The man standing there in the road turned white, his hand dropping clenched. She looked up just then and saw him, she dropped her hold upon the flowers, a change coming over her face. Kent ground his heel into the sand, turning sharply away, walked on down the street, out of sight of the house, and looked neither to the right nor the left. If you had seen his face you would have thought of what I said about the hope and the life. If he had never known that he loved this child before, it was a bitter way that the knowl. edge came; strong man as he was, it was a bitter way. He spoke wisely who called it "cruel as the grave." Do you think it unmanly that Andrew Kent's very lips turned white and quiv. ered as he met it? Then you understand neither it nor him. Some meadow lands through which he passed sent up dank vapors; mists which chilled the very glow of the sunset light filled the hollows; the sickly willows at the road-side cast gray, cold shadows over him. I do not think he knew it. The flats with their stretch of unmown grass, the windows of the clustering houses by the river, the long winding of the water, and the sails dotting it here and there, were turned to flame; beyond, the great sweep of crimson, like the wing of some watching angel, hung silently. But his eyes, so quick to see all beauty and all promise, were fixed upon the ground. "What did you say, mother?" "You're deaf as a post, Andy I was sayin as how Prue Tyndall's goin after that city fellar, and I don't like his looks none too much neither. Folks say she's greatly took with him." "Do they ?" "That they do, and it's too bad; she's as purty a gal as there is hereabout, and there won't no good come of it. I allers thought you and she'd make it up between you, Andy." Andrew rose abruptly from the table. "Where are you goin'? Ye hain't touched the coffee, Andy, boy!" "I'm going for a walk, mother. I'll feel better then and talk with you," speaking hoarsely. "Take yer stick, my boy; take yer stick, it's terrible sandy out:" and she hobbled away to get him a cane. It was one of her fanciesquite as much because she thought it gave him a gentlemanly look as any thing else. She brought him one of heavy oaken wood. He had made it years ago to please her when there were rumors of highwaymen about town, and it made her nervous to have him out after dark. Why did he start a little when she gave it to him, hesitate, and hold it a moment, turning it round and round? He hardly knew. Neither could he tell why it grew hot in his grasp as he went out of the door, or whence came that vague idea that he had better go back and leave it. The rose of the angel's wing had folded itself out of the sky down into a tiny cloud that blushed on the horizon. Pale lights of green and amber cradled it; the purple of a hill grew soft beneath it. When Andrew, walking down the road, raised his eyes toward it it sank slowbarely-bright to the last. The night had brought a low, cool wind, which murmured in the near forest and touched his fevered face. He thought it some simoon; the ground seemed parched beneath his feet, he wondered that they called it cooler. His home, when he reached it, looked and desolate; he turned away from the dog that ran out to meet him; he did not hear Molly neighing in the stall for her supper; he was almost vexed with his old mother, who waited for him on the porch. He gave her no smile as she tottered after his coffee. "What ails ye, Andy, boy? Sick?" coming back when she had put his chair up to the table. "No, mother, no!" He was standing by the window, his arms folded tightly. He had taken off his hat, and she saw how heated he was with his walk, how red and knotted his forehead. She came up, pushing back the wet hair. "Ye're tired, Andy; have a drink of water? I drawed it fresh!" He shrank under her touch, turning quickly. Only an old memory; just so little Prue used to smooth his hair when they were children and played in the garden together. "Yes, yes; thank you, mother. I believe I am tired," seeing the puzzled pain on the old woman's face. He took the water and drank it all down; then another glass, and another, thirstily. He sat down after that and ate his supper in silence. The old woman talked on, but he did not hear her. He caught a name at last that made him look up. Leaving the glow of the west behind him he turned into the shadow of the woods. The path to the village was cooler there and stiller. For some distance it skirted the edge of a ravine-⚫ an ugly place, worn perhaps in some long past inundation of the river. Some great rocks filled the bottom and jutted out from the steep sides, their edges sharp and jagged. A rank undergrowth lined the chasm; great pale ferns and large-leaved weeds; masses of briers trailing over gullies, where the dead leaves of years were collected; trunks and branches of trees fallen down and decaying where they fell, and growths of bright moss green upon them. Andrew stood a moment looking down; the light coming through the leaves was blood-red on the chasm. There were floating stories of men who had driven off there years ago. People shunned the place after dark; as well they might, he remembered afterward, thinking how easy a thing it would be to miss footing on the edge; it was slippery with the dead, brown shower from the pines. She used to be so afraid to come here to play-tiny Prue. She was very tiny then, for it was many years ago. Once he coaxed her to come and look down, he holding her hand all the time. She liked to have him care for her. She wasn't afraid to trust him then. Now Some sound breaking upon his ear aroused him at last a horse's hoofs in the distance. Again the shiver and the dread. What stood beside him? The sound clattered nearer and nearer in the still air. He stood up, his face paling. Leaning forward, his eyes strained through the twilight, he saw that for which he looked-a white horse daintily treading the pine-strewn road, his rider playing idly with a whip, and a gloved He turned away from the spot, walking rapidly, beating the ground with his oaken caneNow she loved him-that man-a thief! Little Prue so pure and white! who used to smile at him and put up her hand into his arm, and never mind, never think about the shop or what he was. How dared the villain do it? How dared he make her look at him so?—a thief! his eyes on fire at the thought. And so she might have looked at him, Andrew Kent, with his rough, black hands. He sat down, cover-hand upon the rein. ing his face with them. What mattered it that, through all his whiteness and smooth words, the soul of that other was blacker than they? She did not know it; she would never believe it. He knew how the child might love, looking up so-so as he had seen her look that day among the flowers. A bit of a picture had come to him that morning when he rode in the blazing noon: Prue coming out to meet him when he came from work, looking up in the light, her eyes just so blue and wide, pattering about the house in her child's way, singing in the dismal rooms, which turned all at once into brightness, holding up her pretty, tender face to his-his wife! What did it come back for? Who sent it to torture him? Do you think it strange that this child's tiny hand should lead him so--a little careless thing, coquetting as a butterfly might do, and no more able, perhaps, to understand the love of a heart like his? Do you wonder that the strong man bowed there in the twilight quivered and shook because of her? A sweet singer has told us that Adam, looking into the face of Eve, thanked God "that rather Thou hast cast me out with her than left me lorn of her in Paradise." Is manhood more than God first made it? or love less? Andrew Kent looked up at last. "Weak, maybe"-muttering to himself "weak and foolish; but she-she's all there was!" His face, growing grayer with the twilight, hardened. What thought froze it so? Was there any thing at his side that he looked round shivering? "Oh my God!" clenching his hand to quiet himself; turning his face, dark with some mighty passion, up to the sky quivering faintly golden through the leaves-instinctively, as it seemed. Whatever the dread was it passed away in a few moments. His eyes only, still steady and glowing, watched the lingering light beyond the ravine. His soul was in the thick darkness with God. He would not have put it in such language. He would only have said, as he muttered now and then to himself, "Little Prue! She's all there was. He's broken her heart-hers and mine." Then again: "Poor little Prue! My pretty innocent-" choking there and hiding his face. He was only a blacksmith, you know. He had never been taught that such people have no feeling; that if they sleep well and have plenty to eat they are-or ought to be-content. Will you pardon his ignorance? . The oaken cane he held scorched Kent's hand; his breath came in gasps; you might have heard his teeth grind against each other. The sky, so faintly golden, was quivering into pallid gray. No face with its weight of passion was turned up to it, and it caught no cry of need. Pennington, riding in his lazy way, watching the flash of a ring upon his finger as he thrummed some tune with his whip-lash, caught a sudden rein upon his horse, and looked up with an oath. The creature, rearing and curveting, shied to the very log that bounded the edge of the ravine. Andrew had neither moved nor spoken; it was only the sight of his white set face, he standing so ghost-like there under the pines. "What in the name of " Kent sprang out now, one hand on the bridle. "Stop a moment!" "Oh, it's you, is it, Smithy? What do you want? Let alone my horse!" "Not till I get ready." "Is that the game? We'll see!" taking the long, light whip in his other hand. "Put that whip down!" He put it down instinctively before the look in Kent's eye. "Who are you talking to?" said Pennington, with an insolent smile. "You! I've got something to say to you, Mr. Pennington." The other looked up quickly. Scanning Kent's moveless face he seemed reassured, a little anxiety, perhaps, settling in his eyes. Andrew caught them with his own. "Do you mean to marry that girl?" his voice thick and hoarse. "Oho! a little country love-scene, is it? What is that to you, my good fellow ?" Pennington laughed. "Do you mean to marry her?" "Who are you talking about? Let go that bridle!" "Do you mean to marry her?" Pennington glanced from Kent's face down to the formidable cane he had stirred a little on the ground. Then he coolly lighted a cigar and put it in his mouth. "No." What did Andrew Kent's rigid face mean? What would he have done, springing forward so? The other turned white. "By Jove! what are you doing? No harm shall come to the girl. Hands off there!" Yet he did not dare to dismount. "What do you mean then? What do you learn her pure little face to look at you so for? Do you think you're fit to say one word to her, or touch her hand-you?" Pennington quailed a little; he could see that. "Fit? somewhat fitter than you, I fancy," glancing at Kent's coarse clothes, then back at the jewel on his own white hand. "She thinks so at least." Several cases of looking white as I came up. sudden sickness about town, they say." "It's the heat," said Kent. His voice was husky yet. "It is hot," nodded Joliffe, turning up his eye. "Seen any thing of Pennington round these parts?" "I saw him an hour ago, out riding in the woods." "Fine looking chap Mr. Pennington! That's pretty much of a horse too. He's a gentleman Even his taunting laugh did not move some fixed, deadly purpose on Kent's face. "What have you done all this for? I will that always has considerable of what he wants; know." "Just as lief tell you-no objection at all," puffed Pennington, languidly. "I like to fool with a pretty girl-just as you would if you could get the chance, I suppose." You Most "You'll break her heart-her heart for that?" "Easily mended, I guess," laughing in his light way. "I suppose she'll cry her pretty eyes out for a fortnight; but what of it? may try the stakes then, and welcome. through holding that bridle? I intend to finish my ride now-should be sorry to run over you." Andrew Kent's hand was like iron upon the quivering horse. His face, in its dead whiteness, cowed the man upon her into silence. He raised his cane, feeling its weight; he measured Pennington's slight form with his eye; he looked down the chasm where the twilight was blackening. It would be but a moment's work. Horse and rider would be found below to-morrow. An accident; they had missed the road, and—so it would end. "Help! Stand off there! What are you doing?" Pennington's very lips were ashy. A silence, broken only by the pawing of the horse's impatient hoofs. A single bird too, chirped in its nest overhead. The cold sweat stood in great drops on Andrew Kent's forehead. He drew a long, gasping breath. "Great God!" throwing up the bridle. "He'll send His own curse after you; 'tain't for me! Go! or I might do it-might kill you!" The frightened horse sprang away, her nostrils quivering, her white hoofs scarcely touching the ground-away into the gloom that had gathered and wrapt the forest. Andrew stood a moment looking after her. Then he turned, all weak as one come from some terrible conflict, sinking down upon his knees-humbly as a child might do-down there in the thick, damp bushes. "The Lord forgive me! I-I didn't do it! I thought I should, I-" And he dared not so much as lift up his eyes toward Heaven. Pacing back and forth in front of his own gate an hour later, with a face too white yet for his mother's eyes, he met Joliffe. and we poor dogs that ain't so lucky have to stand round, you know-have to stand round." Andrew could not help turning in surprise. Was that conversation in the shop a dream? Joliffe, perfectly oblivious both of the look and the astonishment, went on talking, rolling the curious eye up to Kent's face again. "He hasn't been seen down at the Cap'n's since somewhere along about four o'clock-interest up this way I take it," laughing. How Were Andrew turned impatiently. Some thought of this man's business crossed his mind. far did that vision of his ferret crime? thoughts unspoken any barrier to it? "You're pretty sure you don't know where he is?" "I? to be sure I don't-I told you once!" starting a little. "I saw him an hour ago; then he was in the woods. What more do you want to know?" "Nothing! oh nothing!" bobbed Joliffe. "I beg your pardon. I only wanted to ask. Folks down at the tavern missed him—that's all. Popular gentleman, you know." Andrew made no reply. He was watching a figure that passed him just then silently-a woman; and even through the gloom he could see that her hair was black. She did not recognize him. Her face, with its dead white outline, was bent as if she listened. As Joliffe spoke-he had not noticed her-she almost imperceptibly slackened her pace. At the close of his sentence she drew her shawl about her nervously, and walked on faster than before. She came dimly to Kent's troubled thoughts that night. What had she to do with them or him? What indeed? It must have been past midnight when, tossing on his sleepless bed, he heard a sound that roused him quickly. A long, low whistle in the yard below. He sprang to the window. A short figure with a slouched hat stood down in the white moonlight. What's to pay?" "Nothing but the Devil!" answered Joliffe, in a suffocated growl. Pennington's bolted!” "Gone!" "Yes:" his confidential tone now-the one he had used that afternoon; "gone! he and the horse-haven't been heard from since dark. |Have you been blabbing?" "I? No!" "Not a syllable ?" "As true as there's a God in heaven." "And you don't know where he is?" "I don't know any thing about him." Joliffe stood a moment looking up, then turning cautiously, slouched out of the yard without a word. Of what did the man suspect him? Was the mark of Cain upon his face? Andrew, in his honest, happy life, had scarcely known what it was to count the slow hours of a sleepless night before. This terrible thing which had come near to him sat like a spectre in his silent room; it eyed him as some fixed and stony eye; it pursued him in his vain attempts to rest; it held him like some grasping hand; it would not let him go. Murder! and with the heart into which it had come, he had dared to think her name had dared to love her-little Prue! "But I didn't do it-God forgive me! God forgive - me!" muttering to himself now and then as he paced the room. His mother, wakened from her sleep by his footstep overhead, came up once to his door. Nothing's the matter, mother, only I can't sleep." 66 "Are you sick, Andy, boy ?" seeing his face. "No, no. What does every body think I'm sick for? There-there, mother! don't worry. Good-night." He closed the door again, listening to her as she crept feebly down the stairs; listening as if some one were telling him that she was all life held for him now; and, as to the added question, the question to which he listened over and over, which took form after form. Did she guess what he might have been-what he was in the sight of God? Then, as the night passed, his thoughts took other shapes. He wondered where Pennington had gone, with a vague dread, as faint and impalpable as the bars of moonlight, which turned his face blue and cold; whether he was beyond the reach of justice, too; if he and his crimes would drop into silence henceforth. Will you believe me if I tell you that the thought caused him no regret?-that the picture of the child came with it-the child with her faced turned up among the flowers; and he only said, with something in his rough and common face that transfigured it, "She wouldn't find out what he was; she'd better not know-she loves him!" But the spectre that sat within the room would not be forgotten. What was he that he should judge that other, and his sin? And so at last the morning came. But there in the sunlight, face to face, with him It stood. It looked at him from the brightness that burned in the east. He saw It in the cool of shadows quivering under the grasses; in the dew that crowned them as they drooped; in the chirpings of leaf-hid birds. It called to him from the forest which rose against the warming sky-the forest from which the gloom of the night had not faded. As he went by Prue's home on his way to work, turning away his face, It asked him someVOL. XXXI.-No. 181.-D thing: Where was Pennington? But It gave him no answer. While he was bending over his work, striking such mighty blows that morning with his quick, nervous arm, he saw Joliffe passing the shop. His walk was hurried, so hurried that he hardly stopped when he heard his name called suddenly. "What's wanted ?" "Have you heard from him?" "Not a word." Then Andrew went back to his work. Where was Pennington? Perhaps the forest, from which the gloom had not faded, could have told him; or the dews which had wept all night among the ferns. The day passed as if there were weights on the hours and the moments chained. Whispers of Pennington's disappearance found their way quickly from mouth to mouth. People wondered, and gossiped, and looked mysterious. "The Cap'n" swore furiously at the empty suit of rooms, and the unpaid bill running up its length in his ledger. Prue Tyndall did not come to the post-office, or do her little errands at the store that day. Andrew heard her name often, with a careless laugh, or a look of pity, as the case might be. Men cast sidelong glances at his face so rigid over his work; women looked at him, nodded at each other, and walked away whispering. The stagnant life of the town had nothing to do with itself but pry into other lives. This idle curiosity stung him to madness. He hated the very sunlight that crept in through the crevices and peered about the shop, as if it had some power to make his soul transparent. He longed impatiently for the darkness of another night-better that, better even the spectre shut up in his silent room than this. thought-his nervous fancies growing—that people eyed him coldly, suspiciously. Had the leaves of the forest told a story? Did they know where, but for the hand of God, that man might have been lying this morning? Because Andrew Kent's honest eye had never shunned the eye of a fellow-creature before, the newness of this horror was all the more horrible and strange. He It increased as the day wore on, and the same dark question, with its same unanswered mystery, haunted him still. He could not reason with it. The knowledge that the counterfeiter must have suspected Joliffe, and sought his only safety in flight, did not satisfy him. Have you never seen the time when the soundest of logic and the plainest of common-sense was no more to you than a child's prattle? Andrew, on his walk home to dinner, looked, and hated himself for looking, at the brown farm-house with its closed blinds which the trees hid so silently. There was no one stirring about the place. The garden was empty; its great golden hollyhocks nodding in the noon, its bells drooping in purple slumber; the lilies and myrtles hushed and warm; the starry blossoms of the creeper hanging motionless. A haze, that had thickened since morning, wrapped the whole-a huge curtain with folds of opal drawn silently. He looked, and hating himself for looking, turned away. Passing the gate, some one called his name. He stopped, startled. "Prue! I-I didn't see you." She stood just where the shade of an old apple-tree was thickest-a tree in whose hollow they used to put their little notes when they were children, and played at love as merrily as they gathered butter-cups in the field. A bar of the murky, red sunlight struck her through the leaves, leaving burning lights upon her hair, her face within it showed pale. Kent was past him in a moment. A horrible fear came upon him. A picture of the proud, white horse, rearing and plunging into the twilight, where the pine-strewn ground was slippery. It was his hand upon her rein from which she had struggled to get free. Had God measured the measure of his punishment full to the brim? He felt the mists cling to him and chill him as he entered the shadow of the forest: some startled crows flew up and away, cawing above the trees. Then it was so still that he heard a pine-cone dropping in the bushes. On the spot "Is-is this all true about Mr. Pennington ?" where he had met Pennington the night before "Yes; he's gone." something lay under his feet and tripped him Something in his voice made her look up into it was his oaken cane. He stooped and picked his face-a little surprise on her own. "Haven't they heard any thing from him?" He shook his head, moving his eyes from hers; he could not meet their look. it up; then, recoiling from the touch, threw it far among the underbrush. He went to the edge of the ravine, where he had seen the twilight blackening last night— "What's the matter, Andrew? are you sick?" why! was it only last night? He went to the "Sick? no!" She stood plaiting her little white apron ously, her breath somewhat quick. edge of the ravine and stood a moment looking nerv-down. Then he turned, followed a foot-path that wound steeply down the rocks, and came at last to the bottom. "If-if they've heard about Mr. Pennington, will you stop and tell me when you come by tonight?" And then, as before, she looked up at him. "Yes, yes; I'll come, I—" He turned he broke away from her rudely and strode down the road. She stood quite still, watching him and wondering. At last the golden haze wrapped him out of sight. As the day closed the sultriness of the air became almost suffocation. The mist, a dead weight, settled heavily to the earth; the light that filtered through it was dying in the struggle; the trees stood up dimly in it; the village and the river faded like some mirage. It brooded over the swamps and sucked up poisonous vapors from them. A night which might have been filled with suicides and murders-a night for any horror. So Andrew thought as he stood at his shop-door, his head bared to the damps that choked him. Suddenly the figure of a man running up the road caught his eye; it was the landlord. There were others behind him." "What's the matter, Cap'n?" "Matter enough," stopping to get breath, "though I don't know as there's any need of blowing myself like this." "Well, what?" "Oh, I thought you knew," he panted. "Great row down our way. There's a little gal come up to the tavern-said she'd ben playin' in the woods, she and a parcel of young 'nns, and they see somethin' down the gully; she thought it was a horse, but whether it was a horse or a man she was too scart to find out. If it should be that are city chap, you know!" and the Cap'n started on again as if in some manner that account in the ledger was to be cleared by his keeping himself on full steam, or as if he expected Pennington, dead or alive, to vanish at the sight of him. The white horse had fallen heavily upon her rider. He seemed to have struggled to get free from her; but the creature in her dying agonies held and crushed him. He lay among the tangled underbrush with which the deadliness of the rocks was hidden, the weeds rank about him, the dead leaves in the gullies. A pallid fern shaded his face, which was turned toward the glowless west. His shapely hand, with the ring upon it, was clenched over his head. Andrew's face grew gray when he saw it. He knew what it meant. Had he sent the man before the bar of God so? The voices of the crowd down at the entrance of the ravine broke the hush. He knelt down, pushing back the ferns. All the lights that quivered through the mist from the setting of an unseen sun struck the face. Its ghastliness was horrible. How long had the man struggled alone, and in the night? Had his lips stiffened so with curses on them? The curses might have fallen on Kent kneeling there beside him, so moveless was he. The crowd pressing up through the defile found him alone with the dead—his dead. "How long, now, might you reckon he'd ben there?" asked some one, breaking a silence. "About twenty-four hours." His voice was low and changed. "Horse got scared, I s'pose. Terrible place to go off-terrible!" At the whisper the crowd looked up the height silently. Kent, still kneeling there, had not turned his head. It was "Well, I hain't nothing to say." the landlord who spoke, coming up to raise the ferns. "I've found him out now; but it goes agin the grit to call a dead man a thief. I reckon he's got a longer bill nor mine to settle." Kent looked round sharply. Joliffe and two |