished as a library; and Bergan followed him, though not without a vague sense of a lurking reluctance and lukewarmness in the invitation,—which he sternly smothered, nevertheless, as unworthy of himself and unjust to his uncle.

Stepping to an open French window, Mr. Bergan slightly raised his voice and called,—

"Carice!"

"Yes, father!" was the instant answer, in a voice of peculiar richness and melody; and the next moment a young girl stood in the window, with a light shawl wrapped round her slender figure, and her hands filled with autumn flowers, just gathered. The light was too dim to show her features clearly; but a certain indefinable freshness and sweetness seemed to enter the room with her and diffuse itself through the atmosphere not less perceptibly than the scent of the flowers. At sight of a stranger, imperfectly seen in the twilight obscurity of the room, she stopped abruptly.

"It is your cousin, Bergan Arling, the son of my sister Eleanor," briefly explained her father.

There was a little start of surprise and of pleasure; then Carice dropped her flowers on the nearest table, and gave Bergan two cordial hands. Not only was there a charming grace in the unstudied action, but also the pleasant heart-warmth, the frank recognition of kinship and its appropriate sympathies, which Bergan had so unaccountably missed from his uncle's manner, even while trying to persuade himself, either that it was there, or that its absence was no matter of surprise.

"Have I really a cousin, then!" said she, brightly. "I never believed it till now. That story of cousins at the West always sounded like a pleasant fiction to me,—I am glad to know that it is founded on fact."

"On six facts," said Bergan, smiling. "I am the fortunate representative of five other claimants to your cousinly regard."

Carice laughingly shook her head. "I believe what I see," said she,—"or rather what I should see, if it were not so dim here. By and bye,—after I have ordered lights,—I may be able to reason from the seen to the unseen." And she glided from the room, which seemed to grow suddenly dark and chill behind her.

Very shortly she returned, preceded by a servant bearing lights, and accompanied by her mother. Looking toward Bergan with a smile, she gave a slight start; the coming words were arrested on her parted lips; the color mounted to her brow; across her face went a swift ripple of disappointment and pain. Quickly recovering herself, she presented him to her mother; but the bright cordiality, the warm heart-glow, of her earlier manner, had faded, and came no more. It was as if a gray screen had suddenly been drawn before a cheery household fire.

Happily for Bergan, his aunt claimed his attention, before he had time to feel the full dreariness of the change. She was a woman of rare tact, and much kindliness of heart, despite a somewhat stately manner, and a considerable degree of aristocratic chill for people not exactly in her "set." She gave Bergan a warm welcome,—almost a motherly one; there was something about him that brought a softening remembrance of the two sons that slept in the family burial ground, and quietly opened the way for him into her heart. Finding his entertainment left very much in her hands, she cared for it kindly; though not without a secret wonder at the inexplicable indifference of her husband and daughter. But she did her best to make amends for it by her own friendliness, and in part, succeeded.

Meanwhile, Bergan was beset by another tantalizing resemblance. Never, he thought, had he seen anything quite so lovely as his cousin Carice,—with her soft, brown hair, her clear rose-complexion, her large, limpid, blue eyes, the lily-like droop of her exquisitely formed head, the inexhaustible grace of her attitudes and movements,—but he had certainly seen somebody a little like her. So strong, yet so puzzling was this conviction, and so frequent the glances consequently sent in her direction, that he felt a word of explanation might not be amiss.

"Excuse me," said he, "if I seem to be looking at you almost constantly; but there is something about you curiously familiar, though it is impossible that we should have met before. I suppose I must have seen somebody that resembled you; but I cannot tell when or where."

Carice looked down, and colored slightly. Her father came to her relief.

"There is often no accounting for resemblances," said he. "When there is any tie of blood, however remote, we understand them, of course; but when the face of an utter stranger startles me in the street with the very smile of my sister Eleanor, or the grave look of my dead father, what am I to think?"

"One would like to know," remarked Bergan, "if there is a mental and moral likeness, to match the physical one. When I fix the resemblance that eludes me so persistently in you," he added, turning to Carice, "I hope it will help me to answer the question."

"I doubt if it does," replied Carice, quietly, yet not without a certain something in her tone that sounded almost like sarcasm. He looked at her in considerable surprise, but her eyes were turned away, and she said no more.

Feeling as if he were walking in a mist, which everywhere eluded his grasp, while it blinded his eyes, and chilled his heart, he rose to go.

"Let me see," said his aunt, kindly, as she gave him her hand, "to-morrow will be Sunday, will it not? Pray let us find you in our pew at church in the morning; and come home with us to an early dinner, before the evening service."

Bergan hesitated. He had no reasonable excuse; yet his uncle had not seconded the invitation. As if suddenly cognizant of the omission, Mr. Bergan now spoke.

"Come, by all means," said he, with more kindness than he had yet shown,—for he could not bring himself to give a half-hearted invitation to his sister's son,—"I have still a great deal to ask about your mother."

"And I," said his aunt, laughing, "have still a great deal to ask about yourself. Good night."

They stood on the piazza watching him, until he was out of sight. Then Carice turned to her father.

"Did he say anything about—yesterday?" she asked, gravely.

"Not a word. I should have liked him better if he had offered some explanation."

"Perhaps he did not recognize us," suggested Carice.

"How could he help it?"

"I don't know,—only—you were angry and I was frightened; probably our faces did not wear their natural expression. Besides, he was doubtless a little bewildered by his fall, and—"

"What or whom are you talking about?" here broke in the amazed Mrs. Bergan.

"About my nephew, the mad cavalier who so nearly came into collision with Carice yesterday," replied her husband.

Mrs. Bergan threw up her hands. "And you let me invite him to dinner!" she exclaimed, in a tone of deep injury.

"How could I help it, my dear? Besides, he is my sister's son."

Meanwhile, Bergan found his way back to the village through the darkness, wondering what had become of the lightness of heart and cheerfulness of hope with which he had set out—he looked at his watch—only two hours before!

II.
STRENGTHENED OUT OF ZION.

St. Paul's Church, Berganton, was a small, plain structure of brick and stone, rather prettily situated on the bank of the aforesaid creek, which flowed through the midst of the town. Its sole claim to exterior beauty must have rested on the thick vines which covered its walls, framed its windows, and climbed to the roof of its low, square tower; doing their best to atone for its many architectural deficiencies, its failure to present to the eye a certain material "beauty of holiness," in harmony with the spiritual loveliness of the unseen temple, of which it was the faint type.

Toward this church, on the morning after his visit to Oakstead, Bergan directed his steps. Meeting his uncle in the vestibule, he was soon seated in the square family pew, and had a few moments to look about him, before service.

In its small way, the church was almost as much a memorial of the House of Bergan as the old Hall itself. Sir Harry had been a fair sample of the average English Churchman of his day, with whom a certain amount of religious observance was deemed necessary and becoming, both by way of seemly garmenting for one's self, and good example for one's neighbors. If it did not reach very deep into the heart, it at least imparted a certain completeness and dignity to the outward life.

Moreover, family tradition was strongly in religion's favor. There had always been relations of a highly friendly and decorous sort between the house and the church; and to have turned his back disrespectfully upon the one, would have been to show himself a degenerate scion of the other. As a natural consequence, Sir Harry did not feel that he had done his whole duty to himself, or his posterity, until he had provided a fitting stage for the necessary family ceremonials of christening, marriage, and burial; as well as an appropriate spot for his own enjoyment of a respectable Sunday doze, under the soothing influence of an orthodox sermon, after having duly taken his share in the responses of the morning service. If this school of Churchmen had its faults, it also had its virtues. If its standard of religion was a low one, with a strong leaning toward human pride and selfish indulgence; it was better than the open irreverence and infidelity, the unblushing disregard of religious restraints and sanctions, of later generations.

Under Sir Harry's auspices, therefore, the foundations of St. Paul's were laid, and its walls arose, as a kind of necessary adjunct to Bergan Hall. And his successors, with rare exceptions, had felt it a duty to add to its interior attractions, as well as to make it a continuous family record, by memorial windows of stained glass, mural tablets of bronze or marble, and thank-offerings of font, communion plate, and other appliances and adornments. Some of these, no doubt, were merely self-laudatory, the fitful outgrowth of family pride; others might have sprung from a sense of what was beautiful and fitting,—which was a very good thing, as far as it went, though it went not much below the surface; but a few there were, doubtless, which had been consecrated to their use by heartfelt tears of sorrow, of penitence, or of gratitude. Be this as it may, they all helped (at least, in human eyes) to give the interior of St. Paul's a certain completeness, and even a degree of beauty and harmony.

Still, both in its size and its decorations, the church was far inferior to the Hall. There was a vast disproportion, both in amount and quality, between the space and the furniture set apart for the service and pleasure of a single household, and that consecrated to the worship of God, and the spiritual nurture of His people. But, in the matter of preservation, as well as in answering a definite end, the advantage was greatly on the side of the church and its appointments. Wherever the Bergan hands had grown slack, or had been withdrawn, in that work, others had taken it up, for the love of Christ, and carried it forward to completion, or kept it from lapsing back into chaos.

And so, Bergan—remembering how surely the merely secular memorials of Sir Harry and his successors had been overtaken by the slow feet of decay, while these others had been saved by their connection with an institution having a deeper and broader principle of life—was led into a natural enough, though for him a most unusual, train of thought. He asked himself if Sir Harry would not have done better, even for his own selfish end, to have given the larger share (or, at least, an equal one) of his time, care, and money, to the edifice which had the surest hold upon permanency, and was most likely to be sacredly kept for its original purpose. In our country, more than almost anywhere else, people build houses for other people to dwell in, and Time delights to blot family names from his roll, at least on the page where they were first written. All family mansions, however fair and proud, are surely destined to fall into stranger hands, or to be given over to the Vandal occupation of decay. All families, of however lofty position, are certain to sojourn, at times, in the valley of humiliation, if they do not lose themselves in the deeper valley of extinction. Would it not have been better, then, to have foregone somewhat of the frail and faithless magnificence of Bergan Hall, and linked the dear family name and memory more closely with the indestructible institution which belongs to the ages?

And, as he thus questioned, the narrow walls, the low roof, and the insignificant adornments of the little church seemed slowly to widen and lift themselves to the grand proportions of a vast, pillared temple; and the small chancel window—doing so little, nor doing that little well, to keep alive the fair memory of "Elizabeth, wife of Sir Harry"—became a great glory of pictured saints and angels, through whose diaphanous bodies the rainbow-light fell softly among a crowd of kneeling worshippers;—unto whom the sculptured mural tablets, the jewel-tinted glass, the stately walls, the soaring arch, told over and over again the lovely story, and held up to view the noble example, of a race whose labor and delight it had been to build strong and beautiful the walls of Zion; and which, in so doing, had raised up to itself the most enduring, as well as the most precious of earthly monuments. How much better this than the crumbling splendors of Bergan Hall, and the fading glory of an almost extinct name!

"The Lord is in His holy temple," was here breathed through Bergan's visioned fane, in appropriately awed and solemn tones. Nevertheless, they broke the slender thread of its being. As Bergan rose to his feet, with the rest of the congregation, its majestic vista, its pictured windows, and all its rich array, vanished like the filmy imagery of a dream, at the moment of awakening. But it was not without a keen sense of the contrast that he brought his mind back to the real St. Paul's, and the service going on under its lowlier roof.

Nothing remained but the harmonious voice, which had at once perfected and broken the spell. Glancing toward the chancel, Bergan saw a clergyman, with a face that would have been simply benignant, but for the vivid illumination of a pair of deep-set, dark-blue eyes,—a light never seen save where a great heart sends its warm glow through all the chambers of a grand intellect.

There is something marvellous in the inexhaustible adaptation of the Church service to the wants of the soul. At the same time that it is a miracle of fitness for the ends of public worship, it has its adequate word for every secret, individual need. Though Bergan had heard it hundreds of times before, and always with a hearty admiration of its beauty and comprehensiveness, never had its rhythmic sentences fallen upon his heart with such gracious and grateful effect. Doubtless, this was owing, in great measure, to the subdued frame of mind induced by the events of the last week; but it was also due, in some degree, to the perfection with which the service was rendered. It was neither hurried nor drawled, neither grumbled nor whined, neither a rasping see-saw nor a dull monotone. It was not overlaid with the arts of elocution; nor was it robbed of all life and warmth by the formal emphasis and intonation of the merely correct reader. But, in Mr. Islay's mouth, it became the living voice of living hearts. The dear old words, without losing one whit of the accumulated power, and the sacred associations, of long years of reverent use, came as freshly and as fervently from the speaker's lips, as if they were the heart-warm coinage of the moment.

As an inevitable consequence, Bergan's responses were uttered with answering fervor. And how perfectly they met his wants! How wonderfully they expressed his sense of weakness and failure, his depression and humiliation, his new-born self-distrust, his earnest desire and determination to be stronger against future temptations. In some sentences, there was a depth of meaning and of fitness, that seemed to have been waiting all these years for this moment of complete interpretation. Continually was he startled by subtile references to his peculiar circumstances, by the calm precision with which his sores were probed, and the tender skill which applied to them healing balm.

Especially was he struck by the Collect for the day,—so clearly did it express thoughts and feelings too vague in his own mind to have shaped themselves into words:—

"O Lord, we beseech Thee, absolve Thy people from their offences; that through Thy bountiful goodness, they may all be delivered from the bands of those sins which by their frailty they have committed."

Never before could he have so clearly understood what was meant by the "bands" of sins, committed, not of deliberate intent, but through frailty. How painfully he felt the pressure of those bands! how certainly they would cramp his efforts and hinder his progress! And how singularly distinct they had become to his sight, both in their nature and their effects, by means of that old, oft-repeated, yet ever new, Collect!

With a half-unconscious attempt at divination, Bergan turned over the leaves of his Prayer Book, during the short pause before the psalm, wondering what other mystic meanings were waiting under familiar words, for his future needs. It was not without a little chill at his heart that his eye caught the opening sentences of the burial anthem.

There could be no question about that. Whatever else might or might not be waiting for him, that was certain, some day, to be said over his dead body, and vainly to try to find entrance into his deaf ears. But when? At the end of a long life; in the midst of his days; or ere his work was scarce begun?

His work. What was it? To walk in a vain shadow? To disquiet himself in vain? To heap up riches for an unknown gatherer? To write his name high on the temple of Fame? To become a philanthropist, or a reformer? No; but to "apply his heart unto wisdom."

It was both a deep and a hard saying. Bergan felt that he could not fathom it, even while he saw how ruthlessly it struck at the roots of human pride, and lopped the boughs of personal ambition.

Meanwhile, the psalm had been sung, and with a rustling of leaves and garments, the congregation had settled themselves into their seats. Through the succeeding hush, Mr. Islay quietly sent the words of his text: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest."

It was the word in season!

Bergan left the church that day, not only with a deeper sense of his own mortality, and consequent weakness, than ever before; but also with a modified view of life's work and duty. In one sense, it was a narrower view,—with that narrowness which feels the need of some true, fixed centre, from which to work outward, with any degree of safety and system, and, consequently, of success. He began to see that he who would influence others for good, and through them the world, must first be certain of the point where his influence begins, and that toward which it tends.

Not that Bergan understood, or would ever be likely to understand, the full measure and real character of the change that had been wrought in him under that lowly church-roof. Up to this point, his life had been from without, inward; henceforth, it was to be from within outward. The inner life of the soul was really begun in him,—feebly, half-unconsciously, it is true,—yet possessing a hidden power of assimilation and growth, that would soon bend all things to itself. Storm and sunshine, darkness and light, success and failure, would alike minister to its wants, and help it to grow fair and strong. Things most inimical to it, at first sight, would but give it tougher fibre and lovelier grain; in the drought, it would but send its roots down deeper in pursuit of hidden wells; under the pruning-knife, it would but burst forth into fairer blossoms and richer fruit.

Yet it was no sudden change, for all his life had been a preparation for it. Oftenest the kingdom of God cometh without observation. The stones of the spiritual temple may be fashioned amid clamor and discord, but they are laid in their places with a silence that is full of meaning.

III.
SEEING, BUT UNDERSTANDING NOT.

The service being ended, Bergan naturally turned to his kinsfolk for an ampler and friendlier greeting than had been possible at their hurried meeting in the crowded vestibule. Especially—with a grateful remembrance of her yesterday's cordiality—did he look to his aunt for a word of familiar kindness, that should make him feel less alone, less of a stranger, amid the friendly chorus of salutations and leave-takings coming to his ears from the departing congregation. But, to his surprise and pain, the same indefinable chill which had made him so vaguely uncomfortable with her husband and daughter, had now taken possession of her also, and woven a thin film of ice over the manner that yesterday was so kind.

The change was so unaccountable that he could not believe in it. He told himself that the real thing at fault was his own sickly imagination, that he was morbidly sensitive, as well as foolishly exacting. He convinced his understanding, but could not silence his heart. That Cassandra of the depths continually smote his unwilling ear with her lugubrious voice, calling upon him to observe how strangely Mrs. Bergan had been transformed overnight, from the interested, cordial, even affectionate aunt, into the polite and practised woman of the world, doing merely what courtesy required for the entertainment of the guest that circumstances had flung upon her hands.

In this state of affairs, Bergan would gladly have exchanged the dinner at Oakstead for a quiet afternoon in his room and a sober talk with his thoughts. But the invitation being already accepted, he must needs abide by the event. Accordingly, he took the vacant seat in his uncle's carriage, and was soon set down at the cottage steps.

Before dinner, the two gentlemen were left to a quiet chat by themselves on the cool, shady piazza. Bergan embraced this opportunity to explain, more fully than he had yet done, his motives and aims. He told his uncle,—a little proudly, it might be, for he wished it to be understood that he had come hither with a self-respecting purpose of independence, and not with any idea of leaning upon his friends,—he told his uncle that his choice of Berganton as the starting-point of his professional career, was due to the influence of his mother. Her childhood's home, and its vicinity, had always kept a tenacious hold on her affections, despite the fact that more than two-thirds of her womanhood had been spent elsewhere, and all the deeper joys and sorrows of her life had blossomed and fruited in different soil. When, therefore, it became necessary for one of her sons to go out into the world, in search of a better field of labor than was afforded in his native village, her thoughts naturally turned to the spot so haloed in her memory, and where her ancestry had sent such deep, old roots into the soil, as to create a kind of kinship for evermore between their descendants and the locality. It would be a pleasant thing for Bergan, she thought, to make a home and a name for himself in a place where he possessed so strong a claim to residence; it would be equally pleasant for the old town to recognize the familiar mould of features and character in its streets; and it would be pleasantest of all for herself to know that her son was with her kinsfolk, amid well-known scenes, rather than among strangers, on ground where her thoughts could find no foothold. Some day, she hoped to visit him there, and feed her mother's pride upon his success, at the same time that she renewed her girlhood amid old associations.

Bergan then touched lightly upon his disappointment in the dull old town—finding it so much duller and older, even to decrepitude, than he had expected, and consequently, so little eligible to his purpose. And here, if he had been met by a more interested glance, and a fuller sympathy, he would have gone on to speak of the disgraceful scene into which he had been betrayed by his uncle—the Major—and the obligation under which he felt himself placed thereby to remain in Berganton, at least long enough to efface any unfavorable impression which it might have caused. But, though his uncle Godfrey heard him patiently and courteously enough, there was so little of the hearty interest of kinship in his manner, that Bergan could not bring himself to open the subject. Not only was it unpleasant in itself, but it touched at many points on deep things of his nature, which instinctively refused to pour themselves into any but a friendly, sympathetic ear.

If he had known whence came the cloud between his relatives and himself, he would have spoken, as a matter of course, at whatever cost of feeling. But this explanation of the matter suggested itself to him, only to be inevitably rejected. Although it might serve to account for the coolness that had characterized his uncle's manner from the first, it seemed to throw no light whatever upon the difficult problem of the sudden change from cordiality to reserve, in Mrs. Bergan and Carice. A much more natural supposition appeared to be, that something in his own manner or conversation had unfortunately awakened prejudice or created dislike. For that, there was no remedy save in time. He could hope that, when his kinsfolk should come to know him better, they might be fain to reverse their hasty judgment, and account him worthy of a place in their liking. But, until that time should arrive,—though he would do anything in reason to help it on,—there was nothing to encourage or to warrant any overflow of personal confidences.

It was scarcely possible, under the circumstances, that Bergan should have reached a different conclusion. Of his meeting with Mr. Bergan and Carice, during his frenzy of rage and intoxication, he retained but the vaguest recollection; and he had totally failed to recognize either his uncle or cousin as his co-actors in the dim and misty adventure. Nor was this the only missing link in the chain of events. Dr. Remy's casual talk, in the visit immediately preceding his own, which had first made Mr. Bergan acquainted with the fact of his nephew's presence in the neighborhood, and gradually led to his identification with the intoxicated cavalier of whom he entertained so disagreeable an impression; Carice's subsequent recognition of him, as soon as his features were distinctly revealed to her; and his aunt's later discovery of the same lamentable identity;—all these facts were necessary to a clear understanding of the situation, and its requirements. Without them, no wonder that Bergan was led astray both in his conclusions and his acts; the former being the inevitable result of the false logic of the few facts of which he knew, and the latter going to help the equally false logic of the facts known to others, of which he knew nothing.

So, after Mr. Bergan had politely assented to his observations upon the dulness of Berganton, and somewhat pointedly remarked that perseverance and energy, when conjoined with upright habits, were pretty sure to command a reasonable measure of success anywhere, the conversation turned aside into other channels. The opportunity for a frank explanation—which could alone have placed him upon his proper footing with his new-found relatives—was lost. It would not return until it was too late to be of any considerable service.

Nevertheless, at the dinner-table, the moral atmosphere cleared a little. Mr. Bergan could not, in justice to himself, allow any guest at his board—much less his sister's son—to shiver long in an impalpable mist of coolness and reserve. His wife gladly seconded his efforts toward geniality and cheerfulness. Under this opportune sunshine, Bergan's manner soon lost its reflected touch of constraint, and sparkled with pleasant humor, or was warmed through and through with a rich glow of enthusiasm. Despite their prejudices, his relatives could not but feel its potent charm. Under protest, as it were, they yielded him a portion of their liking, even while they refused him their confidence. "What a pity," they thought, "that he is so dissipated, when he can be so captivating! What a fine character his might be, but for its one miserable, ruinous flaw!"

Especially was this thought prominent in the mind of Carice, as she listened delightedly to the pleasant flow of his talk, and her youthful enthusiasm involuntarily sprang forward to meet his. Two or three times, he caught her eyes fixed upon him with an expression that not only puzzled, but pained him. But for the absurdity of the supposition, he would have said that it was pity!

In the hope of finding a clue to the mystery, he took a position near her, when they rose from the table,—leaning with an easy grace against the mantel, while she occupied the low window-seat,—and the two were soon deep in a conversation of absorbing interest. Beginning with books, if slowly led, by the way of the morning's service and sermon, up to vital questions of duty and morals. In its course, it developed so many points of sympathy between the colloquists,—such happy correspondence of opinion, without lifeless unanimity,—so many dove-tailed segments of thought, glad to meet in close and completing union,—that Mr. and Mrs. Bergan, listening, at first, with indulgent interest, finally began to exchange uneasy glances, and, at length, withdrew to the piazza for a hurried consultation.

For this fair daughter of theirs—this blue-eyed Carice, with the lily-like pose, and the rose-like face—was their idol. Not specially congenial on other points, they were yet made one by their engrossing devotion to her. She was at once their exceeding joy and their exquisite pain. Although she had scarcely been ill a day in her life, she had a seeming delicacy of constitution that kept them in a constant quake of terror. She had also a sensitiveness of temperament, as well as a singular purity and simplicity of character, that filled them with nameless forebodings for her happiness. All their days were spent in keeping safe watch and ward between her and the first threatenings of evil, of whatever nature. Every coming shadow, every adverse influence, was foreseen or forefelt, and turned aside, before it could reach her.

Especially, of late,—seeing her continual growth in loveliness, of a character at once so rare and so attractive,—they had charged themselves with the duty of watching against any unwise bestowal of her affections, and consequent misery. And, up to this time, there had been no cause for alarm. But now, as Mrs. Bergan glanced back through the window at the rapt talker and listener, noting the earnestness and heightened color of the one, and the unwonted brightness half-hidden under the drooping lashes of the other, she turned to her husband with an anxiety that needed no further explanation.

"They are cousins, remember," said Mr. Bergan, snatching at the first thread of hope, though not without a sufficient sense of its fragility.

"Only half-cousins, at best,—or rather, at worst," replied his wife. "And so utterly different in type and temperament, that the relationship could never be set up as an insurmountable barrier. Besides, having never met before, they now meet as strangers."

"Then it will not do to encourage him in coming here," said Mr. Bergan, after a pause. "I could never give Carice to a drunkard, though he were fifty times as handsome and talented."

At this moment, Carice, awaking as from a dream, looked round for her parents. Seeing them on the piazza, she quickly rose, and came toward them, followed by Bergan. There was something in the action inexpressibly reassuring to the troubled spectators. The engrossing spell of the young man's conversation was so suddenly broken, when she missed her father and mother from her side! They looked at each other with a smile, and Mrs. Bergan playfully whispered,—

"I suspect that we are two fools!"

Nevertheless, enough of the effect of these few moments of parental anxiety remained, to fling a slight shadow over the party. Carice felt it first, in her quick sympathy with all her parents' moods; and Bergan caught it from her as speedily as if there were already some invisible bond between the two. Without knowing why, he very soon became aware that the atmosphere was again growing chill around him. He had been basking, not in a broad glory of summer, but only in a flicker of winter sunshine.

Under these circumstances, Mr. Bergan's announcement that it was time to set forth for the five o'clock service, was heard as a relief. Almost immediately, however, it was followed by an unreasoning pang of regret. It needed no soothsayer to tell him that moments like those just passed, were to be rare in his immediate experience of life.

Dusk was fast gathering in the corners and under the arches of the little church, when the service was over. Parting with his relatives at the door, Bergan went his solitary way to his lodgings, through the deepening twilight. He walked slowly, not that the road was so pleasant, but because the end had so little attraction. The walls and furniture of his room were still strangers to him;—no one corner would allure him with a more familiar charm than another, no particular chair would draw him irresistibly to its accustomed arms, no sweet, tangled crop of associations would fling their mingled light and shadow across the floor. It would all be dim, blank, lonely. And the foot falls but heavily on the path, the termination of which neither habit nor excites imagination!

Nevertheless, the slowest progress brings one quickly to the end, if the journey be short; and Bergan's lingering steps brought him to Mrs. Lyte's gate ere the dusk had deepened into total obscurity. Entering the wide hall, which extended through the whole depth of the house, he saw Mrs. Lyte seated at the farther end, in a doorway opening on the garden. Her little daughter Cathie was sobbing at her side, in what seemed an uncontrollable passion of grief and indignation. The child's protector and playmate, a half-superannuated old mastiff, named Nix, sat on his haunches at a little distance, watching the scene with sympathetic, intelligent eyes.

Cathie was already Bergan's fast friend. During yesterday's work of arrangement, she had at first hovered around him at a distance; then, yielding to the unconscious fascination of the young man's look and smile, as well as the irresistible attraction of the litter of books and papers, she had drawn nearer; later on, she had eagerly favored him with the somewhat questionable help of her small fingers, and the amusing chatter of her tireless tongue; and she had ended by giving him all her childish confidence, and a large share of her freakish affections.

Freakish—because Cathie was a sort of elf-child;—or it might be truer to say that, in her small compass, there were many elf-children; manifesting their several individualities through her changeable moods, and sending their various gleam through the almost weird splendor of her dark eyes. She could be wild and tender, playful and passionate, wise and simple, by turns; or in such quick and capricious succession that she seemed to be all at once. She took as many shapes, in her flittings about the house, as there were hours in the day;—now a teasing sprite, now a dancing fairy,—at this moment, a tender human child, melting into your arms with dewey kisses,—the next, a mocking elf, slipping from your grasp like quicksilver, and leaving you with a doubt if there could be anything human about her,—and anon, a fiery little demon, with enough of concentrated rage in her small frame to suffice for a giant.

It was in this latter phase that she was now exhibiting herself.

"I won't believe it!" she screamed, clenching her small fists, and jumping up and down in a fury of excitement. "I won't believe it! It isn't true! Miss Ferrars is a—"

"Hush!" said the mother, softly, hearing the sound of Bergan's step.

—"A mean, lying old maid!" went on Cathie, without an instant's hesitation. "I wish I had told her so! I will, when I see her again!"

"Hush!" said the mother again, more decidedly; laying her hand over the rebellious month, by way of enforcing the mandate.

But Cathie broke from her, and ran towards Bergan. At a few paces distant, she stopped and underwent one of her sudden metamorphoses; the convulsive fury left her features, and in its stead, there came a grave sorrow and wistfulness, piteous to behold. Fixing her dark, bright eyes full on Bergan's face, she solemnly asked,—

"Are you bad, Mr. Arling? Tell me, are you really a bad man?"

Whatever mistakes Bergan may have made, in his life, or may make hereafter,—whatever sins he may commit, through ignorance, or in sudden passion,—let it be remembered, to his credit, that he could meet those clear, innocent, child-eyes, without a blush, and answer the question as gravely and simply as it had been asked,—

"No, Cathie, I do not think that I am."

The truthful accents found their instant way to the child's heart. Her confidence—which, in truth, had really never been lost—was restored fourfold. She threw herself into his arms, and laid her young cheek against his, in a loving attempt to atone for the wrong that had been done him. Nix came also, and rubbed his great head against the young man's knee, with an apparent understanding of the whole matter.

Nor was the child's mind the only one to which Bergan's words had brought quick conviction. Hearing his low, grave tones of denial, Mrs. Lyte felt a weight lifted from her spirits. She had just been listening to the story of Bergan's intoxication, with adornments, brought by a gossiping neighbor, and her heart had sunk with fear lest trouble and discomfort had found their way under her roof, with the new inmate. But seeing him thus acquitted by the child and the dog,—two most unprejudiced judges, she thought,—she quietly dismissed her fears. For, though so gentle and shrinking in manner as to give the impression of having no character at all, Mrs. Lyte was yet quite capable of forming an independent opinion, and of abiding by it.

So, when Bergan came toward her, leading Cathie by the hand, she did not hesitate to point him to a seat.

"Your room must be lonely," said she, kindly. "Will you sit with us for awhile?"

But Bergan did not heed, if he heard, the invitation. He merely looked his hostess in the eyes, and said;—

"Mrs. Lyte, will you be so kind as to tell me what made Cathie ask me that question just now?"

"Certainly, if you wish it. But, Mr. Arling, the subject was closed, for me, with her question and your answer. Would it not be as well for you to let it rest there, also?"

Bergan only shook his head. And after a moment's study of his grave face, Mrs. Lyte, very quietly, as if it were a matter in which she had no concern, mentioned the report that had been brought her. As quietly, Bergan told her the whole story of his stay at the Hall:—doing so the more readily, it needs not to be said to those anywise skilled in the intricacies of the human mind, because he felt that it was not required of him. For, though Mrs. Lyte listened with the kindest interest and sympathy, she took care to show by her manner that she did so more to satisfy him than herself. In matters like this, she was accustomed to trust her instincts more implicitly than her reason; and she was wise enough to know that trust is the short road to truth, in all characters not radically bad.

And thus, with the singular inconsequence of human life, the explanation was made where it was not needed, and left unspoken where it would have availed much against future misunderstanding, trouble, wrong, and sorrow!

IV.
PATIENT WAITING.

Five or six weeks now glided slowly by, without working any change in either the circumstances or the relations of the characters with whom this history has to do. Bergan still shivered in the chill remoteness of position into which he had been flung, partly by his fault and partly by his misfortune. Not only between him and his relatives, but dividing him from the whole reputable outside world, there seemed to be a gulf fixed, impassable save to formal courtesies and commonplace usages. Anything warmer, more personal, more exacting, sought in vain for an eligible crossing place; and, if it leaped the gray chasm, it was only to lose itself among chill, elusive shapes of mist, on the opposite side.

Thus excluded from the only society for which he cared, Bergan did not, as a weaker character might have done, betake himself for consolation to the lower circles of vice and dissipation that would have welcomed him rapturously. He could better afford to stand alone, he thought, than to throw himself into arms whose embrace would soil, and whose seeming support was an insidious undermining. Besides, it was much more in accordance with his character to regard the exclusion from which he suffered as a challenge to be answered, an adversary to be overcome, rather than a verdict to be acquiesced in. He would prove to the world that it had been mistaken.

Day after day, therefore, he spent in his office,—as many a new-fledged lawyer has done before him,—waiting with what patience he might for the clients that never came, and reading hard, by way of preparation for the cases that never presented themselves. It was dull and lonely work; yet it did him good service, in giving him time for thought and reflection, and in making him acquainted with his own resources of will, courage, patience, and energy.

The only persons who came within the circle of loneliness that surrounded him, were Mrs. Lyte, Cathie, and Dr. Remy. The first showed him much gentle, unobtrusive kindness, chiefly manifesting itself in a motherly oversight of his rooms and prevision of his wants. The second fluttered in and out of his office, like a bird or a butterfly, affording him much amusing, and often opportune, distraction from hard study or sober-hued thought. But neither of these two, for obvious reasons, could give him just the close, helpful friendship, of which he stood in need.

Neither did he find it in Dr. Remy. Though he met the physician daily, and often engaged with him in hour-long colloquies upon all sorts of topics, he never felt that he really knew him any better than on the first day of their acquaintance. The doctor's peculiar frankness, which had seemed, at first sight, to promise such facility of intimacy, proved to be really more of the nature of an elastic barrier, yielding everywhere to the slightest pressure, but nowhere completely giving way. Or, it might be still more fitly characterized as a deceitful quagmire, wherein the curious explorer sank indefinitely, but never touched solid bottom.

Not that the doctor was at all reticent in regard to the main facts of his outward life. In a desultory way he had furnished Bergan with a sufficiently distinct outline sketch of his somewhat eventful career, up to the present moment,—a career which, for shifts and turns, outdid that of Gil Blas. According to this, he was born in New Orleans, the posthumous son of a French refugee, by an American wife. When he was twelve years old, his mother had presented him with a stepfather. The gift proved so little to his taste that, two years later, he ran away from the pair, and flung himself into that El Dorado of boyish imagination—life at sea. In one capacity or another, during the next twelve years, he not only contrived to visit most of the countries of Europe, but also by dint of natural aptitude for study, to pick up a language or two, and to acquaint himself with the essential part of a college curriculum. It now occurred to him to return to New Orleans, and claim the modest patrimony awaiting him there, in the hands of his father's executors. He found that his stepfather had been dead for three or four years, and his mother, after having exhausted her own scanty resources, was sinking, with her two children, into the dreary depths of poverty. It cost her some effort to recognize the slender stripling of her memory in the brown, bearded, broad-shouldered man, who now presented himself before her as her son. However, his identity was satisfactorily established, both by certain indisputable personal marks, and by the presumptive evidence of his willingness to assume the burden of her support.

His next step had been to place himself in a lawyer's office, where, in virtue of close application, he made months do the work of years. Admitted by-and-by to the Bar, he had practised his profession for a brief space, but finding the legal life not wholly to his taste, he had flung it aside; and with the ready facility which had characterized his whole career, had betaken himself to the study and the practice of medicine. Here, he averred, he had found his true vocation, the rightful mistress of his intellect, and should undergo no more transformations, and indulge in no more wanderings.

So far, Dr. Remy gave quite as frank an account of himself as could be expected or desired. But when it came to his inner life of thought, opinion, principle, his frankness was of the sort that obscures, rather than explains. It put forth jest and earnest, reason and sophistry, airy spirituality and dead materialism, with equal readiness, and with as much show of interest in one as the other. If Bergan caught at what seemed to be substance, it turned to shadow in his grasp. If he grappled with apparent earnest, it quickly resolved itself into a hollow helmet of sudden championship, or a thin mask of irony. He was often startled with a doubt whether the doctor had any settled opinions or principles. He pulled down, but he built not up; he attacked, but he rarely defended,—or, if he defended a thing to-day, more likely than not, he would assault it to-morrow. All Bergan's own opinions and beliefs seemed to lose their consistency in the universal solvent of the doctor's talk, and only took shape again after a protracted process of precipitation, in his own mind and heart.

If the latter organ made any part of Doctor Remy's bodily system, it never manifested itself to Bergan by any noticeable throb or sensible warmth. The young man was often puzzled by the question whence came the doctor's evident interest in himself, since it seemed so plain that it did not spring from any warm personal liking. He felt himself to be the object of his careful study, frequently; of his spontaneous affection and sympathy, never. He could not but wonder at such an amount and duration of a purely intellectual interest,—for such he decided it to be,—when it promised so little result.

However, the doctor's was the only society, worthy of the name, that was offered to him; his, too, the only friendship, or semblance thereof, that came within his reach. He gratefully availed himself of both, even while conscious that neither fully met his wants, or would have been the object of his deliberate choice. Without this resource, the flow of Bergan's life would have been characterized by a drearier monotony, even, than at present.

The first slight break in its placid current, occurred one morning, on his return from breakfasting at the hotel. To his surprise, Vic was tied before Mrs. Lyte's gate, arching her neck, and twisting her ears about, in her usual wild and nervous fashion. In most confiding proximity to her restless heels, Brick lay fast asleep on the sunshiny sward.

Roused by the sound of approaching footsteps, the latter sprang to his feet, and donned the palm-leaf debris that he termed his hat, in time to doff it in deferential acknowledgment of Bergan's surprised greeting.

"Why, Brick! how do you do? Is anything the matter at the Hall?"

"No, massa Harry, nothing 't all. Only, ole massa, he say we's gittin lazy,—Vic an' me;—an' he tought you'd better be gettin' some good out ob us, dan to leab us in de stable—no, I mean, in the cabin, no, one in de stable and turrer in de cabin—a-eatin' our heads off;—dat's jes' what he said, massa. So he clared us off in a hurry, an' tole us to gib you his lub, and tell you dat he 'sposed you'd kinder forgotten 'bout us."

There could be no question but that the overture was kindly meant, on the Major's part, but it was one that Bergan could not possibly accept. Judging from present indications, it would be long before his professional income would suffice for his own support, to say nothing of the additional expense of a servant and horse. Besides, he had never regarded either Brick or the filly as actual gifts, but only convenient loans, for his use while at the Hall. Any other view of the matter would, by no means, have suited his independent character. And, if this had been the case before the rupture with his uncle, it was doubly so, now. Major Bergan must not be suffered to think that his resentment had given way, or that his good will had been restored, by the aid of any gifts, however valuable, or kindly bestowed.

Yet he would be glad to send his uncle a friendly message, to show that he was really grateful for his kindness, and ready to accept any overture which would not burden him with too heavy a sense of obligation. To ensure its safe delivery, without the risk of hopeless travesty, at Brick's hands, he went to his desk, and wrote:

"DEAR UNCLE: Thank you for sending me your love; that is a thing which I am glad to get and keep. But I cannot keep either Brick or Vic,—I have no present use for them, and no means of providing for them, if I had. Besides, I never regarded either as mine, except while I remained at the Hall. Many thanks, all the same, for your kind intentions.

"Your affectionate nephew,
'HARRY.'"

The signature was written only after considerable hesitation. His note would be sure to fail of the desired conciliatory effect, if it wholly ignored the name upon which his uncle had so strenuously insisted. Yet he could not bring himself to incorporate it with his lawful sign-manual. He was forced to compromise matters by thus using it as a sort of sobriquet.

Giving the note to Brick, he bade him take it straightway to his master. The negro's face instantly fell; then, it brightened again with the light of a plausible explanation.

"I 'spec I'se to come back, arter I'se 'livered it?" he asked, anxiously.

"No, Brick," Bergan gravely answered. "I cannot afford to keep you; it is as much as I can do, just now, to keep myself."

"But, massa Harry," remonstrated Brick, "don't you know I 'longs to you? I'se your nigger, sure as deff; ole massa gib me to you, an' tole me to wait on you, don' you 'member? An' how's I a goin' to wait on you, I'd jes' like to know, wid tree good miles atween us? 'Sides, I'd feel so mortify to go right back dar, like a dog dat don' own no massa, arter I done tole 'em all I's coming to lib wid you."

It was not without difficulty that Brick was convinced of the inevitableness of his return to Major Bergan. Not only did his heart yearn to be in the service of his young master, but he was fully persuaded that he could help, rather than hinder, his fortunes. He forcibly expressed his willingness to work his fingers off in the cause, and gravely proposed to put himself on a course of semi-starvation, in the matter of "keep." All this being of no avail, he was finally forced to mount Vic, and turn homeward, a picture of the blackest despair.

On the way, his mind was illumined with a gleam of hope. Like all the negroes of the plantation, he had large faith in the occult power of old Rue. His present journey, he well knew, was mainly owing to her influence. If she could be made to see the propriety of his immediate return to Bergan's service, as he did, no doubt she could find a way to bring it to pass. And her conversion to his views could be effected, he shrewdly thought, by a skilful use of Bergan's confession of straitened circumstances, as well as a certain suggestive increase of gravity that he had observed in the young man's manner. His smile had not come quite so readily and brightly to his lips as in the old days at Bergan Hall. No doubt he was poor, lonely, and troubled. He needed some one to take care of him, and watch over him. And who so eligible to this position as himself? For Brick had inherited his grandmother's devotion to the Bergan blood, and believed that the chief end of his being was to live and die loyally in its service. Moreover, his young master had not only taken tenacious hold of his affections, but also of that still stronger faculty of the negro mind—his imagination. Though he might be a distressed knight, just at present, Brick's faith was firm that his time of triumph was not far off; and then, he wanted to be "there to see!"

He lost no time, therefore, in presenting himself before Rue, on his arrival at Bergan Hall. And so dexterously did he work upon her love and pride, by the deplorable picture that he drew of Bergan's sadness and poverty, that the faithful old nurse straightway betook herself to her master, and never left him till she had persuaded him to mount his horse, and set forth, at a brisk trot, toward Berganton.

In truth, the Major was only too glad to be so persuaded. His anger towards his nephew had quickly burned out, by reason of its own fury; and in thinking the matter over, he had come to be more tickled by the young man's prowess than he had, at first, been displeased by his flight.

"You should have seen him knocking those fellows around, like so many ninepins!" he exclaimed, exultingly, to Rue. "I couldn't have done it more neatly myself, in my best days. I tell you, he is a true Bergan at bottom, if he has got a few crinks and cranks at top. What a pity he could not make up his mind to stay quietly on the old place, where he belongs; and which he might have done what he pleased with, if he had only taken me on the right tack! But he'll come back—he'll come back! Estates like Bergan Hall don't grow on every bush. It won't take him long to find out that he can't raise one from the law. And then, he'll be glad to come back to me; and I'll receive him as the father did the prodigal son!"

But, as time rolled on, and Bergan did not appear to claim this welcome, the Major began to feel a chagrin that would quickly have been intensified into anger, but for the happy suggestion that the young man delayed merely because he was dubious as to his reception. This view of the matter was an excellent salve to whatever of bitter or wounded feeling the Major still retained. Bergan longing, yet fearing, to return to him, was a vision that gently soothed his pride, while it appealed powerfully to his sympathies.

Matters having reached this point, he yielded easily to Rue's suggestion that Bergan's horse and servant should be sent to him, as a hint that hostilities had ceased. And though their prompt return was, at first, new matter of wrath, Bergan's note, Brick's report, and Rue's representations and entreaties, availed to smother the half-kindled flame, and send him forth toward Berganton in a most forgiving and patronizing frame of mind. He was ready to make any concessions to his nephew's principles and habits. If Bergan would but return to the Hall, he might dictate his own terms, and order his life in his own way. The Major had missed him more than he would have been willing to allow. The old place had not seemed the same without him. Its present had lost a strong element of cheer and energy, and its future had faded into dimness.

Arriving, in due time, at Mrs. Lyte's gate, the Major dismounted, and was about to enter, when his eyes fell on the little tin plate, in Bergan's office window, which has before been mentioned. If it had been the head of Medusa, with all its supernatural powers intact, it could scarcely have wrought a more complete change in the expression of his face. First, he glared at it in incredulous wonder; then, he nearly choked with inarticulate rage; finally, words came to his relief. To the consternation of Mrs. Lyte, and the intense gratification of the crowd of boys and negroes which quickly gathered at a safe distance, he proceeded to pour forth a volley of the bitterest curses that he could frame upon the author of what he chose to consider an insult to himself, and a disgrace to his lineage.

"That I should live to see the name of Bergan on a snip of a tin sign, like that!" he growled, shaking his fist at the offending plate, and trembling with rage;—"what right had the scoundrel to put it there, I should like to know? 'Attorney at Law,' indeed!—he shall have law enough, since he likes it so well! I'll sue him for trespass, libel, forgery,—I'll horsewhip him, and then have him indicted for assault and battery,—I'll—." But here his indignation choked him, for a moment.

Recovering his voice, his anger took a new direction. "'Bergan Arling,' indeed!" he muttered,—"I suppose he was ashamed of the 'Harry,' though he could put it at the end of his note,—smooth-faced hypocrite that he is! Where is he?" he went on, lifting his voice. "Why don't he come out, and face me, like a man? Must I go in and drag him out, by the nape of the neck,—the mean, sneaking, insulting puppy!"

"Mr. Arling is out, I regret to say," said Dr. Remy, appearing in the doorway, and confronting the furious Major with his cool, cynical smile. "He went out for a walk some fifteen or twenty minutes ago. If he were here, no doubt it would give him great pleasure to meet you."

Major Bergan scowled in a way to show how willingly he would transfer his wrath to this timely object, if he could only find a reasonable excuse. But, discovering not the shadow of one in the doctor's polite, careless manner, he contented himself with growling,—

"Out, is he? I wish he were out of the county—and a good riddance! When will he be in?"

"Not under an hour or two," answered the doctor, wisely postponing the era of Bergan's return to the utmost limit.

"Umph! that's the way he spends his time, is it? loafing about the country when he should be in his office! Well, I've got something to do, besides wait for him. Just tell him, will you? that I owe him a good, sound horse-whipping, and I'll pay it to him the first time I meet him."

"I will take charge of your kind message with pleasure," returned the doctor, blandly. "Any further commands?"

"No!" roared the Major, with a dim suspicion that he was being made to appear ridiculous,—"not unless you like to come out and take the horsewhipping yourself. On the whole, I'd just as soon give it to you."

"Many thanks," replied the doctor, with imperturbable coolness. "But I could not consent to appropriate anything designed for Mr. Arling."

"If it hurts your conscience, you can pass it over to him," rejoined Major Bergan, with grim humor.

"It would lose its flavor at second-hand," said the doctor, smiling.

"It would be your own fault, if it did," responded the Major. "At any rate, take care that my message don't lose anything, on the way. And while you're about it, just tell him that he shall never have Bergan Hall, nor an inch of ground that belongs to it, never! I'll give it to—Astra Lyte, first!"

The doctor slightly shrugged his shoulders, as an intimation that the Major's disposition of his property was a matter that did not interest him; but the latter mistook it for a sign of incredulity.

"I will! I swear I will!" he repeated, with an oath. "And why shouldn't I?" he went on, after a slight pause, as if the sudden idea had unexpectedly commended itself to him,—"why shouldn't I? Her father was my cousin; and he had Bergan blood in his veins, too, through his mother; and he was a right good fellow, besides. Where is she?"

"Miss Lyte is in New York, on a visit," replied the doctor.

"Umph! I should like to see her. Is she growing up bright and handsome?"

"She is both," returned the doctor, briefly.

"Then, she shall have it!" exclaimed the Major, with sudden decision. "I'll go home, and make my will. Tell Harry so, for his comfort, when he comes back."

And the Major, delighted that he had bethought himself of a revenge so swift and ample, mounted his horse, and rode off.

On Bergan's return, the scene was described to him by Doctor Remy, with a minuteness and accuracy of detail and coloring that did great credit to that gentleman's powers both of observation and description. Nevertheless, there was something of cynicism, or of satire, that grated on his listener's ear; and he finally stopped the doctor's flow of eloquence with the question,—

"Who is Astra Lyte?"

The doctor looked at him, with much surprise. "Is it possible that you have not yet heard of her?" he asked. "She is Mrs. Lyte's eldest daughter; and a genius, too,—or, at least, an artist;—they are not always synonymous terms, I believe. But where have you been living, not to have become acquainted with her name before this? It is always on Mrs. Lyte's lips; at least, she is ready to talk of her by the hour, with a little encouragement."

"My conversations with Mrs. Lyte have not been many nor long," replied Bergan. "An artist, did you say?"

But Doctor Remy had fallen into a fit of thought. He merely answered the question by a nod; and very shortly, he left Bergan to his own reflections.

V.
UNDER THE OAKS.

Not many weeks after the preceding incidents, Bergan went out, early one afternoon, for a long, solitary ramble. It was not his wont to leave his office before dusk, but his head ached with study, and his heart with loneliness and discouragement; an intolerable weariness and irksomeness had taken possession of him; his book seemed meaningless, and his brain paralyzed; there was nothing for it but to turn from the world of thought, that had suddenly grown so insufferably arid and dead, to the living, breathing world of nature. Forest, and field, and wave, if they could not give him intelligent sympathy, could at least furnish him gentle distraction.

And, oftentimes, there was a subtile harmony, almost amounting to sympathy, between his lonely moods, and the soft, rich, yet melancholy, Southern landscape,—for melancholy it always seemed to him, though that effect may have been partly owing to the gray medium of isolation and depression through which he viewed it. But, whatever its origin, this gentle mournfulness was the landscape's consummate charm,—at least, for any burdened human heart. It is possible that Eden wore a soft grace of pensive beauty, after the fall, which Adam and Eve, wandering back thither, would have counted a dearer delight, in their then mood, than its old, unshadowed brightness.

On his way out, Bergan found Nix stretched at full length across the threshold. With the usual preference of his race for masculine over feminine society, the dog had early attached himself to the young man, as much as was consistent with a different ownership. He now rose, shook himself, wagged his tail, and looked wistfully in Bergan's face. Meeting with no rebuff, he made bold to follow him.

Leaving the town behind as quickly as possible, Bergan first struck into a long, lonely lane, shut in, on either side, by a thick border of multifarious foliage. Trees and shrubs, both deciduous and evergreen, not only mingled their boughs along its sides, but were tied together in an intricate polygamous knot by tangled vines. There was an endless diversity of form and color,—every shape of leaf, and every hue and shade of green and brown, with occasional tints of red, purple, and orange, both pale and bright,—and everywhere the gray fringe of the Spanish moss.

By and by, the lane terminated in the inevitable pine barren, which frames all Southern landscape pictures. It stretched away, in every direction, as far as the eye could reach,—a vast, dim solitude, with a thick, blue-green roof, upheld by innumerable slender columns, and a carpet of fallen needles, on which the foot fell without a sound. A mysterious sigh pervaded it, even when no breeze was astir; its light was but a gentle gloom; and it had a soft, aromatic atmosphere of its own, as if it were another world. No fitter place could have been found for the indulgence of a youthful day dream, with enough of inherent light and color to overcome the prevailing sombreness, or, at least, to set itself in stronger relief against so darksome a background. But to Bergan, the vast, dim monotony, with its suggestive correspondence to the circumstances of his own life, brought only added heartache. The chance openings into the sky were so few, and the sunshine never fell save flickeringly, at the farther extremity of some long vista! He soon began to yearn for outlook and aspiration, some spot affording at least a glimpse of the surrounding world, as well as a fair look at the open sky. Happily, he knew where to find it.

Long since, he had discovered for himself a convenient and attractive out-door haunt,—a kind of natural amphitheatre, on the edge of one of the numerous bays, or creeks, of the vicinity. Great, patriarchal live-oaks, with hoary beards of moss trailing even to the ground, had ranged themselves in a semi-circle, on a high bank, overlooking the water. Standing in attitudes of ponderous grace, each one scattered shade and quietude over fifty, sixty, or, it might be, an hundred, feet of sward. Through a broad opening, in the midst of the dignified circle, the cheerful sunshine fell unbrokenly; and on the water-side, there was a fair stretch of blue waves, with a sea-green horizon-line afar; and over all, a wide half-dome of sky, with its changeable tracery of clouds, and its transparent concord of color. It was hard to believe that the hand of man had not wrought with that of nature, to produce a spot so perfect. Many a sunset had Bergan enjoyed there; many a twilight had he mused away, under the rustling oak-boughs; many a time, the rising moon had found him there, and surrounded him with weird enchantment.

All along, this spot had been the goal of his steps, though—by way of trying first what help and heart were to be found in exercise—he had chosen to reach it by a most circumlocutory route. So far as he knew, it was his own, by right of occupancy, as well as discovery; never had it showed a sign that it knew the pressure of any other human foot.

As he drew near, the sun was sending long, slanting beams of ruddy light athwart the amphitheatre, and dyeing the polished oak-leaves in rich tints of gold and orange. He quickened his steps, the sooner to reach the point whence sunset-splendors were to be seen to the best advantage; and upon which he had taken occasion to construct a low, rustic seat.

To his amazement, it was already occupied. A lady was quietly seated therein, her cheek resting on her hand, her eyes (as he judged from her pose, for her back was toward him) fixed on the glowing sky.

He stopped short, uncertain whether to advance or retreat.

Nix—who had lingered behind, to make a feint of hunting a squirrel—settled the question for him. Coming upon the scene, he first sniffed the air, and then dashed at the intruder. Fearing lest his intentions might be unfriendly,—or, at least, that the lady would be startled by his sudden appearance,—Bergan sternly called after him;—

"Nix! Nix! Here! Come back, you scamp!"

But Nix, if he heard, certainly did not heed. He was fawning upon the lady, in a way to indicate a previous acquaintance of considerable standing and intimacy. She, on her part, received his rude caresses quite as a matter of course, and cordially patted his rough head. Then she turned to Bergan.

"Nix does not mean to be disobedient," said she, apologetically. "Only, he recognizes in me an older friend than Mr. Arling, and, perhaps,"—she smiled,—"a superseding authority."

Bergan bowed. "He is fortunate," said he,—"that is, in finding a friend, old or new, where he did not look for one."

He spoke with a slight bitterness of tone, in involuntary recognition of the fact that no such pleasant discovery was ever the reward of his own aimless rambles. At the same time, he looked curiously at the lady, seeking a clue to her identity. She had seemed to know him; yet he could not remember that he had ever met her before.

Apparently, she was young; certainly, she was small, and somewhat slender. Without being absolutely pretty, her face was exceedingly interesting, by reason of its mobility and vivacity of expression;—albeit, its changes were not always to be easily understood, nor its language at once interpreted. Her eyes were of the darkest gray, with a clear and penetrative glance, that seemed to go straight to the depths of whatever object they sought. Her manner, though perfectly feminine, had an air of strength and energy, in marked contrast with the languid grace which is the more frequent product of Southern soil. She was very simply dressed,—in some soft, gray material, the one beauty of which was its ability to fall in artistic folds about her figure;—nevertheless, there was a certain pleasant peculiarity, a kind of sober picturesqueness, about her attire, that lifted it more surely out of the region of the common-place than any richness of texture, or newness of fashion, could have done. Moreover, it satisfied the eye with a sense of fitness; it was plainly the legitimate outgrowth of the wearer's character. Not that it bid defiance to fashion, but it did not conform to it to the extent of a complete sacrifice of individuality.

Her only ornament was a cluster of bright scarlet leaves, that she had doubtless found on her way thither, and fastened on her breast; and which an opportune sun-ray now touched into vivid splendor. This, too, suited her. It seemed the subtile outward expression of some correspondingly warm and rich characteristic within; glowing soft against the gray texture of an otherwise grave, earnest, almost severe character. It might be sparkling wit, or warm affections, or both, that were thus pleasantly symbolized.

She met Bergan's curious glance with a quiet smile, that seemed to understand its object, and enjoy, beforehand, its discomfiture. She even answered it with a brief scrutiny, that was hardly less in earnest, though not at all puzzled,—scarcely, even, inquiring.

At this moment, the sun suddenly disappeared. The two faces, that had been so clearly and ruddily lit up by his declining beams, were left pale and shadowed, looking at each other under the solemn old trees; through the branches of which the wind now began to whisper softly, as if moved to utter some sombre prediction, which yet it could not make quite plain.

"Do you believe in omens?" asked the young lady, with a kind of playful shiver.

"Not at all," answered Bergan, looking a little surprised.

"It is as well that you do not. For I suspect that they are like certain modes of medical treatment; they require a large element of faith to make them efficacious. And, to say truth, neither do I believe in them—except in a poetical way. If I did, I should say that this sudden shadow augurs but badly for our future acquaintance, and influence upon each other."

"If it means," replied Bergan, "that we are to know sunshine and shade together, little more could be predicted—or desired—of any earthly acquaintance."

"Perhaps not. Still, as I do believe in omens, as I said before, in a poetical way, I am glad to see that the sun is not really set, after all. He only sank into a deceptive line of cloud. There! he comes forth again, to give us another bright glance before his final leave-taking. And, in order to leave the omen in its present satisfactory state, I will anticipate his departure. Good evening."

Slightly inclining her head, as she passed Bergan, she quickly disappeared under the low-hanging oak boughs.

Nix looked after her, for a moment; then he turned to Bergan, as if wondering why he did not go, too. Seeing no sign of departure, he was about to fling himself upon the ground, when a clear, sweet whistle suddenly sounded from the direction which the young lady had taken. Pricking up his ears, he instantly set off at a great pace; leaving Bergan with a vague sadness, as having been deserted by his last friend.

However, the feeling was but momentary. Very quickly he turned to the consideration of the interesting question who his late interlocutor might be. Running over in his mind all the branches of the family of Bergan, in the neighborhood (of which there were several, more or less direct), he soon decided that she did not harmonize with what he knew of any of them. Yet she had seemed to know him; and to think, and even to intimate, that they were likely to meet again, and possibly to exert a degree of influence upon each other's lives. And still, as he pondered and questioned, the oak trees kept whispering overhead, with all their multitudinous tongues, an apparently full, but unintelligible, explanation.

He bewildered himself with conjectures, until all the sunset tints had faded from the sky, and darkness was fast gathering under the oak boughs. Then he rose, and went his solitary way homeward.

Arrived at Mrs. Lyte's gate, it seemed to him that there was an unusual stir and liveliness about the house. Certainly, a broad beam of light was shining across the hall, from a door that he had never before seen open. Ere he could think what these things betokened, Cathie came running to meet him, with a great piece of news in her beaming face.

"Oh! Mr. Arling!" she exclaimed, in almost breathless delight, "Astra has come!"

The mystery was at an end. Indeed it could scarcely have been a mystery, but for two concurrent circumstances. In the first place, knowing Miss Lyte to be an artist,—or at least, an art-student,—and possessed of a sufficiently independent character and spirit, he had unconsciously sketched a portrait of her in his fancy, very different from the original,—taller, larger, with more color, and, certainly, less feminine. And, secondly, only the day before, he had heard Mrs. Lyte lamenting that her daughter would not be at home for another month.

A sudden turn of circumstances, however, had wrought an equally sudden change in Miss Lyte's plans; and, taking advantage of the opportune escort afforded by a business trip of a friend, she had journeyed southward with such celerity as to outstrip the letter of announcement that she had dispatched, a day before her departure from New York. Reaching home almost immediately after Bergan had gone out for his solitary stroll, she had spent the afternoon in a long, earnest, circumstantial talk with her mother,—discussing her plans and prospects,—throwing off, with careless fluency, vivid picture upon picture of her art life and work in the city,—listening eagerly to interjectional items of home news,—and cheering Mrs. Lyte's heart, through and through, with her bright spirits, her ready, yet healthful, sympathy, and the inspiring energy both of her manner and mind. With the very sight of her, more than half the widow's burden of sorrow and care had slipped unconsciously from her shoulders.

Finally, toward sunset, foreseeing an unusual amount of sky-splendor, she had gone forth for a brief enjoyment of it to her old, favorite haunt,—the oak glade which Bergan had also discovered and taken into favor. Meeting the young man there, she had instantly recognized him,—by reason of Nix's suggestive companionship, and her mother's recent description,—and had taken an innocent pleasure in subjecting him to a transient mystification.

"She gave us such a surprise," went on Cathie, joyously. "Mamma almost fainted, and I—guess what I did, Mr. Arling."

To please her, Bergan guessed what he supposed to be the most unlikely thing; and so, in consequence of the child's peculiar character, he guessed right.

"Doubtless, you cried," said he.

"So I did," replied Cathie, opening her eyes wide, "though I can't see how you knew it. But I thought I was laughing, all the time, till Astra asked me why I was so sorry to see her, and offered to go away again if the sight of her was so painful!' And that made me laugh, in good earnest! And oh! Mr. Arling, do come and see her little white boy! She has just been unpacking him, to show him to mamma."

"Willingly," replied Bergan, "if you are sure that she would like me to see him."

"I'll ask her," replied Cathie, darting through the open doorway at the left, whence came the broad beam of light aforementioned, and through which Bergan caught a glimpse of Mrs. Lyte's black-draped figure, seated at the farther corner of the room, in an attitude of pleased contemplation of some object not within his range of vision.

The next moment, Miss Lyte herself appeared on the threshold, and, seeing by his face that his mystification was over, she frankly held out her hand to him.

"So you have found me out!" said she, laughing. "Was it wicked in me not to answer that look in your eyes, which said so plainly, 'Who on earth can she be?' Can you pardon my selfish enjoyment of your perplexity?"

"A perplexity that ends so pleasantly deserves thanks rather than pardon," returned Bergan.

And having answered Mrs. Lyte's cordial greeting, and congratulated her upon the event which had brought such unaccustomed radiance into her face, Bergan turned, with a pardonable curiosity—or it might more fitly be termed, an inevitable interest,—to glance around the room in which he found himself. Never before had he happened to enter that middle ground between the airiest ideal and the earthliest real, which is occupied by a sculptor's studio.

VI.
OF CLAY.

Bergan's first glance around the studio was necessarily a comprehensive one, dealing with general effect, rather than minute detail. A large (though not a lofty) room; a bare floor; walls crowded with designs and studies; four or five busts and statues standing around the sides, and the life-size figure of a child in the middle, of the room;—this was what that first glance revealed to him.

Cathie gave him no time for a second. "Look at the dear little boy, Mr. Arling; do look at him!" she exclaimed, joining her hands over her head, and executing a rapturous pas seul around the object of her delight. "See his cunning little whip, and his funny little feet, and isn't he a little white darling!"

Thus besought, Bergan turned his attention to the statue in the midst.

At first sight, it seemed to represent merely a pretty and playful human child, with a toy-whip in his hand, his head half-turned over one shoulder, and an arch and roguish expression, as if bent on some errand of mischief. But, while Bergan continued to gaze, fascinated, the small physiognomy seemed to grow wily and malign, as well as arch; and an intelligence, far more swift and subtle than ever infant of mortal race was gifted withal, informed the tiny features. The light feet, too, were plainly moved by deliberate purpose of guile, rather than childish impulse; and on their soles, broad sinuate leaves were bound, either for protection or disguise.

Bergan looked at the figure long and earnestly, enjoying its delicate freshness and piquancy, but trying in vain to fathom its meaning.

"What will-o'-the-wisp is it?" he finally asked. "And what is he doing, with his soft cunning and smiling malice?"

"He is a god," replied Astra. "As to his errand, it is the laudable one of cattle-stealing."

"It seems to be a case of very early depravity," said Bergan, smiling, yet puzzled.

"Early enough to be termed 'original sin,'" returned Astra. "For

'The babe was born at the first peep of day * *
And the same evening did he steal away
Apollo's herds.'—

Did you ever read Homer's 'Hymn to Mercury?'"

"Never. Indeed, I am not quite sure that I ever heard of it," replied Bergan. "Is it usually counted among his works?"

"I think so; though it is fair to say that his authorship of it has been questioned. At any rate, Shelley has put it into very musical English verse; and there I found my subject. The circumstances of Mercury's birth being first narrated, the newborn immortal is described as 'a babe all other babes excelling,' and also a subtle schemer and thief. He first invents the lyre, and accompanies his own impromptu song of 'plastic verse,' with it; then he is 'seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat,' and betakes himself to the Pierian mountains, where Apollo's 'immortal oxen' are feeding. Separating fifty from the herd,

'He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way,
But, being ever mindful of his craft,—'

that is to say, his inborn guile,—

'Backward and forward drove he them astray,
So that the tracks, which seemed before, were aft:
His sandals then he threw to the ocean-spray,
And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft
Of tamarisk and tamarisk-like twigs,'"—

"I see," said Bergan, smiling. "The consummate little rogue!"

Astra went on:—

"'And on his feet he bound these sandals light,
The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray
His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, * *
He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight,—'

driving the stolen cattle before him, of course. And this is the moment at which I have sought to represent him."

"And very perfectly you have succeeded," said Bergan, admiringly. "The arch cunning and malice of the face is simply wonderful. Indeed, it seems to me that the statue lacks but one thing."

"And what is that?" said Astra, quickly; at the same time flashing a swift, searching glance at her work, as if she would fain have anticipated the criticism.

"It does not tell how the story ended."

"Oh!" said Astra, looking both relieved and amused. "I am glad that you did not keep me waiting so long as Michael Angelo did poor Domenico."

"How long was that, pray?"

"You shall hear. Domenico Ghirlandaio, a celebrated Florentine painter, having completed a picture of St. Francis, upon which he had exhausted his utmost skill, and which seemed to him to be perfect, sent for a young artist of great promise, Buonarotti by name, (who had also been his pupil), and asked for his opinion of the work. The young man contemplated it for some moments, said gravely, 'It needs but one thing,' and departed. The master remained, to study the picture anew, to pore over it hour after hour, and day after day, and rack his brain with the question what it needed. Years after, when Buonarotti had become Michael Angelo, and filled the world with his fame, Domenico sent for him to come to his death-chamber. 'What did the picture need?' he asked, faintly. 'Only speech,' replied Michael Angelo. The old master smiled,—and died."

"It is a touching story," said Bergan. "And it is almost an allegory, too. For 'only speech' is so often the great need of life! All our deepest feeling and best thought are inarticulate. But am I to be indulged with the rest of this story, also?" he added, turning again to the statue.

"I will give it you in brief," replied Astra, "by way of whetting your appetite for the richer savors of the poem itself. Having driven his stolen cattle to Alpheus, the infant god selected two fat heifers for sacrifice. And here, it seems to me, is one of the finest touches in the whole poem. After kindling his fire, slaying his heifers, and offering a portion to each of the twelve gods,

——'his mind became aware
Of all the joys that in religion are.
For the sweet savor of the roasted meat
Tempted him, though immortal. Nathless
He checked his haughty will and did not eat,
Though what it cost him words can scarce express.'

Here, you see, is real self-denial and self-conquest,—for the sake of making an acceptable sacrifice,—and their deep after delight."

"If the offering had been less ill-gotten," remarked Bergan, somewhat dryly, "I think the 'touch' would have been still finer."

"I confess that I had forgotten all about that," said Astra, laughing, "in my admiration of the infant god's mastery over himself. Still, we cannot expect to find the purity of the Gospel standard of life in the heathen mythology; we can but be thankful for the gleams of Divine light here and there irradiating it, since a whole people long lived and died under its sanction. But, at this rate, my story will never end! The baby god next proceeded to remove every trace of his holocaust, working all night 'in the serene moonshine.' Then, at break of day, he betook himself to his natal cavern, crept quickly to his cradle, pulled his 'ambrosial swaddling clothes about him,' and put on a soft semblance of new-born innocence. In due time, Apollo, having discovered the loss of his cattle, and suspecting who was the rogue, came to the cavern, found the 'subtle, swindling baby,' lying 'swathed in his sly wiles,' and taxed him with the theft. At once, the young 'god of lies' shows forth his character. He stoutly denies all knowledge of the mischief; he pathetically declares,—

'I am but a little newborn thing,
Who yet, at least, can think of nothing wrong;
My business is to suck and sleep and fling
The cradle-clothes about me all day long,—
Or, half-asleep, hear my sweet mother sing,—
And to be washed in water clean and warm,
And hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm;—'

and, finally, he swears that he does not even know 'whatever things cows are!' However, Apollo turns a deaf ear to all his wiles and pleadings, and compels him to go before Jupiter; who laughs to hear his plausible account of himself,—'and every word a lie,'—but finally bids him show Apollo where he has hidden the stolen cattle. This he does, 'nothing loath,' and finally subdues the sun-god

——'by the might,
Of winning music, to his mightier will:
. . . . . sweet as love,
The penetrating notes did live and move
Within the heart of great Apollo: he
Listened with all his soul, and laughed for pleasure.'

"And here we may as well leave them. For the rest of the story,—as well as for many pleasant pictures and nice touches, of which my abstract gives no hint,—you should go to the poem itself."

"I shall be sure to do so," said Bergan, "with this arch, airy little figure to lead the way. But it should be in marble, it seems to me, rather than in plaster."

Astra smiled gravely. "For that, a patron—or, at least, a purchaser—is needed. Marble is expensive as well as indestructible; few artists can afford to put their works into its safe keeping, without help. And perhaps it is as well that such is the case, else Posterity would never be able to bear the stony accumulation that would be heaped on its back."

"I think I can venture to promise that it would never feel this airy creation to be a burden," said Bergan, earnestly.

"I hope not. But my little Mercury is still my youngest darling, and I feel all a mother's partiality for it; I have no eyes for its faults. When the inevitable time of disenchantment comes, and I am able to see it as it is, I can better tell whether I care to commit it to the white immortality of marble."

She continued to gaze at the statue for some moments with fond, dreamy, wistful eyes,—-just as a mother might regard her newborn infant. Bergan felt a slight pang in beholding this nearness of the work to its author, this strong, tender, indissoluble bond between the two. Would ever any work of his—any brief, or plea—come from such a warm depth of his heart, and embody so much of his life? A poet, a musician even, might know something of this deep gladness of creation; but a lawyer, a judge, dealing with dry reason and dusty legal enactments,—was there any such joy in his work for him?

Leaving the question unanswered,—as he must needs do, until time and experience should come, to his help,—Bergan turned anew to the contemplation of the Mercury; which seemed to grow in beauty and power, as he continued to look. It would be hard to say how much of this pleasurable effect was due to the inherent charm of the work, and how much to the spell shed from the rapt face and softly illuminated eyes of the artist. Many a work that we look upon but coldly, would quickly find its way to our hearts, if we knew enough of its history and its author, to give us the clue to its subtler spirit and aim; while those which we love without such knowledge, would, by its help, be transfigured—glorified. If we could stand with Michael Angelo before his "Moses," or with Guido before his triumphant "Archangel," what new lights of interpretation would be lit for us at the eyes and lips of those great masters!

Nor must it be said that the spectator may be dazzled by the artist's enthusiasm into awarding the work higher praise than a cooler judgment would sanction. For just here lies the truth which is too often overlooked in criticism, both of literature and art. If the critic be not in sympathy with the worker,—if he do not, in some measure, behold the work through his eyes,—if he cannot discern what was attempted as well as what is attained,—then his eyes will be partially holden both from the beauties and the faults of the work. For nothing, in life or art, was meant to be looked at by itself. Everything is related to something else; each helps all. The moment wherein the spectator's mood and the artist's work make sweet harmony, is the moment of correct appreciation.

If Bergan did not understand what an illumination the presence of Miss Lyte threw over her work, he was fully conscious that her work shed a transfiguring light over her. The face under the whispering oak boughs was not the same as this in the studio. That had been simply bright and mobile, with a spice of espiéglerie; this was all alight and astir with genius. Miss Lyte's very hand partook of the transformation. Bergan had happened to notice its symmetrical shape, as revealed by a careless gesture, at their first meeting; but he now decided that it was not so much its beauty which had attracted his attention, as a certain peculiarity of delicate energy and adroitness, which ought of itself to have suggested its artistic skill.

Bergan's eye fell next on the pedestal of the Mercury, improvised by turning up on end the packing-box in which it had arrived. The lid lay on the floor, in two pieces, and was surmounted by a sturdy-looking hammer and chisel. Bergan's glance went back to that slender hand, with an unconscious question in it; which Astra was quick to understand.

"Why not?" said she, with a smile. "Of course, I might have called in old Cato to open the box; but he would have done it so slowly and awkwardly that I should have suffered tortures in watching him; it was easier to do it myself. To be sure," she went on, taking up the hammer and chisel, "these are not quite so fit for a lady's hands as the lighter and slenderer implements that I use in modelling; but I like them well, nevertheless. It would go hard with me, here in this quiet country town, away from all aids and appliances of art, if I were not on very good terms with purely mechanical labor. I made the mould, from which that cast was taken, myself;"—she pointed to the Mercury.

Bergan looked as if he scarcely understood.

"I suppose you are aware," pursued Astra, "that the word 'sculptor' is a misnomer, nowadays. The real sculpture—that is the marble-cutting—except a few finishing touches, is done by artisans skilled in that work. The plaster casts are made by regular casters, from moulds taken from clay models. These last, only, are the work of the artist throughout,—shaped by his fingers, and informed by his thought. See! here is the raw material of my work!"

She pointed to a large triangular box, in one corner of her closet, filled with fine, moist clay. She even leaned over it, and inhaled its earthy odor, with a kind of affection.

Bergan also looked into it so long, so silently, and with so meditative an aspect, that Miss Lyte finally interrupted the flow of his thoughts with a question as to their character.

"I was thinking," replied he, "of the many differing shapes,—lovely, grand, sorrowful, joyous, winning, repulsive,—that might be lurking within your tub. And I was wondering which of them you would next call forth."

"Think, rather," said Astra, smiling, "of all the shapes that I have sent into it."

"You do not mean to say that you use the same clay over again," exclaimed Bergan, in surprise.

"Certainly, I do. It loses none of its adaptability by use. In that tub is the original clay of everything that you see in my studio,—all the busts, statues, and reliefs, that I have ever done, or tried to do,—all my successes, and all my failures;—every one of them has gone into that tub, even as it came out of it."

"Creation and death!" exclaimed Bergan. "'Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.' It is a world in miniature!"

"And does it not also show that there is nothing new under the sun?" said Astra. "It is always the old material in new shapes, the old thought in new phraseology, the old human nature in new conditions, even the old particles of disintegrated human bodies in new organisms."

"And yet," remarked Bergan, musingly, "the spirit, the idea, that informed those bodies, and gave them identity, is not lost, as your Mercury shows plainly. The being that you have created lives, and glows with all his proper warmth and fire, even though his original substance has not only returned whence it came, but has helped to frame an entirely different being."

"The natural body and the spiritual body," returned Astra. "Not that the two processes are really analogous,—I do not mean that,—but one naturally suggests the other to the mind. And, seeing how I am thus able to accomplish a kind of resurrection, in a way that I understand, I do not find it difficult to believe that the Almighty can do it, in a way that I do not understand, and far more perfectly,—retaining not only the indwelling spirit, but enough of the individual clay to justify Job's saying, 'In my flesh I shall see God.'"

The thought kept them both silent, for a moment; then Bergan turned to see what else of interest was to be found in the studio.

The completed works were not many; Miss Lyte was still too young to have made a large accumulation of such things. There was a bust, with a very sweet and noble expression, wherein she had embodied her recollections of a fellow student in art. There was a half-sleepy, half-ashamed boy-face, looking out from under the shadow of a drooping hat, representing "Little Boy Blue," of nursery fame. There was a winged cherub, with an exceedingly lovely, innocent face,—a very incarnation of celestial joy and peace. In relief, there was a stout urchin, ankle-deep in water, laden with pond-lilies, and looking for more. Finally, there were innumerable studies, sketches, and designs, with all the warmth and freshness of the original inspiration lingering about them; which interested Bergan scarcely less than the finished work, as admitting him still more freely into the arcana of the artist's mind and method.

He was especially interested to observe in how many directions the genius of Miss Lyte had tried its wing. There were studies, and even finished pictures, in oil and in crayon; there was an exquisitely-cut cameo, fastened on a background of velvet; there were designs for stained-glass windows; and in all, there was a curious medley of subjects,—scriptural, mythological, historical, domestic, and still-life. It was plain that she had been slowly feeling her way to some point, where she could take her final stand, and see her life-work lying clear and fair before her. Had she found it? Looking at the Mercury, Bergan could almost believe that she had; but, glancing again at her deep, wistful eyes, he doubted it. A little more time, a profounder and wider experience, would settle her genius, fix her aims, and make her capable of things far higher than aught that she had yet achieved.

Meanwhile, never, he thought, was anything quite so inspiriting as her conversation. As she went with him from statue to statue, and sketch to sketch, talking frankly of her difficulties and struggles, her failures and successes, her aims and aspirations,—now dropping a fertile suggestion, now pointing out a subtile analogy, now giving the key-note to some elevating strain of thought,—she seemed to radiate energy, and exhale inspiration. Listening to her, Bergan's depression and discouragement vanished like mists before the sunshine. When he went back to his studio, it was with new strength and courage and ambition. Somehow, life had ceased to look unsympathizing, and success remote.

VII.
HIDDEN RICHES.

Up to this time, the history of Astra Lyte may be compressed into a few sentences. She was the daughter of Dr. Harvey Lyte, who had been, for many years, the leading physician of Berganton. Her artistic talent having early manifested itself, her father had taken pleasure in fostering and developing it; first, by giving her the benefit of whatever rudimentary instruction the neighborhood offered, and then, by affording her a year's enjoyment of the best art advantages to be procured in New York.

Little more than a year ago, however, the good doctor had been forced to succumb, in his own person, to the two powerful foes that he had spent his lifetime in battling for others,—namely, disease and death. His professional income necessarily dying with him, only a moderate provision remained for his family; enough to enable them to eat the bread of carefulness, but not sufficient to maintain them in the degree of easy comfort and luxury to which they had long been accustomed. In due time changes and sacrifices became necessary; among which may be mentioned the letting of the vacant medical office to Doctor Remy, and the subsequent handing over of other dispensable rooms to the occupancy of Bergan Arling.

Before this last arrangement was effected, however, Astra had gone to New York, to see what could be done to make her art productive of something besides pleasure. That had been a very bright moment, amid the gloom and straitness following upon her father's death, wherein it had occurred to her that she possessed in brain and fingers, in her wonderful power of kneading together thought and matter into beautiful and significant shapes, the means of restoring to her mother the ease and independence which had been impaired by her father's death. Never had her art looked so divine as when it cast aside the soft drapery of personal gratifications and aims, and stood forth a young athlete, eager for strife, a sturdy son of toil, ready to earn its bread by the sweat of its brow.

Not that Astra expected to win success all at once, or quickly. There was a vast deal of practicality underlying her imaginativeness and enthusiasm,—the solid foundation which is needed to make genius available. She foresaw (no one more clearly) the difficulties, delays, and disappointments, before her. But what of that? She was young; she was in good health; she had a courageous heart, an energetic temperament, and buoyant spirits; she could afford to work and wait. Her tastes were simple, her wants, outside the domain of art, few,—and, even there, deficiencies could be supplied, in a measure, by severe study and closer application. If the superior masters, the sojourn in Europe, to which she had looked forward, were denied her, she was not going to break her heart nor cloud her brow, about it. God, who had given her talent, would not leave it without due means of increase. Her duty was to work, to be brave, and to be cheerful; all else would come, in good time.

This, then, was the sort of a person who had now come to dwell under the same roof with Bergan; and who straightway set to work in her studio, which was divided from his office only by the airy breadth of the main hall. Of course, he saw her frequently; her art afforded them broader, freer ground upon which to meet than is always open to man and woman. Not that the proprieties need have been scandalized had Miss Lyte's occupation been the embroidering of roses in worsted, instead of the modelling of figures in clay; for the door between studio and sitting-room stood always open, and Mrs. Lyte, from her work-table, frequently threw a passing remark into the conversation that came so freely to her ears; while Cathie continually flashed in and out like a fire-fly or a humming bird. But the worsted roses would scarcely have constituted a subject of mutual interest for the young man and woman, as did the clay figures; nor would the talks over them have run so naturally, and almost inevitably, upon the same elevated and impersonal plane of thought. Setting the worker entirely aside, Bergan could not fail to be deeply interested in the work. He liked to understand its process, and watch its progress. It was wonderful to him to see the dull clay slowly taking the shape of the viewless, informing thought. He went back to his office, not only with a deeper comprehension of the respective functions of mind and matter, but with a wider view of their scope and influence. Words, he saw, were also a kind of plastic material, through which thought revealed itself to eye and ear. He began to study expression, as well as meaning; he selected words, and constructed sentences, with greater care and conscientiousness; he saw that, since thought could only become visible through form, form was a matter of more moment, and involved a stricter duty, than he had hitherto believed.

But if Bergan learned so much from the work, it must be acknowledged that he also learned something from the worker. She was so loyal to her art and her aims. She wrought with such cheerful diligence, such unwasting enthusiasm, and such thorough conscientiousness. Having done the best of which she was capable, she maintained such a steady front against the assaults of depression and discouragement, deploying their forces upon the wide space between her conception and her achievement. If she failed, she cheerfully declared that the failure had taught her more than any success could have done, and commenced anew; if she succeeded, she was soberly glad, as having gained an inch or two of the field,—over which, however, it might be long ere she could wave the banner of victory. The spectacle could not fail to have a healthful influence upon Bergan, inasmuch as Miss Lyte's patrons were not more numerous than his clients; he saw that she kept her face bright, and her spirit brave, under very real trials of limitation, delay, and disappointment. He always went to his own work with a stouter heart and steadier purpose, after watching hers for some moments; whether she merely retouched and revised the preceding day's labor, with minute, inexhaustible patience; or quietly gathered up the fragments of a model overtaken by sudden disaster; or moulded moist clay, with rapt face, eyes lit by a deep, inward fire, and fingers so swift and forceful as to suggest the guidance of some unseen power. In this last case, he did not disturb her by so much as a word. He only looked on in silence until her white heat of inspiration had kindled something like a kindred glow in his own mind; when he noiselessly stole out, to plunge into his own work with renewed ardor. We may well believe that, just at the moment when Bergan's lonely life and dim prospects were beginning to tell upon his spirits and energies, it was not without providential design that an object so inspiring and heartening as Astra Lyte in her studio, was placed before his eyes.

Nor was the benefit wholly on one side. Astra found real help and cheer in Bergan's intelligent interest and hearty appreciation. Moreover, he was quick to see whenever mechanical contrivance or manly strength could come to her aid; and he knew how to furnish both, in fit and delicate measure. His perceptions were scarcely less nice than her own; he knew just when to extend the helping hand, and when to withdraw it; neither hesitation nor officiousness marred his aid.

But Bergan was not the only visitor at the studio. Doctor Remy's straight-featured, intellectual face was often to be seen there, with its chill and satirical expression half-obliterated by a look of kindly interest. And his aid was not less ready than Bergan's, and, perhaps, more valuable. Hints and criticisms, suggested by his profound anatomical and physiological knowledge, often came just in time to prevent a blunder, or clinch a success.

So time rolled on, for another month or two, doing much for the growth of acquaintance, and even a degree of intimacy, between the artist, the lawyer, and the physician, thus thrown together under one roof, but very little for the pecuniary advantage of the two former. Astra had received a commission for a small portrait-medallion; Bergan had been employed to draw up a few law-papers. The two often exchanged good-humored jests upon the manifest ability of the world to get on without their help. But it was a much more serious matter for the young man than the maiden. Astra had understood that, Art being a luxury, it must first create the demand which it meant to supply; but Bergan knew well that law was neither unknown nor unsought, in Berganton. Courts were held, and lawyers gathered, there; it was strange that so little of the work came to his hands. Meanwhile, the funds with which he had been supplied, on leaving home, were rapidly melting away; and he was unwilling to apply for more, both because he desired to be self-dependent, and disliked to admit failure.

He was sitting in his office, one afternoon, dividing his thoughts between his books and the unpromising state of his affairs, when there came a cautious knock at the door.

"Come in!" he called out, wondering if his long-expected client were about to present himself.

First, appeared a black hand and a nondescript hat; next, a woolly head and a wide, delighted grin; finally, a loose, slouching form, in a shapeless suit of plantation gray. No client was this. It was only his would-be property, Brick.

Perhaps Bergan's disappointment showed itself in his countenance, for the negro hastily began to explain the reason of his coming.

"Gramma Rue, she sent me, massa. She don't feel right smart, dese yere times, an' she say she tink her days drawin' to her close, an' she's mighty anxious to see you, massa, 'fore she done gone. So she tole me to ax you, could n' you come to yer ole room in de Hall, some ob dese yere ebenins, jes' so's to gib her a chance to talk wid you. Ole massa need n' know nothin' 'bout it; he's allers safe 'nough in de cottage dem times. An' she hopes you'll hab de kin'ness to come, 'case she's got suthin' bery partic'lar to say to you."

Bergan hesitated. He could not visit the old Hall without reviving painful recollections; besides, it did not suit his natural straightforwardness to go thither in a half-clandestine way. Yet how could he refuse the urgent request of Maumer Rue, weighted not only with the probability of coming death, but with the consideration of her long, faithful, life service of his mother's family? And, after all, there was no great harm in a visit to the deserted Hall, to gratify an old, infirm, attached dependent. He certainly need do no skulking; if he chanced to come upon his uncle, he could fairly and frankly face both him and the situation.

Accordingly, he directed his evening stroll toward Bergan Hall. It was an obscure night of late March. A gray veil of cloud covered the wide expanse of sky, from horizon to zenith; through which only the faintest light struggled, to guide his steps up the ruined avenue. He could not but be reminded of his first forlorn coming upon the desolate scene; even though he was obliged to confess that, in some respects, matters were mending. Though the Hall stood silent and ruinous as before, under the sighing oaks, it was not wholly dark. An arch of light shone above the doorway, and a second gleam came invitingly from the window of the room that he had once called his own. The door, too, yielded readily to his pressure. At this rate of improvement, a few years might easily transform the shadow-haunted old ruin into a cheery, heartwarm home.

It was only a passing thought, and did not slacken in the least the light, quick step with which he ran up to his old room. Rue had done her best to give it a look of home and welcome. A fire blazed on the hearth, and reddened the walls; his favorite arm-chair was drawn before it; near by, stood a round table, with two tall candles, a few scattered books, and a tray of refreshments. It all looked strangely familiar:—there was the secretary at which he had written his letters home; there was the book that he had been reading, with his mark between the leaves; there was the flute, so few of whose long-prisoned harmonies he had been able to set free. Was it really five months since he saw them last?

Rue was not in the room when he entered it; it did not suit her notion of their respective positions to assume any quality of hostess. But she almost immediately appeared, and greeted him with tearful affection and respect. Bergan looked at her narrowly, and was pained to see that her tall form had lost much of its old erect stateliness, and that she leaned heavily on her cane as she walked. Still, there was no sign of immediate loosing of the silver life-cord; on the whole, he thought that she bore her heavy burden of years wonderfully well, and the thought came naturally to his lips.

"It may seem so," replied the old woman, with a slow shake of her head, "but I feel a greater change than you can see, Master Bergan. Till now, I never knew anything about the chill or the heaviness of age; it has come upon me all at once. I do not think, any more than you do, that the end itself is close at hand; but the beginning of the end is certainly here. Let it come as soon as the Lord wills; He knows I'm ready. Only it is borne in upon me that there's something more for me to do for the family, before I leave their service; though I cannot rightly see what. Sometimes I am almost sure that it's just to see that you are put into your rightful place as the master of Bergan Hall. If that is all that I am waiting for, I wish it might be done quickly. Couldn't you make up your mind to come back here now, if Master Harry would ask you kindly? I know I can get him to do it."

"Indeed, I could not, maumer," answered Bergan, quietly, but very firmly. "I am not yet in a position to treat with my uncle, on equal terms. And I am less than ever inclined to be dependent upon him, or any one. Let me beg you to give yourself no further care or thought in the matter."

Rue sighed deeply. There was something in the young man's tone that forestalled either argument or entreaty.

"Pardon an old woman's curiosity," she said, at length, "but, are you very much nearer to independence than when you left here?"

"I cannot say that I am."

"Do you have much to do, in the way of your profession?"

"I could easily do more." There was a slight dryness in Bergan's intonation, that did not escape the blind woman's quick ear.

"Come with, me, please; I have something to show you," said she, turning toward the door. "You had better bring a light, too; you will need it, though I do not."

She led the way to a large room on the other side of the hall,—the bed-chamber (and death-chamber, too) of the mansion's departed owners. It was lined, from floor to ceiling, with carved and panelled wainscoting. Rue went straightway to one side, not far from the mantel, ran her fingers carefully over the dark, uneven surface, and finally pressed hard on a projecting point.

"Now, Master Bergan," said she, pointing to a great, carved acorn, "take hold of that, and push this way."

Bergan obeyed, and a considerable portion of the wainscoting slid easily to one side, disclosing a small room or closet, so artfully contrived between wall and chimney, that its existence could never have been suspected. It was lighted and ventilated by a window, and furnished with an armchair and a massive, old-fashioned secretary. Rue opened one of the compartments of the latter, and revealed several small canvas bags, which, it was easy to see, contained gold and silver coin.

Bergan was naturally a good deal surprised at sight of the hidden hoard. It seemed scarcely credible that any man in his senses should care to lay up such idle store of the precious metals, which might otherwise be profitably employed in an easy process of self-augmentation. Still, he knew enough of his uncle's surly and suspicious character, and of his distrust of banks (which he had once heard him characterize as "ready sinks for fools' money"), to leave only room for a passing wonder.

"I have brought you here, Master Bergan," said Rue, solemnly, "because this secret rightly belongs to you, as the future master of the Hall. It is the duty of each owner to make it known to his heir, on his deathbed, or earlier. The place was contrived by Sir Harry, because there was something like it in the English Bergan Hall, which served for a hiding place for men and women in troublous times; and he provided for the keeping and handing down of the secret, in the same way as it, had been done there. It was only to be known to the owner and the heir."

"Then how came you to know it?" asked Bergan.

"I will tell you. When the third Harry Bergan was at the point of death, his heir was in Europe. The person whom he most trusted, in the world, was his body-servant, Cato. He gave the secret to him, to be kept till the heir's return. Cato was my great-great-great grandfather. He thought the same thing might happen again, and the secret be lost; so, on his deathbed, he told it to his son, and the son told it to his son, and so on, till my father, who had no son, told it to me. So, you see, the secret has run down in the black blood alongside of the white blood, and been kept just as sacredly. But the white blood has never known it till now; when I tell it to you, because I have no child living, and Brick is still too young to be trusted with such a matter."

"What a strange circumstance!" said Bergan, deeply interested. "Has the place ever been used except as a storeroom for valuables?"

"Only once, to my knowledge. During the Revolution, Colonel Bergan was hidden here some days, when a party of British were quartered on the premises,—some of the same party that Sergeant Jasper afterwards captured."

She paused for a moment, while Bergan silently looked round the narrow walls; and then she resumed.

"You see what use Master Harry makes of the place. And perhaps you know him well enough to understand that he will never tell any one where he keeps his money, until his breath is almost out of his body. That is why I brought you here. I cannot expect to outlive him; and if he should die suddenly, or with the secret only half-way off his tongue, it would die with him."

"Perhaps you have done well," said Bergan, after a moment of thought. "Certainly, I shall regard it only as a trust for the future owner of the Hall, whoever he may be."

"He will be none other than yourself," returned Rue, decidedly. "I only wish I were as certain of the time, as I am of the fact. And now," she continued, pointing to the bags of coin, "take as much of that as you need. Master Harry will never miss it; I don't think he ever counts it over, he is so sure that it is safe here. And it will all be your own some day."

"What do you mean!" exclaimed Bergan, angrily, starting back. "Do you take me for a thief?"

"Of course not, Master Bergan, of course not," answered Rue, earnestly and deprecatingly, laying her hand on his arm. "It is only because I know that it will be yours in time; and as Master Harry does not need it nor use it, why shouldn't you have the good of it now, when you need it more than you ever may again? If it suits you better, take it as a loan, and pay it back, when you are able."

"No! no!" said Bergan, turning hurriedly away, "it is impossible. You mean kindly, I know, Maumer Rue, but you do not seem to understand the facts. I have no more right to it than any stranger; I could not touch it, to save me from starving. Come, let us go! I have seen enough."

"I believe you are right," said Rue, after a pause, "and I am a foolish old woman. I could not bear to think that my dear Miss Eleanor's son was pinching himself, in the least, when there was so much idle gold in the old house; but I see you are right, sir; and I beg your pardon."

It was not without a sense of relief that Bergan soon after closed the door of the old Hall behind him, and stepped out into the cool, fresh night air. Not that he had suffered any real trial of temptation,—his principles were too true and firm for that;—but there had been something in the whole sombre scene—the deserted, death-scented chamber, the concealed closet, the hoarded gold—that had left him with a sense of oppression, which kept its hold of him all the way home.

It was late when he reached his office. To his surprise, it was not empty. A gentleman was sitting by the table, with a pile of papers before him, and a weary, discontented face, as if his waiting had outlasted his patience.

Bergan's heart gave a great leap. He divined that his long-looked-for client was before him!

VIII.
THE WIND CHANGES.

"Good evening, Squire," said the stranger, in a deep voice,—a voice that would have been gruff, but for the melodizing influences of the soft southern climate. "My name is Corlew—John Corlew, of Williston. I came to see if you would consent to take charge of a case of mine, which is to be called to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" repeated Bergan, in much surprise. "That is very short notice."

"I know it. But it is of the greatest consequence to me that the case should be tried at this time, and not carried over to another term. It was in the hands of Squire Fielder, one of our Williston lawyers; but he was taken sick this afternoon,—fell down in court, some brain difficulty or other,—and is forbidden by the physicians to do a thing. So I inquired for a lawyer that hadn't got his hands full of business, and somebody mentioned you. I remembered your name; I happened to be North five years ago, and heard your Commencement speech, and knew what sort of a reputation you graduated with; so I quickly made up my mind that you were the man for my need. I've brought all the papers,—Squire Fielder's notes and all,—he couldn't well do less than give them to me, under the circumstances. I understand matters pretty well myself; and we've got the night before us. If you'll undertake to master the case by ten o'clock to-morrow morning, I am willing to put it in your hands."

"I will do my best," said Bergan, after a brief consideration.

Mr. Corlew immediately began to open and sort his papers; Bergan brought writing materials, drew his chair to the opposite side of the table, and bent all the powers of his mind to the hard task before him. It was an action for ejectment, involving trial of title, and with the usual mixed and intricate character of such things; interwoven, too, with a pathetic story of misfortune. Bergan patiently examined and questioned; Mr. Corlew intelligently explained and answered. The investigation was scarce half concluded, when Bergan quietly pushed Mr. Fielder's notes aside.

"They do not help me," he explained, in answer to a glance from Mr. Corlew, "In my judgment, he has mistaken the point on which the case really hangs. At all events, I shall do better to manage it in my own way."

Midnight came and went on silent feet; the "wee, sma' hours," sacred to love rather than law, hastened, one after another, to join their numerous kin in the misty vale of the Heretofore; the stars went out like spent lamps; the dim night-silence began to stir with vague premonitions of light and sound; finally, gray dawn looked solemnly in through the windows. Then Bergan lifted his head, and pushed back the hair from his brow.

"Now leave me," he said to his companion, with unwonted sombreness. "The rest must be done by myself. I will meet you at the court-house, in good time."

He made an almost imperceptible pause. Then, looking Mr. Corlew full in the face, he said, in a tone half-assertive, half-questioning;—

"You wish to succeed in this suit?"

Mr. Corlew's eyes fell under his penetrating gaze. "Of course I do," he answered a little surlily. "What else am I here for?"

Bergan seemed to muse for a moment. "Well," said he, at length, in the tone of a man who recalls his thoughts from an episodical flight to the main subject, "I think you may reasonably expect success, if your witnesses testify as is here set down. The law is clearly in your favor."

"I am glad to hear it," returned Mr. Corlew, heartily. Yet he looked slightly annoyed, none the less; and his "Good morning," as he went out, was a little stiff.

Bergan leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and knitted his brow. He looked like a man assailed by some miserable doubt or suspicion, which yet he is half-inclined to regard, as illegitimate.

"It is a necessity of my profession," he muttered, at last; and, with a mighty effort, he tore himself free from the teasing phantom, and addressed himself anew to his work.

There is no need to burden these pages with the tedious formalities of a trial at law. Suffice it to say that Bergan conducted the case with an ease and ability that surprised his legal associates. They had looked for some nervousness, some hesitation, some solicitude, some awkwardness, in the manner of the young legal débutant; they could detect nothing of the sort. He made his opening speech with consummate clearness and composure; and he examined and cross-examined witnesses, quoted authorities, took exceptions, and made points, with a quiet ease, and even, at times, with a touch of listlessness, that argued excellent training and profound knowledge.

Perhaps his quietude of manner was the more perfect, that a slight cloud hung on his brow, all through the two days of the trial; though his observers were too little acquainted with the wonted expression of his face to discover it. Not till he rose to make his final speech did the shadow lift. Then, indeed, the spectators noticed a change. He had spoken but a few sentences, when his eyes kindled, his brow cleared, his voice gathered fulness and melody, he forgot himself and his doubt in the glow of an irresistible inspiration, in the glad exercise of a natural gift of oratory so wondrous, so unexpected, and so potent, that court and spectator were alike taken by storm. Only in dim tradition had such a speech ever been heard in that court room,—so fluent, so animated, so skilfully throwing an ideal grace around dry, bare legal facts, without dimming their outline or destroying their logical connection. People held their breath to listen, unwilling to lose one delicate shade of thought, one fit, luminous expression. Two or three times, the judge was forced to suppress outbursts of applause, in which, nevertheless, his pleased and interested face concurred; and when Bergan took his seat, gray-headed lawyers stretched their hands across the table in hearty congratulation.

A verdict for his client was almost immediately rendered. Then he stepped out into the crowd, to be met on all sides by extended hands and enthusiastic compliments. People that had always studiously avoided him, now sought to catch his eye; gentlemen who had never vouchsafed him more than a stiff nod, now waited to give him a friendly hand-grasp and a few congratulatory words. One of the magnates of the neighborhood publicly stamped him, as it were, with the seal of his high approbation, by engaging him for a few moments in conversation, and then parting from him with an intimation that he might expect an early invitation to dinner.

Turning away from the dog-day smile of this personage,—late and sultry,—Bergan encountered the meaning gaze of a pair of blear eyes.

"Sudden change of weather," remarked Dick Causton, dryly. "'it never rains but it pours.' You are in a heavy shower, Mr. Arling."

And with unwonted consideration, Dick waited till Bergan had passed on, before he muttered, "In picciol tempo passa ogni gran pioggia,—a heavy shower is soon over."

Dr. Remy came next. "I never sing in chorus," said he, shrugging his shoulders, and putting his hands behind him; "I shall keep my compliments for a day of dearth. But what a weathercock is public opinion!"

Yet the change was not altogether so sudden and radical as it appeared. Bergan's upright, independent course of conduct, so quietly persisted in, through all these months, despite every discouragement, had at last begun to tell upon the prejudices of the community. Mrs. Lyte's warm advocacy and indignant protest, in her small circle, had also had its weight. Probably both would have availed much earlier, but for the curiously infelicitous language in which Dr. Remy had all along chosen to couch his responses to such persons as had approached him in relation to Bergan's character and habits.

"As talented a fellow as ever lived," he replied to one inquirer,—"and as deep a one. Ah! he knows well what he's about!"

"Sober?" he answered another,—"certainly; as sober as an anchorite. I hope he will keep so."

"Mr. Arling is my neighbor and friend, as friendship goes," he said to another; "I neither make, nor listen to, derogatory remarks about him. If you want confirmation for your prejudice, go elsewhere. I am not in that line."

Intentionally or not, Dr. Remy's cool cynicism rather damaged than helped Bergan's cause.

Nevertheless, the steadfast testimony of his upright life remained, and could not be wholly ignored. The feeling was fast becoming general that the young man deserved somewhat better at the hands of the community than he had received. And the feeling would doubtless have manifested itself in good time, and with due caution, if Bergan's unexampled success in the court-room had not fairly dazzled out of sight the last lingering shadow of prejudice, and caused a popular reaction toward the other extreme of enthusiastic admiration and approval,—a reaction all the stronger because spurred on by a lurking sense of past injustice.

Moreover, the little, sleepy town, whose intellectual brilliants were few, and not of the first water, naturally felt that it could not afford to ignore the fine talent which had so suddenly blazed out in its midst, and which might be regarded as, in some sense, of its own creation.

"He really belongs to us, you know," remarked one townsman proudly to another. "He comes of the Bergans of Bergan Hall, on the mother's side,—good old aristocratic stock. And he's an honor to it!"

And so, as has been said before, Bergan's exit from the court-room was a scene of triumph that might easily have turned an older head, and quickened the beating of a chiller heart.

But Bergan took it all quietly, gravely,—almost indifferently. The cloud had settled back upon his brow, and never stirred for any compliment, or congratulation, or friendliness. Most persons attributed it to wounded pride, not yet healed. In the midst of the ovation, they believed that he kept a rankling remembrance of the coldness and neglect which had preceded it. One observer only, a little clearer eyed than the rest, said to him:—

"You look tired."

"And well he may!" responded Mr. Corlew, standing by with a face of unalloyed satisfaction. "He never saw the case until evening before last; and he has not slept for two nights."

There was another, and a stronger, burst of admiration, mingled with wonder; but the complacent, satisfied tone of Mr. Corlew's voice only deepened the shadow on Bergan's brow. Quickly extricating himself from both crowd and client, he walked swiftly home, meditating, as he went, upon the seeming churlishness of human existence, in that it never gives us what we want, or gives it only in such way and shape as to neutralize its sweetness.

What, then, was the drop of bitterness in his cup of triumph?

Not the paltry pride that had been attributed to him, nor yet the depressing reaction that comes after excitement, but an uneasy suspicion that he had helped to do an injustice. He had discovered,—or seemed to discover,—as the intricacies of the recent case had unfolded themselves before him, that law and justice stood on opposite sides of it. Of his client's legal right to the property in dispute, admitting his statements to be true, there seemed to be no question; but of his moral right to it, as well as of his own personal integrity, and that of his principal witness, Bergan had grave doubts. And these doubts had followed him, and planted a heavy footstep on his conscience, all the way down through the trial. For he was still young, his personal conscience tender, and his professional one undeveloped. His duty as a man, and his duty as a lawyer, had not yet distinctly separated themselves into opposing segments.

So, while the whole town was ringing with the fame of his successful legal début, he sat moodily in his office, a prey to troubled and half-regretful thought, until Sleep, so long defrauded of her rights, stole upon him in his chair, and held him fast prisoned in her soft embrace.

IX.
THE FIRST LINKS OF A CHAIN.

"I don't beg pardon for disturbing you," said Doctor Remy, giving the sleeper a vigorous shake. "You are in as fair a way to catch your death of cold, a your worst enemy could wish you to be."

Bergan slowly opened his eyes and stared vacantly around him. The doctor's words, though they had reached his ears, had not penetrated to his understanding. As yet, he was but half cognizant of his whereabouts, not at all of his circumstances.

"Come, up with you!" persisted the doctor, "and take a turn round the room, to get the chill out of your Mood. Man alive! what were you thinking of, to go to sleep before that window, with such a damp wind blowing in?"

"I did not mean to," responded Bergan, drowsily. And his eyes closed again.

"Did not mean to!" repeated Doctor Remy, in a tone of ineffable contempt. "You might at least have vouchsafed me a newer excuse: that is worn threadbare. It has served the whole human race, from Eve over her apple, down to Cathie over her last broken doll. Nobody 'means' to do anything. Except me—I 'mean' to wake you up." And the doctor gave Bergan another uncompromising shake.

"It is so good to sleep!" remonstrated the young man, in the same drowsy tone.

"It is so good to have the rheumatism, or that cream of delights known hereabout as the broken-bone fever!" returned the doctor, with cool irony. "However," he added, indifferently, turning away, "chacun à son goût."

"You surely do not mean to leave him, in that way, Doctor," said a rebuking voice, beneath the window. Miss Lyte, fastening up a rosebush, in the dusk outside, had heard the whole.

"Certainly not, if it pleases you to wish otherwise," replied the doctor, gallantly.

And returning to the charge, Doctor Remy did not remit his efforts until he had gotten the half-vexed young man upon his feet, and forced him to pace two or three times up and down the office. Thereupon Bergan was fain to avow that his limbs were stiff and sore, and he had no mind for further exercise.

"Just as I expected," said the doctor, calmly.

Without further words, he marched Bergan off to bed, and did not let him alone, until, by dint of various outward and inward applications, he had restored natural warmth and circulation to his chilled, benumbed frame. In doing this, the young man was effectually roused; and memory and thought came back with consciousness.

"Doctor," said he, suddenly, "I almost envy you your profession."

"Why?"

"Because, as you told me at our first meeting, your duty is always plainly one thing—to save life."

"Humph! it seems to me that yours is equally plain—to save your client."

"What! whether his cause be right or wrong?"

"I save life, whether it be good or evil—a thief's or a saint's."

Bergan was silent for a moment. He felt the sophistry, but could not, on the instant, detect wherein it lay. He allowed himself to be diverted from the main question by a side issue.

"You say that you save life," said he, "but do you feel that it is really you? Are you never conscious of a power above you, without whose help your efforts would avail nothing?"

"Granted, for the sake of argument," replied Doctor Remy, composedly. "Then you may believe that it is not your efforts which gain a cause, but the 'power above,' of which you speak."

It is not often that a side issue leads so directly back to the main point as in this instance, thanks to Doctor Remy's mode of treating it. "I see," said Bergan, musingly, "the difference is in the intent. Of course, God does decide the event, or consequence,—that is beyond us. He can frustrate our best efforts, or crown them with success, as He pleases. Our business, then, is with motives—and aims—and means." (The last clauses came slowly, and in the natural, if not the logical, order of thought.) "It is only after we have made sure that those three are right," he went on, "that we are freed from responsibility, and can comfortably leave results to God."

"All very fine," returned Doctor Remy, coolly. "But it seems to me that our motives, means, and aims (that is to say, yours and mine) are the same. Motive, love of life; means, a profession; aim, money,—which though in itself only a means, is the most convenient representative of all that it will buy; that is, all that supports life, and enhances its enjoyments."

"I hope you are not serious," replied Bergan, gravely. "I should be sorry to think that any man—much less a man with your talent, culture, and opportunities for benefiting his fellows—could be satisfied with so poor an ambition as that."

Doctor Remy slightly raised his eyebrows. "My dear fellow," said he, "if you do not follow your profession for the sake of the money that you expect it to bring you, what do you follow it for?"

"Money is one object, of course," answered Bergan, "but I hope it is not the only one, nor even the chief one. When my mind takes a leap into the future, it is not so much fees that I think of, as wrongs to be redressed, and rights to be protected, and influence to be gained and exercised,—yes, and fame and independence to be won."

"All very good things," returned Doctor Remy, smiling; "and all very dependent on those same fees, of which you think so little. Without money, you will not do much for right, nor against wrong; neither can you be independent, or famous, or influential."

"I do not know about that," rejoined Bergan, smiling. "Certainly, it was not his riches that made Diogenes independent. Neither does the name of Howard borrow any of its lustre from gold. Nor—to come down to our own time—is Mr. Islay influential on account of his wealth."

"Mr. Islay influential!" repeated Doctor Remy, contemptuously. "In what way, let me ask?"

"In a hundred ways. Every week, his words, his thoughts, go into scores of hearts and homes, for warning, for comfort, for inspiration; and reappear constantly in human lives. Certain sentences of his last Sunday's sermon have been ringing in my ears all day. And only three or four days ago, Miss Lyte, under the influence of that suggestive discourse, asked me how far I thought one was justified in a purely negative use of a talent,—that is, in merely refraining from doing harm, rather than trying actively to do good. And these are only two examples, you see, where there are doubtless many."

"Priests easily influence women," said the doctor, scornfully.

"Women!" exclaimed Bergan, stretching out a stalwart arm toward the doctor. "Are not those the muscles and sinews of a man?"

"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor, laughing, "I had forgotten what was the first of your two examples. Still, that sort of influence would never suffice for me. If I cared for anything of the kind, it would be for power,—direct, absolute power over men's acts and lives. But as that belongs only to kings and generals, I am content to do with—"

He hesitated.

"Well, what?" said Bergan.

"Wealth—when I get it," answered the doctor. "Wealth, and what it brings; ease, leisure, unlimited opportunity and means for the cultivation of the intellect."

"The intellect, then, is your final object, your ultimate good?" said Bergan.

"Yes; it is the one thing which distinguishes man from the brutes," replied the doctor.

"With the soul," rejoined Bergan.

"A word without an idea," returned the doctor,—"unless, indeed, you mean to apply it to that life-principle, which belongs to plants and animals, as well as men."

Bergan looked amazed. "Do you really make no distinction," he asked, "between mind and soul?"

"None. To me, they are synonymous terms."

"Is it from the intellect, then," said Bergan, "that the moral sense comes?"

Doctor Remy's lips opened for a reply, but closed again in silence. And, knowing that he was never at a loss for a rejoinder, Bergan suspected that the words so suddenly cut off from utterance were of a franker character than his second thought approved. Before his less impromptu answer was ready, Bergan, following out some rapid, unexplained train of thought, asked;—

"Doctor, did you ever feel remorse?"

"Never. That is a disease. I am in health."

"But, doctor," persisted Bergan, "should you call that a healthy body, which was incapable of feeling pain? Should you not rather say that it was paralyzed, or ossified?"

"Just as I should say that it was inflamed, if mere pressure caused it acute pain," answered Doctor Remy.

Bergan looked unconvinced.

"I do not mean that I never feel regret," explained the doctor. "I have often been angry with myself for having been guilty of a mistake."

"A mistake," repeated Bergan, doubtfully. "Do you mean a sin?"

"I will not be particular about terms," replied Doctor Remy, shrugging his shoulders. "But I prefer my own, as better expressing my ideas."

Bergan looked a little bewildered. The doctor again condescended to explain.

"Like you," said he, "I hold it to be every man's duty to make the most of his life,—his talents, time, and health. If he so act as to hinder the development, or impair the value and efficiency, of any of these, does it make any practical difference whether we call it a sin or a mistake?"

"None," answered Bergan, with scorn that he could not repress; "except that it narrows everything,—aim, responsibility, hope, faith, desire, and fulfilment,—down to man's miserable self!"