Читать книгу Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation - Bret Harte - Страница 4

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Mr. Joshua Rylands had, according to the vocabulary of his class, “found grace” at the age of sixteen, while still in the spiritual state of “original sin” and the political one of Missouri. He had not indeed found it by persistent youthful seeking or spiritual insight, but somewhat violently and turbulently at a camp-meeting. A village boy, naturally gentle and impressible, with an original character—limited, however, in education and experience—he had, after his first rustic debauch with some vulgar companions, fallen upon the camp-meeting in reckless audacity; and instead of being handed over to the district constable, was taken in and placed upon “the anxious bench,” “rastled with,” and exhorted by a strong revivalist preacher, “convicted of sin,” and—converted! It is doubtful if the shame of a public arrest and legal punishment would have impressed his youthful spirit as much as did this spiritual examination and trial, in which he himself became accuser. Howbeit, its effect, though punitive, was also exemplary. He at once cast off his evil companions; remaining faithful to his conversion, in spite of their later “backslidings.” When, after the Western fashion, the time came for him to forsake his father's farm and seek a new “quarter section” on some more remote frontier, he carried into that secluded, lonely, half-monkish celibacy of pioneer life—which has been the foundation of so much strong Western character—more than the usual religious feeling. At once industrious and adventurous, he lived by “the Word,” as he called it, and Nature as he knew it—tempted by none of the vices or sentiments of civilization. When he finally joined the Californian emigration, it was not as a gold-seeker, but as a discoverer of new agricultural fields; if the hardship was as great and the rewards fewer, he nevertheless knew that he retained his safer isolation and independence of spirit. Vice and civilization were to him synonymous terms; it was the natural condition of the worldly and unregenerate. Such was the man who chanced to meet “Nell Montgomery, the Pearl of the Variety Stage,” on the Sacramento boat, in one of his forced visits to civilization. Without knowing her in her profession, her frank exposition of herself did not startle him; he recognized it, accepted it, and strove to convert it. And as long as this daughter of Folly forsook her evil ways for him, it was a triumph in which there was no shame, and might be proclaimed from the housetop. When his neighbors thought differently, and avoided them, he saw no inconsistency in bringing his wife's old friends to divert her: she might in time convert THEM. He had no more fear of her returning to their ways than he had of himself “backsliding.” Narrow as was his creed, he had none of the harshness nor pessimism of the bigot. With the keenest self-scrutiny, his credulity regarding others was touching.

The storm was still raging when he alighted that evening from the up coach at the trail nearest his house. Although incumbered with a heavy carpet-bag, he started resignedly on his two-mile tramp without begrudging the neighborly act of his wife which had deprived him of his horse. It was “like her” to do these things in her good-humored abstraction, an abstraction, however, that sometimes worried him, from the fear that it indicated some unhappiness with her present lot. He was longing to rejoin her after his absence of three days, the longest time they had been separated since their marriage, and he hurried on with a certain lover-like excitement, quite new to his usually calm and temperate blood.

Struggling with the storm and darkness, but always with the happy consciousness of drawing nearer to her in that struggle, he labored on, finding his perilous way over the indistinguishable trail by certain landmarks in the distance, visible only to his pioneer eye. That heavier shadow to the right was not the hillside, but the SLOPE to the distant hill; that low, regular line immediately before him was not a fence or wall, but the line of distant gigantic woods, a mile from his home. Yet as he began to descend the slope towards the wood, he stopped and rubbed his eyes. There was distinctly a light in it. His first idea was that he had lost the trail and was nearing the woodman Mackinnon's cabin. But a more careful scrutiny revealed to him that it was really the wood, and the light was a camp-fire. It was a rough night for camping out, but they were probably some belated prospectors.

When he had reached the fringe of woodland, he could see quite plainly that the fire was built beside one of the large pines, and that the little encampment, which looked quite comfortable and secluded from the storm-beaten trail, was occupied apparently by a single figure. By the good glow of the leaping fire, that figure standing erect before it, elegantly shaped, in the graceful folds of a serape, looked singularly romantic and picturesque, and reminded Joshua Rylands—whose ideas of art were purely reminiscent of boyish reading—of some picture in a novel. The heavy black columns of the pines, glancing out of the concave shadow, also seemed a fitting background to what might have been a scene in a play. So strongly was he impressed by it that but for his anxiety to reach his home, still a mile distant, and the fact that he was already late, he would have penetrated the wood and the seclusion of the stranger with an offer of hospitality for the night. The man, however, was evidently capable of taking care of himself, and the outline of a tethered horse was faintly visible under another tree. It might be a surveyor or engineer—the only men of a better class who were itinerant.

But another and even greater surprise greeted him as he toiled up the rocky slope towards his farmhouse. The windows of the sitting-room, which were usually blank and black by night, were glittering with unfamiliar light. Like most farmers, he seldom used the room except for formal company, his wife usually avoiding it, and even he himself now preferred the dining-room or the kitchen. His first suggestion that his wife had visitors gave him a sense of pleasure on her account, mingled, however, with a slight uneasiness of his own which he could not account for. More than that, as he approached nearer he could hear the swell of the organ above the roar of the swaying pines, and the cadences were not of a devotional character. He hesitated for a moment, as he had hesitated at the fire in the woods; yet it was surely his own house! He hurried to the door, opened it; not only the light of the sitting-room streamed into the hall, but the ruddier glow of an actual fire in the disused grate! The familiar dark furniture had been rearranged to catch some of the glow and relieve its sombreness. And his wife, rising from the music-stool, was the room's only occupant!

Mrs. Rylands gazed anxiously and timidly at her husband's astonished face, as he threw off his waterproof and laid down his carpet-bag. Her own face was a little flurried with excitement, and his, half hidden in his tawny beard, and, possibly owing to his self-introspective nature, never spontaneously sympathetic, still expressed only wonder! Mrs. Rylands was a little frightened. It is sometimes dangerous to meddle with a man's habits, even when he has grown weary of them.

“I thought,” she began hesitatingly, “that it would be more cheerful for you in here, this stormy evening. I thought you might like to put your wet things to dry in the kitchen, and we could sit here together, after supper, alone.”

I am afraid that Mrs. Rylands did not offer all her thoughts. Ever since Mr. Hamlin's departure she had been uneasy and excited, sometimes falling into fits of dejection, and again lighting up into hysterical levity; at other times carefully examining her wardrobe, and then with a sudden impulse rushing downstairs again to give orders for her husband's supper, and to make the extraordinary changes in the sitting-room already noted. Only a few moments before he arrived, she had covertly brought down a piece of music, and put aside the hymn-books, and taken, with a little laugh, a pack of cards from her pocket, which she placed behind the already dismantled vase on the chimney.

“I reckoned you had company, Ellen,” he said gravely, kissing her.

“No,” she said quickly. “That is,” she stopped with a sudden surge of color in her face that startled her, “there was—a man—here, in the kitchen—who had a lame horse, and who wanted to get a fresh one. But he went away an hour ago. And he wasn't in this room—at least, after it was fixed up. So I've had no company.”

She felt herself again blushing at having blushed, and a little terrified. There was no reason for it. But for Jack's warning, she would have been quite ready to tell her husband all. She had never blushed before him over her past life; why she should now blush over seeing Jack, of all people! made her utter a little hysterical laugh. I am afraid that this experienced little woman took it for granted that her husband knew that if Jack or any man had been there as a clandestine lover, she would not have blushed at all. Yet with all her experience, she did not know that she had blushed simply because it was to Jack that she had confessed that she loved the man before her. Her husband noted the blush as part of her general excitement. He permitted her to drag him into the room and seat him before the hearth, where she sank down on one knee to pull off his heavy rubber boots. But he waved her aside at this, pulled them off with his own hands, and let her take them to the kitchen and bring back his slippers. By this time a smile had lighted up his hard face. The room was certainly more comfortable and cheerful. Still he was a little worried; was there not in these changes a falling away from the grace of self-abnegation which she had so sedulously practiced?

When supper was served by Jane, in the dull dining-room, Mr. Rylands, had he not been more engaged in these late domestic changes, might have noticed that the Missouri girl waited upon him with a certain commiserating air that was remarkable by its contrast with the frigid ceremonious politeness with which she attended her mistress. It had not escaped Mrs. Rylands, however, who ever since Jack's abrupt departure had noticed this change in the girl's demeanor to herself, and with a woman's intuitive insight of another woman, had fathomed it. The comfortable tete-a-tete with Jack, which Jane had looked forward to, Mrs. Rylands had anticipated herself, and then sent him off! When Joshua thanked his wife for remembering the pepper-sauce, and Mrs. Rylands pathetically admitted her forgetfulness, the head-toss which Jane gave as she left the room was too marked to be overlooked by him. Mrs. Rylands gave a hysterical little laugh. “I am afraid Jane doesn't like my sending away the expressman just after I had also dismissed the stranger whom she had taken a fancy to, and left her without company,” she said unwisely.

Mr. Rylands did not laugh. “I reckon,” he returned slowly, “that Jane must feel kinder lonely; she bears all the burden of our bein' outer the world, without any of our glory in the cause of it.”

Nevertheless, when supper was over, and the pair were seated in the sitting-room before the fire, this episode was forgotten. Mrs. Rylands produced her husband's pipe and tobacco-pouch. He looked around the formal walls and hesitated. He had been in the habit of smoking in the kitchen.

“Why not here?” said Mrs. Rylands, with a sudden little note of decision. “Why should we keep this room only for company that don't come? I call it silly.”

This struck Mr. Rylands as logical. Besides, undoubtedly the fire had mellowed the room. After a puff or two he looked at his wife musingly. “Couldn't you make yourself one of them cigarettys, as they call 'em? Here's the tobacco, and I'll get you the paper.”

“I COULD,” she said tentatively. Then suddenly, “What made you think of it? You never saw ME smoke!”

“No,” said Rylands, “but that lady, your old friend, Miss Clifford, does, and I thought you might be hankering after it.”

“How do you know Tinkie Clifford smokes?” said Mrs. Rylands quickly.

“She lit a cigaretty that day she called.”

“I hate it,” said Mrs. Rylands shortly.

Mr. Rylands nodded approval, and puffed meditatively.

“Josh, have you seen that girl since?”

“No,” said Joshua.

“Nor any other girl like her?”

“No,” said Joshua wonderingly. “You see I only got to know her on your account, Ellen, that she might see you.”

“Well, don't you do it any more! None of 'em! Promise me!” She leaned forward eagerly in her chair.

“But Ellen,”—her husband began gravely.

“I know what you're going to say, but they can't do me any good, and you can't do them any good as you did ME, so there!”

Mr. Rylands was silent, and smiled meditatively.

“Josh!”

“Yes.”

“When you met me that night on the Sacramento boat, and looked at me, did you—did I,” she hesitated—“did you look at me because I had been crying?”

“I thought you were troubled in spirit, and looked so.”

“I suppose I looked worried, of course; I had no time to change or even fix my hair; I had on that green dress, and it NEVER was becoming. And you only spoke to me on account of my awful looks?”

“I saw only your wrestling soul, Ellen, and I thought you needed comfort and help.”

She was silent for a moment, and then, leaning forward, picked up the poker and began to thrust it absently between the bars.

“And if it had been some other girl crying and looking awful, you'd have spoken to her all the same?”

This was a new idea to Mr. Rylands, but with most men logic is supreme. “I suppose I would,” he said slowly.

“And married her?” She rattled the bars of the grate with the poker as if to drown the inevitable reply.

Mr. Rylands loved the woman before him, but it pleased him to think that he loved truth better. “If it had been necessary to her salvation, yes,” he said.

“Not Tinkie?” she said suddenly.

“SHE never would have been in your contrite condition.”

“Much you know! Girls like that can cry as well as laugh, just as they want to. Well! I suppose I DID look horrid.” Nevertheless, she seemed to gain some gratification from her husband's reply, and changed the subject as if fearful of losing that satisfaction by further questioning.

“I tried some of those songs you brought, but I don't think they go well with the harmonium,” she said, pointing to some music on its rack, “except one. Just listen.” She rose, and with the same nervous quickness she had shown before, went to the instrument and began to sing and play. There was a hopeless incongruity between the character of the instrument and the spirit of the song. Mrs. Rylands's voice was rather forced and crudely trained, but Joshua Rylands, sitting there comfortably slippered by the fire and conscious of the sheeted rain against the window, felt it good. Presently he arose, and lounging heavily over to the fair performer, leaned down and imprinted a kiss on the labyrinthine fringes of her hair. At which Mrs. Rylands caught blindly at his hand nearest her, and without lifting her other hand from the keys, or her eyes from the music, said tentatively:—

“You know there's a chorus just here! Why can't you try it with me?”

Mr. Rylands hesitated a moment, then, with a preliminary cough, lifted a voice as crude as hers, but powerful through much camp-meeting exercise, and roared a chorus which was remarkable chiefly for requiring that archness and playfulness in execution which he lacked. As the whole house seemed to dilate with the sound, and the wind outside to withhold its fury, Mr. Rylands felt that physical delight which children feel in personal outcry, and was grateful to his wife for the opportunity. Laying his hand affectionately on her shoulder, he noticed for the first time that she was in a kind of evening-dress, and that her delicate white shoulder shone through the black lace that enveloped it.

For an instant Mr. Rylands was shocked at this unwonted exposure. He had never seen his wife in evening-dress before. It was true they were alone, and in their own sitting-room, but the room was still invested with that formality and publicity which seemed to accent this indiscretion. The simple-minded frontier man's mind went back to Jane, to the hired man, to the expressman, the stranger, all of whom might have noticed it also.

“You have a new dress,” he said slowly, “have you worn it all day?”

“No,” she said, with a timid smile. “I only put it on just before you came. It's the one I used to wear in the ballroom scene in 'Gay Times in 'Frisco.' You don't know it, I know. I thought I would wear it tonight, and then,” she suddenly grasped his hand, “you'll let me put all these things away forever! Won't you, Josh? I've seen such nice pretty calico at the store to-day, and I can make up one or two home dresses, like Jane's, only better fitting, of course. In fact, I asked them to send the roll up here to-morrow for you to see.”

Mr. Rylands felt relieved. Perhaps his views had changed about the moral effect of her retaining these symbols of her past, for he consented to the calico dresses, not, however, without an inward suspicion that she would not look so well in them, and that the one she had on was more becoming.

Meantime she tried another piece of music. It was equally incongruous and slightly Bacchantic.

“There used to be a mighty pretty dance went to that,” she said, nodding her head in time with the music, and assisting the heavily spasmodic attempts of the instrument with the pleasant levity of her voice. “I used to do it.”

“Ye might try it now, Ellen,” suggested her husband, with a half-frightened, half-amused tolerance.

“YOU play, then,” said Mrs. Rylands quickly, offering her seat to him.

Mr. Rylands sat down to the harmonium, as Mrs. Rylands briskly moved the table and chairs against the wall. Mr. Rylands played slowly and strenuously, as from a conscientious regard of the instrument. Mrs. Rylands stood in the centre of the floor, making a rather pretty, animated picture, as she again stimulated the heavy harmonium swell not only with her voice but her hands and feet. Presently she began to skip.

I should warn the reader here that this was before the “shawl” or “skirt” dancing was in vogue, and I am afraid that pretty Mrs. Rylands's performances would now be voted slow. Her silk skirt and frilled petticoat were lifted just over her small ankles and tiny bronze-kid shoes. In the course of a pirouette or two, there was a slight further revelation of blue silk stockings and some delicate embroidery, but really nothing more than may be seen in the sweep of a modern waltz. Suddenly the music ceased. Mr. Rylands had left the harmonium and walked over to the hearth. Mrs. Rylands stopped, and came towards him with a flushed, anxious face.

“It don't seem to go right, does it?” she said, with her nervous laugh. “I suppose I'm getting too old now, and I don't quite remember it.”

“Better forget it altogether,” he replied gravely. He stopped at seeing a singular change in her face, and added awkwardly, “When I told you I didn't want you to be ashamed of your past, nor to try to forget what you were, I didn't mean such things as that!”

“What did you mean?” she said timidly.

The truth was that Mr. Rylands did not know. He had known this sort of thing only in the abstract. He had never had the least acquaintance with the class to which his wife had belonged, nor known anything of their methods. It was a revelation to him now, in the woman he loved, and who was his wife. He was not shocked so much as he was frightened.

“You shall have the dress to-morrow, Ellen,” he said gently, “and you can put away these gewgaws. You don't need to look like Tinkie Clifford.”

He did not see the look of triumph that lit up her eye, but added, “Go on and play.”

She sat down obediently to the instrument. He watched her for a few moments from the toe of her kid slipper on the pedals to the swell of her shoulders above the keyboard, with a strange, abstracted face. Presently she stopped and came over to him.

“And when I've got these nice calico frocks, and you can't tell me from Jane, and I'm a good housekeeper, and settle down to be a farmer's wife, maybe I'll have a secret to tell you.”

“A secret?” he repeated gravely. “Why not now?”

Her face was quite aglow with excitement and a certain timid mischief as she laughed: “Not while you are so solemn. It can wait.”

He looked at his watch. “I must give some orders to Jim about the stock before he turns in,” he said.

“He's gone to the stables already,” said Mrs. Rylands.

“No matter; I can go there and find him.”

“Shall I bring your boots?” she said quickly.

“I'll put them on when I pass through the kitchen. I won't be long away. Now go to bed. You are looking tired,” he said gently, as he gazed at the drawn lines about her eyes and mouth. Her former pretty color struck him also as having changed of late, and as being irregular and inharmonious.

As Mrs. Rylands obediently ascended the stairs she heaved a faint sigh, her only recognition of her husband's criticism. He turned and passed quickly into the kitchen. He wanted to be alone to collect his thoughts. But he was surprised to find Jane still there, sitting bolt upright in a chair in the corner. Apparently she had been expecting him, for as he entered she stood up, and wiped her cheek and mouth with one hand, as if to compress her lips the more tightly.

“I reckoned,” she began, “that unless you war for forgettin' everythin' in these yer goings on, ye'd be passin' through here to tend to your stock. I've got a word to say to ye, Mr. Rylands. When I first kem over here to help, I got word from the folks around that your wife afore you married her was just one o' them bally dancers. Well, that was YOUR lookout, not mine! Jane Mackinnon ain't the kind to take everybody's sayin' as gospil, but she kalkilates to treat folks ez she finds 'em. When she finds 'em lyin' and deceivin'; when she finds em purtendin' one thing and doin' another; when she finds 'em makin' fools tumble to 'em; playing soots on their own husbands, and turnin' an honest house into a music-hall and a fandango shop, she kicks! You hear me! Jane Mackinnon kicks!”

“What do you mean?” said Mr. Rylands sternly.

“I mean,” said Miss Mackinnon, striking her hips with the back of her hands smartly, and accenting each word that dropped like a bullet from her mouth with an additional blow—“I—mean—that—your—wife—had one—of—her—old—hangers-on—from—'Frisco—here—in—this very—kitchen—all—the—arternoon; there! I mean that whiles she was waitin' here for you, she was canoodlin' and cryin' over old times with him! I saw her myself through the winder. That's what I mean, Mr. Joshua Rylands.”

“It's false! She had some poor stranger here with a lame horse. She told me so herself.”

Jane Mackinnon laughed shrilly.

“Did she tell you that the poor stranger was young and pretty-faced, with black moustarches? that his store clothes must have cost a fortin, saying nothing of his gold-lined, broadcloth sarrapper? Did she say that his horse was so lame that when I went to get another he wouldn't WAIT for it? Did she tell you WHO he was?”

“No, she did not know,” said Rylands sternly, but with a whitening face.

“Well, I'll tell you! The gambler, the shooter!—the man whose name is black enough to stain any woman he knows. Jim recognized him like a shot; he sez, the moment he clapped eyes on him at the door, 'Dod blasted, if it ain't Jack Hamlin!'”

Little as Mr. Rylands knew of the world, he had heard that name. But it was not THAT he was thinking of. He was thinking of the camp-fire in the wood, the handsome figure before it, the tethered horse. He was thinking of the lighted sitting-room, the fire, his wife's bare shoulders, her slippers, stockings, and the dance. He saw it all—a lightning-flash to his dull imagination. The room seemed to expand and then grow smaller, the figure of Jane to sway backwards and forwards before him. He murmured the name of God with lips that were voiceless, caught at the kitchen table to steady himself, held it till he felt his arms grow rigid, and then recovered himself—white, cold, and sane.

“Speak a word of this to HER,” he said deliberately, “enter her room while I'm gone, even leave the kitchen before I come back, and I'll throw you into the road. Tell that hired man, if he dares to breathe it to a soul I'll strangle him.”

The unlooked-for rage of this quiet, God-fearing man, and dupe, as she believed, was terrible, but convincing. She shrank back into the corner as he coolly drew on his boots and waterproof, and without another word left the house.

He knew what he was going to do as well as if it had been ordained for him. He knew he would find the young man in the wood; for whatever were the truth of the other stories, he and the visitor were identical; he had seen him with his own eyes. He would confront him face to face and know all; and until then, he could not see his wife again. He walked on rapidly, but without feverishness or mental confusion. He saw his duty plainly—if Ellen had “backslidden,” he must give her another trial. These were his articles of faith. He should not put her away; but she should nevermore be wife to him. It was HE who had tempted her, it was true; perhaps God would forgive her for that reason, but HE could never love her again.

The fury of the storm had somewhat abated as he reached the wood. The fire was still there, but no longer a leaping flame. A dull glow in the darkness of the forest aisles was all that indicated its position. Rylands at once plunged in that direction; he was near enough to see the red embers when he heard a sharp click, and a voice called:—

“Hold up!”

Mr. Hamlin was a light sleeper. The crackle of underbrush had been enough to disturb him. The voice was his; the click was the cocking of his revolver.

Rylands was no coward, but halted diplomatically.

“Now, then,” said Mr. Hamlin's voice, “a little more this way, IN THE LIGHT, if you please!”

Rylands moved as directed, and saw Mr. Hamlin lying before the fire, resting easily on one hand, with his revolver in the other.

“Thank you!” said Jack. “Excuse my precautions, but it is night, and this is, for the present, my bedroom.”

“My name is Rylands; you called at my house this afternoon and saw my wife,” said Rylands slowly.

“I did,” said Hamlin. “It was mighty kind of you to return my call so soon, but I didn't expect it.”

“I reckon not. But I know who you are, and that you are an old associate of hers, in the days of her sin and unregeneration. I want you to answer me, before God and man, what was your purpose in coming there to-day?”

“Look here! I don't think it's necessary to drag in strangers to hear my answer,” said Jack, lying down again, “but I came to borrow a horse.”

“Is that the truth?”

Jack got upon his feet very solemnly, put on his hat, drew down his waistcoat, and approached Mr. Rylands with his hands in his pockets.

“Mr. Rylands,” he said, with great suavity of manner, “this is the second time today that I have had the honor of having my word doubted by your family. Your wife was good enough to question my assertion that I didn't know that she was living here, but that was a woman's vanity. You have no such excuse. There is my horse yonder, lame, as you may see. I didn't lame him for the sake of seeing your wife nor you.”

There was that in Mr. Hamlin's audacity and perfect self-possession which, even while it irritated, never suggested deceit. He was too reckless of consequence to lie. Mr. Rylands was staggered and half convinced. Nevertheless, he hesitated.

“Dare you tell me everything that happened between my wife and you?”

“Dare you listen?” said Mr. Hamlin quietly.

Mr. Rylands turned a little white. After a moment he said:—

“Yes.”

“Good!” said Mr. Hamlin. “I like your grit, though I don't mind telling you it's the ONLY thing I like about you. Sit down. Well, I haven't seen Nell Montgomery for three years until I met her as your wife, at your house. She was surprised as I was, and frightened as I wasn't. She spent the whole interview in telling me the history of her marriage and her life with you, and nothing more. I cannot say that it was remarkably entertaining, or that she was as amusing as your wife as she was as Nell Montgomery, the variety actress. When she had finished, I came away.”

Mr. Rylands, who had seated himself, made a movement as if to rise. But Mr. Hamlin laid his hand on his knee.

“I asked you if you dared to listen. I have something myself to say of that interview. I found your wife wearing the old dresses that other men had given her, and she said she wore them because she thought it pleased you. I found that you, who are questioning my calling upon her, had already got the worst of her old chums to visit her without asking her consent; I found that instead of being the first one to lie for her and hide her, you were the first one to tell anybody her history, just because you thought it was to the glory of God generally, and of Joshua Rylands in particular.”

“A man's motives are his own,” stammered Rylands.

“Sorry you didn't see it when you questioned mine just now,” said Jack coolly.

“Then she complained to you?” said Rylands hesitatingly.

“I didn't say that,” said Jack shortly.

“But you found her unhappy?”

“Damnably.”

“And you advised her”—said Rylands tentatively.

“I advised her to chuck you and try to get a better husband.” He paused, and then added, with a disgusted laugh, “but she didn't tumble to it, for a d——d silly reason.”

“What reason?” said Rylands hurriedly.

“Said she LOVED you,” returned Jack, kicking a brand back into the fire. Mr. Rylands's white cheeks flamed out suddenly like the brand. Seeing which, Jack turned upon him deliberately.

“Mr. Joshua Rylands, I've seen many fools in my time. I've seen men holding four aces backed down because they thought they KNEW the other man had a royal flush! I've seen a man sell his claim for a wild-cat share, with the gold lying a foot below him in the ground he walked on. I've seen a dead shot shoot wild because he THOUGHT he saw something in the other man's eye. I've seen a heap of God-forsaken fools, but I never saw one before who claimed God as a pal. You've got a wife a d——d sight truer to you for what you call her 'sin,' than you've ever been to her, with all your d——d salvation! And as you couldn't make her otherwise, though you've tried to hard enough, it seems to me that for square downright chuckle-headedness, you can take the cake! Good-night! Now, run away and play! You're making me tired.”

“One moment,” said Mr. Rylands awkwardly and hurriedly. “I may have wronged you; I was mistaken. Won't you come back with me and accept my—our—hospitality?”

“Not much,” said Jack. “I left your house because I thought it better for you and her that no one should know of my being there.”

“But you were already recognized,” said Mr. Rylands. “It was Jane who lied about you, and your return with me will confute her slanders.”

“Who?” asked Jack.

“Jane, our hired girl.”

Mr. Hamlin uttered an indescribable laugh.

“That's just as well! You simply tell Jane you SAW me; that I was greatly shocked at what she said, but that I forgive her. I don't think she'll say any more.”

Strange to add, Mr. Hamlin's surmise was correct. Mr. Rylands found Jane still in the kitchen alone, terrified, remorseful, yet ever after silent on the subject. Stranger still, the hired man became equally uncommunicative. Mrs. Rylands, attributing her husband's absence only to care of the stock, had gone to bed in a feverish condition, and Mr. Rylands did not deem it prudent to tell her of his interview. The next day she sent for the doctor, and it was deemed necessary for her to keep her bed for a few days. Her husband was singularly attentive and considerate during that time, and it was probable that Mrs. Rylands seized that opportunity to tell him the secret she spoke of the night before. Whatever it was—for it was not generally known for a few months later—it seemed to draw them closer together, imparted a protecting dignity to Joshua Rylands, which took the place of his former selfish austerity, gave them a future to talk of confidentially, hopefully, and sometimes foolishly, which took the place of their more foolish past, and when the roll of calico came from the cross roads, it contained also a quantity of fine linen, laces, small caps, and other trifles, somewhat in contrast to the more homely materials ordered.

And when three months were past, the sitting-room was often lit up and made cheerful, particularly on that supreme occasion when, with a great deal of enthusiasm, all the women of the countryside flocked to see Mrs. Rylands and her first baby. And a more considerate and devoted couple than the father and mother they had never known.