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 A Strange Pilgrimage. 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 BY MRS. J. H. WAL WORTH, 
 
 Anther of 
 
 True to Herself," "The Bar Sinister," "The New Man at Rossmere, 
 "Without Blemish," "Old Fulkerson s Clerk," etc., etc. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER.
 
 COPYRIGHT 1888, BY A. L. BURT.
 
 ANNEX 
 
 wng.5 
 
 1388 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A FATAL PROCRASTINATION. 
 
 MRS. MIRWIN, of No. Spruce Street, Phila 
 delphia, kept rooms for gentlemen only." 
 In the morning, when, after breakfast a meal some 
 what diffusive in point of time all the great-coats 
 and hats disappeared from the rack in the hall, her 
 soul reveled in the soothing reflection that the house 
 was absolutely and exclusively her own until five 
 o clock should brimr the very earliest of her lodgers 
 
 */ o 
 
 home to dinner. She quite plumed herself upon the 
 success of the placard that had been the means of 
 halting every petticoated room-hunter out there on 
 the sidewalk, sending them away with disgusted disap 
 pointment visibly outlined on their countenances. 
 
 Not that Mrs. Mirwin s for " gentlemen only " in 
 dicated an inferior class of stopping-place. On the 
 contrary, it was because of its unexceptionable loca 
 tion ; its outside suggestions of indoor elegance ; its 
 tantalizing glimpses of jars and plaques, and things 
 that women only could appreciate, that the tabooed
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 sex turned away, with such a sense of personal in 
 jury, from the doors that were sealed to them. That 
 rude placard was a block of stumbling and an of 
 fence to them. As if, they bitterly argued, there 
 could be any conceivable spot on earth that woman 
 could not fill more satisfactorily than men. 
 
 Mrs. Mirwin s own explanation of her partiality 
 for the male sex bore hardly upon her sisters : " She 
 had not been starving at boarding-house keeping for 
 sixteen years without learning something, and if 
 ever she did open her doors to a lot of women, who 
 didn t have a blessed thing to do but to gossip about 
 each other and back-bite her, she hoped some kind 
 friend would get out a certificate of lunacy and 
 have her confined as incompetent to care for 
 herself." There was another thing : " Men never 
 came down from her best first-floor front, in seal 
 skin jackets, to make a row about the price of coal 
 and insist upon having fifty cents struck from their 
 bills. "Women loved to baggie ; men didn t." 
 
 But the illuminated vision of a house full of men, 
 who neither gossiped about each other, nor grumbled 
 over their food, nor haggled about prices, but 
 promptly effaced themselves immediately after 
 breakfast, had its obverse side, as all illuminations 
 have. And as the obverse was usually shown about 
 the time that Mrs. Mirwin, weary and worn with 
 her day s exertions in behalf of omnivorous feeders, 
 most devoutly desired, in her turn, to efface herself,
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 7 
 
 it bore somewhat hardly upon her, and forced her 
 to acknowledge that there was something to be said 
 in favor of women, after all. 
 
 If she could have filled her rooms with a lot of 
 sublunary angels in trowsers, who would have gone 
 as promptly to bed after their six o clock dinners as 
 they did to their offices after an eight o clock break 
 fast, Mrs. Mirwin s idyllic dream of carrying on a 
 boarding-house painlessly might have been realized. 
 As it was 
 
 "Well,, as it was, Mrs. Mirwin looked at her clock 
 and yawned. She had been looking at her clock 
 and yawning, alternately, for four mortal hours ; 
 that is, from seven o clock P. M. until eleven o clock 
 p. M., without extracting either comment or sympa 
 thy from any one but herself, for the sufficient rea 
 son that she was entirely alone in the gloomy mid 
 dle-room, that was sandwiched between the front 
 parlor and the " back extension." 
 
 This middle-room, being windowless and stuffy, 
 Mrs. Mirwin, for economic reasons, retained it for 
 her own boudoir. 
 
 On the evening in question nature occasionally so 
 far asserted herself as to cause Mrs. Mirwin s 
 weary head to drop on her plump bosom in unrest- 
 ful slumber, and to extort from the poor lady s nos 
 trils an audible protest against this rending of the 
 hours of repose from their legitimate use. But these 
 periods of semi-unconsciousness were brief, and
 
 8 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 always terminated in Mrs. Mirwin s sitting rigidly up 
 right in her chair, after casting a look of bitter re 
 proach up at the ceiling over her head, through 
 which descended the muffled sound of several pairs 
 of restless feet a heartless sort of shuffling, quite 
 as if the owners of half a dozen pairs of shoes were 
 bent upon trampling on propriety and on Mrs. Mir- 
 win s feelings at one and the same time. 
 
 " They surely are making a night of it," said that 
 weary lady, punctuating her sentence with yawns, 
 and wiping the tears extracted thereby from her 
 drowsy eyes with the woolly surface of an unfinished 
 afghan she carried about with her, as a sort of port 
 able advertisement of her own tireless energy. 
 "Maybe, if they had to pay the gas bills, they 
 wouldn t be so spry near on to midnight. If I left 
 it to that creature down stairs, we d all be asphyxi 
 ated before morning. I suppose I ve got to set it 
 out if it lasts all night. Mercy ! There ain t no 
 more of them to come at this hour of night !" 
 
 This latter clause, ejaculated in an intensely wide 
 awake voice, Avas occasioned by a sharp pull at the 
 front door-gong, which sounded preternaturallv 
 harsh at that still hour of the night. Mrs. Mirwin 
 transferred herself from the depths of her easy- 
 chair to the door of her stuffy apartment with r.s- 
 tonishing celerity, avoirdupois and previous condi 
 tion considered. 
 
 Henry, the waiter, alluded to above as " that crea-
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 9 
 
 ture," emerged from the lower hall just as Mrs. Mir 
 win emerged from her den. The towzled condition 
 of his head, and the dissolute look of his neck-tie, 
 suggested surreptitious slumbers. He shuffled to 
 ward the front door with a general air of disgust 
 
 O o 
 
 pervading his person. 
 
 " How many of em s up there now, Henry ?" the 
 disgusted landlady asked of her disgusted servitor. 
 
 " Four !" 
 
 Henry was laconic. The man at the gong was 
 impatient. He rang a second time during that brief 
 colloquy, a proceeding which had the effect of mak 
 ing Henry drag his slippered feet yet a little more 
 deliberately toward the vestibule. 
 
 " I guess you ll git in when I open the door, and 
 no sooner. I ain t used to settin up all night, and I 
 don t care to git used to it, neither." 
 
 " All night !" Mrs. Mirwin veered mendaciously. 
 "It s only a few minutes past eleven. You are a 
 regular sleepy-head. If I don t mind it why should 
 you V 
 
 But the door was open by that time, and the uni 
 form of a telegraph messenger gleamed out of the 
 dark vestibule. A telegram and a book were thrust 
 into Henry s face "For Mr. Archibald Murray; 
 sign there." 
 
 Henry " signed there," and once more consigned 
 the uniformed messenger to outer darkness. Mrs. 
 Mirwin advanced as far as the hall-lamp and
 
 10 A 8TRANGK ri 
 
 promptly possessed herself of the dingy envelope. 
 There is an ineradicable sense of excitement associ 
 ated with a telegram, greater then than now, for 
 the date of that telegram and of Mrs. Mir win s 
 perturbation was before the war, when telegrams 
 were not the commercial things, of course, they have 
 become since. 
 
 " For Mr. Murray ! And a night message at that ! 
 Poor dear, young man !" 
 
 " Night messages is half rates," Henry suggested 
 practically, waiting with impersonal patience to have 
 the telegram handed back. 
 
 " That s true. Guess it s not so dreadful, after all. 
 Take it up at once, Henry. Maybe it will start 
 them anyhow." 
 
 Having extracted all the satisfaction possible from 
 a repeated perusal of Mr. Murray s name on the 
 back of the sealed envelope, she handed it back to 
 Henry, who proceeded immediately up-stairs with it. 
 She was prepared to draw on her sympathies at 
 sight to any reasonable extent. She remained in the 
 hall below in a condition of keen alertness. In case 
 the telegram should prove to be of a distressing 
 character it would be altogether proper for her to 
 offer that advice and assistance that only women 
 know how to offer under distressful circumstances. 
 
 Particularly in young Murray s case. He had 
 been boarding with her now for nearly six years. 
 Ever since that rich old Virginia uncle of his had
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. \\ 
 
 brought him to Philadelphia to study medicine and 
 had told her, with such frank confidence, that he 
 was " all the boy had left in the world " and he 
 " meant to do a good part by him," old Mr. Dabney 
 always stopped with her himself, when he came on 
 to see Archibald. In fact, was not above sitting- in 
 
 O 
 
 the front parlor a little while after meals to chat. 
 He had said nice things to her, too, about herself 
 individually, when no one was nigh things that 
 elderly and lonely women set a good deal more store 
 by and remember much longer than younger women, 
 to whom compliments are no rarity. She liked old 
 Mr. Dabney better than any " transient " she had 
 ever taken in. That was one reason why she felt 
 so solemnly obliged to hold herself in readiness to 
 pour out on this kinless youth provided, of course, 
 the telegram should prove to be of the bereaving 
 sort all the pent-up tenderness of her unappropri 
 ated heart. 
 
 She was impatient for Henry to come back down 
 stairs, and at least inform her how the poor, dear 
 young man looked when he tore open the fatal 
 envelope. It was a severe trial to her already 
 severely tried nerves to hear Henry finally shuffle 
 into the hall above, from the first-floor front, and to 
 see him slowly loom in sight, swinging an empty 
 pitcher recklessly by the handle, looking as stolidly 
 unconcerned as if he had been expressly engaged by 
 the week to attend to midnight telegrams. She
 
 12 A 8THANOE PTLORTMAOE. 
 
 could scarcely wait for his shuffling feet to reach the 
 lower hall, before asking eagerly : 
 
 " What did he say, Henry ?" 
 
 " He say, fetch up some more ice- water," said 
 Henry, grinning broadly and maliciously. 
 
 " But how did he look, Henry ?" 
 
 " Like he d had more n enough," said Henry, clat 
 tering past her in the direction of the refrigerator, 
 spurred into activity by the sharp tinkling of Mr. 
 Murray s room-bell. 
 
 " Preposterous !" Mrs. Mirwin vented some of 
 her long pent-up indignation in that vague exclama 
 tion, and walked back toward the ill-ventilated, 
 stuffy middle-room, only to emerge again, however, 
 when Henry, having temporarily satisfied the revel 
 lers up-stairs, was once more on his way to the base 
 ment. 
 
 No signs of breaking up yet, Henry ?" 
 
 " They s about taperin off. Mr. Clayton, he s got 
 as fur as lookin at his watch." 
 
 " Who else is there ?" 
 
 * Mr. Markam and Mr. Gordon. The same old 
 lot." 
 
 Having imparted this information, Henry pursued 
 his downward journey, bent, perhaps, on snatching 
 forty winks before the night was irreparably spent. 
 
 " The same old lot ! I should say so. I m glad 
 he s not my son, or he would have to give up that 
 same old lot. Tlollicking, frolicking Southerners.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 13 
 
 " At least it s my privilege to see that they don t 
 set fire to the house a-lighting of their cigars when 
 they do go out." 
 
 In the exercise of this privilege, Mrs. Mirwin 
 opened the front parlor-door and seating herself con 
 spicuously in view of the hall stairway, assumed an 
 expression of countenance and an attitude in which 
 fatigue and disgust were finely blended. She was 
 rapidly waxing wroth at this unprecedented pro 
 ceeding on the part of her " first-floor front." She 
 knew, as well as any of them could tell her, that 
 young Murray had received his license to practice 
 medicine that very day, and that " the other three," 
 as the remaining criminals were frequently desig 
 nated, had come there, as they called it, to sit up 
 with him. She didn t know that she was " called to 
 sit up with him too, though." The door to the first- 
 floor front opened : 
 
 "That s Clayton!" She sat bolt upright, as a 
 light foot fall was heard on the softly-carpeted stairs, 
 and the first of the departing revelers came into 
 view. " I d say something cross, but he was looking 
 at the third-story back the last time he was here, and 
 I d like to secure him. (Mrs. Mirwin was not without 
 her own well-defined policy in life.) Handsome fel 
 low. I d like the neighbors to see that tile of his 
 coming in and going out. It looks prosperous." Mr. 
 Clayton passed out unchallenged. Close behind 
 him came Gordon and Markham. The seediest QJ:
 
 14 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 the lot, Mrs. Mirwin said to herself and stepping to 
 the door, she greeted them with a frigid good- 
 morning, gentlemen." 
 
 " Oh, not so bad as that. Look at your watch, 
 Gordon. Sorry to keep you up so late, Mrs. Mir 
 win, but it was a solemn occasion for Archie. Had 
 to see him through, you know." 
 
 Mr. Markham s utterance was a trifle flannelly, 
 and his laugh was a disjointed affair, but he got 
 into his overcoat without any conspicuous signs of 
 failure. 
 
 Mrs. Mirvvin s attention was diverted by the word 
 " solemn." 
 
 " You mean the telegram ! Nothing very bad, I 
 hope." 
 
 " Tel-gram ! Did we get tel-gram ? To-be-sure. 
 Don t know what wassin tel-gram. Congratu con- 
 
 grat con ." Mr. Gordon gave it up in despair. 
 
 "From Unc Dab s pose. Good-night, Mrs. Mir- 
 w n. Better boy next time." 
 
 They were all gone, and a death-like silence had 
 fallen upon the room up-stairs. There was no use 
 waiting up any longer. 
 
 Mrs. Mirwin finally retired to the stuffy middle- 
 room, with a weight of ungratified curiosity resting 
 upon her like an incipient nightmare, and her mind 
 in a sadly unsettled condition touching the superior 
 advantages of " gentlemen only " as boarders, over 
 the female sex.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 15 
 
 She should certainly speak to Mr. Murray " Doe- 
 tor Murray," she supposed she must train her tongue 
 to now very freely in the morning. If it wasn t 
 for dear Mr. Dabney she did not know how plain 
 her speech might become. 
 
 It was a crumpled piece of yellow paper lying on 
 the rug at the foot of the stairs that first recalled 
 Doctor Murray to her mind the next morning. She 
 pounced upon it, and read it without the slightest 
 compunction. It was that telegram. Evidently, 
 she concluded, dropped from some of his pockets 
 when Henry had taken his clothes down stairs to 
 brush. Having read and re-read it, she marveled 
 more than ever at the peculiar reception it had met 
 with. She laid the rumpled bit of paper on the 
 newel-post and smoothed every crease out of it. By 
 the time this was done to her satisfaction, she had 
 quite settled in her own mind what disposition she 
 would make of it. She would lay it on his plate, 
 under his morning s mail. He really was not en 
 titled to any further consideration. 
 
 During the smoothing process Mrs. Mirwin had 
 made several unsuccessful efforts to recall some lines 
 that she had read somewhere, she really could not 
 say where, about serpent s teeth and children and 
 an old king. She was quite sure they would fit in 
 here and furnish her with a telling quotation, if only 
 she could get at them right end foremost. But 
 somehow, all Mrs. Mir win s bits of prose and she
 
 16 A 8TRANGB PILGRIMAGK 
 
 kept a sort of job-lot on hand had a spiteful trick 
 of presenting their wrong end foremost. 
 
 Young Murray was actually in his place at the table 
 before she found her cue, so she had to relinquish 
 all hope of flaying him with a classical scourge. He 
 looked a trifle the worse for wear that morning, but 
 it was a handsome young face, brimful of hope and 
 energy, upon which Mrs. Mirwin kept a furtive 
 watch over the lid of her Heclar coffee-pot. 
 
 It seemed a long time before he reached the tele 
 gram. A lot of letters had come for him that morn 
 ing. When he did, he turned it over inquisitively, 
 but indifferently. Read it and caught his breath 
 with a gasp. First a violent suffusion of blood, 
 crimsoning cheek, temple and brow ; then a death 
 like settled pallor, and such a look of torture in the 
 wide-open eyes that Mrs. Mirwin repented heartily 
 of her unkind ruse. 
 
 "Why, where did this come from?" he gasped. 
 44 Where s the envelope? How did it get here?" 
 striking his plate violently with the open paper. 
 
 " It came last night, and was sent straight up to 
 your room. I suppose it must have dropj**! out of 
 your pocket this morning when Henry took your 
 clothes down. I hope nothing s wrong with Mr. 
 Dabney ?" 
 
 " Did I make such a beast of myself as that iT he 
 said, looking at her with absent gaze. Uncle dying 
 and I carousing !"
 
 A STRAXGE PILGRfVAGE. 17 
 
 Mrs, Mirwin s rigidly compressed lips conveyed 
 the idea, that, all the remarkable circumstances con 
 sidered, she had no consolation to offer. 
 
 * I just saw the word * Richmond," " the young 
 man added in frank self-abasement, " and thought it 
 was a congratulation from the old gentleman. Told 
 the boys so, and thrust it into my pocket." 
 
 " Hereafter," said Mrs, Mirwin, passing him his 
 coffee with judicial severity of countenance, ** I 
 would advise you to read telegrams. People don t 
 go to the trouble of sending em, I reckon, unless 
 they ve got something in them. Trouble and ex 
 pense." 
 
 ** God only knows what this delay may have cost 
 me," her victim said, gulping down the steaming 
 coffee in reckless haste. 
 
 **I suppose the old gentleman s will is made, 
 . ;-. . 
 
 " Is that the sort of brute you take me for P 
 
 He pushed his chair back violently and rushed out 
 of the room. In half an hour s time Mrs. Mirwin 
 caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he sprang into 
 the cab Henry had been sent out for. with his trav 
 eling-bag in his hand. 
 
 "Henry." said Mrs. Mirwin solemnly, as they to 
 gether stood on the stoop and looked after the swift- 
 moving vehicle, ** I want you to take warning by 
 that poor young man. It s as good as reading a 
 temperance tract. If he has lost his uncle s fortune.
 
 18 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 it s all because of that orgie last night. Remember 
 that all your life, Henry." 
 
 " You re ard on the doctor," said Henry, A\ihose 
 palm was still closed about the generous tip flung at 
 him by Archie. " Twarn t so bad as all that ; just 
 two bottles, or maybe three, of. champagne. That s 
 a lot that never forgets they s gentlemen." 
 
 " Gentlemen or not gentlemen ; forget or not for 
 get, do you remember this day s lesson, Henry." 
 
 " I will, mum, and when I hears my rich uncle is 
 falling into bad ealth, I will be particular abstemi 
 ous ; I will indeed, mum." 
 
 In a desultory way Mrs. Mirwin was a participant 
 in the temperance movement, and Henry, the only 
 subservient male about the premises, got the full 
 benefit of all her theories.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CIIAPTEK II. 
 
 THE NEW DYNASTY. 
 
 YELLOW sunlight that came slanting 
 * through the leafless branches of the trees on 
 the lawn were not real sunbeams ! The emeralds 
 and rubies and diamonds that flashed into beino- 
 
 O 
 
 from every blade of grass on which they fell were 
 not real clew-drops ! The wet rose-leaves that had 
 fallen from the sweet-smelling, old-fashioned, late- 
 blooming " cabbage-rose," and strewn one end of the 
 gallery floor with big pink petals, were not real 
 rose-leaves ! The white and yellow chrysanthemums 
 set in prim alternate rows all around the graveled 
 carriage circle, were not real flowers ! Nothing was 
 real but death and ingratitude and remorse and that 
 motionless figure lying in the parlor behind the 
 closed shutters in the old Dabney mansion. 
 
 Yes, Brander was real. Real in his huge shaggy 
 personality and in his ability to express dumb sym 
 pathy. It was with unhurrying dignity that 
 Brander stalked around the corner of the house, 
 leaving the impress of each huge paw on the wet 
 gallery, and came sedately to a stand-still by Archi 
 bald Murray, where he stood looking wistfully out on
 
 2f> A STRANGE PILGIIM AGE. 
 
 a landscape so full of peace and serenity that it 
 seemed a mockery on that particular morning. 
 Brander sighed, laid his black muzzle on the young 
 man s hand and said with his soft, brown eyes: " We 
 will both miss him." 
 
 "Yes, we re left alone, old boy, but you ve got 
 nothing on your conscience I have. Suppose we 
 take a tramp together." 
 
 A window was suddenly thrown up at the remote 
 end of the long gallery. A small, eager face and 
 the upper portion of a half -clad form were thrust 
 into view. A shrill, childish voice broke the silence. 
 
 " Say ! mother says I may have that dog now. 
 What s his name, I want to know ? 
 
 The boy suffered sudden eclipse. A slim, white 
 hand had drawn him backward violently and 
 dropped the window-curtain in front of him. 
 
 " A member of the new dynasty, Brander. I had 
 almost forgotten they were here. Come, let us tone 
 up for the ordeal." 
 
 Brander needed no second invitation. It necessi 
 tated a brisk dog-trot on his part to keep up with the 
 long, swinging steps that soon carried his restless 
 master beyond the dew-spangled lawn into the lane 
 that led to the open fields. Archibald drank in the 
 pure, sweet morning air in great gulps. It braced 
 him with a sense of refreshment. The night just 
 gone had been to him as the vigil of the young 
 squire on the eve of knighthood. If he had not
 
 A BTRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 21 
 
 exactly watched his arms with prayer and fasting, 
 he had been girding up his loins to bear with dig 
 nity the inevitable, which, in his case, had come in 
 shape of a most stupendous surprise. It was as if 
 the solid earth had suddenly been cut away from 
 under his feet, and there was nothing left him to 
 stand on while he tried to make a fresh start in 
 life. 
 
 The stables stood at the end of the lane. Bran- 
 der looked at him inquiringly when he swerved to 
 the right before reaching them, and threw one leg 
 over the low bars that led into the tobacco-patches. 
 It was contrary to Brander s recollection that young 
 Murray had ever come home, even since he had got 
 ten to be a long-limbed young medical student, with 
 out promptly paying his respects to Billy Barlow, 
 the shaggy little pony, upon which he had careened 
 over the country, as happy as any lord, since first 
 his short legs could reach the stirrups. He saw the 
 rebuke in Brander s eyes, and changing his route, 
 reached the stable-lot just in time to see Billy Bar 
 low ridden forth in triumph by a boy of fourteen 
 years old, who grinned tauntingly at a smaller boy 
 who ran alongside, grasping frantically at the bridle- 
 rein, while he vented his wrath in high-pitched 
 tones : 
 
 " Mother said I might have the first ride, and I m 
 going back to the house and tell Hetty bout your 
 goin s on. Hetty said it was awful for you to be
 
 23 A STRANGK PTLQRIMAQK. 
 
 cuttin up so before Uncle Dick was buried. You 
 know she did." 
 
 " I don t care what } r ou, nor Hetty, neither, says. 
 I m riding this pony." 
 
 The triumphant rider laughed mockingly, brought 
 the whip down on the clinging lingers that retarded 
 his progress, plunged his heels into astonished Billy s 
 flanks and galloped out of sight. 
 
 " Some more of the reigning dynasty, Brander." 
 
 They were close to the defeated boy by this time 
 He stood rubbing his knuckles and glaring sullenh 
 after Billy s receding form. 
 
 "What is your name, my man?" Archie asked, 
 not unkindly. Why should he visit the decree ol 
 fate on a child s head ? 
 
 " My name s Dick Ogden. What s yours ?" 
 
 " Mine is Archibald Murray." 
 
 " Oh ! You re Uncle Dick s nephew. You used 
 to live here. It s our place now. Hetty says we 
 ought to call you cousin. Ma says she don t know 
 about that, yet. I expect I m going to have a row 
 with Lem every time I want to ride our pony. It s 
 our pony now. Everything s ours that used to be 
 long to Uncle Dick. Ma said I might have the first 
 ride on him, cause I m delicate, you know, and have 
 to exercise, you see." 
 
 " How many of you are there ?" Archie asked. 
 
 " How many of which ?" 
 
 " Children."
 
 A SfltANGE PlLGIlDlAGE. 03 
 
 He would like to have said invaders, or imps, or 
 something of that sort. 
 
 " There ain t none of us children. There s Lem 
 and me and Tad and Hetty, but she don t count/ 
 
 " Why don t she count " 
 
 " She s only a girl." 
 
 " Which is the oldest 2" 
 
 " Hetty. That s the reason she puts on so many 
 airs, and tries so hard to boss us. But she s got her 
 
 7 O 
 
 hands full when she tries to regulate me and Lem." 
 
 " How does she try to regulate you and Lem ?" 
 Archibald was conscious of a growing interest in the 
 family history of his successors. This boy struck 
 him as rather a unique specimen. "What sort of 
 airs does Hetty put on ?" 
 
 " Oh, bother ! I don t know. She s always fussin 
 at us, and tellin us this ain t right and that s all 
 wrong, and she don t let a fellow have any peace of 
 his life, if he s doing anything she don t think 
 proper. Ma s a heap easier on us than Hetty is. 
 Hetty says she wants us to be gentlemen, but I 
 reckon she ll have to let us grow up to that ; don t 
 you ?" 
 
 " I don t know,"said Archie, smiling down into the 
 small, inquisitive face before him ; " it is possible for 
 a very small boy to be a gentleman." 
 
 "That s just what Hetty s always dinging into 
 us. But Hetty s got her head mighty full of rub 
 bishy notions. That s a bully big dog, ain t he ?
 
 24 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 What s his name ? Ma told Tad he might have the 
 dog, cause, you see, he s too little to ride on our 
 pony." 
 
 The gloom came back into Archie s face at this 
 reminder of his own helplessness, and he turned 
 sharply away from the boy without answering his 
 last batch of inquiries. An indignant rebuke was 
 hurled after him as he walked rapidly away. 
 
 " If that s the sorter cross-patch you are, I m go 
 ing to tell ma she needn t keep you on here for a 
 teacher for me and Lem. I, for one, won t go to 
 school to you." 
 
 That then was the destiny that had been so offi 
 ciously and promptly mapped out for him. His 
 cheeks flushed hotly, and his soul seemed steeped 
 in gall. He quickened his pace and walked on and 
 on, in a frenzied effort to outstrip his own fast rising 
 indignation. It made no difference whitherward, nor 
 how far. The necessity for violent motion was upon 
 him. On and on, leaping ditches, climbing fences, 
 parting with reckless hands the brambly growths 
 that impeded his progress, until, with the drops of 
 physical exhaustion bedewing his forehead, he found 
 himself slowly retracing his steps toward the house 
 by way of the river-bank. He would pay one more 
 visit to the little wooden bench under the oak-tree, 
 that grew out on a tiny promontory. The neigbors 
 called it " Dabney s Lookout." 
 
 He was in the immediate proximity of the bench
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 35 
 
 before he discovered that it was already occupied. 
 A girl s straw-hat lay upon one end of it. A girl s 
 slim form occupied the other. She neither saw nor 
 heard his approach, for in her arms, that were folded 
 across the back of the bench, her bared head was 
 buried, and convulsive sobs were shaking her slight 
 form violently. 
 
 Brander officiously frustrated his master s kind in 
 tention of retreating unobserved by uttering a low 
 growl. He evidently recognized this spot at! pecul 
 iarly sacred to memory. 
 
 The girl on the bench started to her teet in 
 affright ; then blushed furiously under Archie s 
 steady gaze. 
 
 " This must be my cousin Hetty," he said, holding 
 out his hand and drawing her back to the bench. 
 
 " You did not come to breakfast. You must be 
 awfully worn. I told them to keep it hot for you." 
 
 " Thank you. It was good of you even to remem 
 ber my existence. 
 
 She had spoken rapidly and confusedly, while she 
 pushed her rumpled hair behind her ears and reached 
 for the hat that had fallen from the bench to the 
 ground. Archie watched her as she tied its ribbons 
 under her rounded chin, with hands that still trem 
 bled. Tears unshed glistened on her lids. 
 
 " You loved our Uncle so much, then, without ever 
 having seen him ?" 
 
 " I was not crying for Uncle Richard. I was cry-
 
 20 -A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 ing for you some, but for ourselves more." She said 
 this very frankly, with her truth-telling eyes looking 
 wistfully into his. 
 
 " For yourselves ?" 
 
 "For mother and the boys and myself. I was 
 crying to think how impossible it would be for you 
 to avoid hating us. I was wishing that I could have 
 tilings all my own way for just this once, so that I 
 could make up to you for everything." 
 
 ""What do you mean by making up to me for 
 everything ?" 
 
 " Ah, you must know what I mean !" 
 
 " No ; I confess to being very much confused. 
 You won t feel badly if I tell you I had never heard 
 of the existence of your family before I got home 
 and found you here. Queer, isn t it ? I suppose I 
 will have it all explained after a little later on." 
 
 " If I could only get out of it myself," she said, 
 not looking at him, but fixing her eyes on a point 
 far away across the river. Her clasped hands 
 twitched nervously. " If I could only run away 
 somewhere and not have to stay here at all." 
 
 " Don t you think it a pretty place, then ?" lie 
 looked mercifully away from her troubled face as he 
 went on. " Right here I think the view is especially 
 lovely. Whenever I was expected home, Uncle 
 Dick would come out to this point, and his Panama 
 hat and white hair would be about the first things 
 to greet my eyes when the boat rounded that point
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 27 
 
 yonder. What a brute I was not to have gotten 
 here in time." 
 
 She put out a comforting hand and laid it silently 
 on his arm, but her words were not consolatory. 
 
 " That is what hurts me worst. Things would 
 have been different if you had been here. Now it s 
 all left to the law, and it s because this is the love 
 liest spot on earth and I know I could be happier 
 here than anywhere in the world, that I m miser 
 able about you. "Why should we come into all this, 
 just because Uncle Richard was dilatory. If mamma 
 would only do as I beg her to." 
 
 " And that is ?" 
 
 " To go back to Petersburg and leave you in pos 
 session of your own home." 
 
 " Matters seem to have been promptly discussed 
 and settled ?" 
 
 " Disgracefully so !" she said bitterly. 
 
 " And Mrs. Ogden s final decision 3" 
 
 " You will hear soon enough." 
 
 " Come ; I d rather hear it all from you. I think 
 you will soften it in your manner of telling." 
 
 " Oh ! it cannot be softened. It cannot be soft 
 ened by any manner of telling. It makes me wish 
 myself entirely out of a world where people can be 
 so unjust." 
 
 She wrung her hands piteously in an excess of 
 impatient distress. 
 
 "Nevertheless," said Archibald gravely, "I
 
 28 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 think you will consent to explain matters TV hen 1 
 repeat that I would rather hear it from you than 
 any one else. Firstly, I should like to ask why I 
 have never heard of my cousin Hetty before ? Why 
 I should have remained under the impression all 
 these years that my own mother, who brought me 
 here when I was about seven years old she died 
 here on that visit should never have told me about 
 an aunt ?" 
 
 " Mother is not your aunt. She and Uncle 
 Richard were own brother and sister, but your 
 mother was only a step-sister. But Uncle Richard 
 loved his step-sister and hated his own sister. 
 
 " You are sadly well informed about our family 
 affairs." 
 
 "Yes; I know all about it. Mother was very ill 
 once and thought she was going to die. It was then 
 that she told me all about it. I think it was mother s 
 fault that Uncle Richard and a lady he loved very 
 dearly did not get married. Mother came between 
 them. She did not want our uncle to marry at all, 
 I suppose. He has never had anything to do with 
 her since he found it out. When mother heard he 
 was ill, she came on here with all of us, but he did 
 not even then let her come into the room. Xo one 
 could help knowing that he did not want her to have 
 this property. But the law gives it to her. And 
 now I don t want you to agree to what mother is 
 going to ask you to do. All this must sound
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 29 
 
 awfully treacherous, but you just could not stand it, 
 and I think I ought to tell you so." 
 
 " Stand teaching the boys ?" 
 
 She looked at him in amazement. 
 
 " I have seen one of them already this morning," 
 lie said explanatorily, " down there at the stables. 
 I believe I did not make a very good impression 
 upon him. He let fall some expressions of dis 
 approval." 
 
 " It was Kob ! It must have been Kob !" Her 
 cheeks were aflame, and she hung her head until her 
 big straw-hat concealed all but one rosy ear from 
 his gaze. " Don t try it, please. Don t, for your 
 own sake. They are such terrible children. Really 
 terrible." 
 
 "Poor little Avoman, you are a young care 
 taker." 
 
 u I am obliged to, you know," she said very simply. 
 " They tire mamma, and she depends on me to keep 
 them in order. You will hate us all if you try to 
 live with us. You just can t help it." 
 
 " i*s"ot you, I am sure. I would be a brute, in 
 deed." 
 
 She gave him a look of flashing indignation. It 
 outraged her to have him pay her commonplace 
 compliments when she was so horribly in earnest. 
 She stood up before him with her small clasped 
 hands hanging in front of her. He did not at all 
 understand her.
 
 30 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " I am going back to the house now, Cousin 
 Archibald. I don t know whether you are making 
 game of me or not. I know it s not natural for you 
 to feel kindly to people who have defrauded you, 
 and I have helped defraud you in spite of myself. 
 But I would like you not to think of me as one who 
 enjoys possessing what is rightfully yours. I wish 
 I knew some way of serving you. I would do it so 
 gladly. Don t } r ou believe that much ?" 
 
 She stretched out her hands almost imploringly. 
 The big hat fell back and the sunbeams gilded the 
 fluffy brown rings on her forehead. Her cheeks 
 were flushed with excitement ; her eyes were full of 
 petition ; she was very pretty ; he was very young ; 
 they were cousins, you know. It came to him sud 
 denly that kinship conferred some pleasant privileges. 
 
 " My dear, dear little cousin 1" He drew her close 
 to him by the hands she had stretched out to him, 
 kissed her daringly, swiftly, repeatedly ; dropped 
 her hands, and with Brander close at his heels, 
 passed quickly out of sight, not reckoning on the 
 waxen nature of a young girl s heart. 
 
 She stood where he had left her for a long time. 
 Long enough, it seemed to her, for all the blood that 
 was in her veins to flow and ebb many times from 
 cheek and brow and lips the lips that had been 
 kissed for the first time. The tame osculation that 
 brought her lips into dutiful contact with her moth 
 er s frigid ones morning and night belonged to a
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 31 
 
 different order of caress. The boys they were of 
 that age when they rose superior to any such weak 
 requirements. Yes, she had been-kissed for the first 
 time. With a long, tremulous sigh, she, too, finally 
 turned from the leaf-strewn bench, with thoughts of 
 her mother and the boys and the coming funeral 
 coming between her and her blissful reverie. 
 
 A low chuckle of triumphant laughter made her 
 start nervously. Had any of those terrible boys 
 been prying on her ? Had any one seen that daring 
 kiss? 
 
 Climbing steeply upward, from the water s edge 
 to the bench on the promontory, was a tangled foot 
 path. A woman had just achieved the ascent. She 
 evidently considered it an achievement, for she exe 
 cuted that triumphant chuckle again as she walked 
 swiftly toward where Hetty stood spell-bound by 
 the bench. There was nothing visible of her but 
 her feet and a pair of burning eyes. The rest of her 
 was lost in the voluminous folds of a black water 
 proof cloak, whose hood was drawn up over her 
 head. She fixed her glittering eyes on Hetty in sur 
 prise that rapid ly merged into anger. 
 
 " Who are you, girl ? And what are you doing 
 here ? Spying on me, are you ?" 
 
 " My name is Hetty Ogclen. I couldn t spy on 
 you, because I never heard of you. I came here to 
 attend my uncle s funeral." 
 
 " Your uncle s funeral !" Who is dead ?"
 
 32 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "Uncle Richard Dabney. If you live in the 
 neighborhood you must have heard it." 
 
 " Dead ! Then I m too late, and I ll never, never 
 get forgiveness. I promised her I d make it all right, 
 and I meant to do it. Yes, I did ! I did ! I did ! I 
 told her I d bring the ke} 7 and put it into his own 
 hand, and I .meant to do it. I did ! I did ! I did ! 
 Here it is now." She stretched out her long right 
 arm from beneath the cloak. In the skinny palm of 
 her hand lay a tiny key, scarcely as large as an old- 
 fashioned watch-key. " Don t that prove that I was 
 acting fairly. Say, girl ! why don t you say some 
 thing \ Say something at once !" 
 
 " It looks like a very little key." 
 
 She had been commanded to say something, and 
 she dare not refuse with those burning eyes fixed 
 on her face. She felt that she had made a very 
 stupid remark. 
 
 " It is Mr. Dabney s property. I want to give it 
 back to him. I want to give it to him myself. I 
 promised I would. If he s dead I want to put it in 
 his coffin. It belongs to nobody now." 
 
 " I can take you to him. Xo one need know it. 
 "VVe can slip in the side way." 
 
 " Is he all by himself? Xobody in the house V 
 
 The prospect seemed to please her. 
 
 " There are people in the house, but we may avoid 
 them." 
 
 " Who s there 2"
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 33 
 
 " My mother and my cousin, and 
 
 " Who is your mother ?" 
 
 " Mr. Dabney s sister." 
 
 " Agnes Dabney ?" 
 
 " Yes. That was her name." 
 
 " Agnes Dabney !" It was with a venomous hiss 
 she repeated the name. u Agnes Dabney up there 
 at the house you ask me to go to !" Her arm was 
 raised in malediction. Suddenly it fell by her side 
 heavily. " Agnes Dabney and Parmelie Eose come 
 together again ? Not if Parmelie Rose can help it !" 
 
 She sprang from the bench, on which she had 
 thrown herself with a tired sigh, and fled, like one 
 pursued, toward the path she had so recently 
 mounted. Hetty followed her with wondering eyes. 
 With the directness and speed of a chamois she made 
 the passage between the bench and a dingy skiff 
 that lay rocking among the reeds at the water s 
 edge. A man stood up in the boat and helped her 
 to her place in the stern. Hetty could see that he 
 was old and bent and black. Once in the skiff, her 
 strange visitor drew the hood still further over her 
 face, and dropped her head upon her knees. With 
 swift, skillful strokes her attendant conveyed her rap 
 idly across the narrow stream. Hetty could see her 
 climb the opposite bank wearily. She disappeared 
 behind some bushes. The man shouldered his oars 
 and carried them toward a little shanty, sitting back 
 n the bank, against whose door-jamb he stacked
 
 34 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 them. Evidently he was a regular ferryman. He 
 resumed his interrupted work of caulking an up 
 turned skiff on the bank. Some cows came down 
 to drink, and stood knee-deep in the clear water. 
 Overhead a crow cawed and circled gracefully be 
 tween her and the blue sky. There was not a trace 
 left of her strange visitor. Yes there at the foot 
 of the bench lay the key. Small, shining, mysterious 
 link between the living and the dead. The woman 
 said it must go into Uncle Richard s coffin. She 
 could put it there as well as Pannelie Rose could.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 35 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 A NEGLECTED LEGACY. 
 
 r I ^HEKE was a carriage and several buggies out 
 -- on the lawn, their shafts resting on the ground, 
 and their mud-bespattered dash-boards telling of a 
 long and hard pull through stiff mud. There were 
 saddled horses, hitched to low, available limbs of the 
 shade-trees, at whose rough bark they nibbled hun 
 grily. There was a group of bare-headed men 
 standing about the open front door, who looked at 
 her soberly as she came running up the slope of the 
 hill from the river-side, flushed and hurried. Worst 
 of all, there was her mother, already invested in the 
 black bonnet and long veil which had been ordered 
 so promptly, standing in the dining-room window, 
 evidently on the look out for her. The dining-room 
 opened upon a low side-balcony, and it was by that 
 balcony that Hetty had been planning to slip into 
 the parlor and do Parmelie Rose s errand. "What 
 had become of the morning ? 
 
 Mrs. Ogden raised the sash of the dining-room 
 window and sent an icy command cautiously out 
 over the bright border of chrysanthemums that
 
 36 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 bordered that side of the house. It was her desire 
 to be heard by no one but Hetty. 
 
 " Henrietta, let me see you in your own room im 
 mediately !" 
 
 Hetty sent a frightened " Yes, ma am," back over 
 the bright chrysanthemums, and ran nimbly up the 
 steps. Come what might, she would make one effort 
 to get rid of the key, that seemed already to have 
 branded its imprint upon her palm, so tightly did 
 she clasp it. There had been rare occasions when 
 she had defied her austere mother successfully. She 
 glided resolutely by the room where Mrs. Ogden was 
 waiting for her, on into the great drawing-room, 
 whose gloom was almost impenetrable to her, com 
 ing immediately into it from the dazzling outside 
 sunlight. To her horror it was already full of peo 
 ple, sitting dumbly expectant of the dreary finale. 
 Flushed and frightened she wound her way in and 
 out among the close-packed chairs toward the som 
 ber central object in the room. She gave a cry of 
 disappointment. The lid was already screwed down. 
 
 "Is it impossible? Might I not see him once 
 more ?" 
 
 There was a movement among the men. Some 
 one said something about calling the undertaker in. 
 A hand was laid on Hetty s arm. She felt it tight 
 ening its hold painfully as her mother s cold voice 
 fell on the hushed group : 
 
 " I beg none of you will put yourselves or the
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 37 
 
 undertaker to any such trouble. Come with me, 
 Henrietta !" 
 
 The next moment they were alone in the small 
 bedroom that had been appropriated to her use. 
 She was sitting on the bed, sullen and defeated. Her 
 mott ?r was standing majestically over her. 
 
 " Such hypocrisy, in one so young, I never wit 
 nessed ! Your conduct of this morning surpasses 
 anything. Do you suppose I am ignorant of the fact 
 that you met Archibald Murray down by the 
 river ?" 
 
 Hetty raised her head defiantly. 
 
 " I did not meet him ; he found me there. You 
 shall not call me designing." 
 
 After that one violent protest, she sat dull and 
 stupefied, while her mother arraigned her with the 
 prolixity and severity she was so drearily familiar 
 with. Relief came in the shape of Rob, who thrust 
 his round head into the door to say briskly : 
 
 " Ma, the preacher s come and the folks are wait 
 ing for you." 
 
 Mrs. Ogden cut her lecture short, with the assur 
 ance that Hetty need not think she was done with 
 her, and moved toward the door. The tired and 
 excited girl felt grateful for not being ordered to 
 join the gloomy conclave in the drawing-room. She 
 caught her breath with surprise when her mother de 
 liberately drew the key from the inner lock and re 
 placed it in the outer one.
 
 38 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "What are you going to do, mother ?". 
 
 See that my family is not disgraced while I am 
 at my brother s funeral. Doctor Murray declines 
 going to the burying-ground." 
 
 " Mother, don t do that ! You must not turn that 
 key!" 
 
 Her excitement was so intense and unusual that 
 Mrs. Ogden paused, with her hand on the door 
 knob. 
 
 " Since when have you learned to dictate ?" 
 
 " I am not dictating now. You may lock me in, 
 if you will send my Cousin Archibald to me as soon 
 as you get back from the burying-ground." 
 
 Her blushes were painful to look at, but her tones 
 and her words were absolutely fearless. 
 
 " Send your cousin Archibald to you !" 
 
 " Yes, ma am ; I want to tell him about Parmelie 
 Eose." 
 
 She had not calculated on the remarkable effect of 
 her words. How could she ? The door-knob rattled 
 under Mrs. Ogden s clasp. Her lips grew as white as 
 her pallid cheeks. She looked at the wondering girl 
 before her, almost ferociously. Hetty came nearer 
 to her, near enough to ask in a hissing whisper : 
 
 " Mother, was Parmelie Eose the woman my Uncle 
 Richard wanted to marry ?" 
 
 " M m m ! You little fool !" 
 
 She was thrust backward into the room with no 
 gentle hand. The door was closed with a swift
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 39 
 
 motion. She heard the key turned in the lock and 
 withdrawn. She was a prisoner. 
 
 " I am glad of it ! Glad of it ! Nothing to do 
 but sit still and think what is best to do. I will see 
 him to-night and give it to him. There s nothing 
 else to do with it." 
 
 She opened her hand and looked at the key. It 
 glistened on her reddened palm. She dropped it in 
 an open drawer. She stretched her arms wearily 
 high over her head ; then suddenly and inexplicably 
 burst into a passion of tears. What a day it had been. 
 Sorrow, mystery, excitement ; with one slight line 
 of sweetness and light running through it all. She 
 felt as if it had p. 11 carried her swiftly and forever 
 beyond the dull days that had been marked, even 
 up to the one just gone, with a monotonous routine 
 of service for the boys ; selfish little ingrates, who 
 accepted her as they did their daily bread, and in 
 patient attendance upon the haughty caprices of her 
 beautiful but rigid mother. 
 
 She knew when they carried Mr. Dabney away 
 by the trampling of many feet along the oil-clothed 
 hall and upon the gravel outside. Then the house 
 grew very still and she very sleepy. She flung her 
 self face downward on the bed and slept. A long 
 time, it must have been and very soundly, for when 
 she awoke there was a tray on a table at the foot of 
 the bed. Her dinner had been brought in by some 
 body. She sprang up and tried the door. It was
 
 40 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 still locked. The room had grown quite dark, but 
 that went for nothing. It was on the western side 
 of ti 3 house, and the shutters were not only closed, 
 but the Holland blinds drawn down, just as she 
 had arranged it that morning herself before leaving 
 it, with a view of preserving one spot sacred from 
 an invasion of the Goths, as she privately called the 
 boys. But what had become of everybody ? She 
 sat down aimlessly in a chair by the window and 
 twisted her loosened hair into a tighter coil. A 
 locust started its shrill threnody high up in one of 
 the big oak-trees. She could hear the cows lowing 
 softly, sending encouragement ahead of them to the 
 score or more of bleating calves down there by the 
 bars. There was the sound of the ax out at the 
 wood-pile quick, ringing blows, such as were heard 
 only in the early morning or late afternoon when 
 Moses came up from the quarters to supply the 
 kitchen wood-box. 
 
 The day must be almost dead. She drew up the 
 Holland blind and looked oat through the closed 
 shutters. The carriages and horses were gone ; the 
 lawn was devoid of life ; the family must all be 
 housed for the night, and this reasonless imprison 
 ment must terminate soon. She should see her 
 Cousin Archibald again. The quick, sharp sound of 
 a galloping horse fell on the silence only the sound. 
 Then she heard an imperative command ; she never 
 had heard her Cousin Archibald s voice save that
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 41 
 
 morning, but it might sound like that if he were 
 angry or determined. It was simply a command 
 given to a dog an order for him to "go back." A 
 low, plaintive protest, and then a howl such a 
 mournful, prolonged howl as made Hetty clasp her 
 hands to her ears to shut it out. The door opened, 
 and a black, withered face appeared behind a lighted 
 lamp. It was old Lucy. 
 
 Yo ma say you kin come to supper, honey. 
 Jus lis n to dat dawg ! He do go on lak he saw ol 
 Mars sperit, an I ain so sho he don . Bless de 
 chile, she ain et a inoufful or dinner yit." 
 
 Hetty got up and came toward the lamp-bearer. 
 They were already good friends. They believed in 
 each other. 
 
 " Aunt Lucy," she said, searching the top 
 bureau-drawer eagerly for the key she had thrown 
 there before lying down, " I want to see my Cousin 
 Archibald before he goes to bed to-night. Tell him 
 I must see him. I want to see him immediately." 
 
 " That s one uv the onpossibilities, honey. Mars 
 Archie done gone, an I ain t the one t blame him. 
 I s glad." 
 
 " Gone !" 
 
 " Plum clean gone, an he say he can t tell whar 
 nor when he ll see this old nigger ag in. He tol me 
 to gin you this, honey. Mebbe it ll give mo infuni- 
 mation then he give me. Miss Aggie don t know 
 bout it."
 
 43 A STXANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 No ; it gave no more information. It was simply 
 a friendly little note, telling Hetty how sorry he 
 was to hear she had gone to bed with a bad, sick 
 headache, as it deprived him of his one chance to 
 say good-by. He found he must leave immediately, 
 and he hoped, as the days went on and she came to 
 feel more at home there, that she would be as happy 
 as he had always been and as she deserved to be 
 everywhere. 
 
 Yery kind, but it meant nothing, and now lie was 
 out of reach ! What should she do with that dread 
 ful key ? Old Lucy stood regarding her anxiously 
 while she read her note over and over again. 
 
 "Do it tek all that time to read that little 
 letter, honey T 
 
 Hetty laughed confusedly and thrust the paper 
 into her pocket. 
 
 " I was liopin he d tell you whar he was going, 
 leastways." 
 
 " No ; he doesn t seem to know himself." 
 
 " An arter all the pains I tuk to gin im this, he 
 done gallop off an lef it on he s bureau, lak it warn 
 no count, an Mars Dick, wnen he begin to fail, he 
 say p intedly : Lucy, see that Archibald gets that 
 book! " 
 
 From under her apron Lucy produced an object, 
 which certainly did not seem to possess any intrinsic 
 value. It was a small, black quarto, dingy from old 
 age, and clasped with a strong, metallic clasp of 
 ancient date.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 43 
 
 " I wants to give it into yo keepin , honey. I 
 feels it in my bones that I am never gwine see Mars 
 Archie no mo , an I does b leeve you is the onlies 
 one of Miss Aggie s fambly that don seem to re 
 joice at Mars Archie s downfall." 
 
 Hetty had the book in her hand, and was turning 
 it over and over absently. Queer that she should 
 have been selected by fate as the repository of all 
 the secrets that had been accumulating about this 
 old house since before she was born. It bewildered 
 her. 
 
 "Aunt Lucy," she asked suddenly, "who is 
 Parmelie Eose ?" She seemed to be getting hold of 
 so many disjointed mysteries. 
 
 " Parm ly Rose ! Parm ly Eose ! "Whar you git hoi 
 of dat name, chile ?" The old woman s eyes were 
 aflame with excitement. 
 
 " I got it from herself. I saw her this morning." 
 
 " You seen Miss Parm ly Eose ? You seen her this 
 morning? Thar you s out, honey, or you mus a 
 just dremp it, seein things is so stirred up bout 
 you." 
 
 " I saw her down by the river-bench. She came 
 across the river in a skiff. A tall woman with im 
 mense black eyes eyes that burn like coals. She 
 told me her name was Parmelie Eose. Did you 
 ever know her, Aunt Lucy ?" 
 
 " That sounds like her ; yes, it do. Them eyes o 
 hern does burn. But, honey, my chile, Parm ly Eose
 
 44 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 ben shut up for mo years than you is ben in this 
 world." 
 
 " Shut up for what ?" 
 
 " Shut up for mad. Pity her folks did n do it 
 sooner. Den she could n a-done so much harm. 
 Xo, she could n a-done all dat mischief. It was her. 
 It warn 1 nobody else that done it. May de Lord 
 punish her mo and mo unter de third and fofe 
 generation." 
 
 Lucy s arm was raised in malediction. Her 
 withered form was drawn to its utmost height. 
 Her turbaned head trembled as if palsied. Hetty 
 pushed a chair toward her. Here, then, was her 
 chance to settle the mystery of the key. 
 
 " Sit down, Aunt Lucy. I want to hear all you 
 know about Parmelie Rose." 
 
 Lucy glanced anxiously toward the door. Hetty 
 satisfied her that it was entirely closed. The old 
 crone sat for a second looking absently into the yel 
 low flame of the lamp. Presently she asked sus 
 piciously : 
 
 " Why don t you ax your ma ? She know niore n 
 a minute bout Parm ly Rose than I kin tell you in 
 a hour. She an Miss Aggie was thick as hops bout 
 *V\e time Mars Dick Dabney come home from col 
 lege. She didn take long to fell in love with him, 
 neither. Ol Miss was livin then, an she favor it, 
 too. Miss Parm ly was a han some one, I tell you, 
 an she was rich on top o that. She rich as cream. 
 K"ow, why don t you ax your ma bout her ?"
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 45 
 
 "I have." 
 
 "AVell?" 
 
 " She won t talk to me about her, Aunt Lucy." 
 Here the girl raised her right hand solemnly. " If I 
 take my solemn oath that I will make no use of what 
 you may tell me, excepting to benefit my Cousin 
 Archibald, will you tell me then ?" 
 
 " Sw ar it !" 
 
 Hetty formulated an innocuous oath and swore 
 it." 
 
 " To ma c uld kill me, or sell me off the place, or 
 do anything she d a inin to, gal, ef you brek dat 
 oath." 
 
 " I shall not break it." 
 
 " Ef you does, I ll come back from de udder worl 
 spressly to hu nt you." 
 
 Lucy s words were the only terrible things at her 
 command. But they fell on dauntless ears. 
 
 " Miss Parm ly was the one that worked the thing 
 with Miss Aggie. She s yo ma, and de Lord soften 
 her heart and mek clean her ways, but Miss Aggie 
 done mek up her min long go to stan jus whar she 
 stan to-day at de top uv de Dabney ladder. But, 
 honey, I Avouldn t hev what Miss Parm ly I won t 
 say Miss Aggie, fur she jus are Miss Parm ly got 
 on her conscience fur all de gol an de silver an de 
 rubies which ain yit ben dig up out n de bowels uv 
 de airth." 
 
 " What has she on her conscience?"
 
 46 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " She have lies an broken promises an black 
 deceit an the puttin sunder uv man an wife, arter 
 God done j ne togedder, which is p intedly ag in 
 Scripter. Ain that nough ?" 
 
 " More than enough," said Hetty, shivering ; par 
 tially from the nervous excitement and partially 
 from the chill autumn atmosphere. " What man 
 and wife did she put asunder ?" 
 
 " Mars Dick Dabney and his lawful wedded wife." 
 " My Uncle Richard a married man !" 
 The door opened softly. Lucy s dark face turned 
 ashen with terror. She was on her feet and rattling 
 the dishes on the tray at a furious rate by the time 
 Mrs. Ogden was fairly inside the room. 
 
 "I wuz jus sayin t Miss Hetty, Miss Aggie, 
 that this warn begin t do. Ef Mandy s cookin ain 
 
 o / 
 
 good nough fur her, I ll haf ter swing dem pots roun 
 some myseff." She laughed nervously. Her laugh 
 was scarcely more than a feeble cackle. 
 
 " I expect Mandy s cooking will be good enough 
 for her after to-day, Lucy. Miss Henrietta has 
 been a little upset by all this excitement, naturally." 
 
 " Yassum. Jus es you say, Miss Aggie, this is 
 be n a tryin day." She had the heavy waiter poised 
 easily on her head now. " Jus member how ol 
 Mars use t brag on Lucy s waffles en buckwheats, 
 Miss Aggie ! Lucy were some dem days." 
 
 " Yes, I remember, Lucy. I remember perfectly 
 well. You can go now."
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 47 
 
 The old woman turned in the door-way to send a 
 look of pitiful appeal toward Hetty over her moth 
 er s shoulder. JSTo worded assurance of good faith 
 was possible. 
 
 " You are at liberty, too," said Mrs. Ogden coldly, 
 fuming a searching look upon Hetty s face. 
 
 " I believe I will go to bed," she answered, draw 
 ing the comb from her heavy hair as she spoke. 
 " The boys can get themselves to bed to-night." 
 
 " And how about your Cousin Arcmoald ?" 
 
 "He is not here. Did you send him away, 
 mother ? Didn t you even try to soften things for 
 him?" 
 
 "Who told you he was gone?" 
 
 " Aunt Lucy. She brought me this." 
 
 From the depths of the pocket, into which she 
 had hastily thrust the little black book, Hetty drew 
 Archibald s note. She was not enamored of de 
 ceit, and there was no reason why that note should 
 be added to the necessary concealments weighing 
 so heavily on her tender conscience. 
 
 Mrs. Ogden read the note and tossed it back con 
 temptuously. 
 
 " I suppose you will wear it next your heart !" 
 
 Hetty tore it into small bits and scattered them 
 over the carpet. 
 
 " How much more information have you extracted 
 from that old crone ?" 
 
 "Who? Aunt Lucy?"
 
 48 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "What other crone are you on intimate terms 
 with?" 
 
 " I thought perhaps you meant Parmelie Rose. 
 She is more haggish-looking than Aunt Lucy." 
 
 She was combing her hair in front of the glass. 
 Her mother was behind her. She was at a loss to 
 understand her own defiant mood. She was in a 
 state of tumultuous inward rebellion against the 
 only authority she had ever bowed to unquestion- 
 ingly. That her mother had ever done worse than 
 maneuver, heartlessly and seln shty, to keep the Dab- 
 ney property in the family, was not in her concep 
 tion. She was still at a loss to understand the pow 
 erful emotion the mere mention of Parmelie Eose s 
 name excited in her mother, usually so statuesque in 
 her composure. By the dim reflection of her face, 
 cast upon the glass by the lamp standing close to it, 
 she could see that strange glitter come again into 
 her eyes. 
 
 " You have spoken of Parmelie Rose twice to-day 
 and told me that you had seen her. She was a very 
 dear friend of mine in girlhood. She lost her mind 
 many years ago. She has been confined for a great 
 many years in a private asylum. The sudden men 
 tion of her name by you this morning came as a 
 shock to me. You are not likely to see or hear of 
 her again." 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 She walked over to the window to pull down the
 
 D 
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 49 
 
 holland blind. The house stood low upon the 
 ground. AVith a scream of terror she recoiled from 
 the window. There, clearly revealed by the pallid 
 moonlight in which the lawn was bathed, stood 
 Parmelie Rose, her hooded face pressed close against 
 1 the glass.
 
 50 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 A GRAVE-YARD TRYST. 
 
 r I ^IIE NEXT landing is yours, young man. We 
 
 O */ J *J O 
 
 J~ will be there in fifteen minutes. Asleep !" 
 This piece of information, with supplementary 
 inquiry, was sung into Archibald Murray s ears in 
 a hearty voice, and was accompanied by a rather 
 superfluous slap on the back, as he sat on the 
 guard of the steamer Magnolia with his arms fold 
 ed and his hat drawn over his brow, staring vacant 
 ly over the water at the monotonous scenery of 
 the lower Mississippi River, wrapped in a profound 
 reverie. 
 
 The Mississippi River steamboat captain of the 
 olden times was an institution, in his way combin 
 ing an amount of shrewdness, good-humor, activity 
 and hospitality not called for in any oilier olllcial 
 known to the traveling public. He was apparently 
 gifted with ubiquity, was always on hand to pull 
 the big bell-rope, or escort a lady passenger across 
 the long stage-plank, or to preside with courtly ease 
 at the head of the " captain s table," or to settle,with 
 summary firmness, a row between roustabout and 
 mate. Such a man was entitled to a slight margin 
 in the way of familiarity. 
 
 ;-
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 51 
 
 Archie did not resent that vigorous and unex 
 pected descent of the captain s broad palm upon his 
 motionless shoulders. He had been wrapped in a 
 profound reverie, touching the past, the present and 
 the future. It was a somber-hued reverie. He had 
 elected to try his fortunes in one of the lower Louis 
 iana parishes, urged thereto by Clayton, whose kins 
 folk he was accredited to, and he was trying to fore 
 cast his own future in their midst. 
 
 Pie pushed his hat back to get a better view of 
 the captain s rugged face as he said : 
 
 " I suppose you are fairly well acquainted with 
 these river parishes, captain ?" 
 
 The captain laughed derisively. 
 
 " Oh, no ! Don t know nothing at all about em \ 
 Been landing once a week at every point on the 
 river between Memphis and jSTew Orleans for twenty 
 years without finding out anything about the folks 
 or their plantations. That s the sort of fool I am !" 
 
 " Ilawkspoint, as I understand it, is my landing, 
 and the Glen plantation is six or seven miles in- 
 land," Archie went on, referring to a letter he took 
 from his pocket. 
 
 " Glen s got three plantations back from the river. 
 If you happen to mean the one he lives on the 
 1 Homestead, as they call it you ve got a stiffish 
 ride ahead of you. I suppose Glen s looking for 
 you?" 
 
 " I think not, I simply wrote that I would be
 
 52 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 here sometime this week. I suppose I can hire a 
 vehicle ?" 
 
 " Not much !" the captain said, with another one 
 of his derisive, jolly laughs. " The folks down here 
 ain t that sort. They might lend you a trap, but no 
 hiring. You ve got your own nag aboard, haven t 
 you ?" 
 
 " Yes. Meteor was one thing nobody cared to in 
 herit, lie s a devil for anybody but me." 
 
 " All you ve got to do, then, is to make somebody 
 put you on the right track to Glen s. It don t mat 
 ter what time you get there, you re sure of a hospit 
 able reception. There ain t a mean bone in Glen s 
 body. If you roust him out of bed at midnight 
 he ll tell you he s glad to see you." 
 
 " I wish you would tell me," Archie said, standing 
 up to face the captain more evenly, but his words 
 were drowned in the unearthly whistle that just 
 then began to blow immediately over their heads. 
 The captain hastened away to the post of duty, and 
 Murray leaned eagerly over the guard-rail to catch 
 the first glimpse of his future home and possible 
 constituency. 
 
 The outlook was not reassuring. It was the fall 
 of the year, and the river-bank, at the Ilawkspoint 
 Landing, was strewn thickly with cotton-bales and 
 sacks of cotton-seed, awaiting shipment. The rich, 
 black soil was cut into deep ruts by the constant 
 action of heavy wheels ? and further defiled by the
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 53 
 
 presence of a herd of starved cows and calves, who 
 tramped and nosed restlessly about the spot, glean 
 ing stray whisps of hay or a few scattered grains of 
 corn that spilled through holes in the corn- 
 sacks. 
 
 The whistling of the steamer brought to the land- 
 
 o o 
 
 ing a motley gathering of men and boys, white and 
 black, some with business to attend to, more with 
 none. 
 
 Night had followed quickly in the wake of the 
 setting sun, and the huge pine-torches that flared 
 from the prow of the steamboat cast a weird light 
 upon this scene as the boat slowly and cautiously 
 felt her way to the exact spot where the hard-beaten 
 foot-path led up from the long gang-way to the top 
 of the bank. 
 
 The group of men and boys gathered there cast 
 grotesque shadows of themselves in every direction, 
 as the flaring torches flamed now one way, now an 
 other. 
 
 Young Murray found it rather a dispiriting occu 
 pation, looking down upon this motley gathering. 
 Those were the people upon whom he was about to 
 become dependant for his daily bread, not one among 
 whom had ever heard his name mentioned. His 
 boasted skill in physiognomy was valueless to him 
 here. There were just so many hats, so many noses, 
 legs and arms brought into vieu r by the fitful torch 
 light.
 
 54 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 A few minutes later he stood in their midst, pass 
 ing his hand soothingly over Meteor s quivering 
 nostrils, who was yet trembling in fright at his en 
 forced passage of the narrow stage-plank from the 
 steamer to the shore. He scarcely knew to whom 
 to address himself, and felt absurdly homesick for 
 the steamer, which was already noisily puffing its 
 way to the next landing down the river. 
 
 His trunks and boxes were piled up on the bank 
 beside him, but it seemed to be nobody s business to 
 inquire into their final destination. He was the re 
 cipient of a not unkindly curiosity, but of no offi 
 cious interference in his affairs. He raised his voice 
 to ask : 
 
 " Is there any one here who belongs to the Glen- 
 cove Plantation ?" 
 
 "Me boss!" An old negro stepped out of the 
 crowd, armed with an ox-goad, which reached the 
 proportions of a young sapling. In his left hand he 
 held his shaggy cap, baring his gray wool to the 
 night air as he bowed courteously. " I is Reuben ; 
 ol man Rube, folks calls me for short. I is the 
 Glencove teamster. Kin I sarve you ?" 
 
 Archie yielded instantaneous confidence to the 
 wrinkled but honest face that beamed upon him 
 smilingly. 
 
 " You are the man I am looking for, then," he 
 said. " You will show me the way and take charge 
 of my luggage." He vaulted upon Meteor s back
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 55 
 
 i 
 
 and stooped over to adjust the stirrup-leathers. He 
 was impatient to start on that " stiffish ride." 
 
 Reuben stepped forward promptly to render this 
 service for him. 
 
 " You ll need dem splashers befo you gits to de 
 end uv yo ride, voun: mister. Thar s a sight er 
 
 / * *j o 
 
 mud twix yhere an Glenco . You needn t pester 
 bout yo baggage. It s all right ; but, son, I lows 
 that critter you s backin am gwine give his consent 
 to keep long side uv my oxin. I is in wid the ox- 
 team t day. All you got to do, howsomedever, is to 
 f oiler de levee tell you come t de by er, an den turn 
 t y o right an f oiler de by er tell you come to a strip 
 uv woods, an den foller de straight wagin-road 
 thro them woods till you come to a big, white 
 gate, an when you gits on the udder side a-that 
 gate you s all right. That s Glenco ." 
 
 " But," said Archibald, laughing down at old 
 Reuben, who had accompanied these lucid directions 
 by hand and arm gestures to indicate the various 
 turns in the road, " I m not all right, I don t want 
 to spend the night in the Glencove fields." 
 
 Old Reuben drew himself tip with stately dignity. 
 
 " Sah, tliar ain t no danger o nobody spendin the: 
 night in Mars Leonard Glen s fiels. Wen you git 
 inside er dat gate, you ll see a big, w ite house, all 
 scrou^ed about wid bushes an shrubberies an trees, 
 
 o 
 
 wid lights a shinin from so many winders that the 
 blackes night can t hide it from folks. All you s 
 
 b
 
 56 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 got t do after you pass through that gate is t* f oiler 
 yo nose. And, son," he added briskly, as Archie 
 thanked him and touched Meteor s flanks lightly 
 with the whip, " don you f orgit t shet that big gate 
 arter you. Our fiel s is full er punkins jis now, an 
 we don low t feed em t ol Squire Mason s cattle. 
 I ll git thar wid yo traps some time twix this an 
 kingdom come." 
 
 Professing himself quite satisfied with this vague 
 promise, the doctor touched Meteor again on the 
 flank, and was soon out of sight of the little group 
 of loungers who took a perennial interest in the 
 mild happenings that followed on every landing of 
 a steamboat. 
 
 As Meteor splashed his way through the one long 
 muddy street of Hawkspoint, Archibald took rapid 
 notes. There was a tiny church steeple, rising 
 modestly above the low dwelling-houses of the ham 
 let. There was a blacksmith s shop, its forge all 
 aglow, and the ringing blows upon its anvil striking 
 sharply upon the night air. There were trees and 
 shrubs in front of every house, shielding it from 
 vulgar curiosity. He liked that. 
 
 For a mile or two after losing sight of the town 
 his way lay along a river-side road, flanked on one 
 side by the tall hedging that inclosed somebody s 
 cotton-fields, on the other by the inevitable levee, 
 high and grass-grown, shutting from view the river 
 he had so recently parted company with. It was a
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 57 
 
 darksome and lonely road to those most familiar 
 with it, but dismally so to one traveling it for the 
 first time. lie was conscious of rather nervously 
 straining his ears in hopes of catching old Reuben s 
 stentorian " jee-haw," or at least the creaking of his 
 heavy wagon-wheels. 
 
 The wood into which he turned presently were 
 still more somber. The trees were not so closely 
 ranged but that he could see their long gray beards 
 of Spanish moss swaying dismally in the night wind, 
 nor the road so wide but that frequently, when 
 Meteor stepped daintily to one side to avoid an un 
 usually nasty-looking mud-puddle, lie felt the cool, 
 soft touch of the mossy tendrils caressing his cheek 
 like ghostly fingers at a dark seance. Suddenly, by 
 the light of the new-risen moon, the glimmer of 
 water became visible. That must be Reuben s bayou ! 
 And there, a little beyond, were two spectral, white 
 gate-posts. It must be the Glencove gate. They 
 loomed on his vision more agreeably than on 
 Meteor s, who, at sight of them, gave one terrified 
 snort and plunged to one side with such suddenness 
 as to break the girth to his saddle and unhorse his 
 rider, whom he recklessly deserted to his fate, as he 
 galloped back over the road they had just traveled. 
 
 This was a pleasant predicament! It was bad 
 enough to follow old Reuben s directions in this 
 obscure light from the vantage ground of Meteor s 
 back ; it would be trebly hard to pick his way through
 
 58 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 the muddy fields on foot, not to speak of the exces 
 sively disagreeable prospect of presenting himself 
 before the Glencove people in the guise of a mud- 
 bespattered tramp and/demand hospitality. First 
 impressions went a long way. 
 
 There Avas no choice left him, however. Meteor 
 was long since out of hearing of the fierce reproaches 
 he hurled after him, and unless he really did mean 
 to spend the night in Mr. Glen s fields, he must 
 move forward on foot. Fortunately a new moon be 
 friended him. 
 
 Perhaps, but for Meteor s treachery he would not 
 have come to that sudden halt in the middle of the 
 broad fields, bewildered and confused. .Reuben had 
 told him that after passing through the big gate he 
 would see a lot of trees and shrubs, behind which the 
 Glencove dwelling was hidden away. There \vere 
 two groves in sight, a small one to his right, nearer 
 by many rods than the larger and more distant one. 
 He was quite sure he could see the gleam of a white 
 fence about the nearer one. If he had been in the 
 saddle he would have seen the spreading roof of the 
 mansion-house dimly outlined against the more dis 
 tant trees. 
 
 As it was, he veered abruptly to the right toward 
 the nearer and smaller grove. Apparently he told 
 himself in so doing, he had gotten out of the plain 
 road, for he found himself plunging directly across 
 cotton-ridges that seemed interminable, whose inter-
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 59 
 
 vening furrows were sodden with moisture and 
 yielded treacherously under his soaked feet. After 
 all, these trees that he was nearing might simply 
 belong to an outlying bit of pasture land, for cer 
 tainly the trudge he was making did not indicate the 
 approach to a gentleman s country-seat. The grove 
 stood on an extensive knoll. He was alongside the 
 gleaming white pickets that girdled the trees black 
 thorn and cedars principally, as well as he could 
 judge in that obscure light before he discovered the 
 scattered marble head-stones which explained the 
 nature of the inclosure. "The family bury ing- 
 ground," he said, with an impatient exclamation 
 over the time and energy he had expended in mak 
 ing this useless discovery. He stood still for a 
 second to cast about him for the most direct route to 
 that other grove, from which he had been traveling 
 all this time. In that second he became aware of a 
 living personality in there among the silent dead. 
 There was a soft, shuffling sound, as of a slow, 
 steady footfall among the fallen leaves. It came to 
 his ears more distinctly every second. Presently a 
 red glow, like the tip of a lighted cigar. He could 
 see it winding in and out among the thickly planted 
 head-stones, now nearer, no\v more distant, some 
 times lost entirely, only to reappear in an unex 
 pected quarter. He placed himself behind a tree 
 which grew just outside the picket-fence. He would 
 wait until that broad, white cloud floated from off
 
 GO A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 the face of the moon, and discover, if possible, 
 whether this lonely watcher among the dead were a 
 man of his own color or some depredator. The 
 neighborhood was entirely unknown to him and he 
 to it. He shouldn t care to be challenged as a tres^ 
 passer, and probably fired at without a chance for 
 explanation. 
 
 The faint fragrance of the cigar floated to him on 
 the heavy night air. The smoker came and stood 
 leaning motionlessly over the small picket-gate. 
 Clearly it was a white man ; his apparel and his 
 attitude betrayed that much to the watcher behind 
 the tree. While Archibald was hastily formulating 
 some mode of explaining his own awkward situation 
 there glided past him and toward the man at the 
 gate a tall, slight form, wrapped in a long, clinging 
 cloak. The smoker flung his cigar far out across 
 the wet fields and put out a hand hastily : 
 
 " You are late, Mademoiselle," Archibald heard 
 him say, a trifle impatiently, as he drew the tall 
 form inside the gate by the hand lie had reached 
 out for so eagerly, and disappeared with it among 
 the blackthorns and cedars that spread their somber 
 branches over the gleaming white tomb-stones 
 
 Singularly averse to mystery of any sort, Doctor 
 Murray found it specially obnoxious, meeting him 
 thus on the very threshold of his new life, and per 
 haps involving the people among whom he expected 
 to make his home. He advanced resolutely. If
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. Gl 
 
 there was to be anything inexplicable in the home- 
 life he was about to take up, he did not propose to 
 lose the clew accident had placed in his hands. He 
 cautiously circumvented the white picket-fence upon 
 the outside. As he anticipated, it enclosed a small 
 building, scarcely larger than a tool-house, its rear 
 end being built into the fence. A dead- wall con 
 fronted him. He walked the full breadth of this 
 wall, baffled and disappointed. A faint line of light 
 in one side of the building showed where a solid 
 wooden shutter was located. Fate favored him. 
 He had scarcely made this discovery, when a sudden 
 and violent gust of wind blew it open, revealing a 
 rough interior, a table in the center, on which stood 
 a shaded lamp, and at which, seated near each other, 
 were the man and the woman who had excited his 
 curiosity to so indiscreet a pitch. 
 
 The man s back was turned to him. Evidently, 
 in his absorption, he had not yet taken note of the 
 swaying shutter. The woman s profile was turned 
 to him. She had thrown back the hood to her 
 wrap, and with hands folded on the table before 
 her, sat like a beautiful carven image. Her profile 
 was singularly delicate in contour, and even in that 
 fleeting glimpse Archibald took notice of the rich 
 mass of waving yellow hair that was knotted on 
 the top of her head. She shivered. The man 
 raised his eyes from an open book before him, and 
 glancing over his shoulder, rose hastily and drew the
 
 62 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 heavy wooden shutter back into place. Archibald 
 could hear him slide the iron bolt into its socket. 
 There would be no more chance revealments that 
 night. 
 
 Archibald had made good use of that one oppor 
 tunity, however. It had served him to decide that 
 the woman who was keeping this strange tryst was 
 both young and beautiful, while the man revealed 
 in that hasty transit from table to window was 
 bent, either from age or infirmity, and plain to the 
 point of ugliness. 
 
 " Beauty and the Beast holding tryst among the 
 tomb-stones," he said disgustedly, and slowly pick 
 ing his way back to his starting-point he trudged 
 once more across the cotton-ridges, and regaining 
 the main road, turned his face toward the larger 
 grove. 
 
 He was right this time. ISTearer and nearer the 
 big white house, with its hospitably lighted win 
 dows, loomed gratefully upon his tired vision. How 
 could he ever ignorantly have stepped aside to that 
 spot of mystery and darkness ? They had nothing 
 in common with each other. He was but a yard or 
 two from the pretty yard-gate that led up to the 
 Grlencove house, when a tall, slight form, wrapped 
 in a clinging, dark cloak, passed swiftly by him, en 
 tered the gate, and was swallowed up by the shrub 
 bery in Mr. Glen s front yard.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE HERMIT OF ALLIGATOR ISLAND. 
 
 DOOR of the tool-house stood wide open. 
 -- There was nothing inside to. tempt depredators. 
 Two hard wooden chairs and a small deal-table, for 
 convenience in sorting seed, and a lot of tools 
 stacked in one corner, that was all. The new moon, 
 just about to drop below the horizon, sent a slanting 
 beam through the opening to shimmer on the broad, 
 clean blade of a new spade. For all else, it, was as 
 dark in there as outside among the shadows cast by 
 the blackthorns and the cedars. A resident frog 
 leaped with - purposeless energy from the spongy 
 turf of a sunken grave, marked only by a head-stone, 
 to the pedestal of a stately column that vied Avith 
 the cedars in altitude. Its chill splendor was in turn 
 spurned as a resting-place for the wooden-step of 
 the tool-house. One more leap and he looked out 
 upon the world with round, prominent eyes from the 
 center of the table in the deserted room. From that 
 eminence he gave the pitch for the evening concert 
 in his capacity as leader. From under the sunken 
 stones ; from out the sodden heaps of last year s 
 leaves ; from the gnarled roots of an ancient oak,
 
 64 AS TEA NGE PIL GRIM A GE. 
 
 that spread protecting arms about the tool-house, 
 came prompt response. There was nothing to startle 
 them from their sense of security. The man who 
 had held them awed and silenced by his heavy foot 
 fall, invading their sacred haunt with brutal disre 
 gard of their feelings, had taken himself elsewhere. 
 Had taken himself to the banks of a narrow 
 bayou that coursed sluggishly along the boundary 
 line of the Glen place for several miles before open 
 ing out into a broad, placid lake, which spread its 
 silvery expanse in front of half a dozen of the finest 
 plantations in the parish. Tall trees bowed their 
 stately heads so close together across the narrow 
 current of the bayou that in midday cool, dark 
 shadows rested on its bosom. Brambles and vines 
 and burrs and rushes disputed the supremacy of its 
 tangled banks. Dead trees spanned it and sent their 
 wet, blackened branches out to impede its progress 
 with armfuls of slimy moss and weeds. Spectral 
 cypress trees lifted their pallid cones from its dark 
 est depths. The black moccasin coiled about their 
 smooth crowns with shining convolutions ; turtles 
 sunned themselves on its moss-clad bridges ; alliga 
 tors glided in and out among the stumps and the 
 roots and the wet mosses ; timid cranes stalked 
 mincingly along its borders or stood motionless 
 among its shadows on one slender leg. Only the 
 stock that roamed at large appreciated the bayou as 
 an inexhaustible drinking-trough. J\o one had any 
 
 ^ f
 
 .1 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 5 
 
 use for it, and yet, on that particular night, a canoe 
 was fastened to one of the dead trees that spanned 
 it, and as it skiing lightly to and fro, moved by the 
 wind and the current, the clanking of its chain made 
 a dismal note in the stillness. People said the bayou 
 was not navigable, but such a craft as the one that 
 was chained to the dead tree might be slowlv pro 
 pelled through its impediments by the skillful use of 
 a single oar. 
 
 There was not a glimmer of moonlight when a 
 man stepped cautiously out over the moss-grown 
 tree, and letting himself down into the canoe, loos 
 ened the chain, dropped it into the bottom of the 
 boat, and began slowly and cautiously to paddle 
 against the sluggish current in the direction of the 
 open lake. Once free from the obstructions of the 
 bayou, his progress was marvelously rapid. lie plied 
 the single oar now on one side, now on the other of 
 the canoe, keeping her prow pointed straight at a 
 small circular island that lay on the bosom of the 
 lake not more than a mile or two from the mouth of 
 the bayou. It did not cover more than an acre or 
 two of space, and to all seeming was an unbroken 
 mass of verdure. The same semi-tropical tangle of 
 bush and vine and brier which distinguished the 
 banks of the bayou prevailed here. 
 
 Approaching the bank as closely as practicable, 
 the man in the canoe laid his paddle softly down in 
 the bottom of the boat and executed a peculiar
 
 CO A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 whistle. It consisted of two short notes, one pro 
 longed one, then two mfore short ones, the whole 
 confined to a subdued undertone, which, like all his 
 motions, suggested an ever-present sense of caution. 
 
 From the bushes on the bank, not in front of him, 
 but several yards farther to the south of the island, 
 came an echo to his whistle. lie grasped the over 
 hanging vines and bushes and slowly pulled the boat 
 around in direction of the sound. The whistle was 
 repeated once more from the bank, when, witli a 
 vigorous swing, he sent his slight craft clean up 
 among the rushes and briers, beaching and hiding it 
 at one maneuver. 
 
 A hand was held out to him from the shore. lie 
 availed himself of it while clambering over the gun- 
 Avale of the boat. 
 
 " What is this for ?" he asked. 
 
 " The bushes were beginning to look bent at the 
 other place." 
 
 " There s a lot of stuff in the boat. Help me to 
 get it out. Here, take the bag. I can manage the 
 rest." 
 
 He swung a heavy gunny-sack across the shoul 
 ders of the man who had come down to meet him, 
 and loading himself down with the rest of the boat s 
 cargo, folloAved in silence the lead of his companion 
 along a foot-path so narrow that they had to walk 
 single file, and at times, with both hands, push aside 
 the tall, smooth, cane-roots which refused them pas-
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. Cn 
 
 sage. At the apparent center of the island, the man 
 who was in the lead stooped and opened wide a 
 door, whose exterior was so curiously matted with 
 branches and vines as to be indistinguishable from 
 the surrounding verdure when closed. He held it 
 open for his companion to pass through. Both men 
 had to bow their heads to pass under the low lintel. 
 Once inside, every trace of uncultivated nature was 
 obliterated. They were in a small room, whose low 
 ceiling and contracted space were strikingly inade 
 quate to the comforts and even elegancies that had 
 accumulated within them. 
 
 A bright stuffed portiere hung on the inside of 
 the door they had entered by. Book-cases, tools of 
 all sorts, maps, dumb-bells, pictures, curiously woven 
 articles of palmetto, crowded the space on the Avails 
 so thickly that no one Avould have suspected they 
 were huno; with ordinary crimson can ton- flannel. 
 
 o 
 
 Two curious things were noticeable. There were no 
 windows to the room, and no chimney to the house, 
 if house it was. 
 
 In the center of the apartment was a charcoal- 
 furnace, such as country housewives use for out-door 
 preserving purposes, and in this was a glowing, smoke 
 less fire. A heap of fragrant pine-cones lay by the 
 side of the furnace, and dumping his gunny-sack 
 down in one corner of the room, the younger man 
 proceeded to throw a double handful of them upon 
 the glowing charcoal. They crackled and blazed 
 cheerfully.
 
 68 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "You look cold and tired," he said, drawing a 
 large easy-chair close to the furnace and gently 
 pressing the older man into its arms. " This thing 
 is wearing you out, father. "Why not give it up 2" 
 
 " Wearing me out ! toot ! nonsense !" The old 
 man spread his vein-seamed hands out over the crack 
 ling pine-cones. " It s a little chilly to-night, that s 
 all, and I ought to have changed my coat before 
 starting, but I never thought of it." 
 
 " No ; you have no time to think of yourself, and 
 yet how many worthless lives like mine do you 
 count yours to be worth ?" 
 
 " Don t talk that way, George ! Don t do it, son ! 
 It hurts me worse than anything you do. I ll be 
 all right in a second. "What makes my teeth chatter 
 so infernally ?" 
 
 He was an old man, the one who had just come 
 through the gloom of the night and the damp chill 
 of water travel, and the toil had not been slight. 
 His face, a thoughtful one, deeply seamed with 
 anxious lines, was blue and pinched with cold. 
 
 " You are getting a chill ! You have one now ! 
 Hold on ! Let me mix you something hot. I thought 
 perhaps you d be over to-night, and I ve got the 
 water all ready." He turned toward a table against 
 the wall, where a small copper tea-kettle, swung over 
 a spirit-lamp, was hissing and spluttering energetic 
 ally. He was evidently an expert in the business, 
 for the mingled fragrance of lemon, hot wine and
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. (J<) 
 
 nutmeg soon floated out upon the air as he came 
 toward the furnace with two brimming goblets of 
 negus in his hand. One he extended to his father : 
 
 " Drink this, father, while it is hot. It wO make 
 you look at life differently. Here s to Colonel 
 Negus." 
 
 He laughed recklessly, took down half the con 
 tents of his goblet at a draught and set it down on 
 the table, while he applied his handkerchief to the 
 long moustache which swept his chin. The shaded 
 lamp on the little stand by the brazier did not 
 illuminate the room very brilliantly. Perhaps it 
 was better so, for the old man in the easy-chair 
 would have carried away with him a heavier load of 
 care than he brought if he could have seen the blue 
 vein tracery on the hands that mixed the negus, or 
 noted the sunken temples over which his son s long 
 black hair fell in careless waves. It was a hand 
 some face, in spite of its extreme pallor, and the 
 form, upon which the coat began to hang altogether 
 too loosely, still indicated an unusual degree of 
 sinewy grace. 
 
 They took turn about, this father and son, in 
 comforting each other. God knows they both 
 needed comforting at all times and seasons. To 
 night it was the son s turn. The old man was at a 
 " lower ebb," he said to himself, than he had been 
 for months. 
 
 " Come ! while you drink your negus, empty your 
 budget. What s going on in the world?*
 
 ?0 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "Nothing much nothing at all, in fact. Glen 
 and his wife got back from New Orleans last week. 
 Mason s gin has broken down again. You know it 
 ahvays does break down just when he begins to gin. 
 Martin s talking about putting in a draining-machine, 
 and oh, yes! something has happened, or is about 
 to happen. We are going to have a new doctor ! 
 Glen s imported- him, I believe!" 
 
 " I am glad to hear it." 
 
 "Glad! Why?" 
 
 " Because you ought to have given up practicing 
 long ago. You don t need the money, and you are 
 getting too old to be at the beck and call of every 
 hysterical woman. Yes, I am glad of it !" 
 
 "If I don t practice what will I do? Sit down at 
 home and think and eat my heart out ?" 
 
 "No! Go with me, father, where the name of 
 Bemish will never be heard again !" 
 
 The old man dashed his empty goblet from him 
 with such vehemence that it fell upon the brick floor 
 shattered into a thousand bits. He rose to his feet, 
 quivering in every muscle. 
 
 "No, sir! By the Almighty, I will not turn my 
 back on the old place until the name of Bemish is 
 washed clean from every stain !" 
 
 " And you really expect to see that day ?" 
 
 The younger man had more control of his nerves 
 and muscles than the older one. It would have 
 taken a keen physiognomist to trace the lines of
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 71 
 
 anguish in liis smooth, almost boyish features. He 
 stood with his hands folded behind his back, looking 
 
 o 
 
 into his father s face with eyes that questioned hope 
 and denied reason. 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Are you anr nearer to it than vou were a month 
 
 / - . 
 
 ago, father ?" 
 
 " I was on the veiy threshold of it. The truth 
 was almost within r.iy grasp when the devil inter 
 fered to defend his own ! 
 
 " That is a trick he has played you so often," said 
 his son bitterly, " that I should think you would not 
 expect any different results. What did he do this 
 time ?" 
 
 " Blew wide open an accursed shutter just as she 
 had taken the pen in her hand to write the truth. 
 The spell was broken for to-night." 
 
 "Father," the young man said, "I want vou to 
 
 / * 
 
 tell me one thing very truthfully." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Will this thing hurt her ?" 
 
 " Mentally or physically, do you mean ? 
 
 " Either way any way ?" 
 
 " Konsense ! Do you suppose I am going to com 
 mit murder?" 
 
 He was nervous and excited, and the words slipped 
 from his lips with unnecessary emphasis. 
 
 Both men winced under it. The younger one 
 walked over to the table, and replenishing his goblet, 
 drained it before speaking again.
 
 72 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "]STo. I don t suspect you of wanting to hurt a 
 hair of Miss Glen s head, but unless she has changed 
 greatly in two years, she is of a highly-strung, ner 
 vous temperament, and just the sort to be unhinged 
 by the experiment you are trying. Better leave 
 things as they are, father, than try to mend them by 
 harming her." 
 
 " Two years !" The old man evidently had heard 
 nothing that followed after those words. " Two years 
 of wrong, of insult, of mystery and misery !" 
 
 " Two years !" the young man repeated after him 
 bitterly, " of exile, of loneliness, of life in a lair ! 
 Why, the beasts of the fields are to be envied !" 
 
 A somber, brooding silence fell between them. 
 The heap of pine-cones was reduced to one. The 
 coals in the brazier glowed dully. The old man s 
 head sank upon his breast ; tired nature asserted 
 herself and he fell asleep. The younger one sat 
 with his great dark eyes fixed upon the dull glow of 
 the furnace. He could not trust himself to close 
 them. Before the first faint streak of dawn revis 
 ited the earth he must arouse that poor old man and 
 see him to his boat, and with his own hands give 
 him the impetus that would send him out again over 
 the dark, cold water homeward. He brought a pil 
 low gnd laid it under his father s head, resting it on 
 the stand by the chair. He brought an afghan and 
 wrapped it tenderly about his bent form. There 
 was nothing left to do but watcli.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE BEMISII TRAGEDY. 
 
 STANDING on the broad veranda of the Glen 
 Homestead, with the sparkle and the glitter 
 and the cheerful hum of an early, sunlit morning all 
 
 i/7 O 
 
 about him ; with the somber branches of the ever 
 greens in the big front yard a-flutter with countless 
 robin-redbreasts and cedar-birds ; with his genial, 
 handsome host renewing his welcome in terms of 
 unmistakable sincerity, it was easy enough for Archi 
 bald to make light of the fatigues and annoyance of 
 the night just gone. All that had happened before 
 reaching this hospitable shelter belong to the realm 
 of uneasy dreams and homesick fancies. 
 
 He had finished his toilet somewhat hastily, in re 
 sponse to Mr. Glen s tap on the shutters of his room, 
 which opened immediately upon the front gallery. 
 
 " I thought perhaps you would like to walk up to 
 the stables before breakfast to look at your horse. 
 Reuben got home about an hour after you went to 
 bed and brought him along. He reports finding him 
 on the road-side, pretty badly hobbled by his hitch- 
 ing-rein." 
 
 " I shouldn t care if he d broken his treacherous
 
 74 A STttAftGti 
 
 neck !" said Murray, stepping back into the hall for 
 liis hat. 
 
 "I hope you don t bear malice," said Mr. Glen, 
 laughing. " I don t much blame the brute for scar 
 ing at those ghostly posts, coming on them for the 
 first time in the night. We may as well take the 
 glass, and I can introduce you to some of your con 
 stituents at long range." 
 
 He took down a long old-fashioned spy-glass from 
 the rack in the hall and led the way toward the 
 front gate, which lay at the end of a long walk, 
 flanked by double rows of crape myrtle, then out 
 upon the broad, grassy lawn that sloped gradually 
 down to the very water s edge in velvet smoothness. 
 
 " What lovely situations you lake-dwellers all seem 
 to have for your homes," Archibald said, sweeping 
 the view with admiring gaze. 
 
 " We think so. I was born right here, you know, 
 and although I have traveled considerably, for a 
 swamp planter, hanged if I ve found a spot anywhere, 
 North, South, East or West, that I would exchange the 
 Homestead for. My wife s almost as bad about it 
 as I am. She s lived here always, too. You see 
 that chimney peeping up over the trees on the other 
 side of the lake, up yonder to the north 2 Xo ; not 
 the one with the green gate-posts. Here ; take the 
 glass. Now, then, the one with the long wooden- 
 walk leading out to the boat-house. Yes 2 Well, 
 that s where Mrs. Glen s folks live. Her father and
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. % 
 
 mother and a house full of children. You are likely 
 to see enough of them. They are the sort that 
 wants the doctor if baby scratches its own nose 
 with, its own nails. Mrs. Glen was born in that 
 very house. A jolly old place it is, too. Mrs. Glen 
 was a Martin." 
 
 Archibald next brought the glass to bear upon the 
 green gate-posts. They were two or three miles dis 
 tant from, the Martin mansion. A tiny little frame- 
 cottage, all latticed about, sat back behind them. 
 The lattice-work was painted the same vivid green 
 as the gate-posts. It all looked very snug and trim. 
 
 " Whose wren s nest is that behind the green gate 
 posts ?" he asked, without removing the glass. " I 
 like the look of it." 
 
 Mr. Glen laughed as he answered : 
 
 "If you re one of the gormandizing sort, that 
 house behind the green gate-posts will become one 
 of your favorite resorts. There s where Bud Hunt 
 lives. I ll lay a wager Clayton s written to him 
 about you already. Bud s a character. He knows 
 how to set a table, though. All the housekeepers in 
 the country are envious of him. Confirmed old 
 bachelor. Says it s Thersie s fault. You haven t 
 seen Thersie yet my sister, Miss Glen. Bud began 
 courting her when she came home from school for 
 the holidays, and has kept it up annually ever since. 
 Don t see how he could round off the year without 
 his "annual message," I call it. Tip-top fellow,
 
 76 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Hunt. If he hadn t been left too well off, he d have 
 done something, maybe. Lots of brains. The next 
 place," noticing that Murray had changed the direc 
 tion of the glass once more, " belongs to a lot of 
 people who just serve to fill up chinks. You know 
 the world has to have ballast of one sort or another. 
 And next to that comes the Bemish place. Bemish 
 is your predecessor." 
 
 " Why my predecessor ?" Archie asked, lowering 
 the heavy glass and returning it to his host. " Cer 
 tainly a neighborhood like this ought to be able to 
 support two physicians without injury to any one s 
 prospects. I should not like to feel like an usurper." 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Mr. Glen soothingly, 
 " pray don t get any of that nonsense in your head. 
 For all practical purposes, old Bemish may as well 
 have died and been buried two years ago. He tries 
 to keep up, but it s a dismal failure." 
 
 " Health giving way ?" 
 
 " No. To look at him you would say there were 
 a good many years of usefulness ahead of the old 
 man. He s not more than sixty, perhaps less. But- 
 well, I may as well tell you about Bemish first as 
 last. You are going to hear his story from some 
 body. It Avill serve to show you, too, how much we 
 need another physician hare, and how little you 
 will be of an interloper." 
 
 They had been walking slowly toward the stables 
 while talking. Meteor was brought out for his ma*
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 77 
 
 ter s inspection and found to be none the worse for 
 his escapade, barring a skinned spot on one leg. 
 
 Mr. Glen led the way to a mounting-block on the 
 road-side when the examination was concluded, and 
 suggested they should sit there while he told Doc 
 tor Bemish s story. " Plenty of time before break 
 fast. Mrs. Glen and Thersie are a little deliberate 
 of mornings." Then he entered upon his narrative. 
 
 " Bemish has had the entire practice of this neigh 
 borhood ever since I was a boy. In fact, he has 
 never practiced anywhere else. Came here a strug 
 gling young doctor, about your age, but married 
 into one of the wealthiest families on the lake 
 before he d been here a year. That place over yon 
 der was his wife s. She didn t live long. Died 
 when their first child, a splendid boy, was about five 
 or six years old. Bemish adored her and worshiped 
 the boy. He never would allow him to go away to 
 school. Reared him up right under his own nose. 
 Had all sorts of tutors for him, but somehow none 
 of them staid very long. George was a little too 
 much for them, I guess. 
 
 " Xot that he didn t study. His father used to 
 say they left when George had squeezed them dry 
 and they hadn t anything more to offer him. The 
 old man seemed perfectly satisfied with everything 
 George did or left undone. They lived over there 
 together, and when the doctor was off duty he de 
 voted himself to George s culture. You can
 
 78 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 imagine what sort of training the boy got. More 
 money than was good for him ; absolute liberty, 
 and a doating father as his only restraint." 
 " What a beast he must have turned out !" 
 On the contrary, he was one of the most fascin 
 ating youno; fellows you ever saw. Even men felt 
 
 o *, / 
 
 the power of his gentleness, courtesy and affability. 
 And as for the women ! Well, when I tell you 
 George Beinish was as handsome as Adonis, you can 
 forecast their opinion. I believe Thersie was about 
 the only girl in the parish that wasn t ready to drop 
 into his arms at the first word. But then we call 
 Thersie St. Ambrose s Maiden of Snow. Bemish 
 was a great beau in those days." 
 
 " I notice you speak of Mr. Beinish in the past 
 tense. Is he dead ?" 
 
 " That s more than I can tell you. It would have 
 been better for the old man if he had died when 
 his mother did. lie had full swing. Drove the 
 fastest, wildest horses that ever were hitched to a 
 pole, and was in for all that was going. INTobody 
 ever saw George Bemish drunk, but when he mur 
 dered a poor little Frenchman, whom the doctor had 
 imported in order to cram George for a European 
 trip, in cold blood, the people were just ready to 
 mob him. They would have done it, too would 
 have taken him out of jail and lynched him if he 
 hadn t escaped in some mysterious way and got out 
 of the country."
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. , ;<t 
 
 " Do you suppose his father got him out 2" 
 
 " IS"o. You see at the time this thing occurred 
 there wasn t much else talked about for weeks, and 
 we exhausted all our theories. No ; if the old man 
 had gotten him out he would have cleared out with 
 him. But he didn t, which is all the proof we 
 Avant that he doesn t even know his son s where 
 abouts. At first he just seemed to give up com 
 pletely. Lived at the jail ; had to be almost driven 
 away. Everybody pitied the old man. He Avas a 
 good man and a good doctor, and we have kept on 
 sending for him, just as if nothing had ever hap 
 pened. But you see Ave re getting afraid to depend 
 on him." 
 
 "Why Avas the guilt fastened on young Bemish so 
 promptly? It doesn t seem in keeping with the 
 character you have described." 
 
 " Doesn t it ? 
 
 " Oh ! well, nobody else could have done it. No 
 body else had any motive. I m not going to say the 
 Frenchman Avasn t an infernal little nuisance a 
 conceited puppy that couldn t look at a Avoman Avith- 
 out offering to insult her. There d been a fish-fry 
 doAvn by Bemish s gate that day. Thersie went. 
 Mrs. Glen and I didn t. Thersie Avent with Hugh 
 Maury. Mrs. Glen thinks they Avere engaged. I 
 don t know. It seems this little Frenchman made 
 an extra fool of himself on that occasion, and Hugh 
 said to George they Avere the best sort of friends,
 
 80 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Hugh and George that he was afraid he would 
 have to slap the Frenchman s jaws before the day 
 was over, and George said : Just leave him to me ; 
 I ll iix him. "When Lawyer Simonds interviewed 
 him after the murder and reminded him of that re 
 mark he didn t deny having said it, but said he had 
 simply meant, in his capacity of host, to order him 
 off the grounds. But the Frenchman was found 
 dead that same evening just inside Bemish s grounds, 
 and an old Scotch gardener of the doctor s swore to 
 seeing George Bemish pull a knife from under the 
 body and fling it as far as he could send it into the 
 lake, after doing which he called on the gardener 
 to help him carry the man to the house. You see 
 there wasn t any room for doubt." 
 
 " Is"ot much. What a dastardly scoundrel !" 
 " Yes ; and being the only murder that ever had 
 been committed in the parish, it seemed to excite 
 the neighborhood to a perfect frenzy of indignation. 
 You see they felt as if they must do something to 
 show that a man couldn t ride rough-shod over the 
 moralities and decencies of life just because he was 
 a rich man s son, and if George Bemish had not been 
 sharp enough to break jail, I am afraid that some 
 thing would have occurred of a very serious nature. 
 The old man s case is really a pitiful one. Of course 
 you will call on him 4" 
 
 " I suppose courtesy demands that much." 
 
 " I think it does. Come ! I expect you are about
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 81 
 
 ready for your breakfast ?" Mr. Glen rose from the 
 carriage block, brushed the dust from his trousers, 
 and swinging the spy-glass over his shoulders by its 
 leathern strap, took the lead once more. 
 
 " Your lake is entrancing this morning." Archie 
 halted immediately in front of the gate to look once 
 more out over the blue and rippling water. There 
 were great patches of Minorca lily-pads afloat on its 
 bosom near the banks, their huge green discs each 
 holding a sparkling diamond-drop at its heart. 
 Archie s delighted eyes wandered up and down the 
 lonely sheet of water, resting finally on a small 
 circular island that presented an unbroken green 
 cone of verdure to the sun s rays. It scarcely 
 covered more than two acres of space. 
 
 " AVhat do you call that emerald gem down 
 
 / 
 
 yonder ?" he asked, pointing it out to his host. 
 
 "It goes by the name of Alligator s Island. 
 There s a notion out that alligators are thicker about 
 there than anyw^here else in the lake. It belongs to 
 the Bemish property, and I understand the old man 
 has had a notice w r arning off trespassers stuck on all 
 four sides of it. There s not much call for that, as 
 there s nothing to tempt trespassers. It s about as 
 useless a piece of property as a body could well pos 
 sess. It s iust a crankv notion of the old man s." 
 
 t) ^ 
 
 " It s a beauty spot, though." 
 " Yes, perhaps. By the way, Murray," they had 
 passed inside of the gate by this time, and Archi-
 
 82 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 bald could see the trailing flounces of feminine gar 
 ments on the veranda through the thick shrubbery 
 " I ve one warning to utter. We never speak of the 
 Bemish tragedy before my sister. She was ma-do 
 unaccountably nervous by it at the time it happened. 
 And then, when Hugh Maury left the neighborhood- 
 some said it was because he felt he had innocently 
 precipitated the tragedy Thersie was really in a 
 bad way. You see, I m very candid, but then you re 
 going to be one of us, and I am opposed to useless 
 mystification." 
 
 Doctor Murray turned and clasped his host s hand 
 warmly. 
 
 " I am with you, then. There is nothing on earth 
 that excites my wrath and disgust more readily than 
 mystery in the home circle." 
 
 They were at the foot of the front steps by this 
 time, and there, standing, waiting to be introduced 
 to the new doctor before passing into the breakfast- 
 room, was Mrs. Glen, a tiny little Avoman with a 
 frank, open face, a pair of fearless blue eyes, a mass 
 of black hair, and no end of ribbons and laces on her 
 morning-dress, which trailed gracefully from her 
 sloping shoulders as she came forward with a 
 cordially extended hand. 
 
 More slowly, with more of quiet dignity and an 
 immense amount of shy reserve, Miss Glen followed 
 her motions. She was quite tall, and about her head 
 was coiled a mass of pale yellow hair. Her repose
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. S3 
 
 almost amounted to languor. As she turned from 
 him, after uttering some conventional words of wel 
 come her profile came into view. Archie started in 
 voluntarily, and then put from him violently the wild 
 suspicion that had entered his fancy. 
 
 He was assigned a place at the table immediately 
 opposite Miss Glen. lie was taking some pro 
 fessional notes of her excessive languor and pallor, 
 when Mr. Glen betrayed him to the family. 
 
 " Think of Murray s having to tramp across the 
 fields last night afoot ! Horse threw him, and he 
 had to find his way the best he could. I think he d 
 have shot the brute this morning if I hadn t pleaded 
 his case." 
 
 Annoyance at this exposure of his mishap was swal 
 lowed up in surprise at Miss Glen s peculiar conduct. 
 She had been conveying her coffee-cup to her lips 
 when her brother made this bantering expose. The 
 hand that held the cup trembled so that she replaced 
 it in the saucer, its contents untasted. Her eyes 
 were fastened on his face in mute, startled inquiry 
 for a second. Then they fell before his steady gaze, 
 and the pallor he had found so distressing, from a 
 physician s point of view, was suddenly displaced by 
 rosy confusion. 
 
 "Evidently," Archie said to himself, "it has just 
 this moment occurred to my lady that the man she 
 passed last night was neither a stump nor a stray 
 mule. Bah ! What is it to me if Mr. Glen s hand-
 
 84 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 some sister sees fit to hold tryst with gentlemen in 
 the grave-yard f 
 
 Having settled it with himself that it was abso 
 lutely nothing to him, he joined in the laugh against 
 himself composedly, increasing the mirth of his 
 hearers by a terse account of his entire trip, but 
 never once touching upon the detour he had made 
 after entering the Homestead fields. For reasons 
 of his own ih&tfaux pas was suppressed. 
 
 Theresa listened to him like one in a trance. She 
 never once raised her eyes from her plate during the 
 remainder of the meal. Before it terminated she 
 rose abruptly, and with a muttered apology, left the 
 room. Mr. Glen looked across the table at his wife 
 inquiringly. 
 
 " Martha savs Thersie had one of her bad niirhts 
 
 V 
 
 again," she said, answering the look. " I m afraid 
 she will be Doctor Murray s first patient."
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 85 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HKTTY SEEKS TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY. 
 
 IT WAS very rarely that Mrs. Ogden felt com 
 pelled to acknowledge herself baffled. She be 
 longed to that imperious type of womanhood that 
 prefers martyrdom to exposure. She would rather 
 have suffered the tortures of the Inquisition than ac 
 knowledge herself incapable of controlling her own 
 household. But circumstances had brought her to 
 the point where the acknowledgment must be made. 
 The especially trying feature of the case was that 
 she had been baffled by the creature of all others 
 who heretofore had been as wax in her hands 
 Hetty ! 
 
 Hetty, who from having been one of the most 
 cheerful, unselfish and malleable of creatures, had 
 sunk into a condition of inexplicable sullenness, 
 nervousness and gloom. It really was very trying 
 to Mrs. Ogden, coming as it did at a time when she 
 more than ever needed the girl s strong common- 
 sense aid in the management of the boys, who were 
 fairly running wild in their newly enlarged sphere 
 as country boys with space and possessions at their 
 command.
 
 86 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Something must be done with the boys and for 
 Hetty. She herself hail never known, until Hetty s 
 supervision had been relaxed, how heavily she had 
 leaned upon the little thing to save her from the 
 irksome responsibilities of controlling the boys and 
 keeping them out of mischief. She had resolved to 
 consult Doctor Vernon on the subject. She had not 
 seen much of him since taking control of the old 
 place, for he was one of " Archibald Murray s ad 
 herents," as she, in bitterness of soul, called all of the 
 neighbors who showed even a tacit disapproval of 
 the promptness with which she had taken possession 
 of her brother s property. Distasteful as Doctor 
 Yernon was on this account, every one of her 
 neighbors would be equally if not more so. 
 
 She "dog-eared" several sheets of good linen 
 note-paper beyond redemption, as she absently 
 curled the corner^ of them under her forefinger and 
 thumb while trying to summon Doctor Yernon. It 
 was not the mere summoning of him; but in order 
 to explain to him Hetty s peculiar state of body and 
 mind, she would be compelled to tell him of the 
 nervous shock her daughter had received on the 
 night of Mr. Dabney s funeral. 
 
 Now, to mention Parmelie Rose s name would be 
 to invite the doctor to refresh his memory touching 
 some local episodes that she would much rather have 
 forgotten. She wished Doctor Yernon had not 
 been such a long-time resident of the neighborhood.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 87 
 
 But it could not be helped. She must consult 
 him. 
 
 Arrived at this conclusion, she dashed her note off 
 rapidly enough, and dispatched it before she went 
 to tell Hetty what she had done. 
 
 Winter had come on apace. A light, dry snow 
 lay in patches, like linen on a bleaching-lawn, all 
 over the hill that sloped away from the house in 
 every direction. The yellow and maroon chrysan 
 themums were frozen stiff, and bent their icy crowns 
 before the blast. 
 
 It was easy enough to find Hetty. Every moment 
 of the time not consumed by household duties, per 
 formed under compulsion, she spent in moody 
 reverie over her own fire. She was sitting there at 
 the moment her mother was writing to Doctor Ver- 
 non about her, her feet planted on the low brass 
 fender, her hands folded over an o^en book in her 
 lap, her large eyes fixed immovably on the dancing 
 flames made by the logs of cedar and pine, which 
 filled her room with fragrance, light and warmth. 
 
 The book upon which her hands lay folded was 
 the small black quarto which old Lucy had put into 
 her hands the night of the funeral. She had been 
 going over its pages for the hundredth time, trying 
 to discover the secret of its importance to her Cousin 
 Archibald. That such a secret existed, no number 
 of failures to detect it could make her doubt. She 
 wished she had asked the old woman more about it.
 
 $g A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 She certainly would have done so had she known 
 she was not to see her any more. Old Lucy had 
 disappeared from the house-force before Hetty came 
 out of her room the next morning. When she had 
 asked her mother about her, Mrs. Ogden had said 
 that Lucy had asked permission to visit her children 
 on the Creek Place, and as she was getting old and 
 childish, she (Mrs. Ogden) had consented to have 
 her put in charge of the day-nursery on the Creek 
 Place. So she was not coming back.- 
 
 Hetty was aware that the property they had come 
 into so suddenly included several plantations. 
 Where the Creek Place was she did not have the re 
 motest idea, but she hoped old Lucy would be happy 
 there among her children. Xo one seemed to think 
 it worth their while here to tell her good-by. She 
 wished they had come to the old place in summer, 
 instead of winter. The old house was full of 
 w r hispers and sighs and unaccountable noises. Her 
 mother said it was the rats she heard in the wain 
 scoting, or the s\vallows up in the tall chimney, or 
 there it was again ! 
 
 She sprang to her feet ; the book fell to the floor. 
 She clasped her hands to her heart and stood listen 
 ing, with every nerve strained. Rats did not make 
 so bold in midday. There was a slow, cautious 
 sound of steps, apparently immediately over her 
 head a soft, stealthy tread, like that of a beast 
 in its lair.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. gg 
 
 Then the muffled tones of a voice now lifted in 
 supplication, now lending itself to imprecation ! No 
 words ! Only the distressed whisperings of a soul in 
 travail. She was not listening to it for the first 
 time. It came to her whenever the room was still ; 
 whenever she was alone ; more often at night than 
 in the day ; loudest and oftenest just over the tall 
 tester of her bed. She had told no one about it. 
 There was no one to tell. If she told her mother 
 she would call it nonsense, and perhaps move her 
 to another room. She did not want that. There 
 was no room in the whole of that big house where 
 she could be as happy as just where she was. Up 
 there in front of her, over her mantel-piece, hung a 
 large oil-painting of her Cousin Archibald, taken 
 perhaps just before he went off to study medicine. 
 Such a good likeness as it must have been of him, 
 before the grief of his uncle s death and the surprise 
 of their usurpation had robbed his face of that joy- 
 ousness that made it so beautiful to poor little Hetty ; 
 silly, loyal little Hetty, who had come to love that 
 senseless piece of canvas so dearly. 
 
 If she knew where he was she would write and 
 as"k him if he did not want this picture, and the one 
 of Uncle Richard, taken about the same time, sent 
 after him. But never a line had come back to tell 
 them where he was, or how he was succeeding, or 
 anything. She did not blame him, not in the least ! 
 There was no place in her heart where blame for
 
 00 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 him could find lodgment. There was an old school- 
 desk of his in one corner of this room, too, full of a 
 boy s marvelous accumulation of things useful and 
 useless, pretty and hideous. It had been unlocked 
 when Hetty came into possession of this room. Ko 
 one laid any special store by it or its contents. It 
 was never unlocked now. The key to it went 
 everywhere that Hetty went. It was on a ring 
 with the rest of the keys to her private property. 
 When she was not studying the book old Lucy gave 
 her, it, too, reposed among the blotted copy-books, 
 the cracked slates, the backless Latin grammars and 
 the chipped marbles that filled the old desk. The 
 sounds overhead ceased. She drew a long breath of 
 relief, stooped, and picking up the fallen book, put 
 it back in the desk. Mrs. Ogden, coming in a little 
 while later on, found her placidly working button 
 holes in a shirt for Bob. The black rings about the 
 child s eyes and the sad compression of her sweet 
 lips caused her mother s cold heart a severe pang. 
 
 " Hetty, my dear," she said, sitting down by her 
 close enough to clasp her with one arm, while she 
 drew the sewing from her hands with the other, 
 " you sit too steadily. I must insist upon your taking 
 more exercise. I have sent for Doctor Vernon to 
 lay his orders upon you." 
 
 Hetty looked at her in grave surprise. This 
 solicitude was so entirely unexpected, but it was not 
 upon her own wasting flesh or pale cheeks she
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 01 
 
 expended much reflection. She answered almost 
 petulantly : 
 
 " I don t want nor need Doctor Yemen, mother. T 
 wish you had done nothing of the sort. How can I 
 take exercise in such horrid weather ?" Then, 
 without waiting for her mother to answer, she went 
 on hurriedly : " Mother, is there an upstairs to this 
 house an attic, I mean ?" 
 
 Mrs. Ogden looked at her searchingly. What 
 had such a childish question to do with the object in 
 hand her own health ? "Was Hetty s mind totter 
 ing ? She answered her, however, with readiness : 
 
 " Certainly. You have been up there since we 
 came. In the trunk-room. There is no other 
 attic !" 
 
 " I want to go up there again, mother." 
 
 Mrs. Ogden rose with alacrity. She was in her 
 most propitious mood. She looked at Hetty with 
 amiable smiles: "We could not possibly have a 
 better day for overhauling the trunks. The things 
 have really never been properly aired since they 
 were put up there. The sunshine must be stream 
 ing in at the dormer-windows right now. Come !" 
 
 o 
 
 They went up together. This was not at all the 
 sort of exploration Hetty had planned. She wanted 
 the keys, which were at that moment lying in the 
 soft, blue-velvet reticule suspended by a broad satin 
 ribbon from her mother s waist. She wanted to ex 
 plore every crevice of the old attic by herself, in her
 
 92 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 own fashion and at her leisure. She followed her 
 mother s brisk lead with listless acquiescence. 
 
 The attic was an immense low-ceiled affair, filled 
 with the accumulation of many generations. It 
 extended from gable to gable, and was lighted by 
 three immense dormer-windows let into the roof. 
 
 " You see," said Mrs. Ogden, cheerfully doing the 
 honors of the family dust-hole, "it takes in all the 
 space beneath the roof. If the boys were the sort of 
 children that we were (Mrs. Ogden always spoke of 
 Hetty as her own contemporary) this would be a 
 splendid place to turn them loose in on a rainy day, 
 but they would destroy more in half an hour than 
 I could ever replace. I have to keep it locked 
 against them. They are just getting beyond all 
 bounds, since you ve dropped their morning lessons. 
 That s one thing I want to see Doctor Vernon about. 
 He knows everybody, and 1 want him to find me a 
 tutor. Somebody must take those boys in hand." 
 
 Hetty was walking listlessly about the attic while 
 her mother was talking. There was nothing un 
 usual about its construction. Its four plain, plastered 
 walls had no other break in them than was neces 
 sary for the accommodation of the big dormer-win 
 dows. Against the rough plaster was hung an in 
 describable collection of things that to some one, 
 at some time, may have had some significance, but 
 certainly had none to the two women Avho were 
 then examining them with indifferent eyes. The
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 93 
 
 broken furniture of many generations had been rele 
 gated to this hospital for incurables. Files of old 
 musty newspapers festooned the walls. Eopes ran 
 from corner to corner, laden with dust and antique 
 garments. 
 
 kk I think we may as well make a bonfire of that 
 stuff," said Mrs. Ogden, contemptuously indicating 
 the pile of broken furniture. " There s not a piece 
 of it that it would pay to cobble up." 
 
 " That armoire!" Hetty was looking at a heavy 
 piece of mahogany furniture, brass-mounted and 
 ancient, that stood at one end of the attic. " Cer 
 tainly you wouldn t burn that up !" 
 
 " That arm.oi.re is all right," said Mrs. Ogden, 
 placidly surveying the handsome antiquity, " but it 
 is something I do not feel at liberty to meddle with. 
 I may as well give } T ou its history now as any other 
 time, so that in case you should find yourself alone 
 in the attic you will not let your curiosity get the 
 better of your discretion and tamper witli it. Your 
 Uncle Richard once thought of getting married, as 
 you know, and with that foolish love of doing the 
 handsome thing that got him into more than one 
 scrape, he sent off and got what I suppose you 
 might call a supplemental trousseau. No end of 
 magnificent laces, shawls, silks and velvets are fall 
 ing to decay behind those mahogany doors. When 
 the affair fell through, my poor brother had every 
 thing he had bought for his bride-elect locked up in
 
 94 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 that armoire and put up here, threatening the most 
 awful penalty if any one ever dared open those 
 doors. 
 
 " I am not very sentimental, and 1 confess it 
 hurts me to think of things that would be so be 
 coming to you locked away in that senseless fashion. 
 Perhaps, when we go out of mourning, I will muster 
 the courage to unlock those doors, but not now, not 
 now !" 
 
 Hetty looked at her mother steadily while she 
 was making this explanation, and without a word of 
 comment she turned and left the attic. Mrs. Ogden 
 hastily made the tour of the place and followed her, 
 reaching the lower hall just in time to see Doctor 
 Yernon laboriously dismounting from his buggy 
 upon the lowest step. He had come promptly, in 
 obedience to her somewhat urgent summons. The 
 distance was not great, but the doctor s years were 
 many. 
 
 His entire willingness to diagnose Miss Ogden ? s 
 case was unavailing. She could not be found. Mrs. 
 Ogden dispatched messengers in several directions 
 over the grounds to bring her back to the house. 
 During their absence she poured her other troubles 
 into Doctor Vernon s patient, if not sympathetic, 
 ears. He had been friend and physician to the Dab- 
 ney family ever since this handsome remnant of it 
 had been a round-cheeked girl younger than the 
 one he had just been called in to physic. He could 
 not turn a deaf ear to a Dabney.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 95 
 
 Mrs. Ogden s other trouble was the boys. The 
 doctor quite agreed with her as to the gravity of the 
 situation. He stroked his gray beard reflectively, 
 while she was giving the latest instances of reckless 
 ness and contumacy on Hob s and Lem s parts. 
 
 " If you are willing to trust my judgment as to 
 whether a man is a gentleman or not, I should say 
 I had just the sort of man you want, sitting in my 
 buggy, holding O the reins. I call him my medical 
 student. I picked him up on the road-side one day 
 last week. He is poor, that s evident, but he is well 
 educated." 
 
 " Picked him up on the road-side ?" 
 
 " Literally ! Came ven^ near running over him. 
 He was sitting on a stump, just there in the woods 
 where my road turns off so short, you know, and he 
 gave my horses a confounded scare. I pulled up with 
 a view to blessing him roundly, and bawled out to 
 know what he was doing there. lie answered so 
 coolly, Heading Ovid, sir ! that he got my curiosity 
 excited. I did not believe he was reading Ovid, 
 though he did have it open in his hand. I believe 
 the fellow was resting because he was starved out 
 and couldn t take another step. I talked with him 
 about ten minutes, and wound up by telling him to 
 climb up in the buggy and go home with me. He s 
 a gentleman, and an educated one at that. I was 
 just keeping him because I found him interesting, 
 and -I m sort of lonely now, since Dick Dabney s
 
 9G A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 gone ;" the old man s voice fell to a tender pitch. 
 " Wife and I are getting to be stupid company for 
 each other. This chap talks like a book, and says he 
 wants work. You might try him. You know he 
 could come over every morning walk across the 
 fields. I shouldn t advise domesticating him here. 
 He seems to have had a stunning blow of some sort. 
 He s evidently in trouble." 
 
 "Why, if he is such a gentleman, shouldn t he be 
 domesticated here ?" Mrs. Ogden asked, thriftily bent 
 upon striking a bargain with this distressed way 
 side savant. 
 
 " Too good-looking. He couldn t hurt the boys, 
 but Hetty- 
 
 " Bah ! Call your young man in. I think I will 
 risk Hetty. If he appears capable of teaching those 
 terribly unruly boys of mine, I ll take care of the 
 romantic part. 
 
 Doctor Yernon left the parlor to summon the 
 young man into Mrs. Ogden s presence. He came 
 back in a few moments, leaning on the arm of a tall, 
 powerfully built }^outh, whom he introduced as 
 Mr. Hugh Maury.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 97 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE STORY FINDS A HERO. 
 
 DOCTOR VERNOX had no notion of assisting 
 Mrs. Ogclen in her bargain-driving with his 
 needy protege. Having formally introduced "Mr. 
 Hugh Maury to Mrs. Ogden," he withdrew, with 
 the words : 
 
 " When you ve finished your talk with Mrs. Ogden, 
 Maury, walk down to that point on the river I drew 
 your attention to as we came through the gate. I 
 want you to see the water-view from that promon 
 tory. Finest thing of its sort in the county. I ll 
 drive down and wait for you there." 
 
 Then to Mrs. Ogden : 
 
 " It s scarcely worth while waiting on Hetty any 
 longer, I suppose. If she has made up her mind not 
 to materialize, she won t do it, I imagine." 
 
 " Such conduct is not at all like Hetty," Mrs. Og 
 den said plaintively. " I am sure she needs treat 
 ment badly, doctor." 
 
 " We ll have to set a trap for her. When you ve 
 caged her I ll treat her," the doctor answered, tak 
 ing his hat from the chair next to him and leaving
 
 08 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 the room with the slow deliberation necessitated by 
 superflous flesh and multiplying years. 
 
 But there Avas a great big, soft heart hid away 
 under the doctor s manifold chest-wrappings. lie 
 and Richard Dabney had grown up side by side on 
 adjoining plantations. Almost every summer day 
 had found them together, either smoking their pipes 
 peacefully on his gallery, or else settling the affairs 
 of the nation, with harmless acrimony, out upon the 
 promontory, where the fickle breezes always blew 
 freshest. There, with contradiction on their lips, 
 but amity in their hearts, they would wile away 
 hour after hour of precious time with childish disre 
 gard of its value. 
 
 He had a fancy to visit the old bench under the 
 oak-tree once more. He missed "Dick " so dismally 
 yet. It would be almost like communing with him 
 there. He would scarcely have ventured to indulge 
 this heart-impulse, save under cover of a desire to 
 show the stranger within its gates the most beauti 
 ful feature of the Dabney estate. He drove slowly 
 down the slippery, sloping hill-side road to the level 
 plateau that lay at its feet and spread to the river s 
 bank. Here, turning the buggy so as to get the 
 wintry wind at its back, the old man folded his fur- 
 gloved hands over the lap-robe and waited patiently 
 for his guest. 
 
 Back there in the parlor, Hugh Maury was saying 
 to Mrs. Ogden, in a straightforward fashion that 
 did him decided credit :
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 99 
 
 " I should like very much, madam e, to accept the 
 situation you offer me on your own terms, but I 
 think I ought to tell you that I may want to drop it 
 at a moment s notice. Somewhere on the face of 
 this earth, I do not know where, a man is wander 
 ingif, indeed, he is not dead an exile from his 
 home and friends, because of a wrong done by me. 
 I am searching for him. AVhen I find him, I shall 
 carry him home in triumph. I follow every clew 
 that chance puts into my hands to its furthest 
 end so far, only to find myself further astray each 
 time. But 1 will never desist! Xever!" 
 
 " A strange pilgrimage !" Mrs. Ogden murmured. 
 
 " Yes, it is a strange pilgrimage. God grant that 
 it does not prove to be a hopeless one. I have not 
 told my good friend Doctor Vernon anything of 
 this. His taking me under his roof was an eccentric 
 exhibition of benevolent hospitality that laid me 
 under no obligations save the one of gratitude. 
 Here it is different. You propose to put young and 
 unformed minds in my charge. I tell you candidly, 
 madame, that if I did not want the money with 
 which to pursue my search I should probably de 
 cline your offer on the spot. As it is, I say, if, after 
 what I have told you, you are willing to intrust 
 your boys to me for a few months, I think I 
 can promise that neither their minds nor their 
 morals shall suffer from the tutelage of a most un 
 happy man."
 
 100 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Mrs. Ogden s answer may not have been dictated 
 by the finest sense of delicacy, but it was conclusive 
 so far as closing the interview and securing a 
 temporary disciplinarian for the boys. 
 
 " Your story certainly is a queer one, but I m just 
 desperate, and 1 do believe, in spite of the deed for 
 which you seem to suffer such keen remorse, that 
 you will act the gentleman as long as you are under 
 my roof. I am a widow. My family consists of 
 three very unruly boys and one daughter young 
 and extremely pretty !" She laid special emphasis on 
 the adjective devoted to Hetty, and fixed her hand 
 some eyes scrutinizingly, almost threateningly, on 
 his face. 
 
 " Madame, the three unruly bo} T s and mademoi 
 selle, alike, will be objects of respectful interest to 
 me," he answered, holding his handsome head as 
 haughtily as her own. 
 
 " You are from Louisiana ?" Mrs. Ogden said 
 abruptly. 
 
 A dark flush mounted swiftly upward in Maury s 
 face. This keen-eyed woman might prove more of 
 an inquisitor than he cared to encounter daily. 
 
 u Yes. Madame is a keen observer. She has de 
 tective talents." 
 
 " Not that I know of. But your Madame and 
 
 Mademoiselle sounded Frenchy, you know. And 
 then, you look like a Creole, with your intensely 
 black hair and eyes and mustache and your olive
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 1Q1 
 
 skin. I want you to bring the boys on as fast as 
 possible in French Avhile you do stay." 
 
 " While I do stay I shall spare no pains to give 
 entire satisfaction in every particular," the new tutor 
 said, standing respectfully before her, hat in hand. 
 I think now I will rejoin my friend Doctor Yer- 
 non, if madame will excuse me." 
 
 Mrs. Ogden graciously accompanied him as far as 
 the front door. She liked him, and she had gotten 
 him cheap. Mrs. Ogden always esteemed those 
 things most highly for which she expended the least 
 cash. 
 
 Well, then, I shall expect you to move over to 
 morrow with your trunk. Oh ; yes ! I forgot." 
 Hugh s violent blush caused her to amend. " You 
 are taking a pedestrian tour. Your bag, or your 
 bundle, then. And I wish, by the \vay, when you 
 join Doctor Yernon do\vn there on the Point- 
 there ! you can see the top of his buggy from here 
 vou would ask him to drive up to the door again, 
 before going home. Hetty certainly ought to be in 
 the house by that time." 
 
 But it was becoming unsafe to predicate Hetty s 
 movements upon what she ought to do. She ought 
 to have gone docilely into the parlor and submis 
 sively stuck her tongue out for Doctor Yernon s 
 inspection, and assisted him in diagnosing her case 
 by describing her physical sensations unscientifically 
 and minutely. She was quite well aware of his
 
 102 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 presence in the house, when, jerking her cloak and 
 hood from the hall-rack, she had fled precipitately, 
 desperately bent upon avoiding this senseless and 
 useless ordeal. She knew better than a whole col 
 lege of physicians and surgeons could tell her where 
 her own trouble lay. Mystery- a thing so foreign to 
 her sweet, pure nature, that she recoiled from it 
 instinctively had been crowding upon her, and en 
 veloping her in even thicker and more impenetrable 
 folds ever since the day of her arrival in this house. 
 Her uncle s home was growing more hateful to her 
 every hour she spent under its roof. The key 
 which mad Parmelie Rose had left in her possession 
 refused to lit into any key-hole among her uncle s 
 possessions. She never lost an opportunity to give 
 it a surreptitious trial. If that key and that book 
 were holding between them the secret of anything 
 that would mend matters for her Cousin Archibald, 
 she owed it to him, defrauded and banished, to pluck 
 it from them. 
 
 The obligation to fathom this mystery weighed 
 upon her like an incubus. 
 
 Old Lucy might have helped her, but her mother 
 had banished her to a far-away plantation. Par 
 melie Rose, if properly approached, might still do so ; 
 but her mother assured her that the unfortunate 
 creature, whom she had last seen standing white and 
 ghostly on the moonlit lawn, was once more safely 
 under lock and key.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 103 
 
 Her imagination worked unhealthily and with 
 preternatural activity in the still loneliness of the 
 big house, which presented such a grand contrast to 
 the stuffy little home in Pittsburg, where the air 
 had always seemed full of hurry and noise, and the 
 boys permeated the atmosphere perpetually with a 
 healthy prosaic element before which every vaporous 
 fancy fled affrighted. 
 
 Here she piled fancy upon fancy, intensifying each 
 unexplained sound or sigiit into a mystery tenfold 
 greater than any that actually enfolded her. She 
 had made many a fruitless trip to the bench under 
 the leafless oak, hoping, hoping, hoping that Par- 
 melie Rose might suddenly once more come climbing 
 up the tangled foot-path and either take back the 
 key that tortured her, as Blue Beard s key tortured 
 Fatima, or else tell her what to do with it. But it 
 had been months now since that morning on which 
 so much had happened had come and gone the 
 morning when her Cousin Archibald had kissed her 
 and gone away from her ! 
 
 And all that she had suffered and pondered and 
 vexed her heart and soul over since, her mother 
 wanted to reduce to dyspepsia for the doctor s dis 
 cussion and physicking ! She would not submit to it ! 
 She sped along the icy hill-slope toward the prom 
 ontory, her red cloak making a bright spot against 
 the patches of snow, her eyes bright with de 
 fiance. She could see far away across the river now,
 
 104 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 through the leafless brandies of the trees. She 
 could see a large, gray, unpainted house, sitting far 
 back in a weedy garden. It was in that direction 
 that Parmelie Rose had disappeared when she 
 climbed the other bank on that morning. Perhaps 
 she lived there ! Perhaps there was some one on the 
 other side of that narrow ice-locked stream that 
 could tell her more about this woman, who seemed 
 to have taken a life-and-death grip on her imagina 
 tion and her energies. She could see the smoke 
 curling from the chimney of the old ferry-man s 
 cabin. But there was no boat in the water at its 
 foot now. Navigation was suspended for miles 
 above and below the Dabney place. A solid sheet 
 of ice spread from bank to bank. The boys had 
 been boasting of the skating for weeks past. She, 
 too, could skate ! Some sudden impulse sent her 
 hurrying from the Point, where she had been idly 
 looking out over the frozen landscape with her cold 
 hands locked under her bright cloak, downward 
 along the steep foot-path that led to the river. She 
 went with reckless speed. Something might happen 
 to frustrate her newborn plan. She clutched the 
 frozen branches of the bushes as she descended, to 
 keep her from pitching head foremost. If the boys 
 had only been faithful to their life-long system of 
 carelessness, she should find a pair of skates waiting 
 for her somewhere about the bank below. She was 
 not disappointed. There were four pair lying on
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 105 
 
 the bank, thrown pell-mell where the skaters had 
 flung them off after last using them. 
 
 What was to hinder her crossing ? She had 
 always been proud of her skill in skating, but had 
 never thought to put it to any practical use. It was 
 late too late to think of climbing the hill on the 
 opposite side to-day, but she would extract all there 
 was to learn about Parmelie Rose from the old man 
 who had ferried her across that day. And she could 
 insure his coming for her Hetty on some future 
 day, when she might want to visit that house behind 
 the leafless trees, in case that really was the mad 
 woman s home. It took her but a second of time to 
 buckle the skates securely upon her daring little 
 feet. Another second and she was out upon the 
 ice ! 
 
 Old Isham, reluctantly rising, with his ax in his 
 hand, to obey his wife s peremptory demand for 
 more lire- wood, opened his front door, raised one 
 hand to his eyes with a gesture of surprise, and then 
 called excitedly to his wife, who was comfortably 
 smoking her black pipe in the chimney corner. 
 
 " In de name of won erment, Cicely, come yere 
 an tells me w at you meks outer dis !" 
 
 Cicely came promptly, and stood looking out over 
 his shoulder, quite mute after one violently ejected : 
 
 "Delarwdl" 
 
 The banks on the Dabney side of the little stream 
 were precipitous bluffs, now clothed with ice-clad
 
 IOC A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 shrubs from crown to foot. Against this dazzling, 
 glittering background a brilliant object was speed 
 ing toward the old people in the cabin-door. It was 
 Hetty, her smooth cheeks aflame with color, her 
 long black braids swaying with the graceful motions 
 of her slender form, as with folded arms she sped 
 straight toward her goal the cabin door. 
 
 The exercise had done her good. The sense of 
 achievement elevated her spirits. She laughed 
 merrily at the two wondering but kindly old faces 
 in the door, stooped to disencumber her feet of the 
 skates, and walked rapidly toward them. 
 
 " I am Hetty Mrs. Ogdcn s daughter, from across 
 the river. I have come to see you." 
 
 Isham touched his gray forelock. He left it to 
 Cicely to do the honors. She was not behind him 
 in courtesy. The hem of her short, blue cotton 
 dress came in sudden and fleeting contact with the 
 floor. 
 
 " You s twicet welcome, Missy ; but you s done a 
 mouty darin thing, honey. We was scaret fur 
 
 you." 
 
 " The ice is firm. I know ho\v to skate very well. 
 
 and I wanted to talk to Uncle- 
 Hetty paused courteously. 
 " Isham, the old man said, clutching his forelock 
 
 again. 
 
 " Isham," Hetty went on, " about a lady he rowed 
 
 over to our place on the day of my uncle s funeral.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 10? 
 
 " Miss Hose !" the old people answered, in awed 
 concert. 
 
 " Yes. Miss Parmelie Rose. "Where does she 
 live ?" 
 
 Isham shook his head mournfully, as Cicely an 
 swered : 
 
 ""What you pesterin bout Miss Rose for, chile ? 
 She cyan do you no good, nor no harm, nuther, 
 now." 
 
 " Is she dead ?" 
 
 " jSTot dead, but lock up ag in. She jus git out 
 de Lord on y know how, dat time an sist upon de 
 ol man tekin she c-rost de river de day Mars Dab- 
 ney was bury. "We b longs to Miss Rose. She our 
 Miss , you know." 
 
 " But where does she live ?" 
 
 " Dat her house, Missy, you see b hin de trees. 
 She live thar, ef she can be said to live anywhar. 
 She lock up in a room in that ve y house this minit." 
 
 "Who lives with her?" 
 
 " Mars John." 
 
 "Who is Mars John? " 
 
 " One uv de Lord s own Miss Rose s orudder. 
 Mars John don live fur nothin l>ut t tek keer uv 
 that poo chile." 
 
 Hetty stood silently warming her hands in front 
 of the wood-fire in the cabin. She had accomplished 
 all she had hoped to accomplish that morning. She 
 must get back home before her escapade was
 
 108 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 ered and all chance of repeating it prevented. She 
 was ashamed of the nervous disinclination she felt 
 for the return trip. 
 
 " Does the river remain frozen over this way long 
 at a time, Uncle Isham ?" she asked presently. 
 
 " Kot long, honey. It ain t none too firm now 
 long bout de middle. I wisht you hadn t riskt it, 
 Missy." 
 
 " I found that much out when I was crossing. But 
 I am very light. It doesn t take much to hold me 
 up. I want you to promise me, when you see a blue 
 silk handkerchief waved from the Point, that you 
 will come over right quick, Uncle Isham when it 
 gets so you can run your boat again, I mean. And 
 to show you how much in earnest I am about it, I 
 will pay you in advance. I tied fifty cents up in my 
 handkerchief for you." 
 
 Old Isham s horny hand closed promptly over the 
 piece of silver, and he promised fervently to hold 
 himself in readiness to obey her signal. The old 
 people followed her to the water s edge with anxious 
 faces and many objurgations to be " keerf ul. Spe 
 cially long uv de middle." 
 
 She laughed, flung them a merry farewell with 
 one hand and launched herself once more, gracefully 
 and skillfully, upon the frozen current, quite uncon 
 scious that she was being watched by two pair of 
 masculine eyes from the Point on the other side. 
 
 Hugh Mauryhad just been sweeping the opposite
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. iQ .j 
 
 bank with the field-glass without which the doctor 
 never traveled when she launched herself. 
 
 " Is } T our river a good skating-rink ?" he asked, 
 watching the girl s graceful motions without aid of 
 the glass. 
 
 Perhaps close along shore," the doctor answered, 
 from his seat in the buggy. " No one has ever at 
 tempted to cross it, I imagine." 
 
 " If I mistake not, some one is about to attempt it. 
 A young girl is out on the ice, who seems to be mak 
 ing directly for this shore." 
 
 Doctor Yernon clambered hastily down, and joining 
 him, seized the glass excitedly, holding it for a sec 
 ond only ; then his arm dropped as if paralyzed. 
 
 " Hetty Ogden ! Is the child insane ? My God ! 
 is there no way to get to her ? Can t she see there s 
 a thaw on ?" 
 
 He was familiar with the downward path, but it 
 held perils for his aging feet. He silently pointed 
 it out to Maur} T , who bounded down it like a 
 chamois, with no distinct idea save that of getting 
 nearer to the imperiled skater. She had come to a 
 halt, and was looking down in terror at a crack which 
 had yawned in the ice since her crossing. Her cheeks 
 blanched, and she flung up her arms in despair. 
 
 " Stand still ! Perfectly still !" 
 
 It was a command, hurled across the ice at her in 
 a voice she had never heard before. She obeyed it, 
 however, instinctively. It took Hugh but a half-
 
 110 A STRANGE PIL GRIM A GE. 
 
 second to invest himself in the largest pair of skates 
 on the bank. What then ? He was no expert. His 
 home in semi-tropical Louisiana gave no encourage 
 ment to t*his graceful accomplishment. He had ven 
 tured on the rollers alone. Would that slender 
 knowledge avail him in this terrible emergency ? 
 
 Hetty watched his motions with sickening anxiety. 
 He was slow and clumsy. His good intentions were 
 no less apparent. He would only drown himself in 
 attempting to aid her. She looked at the widening 
 crack. She could leap it and reach solid ice once 
 more. It was her one chance. 
 
 Old Isham, standing trembling and powerless in 
 his cabin-door ; Doctor Vernon, standing trembling 
 and powerless on the snow-covered Point ; Hugh 
 Maury, straining every nerve to reach her before 
 the worse should befall, saw her lift her dainty 
 skirts Avith both hands and leap ! 
 
 There was a flash of bright red against the glit 
 tering ice ! A dark, yawning hole ! A choked cry ! 
 Troubled waters ! Stillness !
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. \\ \ 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 HUGH MAUEY S STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 EVERY one was talking of the miracle per 
 formed by Mrs. Ogden s tutor in rescuing her 
 daughter from a hole in the ice, regaining the shore, 
 and climbing the steep, frozen foot-path with her in 
 sensible form flung across his shoulder. Every one 
 wanted to see the man who, without any previous 
 heralding, had come among them to make sudden 
 displa} r of such muscular heroism ; so that instead 
 of harboring a seedy savant, kept humble by a sense 
 of friendliness, Mrs, Ogden found herself with a 
 veritable lion in hand. 
 
 Maury himself could never tell exactly how he 
 made that last desperate plunge forward, grasped 
 the floating ends of a crimson cloak, and, bringing 
 Hetty to the surface, struggled under her weight 
 until he laid her in the doctor s buggy and saw the 
 old man drive rapidly off with her toward the 
 house. 
 
 Then he had time to think of his own chilled and 
 stiffening limbs. A brisk walk across the sun-bathed 
 fields to Doctor Yernon s house, however, completely 
 restored his comfort, and there he remained until
 
 112 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 summoned once more to the Dabne} place by a 
 formal note from Mrs. Ogden, written, evidently, 
 under the impression that it would not be well to 
 dwell too long on the romantic episode of Hetty s 
 rescue. 
 
 k Young people are such fools!" she had said to 
 herself, while holding her sealing-wax in the taper s 
 flame, before sealing this note. " If I were to say 
 much more on that subject he would be wanting to 
 marry the girl off-hand." 
 
 The injuries sustained by the reckless heroine of 
 this escapade were such as to necessitate close con 
 finement indoors, principally within the bounds of 
 her own room. This was all the better for Mrs. 
 Ogden s purposes. It was well Hetty and the boys 
 tutor should see little of each other until after the 
 romance of this thing had become stale and worn 
 itself out. 
 
 Mrs. Ogden wasted a large proportion of her 
 time in guarding against the most unlikely possibili 
 ties. Hetty was sitting up, enveloped from head to 
 foot in flannels, thinking dismally of the long con 
 finement ahead of her, when Mrs. Ogden informed 
 her, in a casual sort of way, that the boys teacher 
 had come. 
 
 " Teacher ? AVhy, where did you pick up a teacher 
 so suddenly 2 I was just thinking, while I had to 
 sit here like a mummy, I might try the boys again ; 
 but they are so unmanageable."
 
 .1 STRANGE PILGRHJAGE. H;j 
 
 
 
 " Yes. They ve gotten quite beyond you. They 
 need a man. The young man you put to such in 
 convenience the other day is the person I had en 
 gaged. He comes over this morning. By the way. 
 J have been very patient in this matter. Do you 
 know you have never yet explained to me your be 
 ing on the ice that day ?" 
 
 u I did not want to see Doctor A r ernon. You said 
 I must take more exercise. I found Rob s skates on 
 the river-bank. I know how to skate very well, and 
 the ice looked as firm as a rock." 
 
 Hetty s answer was somewhat disjointed and en 
 tirely unsatisfactory. 
 
 " Looked firm ! I wish you would learn that you 
 are a young lady, Hetty, and as the oldest daughter 
 of my house have a certain position to maintain. It 
 was a very fast performance for you." 
 
 What is the teacher s name :" Hetty asked, 
 holding her blue-veined hands close to the flames. 
 " I suppose I ll have to thank him for getting wet in 
 my behalf." 
 
 4w II is name is Maury. Heaven knows he s been 
 thanked often enough ! I ve exhausted myself !" 
 
 - Is he old ?" 
 
 " Xo ; he is young." 
 
 " That is a pity." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I think an old man, and a very stern 
 one, would be the best for the boys. Ugly ? You
 
 114 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 know I have not the remotest idea how my rescuer 
 looks could not even have told if he were a white 
 man or a black." 
 
 Mrs. Ogclen reluctantly admitted that the tutor 
 was far from being ugly. Hetty laughed at her 
 dissatisfied tones as she accorded him an unusual 
 share of good looks. 
 
 " He isn t conceited, is he, on the strength of his 
 " Spanish eyes " and " French profile ?" 
 
 " Ko. At present he is a very modest, Avell- 
 behaved voung- fellow." 
 
 / o 
 
 " But you don t think it will last ?" 
 
 " I am afraid not." 
 
 "Why, mother? You know you are given to 
 forecasting unpleasant possibilities." 
 
 " Well, people do make such fools of themselves 
 over a man that shows an ounce of pluck. Every 
 one that calls at the door to inquire for you must 
 be furnished with every particular about the new 
 man. They all want to see him. If he d killed the 
 sea-serpent, or exterminated the Indians, or built the 
 Pyramids, he couldn t be an object of greater curi 
 osity." 
 
 " That s a tribute to our family importance," said 
 Hetty with ironical emphasis. "Why not give a 
 dinner-party, and put your lion on exhibition to en 
 tertain the company. That would be an easy way 
 of satisfying public curiosity." 
 
 " Do you know that wouldn t be a bad idea !"
 
 A STRANO E PIL GRIM A GE. 115 
 
 Mrs Ogclen grasped the idea with avidity. 
 
 Hetty was vaguely aware that her mother had 
 not been received into the old neighborhood with 
 open arms. This thought had intruded itself among 
 her other distresses. It must be that everybody felt 
 the property belonged by rights to her Cousin Ar 
 chibald. Her suggestion of a formal dinner-party 
 had been made in pure irony. She shrank from its 
 execution with distaste. 
 
 " You don t mean it, mother ?" 
 
 " I do !" Mrs. Ogden grew more positive every 
 moment. " Your Uncle Richard has been dead now 
 for nearly five months. It will be a good way to 
 find out who is for us and who against us." 
 
 " Why should any one be against us, mother?" 
 
 " Because," Mrs. Ogden answered, with an angry 
 flashing of her handsome eyes and a bitter com 
 pression of her full, red lips, " there are some people 
 idiotic enough to think that I ought to have staid 
 away from the house I was born and reared in, and 
 let Archibald Murray turn it into a bachelor s hall 
 and headquarters for revelers. Because oh 
 
 " Oh, mother ! 
 
 " By the way, speaking of that young man," 
 Mrs. Ogclen opened the velvet reticule swung to her 
 belt and peered into its interior, "I got a letter from 
 Archibald this morning. Not much of a letter, 
 either, lie said just as little as he could decently 
 say. Regards to you, I believe. Wants all the
 
 116 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 books with his name in them forwarded to some 
 place in Louisiana." She drew the strings of the 
 reticule firmly together once more. u I thought the 
 letter was in here, but it seems it is not. T wonder 
 who he thinks is going to take the trouble to pick 
 out and pack up all the books his name is in, and 
 send them after him ?" 
 
 " I will," said Hetty, not looking at her mother, 
 but fixing her serious eyes, which seemed to have 
 caught the glow and the warmth of the brightest 
 flame before her, on the fire. " I hope you have not 
 lost the address, mother." 
 
 "I guess not." Mrs. Ogden made a swift, mental 
 note to the effect that so long as the girl nursed a 
 foolish fancy for her exiled and invisible cousin, she 
 was in less danger from Hugh Maury s pensive eyes 
 and tragic beauty, and, with the diplomacy which 
 never deserted her, she concluded to utilize it. " It 
 may furnish you occupation, since you can t get out 
 doors, and you can do it very gradually, you know. 
 I will find the letter, and give it to } T OU to keep until 
 the books are ready to be shipped. But to return to 
 that suggestion of the dinner." 
 
 " I was only jesting, mother." 
 
 " But I am not ! I don t intend you shall be 
 buried here without any associates of your own sex 
 and age. I must invite the Chaplains !" Here 
 Mrs. Ogden s enthusiasm carried her to the extent 
 of demanding- a paper-pad and pencil, by whose aid
 
 .1 STttAtfUE PIL G RIM A Of!. 1 1 * 
 
 she rapidly jotted down a do/en or t\vo names. " I 
 shaVt have it until the doctor is quite willing for 
 you to participate, for I mean you shall make a 
 good impression on these people. I hate them, I 
 hate them every one, but they shall not ignore the 
 fact that a Dabney is still at the head of this house. 
 There s no end of preliminary labor to go through. 
 There s the silver dinner-service your Uncle Dick 
 never used it. So hard to keep in order, I suppose. 
 I ve got that to overhaul ; and the wine-cellar I 
 haven t given it a thought since we came. Dear 
 me, I quite enjoy the stirring-up incident on getting 
 ready. Certainly you won t be more than a week 
 getting over this horrid cold. I can t sit here all 
 morning, though. I believe I feel as if such a load 
 was taken off me by knowing that the boys are 
 shut up with Mr. Maury in the school-room that I 
 forget I have anything else left to do. I ll go right 
 now and talk the whole matter over with Almira." 
 Mrs. Ogden s spirits grew more exuberant mo 
 mentarily. 
 
 Almira was the cook. There was no stemming 
 the tide now. It carried Hetty back to the dreary 
 town-life in Pittsburg when an invitation to dinner 
 or a ball had been sufficient to throw her mother 
 into a flutter of girlish excitement all day turbu 
 lent, ill-regulated, wasted days, when the boys knew 
 it was safe to ask any indulgence at a time when 
 their mother would grant anything to keep them
 
 118 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 out of the way ; when she, Hetty, had vibrated be 
 tween the stores and her mother s bed-room all day 
 with little paper parcels perhaps a bit of lace, or 
 an artificial flower, or a fine handkerchief, or a new 
 pair of light kid gloves. She could never remember 
 an invitation finding her mother in a state of 
 preparation. Something always had to be bought, 
 something always to be mended, and a great deal 
 always to be condoned. Then the long, stupid 
 evenings that she, Hetty, had yawned through alone, 
 with the tired boys all asleep in bed upstairs, with 
 the street sounds growing fainter and fewer until 
 it seemed as if she, alone, in a whole townful, were 
 left to watch and wait ! It could never be quite so 
 bad again, she hoped and believed. But if this 
 somberly retrospective view she was aroused -by a 
 chilly sensation, as if a door softly opened at her 
 back. She turned about in her chair hastily. The 
 doors were all closed, and the long stuff curtains 
 dropped over the windows. A sigh, twice repeated, 
 fell distinctly on her ears ; then the room grew warm 
 again, and she heard the soft, stealthy tread that 
 had bewildered and terrified her time and again 
 since she had occupied this room. 
 
 Why should these sounds only come to her when 
 she was alone in her room ? Why should they come 
 to her when the bright sunshine was flooding the 
 earth outside, and the old house instinct with life 
 and vitality ? Who was it that was singling her out
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. \\o, 
 
 for these eerie visitations without making clear the 
 object of them ? Was it because she had remained 
 so stupidly unresponsive, showing only that abject, 
 animal fear which flesh-hampered cowards displav 
 toward the disembodied spirits of their nearest and 
 dearest friends ! AVho knew but it might be her 
 Uncle Richard trying to tell her something to do for 
 her Cousin Archibald? She stood up and faced 
 toward the spot whence the chilly breath had seemed 
 to come. Her heavy wrappings fell from about her ; 
 her long hair, which had not known the bondage of 
 comb or hairpin since her confinement at her o\vn 
 fireside, fell about her in inky waves. Her little 
 hands were clasped imploringly ! Perhaps she could 
 woo this visitant from the other world to come 
 again by showing herself fearless and ready. She 
 would deal with it as with a kindly, earthly friend, 
 who had somewhat to say. 
 
 "Uncle Richard! it seemed so strange to be 
 addressing him audibly ! lie, whom she had never 
 seen in the flesh ! " if it is you who come to me. 
 having a message for the one you loved so dearly 
 here on earth, speak, as best you can, and I will try 
 with these dull ears of flesh to comprehend." 
 
 Her sweet face was lighted up with the intense 
 earnestness of the soul within. She stood with her 
 head slightly forward, her lips apart, her hands 
 clasped, entranced ! a beautiful incarnation of fear 
 lessness and faith! Xo voice spoke unto voice,
 
 120 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Only that soft, stealthy tread which presently died 
 away entirely, leaving her bewildered and exhausted. 
 The stillness of the room terrified her after her snd- 
 den transition from the exaltation of the previous 
 moment. Even the boys would be a relief. AVrap- 
 ping a heavy shawl about her she stole across the 
 hall, meaning only to send a message to the school 
 room by the first servant she met, asking that Lem 
 might come to her. 
 
 She heard the sounds of their rough mirth out 
 there on the lawn. Through the side-glasses of the 
 front door she could see them snow-balling each 
 other vigorously. They would never come in 
 answer to her tapping on the glass. She could not 
 go back to that room by herself. She must find 
 somebody. Her mother s room was vacant. She 
 must have dressed and gone somewhere hurriedly, 
 for there, thrown across the foot of the bed, was the 
 blue merino morning-wrapper, and pendant from 
 its belt the velvet reticule. Without a moment s 
 thought as to consequences Hetty possessed herself 
 of the bag, and assuring herself that the key was in 
 it, walked rapidly toward the steps that led up to 
 the attic. 
 
 Her route led bv the door of the long- room, 
 
 V 
 
 which was called the chapel, for, on occasion of min 
 isterial visitations, service had been held therein and 
 all the neighbors bidden. The door was open now, 
 and some one was playing on the little cabinet-organ
 
 A STllAtfGE PILGRIMAGE. \-\\ 
 
 that stood at one end. It must be the new tutor. 
 Hetty peeped cautiously in at the door. lie was 
 more of an expert with those ivory keys than he 
 had been with the skates. But what a solemn 
 taste ! Chopin s Funeral March, however well per 
 formed, does not tend to exhilarate one s spirits. 
 She shivered at the mournful strains, and turning 
 away almost ran toward the door at the foot of the 
 attic steps, which she unlocked with trembling- 
 haste. She must explore that upper room once 
 more. There was no one to hurry her now. 
 
 Slowly around and around the room she walked, 
 passing her soft hands ruthlessly along the rough 
 plastering. The walls were intact. She reached 
 the brass-mounted ar moire and stood motionless be 
 fore it. Full of the tenderest reverence for all that 
 was good and true and beautiful, she yet had a mini 
 mum of youth s sentimental deference for defunct 
 romance. Who knew but that behind those solemn 
 mahogany doors might not lay the clew to the mys 
 tery of that key one mystery she might rid her 
 self of. 
 
 She ruthlessly emptied the reticule of its contents. 
 The key to that armoire, if there, ought to be rusty 
 with disuse. On the contrary, the brightest one 
 there fitted into the lock and turned with the ease of 
 constant contact. She opened the doors with that 
 noiseless stealth that comes from a sense of wrong 
 doing. She did not attempt to vindicate her
 
 123 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 conduct to herself. She acted like one under a spell. 
 She was impelled to do what she was doing com 
 pelled, she almost said. She was quite sure her 
 Uncle Richard wanted her to do it. ITow was she 
 sure? She did not know. She simply was. She 
 was driven forward by a power she could not com 
 prehend. 
 
 Her mother had not overstated Mr. Dabney s 
 munificence to his coming bride. On the shelves 
 lay shimmering satins and softest velvets. Long 
 cloaks hung from the hooks. Square, flat handker 
 chief-boxes exhaled a musty fragrance as she 
 touched their painted lids with shy fingers. Feather- 
 tipped fans and yellow crape shawls lay in close 
 proximity a useless accumulation of feminine frip 
 pery toward none of which Hetty cast a second 
 thought. Immediately in front of her, on a shelf 
 she could easily reach, stood a small, black ebony 
 box silver-mounted whose key-hole seemed to 
 promise an end to her long search. If she only had 
 not left the little key in her room. If only, again, 
 she might seize this box and rush back to her room 
 with it. That she might not do the risk was too 
 great. She might meet her mother at the foot of 
 the stairs, coming too late to prevent the sacrilege 
 she was committing. She felt hastily in the outside 
 
 O v 
 
 pocket of her wrapper. She had been sewing, and 
 perhaps her wax would do her good service. It was 
 there. With a quick, firm pressure she brought its
 
 A STRANGLE PIL GRIM A GE. } 03 
 
 yielding surface to bear on the silver-mounted key 
 hole. She held it there a breathless second. The 
 impress, when compared with the key, would tell her 
 whether she was right or wrong. And if she was 
 right she would know at last irJnj that key was of 
 such vital importance to her Fncle Richard ! 
 
 "Her Uncle Richard! 
 
 It had only been in thought that she dwelt upon 
 the name, standing there in presence of the tokens 
 of his tenderness for the woman he had loved ; 
 but 
 
 There came to her, softly, clearly, more nearly 
 than ever before, a sigh ! 
 
 A weary sigh, long-drawn, despondent, there from 
 the very depths of the big cmnoire, whose sacred 
 privacy she had so insolently invaded . She recoiled 
 with a scream of terror, mechanically turned the 
 key in the door, and fled back down the attic-stairs 
 precipitately. 
 
 The wailing strains of the Funeral March still 
 floated on the quiet air ; the boys laughter still rang 
 out healthily and vigorously from the lawn. She 
 flung the reticule back upon the wrapper. In an 
 other moment she was cowering over her own lire 
 again, white and trembling. 
 
 Xot until that moment did she discover that the 
 waxen impress of the key-hole still adhered to her 
 fingers. 
 
 Going to the place where she always kept the
 
 ]24 A STRANGE 
 
 little key secreted, she fitted it into the impression. 
 They agreed in every particular. There \vas no 
 room to doubt that the key in her possession fitted 
 the ebony silver-mounted box in the anno ire up 
 stairs. They belonged to each other.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 135 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 A MYSTERY AST) A ROSE. 
 
 WHO WILL be sorry to hear that I have at 
 last secured suitable quarters in town, where 
 I can actually hold sway, undisputed sway, over a 
 bed-room and an office of my own f Doctor Mur 
 ray asked at the supper-table one evening, when lie 
 had been domesticated with the Glens several 
 months. 
 
 " I will, for one," said Mr. Glen, pausing in the 
 operation of carving the chickens before him to 
 add, " You are not really in earnest f 
 
 " Of course he is not ! said Mrs. Glen, looking at 
 Archie reproachfully over the silver coffee-pot. " I 
 never could have imagined how handy a doctor 
 about the house would be. Paul might have died 
 in that spell of croup if you had not been immedi 
 ately on hand. You must not think of stuffy rooms 
 in town." 
 
 " Somehow Bemish always managed to attend to 
 his practice from the plantation," Mr. Glen said, ; and 
 we are just about as handy to Ilawkspoint as he is. 
 I wish you would reconsider, Murray."
 
 126 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " I don t ant you t go. I taut fly my kite when 
 you gone." 
 
 Thus Faul, the one exponent of juvenility in the 
 Glen family, contributed his views. 
 
 They were all sincere. They all liked him. They 
 all regarded him as a desirable addition to the 
 family circle. They all wanted to keep him there. 
 Ko one was afraid to express the desire. Only 
 Theresa remained silent. She, too, was at the tea- 
 table ; but she did not even add a polite protest to 
 the friendly chorus of regret. She sat playing with 
 her tea-spoon while the argument for and against 
 Doctor Murray s moving into Hawkspoint was con 
 ducted in a spirited fashion by the rest of the 
 famity. Only once her soft, tender eyes were lifted 
 to rest on his face for a fleeting second. It was 
 when his eyes were turned from her, and he was 
 listening respectfully to her sister-in-law. She was 
 saying to herself, almost enviously : 
 
 "How nicely he and Fanny get on together. 
 Ho\v much admiring stress he continually lays upon 
 women being free and frank and true, as if we all 
 had the freedom to select for ourselves what man 
 ner of lives we may lead." 
 
 She sighed. The softest possible exhalation it 
 was ; not enough to stir the cascade of rich lace 
 that fell in a graceful jabot adown the front of her 
 silken waist, but Archie caught it amid the clatter 
 of the tea-table and the contention of friendly voices ;
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 caught it and preserved the memory of it as 
 preserves the fleeting perfume of some rare flower. 
 She was looking unusually pretty that night, not 
 withstanding the extreme pallor which rarely ever 
 forsook the smooth oval of her cheeks. The dark 
 maroon silk dinner-dress she wore gave her the 
 touch of warm color she so much needed. 
 
 Doctor Murray had come to like his host s sister 
 very much during his sojourn at Glencove. lie 
 found her refined, high-toned, gentle to an excess, 
 almost, and at rare intervals disposed to exert her 
 self for his entertainment with amiable zeal. 
 
 If it were not for that hunted, furtive look in 
 her beautiful eyes, if it were not for the conviction 
 that she is hiding something, it would be easy, in 
 calculably easy," Archie had already told himself 
 any number of times, to fall in love with Theresa 
 Glen. But she is not without guile/ 
 
 It was this consciousness, and the fear that con 
 stant contact with so much s \veetness of manner 
 and physical loveliness might, in the long run, under 
 mine his cooler judgment, that enabled him to per 
 sist in his determination to remove into Ilawks- 
 point at the beginning of another month. Fleeing 
 from temptation, he called it. 
 
 " Why do you suppose Doctor Murray is so per 
 sistent about moving into town?" Mrs. Glen asked 
 her husband that night as she stood plaiting her 
 long hair before the mirror in their bed-room. " IIo
 
 128 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 is twice as comfortable here as he can possibly be at 
 Mrs. Burton s ; and, then, Thersie has been different 
 since he came entirely different. Don t you think 
 so?" 
 
 "Perhaps Thersie is at the bottom of his stubborn 
 ness." 
 
 " Mrs. Glen stopped to look at her husband with 
 her white fingers interlaced in the black meshes of 
 her hair. " What ! Pshaw, what creatures you men 
 are. You think it utterly impossible for a woman 
 to come in contact with ono of your sex who is not 
 actually outside the pale of the endurable, without 
 falling in love. You need feel no alarm on that 
 score because because, she stopped to give her 
 undivided attention to a stubborn knot in the silky 
 strands of her hair. 
 
 " Because well ! Bear in mind, I was not allud 
 ing to danger to Thersie, but to Murray. Perhaps 
 he don t care to tumble in love when he has nothing 
 a 3 ear to marry on. Discretion, valor, that sort of 
 thing, you know." 
 
 " Men are not in much danger from preoccupied 
 women," said Mrs. Glen in an experienced manner. 
 " Thersie is already in love with one man. She has 
 not a turtle-egg sort of heart, ready to take the 
 impress of every finger." 
 
 " Yon mean Hugh Maury ?" 
 
 Mrs. Glen rid herself of the snarl in her hair with 
 a merciless jerk, flung the mass back over her head,
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 139 
 
 and folding her hands over the ridding-comb, looked 
 at her husband very seriously : 
 
 " Charlie, I m not prepared to say. But I am v> 
 pared to say that Thersie has been a different cr--**- 
 ure since that affair at the fish-fry. Whether it was 
 George Bemish or Hugh Maury, I do not know. I 
 do not believe that it was simply the death of that 
 horrid little creature who spoke to her so insultingly 
 that day. She would have gotten over that alone. 
 She does not get over this at all, though. Did you 
 notice how pale she looked at the tea-table ?" 
 
 " I did. But then Thersie never was very high- 
 colored, you know." 
 
 I know that as well as vou do. Do you know 
 
 / */ 
 
 what day of the month this is V 
 
 " Pon honor, I hadn t given it a thought." 
 k% Well, I have. It is always, as the time of the 
 month returns in which that tragedy was enacted, 
 when Theresa is at her worst. She was ghostly to 
 night. If it had not been for that red dress she had 
 on, you would have been compelled to notice it. 
 But men never notice anything less conspicuous than 
 the nose on one s face." 
 
 Mr. Glen whistled prolongedly and softly a 
 sure sign of perplexity with him. IVIrs. Glen com 
 pleted her arrangements for retiring before speaking 
 again : 
 
 " I wish it were possible to keep him here. He 
 does us all good. So lively and cheerful in spite of 
 the great change in his circumstances
 
 130 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "Murray s every inch a man," said Mr. Glen 
 enthusiastically, snapping his wife s sentence in two; 
 " and while Thersie is in no manner of danger from 
 him, he does her good. Young people need young 
 people. Young girls need } r oung men. They sup 
 plement each other. She likes to play for him. She 
 likes to beat him at croquet. She likes to listen 
 while lie is telling you ox the pranks the medical 
 students were always playing. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Glen reflectively, standing his 
 empty shoes side by side, " we ll make another 
 onslaught to-morrow and see if we can t keep him. 
 I m not averse to his company myself." 
 
 All unconscious of this flattering discussion, the 
 subject of it was at the same time pondering his 
 proposed removal no less earnestly. It was Archie s 
 self-indulgent practice to envelop all his reveries in 
 tobacco-smoke. He was quite sure he was far 
 enough away from the rest of the household to 
 render a consolatory pipe safe. It would help him 
 to a decision. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the calendar 
 pointed to the last day of February, there was what 
 Mr. Glen called a " mild snap " on, and he raised one 
 of the side-windows in his room to permit the fumes 
 of tobacco to escape. 
 
 His brain worked actively as he sat there in the 
 big chair he had drawn close to the open window 
 and tilted back luxuriously against the projection
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 13 \ 
 
 made by the inside chimney. He was a trifle nerv 
 ous about this proposed move into town. It might 
 be to his disadvantage ; he could not tell. He won 
 dered if he ever would feel settled again. The coin 
 ing move naturally carried him back to the last one. 
 He often thought of the old, peaceful life he and 
 his Uncle Richard had led together. " Led it," he 
 bitterly reflected, " as if it had been for all time and 
 eternity, too, with no dream of change or disaster." 
 He tried to fancy the old home under the new or 
 der. That brought his Aunt Agnes on the scene, 
 and those awful boys, and Hetty ! Pretty, sweet 
 little Hetty ! He wondered how she got on ? " Xice 
 little thing." He did not tarry long in the past. 
 The present was exigent yet even its exigencies 
 were held in abeyance at that moment of subdued 
 quiet. 
 
 The broad beams of a full moon bathed the peace 
 ful landscape before him in a flood of serene light. 
 There was nothing very novel or fascinating in the 
 outlook ; but he had been so battered and buffeted 
 about of late that his brightening prospects had a 
 soothing tendency, and he pronounced it all good. 
 Beyond the trim hedging of Osage orange which 
 inclosed the yard premises lay the broad acres from 
 which all the cotton and corn had been garnered. 
 In their midst nestled the whitewashed village of 
 quarter-cabins, gleaming whitely in the moonlight 
 where not hidden bv the locust and china-trees that
 
 132 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 crowded close up about them. Over and above 
 them all cabins, barns and cribs the stately gin- 
 house loomed in magnificent proportions. Immedi 
 ately in front of him was the thickly shrubbed yard, 
 its conical cedars making a shadowy showing in that 
 obscure light. The note of an owl floated in to him 
 from among their branches. He hated owls with a 
 womanish, unreasoning hatred. This one completely 
 spoiled his reverie. He might as well go to bed. 
 He leaned out of the window to draw the outside 
 shutters together, but started back in startled sur 
 prise and stood motionless, a few paces removed 
 from the window. 
 
 There, coming slowly around the corner of the 
 house, by way of the veranda upon which his window 
 opened, was Theresa Glen. For a second she paused 
 irresolutely in front of his window, where she stood 
 perfectly motionless, her folded hands dropped nerv 
 ously in front of her. Her side-face was turned to 
 ward him. How beautiful its clear-cut, cameo out 
 lines were ! She was not dressed as she had been at 
 dinner. A long, trailing white wrapper enveloped 
 her now, and about her head a fleecy nubia was 
 wrapped. 
 
 " Perhaps," Archie said to himself, " she has been 
 enjoying the moonlight from her own corner of the 
 veranda and fancies every one else has retired, and 
 that confounded open shutter had startled her." 
 
 Even in that moment, he marveled at his own 
 eager plea for her.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. ^33 
 
 But he was mistaken. There was no hurryino- 
 past his window. Xo furtive sidewise glances to 
 discover if she were noticed. With her head held 
 slightly forward, in an attitude of acute attention, 
 quite as if she followed involuntarily where she was 
 bidden, she passed on after that brief pause, with 
 her slim fingers interlocked and one end of the white 
 nubia trailing along the floor unnoticed. 
 
 " My God, she is a somnambulist ! 
 
 Archibald Murray said it aloud. Said it with a 
 ring of intense anxiety in his voice. Should he fol 
 low her ? That was the pressing question of the 
 moment. There was no mistaking that tense atti 
 tude that direct, unfaltering, swift onward move 
 ment. He leaned out once more. Straight for 
 ward, with never a glance to right or left, she was 
 moving. What was his own course ? That was the 
 perplexing question. Presently, down there below, 
 in the shrub-crowded garden, he saw the gleam of 
 her long, white wrapper again. The nubia had 
 fallen off entirely, caught perhaps on the thorns of 
 some rose-bush. She was at the gate ! 
 
 His decision was made as the click of the iron 
 latch, lifted and dropped by her unfaltering hand, 
 told him that she was once more abroad by herself, 
 in the lonely fields, under a midnight sky. 
 
 The iron latch of the front gate was lifted and 
 dropped once more this time by Archibald Mur 
 ray s cautious hand. He would follow her, discreetly
 
 i;U A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 and at a distance, but near enough to succor her 
 should she need succor. 
 
 He wished now lie had made up his mind more 
 promptly. She moved so swiftly that it was only 
 by the white gleam of her draperies that he could 
 follow her motions. "Was she going to the tool- 
 house again? He was familiar with the route 
 now could follow her lead in that direction the 
 darkest night ; and when once there, would he be 
 able to stand passively on the outside while she was 
 led within by the man whom he had never yet iden 
 tified had never, indeed, caught but that one 
 glimpse of ? He ground his teeth passionately to 
 gether. He swore to himself that he was only ac 
 tuated by humanity and professional curiosity ; but 
 his blood coursed hotly in his veins at the thought 
 of having once again to witness the strange scene 
 that had greeted him on the first night of his 
 arrival. 
 
 Perhaps it was no tryst this time. He stumbled, 
 recovered himself, and peered eagerly forward amid 
 the gloomy shadows of the trees. He had lost the 
 object of his surveillance. He stood still for a 
 second, looking around in perplexity. Could she 
 have turned back ? There was no sound of crackling 
 twigs under her hurrying feet to guide him, no 
 glimmer of her white draperies to lure him on. She 
 had taken her way along the lake-bank, outside the 
 Osage-hedging. Perhaps she had crept through some
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 135 
 
 break in it. A false step to the left another halt. 
 The sound of oars cautiously plied smote upon his 
 ear. He veered to the right and almost ran toward 
 the water s edge. 
 
 A skiff was being rapidly rowed away from the 
 Glencove shore. It was already several yards from 
 the bank. He could not see the oarsman, for the 
 boat s track lay among black shadows, but sitting 
 mute and erect in the stern was an object draped all 
 in white. That, then, accounted for his losing sight 
 of Theresa Glen so suddenly ! 
 
 He reached out his hand and called her name. 
 Only a dip of oars ! 
 
 He stood upon the bank impotent, foiled, con 
 sumed by a surge of passion which fairly surprised 
 himself. What was this girl to him ( he asked him 
 self, gnashing his teeth in fury. Why should he 
 care what evil power held her in bondage? He 
 turned and walked back toward his room blind with 
 impotent rage. He could not sleep. lie could not 
 even remain in one spot two seconds of time to 
 gether. He was waiting for something. Waiting 
 to know that this girl, who was "nothing to him, 
 was once more safely housed. 
 
 The moon had long since gone down. Black 
 darkness enveloped the house and yard. It was 
 more than useless for him to peer out so often and 
 so eagerly. He was waiting ior her, She came 
 after a long while. A swift scwyln^ ci feet, the
 
 136 A STRAFE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 rustle of trailing draperies, a faint scent of roses, 
 silence. He leaned out once more to draw the out 
 side shutters together. A lamp was suddenly 
 lighted in a room at the end of fke veranda. A ray 
 of light shot through the shutters and showed him 
 something lying on the gallery floor in front of his 
 own window. lie leaned out and picked up a large 
 red rose. Theresa had worn one like it at dinner 
 that day. He would keep it !
 
 $TRA2tGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DOCTOR BE3II.SH CARRIES HIS POEST. 
 
 OVER THE smooth, dark waters, the old man 
 rowed. Rowed with the long, stead v. de 
 liberate stroke of the skilled oarsman who has 
 learned that haste makes waste. Every dip of the 
 oars sent the narrow-pointed skiff skimming across 
 the still lake with a jarless motion that might have 
 lulled a fretful child to slumber. 
 
 Motionless, with her hands folded across her 
 knees and her head bent dreamily forward, sat 
 Theresa Glen spell-bound, her mind led captive by 
 the stronger mind and the fierce purpose that actu 
 ated the old man opposite her. 
 
 He pitied her. Pitied her for the helplessness 
 that made her his tool for the time being. Pitied 
 her that circumstances had placed her in possession 
 of the awful secret he was bending every energy of 
 his soul and faculty of his brain to wrest from her. 
 He pitied himself for the rde he had to play toward 
 a crirl who had been almost as his own daughter 
 
 - 
 
 before these latter days of darkness had come upon 
 the name of Beniish. Cut more than alL above 
 alL he pitied the son of his loins, who was hiding
 
 138 A sTitANGfi PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 like a beast in his lair, suffering the unworded 
 penance of a life-sentence for a crime lie had never 
 committed. 
 
 "Whenever he felt his purpose failing, the old man 
 had but to think of George wasting away in his 
 island refuge, to feel his purpose become as steel 
 links that grappled him and hold him fast to the 
 one only object of his existence. 
 
 lie landed the skiff immediately in front of his 
 own gate, and almost lifting his companion across the 
 gunwale, he carefully wrapped about her the long 
 black-hooded cloak he had put in the skill for her pro 
 tection when starting, and drawing her hand tenderly 
 within his arm, he walked swiftly up through 
 the avenue of myrtles which flanked the paved way 
 from the gate to the house. The house itself stood 
 dark and tenantless before him. Xo glimmer of 
 light came from window or door. There was no liv 
 ing thing within it. But that was not his goal. 
 Past the house ; out through the tangled gardens 
 that had once been his pride and boast, into the 
 wooded meadows beyond, where the tall trees bent 
 over the dark waters of a bayou; on, unswervingly, 
 along the damp, dewy meadows, to a spot which he 
 could never pass in the broadest sunshine of the 
 brightest day without a shudder passing through his 
 strong frame ! The spot where the Frenchman had 
 been found dead ! The spot where George Bemish 
 had been seen to stoop and pick up a gory knife and
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 130 
 
 fling it far out into the waters of the bayou that 
 had held its secret ever since ! 
 
 A shudder passed through Theresa Glen s slight 
 form. He felt it. It communicated itself to him 
 through the arm she was leaning on. He came to a 
 sudden halt on the spot he knew so well. IIow 
 many times he had trodden down the grasses that 
 sprung to hide its hideousness, in the vain search for 
 a clew which nature heartlessly denied him ! He 
 breathed hard and fast! What if his will-power 
 should play him false ? grow weak too weak to 
 enable him to hold her mind in subjection until she 
 had yielded up all her knowledge of that dreadful 
 day into his keeping ? It was the supreme moment ! 
 She had escaped him before, just at the moment 
 when success seemed ready to crown his efforts. 
 He silently invoked aid from the God who is a lover 
 of justice. 
 
 Had he not a right to wipe out the stain with 
 which ignorance and injustice had blotted his boy s 
 fair fame and his own good name ? There must be 
 no dallying with opportunity. Xo failure now 
 through pity for the innocent girl who stood by his 
 side, powerless to escape the bondage his will held 
 hers in. 
 
 It was both too late and too soon to think of her 
 at all. He needed an implement, a weapon, if you 
 will, with which to batter down the walls that were 
 shutting out life and freedom from the son who was
 
 HO A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 more than life to him. He had found it in tliis pure, 
 tender girl, and he would use it, must use it, as 
 mercilessly as if it were made of ruder stuff and 
 colder metal, with no fine edge to be destroyed 
 irreparably. 
 
 "Just here, 1 he said, tightening his hold of the 
 cold little hand that lay upon his arm, " the mur 
 dered man was found that day, after the fish-fry. 
 It was growing toward afternoon. You and Hugh 
 Maury had started home in his buggy, lie had to 
 drive through my fields because the bridge was 
 down over Blade s bayou. George Bemish re 
 mained on the fishing-ground to see the rest of his 
 guests off. The Frenchman had left the ground 
 long before. He had not been seen among the 
 ladies since he had spoken impertinent words to you 
 and Hu^h Maury had threatened to thrash him." 
 
 o */ 
 
 He spoke slowly and distinctly. He was forcing 
 her backward, cruelly and pitilessly. By some out 
 cry, some spoken word, she should commit herself to 
 a confession from which she could not draw back, 
 even when her mind had once more resumed action 
 independent of him. He had not consumed his 
 days and wasted the hours that belonged to sleep 
 pondering this one subject without coming to some 
 settled convictions. This was one of them. 
 
 If he could force Theresa Glen to live over airain 
 
 D 
 
 that moment of horror, he might free his boy. 
 She was shivering, but mute. The night wind
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. ui 
 
 sighed in the tops of the tall trees. The dark 
 waters of the bayou murmured softly as they rip 
 pled against the gnarled roots of the water-oaks on 
 its banks. A far-away owl hooted dismally. The 
 stars looked placidly down from serene heights. 
 The old man paused a second and then resumed, 
 where he had left off, in a slow, steady monotone : 
 " The Frenchman s heart was full of bitterness at 
 the insult that had been put upon him before women, 
 lie was walking home bv this same road when 
 
 > 
 
 Hugh Maury, with you by liis side, came by laugh 
 ing and happy. The Frenchman saw you and 
 
 He stopped, catching his breath nervously. The 
 next word, if it were the wrong word, might break 
 the spell and leave him powerless. Her voice took 
 up the ghastly story : 
 
 " He laughed such an insolent laugh ! It was 
 as if he were hurling insults after me !" 
 
 How strange and sweet and unreal her dreamy 
 tones sounded out there under the distant stars, with 
 no human ear to catch them but the withered one 
 of an old man, who drank them in thirstily. He 
 took up the narrative cautiously : 
 
 " He laughed such an insolent laugh ! It was as 
 if he were hurling insults after you. It stung Hugh 
 Maury to quick wrath 
 
 " Yes !" 
 
 It was scarcely more than a gasp. 
 
 " He drove past a few rods, stopped
 
 142 A STBAXGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Had not he discovered for himself the trampled 
 spot where the impatient horse had pawed the 
 ground 1 But it had gone for naught in George s 
 
 O <J C O 
 
 defense. 
 
 " Stopped i" she echoed him in a frightened 
 whisper. 
 
 The old man did not notice her interruption. 
 
 Hugh jumped out and ran back. He told you a 
 lie ! He told you he was only going to speak to the 
 Frenchman no more !" 
 
 " Xo more ! no more !* 
 
 Was it the night- wind s mqan or a woman s depo 
 sition ? 
 
 "That was all he did mean at first. But his hot 
 blood was up. The Frenchman was tipsy and inso 
 lent. You were out of sight. There were words, 
 angry words, then silence! Xo noisy, ruffianly 
 pistol-shots told what had happened. "When Hugh 
 Maury took the reins again, perhaps 
 
 There was blood upon his wristband ! There 
 was blood upon Hugh s wristband ! Oh ! Hugh ! 
 Hugh! Hugh! Why did you kill him > 
 
 A woman s shriek mingled with the sighing of 
 the night-wind ! The spell was broken ! Shudder 
 ing, frightened, aroused, she stretched out her hands, 
 swaying like a storm-tossed flower. The old man 
 caught her in his arms and hurried toward the 
 house with her. She lay across his bosom a dead 
 weight. He stumbled heavily up the steps with his
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 143 
 
 burden. It was a slight one, but he was old, 
 and the physical strain he had been under ever since 
 he had stolen across the lake for his captive had 
 been great he was aweary of lirnb and of soul. 
 
 He groped his way through the dark halls and 
 laid Theresa tenderly down upon a sofa in his studv. 
 Then he lighted a lamp, shaded it carefully, inspected 
 all the windows, satisfied himself that no ray of 
 light could possibly escape through the drawn cur 
 tains, and applied himself to the task of restoration. 
 
 Poor child ! poor child !" he crooned over her, 
 as he moistened her white lips with brandy and 
 chafed her chill temples and feet with his vein- 
 seamed hands as tenderly as a mother could have 
 done it. 
 
 She opened her eyes presently and looked lan 
 guidly about the room without moving. 
 
 " I have had one of those horrible dreams again ! 
 Eosine ! Eosine ! wake up ; I want you !" 
 
 But there was no response from Eosine. She 
 raised herself upon her elbow and gazed about her 
 in bewilderment. She recognized the room at once 
 as the office in Doctor Bemish s house. Its musty 
 books, glass cases of vials, electric batteries and 
 other appliances had always been objects of more 
 terror than interest to her. She saw it now, for the 
 first time, in the dim light of a shaded lamp it did 
 not make it more attractive. 
 
 She rose and came toward the old man, who was
 
 144 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 standing by the mantel-piece with his back turned 
 toward her. Had it just come to him that he had 
 taken an unfair advantage of her 2 In the moment 
 of achievement had remorse overtaken him 2 He 
 did not stir when he heard her call the maid, who 
 always slept within her reach. He did not stir un 
 til she laid her hand upon his arm and asked, won- 
 deringiy : 
 
 " What am I doing here, doctor 2 How came I 
 here 2 Why am I not at home ?" 
 
 " You came because I wanted you, my child," he 
 answered with infinite gentleness, covering the 
 hand she had laid upon his arm with fatherly 
 caresses. " You came because I needed you." 
 
 " But how did I get here 2" she persisted, looking 
 around the dimly-lighted room, where ghostly 
 shadows flitted when the wind turned the fire-flames 
 hither and thither. 
 
 " I brought you here !" 
 
 " What for 2" 
 
 " To make you tell me the truth !" 
 
 " The truth 2 The truth about what " 
 
 A look of horror flashed into her eyes as his mean 
 ing broke upon her. 
 
 " What !" she exclaimed, recoiling from him in 
 horror. " You, the man whom I have looked up to as 
 a father you have brought all your science, all 
 your learning, all your will-power to bear upon a 
 weak girl s weak brain, to force from her the secret
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 145 
 
 that lias made life one long, hideous curse to her ! 
 You have stolen the truth ; now what use will you 
 make of it } Tell me that, brave scientist !" 
 
 " Think of George !" the old man pleaded, quail 
 ing before the indignant fire of her eyes. 
 
 " I did think of him when I stole like a thief in 
 the night and opened his prison-doors with my own 
 hand. I could not let him suffer for what he had 
 not done. He is free. The world is large. Doubt 
 less long before this he has formed ties and gained 
 love that makes life bright. I made him free. He 
 has not suffered." 
 
 The old man groaned. Her words conjured up 
 the forlorn figure of his son hiding from the face of 
 his fellow-men, burrowing in the earth for refuge. 
 He turned upon her savagely : 
 
 " You made him free ? Perhaps you opened his 
 prison-doors and told him to go forth, spotted and 
 stained, but free from danger of the halter ! Your 
 fine sense of justice carried you but a short way on 
 the road you should have gone. I tell you, girl, you 
 will never know what it has cost me to wrest } r our 
 secret from you ! But it is mine mine at last ! and 
 I will proclaim it from, the house-tops !" 
 
 He laughed triumphantly. She shuddered and 
 drew away from him in terror. 
 
 " You make me afraid of you. I do not recog 
 nize you. You were so kind and gentle always." 
 
 "Were!" he laughed mockingly ; "but now I am
 
 146 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 going to be just ! Just only just, nothing more ! 
 Come !" He brought forward the cloak she had 
 worn. " I must get you home before I rest ; and I 
 am tired, tired sick and tired. If it were not for 
 the work I have to do, how eladly I could lie down 
 
 / o / 
 
 and die." 
 
 "Work?" 
 
 "Yes, work! I have to clean the Bemish 
 escutcheon before I die, and my sands are running 
 low. I have to tell the world that a soft, fair 
 woman has held justice and truth balanced in the 
 scales against a lover s welfare, and truth kicked the 
 beam. And you, of all women soft, tender, pitiful 
 you, whom I have loved as my own daughter you, 
 to shield a murderer all these years !" 
 
 " Hush ! You shall not pour out your hot, bitter 
 accusations against me not another one ! If the 
 powers of darkness, which your learning has taught 
 you how to evoke, have given you a triumph over me, 
 it is a very poor one. If I were asked before the 
 tribunal of high Heaven if I believed Hugh JMaury 
 to be a murderer I should say yes ! If I were asked 
 before a tribunal of men if I knew Hugh Maury to 
 be a murderer I should say no ! I saw no blow 
 struck. I heard no outcry. That horrible ride 
 home was made in absolute silence. From the mo 
 ment I sprang from that buggy at my brother s 
 gate up to the present one I have known no more 
 about Hugh Maury than you do !" she gasped, and
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 147 
 
 went on, breathlessly: ""Whether he be dead or 
 alive is more than I can say. I was his promised 
 wife. He knew that I was his accuser when I 
 drew our betrothal-ring from my finger and flung it 
 from me as we rode home side by side with that 
 ghastly secret between us. 
 
 " I hate my life ! If it were not for the sin of it, 
 I could easily fling it away as a tiling of no worth. 
 
 I/ u / O 
 
 There was one person I have sometimes thought 
 it would comfort me to go to one whom I 
 thought was a fellow-sufferer with me. That one 
 
 O 
 
 person has duped me, used me, handled me as a mere 
 puppet, and would doubtless think he was simply 
 doing his duty as a father if he had made me swear 
 to lies while he held my will in bondage." 
 
 " Xo ! God kftows I have had my fill of lies ! 
 The truth alone is what I have punished nvyself 
 and tortured you to obtain ! My child, you wrong 
 me!" 
 
 "You may well say tortured. My brain is on 
 fire !" 
 
 He looked at her in alarm. Her eyes glowed like 
 coals and a red fever-spot shone on cither cheek. 
 He hurried her into the skiff and once more took up 
 the oars. It was with tired arms that he made the 
 first stroke. lie did not point the prow straight 
 across the lake. He would land his patient-passenger 
 immediately in front of her brother s gate. 
 
 There was no danger of discovery. The night
 
 148 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 had worn Avell on toward morning. In that rural 
 neighborhood there was nothing to keep the people 
 abroad. The world was asleep. He rowed silentlv 
 and vigorously. No words passed between him and 
 the girl in the stern, who was no longer erect, but 
 sat shivering and sobbing beneath the cloak lie had 
 wrapped about her. 
 
 " Theresa, my child," he said, as she sprang up to 
 leave the boat as soon as practicable, " I may not 
 see you again ; you know I am not the doctor, now. 
 I want you to say you forgive George s father for 
 what he has done." 
 
 She passed him without response. He could hear 
 her teeth chattering violently as she stepped beyond 
 him in the skiff.
 
 A STHANGE PILGRIMAGE. 149 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A MYSTIFYING DISCOVERY. 
 
 A" PULL over the water " before breakfast had 
 come to be a regular practice of Archibald 
 Murray s since he had been among the lake-dwell 
 ers. He was up and out earlier than usual on the 
 morning that followed his futile espionage of Theresa 
 Glen. He had spent a sleepless, restless night try 
 ing to decide a question which positively refused to 
 be decided : 
 
 Should he give such information as chance had 
 put into his hands, concerning Miss Glen s strange 
 trysts with a man unknown to him, into Leonard 
 Glen s keeping? If "yes," how was his host likely 
 to take it ? If " no," where would it all end for the 
 girl, who was evidently under some malign influence ( 
 Alas, for the woman he loved ! 
 
 The lily-pads crowded insolently close to the 
 banks in that usurping fashion Nature displays where 
 once she gains a foot-hold. Those Southern lily- 
 pads were huge ; their stems penetrated the water 
 to a depth of six and nine feet, and their green disks 
 spread out on its surface in a compact mass. Archi 
 bald forced the boat through them with fierce iinpa-
 
 150 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 tience that morning ; lie wanted to get clear of their 
 entangling grasp ; he wanted to get from under the 
 shadow of the thickly-shrubbed yard, out into the 
 middle of the lake, where there was nothing but the 
 clear, June skies above and the clear, pure water 
 beneath. The water was transparent ; there were no 
 dark places there, no mystery, nothing baffling. He 
 hated to be baffled. 
 
 It was early so early, that the spot in the east 
 where the sun would presently lift his head to glorify 
 the world was enveloped in a luminous golden haze. 
 As he stood up in the boat to divest himself of his 
 coat before settling down to the oars, the tops of 
 the trees out there on Alligator Island began to 
 shimmer in the light of the rising sun. The conical 
 Island was aglow with these fiery tips. 
 
 Why not row to the Island ? He had often de 
 clared his intention of exploring that small king 
 dom in spite of its owner s multiple warnings to 
 trespassers. He could scarcely do that much this 
 morning, but at least he might row around it and 
 back to the glen-landing before breakfast a meal 
 which was aristocratically late, always, under that 
 luxurious roof. 
 
 He rowed well. The exercise was delightful to 
 him at all times ; but this morning, as his broad 
 chest expanded with every stroke of the oars, and 
 the fairy rings curled away in a sparkling procession 
 from the deftly-feathered blades, he was conscious
 
 .-1 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 151 
 
 of a sense of physical strength and freedom that was 
 exhilarating in the extreme. lie could row on thus 
 forever and forever, he said to himself, if she were 
 but sitting there opposite him, as she so often sat at 
 even-tide, looking sweet and calm and majestic 
 not caring for idle chatter or for grave converse con 
 tent, as he was himself, to sit silent and listen to the 
 soft rustle of the water as it curled away from the 
 sharp prow of the boat. It was at such moments 
 that he felt almost sure she and he were drifting to 
 ward the haven that true-lovers ever steer for. 
 
 lie turned his head to note progress and make a 
 fresh estimate of the distance that lay between him 
 and Alligator Island. lie was gaining on it rapidly. 
 It lay there, bathed in a flood of golden sunlight, 
 an unbroken mass of greenery. Between him and it 
 he noticed a dark object dancing on the waves. 
 
 " Some fellow has lost his skiff. I ll take it in 
 tow, was his neighborly resolution. He pointed 
 his own boat straight for the dancing object. It 
 was bobbing and dipping merrily as the brisk morn 
 ing breeze touched its brightly-painted sides, danc 
 ing farther awav from him on every wave. It 
 
 ~ V 
 
 really seemed trying to elude his pursuit; but the 
 strong-armed rower was soon alongside, and leaning 
 over he grasped its chain, which was fastened by a 
 ring in the bow. 
 
 Archibald s lips turned white, and his vigorous 
 frame trembled with passion as the little craft
 
 152 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 swung around submissively and lay broadside to his 
 own boat. 
 
 There was a woman s cloak spread proteetingly 
 over the seat in the stern ! There was a dark-red 
 rose lying stemless, but gemmed with dew, on the 
 middle seat ! There was a bit of damp cambric 
 lying on one of the thwarts! He seized it and 
 spread it open with a trembling hand. There was 
 an embroidered " G " in one corner, and it exhaled 
 the fragrance she was so fond of heliotrope ! The 
 stemless rose, sparkling there before him had he 
 not put its fellow carefully away in his pocket-book 
 before going to bed the night before ( Oh, fool ! 
 fond fool that he was ! A man s heavy buckskin 
 gauntlet was pressed into either oar-lock. 
 
 " Muffled oars !" he said, grinding his teeth in im 
 potent fury. "Curse him curse the hour I ever 
 saw her!" 
 
 A shrill whistle attracted his attention. He 
 raised his head and looked toward the Glcncove side 
 of the lake. The whistler was not there. He 
 scanned the main- land on the opposite side. ]\ r or 
 there. It was repeated, then followed by a pro 
 longed "Hal-loo!" in a man s hoarse voice. lie 
 turned his head toward Alligator Island. 
 
 There, at the remote edge of the water, stood 
 a man waving his hat and handkerchief energetic 
 ally. In the few moments of his absorption in the 
 discovery of these evidences of Theresa Glen s occu-
 
 A TKAtfGtf PILGRIMAGE. \fc 
 
 pancy of the bout he had just captured, while his 
 oars were lying idle in the locks, he had drifted 
 sensibly nearer to the Island near enough for words 
 to come to him distinctly. 
 
 " Kindly fetch that skiff this way, will you ?" were 
 the words that came to his ears just then. 
 
 He looked away from the man, and sat with his 
 hands folded over the crossed oars. His soul wa ; 
 in a perfect tempest of conflicting emotions. "Why 
 should he do this man s bidding ? "Would it be well 
 for him to come in closer contact with the man whom 
 he believed was exercising some evil power over 
 Theresa Glen ? Would it be safe > What right had 
 he to resent this matter ? Why should he care . 
 
 " I will pay you well I" 1 came across the water, 
 anxiously. "I have no means of getting home." 
 
 The words came each time more distinctly to his 
 ears. The wind had wafted him nearer still to Alli 
 gator Island. He turned his head once more in the 
 direction of the speaker. He could see him per 
 fectly well, now. It was an old man a man who 
 stood in a stooping attitude, and whose hair, blown 
 about by the breeze while he still kept his hat in his 
 hand, was perfectly white. Archibald took in these 
 details deliberately. Then, from an impulse inex 
 plicable to himself, he placed his oars in position 
 and rowed direct for the speaker. He stood up and 
 faced toward him as soon as practicable, regarding 
 him with a fierce sort of interest.
 
 LU A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Yes, it was an old man. An old man of cour 
 teous mien, with a kindly, care-worn face and a 
 voice of extreme gentleness. A gentleman, to all 
 seeming. 
 
 " I am afraid, from your evident reluctance to 
 come this way, that you were in some haste to row 
 in the opposite direction," he said, clambering stiffly 
 into his own skiff at the earliest possible moment. 
 " I am exceedingly obliged to you. I came over to 
 this brambly bit of my property to see if it could be 
 turned into a place of refuge for the stock, in view 
 of the threatened overflow this spring, and I care 
 lessly left the chain of my skiff around a bush too 
 weak to hold it. You are very good and I am very 
 fortunate. I thank you very much ! 
 
 He had the oars in his hands by this time, and 
 was evidently not only ready but anxious to take 
 his immediate departure. He had accounted for 
 his presence on the Island with such nervous volu 
 bility that Archibald was compelled to take note of 
 his uneasiness. 
 
 " "Who are you?" he asked, bluntly. 
 
 " My name is Bemish." 
 
 "Doctor Bemish? 
 
 " The same ; and, by the way, doubtless this is my 
 successor." He held out an unsteady hand across 
 the gunwale of the boat to the young doctor. u I 
 had hoped you would have honored me with a call. 
 I am glad the folks have called you here; my
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 155 
 
 day is done. I am a useless old hack. My son, I 
 wish you a smooth career. I hear you are makin^ 
 
 / o 
 
 friends fast. Make them and keep them. The 
 
 neighborhood needs you. I am your well-wisher." 1 
 
 Archibald looked at him with a growing sense of 
 
 o o 
 
 confusion. lie had rejected the proffered hand, 
 which no\v lay rigidly clasped about the oar. lie 
 prided himself on his skill in physiognomy. There 
 was a great deal to be learned from the care-lines 
 and the furrows in the strong face before him. 
 There were lines of endurance and patience there 
 was pathos, and weariness, and anxiety, all clearly 
 mapped out ; but he should not say that the man 
 before him was likely to act the part of the foul 
 fiend toward a woman. 
 
 "After all," he said to himself, "am I not manu 
 facturing my own misery out of mere scraps and 
 fancies? 
 
 The thought tended to lighten his spirits wonder 
 fully. Might not a plain talk with Theresa make it 
 all clear? He would haye it that yery morning. 
 
 All this mental work had been going on while 
 Doctor Bemish was formally welcoming him as his 
 successor. 
 
 " Scarcely successor," he said, unbending from his 
 rigid attitude. "Perhaps the neighborhood found 
 it needed two physicians. I haye called at your 
 place twice, both times to find you out. I haye 
 neyer chanced to meet you in town. I am glad to 
 know you, sir."
 
 150 A STtiANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "I never go to town never. Things have 
 changed, YOU know. Pardon me if I sav I am very 
 
 */ IV 
 
 tired and feel the need of my breakfast." 
 
 With these abrupt words lie dipped his oars into 
 the water and bowed stiffly. 
 
 " This is a bit of your property that 1 propose to 
 explore some day, Doctor," Archibald said, tenta 
 tively. U I know you warn off trespassers, but I sup 
 pose that is to protect your pecan-groves and timber, 
 and would not include the profession." 1 
 
 The old man answered, with nervous irritability : 
 " It is an impenetrable thicket, full of swamps 
 and bogs. I wish it were sunk in the lake. I ve just 
 satisfied myself that I would not even dare turn my 
 stock loose on it in high-water. They would bog in 
 its morasses. It wouldn t pay you, unless you are 
 prepared to lose all your clothes and some of your 
 cuticle." 
 
 " You seem to have come off more easily." 
 " I only skirted along the water s edge this morn- 
 imr. Moreover, I knew every foot of it before the 
 
 O f 
 
 underffrowth became so thick. Thank vou for 
 
 O *J 
 
 catching my boat. Hope I have not made yon late 
 for your breakfast. Good-morning, sir." 
 
 lie made one or two irresolute strokes with his 
 oars. He was evidently bent on seeing Archibald 
 start toward Glencove before he took his own de 
 parture. 
 
 " For some reason," that astute observer rvas say-
 
 A STRAXGE PILGRIMAGE. 157 
 
 ing to himself, " this maker of mysteries does not 
 want his Island invaded. I shall invade it later in 
 the day, and explore it thoroughly." 
 
 " Do you take such long pulls as this often ?" he 
 asked, raising his own oars for a dip. 
 
 "Barely ever. I took it for an appetizer this 
 morning." 
 
 Both boats were well under way by this time. 
 The men touched their hats to each other. With 
 every stroke their paths lay farther asunder. 
 
 " He is lying to me," said Archibald, looking to 
 ward the lessening boat which the old man was vi- 
 
 o o 
 
 oroush* rowing toward his own side of the lake. " He 
 has not come from his place this morning, unless he 
 started before daybreak. He has spent the night on 
 that Island." 
 
 " He suspects something," said the old man, with 
 a groan, looking after the lessening boat which the 
 young man was vigorously rowing toward his own 
 side of the lake. " One more pilgrimage my poor 
 little Theresa must make; then I will release her from 
 this bondage. Her written signature, and George 
 is free ! Poor child poor, frail flower ! If I could 
 but nurse her back to health and strength, or tell 
 them to take her away after she has done me this 
 last service. But she hates me when she is at her 
 selfloathes me ; afid small blame to her." 
 
 There were anxious eyes and anxious hearts await 
 ing Archibald s return to the house that morning.
 
 158 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Mr. Glen was standing on the plank-staging that 
 ran out among the lily-pads, for convenience in get 
 ting in and out of the skiff, with his face full of 
 gloom. 
 
 " What an infernal!} 7 " long row you must have 
 taken this morning," he said, testily, bending over to 
 expedite Archibald s landing by himself pulling the 
 boat close up to the platform. 
 
 " I did go a little farther than usual ; the morn 
 ing was tempting." Then, with startled emphasis, as 
 he caught the anxious expression on his host s face : 
 " Nothing wrong, is there ?" 
 
 " Fanny thinks there is." 
 
 " Paul ?" 
 
 " Kb -Thersie." 
 
 "Good God!" 
 
 He was on shore now, and struggled into his coat 
 as he walked hastily toward the house by Mr. Glen s 
 side. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " That s what we can t make out. Fanny says 
 she found her lying on the lounge in her room, 
 dressed in her wrapper ; the bed had not been slept 
 in last night. She seems to be exhausted lies with 
 eyes wide open, but won t talk." 
 
 Mrs. Glen met them at the front door. Her eyes 
 were full of tears ; she advanced impatiently. 
 
 " I want you to go right straight to Theresa. 
 Something terrible is the matter ! I can t get a 
 word from her !"
 
 A STHANGE PILGRIMAGE. 151) 
 
 He needed no second bidding. Mrs. Glen pre 
 ceded him to the wing-room where Theresa lay upon 
 the couch, white and languid. She opened the door 
 for him, closed it upon him, and stole softly away. 
 
 He was alone with her his beautiful love, lying 
 there looking like a broken lily, with her thin hands 
 folded over her bosom and her white lids closed. 
 He knelt by her side and called her name softly. 
 
 She opened her eyes, stared at him confusedly for 
 a second ; then a rush of blood swept over her face, 
 dyeing it a deep rose. She raised herself on one 
 elbow by an evident effort : 
 
 " Does Doctor Murray come here as a physician 
 or as an intruder ?" she asked, icily. 
 
 He was on his feet now, confused and remorse 
 ful. 
 
 "Pardon me," he said. "It was brutal. Your 
 sister sent me here. I came with a heart full of 
 anxiety. You were lying there so still and \vhite 
 that I forgot I had been sent as a physician, 
 and remembered only that I suffered as a lover/ 
 
 It was a daring thing to do, but it was involun 
 tary. 
 
 "A lover?" 
 
 She repeated the words softly so softly that they 
 seemed to flutter over her white lips of their own 
 accord. 
 
 " Yes, a lover !" 
 
 He was on his knees by her side once more, hold-
 
 160 A STKANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 ing her hands ti^ht clasped against his breast. She 
 did not chide him. Her eyes were looking into his 
 trustfully, serenely, tenderly yes, longingly. 
 
 " You do not know what you are saying. Xone 
 of you seem to sec that I am dying." 
 
 " Dying ! "NVhy, what wild fancy is this ? You 
 have been careless, reckless criminally indifferent 
 to your health. See !" he stooped and picked up a 
 little slipper from beneath the lounge is this a 
 thing to wear from beneath the shelter of your 
 home? Oh, my darling! don t be afraid to tell me 
 what it means ! You are under some spell cast upon 
 you by an old man for purposes of his own. Let 
 me help you to break that spell. See!" he went 
 on, vehemently, not noting the wild, hunted look 
 that had come into her eyes, " I am going to tell 
 you how brutal I have been ! I am going to tell 
 you how I thought you were not above meeting 
 your lover in a lonely grave-yard, or on the shores 
 of the lake at midnight how I have cursed myself 
 for the infatuation that made me love you in spite 
 of the things that told so against you. Only this 
 morning, my sweet, when I found these witnesses of 
 your presence in a boat, afloat out yonder on the 
 lake, I could have killed you in my wrath ; but I 
 said, I will go to her and ask her what it means. I 
 will go to her and tell her that by the mighty love I 
 bear her by all the agony I have battled against 
 for her sake by all that a man holds in highest
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. IQ 
 
 esteem in the woman he loves, I have a right to the 
 truth ! " 
 
 lie laid the handkerchief and the crushed rose 
 upon her white robe. 
 
 " You will tell me, oh, my love, my incarnation 
 of purity ! how came the rose you wore in your hair 
 last night now came that bit of cambric, that 
 peeped so daintily from your silken, bodice last 
 night to be lying, wet and crushed, in a floating 
 boat, out yonder in the lake ? a boat whose oars 
 had been muffled so that the thief might easier do 
 
 o 
 
 the bidding of his master Satan ! I have suffered 
 such torments for your sake this day, my darling, 
 short as it has been! How could I remember that I 
 was but the doctor to you when they sent me in 
 here ? v 
 
 He had spoken rapidly and vehemently, carried 
 away by his own passion, swept away by his fierce 
 desire to pierce this mystery. Her eyes, which had 
 been fastened on his in an intense gaze, were sud 
 denly cast upward. She lifted the rose on high, 
 laughed hysterically, flung lier arms out wildly, 
 then lay still and white m his arms, with closed eyes 
 and nerveless limbs.
 
 1G2 -4 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XTIL 
 
 A VISIT TO ALLIGATOR ISLAND. 
 
 BY THE LORD, if she cannot, he shall !" said 
 Archibald Murray, between his clenched teeth, 
 as he paced the long gallery at Glencove toward 
 nightfall of the day that had left him worn physic 
 ally and mentally and stirred his fiery nature to its 
 depths. 
 
 Mr. Glen joined him as he got opposite the open 
 fiont door. 
 
 " How is she ?" he asked, anxiously. 
 
 It is hard to say," Doctor Murray answered, 
 gloomily. " She seems to come out of one fainting 
 fit only to go into another. I should say her nerv- 
 
 v - 
 
 ous system has received a tremendous shock. I^oth- 
 ing but the most absolute quiet can relieve her." 
 
 "But how could she receive a nervous shock f 
 Mr. Glen asked, in an irritated voice. " Do you find 
 the material for nervous shocks anywhere about you 
 on this sleepy old plantation ?" 
 
 " Miss Glen s organization is a very highly-strung 
 one." 
 
 " Yes, we have always known that." 
 
 " But what you do not know is, all the influences
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 163 
 
 the exciting influences, I mean that may have been 
 brought to bear on it to produce this attack." 
 
 " Thunder and lightning, Murray ! don t we you 
 as well as I see who she sees, and know where she 
 goes and what she does all day long ?" 
 
 "All day long? Yes, pretty much, I suppose; 
 but He broke off abruptly, then added, 
 
 gravely : " Glen, I wish you would send for Bemish. 
 He has known 3- our sister all her life knows her 
 constitution. I should like him to see her just as 
 she is. I quite insist on it !" 
 
 " But we are perfectly satisfied with your man 
 agement of the case ! Pray don t misunderstand 
 my impatience just now !" 
 
 " I am not satisfied ! I want him sent for I told 
 Mrs. Glen so early this morning !" 
 
 Mr. Grlen took several turns along-side of Archi 
 bald in silence. It was not hard for Archibald to 
 see that he was nervous and disturbed about some 
 thing. 
 
 " Well, what is it 2" he asked, throwing the cigar 
 he had been smoking as a sedative far out into the 
 yard, as he turned to face his host. 
 
 "Bemish is a confounded old churl!" Mr. Glen 
 said, explosively and inconsequently. 
 
 " Then you did send for him ?" 
 
 "Yes, as you suggested it and seemed bent on it." 
 
 " And he would not come ?" 
 
 " No ; confound him ! Said we had one doctor in
 
 164 & STRASGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 the house, and he knew the case did not require 
 two. Fanny says perhaps it was because she wrote, 
 instead of you." 
 
 By the Lord, he shall come ! I ll fetch him my 
 self!" 
 
 Archibald turned, with long, fierce strides, toward 
 where his hat hung on the rack in the hall. His 
 eyes were aflame with anger. 
 
 "My dear fellow, you don ? t think the case so 
 urgent as all this comes to ?" Mr. Glen said, follow 
 ing him into the hall with an anxious face. 
 
 " Urgent ? Yes ; but by no means unmanageable 
 to any one who understands it ! I confess I do not. 
 I believe that Doctor Eemish does. I will say this 
 much to you that I never thought of having him 
 called in until I heard your sister mutter his name 
 when she was scarcely conscious of what she was 
 saying. I think she wants him, and if he is stand 
 ing on his dignity on account of my presence, then 
 I am the one to bring him down off his stilts. 
 That s all there is to it !" 
 
 Just at this juncture Mrs. Glen appeared noise 
 lessly, from somewhere in the rear, with the an 
 nouncement that tea was ready. 
 
 " You will have supper before you go ?" Mr. Glen 
 said to Archie. 
 
 " Yes," he answered : I am going to pull myself 
 across, and I can do it better on a cup of strong 
 coffee than without it."
 
 -1 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. i5 
 
 " Going to pull yourself over where ? Mrs. Glen 
 asked, looking disturbed. She could not endure the 
 Thought of his being away from them one hour, 
 with Theresa in such a strange condition. 
 
 " Over to Bemish s. said Mr. Glen, piling provis 
 ions on Archie s plate with a liberal hand. " He 
 thinks that Thersie wants the old man. and that he 
 may have some professional kink in his head, which 
 he calls courtesy, that needs to be straightened out/ 
 
 " Oh." said Mrs. Glen, quite reconciled ; i; but why 
 not write a note and send it over by one of the 
 boys i" 
 
 " The exercise will do me good." said Archie, 
 gulping down his hot coffee rapidly. I shall pad 
 dle over in the pircgue, as Bemish will want his own 
 boat to go home in. There s nothing to do for Miss 
 Glen but to obey orders you already have, rigidly, 
 until I return with Bemish." 
 
 He gave these last directions while stuffing his 
 very-badly-folded napkin into its ring, and then was 
 gone. 
 
 The pirogue which he selected in preference to 
 ihe heavier two-oared boat was a slim-pointed canoe 
 with room for but one person, and was propelled by 
 a single noiseless paddle, dipped alternately on 
 either side. The day had been a trying one to him, 
 and he doubted his ability to row the heavier boat 
 across to the Bemish place and back with any degree 
 of promptness. He felt savagely disinclined to any
 
 ICG A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 companion, even the humble sort of a negro oars 
 man. 
 
 Night had fallen while he lingered over the 
 sapper-table a starless, moonless night that cov 
 ered the watery expanse over which he was making 
 his way so noiselessly with a black canopy that 
 made all things invisible. As the pirogue shot over 
 the water, Murray found himself wondering why he 
 had so studiously avoided mentioning to the Glens 
 that he had by chance encountered Doctor Bemish 
 that morning. He scarcely knew himself, unless, 
 indeed, it was because this old man was a part of 
 the inscrutable mystery that enveloped the woman 
 who had become so strangely dear to him, and he 
 could not bring himself to talk about her. He was 
 about to do a very rash thing in order to dispel 
 that mystery if a direct course could do it. He was 
 going to tell Doctor Bemish all that he had seen and 
 all that he suspected. 
 
 u By the Lord," he said again, fiercely, " if she 
 cannot, he shall explain it to me, if I have to take 
 his life for it." He plied his paddle with soft, swift 
 strokes. 
 
 The blackness of the water grew yet blacker. He 
 was nearing the other shore. The shadows of the 
 gloomy trees that outlined the Bemish yard fell 
 across his way and deepened the shadows on the 
 water. He dipped his one oar more cautiously and 
 slowly now. He had only visited this spot twice
 
 .1 S TRA XG E PIL OH IM A GK. \ Q * 
 
 before, and that in broad daylight. He was quit? 
 sure he had touched the bank some yards above the 
 proper landing-point. Lightly pushing the pirogue 
 forward by tapping the bank with the paddle, he 
 went on his noiseless way until his ear caught the 
 sound of oars being arranged in their locks. The 
 sound came from a little cove a yard or two bevond 
 the spot where the pirogue was gliding along. There 
 came a faint glow of phosphorescent light. Some 
 one had struck a match ! By its transient glimmer 
 he could see that the man in the boat, which was 
 drift in ; out of the cove, was a white man. The 
 
 O 
 
 match Avent out, and Archie heard an exclamation of 
 impatience. A second match was struck success 
 fully, this time. The man in the skiff held it to a cigar 
 between his lips quite long enough for the man in 
 the pirogue to discover that it was Doctor Bemish, 
 and that he was about starting off on a nocturnal 
 expedition of some sort. 
 
 Archibald s first impulse was to hail him, and 
 bluntly tell him his errand then and there. His 
 second was to avail himself of the chance thus acci 
 dentally afforded him of solving the mystery him 
 self. 
 
 Good God !" was his horrified reflection ; " can 
 he be devil enough to make her rise from that bed 
 of sickness and come to him 1 Perhaps I can best 
 serve her by not losing sight of him." lie held his 
 paddle poised ready for use. " Lead on, my Prince of
 
 168 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Darkness, and I will follow in your wake. Something 
 must come of this night s labor." 
 
 His cigar fairly alight, the old man in the boat 
 settled the heavy oars in their muffled locks with 
 weary arms. He had not meant to go back to the 
 Island so soon. He had spent the past night there 
 with George because he had wanted to report 
 progress with Theresa ; but he had found the boy in 
 need of some tools for a piece of mechanism he was 
 perfecting there in his prison-house, and he had 
 promised to bring them to him. This night lie 
 would be more careful about the boat. 
 
 "He never would have asked it," the old man 
 sighed wearily, " if he had known how nearly worn- 
 out I am. A few more efforts and the truth will be 
 out, George will be free, and I no, nothing can 
 make me strong again. I think the Lord is only 
 letting me live until this task is finished. Then I 
 shall depart in peace." 
 
 It was no difficult task for the strong young rower, 
 
 CJ v O 
 
 following stealthily in his wake, to keep as near to 
 the tired old man as was desirable. The old man 
 rowed slowly and laboriously. The young one 
 paddled swiftly and noiselessly. The old man led 
 unconsciously, the young one followed blindly fol 
 lowed blindly, until once more the darker shadows 
 of earth and tree fell across the smooth surface of 
 the water, and the sound of the muffled oars he had 
 been following suddenly ceased. A soft whistle
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. \f& 
 
 broke the intense stillness. Archie held his breath 
 in surprise and suspense. It was answered by a 
 Avhistle from the shore. He could hear the old man 
 forcing his boat through the bushes. He propelled 
 the pirogue a step or two nearer. He could hear a 
 voice from above say : 
 
 " I hardly looked for you back to-nio-ht. I 
 
 " O 
 
 thought you were tired." The voice was rich and 
 cultured. 
 
 "A little only a little," said the old man cheer 
 fully ; " but I thought you d want the things as quick 
 as you could get them, and I ve got them all here 
 for you." 
 
 " So I did want them, but not at your expense. 
 Look out, there ; the bank s crumbled some to-day. 
 Give me your hand." 
 
 " Xo, you take the things, and I can scramble up. 
 Here got em ?" 
 
 " Yes, all right. Xow then, your hand." 
 
 He could hear the two men walk away together 
 after the old man had clambered up the bank with 
 the assistance of the hand that had been offered in 
 the darkness. 
 
 Without stopping to inquire why he should be 
 thus playing the spy in this skulking fashion, Archi 
 bald Murray forced his pirogue in among the bushes 
 and lightly sprang up the vine-tangled bank. lie 
 found himself surrounded by an impenetrable mass of 
 greenery, At least impenetrable it seemed to him,
 
 no A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 standing there in its midst for the first time, with 
 the darkness of an Egyptian night surrounding him. 
 
 He made a blind step forward in the direction the 
 voices seemed to lead him. The vines twined them 
 selves about his feet and brought him to his knees. 
 He stumbled forward, pushing the briery branches 
 that environed him aside with torn and reckless 
 hands. If he once lost that distant murmur of 
 voices his whole expedition would be a failure. 
 What could he accomplish stumbling along there in 
 the darkness over unknown ground ( His resolute 
 progress was rewarded. lie found himself in a 
 path. A narrow one, to be sure so narrow, that by 
 stretching out either arm he could touch the rough 
 bark of a tree or the thorny branches of some 
 tropical bush ; but the ground under his feet had a 
 beaten feeling. It had beeiMrodden before doubt 
 less had just been trodden by those men whose 
 voices he was straining his ears to catch. Suddenly a 
 wall of impenetrable foliage arose immediately in 
 front of him, blocking his further progress and com 
 pleting his bewilderment. 
 
 Tie stood still to collect his scattered senses. What 
 had become of the voices and what had become of 
 the path ? Just then, apparently directly from out 
 the mass of foliage that blocked his progress, came 
 the words : 
 
 Poor little thing ! I should hate to have it tell 
 permanently on her health, llather than that, let
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 171 
 
 things stand as they are. Come, I was about to 
 take a dip when I heard you whistle. "Will you 
 come with me or stay where you are ? The water s 
 too cold yet awhile for you, I suppose, but it puts 
 new life into me. I take a plunge every night." 
 
 " I will go with you. I have not told you yet that 
 Theresa says 
 
 The mass of foliage moved and seemed to open 
 outward. Archibald Murray had but time to spring 
 backward before the le&fy covert swung back on 
 its hinges, letting a flood of light pour out for a 
 second ; then it was quickly shut. By that light he 
 could see the owner of the rich young voice that had 
 just uttered words which set his pulses to beating 
 tumultuously. He had barely time to note that this 
 man was tall, young, and exceedingly graceful m his 
 movements. The leafy screen swung back into posi 
 tion. The two men, father and son, walked away 
 toward the shore. Archibald stepped from his place 
 of concealment and groped for the latch to this 
 cunningly-concealed door. It was not hard to find. 
 
 " lie shall find me here when he comes back from 
 his dip, this luxurious hermit, who speaks of that 
 poor girl s health as if it were but a matter of 
 secondary consideration to his own comfort. Who 
 in the foul fiend s name is he ?" 
 
 He was inside the hut now, and gazing about him 
 amazedly. The crimson portieres that hid the rude 
 walls were sprinkled thickly over with delicate little
 
 i?3 A STKANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Water-color sketches, with tiny models in bark of 
 all sorts of water-craft, with masses of dried plants 
 and autumn leaves fantastically arranged. Over the 
 brazier of charcoal a brass kettle was swinging, the 
 water in it bubbling and singing merrily. On a side- 
 table were the arrangements for the hermit s sup 
 per. Books, flower-jars, pictures, easels, boxing- 
 gloves, chess-men, all the appointments of a luxuri 
 ously-inclined man of leisure filled the little room to 
 its utmost capacity. On a writing-table in one 
 corner lay an open blank-book, whose first pages 
 were written over in a close, fine, masculine hand. 
 Archibald Murray closed it roughly. Perhaps here 
 was a clew to the identity of this Sybaritish recluse. 
 
 " Private Diary of George Bemish " was written 
 diagonally across the fly-leaf. He involuntarily 
 turned the fly-leaf. He had no vindication to offer 
 for reading the words that stared him in the face : 
 
 " Before God I am innocent of the murder of 
 Adrien Michelet ! There are only three persons in 
 the world who know this as well as I do. These 
 three persons are my poor, heroic, patient old father, 
 Theresa Glen, and Hugh Maury. But should I die 
 on this Island, like a badger in his hole, I want all 
 the world to know it. They will believe me after 
 they read this, which is to be made public at my 
 death. 
 
 " I see it all ! I see it all !" 
 
 Archibald Murray threw up his hands with a
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 173 
 
 groan of despair. " There is no mystery for me to 
 solve no insult for me to avenge. It is the secret 
 of his whereabouts she is guarding. It is for his 
 sake she braves the pestilential breath of night and 
 comes here to bless him with her sweet presence. 
 It is for their sakes the old man turns ferry-man 
 and conve} T s her to his side. ]S"o mystery, no wrong, 
 no insult. Only truth, and loving loyalty, and pa 
 tient endurance! 
 
 " My love, my sweet, thank God I could not believe 
 evil of you, as much as appearances were against 
 you ! Xot mine to strip from them the poor solace 
 of these stolen meetings !" 
 
 He stole away softly from the spot where George 
 Bemish was spending his useless life. He closed the 
 leafy screen as carefully as if a sleeping child lay 
 among its swaying branches. Bruised, breathless, 
 sick at heart, he groped his way back to the pirogue. 
 
 An hour later he stood before Mr. and Mrs. Glen, 
 white and wearied. 
 
 How is she ?" were his first words. 
 
 " She has not moved since you left. Has slept 
 like an angel," said Mrs. Glen, fervidly. 
 
 Has slept like herself, then," said Archie, with 
 an expressibly pathetic smile. 
 
 " But you ?" said Mrs. Glen, anxiously ; " you look 
 so tired and white. You have done too much for us 
 to-day." 
 
 "Nonsense!" he said, with a futile attempt at
 
 174 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 cheerfulness. " The water and the night-air to 
 gether have made me look a trifle ghastly, no doubt ; 
 they always do." 
 
 " How about Bemish ?" Mr. Glen asked. 
 
 : Could not find him," said Archibald, without 
 flinching. " But if Miss Glen is still sleeping, per 
 haps she may not need him, after all." 
 
 " Will you see her before going to bed ?" 
 
 " No. She does not need me, either." 
 
 He said it with such a strange gruffness in his 
 voice, with such a hopeless look in his eyes, that 
 when he turned immediately on his heel and left 
 them Mrs. Glen looked at her husband and said, 
 wonder ingly : 
 
 " Did you ever ?" 
 
 " Frequently," said Mr. Glen, with a troubled smile, 
 " where Thersie is concerned." 
 
 " Leonard," said Mrs. Glen, solemnly, " for a 
 really good woman, I think your sister Theresa has 
 inflicted an awful amount of suffering." 
 
 I think so, too. But what are we going to do 
 about it *" 
 
 " Nothing," his wife answered, unsatisfactorily.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE 
 
 CHATER XIV. 
 
 MAD PARMEL1E AT HOME. 
 
 THE SNOW mantles that had kept the flower- 
 germs warm all winter had melted at the first 
 breath of spring. The crocuses were lifting their 
 yellow heads above the brown earth-crust, and the 
 snow-drops were hanging their pure, white bells on 
 their fragile stems before Hetty s mother and 
 Hetty s doctor relaxed their stern vigilance and 
 gave her the blessed freedom of action she pined for 
 so restlessly. 
 
 The winter had been one of horror to her. She 
 had only been permitted glimpses of the outside 
 world through closed sashes and stuffy woolen cur 
 tains. She was thin and pale, and the thinner and 
 paler she got the more they enveloped her in wool 
 ens, and the more closely they confined her to the 
 house, which to her excited imagination was but a 
 repository of dead men s secrets and the haunt of 
 ghostly visitants. 
 
 The sighs and restless movements of some unquiet 
 spirit disturbed her days and nights. If those un 
 explained sounds had caused her simply vulgar ter 
 ror, she would long since have fled from the little 
 room where alone they were ever heard. She had 
 gone to every room in the house when no one was
 
 176 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 in them ; had sat in them with folded hands and 
 strained ears, listening, longing, hoping she might 
 hear those same despairing sighs and weary foot 
 steps that came to her alone in her own room. 
 
 u It is because this was my cousin s room, the 
 girl had decided for herself, looking lovingly up into 
 the bright-faced portrait that hung over her mantel 
 piece, " that my Uncle Richard s spirit comes back 
 here. If only he would think me good enough to 
 be his messenger to the boy he loved so well!" 
 
 More than once she had stretched out her little, 
 thin hands toward those ghostly sounds, pleading 
 audibly that she might be found worthy to do the 
 bidding of her ghostly visitant. 
 
 " What would you have him know, my uncle ? 
 Can you not tell me ? He has forgotten me has 
 gone where I could not even persecute him with a 
 letter ; but he would welcome me if I came with a 
 greeting from you, oh, my uncle! and I would 
 search the wide world over to bear it to him ; for 
 oh, the spirits know it I love him ! I love him !" 
 
 These frenzied moments of exaltation would leave 
 her unnerved and exhausted, and then Mrs. Ogden. 
 in a fright, would send for Doctor Vernon ; and 
 Doctor Vernon, acting according to his lights, would 
 mix a fresh lot of pills and leave a new sort of mixt 
 ure, perhaps a trifle nastier than the last, and 
 would prescribe oatmeal for her breakfast, and con 
 fidently promise Mrs. Ogden that if all his directions 
 were followed, Hetty would soon be quite herself 
 again. 
 
 Apart from a mild sort of anxiety concerning
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 177 
 
 Hetty, Mrs. Ogden was in an unusually placid frame 
 of mind that first winter of her return to the home 
 of her childhood. Things were moving much more 
 smoothly than she had anticipated. 
 
 The neighbors having attended her big dinner out 
 of curiosity and interest in her handsome and 
 heroic tutor, came again to inquire after Miss 
 Ogden, whose prolonged illness touched the quick 
 sympathies of their warm Virginia hearts, until 
 social recognition had been accorded the returned 
 native almost unconsciously. 
 
 Then the tutor had really turned out to be a 
 treasure. JSTo one had ever obtained such mastery 
 of the Ogden boys. She would gladly have taken 
 a long lease of him, but he refused to engage for 
 more than one month at a time. 
 
 " Xo," he would say, firmly ; u I am only resting 
 and accumulating strength for my pilgrimage. I 
 have laid my snares in many places ; somewhere, 
 sometime, I will find my friend and carry him home 
 in triumph." 
 
 Again, she had gotten rid of Archibald Murray 
 much more easily than she dared hope for. He had 
 never been heard from since writing back for his 
 books. He had not, even then, vouchsafed her any 
 information concerning himself. 
 
 " I suppose he is not starving," she said to herself, 
 comfortably, " or I should have heard from him 
 quick enough." 
 
 Yes, things were going quite to suit Mrs. Ogden ; 
 and now that the crocuses were out and the hyacinth- 
 buds swelling, she might open Hetty s prison-bars.
 
 1 78 A STRANGE PIL GRIM A GE. 
 
 She was glad to see that in the limited intercourse 
 circumstances had permitted between Hetty and the 
 boys tutor there had been none of that shyness, 
 none of that pretty maneuvering for proximity, 
 none of those furtive proceedings which bespeak the 
 incipient love-affair. 
 
 Hetty and Hugh Maury met three times a day at 
 the table, and in the parlor of evenings, when she 
 would be at the piano, or in the chapel, when he 
 would be at the organ. Each seemed to enjoy the 
 harmony evoked by the other in a purely imper 
 sonal manner. 
 
 " Everything is just as it should be," Mrs. Ogden 
 said, placidly, turning from the window, where she 
 had just caught a glimpse of Hugh Maury stalking 
 across the fields in the direction of Doctor Yernon s 
 house, to go and let Hetty out for a ramble on her 
 own responsibility. 
 
 "The morning is just delicious," she said, tying a 
 blue silk handkerchief about Hetty s neck with ma 
 ternal solicitude ; " and just so you don t linger in 
 shady, damp spots, you are at liberty to spend the 
 whole morning out under this glorious spring sun 
 shine." 
 
 " Glorious, indeed !" said Hetty, her eyes dancing 
 as she walked tentatively from one end of the long 
 gallery to the other, undecided in which direction 
 she should take her flight. 
 
 " Where are the boys, mother ? I shouldn t mind 
 taking one of them with me." 
 
 "It s Saturday, and there s a circus in town, so 
 there s no use asking me where the bovs are. Mr. 
 
 w v
 
 A STRANGE PIL GRIM A G E. ] 79 
 
 Maury has gone over to take his Saturday dinner 
 with the Vernons, as usual." 
 
 " I shouldn t want him if he hadn t," said Hetty, 
 bounding down the steps with a light-hearted laugh. 
 " It s done me good already, mother this sweet, 
 sweet air. Don t be troubled if you don t see me 
 before sunset. I promise not to get drowned 
 again." 
 
 Mrs. Ogden turned toward the house as Hetty, 
 like a bird set free, ran across the lawn, declaring 
 she hadn t yet made up her mind which way to go. 
 
 If this last surviving member of the Dabney 
 family could be said to have a ruling passion, it was 
 for novel-reading novel-reading of that fervid, 
 absorbed description which tinged her fancies in 
 early girlhood, guided or misguided her conduct in 
 maturer years, and finally became a sedative and a 
 solace. 
 
 She was in a specially complacent mood this 
 morning. She had made all of her children happy, 
 and now she would enjoy the rest of the day in her 
 own fashion. 
 
 Hetty was taking her enjoyment in another 
 fashion. In the aimless manner of a butterfly she 
 flitted across the fields where the hands were turn 
 ing up the sweet-smelling earth with keen, sharp 
 plow-blades now stooping to fill her hands with 
 the red clover-blossoms, now tiptoeing to reach a 
 spray of plum-blossoms for the adorning of her 
 hat-band. 
 
 An hour of this unusual exercise found her tired 
 beyond her expectations. " Uncle Richard s bench,"
 
 180 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 on the promontory, was the only dry resting-place 
 that suggested itself. By a circuitous route through 
 the fields she reached it, and threw herself upon it 
 in a condition of fatigue that quite irritated her. 
 
 " I am of no account !" she said aloud. u Just liter 
 ally of no account !" 
 
 This was the first time she had been on the prom 
 ontory since she had made that daring expedition 
 across the river on skates. The river lay spread out 
 before her now, running swiftly and merrily be 
 tween its green banks. Released from its icy fet 
 ters, it was a charming object in the landscape. 
 The land on the opposite side lay much lower than 
 on the Dabney side. She could sit there on her 
 sunny bench, with her feet prudenth 7 " poised on the 
 roots of the oak, and take in a wide panoramic 
 view of homely industry on the other side. 
 
 There was the old ferry-man, mending a very 
 dirty dip-net, in preparation for the coming of the 
 fishing season ; there was his wife, planting her early 
 potatoes in the truck-patch ; beyond were the broad 
 fields that belonged to mad Parmelie Rose, where* 
 the plows were running and the plowmen whistling 
 as merrily as if there were no iron bars to the 
 windows of one of the rooms in the big, gray house 
 which Hetty could just see now, veiled by the pale- 
 green of the early foliage on the trees that stood 
 all around it. 
 
 The sun Avaxed hotter. She meant to be very 
 prudent, this time just to sit still and enjoy the 
 sunshine until she was quite rested, and then go back 
 to the house in. a leisurely way. But certainly that
 
 .1 STRAtfQE PTLG&IMAGE. 181 
 
 blue silk handkerchief coiled about her neck was 
 just a trifle too much. She unwound it and gave it 
 a little shake to free it of wrinkles. 
 
 When she had folded it and put it in her jacket- 
 pocket, and turned her eyes once more on the placid 
 scene before her, old Ishain, the ferry-man, was just 
 pushing his boat out into the stream. She watched 
 him as he propelled it across the stream with quick, 
 long strokes ; but it was only when he stood up in the 
 boat, with his hat in his hand, and sent his voice up 
 to the promontory, that she felt responsible for his 
 movements. 
 
 " Here s me, Missy ! 
 
 " Mercy !" Hetty sprang 1 violently to her feet. 
 U I had entirely forgotten I told him that w lien he 
 saw a blue silk handkerchief waving he must come 
 in a hurry. I must pay him for his trouble." 
 
 She went down the steep path with unselfish con 
 sideration only in her heart. k> I can go down better 
 than he can climb up, she said to herself. 
 
 The boat was clean and trim. The old man 
 greeted her cordially. She wished she might take a 
 little row. But she had promised to be very 
 prudent. 
 
 " It was a mistake this time, uncle. I didn t mean 
 to wave for you. I was just taking my handker 
 chief from my neck. But I am going to pay you, ail 
 the same, she said, feeling for her purse. 
 
 A disappointed look came over the old man s face. 
 "Xever ruin bout the money, Missy. I thought 
 maybe you was goin to see po Miss Hose. She ben 
 bcffffin " so hard to see *o ma. Yo ma, when sho 
 
 "CO
 
 182 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 was Miss Aggie Dabney, and our Miss Rose were 
 mighty thick, honey." 
 
 " And she wants to see mother now ! "Why did 
 not somebody let her know V 
 
 " She do know, Missy ; I went up to the big house 
 and tol Miss Aggie myself." 
 
 " Told her what P 
 
 " Tol her that Mars John say Miss Kose could. i 
 poss ble hoi out much longer, an how it would be a 
 ac of mercy to come and see her." 
 
 " And what word did my mother send back ?" 
 
 " She say you was too ill for her t lef yo side day 
 nu night." 
 
 " That was true," said Hetty, only too glad to 
 shield her mother from the suspicion of heartless- 
 ness. " I have been very sick for a long time. Who 
 is Mr. John ?" 
 
 "He s Miss Rose s brother which I tol you bout 
 las time, Missy. He s jis naterally wearin himself 
 out tryin to tek keer uv Miss Rose. He say she 
 shan t go to no sylum while lies head s hot." 
 
 " He must be a good man." 
 
 " God never made no better. But Miss Rose 
 wants to see women-folks sometimes, an they s all 
 fraid uv her now." 
 
 "I m not afraid of her," said Hetty, stepping 
 daringly into the boat and seating herself, " and I am 
 going to see her if you think I can walk that far. 
 I ve been sick ever since I fell into the river that 
 day, and I m ridiculously weak." 
 
 u Tain t no furder then from you bench up to yo 
 big house, Missy ; an fore de lawd you do look so
 
 A STRA2TGE PILGRIMAGE. 1S3 
 
 much lak Miss Aggy uscn to look when her and our 
 Miss Rose was so thick that mebbeyou kin fool her 
 into thinkin YOU is Miss Affg-v. De recordin aivil 
 
 OO. f3 
 
 wouldn t sot down that sort cr lie ag in folks would 
 he. Missy C 
 
 AVe will risk it, anyhow," said Hettv, smilino- 
 
 t, 7 
 
 reassurance into the perplexed face of the honest 
 old man. whose faithful soul longed to carry some 
 comfort to his desolate " w ite folks/ 
 
 " You shill ride the ol mar up to the house. 
 Missy. She s jis as gentle as a sick kitten. 
 
 " And about as slow, said Hettv. with a lauirli. 
 
 O 
 
 u Fo legs is better than two. 
 
 " And it will be the quickest way. I must not 
 get back to the house too tired, you know, or mamma 
 won t let me out soon again. 
 
 Islmni fulfilled his promise of having her in the 
 saddle " in a jiffy/ 
 
 She would have scorned to take that short ride if 
 she had been in her normal condition. So short was 
 it that she seemed scarcely to have lost sight of the 
 big potato the ferry-man s wife was cutting the 
 eyes "out of before she, perched on the back of 
 the old mare, was pleading for help to open the gate 
 that led into the front yard of Parmelie Rose s 
 house. 
 
 She directed this call for help to a man whom she 
 saw stooping over a flower-bed immediately in front 
 of the house. He was the only person in sight. 
 
 lie straightened his back at the sound of her 
 girlish voice, shoved his hat from off his brows, and 
 looked at her in undisguised amazement.
 
 1 g4 A STEA XG E PILGRIM A Gfi. 
 
 " Oh !" said Hetty, under her breath, " that must 
 be Mr. John." 
 
 Throwing the bridle over the gate-post, she slipped 
 from the saddle and walked quickly toward .him, 
 leaving her beast on the outside. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir,- she said, with a bright 
 smile, before he had at all recovered from his sur 
 prise. " I thought I was ordering some uncle or 
 other to open the gate for me. I suppose this is 
 Mr. Rose." 
 
 " That is my name. And yours, my child ?" 
 
 " Is Hetty Ogden." 
 
 A dark shadow flitted across the worn face of the 
 man, who had evidently been gardening before her 
 invasion. He glanced restlessly toward the windows 
 of the house before which they were standing. 
 Hetty s glance followed his. She shuddered. There 
 were iron bars to all the windows of the room that 
 locked out upon the flower-beds. 
 
 " She is there ?" 
 
 " Yes, she is there. She is asleep now, but she 
 has had an unusually trying day, poor child." 
 
 He passed his hand wearily over his forehead and 
 pushed back the long white locks that were falling 
 over it ; his face, lighted by a pair of gentle brown 
 eyes, was so full of suffering that Hetty said, in 
 voluntarily : 
 
 " And so have you !" 
 
 "That goes for nothing. The one involves the 
 other." 
 
 " She wanted to see my mother c" 
 
 " Yes. She fancies that she has something on her
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. \$ 
 
 mind that must be told to Mrs. Ogden alone. You 
 know the mentally diseased are very fanciful. I 
 think it would have done her good if Mrs. Ogden 
 could have come to her. But I do not blame her 
 not at all, not at all. There are some things no one 
 can help us to bear. This is one of them. It was 
 selfish of me to even ask it." 
 
 It was a noble face into which she was looking! 
 A face full of the sweetness, and the light, and the 
 strength of a soul that had been tried in the furnace 
 of affliction and come out of it pure silver. 
 
 " I am going to make her think her old friend has 
 come to her," said Hetty. * They say I look as my 
 mother used to at my age." 
 
 " You do and you don t !" said John Rose, 
 scanning the pure young face before him with seri 
 ous eyes. " There is something more in your face 
 than there was in Agnes !" 
 
 " Then you, too, knew my mamma ?" 
 
 "Knew her? Yes. Why, I thought mothers 
 were fond of telling daughters about their con 
 quests! But Parmelie you say you would not 
 be afraid to go in to her V 
 
 u Xo not one particle." 
 
 " You are very young, my child, to come in con 
 tact with such a wreck. My poor Parmelie; she 
 was as fair and as light-hearted as you are, once." 
 
 A shrill scream from the windows behind them 
 made Hetty start violently. She turned her fright 
 ened eyes toward the barred windows. Two long, 
 thin arms were stretched out toward her through 
 the cold iron bars, and a shrill voice cried :
 
 186 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " Agnes ! Agnes ! I thought she would come ! 
 Quick come quick ! I ve got so much to tell you !" 
 
 Hetty trembled violently. Her cheeks blanched, 
 and she stood irresolute until John Eose broke the 
 spell. 
 
 "It is too much for you, poor child. You shall 
 not go. I am sorry she has seen you, but I can 
 quiet her by telling her 
 
 " You shall quiet her by telling her nothing. I 
 am going to her. Only " she made a step forward, 
 then turned her lovely eyes pleadingly on him 
 " you will come with me f 
 
 "I will go with you, and see that no physical 
 harm can possibly befall you," he said, drawing her 
 hand within his arm. 
 
 " Then I shall not be afraid at all," she said, " but 
 will be glad if my coming can comfort her in any 
 way." 
 
 The next moment she was alone in the iron-barred 
 room that mad Parmelie Rose called home.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HETTY SHARES PARMELIE ROSE s SECRET. 
 
 I AM AFRAID it has been too much for you, my 
 poor child," said John Rose, half an hour later, 
 as he lifted Hetty into the saddle and felt her trem 
 bling in every limb ; but I believe you have done 
 her good." 
 
 " She has done me good," said Hetty, trying to 
 smile away the concern in the gentle, patient face of 
 the prematurely old man before her. 
 
 " Done you good ?" 
 
 " Yes. She hae taught me how to be faithful and 
 true even though the very light of reason be ex 
 tinguished ; and memory, one would think, would 
 cease to remind one of promises and vows made long 
 ago." 
 
 "Remember," said John Rose, gravely, -you 
 have been listening to the ravings of a poor creature 
 whose word all the Avorld sets at naught." 
 
 " Xot all the world. 1 do not set it at naught." 
 
 " Perhaps it was selfish of me to let you go in to 
 her. But her sands of life are almost run, and I be 
 lieve, if she could unburden herself of her fancied 
 obligations, her latter days would be more peaceful," 
 he said in apologetic tones. 
 
 "Mr. Rose," said Hetty, impulsively, " of course
 
 188 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 you know what her fancied obligations, as you call 
 them, are ?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 " And you believe that there is no foundation for 
 them in- facts in the facts of her past life, L 
 mean ?" 
 
 " None whatever. Had I, I never would have 
 permitted you to listen to her ravings." 
 
 " I am glad I went to her glad I have heard 
 what she had to say. I am glad that to the very 
 last she believed she was talking to my mother. 
 She called me Agnes all the time." 
 
 " Poor, poor Parmelie ! You would scarcely be 
 lieve, to see her now, that at one time she was the 
 brightest, merriest, prettiest girl in all this part of 
 Virginia." 
 
 Hetty leaned toward him from the saddle and put 
 her hand into his as she said, with a world of pity 
 in her fresh, young voice : 
 
 " Mr. Rose, from all that I can learn, the Dabney 
 family have been the bane of the Rose family. 
 Don t you hate the very name of Dabney ?" 
 
 " Hate it ? Dear child, up to the hour of his death 
 Dick Dabney was one of my very best friends ! 
 And as for Agnes well, small blame to her that she 
 preferred dashing Dan Ogden to me. I ve always 
 been a slow-coach, you know. Dan was worth 
 twenty of me. I see! I sec! You ve been taking 
 what Parmelie has said too seriously yes, too seri 
 ously, by far." 
 
 " How could I take it too seriously ? Oh, how 
 could I ?"
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 180 
 
 A patient sigh was his only answer. 
 
 She settled her tiny foot in the stirrup and broke 
 a switch from the branches of the willow under 
 which she had tethered the old mare. She was 
 waxing nervous. He removed his hand from the 
 bridle and stepped back. 
 
 U I am coming again," she said, touching the 
 mare s bony flanks briskly with the willow switch. 
 She looked back after she had gone a few rods. lie 
 was standing there abstractedly, with his hat in his 
 hand. The wind caught his long, Avhite hair and 
 toyed with it. It was in sharp contrast with his 
 dark eyes and erect form. She waved him another 
 farewell with her hand. He returned it with his 
 broad palmetto hat. Then, as the leisurely old 
 mare bore her deliberately from his sight, he turned 
 back to his gardening with a sigh. It was not a 
 very laborious sort of gardening he was engaged in. 
 He always kept two or three beds of bright annuals 
 in bloom, when possible, for Parmelie s benefit. She 
 used to love flowers so dearly ; and even now, the 
 bright blaze of a bed of zinnias, or gladioli, or 
 dahlias, would extract exclamations of childish de 
 light from her. There was so little left that gave 
 her happiness! Tie believed he understood the, 
 source of that delight better this brilliant spring 
 morning than ever before. Hetty had come to him 
 as the zinnias and the dahlias came to Parnielie 
 bringing with her a sense of refreshment and 
 relief. 
 
 " Poor child, poor child, if only it does her no 
 harm," he said, bending to crumble the rich brown
 
 190 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 mold between his hands before dropping into it 
 the seed that he meant to sow. 
 
 Parmelie, tc j, had sown seed that day ! 
 
 "An you won stop and take a bite er lunch, 
 Missy, befo crossin over ag in ?" Isham asked, 
 preparing to lead the mare back to the feed-trough 
 that was nailed against a tree behind his little 
 cabin. 
 
 " No, I m in an awful hurry. I ll go down to the 
 boat and wait there for you," Hetty said, restlessly 
 moving toward the bank. 
 
 Isham looked at her persuasively, as he said, 
 with hospitable persistence : " Wen I toF the ol 
 w r oman, Missy, that you was gone up to the 
 big house to see our poo Miss Rose, she was that 
 proud that she put the bigges sweet tater she could 
 find in the pump smack in de ashes to ros fur you, 
 an she skim de cream off n a whol pan o milk fo 
 you, an she say : AVhen Missy come back I lay 
 she ll think this a first-class lunch. An it were, 
 too. Many s the lunch Miss Parm ly an Miss 
 Aggie is et in that same cabin, w en they cross over 
 to see each other. An she low, my ol woman, 
 you would tell us what you think of Miss Parm ly s 
 chances." 
 
 u I am not a doctor, you know, so I have not any 
 right to say ; but I am afraid she is very weak. I 
 can t stop for lunch to-day, because mamma will 
 scold. This is the first time they ve let me out; 
 but I am coming again coming soon, too." 
 
 " That s good news. It don seem right to me an 
 the ol woman, you know, that our Miss Parm ly
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 191 
 
 should be forsook of the quality. You see, she 
 were always one of em." 
 
 But Hetty s impatience to be put across the nar 
 row river was too apparent not to impress itself 
 upon him. 
 
 He gave over persuasion, and in a few minutes 
 had her safely at the base of -the narrow foot-path, 
 which looked tiresomely steep to her in her weakened 
 condition. She would take a short cut home, not by 
 way of the bench. She hoped somebody might 
 have called in her absence. Company always left 
 her mother in an indulgent mood. 
 
 " There !" She was on top of the bank, and had 
 just recalled the fact that when sitting on the bench 
 she had slipped her feet from out her rubbers. 
 
 " It will never do to go home without them," she 
 heard some one say, and glancing toward the bench 
 she saw her rubbers held aloft by Hugh Maury. 
 
 She laughed, and walking quickly toward him re 
 lieved him of the overshoes. 
 
 " You certainly do seem destined to keep me 
 straight at this end of the line. Did mother send 
 you to see if I had been drowned again 2" 
 
 " lS"o. I have not been at the house since early 
 morning." 
 
 u And it is now " 
 
 " After two." 
 
 " Mercy !" 
 
 " You are expecting a scolding ? Perhaps you de 
 serve one ; but to my way of thinking, unless you 
 happen to feel hungry, the longer you stay out in 
 this delicious sunshine the better."
 
 192 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " That s my way of thinking, too," said Hetty, 
 settling- herself comfortably on the hard, wooden 
 bench, "and I don t happen to be at all hungry. 
 Have just refused a sumptuous offer of roast sweet 
 potato and cream, over yonder." 
 
 She pointed to the ferry-man s cabin. 
 
 " You have a partiality for that side of the river," 
 the tutor said, looking down upon the scene of her 
 rescue. " I am glad you made the voyage safely 
 this time." 
 
 " A most unselfish congratulation, all things con 
 sidered," she said, looking at him brightly. There 
 was something in his face that put to flight all 
 desire to jest. 
 
 "I am afraid you are very tired," she said. "I 
 know how tiresome our boys can be. I thought you 
 always spent this day with dear old Doctor Vernon." 
 
 "As a general thing, I do. In fact, I left the 
 house for that purpose this morning. But my 
 morning s mail did not tend to raise my spirits, and 
 I thought I would only be an infliction on my good 
 friend." 
 
 " Everybody in this world is in trouble, I do be 
 lieve," said Hetty, puckering her brows quaintly. 
 " It s awful just perfectly awful. I hope your 
 trouble is not of a very bad sort." 
 
 She looked so sweet and sympathetic, but, withal, 
 so pale and fragile, that the tutor s conscience smote 
 him for even vaguely hinting at his o\vn sources of 
 gloom in her presence. 
 
 "IVot very bad," he said, with assumed cheerful 
 ness, "I have one friend in my old home who
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 193 
 
 writes me very fully occasionally, and this time he 
 mentions the illness of a very dear friend, who is 
 being attended Iry a new doctor and a young one. 
 I took it upon me to get irritated at the chances of 
 so precious a life being left at the mercy of an bo::- 
 perienced physician that is all. You see, my trc^ ^ o 
 was manufactured." 
 
 "A new doctor and a young one!" Hetty :xi;d 
 softly, to herself ; then, by a sudden impulse, to h;::i : 
 
 " What is the name of this new doctor you doii t 
 approve of?" 
 
 u I really could not say, without referring to the 
 letter." 
 
 " Then refer to it." 
 
 Her tones were so sharp, and her manner so im 
 perative, that he looked at her in resentful astonish 
 ment. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. How rude I did sound. 
 But I want very much to know if the name is Mur 
 ray Archibald Murray ?" 
 
 He had the letter open in his hand by this time. 
 
 " Yes Archibald Murray. Do you know him ?" 
 
 " Know him ? Why, have you never heard that 
 this place belonged to my Cousin Archibald Murray 
 before we came here I Have neither mother nor 
 the boys ever spoken about him to you ? Is he so 
 completely forgotten ?" 
 
 " It would seem that he is not forgotten at all," 
 said Hugh Maury, smiling into her flushed face. 
 
 " Xot by me. Oh, no ! I can never forget my 
 Cousin Archibald ! But he never writes to us. lie 
 thinks we wronged him, and I am afraid we did."
 
 104 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " Had we not better put the rubbers on now and 
 go back to the house f Hugh asked, abruptly. " I 
 think I should receive some compensation for mak 
 ing such a suggestion, for I am sure it would be 
 much pleasanter to sit here in the sunshine and talk ; 
 but I doirt imagine either one of us will receive 
 commendation. 
 
 " You arc reproving me for talking about family 
 affairs. You* don t think it nice of me." 
 
 ; I am only the tutor, Miss Ogden, and only the 
 tutor for a short while. Presently I shall be a pil 
 grim again. Perhaps you would be sorry, then, to 
 think I held any knowledge of your family affairs. 
 It might make you uncomfortable. That is what I 
 wish to prevent." 
 
 He had bent upon one knee to put on her over 
 shoes, and was looking up into her face with those 
 great dark eyes of his, which never lost their cast 
 of solemn gloom. It was as if he were doomed to 
 dwell forever in the shadow of his own past. 
 
 " No," she said, looking back at him fearlessly. 
 " I should not feel uncomfortable ; for wherever 
 you went completely out of my life, it might 
 be I would not be afraid. I would know you in 
 capable of taking advantage of a girl s indiscreet 
 chatter. I am afraid I am indiscreet, but I could 
 not be afraid to trust you." 
 
 She was in nowise prepared for the extraordinary 
 reception her mild commendation met with. 
 
 Hugh Maury, the grave, taciturn tutor, of whom 
 she stood rather in awe than otherwise, there on his 
 knee before her, seized both her hands and raised
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 195 
 
 them reverently to his lips. When he dropped 
 them again there was a tear resting upon her soft 
 white hand. 
 
 It was the first time in this bitter exile from home 
 and friends that a woman s voice had spoken words 
 of confidence to him the first time that accents 
 of womanly sympathy and pity had fallen upon his 
 parched soul ! He had not known, himself, until 
 that second, how he longed again to be one of the 
 great human family wherein heart speaks to heart 
 and soul responds to soul ! 
 
 This he could never be. In one hot, rash moment . 
 he had thrown away forever his birthright of love 
 and tenderness. Theresa Glen could never be any 
 thing but a beloved memory to him. There was 
 but one act that could even alleviate the load of re 
 morse and anguish that had driven him into exile, 
 and made him feel like a thief whenever he won a 
 smile of kindness or a friendly word from sweet, 
 pure woman. 
 
 He would find George Beinish, take him home in 
 triumph to that tried and patient old man, and 
 then well, he never went beyond the moment when 
 his strange pilgrimage should culminate in finding 
 the man who was all this time suffering for his 
 Hugh Maury s crime. He had last heard of him 
 in Canada. He had not cared to frustrate his own 
 plan of expiation by braving that bleak climate in 
 his enfeebled condition. 
 
 He had tarried among warmer surroundings for 
 the winter, husbanding his strength and his re 
 sources, until the spring should be fairly opened.
 
 196 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Mrs. Ogden knew that May would find her without 
 the invaluable services of her tutor. 
 
 Hetty brushed the tear from her hand furtively. 
 
 " He is half French," she said to herself, in extenu 
 ation of his fervor, " and doesn t know he is making 
 himself absurd." 
 
 She was on her feet now, prepared to return to the 
 house. Her gentle spirit would not let her leave 
 him under the impression that she overrated that 
 foolish outburst of his. He, too, had risen and 
 walked away a few steps. 
 
 " I should like to ask you," she said, timidly, " the 
 name of the post-office from which your friend 
 wrote. Would it be my cousin s post-office, do you 
 suppose ?" 
 
 He turned a relieved face toward her. How 
 sweet, and sensible, and comforting she was at all 
 times. 
 
 " "Without doubt," he said. "You are quite wel 
 come to the letter. There is nothing in it of a pri 
 vate nature, and you may be able to glean some 
 news of your cousin in its pages which I have 
 failed to give you." 
 
 He extended it to her. She grasped it eagerly, 
 and with a hurried, blushing u Thank you," almost 
 ran away from him. toward the house. 
 
 " I have blundered," said Hugh Maury, looking 
 after her, uneasily. " She is in love with that man, 
 and if she knows how to read between the lines she 
 will discover that he is in love with Theresa."
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HETTY LOCATES TIIK GHOST. 
 
 TTETTY was glad Mrs. Telfair St. Leger had 
 1 1 called on her mother that morning during 
 her own absence. The St. Legers were the " wry 
 first," and now that Mrs. St. Leger had called and 
 invited Mrs. Ogden to dinner there was nothing 
 left for Mrs. Ogden to complain of, as far as the old 
 neighbors were concerned. She was glad, too, that 
 the boys had been to the circus. They were so brim 
 ful of its marvels that nothing was simpler than for 
 her to sit silent throughout the entire evening unob 
 served m the parlor, with her crochet-work in her 
 hand, while she allowed her thoughts to wander at 
 will. She was glad, too, that Hugh Maury had 
 what Hob called -one of his musical fits on him, 
 and saw fit to spend his evening in the chapel, where 
 the organ stood. He had closed the doors between 
 him and the rest of the household, and only the 
 most distant mutterings of the music could be heard 
 above the nearer clatter which entered her ears in 
 such confused snatches. 
 
 She had had so much new material given her for 
 thought that day. Parmelie Rose had made her 
 understand why that key must be given to Mr. Dab- 
 ney. (Poor Parmelie ! the intermediate facts of his 
 death and burial had not been grasped by her.)
 
 198 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 "What the book which old Lucy had intrusted to 
 her had to do with it all she was still ignorant of. 
 If she could only find old Lucy 
 
 " I wish you could have seen her, Hetty," she 
 heard her mother s voice, just then, above the inward 
 tumult. " She is a woman whom any young girl 
 might take for a model. She walks and carries her 
 self like a queen. She spent all of last winter in 
 Paris ; and such a bonnet as she did have on 
 
 " I could do it," said Lem, with a swagger, in his 
 shrill young voice. " You jus iix up a trapeze in 
 the garret an lemme have a week s practice 
 
 " I say, mother ! Het ! Lis n. Lem s goin to turn 
 circus-rider 
 
 " And Eob s been practising for my clown. He s 
 tryin to say funny things no\v, only he don t know 
 ho\v bad he s missed it 
 
 " And her gloves ! Well, they fit like the skin on 
 her hands. She s a magnificent woman." 
 
 " When are you going to dine there, mother F 
 
 "Next Thursday. But I m going to see Miss 
 Spinnaker early Monday morning, to have her re- 
 drape my old maroon satin. It s time I was having 
 something decent made, now that people are be 
 ginning to find out I am here to stay." 
 
 " Mother, do you know where my Cousin Archi 
 bald is ?" Hetty asked suddenly, at this most in 
 opportune moment. 
 
 Mrs. Ogden frowned slightly. 
 
 "What possessed the girl to ask that question 
 just when she was feeling her serenest ?" she won- 
 d ered.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. igy 
 
 " Not positively," she said, shortly. 
 
 "Have the books he asked for ever been sent 
 him?" 
 
 " No," still more shortly. " To tell you the truth, I 
 lost his letter with his address in it. If he had 
 wanted them very badly, I suppose he would have 
 written again. Doubtless he has forgotten all about 
 them, and us too, by this time." 
 
 The girl dropped her head listlessly and busied 
 herself once more with her crochet-needles. Xo 
 doubt her mother was right. Some lines in the 
 letter Hugh Maury had given her to read came back 
 to her over and over again : 
 
 "Miss Glen is said to be in delicate health, but 
 doubtless she will pull through under the devoted 
 ministrations of her young and handsome doctor, 
 Murray, who has taken everything out of old 
 Bemish s hands. If possible, she grows more beauti 
 ful as time goes on." 
 
 Her cousin, then, was doing well in a business 
 way ! And he was the devoted attendant of a 
 beautiful woman ! Food enough, this, for poor little 
 Hetty s fervid fancy. 
 
 " iSTo wonder," she said, passionately, as she read 
 that fateful letter over in her own room that night 
 for the third time, " he does not care for a few musty 
 old books, nor for his old home, nor for for any 
 one of us." 
 
 There were tears in her eyes, and there was a 
 sharp p:iin in her heart, as she stood with clasped 
 hands before the bright-faced portrait over her 
 mantel-shelf. Truth to tell, that was the Archibald
 
 200 -A- STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Murray she was in love with that, and the faithful 
 memory of a first kiss ! 
 
 "If Archibald Murray himself, grown graver, 
 more serious, less sunny-faced, by far, than that 
 youthful portrait of himself, could have suddenly 
 placed himself in that richly-gilded frame, her sensa- 
 tiQii would have been one of disappointment, per 
 haps ; after which, healthy and inevitable disillusion 
 ment ! 
 
 As it was, the portrait smiled down heartlessly on 
 her tear- wet face as she stood there in that worship 
 ful attitude, with her great, earnest eyes fixed upon 
 it. 
 
 " But that makes no difference," she said aloud, 
 more calmly, turning from the portrait toward her 
 dressing-table. 
 
 " No difference in what Parmelie Rose has told 
 me. I must make sure of that, and then How 
 strange that on the very day poor Parmelie gave me 
 her directions, I should get his address ! God must 
 have ordered it just so." 
 
 A sigh a heavy, weary sigh ! Then the restless, 
 slow shuffling of uncertain footsteps just over 
 her bureau one moment, the next above the tall 
 tester of the bed. It did not even startle her now. 
 She had grown to look for it, almost. 
 
 "Yes," she said, softly, addressing herself to the 
 fancied spirit of her Uncle Richard. " He shall 
 know it, my uncle, he shall know it all, if I have to 
 take the box to him with these hands of mine. I 
 will trust it to no hands but mine. 
 
 " I want to see him ; I want to see her. Oh, I
 
 A STRANGE PlLaniMAQE. ->oi 
 
 want to look at the woman who has made him for 
 get his home so soon !" 
 
 Poor little Hetty. She had a shrine in this dingy 
 little room, before which she knelt every nio-ht. 
 
 *j o 
 
 Only an old school-desk an old, battered, paintless 
 desk. But in it she kept her Bible, and with her 
 head resting on it she poured out her nightly prayer. 
 Such pure supplications, from a pure young heart, as 
 were these prayers that floated heavenward from 
 the region of Archibald Murray s old school-desk ! 
 
 To-night she lifted its lid and took from it the 
 black book old Lucy had given into her keep 
 ing Avith so much mystery and importance. How 
 many times, during her dreamy confinement to the 
 house, had she sat and idly turned its pages over 
 and over. It was an old Latin grammar, absolutely 
 meaningless to her. The Dabneys were great peo 
 ple for heir-looms. She had often smiled at the stress 
 her mother would lay on an old bit of lace, or a bat 
 tered silver cup, because it had been in the family so 
 long. Doubtless this old grammar was a Dabney heir 
 loom. But to-night the old grammar yielded up its 
 secret in the most startlingly unexpected manner. It 
 had been thriftily covered by some thrifty member of 
 the family in a by-gone day with black glazed- 
 muslin. This muslin cover was an offense to Hetty, 
 who was fastidiously neat in all things. 
 
 " Xow that I know where ho is, she said, snip 
 ping with her pocket-knife the threads that sewed 
 the cover, " I will mail it to him, but not in this 
 soiled condition." 
 
 She lifted the freed book from its dusty covering.
 
 202 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE!. 
 
 It looked respectably clean and modern after slough 
 ing the black shell, which she flung carelessly aside. 
 A small sheet of paper, which from long pressure 
 had grown adhesive, fell from between the black 
 muslin cover and the calf -skin of the binding proper. 
 It was folded once, for convenience of shape. She 
 unfolded it wonderingly, and spread open on the 
 desk before her a half-sheet of note-paper closely 
 written over in a delicate, feminine hand. At the 
 bottom of the sheet was the name Lavinia Mur 
 ray, and the note was addressed to her dear son, Ar 
 chibald Murray. On the back of it was this in 
 dorsement : 
 
 In case this should fall into the hands of any one 
 but Archibald Murray, I must trust to their honor 
 and humanity to see that the leather wallet full of 
 letters, which will be found in a drawer in the 
 annoire of my brother s attic, be put into his hands, 
 if possible ; if not possible, let them be destroyed 
 unopened. I feel convicted of cowardice in the 
 manner of this proceeding ; but I dare not disturb 
 the present peaceful and loving condition of affairs 
 under this roof. I am afraid of llichard s re 
 proaches. 
 
 I know I cannot live very much longer perhaps 
 only a few months. He loves the boy, and when I 
 a ui gone they will be all in all to each other. I 
 have already told him that the book, which he does 
 not know is to contain this, is to be given to my son 
 \vhen he returns from college, not before, with in 
 structions to examine it thoroughly from cover to 
 cover. 
 
 If the letters, which Archibald Murray will find in 
 the leather wallet upstairs, are to make any great
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. o u; j 
 
 change in his life, I want it to come after he has 
 been fitted by a college education to make his own 
 way in life. 
 
 I hope my dear brother Richard, and the boy for 
 whose sake I have consented to act deceitfully and 
 cunningly, when I loathe deceit and cunning, may 
 find it easy to forgive a dead woman. 
 
 Hetty sat with this strange document before her 
 quite a while. Why should this dead woman have 
 trusted so much to chance \ Then, in quick vindica 
 tion, she ran over the possible circumstances : " Her 
 brother she evidently stood in awe of. Her sister 
 my mother " Hetty almost sobbed the words out 
 " no one seems ever to have turned to her for help. 
 Then, more comfortably : " She had married and 
 gone away to live before my cousin and his mother 
 came here. But why should Archibald, to whom 
 this hidden message had been so carefully transmit- 
 
 o *> 
 
 ted from his uncle to old Lucy, from Lucy to his 
 own hands, have been so careless of it i" Then she 
 recalled how her mother heaped her swift, harsh in 
 sults upon him, driving him from his home. What 
 more natural than that he should forget this pool 1 , 
 little, shabby book ? 
 
 " That was why," she said, suddenly, " he wrote 
 back for books only. Doubtless he expected this one 
 to come to him, but would not draw attention to it 
 by specifying it. 
 
 k Oh, my mother! to think that these two men 
 your brother and your nephew should find their 
 worst enemy in you, the only woman of their line!" 
 
 She fell asleep that night sobbing bitterly. If
 
 204 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 only she could annihilate the long, dreary Sunday 
 that must intervene between that exciting day and 
 the Monday which should see her mother depart for 
 Miss Spinnaker s and herself left free to explore 
 that receptacle of mysteries the armoire in the 
 attic ! 
 
 The last thing her consciousness took in that night 
 was the sound of those weary sighs and shuffling- 
 feet that had haunted her through all those dreary 
 winter months. 
 
 But the Sunday did wear away, and the Monday 
 burst upon the world in a flood of glorious spring- 
 sunshine. 
 
 Mrs. Ogden leaned out of the carriage-window to 
 give Hetty some final directions : 
 
 " See to it that Mr. Maury and the boys have 
 their dinner promptly at two, Hetty ; and stay out 
 in the sunshine as much as you want to yourself. I 
 may not get back before dark ; the roads are as 
 heavy as in midwinter." 
 
 She was gone. Hetty breathed .freely. Before 
 the carriage had rolled into the public road from the 
 Dabney grounds, she was fitting the key into the 
 lock of the armoire upstairs in the attic with a 
 trembling hand. 
 
 There were two prizes behind that door that she 
 must secure this day the tin box Parmelie Rose 
 had said she must examine, and that package in 
 the wallet. Both of them belonged to her Cousin 
 Archibald. 
 
 There was no difficulty in finding the leathern 
 wallet. She dropped it into the pocket of her dress
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 205 
 
 hastily, then with both hands she clasped the tin box, 
 and was about to close the ar moire door when she 
 heard that stifled sigh once more coming from the 
 near depths of the armoire as it had done that first 
 time of her stolen visit. She shrieked out, in ter 
 rified protest : 
 
 " You told me to do it ! Am I not doing your 
 bidding, Uncle Richard ?" 
 
 " Miss Aggie ! My sweet, sweet mistress !" came 
 back to her in stealthy, imploring tones. 
 
 Hetty held her breath and leaned forward with 
 startled eyes and ears attent. 
 
 " Let me go down the river, my sweet chile. Fore 
 de lawd, Lucy won never open her lips ag in - 
 
 With frantic haste Hetty tore down the dresses 
 and cloaks that hung in a silken, velvety mass on the 
 hooks of the old wardrobe. A loose panel in the 
 back of the armoire yielded readily to her pressure. 
 She peered into a dark cuddy beyond, lighted only 
 by the rays of sunshine that penetrated the shrunken 
 shingle-roof. 
 
 " Who is there ?" she asked, imperatively. 
 
 At the aperture, with her withered hands clasped 
 imploringly, and her aged features twitching with 
 nervous excitement, old Lucy appeared. 
 
 The young girl stretched out her soft, white 
 nands, and laying hold upon the tottering form, 
 drew the old woman out into the warm, sunny attic.
 
 206 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A DAY OF FATE. 
 
 WHAT ARE you doing here? 5 Hetty asked, 
 as soon as she could recover her breath for 
 amazement. She had seated the old woman in an 
 arm-chair which had been relegated to the attic 
 when Airs. Ogden had refurnished the grand draw 
 ing-room down-stairs. Lucy sat on the edge of it 
 trembling from fright, and blinking her dazzled eyes 
 in the full blaze of sunlight. She looked timidly 
 back toward the dark aperture from which Hetty 
 had drawn her, almost without any will of her own, 
 and rubbed her withered hands together nervously. 
 
 " I ain doin nothin , honey," she said, apologetic- 
 ally. 
 
 " I wastis a heap uv good time in thar, but I 
 made sho yur was Miss Aggie. I didri know Miss 
 Aggie lowed anybody but herseff to come up yhere. 
 I wouldn a-spoke ef I d knowed it were you." 
 
 " She has not allowed me this time. I came with 
 out her knowing it." 
 
 Old Lucy made a restless movement. 
 
 "Mebbe I better be goin back now, honey." 
 
 " Going back where ?" 
 
 "In the cubby. Miss Aggie mout scold you, 
 honey." 
 
 " You are not going back in that hole any more."
 
 A STRANGE P1L GUI MA GE. o Q 7 
 
 The old woman looked at her eagerly,. 
 
 u Did Miss Aggie say dat word 2" 
 
 " Mother does not know anything about my being 
 up here, I told you. She has gone out to see Miss 
 Spinnaker, and will be gone all day. When did you 
 get back?" 
 
 " Back from whar. honey ?" 
 
 " Back from the Creek Place." 
 
 " I ain t never ben at no Crick Place yit, honey." 
 
 "Haven t you been with your children this 
 winter ?" 
 
 " Xo, honey. I ben pesterin Miss Aggie to lemme 
 go, but she say I ain never learn how t hoi my 
 tongue yit." 
 
 "How long have you been in there?" Hetty 
 asked, pointing to the small room under the roof, 
 the door to which had been cunningly concealed by 
 the big armoire. 
 
 " Ever sence that night I gin you the book for 
 Mars Archie. Mars Dick made a special p int of 
 yo cousin gittin that book, cause it was all hes ma 
 lef him." 
 
 Hetty had turned very pale while the old woman 
 was talking, and now dropped heavily on a roll of 
 carpeting by the arm-chair she was sitting in. 
 
 " You ain t los that book, honey ?" Lucy clasped 
 her withered hands in agitation. 
 
 " ]S"o, no, no ; the book is all right. I was think 
 ing of you. I was thinking of the sighs and the 
 restless footsteps that I thought belonged to the 
 other world. Oh ! if I d only had more sense !" 
 
 "Did I pester you much, honey? I forgetted
 
 208 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 that yo room was neath the cubby, an 1 I was mouty 
 res less at times." 
 
 " Pester me ! I was not thinking of myself. I 
 was thinking of you. I might have let you out 
 before." 
 
 " I se ben doin ve y well, honey ; dat is to say, 
 tolluble well. Miss Aggie, she come ev y night arter 
 you all gone to bed, and fetch me mo vittles than I 
 kin possibly your. An she jus pile blankets and 
 comfortables in thar for me t sleep under, w en it 
 wuz col ; but somehow I miss de sunshine moutily, 
 an" I miss my pipe mighty bad, honey, an then I 
 ben wastin so much good time. Lucy never were a 
 lazy nigger." 
 
 " "Why did my mother want to keep you there, 
 Aunt Lucy ?" 
 
 The old woman glanced furtively toward the door 
 of the attic. 
 
 " You need not be afraid. The door is locked on 
 the inside." 
 
 "But Miss Aggie says my mout too big. She 
 done punish me nough bout talkin ." 
 
 " Well, then, you need not say another word. 
 You shan t get into any more trouble through me. 
 I am going to tell you something. When I tell you 
 the truth, shake your head this way." Hetty gave 
 a quick, affirmative nod. "When I am stating an 
 untruth, this way." She shook her head solemnly 
 in negation. 
 
 " You is a sharp chil , an no mistake," said old 
 Lucy, admiringly. " Go on, honey." 
 
 " To begin with," said Hetty, " I have been to see
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 2QQ 
 
 Miss Parmelie Eose ! I spent an hour with her on 
 Saturday." 
 
 " De lawd ! Do Miss Aggie know dat ?" 
 
 "You are not to speak," said Hetty, impera 
 tively. 
 
 " I am going to tell you what she told me. Her 
 brother, Mr. John, stood behind a closet-door, 
 where I could see him all the time. She thought I 
 was mother, and talked to me about something she 
 and my mother did when they were two wild school 
 girls. I hope I will find out that her crazy words 
 meant less than I believe they did." 
 
 Lucy shook her head mournfully. 
 
 " She told me that before my Grandmother Dab- 
 ney died, my Uncle Richard fell in love with a sew 
 ing-girl who used to come here by the week to sew 
 for my grandma. Was that true ?" 
 
 Old Lucy shook her head affirmatively, then burst 
 out explosively : 
 
 " But she war n no common sempstriss, honey. 
 Her pa was a officer in the army, and when he die 
 he lef her an her ma that bad off that she had to 
 turn in and help some, and ol Miss giv her some 
 work to do. She was a beauty, too, Miss Bella 
 were." 
 
 " Miss Rose did not tell me so, but I think she 
 was in love with my Uncle Richard herself." 
 
 Lucy gave an affirmative nod. 
 
 "Miss Rose was rich, and iny grandmother and 
 mother wanted Uncle Dick to marry her." 
 
 " You s right, honey ; but go on. I am gwine tell 
 you nothin . You s teilin me de truth, though."
 
 210 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " "When my grandmother found out what was go 
 ing on she turned the pretty sewing-girl off, and my 
 Uncle Richard went into to\vn where she lived with 
 her mother and married her there, but did not dare 
 bring here. Grandmother died soon after this, and 
 then my Uncle Dick began to fix up to bring his 
 bride home. He did not like to do it too soon after 
 grandma s death, but every day he would bring 
 home something pretty and put it in the room that 
 was going to be hers. 
 
 " My mother and Miss Rose were determined to 
 break off what they thought was only a foolish 
 love affair. They did not know he was really mar 
 ried to the pretty sewing-girl. The first time 
 he went to see her after my grandmother s funeral 
 he saw a strange young man jumping off her back 
 gallery and getting into the street by a lane. He 
 asked her who it was, and she said no one but her 
 self had been inside her yard for a week. 
 
 " She looked red, and confused, and miserable, for 
 my mother had just been there saying cruel and in- 
 s :lting things to her, but had left when she saw my 
 u :cle coming in at the gate. She would not tell 
 hi .11 his sister had been there, saying those awful 
 tl.in^s to her, and she could not tell him that the 
 strange young man was Miss Parmelie Rose herself, 
 \vho had managed that he should only see her riding- 
 coat and high hat as he opened the front gate, for she 
 did not know it. That was the plan my mother 
 and her friend had concocted between them to make 
 my uncle give up his poor sweetheart. 
 
 ; It was a wicked and successful plan ; but, thank
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 211 
 
 God, my mother did not know how wicked at that 
 time. 
 
 " They had an awful quarrel my uncle and his 
 wife. She denied over and over again that he had 
 seen anyone going out of her house by a side-way, 
 lie believed she was telling him a falsehood. When 
 he started to leave her she just put a box in his 
 hands and told him it held everything of value he 
 had ever given her. She had never dared wear his 
 jewels openly, and she would not be supported by him 
 until he acknowledged her before the world as 
 his wife. All his money and jewels were in that box. 
 
 " He told her that the box should never be unlocked 
 until she came to him with proofs of her innocence, 
 and then she should take her place before all the 
 world as his wife. He told her to send him the key 
 when she was ready with the proof." 
 
 " It ain t right, honey ! it ain t right !" said old 
 Lucy, once more breaking her pact of silence, " to 
 pour such tales into a child s ears. Miss Rose ought 
 to be shamed of herself." 
 
 " Child >" said Hetty, bitterly. " I feel as if I 
 were a thousand years old. But don t interrupt ; I 
 want to tell you all that I learned from mad Par- 
 melie Hose last, Saturday before I leave you." 
 
 " Leave me, honey ?" 
 
 " Yes. I am going to leave you only until it is 
 dark I am going to put you back into your prison- 
 house until it grows dark ; then 1 am going to set 
 you on the road with some money in your purse. 
 But don t interrupt again I want you to see if I ve 
 got it all right, for after you are gone I am going to
 
 212 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 tell my mother about Parmelie and about my letting 
 you out." 
 
 " Go on, hone} , go on ! It do look as if do Lord 
 was straightenin things out !" 
 
 "My Uncle Dick was hot-tempered and proud. 
 His wife was proud and insulted. Neither would 
 give way. He locked up the house and went to 
 Europe for a year. When he came back, the sewing 
 girl and her mother had moved out of the neigh 
 borhood." 
 
 " And that s the Lord s truth," said Lucy, swaying 
 to and fro in her chair. " Blessed be the Lord, that 
 maketh the light to shine in the dark places." 
 
 "When my uncle came back my mother tried 
 harder and harder to make him marry Miss Parme 
 lie Eose, but he would not have anything to do with 
 her ; and then, after a little, people began to say Miss 
 Rose was queer ; and she got queerer and queerer, 
 until her good, patient brother had to lock her up." 
 
 " Did Miss Rose tell 3 T ou all that herseff, honey ?" 
 said Lucy, with a perplexed look on her withered 
 face. 
 
 "No. I am making up the story out of the 
 snatchy way she told mother (you know she thought 
 I was mother) about what came after. She accused 
 mother of having gotten her into trouble and then 
 deserting her. She says she came to mother while 
 Uncle Dick was in Europe and told her how that 
 poor young woman had sent for her, just before he 
 went away, and gave her the key to the box and 
 asked her to take it to Uncle Richard with her own 
 hands, and tell him that there must be some awful
 
 A STRANGE; PILGRIM A GE. o 1 * 
 
 mistake, for she had been a true, loving wife to him, 
 and only wanted to be forgiven for the angry words 
 she had spoken that day. 
 
 "But mother vowed that that woman should 
 never be at the head of this house, and she had al 
 ways managed Miss Rose, so she continued to man 
 age her ; and then when Uncle Dick s wife, suppos 
 ing that he had got the key but refused to be recon 
 ciled, went away before he came back, there was no 
 reason to give him the key and the message. Ko 
 one knew where the sewing-girl had gone to. 
 
 "So then mother married and went away, and 
 poor, mad Parmelie was locked up, and my Uncle 
 Eichard never knew that his wife had sent him that 
 loving message and the key by her hand." 
 
 "You s tol me more than I knowed myself, 
 honey heaps more !" 
 
 " And then," said Hetty, thoughtfully, " poor Miss 
 Eose herself seemed to get confused and wild, and 
 insisted upon it that I (thinking, you know, all the 
 while that I was mother) ought to examine the box. 
 She thinks that perhaps there may be something 
 in there to prove that the woman who gave her 
 that key and begged her to give it to my Uncle 
 Dick was not really his wife." 
 
 " She cyan t prove that, honey no ma am. They 
 was wedded man and wife, and folks hadn t ought to 
 put them sunder." 
 
 " But the strangest part of it all is, that poor Miss 
 Eose says she got a letter two or three years after 
 that, telling her that my Uncle Dick"s wife had a 
 little son two years old, and that she was going to
 
 214 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 send him to a half-sister of my uncle s, who lived in 
 Vermont, and that she wanted to know, for her 
 son s sake, if my Uncle Dick still believed that 
 falsehood of her. 
 
 " You see, all this time my uncle s wife thought 
 Miss Rose was her true friend ; and she gave me that 
 letter on Saturday, Aunt Lucy. My Uncle Dick s 
 wife wrote it about her little boy." 
 
 "What became of him, honey? For wherever 
 he may be, that boy is Mars Dick Dabney s own 
 son and heir. Miss Arkabella Murray \varn capa 
 ble no, honey, she warn capable of tellin no lie 
 bout such a solemn matter. Miss Bella was true grit, 
 I tell you." 
 
 " Miss Arkabella Marray ?" 
 
 "That was the maiden name o* Mars Dick s 
 wife, honey." 
 
 Hetty repeated the name over softly to herself. 
 The coincidence of its similarity to her cousin s 
 name seemed neve"r to have struck old Lucy. 
 
 "What became of him, honey *" she asked 
 again. 
 
 " That I cannot tell you. I have not read the letter 
 Miss Rose gave me. It was scaled and meant for 
 mother. I have been trying to muster the courage 
 to give it to her ; but first I mean to know all that 
 this box can tell me." 
 
 She stooped and picked up the heavy tin box, 
 then put it down, and looked at old Lucy depreca- 
 tingly. 
 
 " I hate to send you back in there, Aunt Lucy, 
 even for an hour or two ; but I must get some
 
 A STRANGE P1L GRIM A GE. 3 j 5 
 
 money and provisions ready for you, and then I am 
 going to liberate you for good." 
 
 The old woman rose with alacrity. 
 
 "Don t worry bout me, honey. I kin do ve v 
 well for a little while longer. Miss Aggie ain lei 
 me want for nothin , on y she say she goin put me 
 whar my tongue can t wag ; and arter all, Miss Rose 
 was the one to tell it all !" 
 
 Hetty rearranged the armoire just as she had 
 found it, sending little apologetic speeches through 
 the closed panel with every garment she hung upon 
 the hooks, and old Lucy s grateful responses came 
 to her more and more thickly muffled from her 
 room. 
 
 The chatter of the boys at the dinner-table, over 
 which, in her mother s absence, she was compelled 
 to preside, almost drove her wild that day. 
 
 Hugh Maury saw, pitied, and misjudged the agita 
 tion she could not conceal. 
 
 "I was a brute," he said to himself, "to give her 
 th:it letter to read ; but how could I imagine she was 
 in love with the fellow i" 
 
 ISTight once more dropped its somber mantle over 
 the earth. Mrs. Ogclen had not yet returned. The 
 boys, tired with a long afternoon of foot-ball, were 
 fretting for her return. The lighted lamps were 
 being placed upon the tea-table and upon the hall- 
 table. Hetty, with a light shawl wrapped about her, 
 was walking up and dovni in the shadowy gloom of 
 the front gallery, nervously formulating the confes 
 sion which must be made on her mother s return, 
 when a shrill laugh of triumph smote upon the air,
 
 216 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 She faced in the direction of the sound with a 
 startled cry ! 
 
 There, in the band of light cast upon the lawn 
 from the lamp just placed upon the hall-table, stood 
 mad Parmelie Hose, dancing gleefully and clapping 
 her hands in triumph ! 
 
 Hetty had scarcely grasped the fact of this un 
 canny presence before other voices, pitched in a key 
 of shrill alarm, spread the blood-curdling cry of lire ! 
 Lurid tongues of flame were already leaping high 
 above the doomed roof-tree of the old Dabney 
 mansion ! 
 
 An hour later, Hugh Maury leaned panting and 
 exhausted against the trunk of a tree on the flame- 
 illumined lawn, wiping the soot-blackened perspira 
 tion from his forehead. 
 
 He had accomplished the work of ten men, and 
 the lawn was strewn with household effects which 
 the quarter people, working zealously under his com 
 mand, had rescued from the blazing building. 
 
 Hetty and the boys were huddled in one terrified 
 group just where lie had placed them in the lirst 
 place, imperatively forbidding them to move. 
 
 There was no help for the old homestead ! Xo 
 lire-engines, no trained hosemen ! ISTothing for it 
 but to stand there and see the grand old pile de 
 voured by the hungry flames. Above the roaring of 
 the flames and the crash of the falling timbers and 
 tie excited voices of the crowd came the swift roll 
 of wheels, presently, and the furious trampling of 
 horses, lashed to their utmost speed. A second 
 more and he felt his arm gripped fiercely, while Mrs.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. ojy 
 
 Ogden, with her mouth almost pressed against his 
 ear, said hoarsely : 
 
 "There is a woman perishing in those flames! 
 An old and feeble woman ! There, behind that 
 gable end. The flames have not reached her." 
 
 lie tore himself loose from her grasp and bounded 
 toward the burning building, seizing an ax from the 
 hand of a negro as he ran. With the leap of a 
 chamois he sprang up the front steps and disappeared 
 within the main hall, which had not yet caught. 
 
 It was all done so quickly that Hetty, rushing 
 frantically forward, had no chance to bring him back. 
 She turned on her mother with horror in her face, 
 crying shrilly : 
 
 " You have sent him to his death ! To his death, 
 do you hear, mother ! Why did you do it \ Oh ! 
 call him back, call him back. There is no one there. 
 Xo one, I tell you ; call him back !" turning fiercely 
 on the gaping negroes about her; then close in her 
 mother s ear " She is gone ! Your prisoner is free. 
 I released her with my own hands." 
 
 " Thank God !" 
 
 Mrs. Ogden s tall form swayed ; she flung her arms 
 out spasmodically and fell in a limp, helpless heap at 
 her daughter s feet. They crowded about her, 
 daughter, sons and servants, frightened and power 
 less. Horsemen came galloping in. The flames had 
 summoned the neighbors. Doctor Yernon pushed 
 his way through the group that had formed about 
 the prostrate woman. 
 
 " Only a faint," some one said, encouragingly, 
 putting a strong arm about Hetty s trembling form.
 
 213 A 8TRANOE 
 
 " Take the poor child away," Doctor Yernon had 
 whispered in his ear. " It is death her heart ! I 
 knew she would go this way." 
 
 There was a mighty crash of timbers ! a dense 
 volume of black smoke ! The face of the earth 
 seemed blotted out of existence. There was one 
 horrified cry on every lip! "Where was Hugh 
 Maury ?" 
 
 Where was the hero who had taken his life in his 
 hands and flung it from him as a thing of no worth? 
 ]STo one could tell.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A PILGKIM ONCE MORE. 
 
 SPRING S longest-lived wild flowers had drooped 
 and faded from off the face of the earth ! The 
 June roses had dropped from their stems! The 
 heat of midsummer was scorching the grass and the 
 foliage of the forest trees into a russet hue, when 
 one of the large passenger packets that ply the 
 Mississippi River between Vicksburg and New 
 Orleans landed at llawkspoint to put ashore a 
 traveling party which attracted unusual attention 
 from the loungers about the store galleries, whose 
 invariable custom it was to swarm about the big 
 stage-plank as soon as it swung shoreward. 
 
 The long, dull days were upon that rural com 
 munity days in which there was little to be done 
 beside waiting for the crops to mature in the broad 
 cotton-fields, upon whose success or failure Hawks- 
 point depended for its own share of weal or woe. 
 
 The landing of any stranger at this sleepy little 
 burg was matter of curious interest at all times, 
 but this small traveling party would have excited 
 curiosity and sympathetic interest at any point by 
 reason of the peculiarly helpless units it was com 
 posed of. 
 
 The one man of the party was apparently totally
 
 220 A &TRANOE 
 
 blind and walked by the aid of t\vo stout crutches. 
 He was youthful-looking, but pale and emaciated in 
 the extreme. One of the two females who com 
 posed the rest of the party was a slight young girl, 
 with a refined bearing, and a pale, gentle face lighted 
 up by a pair of sweet, serious eyes, that looked 
 gravely out from beneath a black bonnet, heavily 
 bordered with a long crape veil. The third mem 
 ber of this striking group was an old black woman, 
 who hovered in a restlessly protecting Avay about 
 her two companions. 
 
 " Husband and wife," said one Hawkspoint loafer 
 to another, as the three walked quietly past the 
 group of loungers, and making their way to the 
 nearest store gallery, set on foot inquiries about a 
 conveyance to take them back into the country. 
 
 " Brother and sister," said another man. " Guess 
 they are traveling, with their old mammy, for that 
 fellow s health. He looks pretty well used up. Hot 
 Springs, in Arkansas, is where he wants to go. 
 Wonder who they are consigned to ?" 
 
 It was evident no one was expecting them. There 
 was no carriage from any of the outlying wealthy 
 plantations to meet them. Xo inquiry, even, as to 
 their probable arrival had been heard from any 
 source. 
 
 " I will do the talking," the young woman was 
 heard to say, as between them all they got the man, 
 who handled his crutches as if they were still a nov 
 elty to him, comfortably established in an arm-chair 
 on a shady corner of the gallery, where the old 
 woman stood guard over him and the satchels while
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. gjjj 
 
 the young one penetrated to the clerk s desk within 
 to arrange for a conveyance. 
 
 " Doctor Bemish s is where you want to go to, 
 Miss ?" the clerk said, inquiringly, closing his big 
 ledger with alacrity for the superior occupation of 
 talking to a very handsome young woman, who an 
 swered him in a voice of unusual sweetness : 
 
 " Yes," she told him. " Doctor Bemish s place was 
 their point of destination." 
 
 " I suppose you know the old gentleman is very 
 ill ill abedP 
 
 " Xo ; had not heard it." 
 
 " If it is a doctor you were wanting for your 
 brother or, a your husband 
 
 " My friend," she corrected him, in an unmoved 
 manner. 
 
 "Friend? Yes, Miss, beg pardon. I was about 
 to say, we have sort of laid Doctor Bemish on the 
 shelf here. Everybody sends for Doctor Murray 
 that wants a doctor. He s just about at the top of 
 the local ladder lives just around the corner here." 
 
 The young woman arranged her crape veil with a 
 nervous twitch before answering, icily : 
 
 " I was inquiring if I could hire a wagon of any 
 sort to take my party out to Doctor Bemish s place. 
 Can you, or can you not, help me in this matter ?" 
 
 " Well, Miss, we ve got most everything else you 
 could ask for in this shop but a vehicle. But there 
 never was a more accommodating fellow on earth 
 than Doctor Murray. He s got a big buggy that 
 will hold- 
 But he was addressing himself to space. The
 
 222 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 young lady had turned from him abruptly and was 
 prosecuting her inquiries of an eld negro man, who 
 had just then stepped into the store with a huge 
 driver s whip in his hand. 
 
 The old man stood perplexedly heforo her, twirl 
 ing his rimless hat between his hard hands. 
 
 " You seem mouty insistent, Missy. I ain got 
 a thing here but the spring-wagon. I come in fur 
 a sack of oats. It s clean -the wagon, I mean an 
 my folks goes to meetin in it uv Sundays, settin on 
 cheers ; but w ite folks couldn t travil that way, you 
 know." 
 
 " No ; I don t know it. I could and will if Mr. 
 if my friend can stand it. "Wait here for me." 
 
 She walked away rapidly to where she had left 
 the blind man and the old negress. 
 
 " I have found a wagon," she said, " in which we 
 can go to Doctor Bemish s place, if we are able to 
 sit on chairs. Aunt Lucy and I can do it, but how 
 about you, Mr. Maury ?" 
 
 Hugh was silent, evidently weighing: the chances 
 
 O . O O 
 
 of his being able to retain his position in a jolting 
 wagon with his useless limbs deprived of the 
 crutches. 
 
 What a clod I am become," he said, finally, in a 
 bitter voice. 
 
 u The clerk in there says that Doctor Bemish is 
 very ill," Hetty said, anxiously, in reply. 
 
 " Then we will go in the wagon if I have to lie 
 down in the bottom. Perhaps I am already too 
 late. Dear child, what a burden I am on you." 
 
 " Oh, no ! Don t say that ! Surely, God, who
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 223 
 
 has permitted you to live through such horrible suf 
 ferings, will let you complete your strange pilgrim 
 age with a heart at peace. Dear, dear friend ! have 
 you not already made atonement ?" 
 
 She leaned over the back of his chair, rearran^- 
 
 o 
 
 ing the green shade that was bound about his brow, 
 while she softly poured this comfort into his ears ; 
 then she turned back to the waiting teamster and 
 completed her arrangements for the transferring of 
 her party, with all their baggage, to the wagon, 
 in which the chairs had already been placed. 
 
 It was a torturingly slow mode of progression, 
 but better than remaining on the store gallery wait 
 ing for any chance conveyance, with the possible al 
 ternative of having to beg a night s shelter from 
 some one of the villagers. 
 
 Hugh Maury lay upon a pile of traveling-shawls 
 and rugs in the wagon-bed. Hetty and old Lucy 
 swayed helplessly to and fro with every motion of 
 the springless wagon over the roads, which were 
 heavy with the summer showers and rough with 
 deep-cut wagon-ruts. 
 
 Their driver was cautiously trying to circumvent 
 an unusually deep mud-hole, in an especially narrow 
 point of the road, when a buggy, drawn by a pair of 
 glossy bays, dashed suddenly into view around a 
 bend of the road in front of them. 
 
 The negro driver drew rein and came to a halt. 
 A gentleman sitting by him, who up to that time 
 had been completely absorbed in an open pamphlet 
 before him, looked up and regarded the party in the 
 wagon with, bright, curious eyes. As the wagon came
 
 224 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 abreast of his handsome turnout he lifted his hat in 
 recognition of a lady s presence, and held it court 
 eously aloft until another slow revolution of the 
 wheels carried them beyond him. 
 
 His driver brought the silken lash of his buggy- 
 whip lightly down upon the bays flanks. They got 
 under way with a spirited bound that made the 
 polished buggy-wheels spin around rapidly. Old 
 Lucy turned her head to look after the dashing team 
 with a look of perplexity on her face. 
 
 "Honey," she said, laying her hand softly on 
 Hetty s arm, " who does that look lak ?" 
 
 Hetty was sitting rigidly erect, with a drawn, 
 hard look about her sweet mouth new to the old 
 woman s experience. She was pale to the very lips. 
 Their driver officiously answered Lucy s inquiry : 
 
 " That were Doctor Murray. He jus bout lays 
 over all de doctors that ever is ben here. I reckon 
 he ben out to Mars Leonard Glen s. Folks says 
 him and M n ss Thersic she s Mars Glen s sister is 
 mighty fond uv each other. But he don t live there 
 now." 
 
 " Hold your gab, my friend, and attend to your 
 mules, will you 2" came roughlv from Hugh Maurv, 
 
 i/ o ^ rj 
 
 just then ; " we hired your wagon and not your 
 tongue." 
 
 The driver subsided into unresentful silence. 
 Xone of the little party cared to talk. They, or at 
 least two of them, had plenty of food for serious re 
 flection. 
 
 Hetty was thinking of that awfully sudden death 
 of her mother s ; of the quiet putting away of the
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. ^5 
 
 last of the Dabney s in the family burying-ground ; 
 of the rage and grief of the boys when they found 
 they were to be immured in a boarding-school ; of 
 that last visit to John Eose s, who had come to her 
 to tell her that mad Parmelie s incendiary freak had 
 compelled him to put her into an asylum. It hr.d 
 all been crowded into a few short months. And 
 here she was, come to put into her cousin s hands 
 the wallet and the tin-box which were to tell him so 
 much of importance. He looked happy and prosper 
 ous. She had no idea that the things she had taken 
 so much pains to bring to him would add one iota to 
 his happiness. 
 
 - She is his happiness," she said. " I can bring him 
 nothing. I can take from him nothing." 
 
 Hugh Maury was thinking of the near end to his 
 strange pilgrimage ; of his miraculous escape from 
 death from those falling timbers ; of how he had 
 come out of that fiery furnace so maimed and help 
 less that he knew all hope of finding George Bemish 
 must be given up forever ; of how lie had told Hetty 
 that he had but one wish left on earth, and that was 
 to get back to Doctor Bemish and bare his whole 
 soul to the father whom he had wronged equally 
 with the son; of how she had told him that she was 
 resolved to see her cousin once more, and put him 
 again in his rightful place as head of the Dabncy 
 iamily ; of how they had arranged to take this long 
 journey together she to be eyes for him, he to guide 
 her with his experience, old Lucy to care for them 
 both. 
 
 Old Lucy had but one subject of reflection, but
 
 226 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 that one filled her simple soul and mind through 
 every waking moment. It was of God s miraculous 
 goodness in sending Hetty to open her prison-door 
 only one little hour before mad Parmelie Rose had 
 laid the torch in the wing-room that consigned the 
 Dabney house to ruins. 
 
 Yes, there was plenty to think of, and the few 
 miles that lay between Hawkspoint and the Bemish 
 Place were accomplished with no great amount of 
 discomfort nor any needless delay. 
 
 " Here we is," said the teamster, cheerfully, ignor 
 ing the fact that he had been snubbed. " And I 
 low the old doctor gwine be mightily stonish when 
 he find a purty young lady come to see him." 
 
 He helped the crippled man tenderly from the 
 wagon and put him carefully on his crutches, then 
 stood looking wonderingly after the strange trio 
 that was about to invade the doctor s privacy. 
 
 The travelers met an unexpected repulse on the 
 threshold of the doctor s house. The large front 
 door stood hospitably wide open. On one side of 
 the long main hall stood a cane settee, which at that 
 moment was being utilized as a lounge. A huge 
 recumbent figure occupied its entire length more, 
 in fact, as a shock of red hair protruded over the 
 arm of the settee neares^ the front door, and a pair 
 of heavy shoes, badly in need of polishing, were 
 poised conspicuously over the other arm. 
 
 Hetty knocked timidly on the open door. There 
 was something in the deadly stillness of the house 
 that intimidated her. 
 
 The man on the lounge slowly uncoiled himself,
 
 A STRANGE PIL GRIM A GE. 307 
 
 and bringing his feet cautiously together on the 
 resonant oil-clothed floor, stared at the intruders 
 stupidly for a full second. Then he got up and 
 came toward them, smoothing his shaggy red hair 
 down with both hands. 
 
 " I reckon I d just about dropped off," he said, " and 
 didn t hear you come in. The old man is too sick to 
 prescribe for folks to-day. Don t know as he ever 
 will prescribe again." 
 
 " But we are not sick people, and we want to see 
 him on a matter that concerns himself," said Hetty, 
 who was the appointed spokesman for the party. 
 
 " It can t be did, Miss. Doctor Bemish is a very 
 sick man. He ought to have a doctor long before 
 this, but he s as obstinate as a team uv mules. He 
 went off into a sort of faint about daybreak, and 
 ain t spoken since. I ve sent for Murray. Looking 
 for him every minute." 
 
 While this short colloquy had been going on, 
 Hugh Maury had stood with his head leaning for 
 ward, eagerly listening with that intentness which is 
 so pathetic in the newly-blinded. Now he leaned 
 forward and laid one of his long, thin lingers on the 
 man s coat-sleeve. 
 
 " Isn t this Ben McBride ?" he asked, eagerly. 
 
 u That s my name, sir." 
 
 " Doctor Bemish s overseer ?" 
 
 " That s my occupation, sir." 
 
 " And you don t know me ?" 
 
 The sha^ffv man looked him carefully over from 
 
 OOy 
 
 head to foot, shook his head, and answered, bluntly : 
 " You ve got the advantage of me, sir."
 
 228 -4 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " Isn t there even a suggestion of Hugh Maury in 
 this battered hulk of a body ?" the blind man cried, 
 spreading his poor, thin hands out piteously. 
 
 The overseer recoiled several steps and stared at 
 him incredulously. 
 
 " Hugh Maury ! Good God, man, what have you 
 been doing to yourself ?" 
 
 " Spending himself for others !" said Hetty, dash 
 ing from her eyes the tears that Hugh s piteous ap 
 peal had brought into them. 
 
 The shaggy man led the party into the Jra wing- 
 room, almost supporting Hugh in his arms. 
 
 " You were always my good friend, Ben," said 
 Hugh, in a calmer voice ; " you must stand by me 
 now. See if Doctor Bemish can possibly be inter 
 viewed. For his own sake I ask it." 
 
 " If he is at himself he will see you, I know. It 
 was only yesterday that the poor old man was 
 moaning, in his sleep : If only I knew how to find 
 Maury 1 I tried to get out of him what he wanted 
 of you ; for, you know, I thought perhaps remem 
 bering what good friends you and George used to 
 be (poor George) he might want to leave the prop 
 erty to } T ou, fixed so that George (if he ever turned 
 up) might get it, you know. Poor old man; it was 
 that scrape of George s that] just wore him plumb 
 out. You think he s" ever got so much as a line 
 from the scamp ?" 
 
 Hugh put out his hands with a gesture of pain. 
 
 " Go," he said, hoarsely, " and see if he will let me 
 come in to him." 
 
 The overseer started across the hall to do hia bid-
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 229 
 
 ding, stopped, glanced toward the front gate, and 
 retraced his steps toward the parlor. 
 
 " I see Murray just gettin out of his buggy at the 
 front gate. I think it would be safest to let him 
 examine the old man first. I ll come for you the 
 minute there is a chance." 
 
 He closed the door to the drawing-room and with 
 drew. Sitting there, in the darkened room, Hetty 
 could hear her cousin come briskly up the walk, ex 
 change a few words with the overseer, then their 
 voices died away, and the tired travelers were left to 
 their own disturbing conjectures.
 
 A STUANGP, PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LIBERATED. 
 
 IT SEEMED to Hetty, sitting there, quivering 
 with nervousness in every limb; anxious, and 
 yet dreading the coming of the moment when she 
 should stand face to face once more with the cousin 
 upon whom she had been lavishing the unsought de 
 votion of her fresh young heart ever since the mo 
 ment of their first meeting as if an age passed be 
 fore the parlor-door once more opened to admit the 
 tall form of the overseer. 
 
 He came in as softly as such a huge animal possi 
 bly could come, and was followed by a small black 
 girl, w r ho blinked at the unexpected guests in a half- 
 awake fashion over the chimney of a kerosene lamp 
 which had evidently been smearily-brightened for 
 the occasion. The overseer seated himself by Hugh. 
 He looked very grave. 
 
 " I ain t so certain, my boy, but what you ve come 
 too late, after all. Murray looks mighty grave, and 
 says he can t think of but one thing that would do 
 the old man any good, and that s to see George 
 brought home free from suspicion. Now, you know, 
 that s manifestly impossible," he said, with empha 
 sis ; " for even if folks knowed where George Be- 
 mish was to be got at, he d be in danger of arrest 
 the minute he showed his face here."
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. j>;j{ 
 
 " Nothing is impossible !" said Hugh, impatiently. 
 " Go tell your Doctor Murray that if I cannot see 
 Doctor Bemish I must see him at once at once !" he 
 i epeated, imperatively. 
 
 " You sound more like the old Hugh than you 
 looks," said McBride, with a short laugh. " Doctor 
 Murray said he d come in presently ; but I thought 
 maybe the young lady might like to be showed to a 
 bedroom at once, if she s come very far to-day." 
 
 " The young lady," said Hugh, taking time at last 
 to think of patient Hetty s separate mission, " is a 
 cousin of Doctor Murray s, who has come on here 
 to see him about family matters of importance." 
 
 " That, indeed !" said Mr. McBride, with a rising 
 inflection. " All the same, Miss Miss 
 
 " Ogden is my name," Hetty said, curtly. 
 
 " Thank } T OU, Miss. All the same, Miss Ogden, if 
 you d ruther be relieved of your hat and things, 
 that door, there, will take you into the spare bed 
 room, where the doctor s lady visitors always sleeps. 
 There ain t been any of them here lately, but I tell 
 you this old house used to know something about 
 the light fantastic-toe ; didn t it, Hugh ? Here, you 
 Demps, show the young lady to the spare room." 
 
 The door opened once more, at that moment, and 
 Archibald Murray peered into the dimly-lighted 
 parlor to ask : 
 
 " Is the gentleman who wished to see Doctor Be 
 mish in here, Mr. McBride ?" 
 
 " Cousin Archie ! Cousin Archie ! don t you know 
 me at all ?" was the startling response to this, as 
 from out the gloom of the parlor a girlish figure had
 
 233 -4 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 sprung toward him, two slim, white hands had 
 clasped his, and by the light of the swinging hall- 
 lamp the doctor could see a sweet } T oung face quiv 
 ering with pain in its every line. He drew her out 
 into the bright light of the bis: hall, stared into 
 
 a o o / 
 
 her face confusedly for a second, then asked, in a 
 voice of mixed amazement and incredulity : 
 
 "Is it Hetty my little cousin, Hetty Ogden? 
 And did I pass you in a wagon to-day ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ; but take me somewhere where I 
 can talk to you. !Nbt here, standing in this great, 
 cold hall." 
 
 She shivered and clung to him nervously. 
 
 " But what does this mean ?" Archie asked, laying 
 his hand upon her long black veil, " and what are 
 you doing here, my child ?" 
 
 " You are sorry to see me \ I can see it in your 
 face." 
 
 The tears were in her eyes. 
 
 He drew her toward him impulsively and kissed 
 her wet eyelids, smiling all the while. 
 
 " Always in tears, little cousin ? ISTo, I am not 
 sorry to see you. Just at present I believe I am so 
 bewildered, youse^, that perhaps I have not said the 
 conventional things. You seemed to have material 
 ized so suddenly, you know." 
 
 u I hate conventional things hate them," said the 
 girl, stamping her foot passionately. " I ve got so 
 much to tell }^ou. I could not write it ; I could not 
 send it, even by him," pointing toward the parlor- 
 door. " There were things I had to bring to you 
 myself, things I had to tell you myself ; I have not
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 5)33 
 
 come here to give you trouble, Cousin Archie, nor 
 to say anything that would would She had 
 
 been overwrought, poor child ! Her nerves gare 
 way suddenly, and with a broken and unintelligible 
 termination to her sentence she burst into hysterical 
 sobbing. 
 
 " Poor child, poor little Hetty, you need rest and 
 sleep," Archibald said kindly. " If what you have 
 to tell me concerns my own fortunes exclusively, it 
 must wait. I shall not let you say another word 
 until you are. thoroughly rested. 
 
 ; Mr. McBride said I might go in there," Hetty 
 sobbed hysterically, pointing toward a door at the 
 farther end of the hall. 
 
 Archie led her toward it. It was a spacious bed 
 room all ready for her occupancy. 
 
 " Xow we must find you an attendant a lady s 
 maid," he said, himself fumbling awkwardly with 
 the black bonnet-ribbons under her chin. 
 
 " I have one," said Hetty, smiling at him through 
 her tears, " but she is in a heap on the parlor floor, 
 sound asleep. Aunt Lucy is with me." 
 
 " Old Lucy, my uncle s housekeeper, my old 
 friend !" 
 
 " Yes. She is devoted to you yet. You don t 
 deserve it " 
 
 " And your mother let you come to 
 
 " Mother is dead ! The old place is yours once 
 more, Cousin Archie, and I - 
 
 Archie placed a finger over her lips : " Not one 
 word more ! You must sleep, my child ; my own 
 affairs can and must wait. There are far graver mat-
 
 234 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 ters for immediate concern on hand under this roof. 
 Perhaps an old man s life may hang in the balance. 
 ]STow good-night. I will see that you have some tea 
 brought to you, and in the morning, when you are 
 strong and bright, we will have a long talk over 
 family matters. Good-night, dear little cousin !" 
 
 He drew her toward him and kissed her good 
 night. She stood where ho had left her, just as she 
 had stood once before, blushing and paling from the 
 sweet intoxication of his kisses. But the two years 
 that had passed over her head since he had kissed 
 her first under the oaks at home had brought to her 
 some of those subtile instincts that the years bring 
 only too soon to women who feel and love the most. 
 
 U I am only his little cousin! His kisses mean 
 nothing! He would hold her longer, arid his lips 
 would part from hers reluctantly. Ah, well, I knew 
 it all before I came! Perhaps he will not think of 
 me only as a child to be petted and put early to bed 
 when I have told him everything. He was so anx 
 ious to dispose of me to-night !" 
 
 Yes, he had been very anxious to dispose of her. 
 As he had said, the information she had come so far 
 
 to communicate could wait for the morrow. Just 
 
 
 then there was graver and weightier matter on 
 
 hand. 
 
 The old man whom he had so cruelly misjudged, 
 the father of the man whom Theresa Glen loved, 
 was lying prostrate ! Hovering between life and 
 death ! There was only one hope for him. George 
 Bemish must be brought to his bedside. Who 
 would dare take the responsibility of bringing the
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 235 
 
 hermit of the island back to his father s house ? 
 Perhaps this cripple, whom McBride represented as 
 George Bemish s best friend in the days gone by, 
 could aid him at this critical juncture. If he could 
 not, no one could. He found IIuo-li Maurv alone. 
 
 o , 
 
 The overseer had just disappeared, steering the only 
 half-aroused Aunt Lucy toward the spare bed 
 chamber. Doctor Murray seated himself on the 
 sofa by the blind man and entered into conversa 
 tion with him abruptly : 
 
 Pardon me," he said, " if I say to you at once 
 that unless you are prepared to relieve Doctor 
 Bemish on the score of that unhappy affair of his 
 son s it will be useless for you to see him." 
 
 " That is what I am here for," said Hugh, with an 
 audible catch in his voice. " Did McBride give you 
 my name ?" 
 
 " He did not. He simply said an old friend of the 
 family." 
 
 " He should have said an old enemy of the family. 
 My name is Maury Hugh Maury." 
 
 " Hugh Maury ! Great heavens ! Can it be pos 
 sible? Why, I had heard - 
 
 " That Maury was a dashing, handsome dog." 
 
 Hugh took the words out of his mouth and went 
 on, with bitter vehemence : " That he had success 
 with women ; that his heart was as light as a 
 troubadour s, and that the loveliest woman in all the 
 country-side had promised to be his wife." 
 
 " Yes, I had heard all that and more." 
 
 " But that was before he had taken the life of a 
 miscreant in hot blood, because that miscreant had
 
 236 A 8THANQE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 spoken insulting words of the woman he loved/ 
 Hugh resumed, fiercely. " That was before lie had 
 permitted his friend to bear the odium of suspicion 
 for awhile, believing that his friend, a man of 
 means and influence and innocence, could readily 
 escape the fangs of the law. That was before he 
 started out on his weary pilgrimage to find that 
 friend and bring him home in triumph to the be 
 reaved old man who lies in yonder ; that was before, 
 in the flames of a burning house, Nemesis overtook 
 him, and left him the maimed and battered thing 
 you see." 
 
 " Good God ! Surely you have atoned for your 
 rash deed, if physical suffering can atone for moral 
 wrong-doing. From my soul I feel for you." 
 
 " Not yet I have not atoned yet. The atone 
 ment will not l>e complete until I proclaim to all 
 whom it may concern that I, and not George Bemish, 
 took the life of Adrien Mieaelet that day. That 
 was what I came back here for ; and I had meant 
 to tell the old man that although I cdtild not find 
 his son, I could clear the name of Bemish from tho 
 stain of blood-guiltiness. That is what has crushed 
 him. I know the old man. He was proud of his 
 name and of his son. I meant him to have stood 
 by my side while I made my public proclamation to 
 the authorities, and gave up this fragment of a body 
 for them to do as they would by it. Let justice 
 have its way." 
 
 " Have no fears for yourself. Leave that to me. 
 But you may still bring George Bemish home in 
 triumph to his father !"
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 237 
 
 \ 
 
 a "What ? McBride tells me he has never been 
 seen or heard of since that night he broke jail." 
 
 " I can take you to him." 
 
 " You take me to George Bemish ?" 
 
 "Yes//" 
 
 " When 2" 
 
 " To-night within an hour now, if } T OU sav so." 
 
 " jS r ow now, at once ! Oh, God ! I thank Thee 
 for directing these last steps of my strange pilgrim 
 age !" His trembling hands were stretched eagerly 
 toward Archibald Murray. " u>w, at once at 
 once ! In an hour it may be too late !" 
 
 ki Wait here for me," said Archie, pressing his 
 hand sympathetically. " I will keep you \vaiting 
 no longer than can possibly be avoided." 
 
 Half an hour later, a skiff, with Archibald Mur 
 ray and the overseer, McBride, at the oars, shot out 
 of the cove and darted like an arrow toward the 
 little Island, which lay in a dark mass of verdure a 
 mile and a half from the main-land. Hugh Maury 
 sat in the stern-seat. 
 
 George Bemish heard the sound of their quick, 
 strong rowing long before they reached the spot to 
 which Archibald Murray had tracked the old man 
 on that stolen exploration of his, months before. 
 His hearing had grown preternaturally acute. That 
 was not his father rowing ! He had been a prey to 
 the keenest anxiety for days. His father had never 
 before allowed so long an interval to elapse between 
 his visits. His stock of provisions was running low, 
 and he had no means of communicating with the 
 
 6 
 
 main-land. What if those swift, sturdy rowers
 
 238 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 should be the officers of justice come to fetch him 
 to trial for a deed he had never committed ? Who 
 else? 
 
 He would not be taken! At that moment he 
 cursed himself, for the hundredth time, for having 
 flung Hugh Maury s knife into the bayou that day 
 when he had suddenly come upon Adrien s bleeding 
 body. It had never occurred to him that suspicion 
 could possibly be turned upon himself. He had 
 meant only to dispose of all proof against his friend 
 as quickly as possible. 
 
 The boat came nearer and nearer ! He took a 
 loaded pistol in his hand and walked slowly toward 
 the spot where his father always landed. Evidently 
 some one who knew their trysting-place was in com 
 mand of this expedition. 
 
 Presently there floated to him through the dark 
 ness the familiar signal- whistle. He answered it 
 joyously, and almost running toward the spot, called 
 out eagerly: 
 
 " Father !" 
 
 He stopped aghast ! By the dim starlight he 
 could see three dark forms in the boat. The men 
 in the boat could hear the quick click of a trigger. 
 
 "Who goes there?" he called out, peremptorily. 
 
 "Hugh Maury, come to liberate George Be- 
 mish !" came back promptly from the man who sat 
 in the stern of the boat. 
 
 There was a second of profound stillness ; then the 
 sound of a strong man s sobs broke tempestuously 
 upon the quiet night-air. 
 
 Vigorous arms helped the blind man to a firm
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 239 
 
 footing on the briery banks. A hand was held out 
 to him from above, and there, in the stillness and 
 the darkness, with the bright-eyed stars striving to 
 illumine the scene of their loving reconciliation, 
 Hugh Maury made his peace with the friend who 
 had borne the burden of obloquy that was rightfully 
 his so long. 
 
 "I pray God it has not come too late to save the 
 old man !" said Ben McBride, as the murmur of 
 their voices came to them in the boat. 
 
 To which Archibald Murray responded with a 
 fervent " Amen !"
 
 240 -4 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 w 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BENOTCIATION. 
 
 OEX-OUT with the fatigue and the excitement 
 of the day that terminated a long and tire 
 some journey, Hetty slept late and heavily the next 
 morning. Into the midst of a confused dream, in 
 which she was trying to prevent mad Parmelie Rose 
 from applying the torch to the wood-work of the 
 attic door at home, and pleading with her mother 
 not to go to Mrs. St. Leger s dinner-party in a wind 
 ing-sheet, and contending with the clerk out at 
 Hawkspoint because he insisted upon putting a piano- 
 stool in the wagon for her to sit on, there came the 
 sound of mingled sobs and laughter. 
 
 Hetty sat bolt upright, with a start, and gazed 
 confusedly about the unfamiliar premises. 
 
 " Land uv Moses, honey, I thought you never was 
 goin to wake up, and Maro Archie tol Hie p intedly 
 you warn to be Avoke up." 
 
 " Have you seen my cousin ?" 
 
 "Seed Mars Archie? Ain t I, though? With 
 these ve y ol eyes uv my own, which I never look 
 forward to no how, honey. An ain t he turn out 
 that great and impo tant that fo he have time to 
 swaller his food good, folks is a-callin for him ?" 
 
 " Has he gone ?" said Hetty, falling listlessly back 
 among her pillows.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. *\ 
 
 " Jus for a little ways, honey. He lef word lie 
 jus cross over de lake to Mars Mars " 
 
 " Glen !" Hetty suggested, with asperity. 
 
 " That s the ve y name. Mars Glen got a tack 
 of colic, I hear the boy say that come for Archie 
 you is got a good mem ry, chile an he be back by 
 ten o clock, p intedly to see you." 
 
 "What time is it now?" Hetty asked, with 
 languid indifference. 
 
 i On the stroke er nine. Mars Maury he come to 
 the door an tell me to say he hope you ain broke 
 down wid lookin arter him, so helpless lak ; and the 
 young gentleman, he send you word, so polite lak, 
 that he hope you will consider the whole house at 
 yo disposal." 
 
 " The young gentleman ? "What young gentle 
 man ?" 
 
 " The old gentleman s son, which got home ve y 
 unexpected last night arter you an me was gone to 
 bed. The folks in the kitchen say the ol man begin 
 to pick up fom the ve y moment hes son sot foot 
 in his sick-room. I tell you, honey, he is that good- 
 looking mos anybody would be the better for bein 
 wid him. He smile jus like a angel when he tell 
 me to have ev ything got you kin possubly want, 
 fc holy de Lord is straightenin things up all round. 
 The folks in the kitchen say 
 
 Have you told iny Cousin Archibald anything 
 about home affairs, Aunt Lucy ?" Hetty said, turn 
 ing petulantly from a consideration of any other 
 subject " about mother, and the fire, and the 
 boys <"
 
 242 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " Ain t I, though !" said old Lucy, proudly. 
 " Ain t him an me ben settin on the back steps in 
 the sun for all the worl , honey, lak we used to set 
 at home when he come back from college, an talk, 
 an talk, an talk ! Mars Archie ain change none, 
 ceptin he looks a little older, an grayer, an more 
 sperienced. The folks in the kitchen say Mars 
 Archie jus cuttin a clean swad as he go long. He 
 at the top of the ladder as a physicianer." 
 
 Hetty was languidly progressing with her toilet 
 all this time. What difference did it make how she 
 arranged her hair ? Who qared whether she looked 
 pretty or ugly? Her CousiiL-Archibald had not al 
 lowed her coming to interfere with his most unim 
 portant calls. He had pr.t I ) hist night for 
 
 that sick old man, cr.d r.cvr I.o \ ;a gone without 
 even waiting to give her r, (_.cc(i-r-c:ning. Was it 
 for this she had come so far ? 
 
 Tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes. She 
 did not know herself how great had been the strain 
 of the past few months upon her system. She sank 
 back in a laro-e chair and gave way to such a burst 
 
 o c f 
 
 of tears as alarmed old Lucy. 
 
 " Honey, my sweet chile, don t go on that way. 
 You scares ol Lucy you really does, honey. You s 
 hungry, that s what s the matter. The young gen 
 tleman say I was to fetch yo breakfus in here when 
 you was ready for it. I gwine fetch it right 
 now." 
 
 She bustled out of sight before Hetty could pre 
 vent her going, and reappeared in an incredibly 
 short time, bringing in a large tray, on one end of
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 243 
 
 which lay a bunch of roses, whose dewy fragrance 
 filled the apartment with sweetness. 
 
 " Delicious !" Hetty cried, seizing them with both 
 hands and inhaling their perfume delightedly. 
 
 " He cut em himself, honey, wid lies ve y own 
 hands." 
 
 " Who ?" 
 
 " The young gentleman the old gentleman s son. 
 And seem as he don t know you s a real purty one, 
 my sweet, but mout be real oP and ugly, it shows 
 real good - heartedness ; that is just what it 
 shows." 
 
 " It does, indeed," said Hetty, " and you must tell 
 him I am very much obliged to him, and that the 
 roses did me more good than the breakfast." 
 
 " I don t know bout dat. You s tried the roses 
 an you ain t tried the breakfas ," said Lucy, practi 
 cally ; " but that s a real purty speech, an ef I can 
 recollect it all I ll tell him, though he tol me to tell 
 you he hope you find yo self well enough to appear 
 at the dinner-table. I tell you, honey, these folks is 
 fus -class. There ain no foolin Lucy whar quality 
 folks is concerned. An dar !" 
 
 This final exclamation was caused by Archibald 
 Murray s passage across the strip of lawn which 
 Hetty s window gave to her view. 
 
 " My boy done got back !" 
 
 "Now then," said Archie, coming in a second 
 later ; " doubtless my little sensitive plant thinks I 
 have been treating her cavalierly this morning ; but 
 you know, my dear child, that the doctors in a 
 country neighborhood have to be like the firemen in
 
 o4 A STB A NG E PU, G RLVA GE. 
 
 a big city ready to go ^t the first alarm. The 
 distances are so great- " 
 
 How immeasurably young and small he made her 
 feel with his "dear child!" and how strong and 
 vigorous and handsome he looked, coming in from 
 the crisp morning ride across the lake. She was not 
 wise enough to read the lines of thoughtful care 
 that lay across his broad, smooth forehead, or to 
 penetrate the secret t3f that look of patient endur 
 ance which had darkened and deepened his fine eyes. 
 
 " You have been across the lake to Mr. Glen s T 
 she said, drawing out of his clasp the hand he held 
 caressingly. 
 
 " Yes. I never neglect a call from Glencove. It 
 was my first home when I came here, and I have 
 dear, good friends under its roof." 
 
 " Miss Theresa Glen lives there ?" 
 
 " Yes. She is Mr. Glen s sister, you know." 
 
 "How should I know anything," said Hetty, 
 bitterly, " when, after you left Virginia, you never 
 wrote a single line back never but once, and that 
 was because you wanted a book ?" 
 
 " I am afraid I have been very remiss," Archie 
 said, gently ; k * but I was in a great deal of trouble 
 when I left Virginia, and I did not suppose there 
 was any one there who cared to enter into a regular 
 correspondence with me. I suppose the books were 
 all burned up in the fire. Aunt Lucy has given me 
 a very graphic account of your loss." 
 
 " Your loss, my cousin," Hetty said, laying her 
 hand on his. " Please forgive me my childish petu 
 lance just now. I did feel cross. I thought you
 
 A STRAXQfi PILQ&LMAOZ. 045 
 
 disapproved of my coming, and set it clown as a 
 girlish freak, and wished I had stayed at home." 
 
 " Why, what an unreasonable little woman it is !" 
 Archie said, lifting her face by putting his hand 
 under her chin, and how pretty you have grown. 
 Do you know, I have never thought of you as any 
 thing but a kind-hearted, sweet-faced little girl, 
 with a big straw hat hanging over her back, just as 
 I saw you that first time, you know f 
 
 " Yes, I know it, she said, with quaint composure, 
 interposing George Bemish s roses between her chin 
 and his hand ; " but I have a great deal to tell you. 
 Cousin Archibald, before Aunt Lucy and I start 
 home 
 
 " Home !" 
 
 " Back," she said, with a sudden twitching in the 
 corners of her mouth ; " I don t suppose I can say 
 home to any spot on earth; but Doctor Yernon, dear 
 old man, told me, after I had given you the things I 
 felt I must put into your hands with my own, that 
 I must come back to him, and stay there until I 
 could form my plans for the future. 
 
 " After Mr. Maury had twice risked his life for us 
 and come out of that awful fire the poor, scarred 
 thing you sec him, I could not let him undertake 
 this long journey alone. 
 
 " He is at peace now as far as his friend is con 
 cerned, and when I ve given the things that are 
 yours into your safe keeping I will be ready to go 
 back to Yirginia." 
 
 " Let that rest, dear child. We will talk of that 
 presently. I confess to feeling culpable at having
 
 246 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 left behind me a book which was transmitted to me 
 with such a significant message from my dear uncle. 
 Lucy tells me she gave it to you after my sudden 
 departure." 
 
 Lucy had brought from the pile of luggage on a 
 sofa on one side of the room a heavy leather satchel 
 while he was talking. 
 
 " I have never left it out of my sight, nor per 
 mitted any one else to handle it." 
 
 " Dear child, why should you have been so bur 
 dened with the responsibility of my affairs ? I wish 
 I could have known and prevented it. How can I 
 show my gratitude, little cousin ?" 
 
 " We are discussing business, not our emotions, at 
 this juncture," said Hetty, with a touch of asperity 
 in her voice she could not entirely control. " This," 
 she laid a piece of folded paper in his hand, " is the 
 note that you were expected to discover in this old 
 book. I think God directed my hands when I dis 
 placed that old cover. The note would have availed 
 you little without the wallet. I had taken it from 
 the armoirc upstairs not three hours before the fire. 
 It is full of letters. This is yours, too." She placed 
 the locked tin box in his hands. 
 
 "As things have turned out I mean, poor 
 mother s death the place would have gone to Lem. 
 She left a will to that effect, and unless those letters 
 prove your superior right, as I believe they will, you 
 are still dependent on your own efforts. Will you 
 read them while I am here, cousin ?" 
 
 " We will read them together," said Archibald, 
 loosening the bands that were tied tightly about the
 
 .1 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 347 
 
 leathern wallet. " We will have no family secrets 
 from each other, little cousin." lie took from the 
 envelope a double-handful of letters, yellow now 
 with age. "Both Avritten by women, and educated 
 women at that." 
 
 " They are the copies of letters written by our 
 uncle s (Eichard Dabney s) wife to her false friend 
 Miss Parmelie Eose, and Miss Parmelie Eose s 
 answers to them, and the letters of Lavinia Ivlur- 
 ray to our uncle s wife." 
 
 u Our Uncle Eichard s wife ?" 
 
 "Yes. But the letters will make it plainer. 
 After you have read them all I will tell you what 
 Miss Eose told me." 
 
 For fully an hour there was no audible sound in 
 that sunlit spare chamber in the old Bemish house 
 but the soft sound of rustling paper mingled with 
 the agitated breathing of one of the readers. 
 
 As fast as he finished a letter he would pass it 
 over to Hetty, silently. Sometimes he would read 
 them over more than once. She watched his strong 
 face with furtive eyes. Its calmness was broken 
 up occasionally by violent emotion. When she had 
 to wait an unusually long time, she found employment 
 for her restlessly nervous fingers in plucking the 
 petals from George Bemish s roses and absently de 
 vouring them one by one. 
 
 At last the wallet was empty, and a pile of old 
 letters lay between the cousins on the sofa where 
 they had been sitting side by sido while Archibald 
 Murray went through the fiercest ordeal of his life. 
 
 " What do you make of it all f he said, looking
 
 248 A 8T&AtfQE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 at Hetty with serious eyes. " And now that all 
 these dead people have conspired to make me doubt 
 my own identity, what is expected of me?" 
 
 *#T)o you ask these grave questions of me, the 
 child, the little thing, the little cousin, whom 
 you have only thought of as 
 
 " You do not bear malice, Hetty ?" he said, with 
 quick irritation. 
 
 " ]STo ! For you 1 bear only the deepest, truest 
 affection a sister s heart could bear for a brother !" 
 she said, " and I rejoice to be found worthy to take 
 counsel with you at this juncture. What do I make 
 of it all ?" 
 
 " Yes. These letters have dazed me." 
 
 " I make of them that you are Richard Dabney s 
 son and legal heir not his nephew, dependent upon 
 chance for your inheritance ! I make of it that your 
 so-called mother, Lavinia Murray, combined with 
 your real mother to introduce you into your father s 
 home, and through his affection for you she, your 
 much- wronged mother, hoped for final reconciliation. 
 I suppose Aunt Lavinia s death frustrated the de 
 sign." 
 
 " But my mother 2" 
 
 " She is dead, too. Poor Miss Rose ! It was the 
 horror of that death-scene when she had to bear 
 the reproaches of the dying woman for her treach 
 ery that finally unhinged her mind." 
 
 Then she told him circumstantially all that had 
 occurred during her visit to Parmelie Rose. 
 
 There was a long silence between them when she 
 got through.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 240 
 
 " There only remains to examine the tin box," she 
 said, taking from her purse a small, flat key and 
 laying it in his hand. 
 
 It fitted into the lock readily and turned easily. 
 As Archibald lifted the lid a faint perfume stole 
 from a covering of pink cotton that lay over the con 
 tents. This removed, a blaze of jewels flashed their 
 prismatic hues into their eyes. Emeralds, diamonds, 
 pearls, rubies, a royal collection worthy to be a 
 king s ransom. 
 
 " Oh, beautiful !" Hetty s feminine instincts came 
 to relieve the somber tint of this passage into by 
 gone times. 
 
 "They are superb. I think we ll have to lock 
 them, away for } T our wedding gift/ 
 
 " Mine ! Xot so, my cousin. 1 f report speaks 
 true, Miss Theresa Glen s stately beauty will look 
 all the more ravishing for such adornment." 
 
 She turned and clasped his hands in both of hers. 
 
 " And oh, cousin ! My dear, dear cousin ! it does 
 make me glad to think that I should be the one to 
 bring you such good tidings. That I, who helped 
 to defraud you and drive you away from your herit 
 age, should be chosen as the one to rescue from 
 perishing all the evidences of your inalienable right 
 to your home. Xow that you are rich once more, 
 you can marry the woman you love. You do love 
 her, cousin ?" 
 
 He drew her toward him and kissed her tenderly ; 
 then he got up to go away from her with a face so 
 full of trouble that her own clouded with perplexity. 
 
 " You have kever defrauded me, little cousin You
 
 2.50 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 have done me good and not evil, all the days of 
 your life. Theresa Glen s stately beauty will never 
 be enhanced by the Dabney family jewels. The 
 bo.vand its contents are all yours." 
 
 He left the room abruptly, leaving her staring in 
 wonder.
 
 STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 CROSS-PURPOSES. 
 
 T OSEPHIXE, Miss Theresa Glen s maid, resorted 
 | to a great many illegal devices that morning to 
 arouse her mistress from slumber. Josephine was 
 surcharged with news. So much had happened over 
 yonder, just across the lake, at Doctor Bemish s, 
 which she was extremely anxious to be the first to 
 impart. If she permitted her mistress to leave the 
 room without emptying her budget of information, 
 then the superlative pleasure of telling it all would 
 be Mrs. Glen s. 
 
 Josephine considered herself an authority on Be- 
 mish matters, seeing that her "beau," Abram 
 Drake, to whom she proposed to be joined in the 
 holy bonds of wedlock the coming Christmas, was 
 the old doctor s personal attendant, and was rarely 
 ever a.vay from him. 
 
 Abram had gladly volunteered to row Doctor 
 Murray over in response to Mrs. Glen s early sum 
 mons that morning. Seeing Josephine was on the 
 other side, and while the doctor had been busy al 
 leviating Mr. Glen s colicky pangs, Abram had been 
 pouring all the family news into Josephine s attent 
 ive ear as she sat perched on the bo\v of the skiff 
 waiting for the doctor s reappearance. And of a 
 truth, there had been plenty to tell this time.
 
 %*& A &TRANGB PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Every other device failing, Josephine men 
 daciously stumbled over a footstool finally, and 
 brought down with a crash the tall screen that she 
 had* so carefully placed, only an hour before, be 
 tween the foot of the bed and the window, where 
 the late morning sunshine streamed in through the 
 slats of the outside shutters. 
 
 " What on earth is the matter ?" Theresa asked, 
 opening her eyes languidly on the scene of 
 Josephine s tumultuous service. 
 
 "Nothing Miss Thersie, jus nothin t all. I s a 
 good-for-nothin awkerd nigger, an jes didn see dat 
 footstool ; wouldn a-seed it ef it d ben as big as de 
 side uv a house. I reckon you gwine git up now, 
 Miss Thersie ?" 
 
 " What time is it ?" Theresa asked, indifferently. 
 
 Why should she get up "( The days were so long 
 and empty and vapid ! It was so hard to know 
 what to do with them. Fanny had Leonard and 
 Paul and her garden and her household affairs to 
 chatter about and till the days up with ! Leonard 
 had Fanny and Paul and the crops to look after. 
 Paul had his own child s world, full of real joys and 
 blissful imaginings ; but what had she ? She closed 
 her eyes heavily after asking that idle question of 
 her maid. What mattered it what hour of the day 
 it was ? Let the hours come and go ; they brought 
 nothing to her. Xothinsr but the listless nerform- 
 
 O O I 
 
 ance of soulless duties ; passionate suppression of 
 longings that could never be satisfied ; self-con 
 demning and fresh bruisings to her pride. 
 
 Self -condemning in that, when Archibald Murray
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 253 
 
 had knelt by her side one morning and called him 
 self her lover, she had smiled on him and let him see 
 all too plainly into the depths of her heart let 
 him see that his words gave her happiness. Fresh 
 bruisings for her pride in that she could not force 
 herself into an unfeigned indifference as to the 
 strange sequel to that one moment of passionate 
 joy. She had tried so hard to piece together the 
 fragments of that harrowing morning when, com 
 pletely undone by the nervous shock of her last 
 mesmeric interview with Doctor Bemish, she had 
 spent so many hours alternating between conscious 
 ness and unconsciousness. 
 
 She recalled one blissful moment of consciousness 
 that had showed her Archibald Murray kneeling 
 close by her side, his eyes looking lovingly into hers, 
 his voice calling her name in tones of the deepest 
 tenderness. Ah ! if she could have passed away for 
 ever in that moment ! 
 
 She had passed away temporarily lapsed once 
 more into unconsciousness, only to come back to find 
 Archibald Murray again by her side, discussing her 
 physical condition with her sister-in-law in a 
 strangely matter-of-fact voice, leaving directions for 
 the administering of certain bitter doses, administer 
 ing the bitterest of all himself when he told her, in 
 that curiously constrained voice, that she needed 
 but to obey the directions he had left with her 
 sister in order to be soon quite herself, and then had 
 taken formal leave of her ! 
 
 She remembered wondering why he had selected 
 that time for his sudden removal into the village of
 
 254 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Ha \vkspoint. There could be but one solution to it. 
 lie had repented him of that impulsive confession ! 
 His words of tenderness had meant nothing. lie 
 warned her to consider them unsaid by his sudden 
 and complete removal from her proximity. Since 
 then he had only come to Glencove on professional 
 business. Ah ! well, she could match pride against 
 pride in a contest with Lucifer himself, if need be ! 
 
 Since then, though, the world had seemed very 
 empty and the days dragged drearily. Why should 
 she lengthen them by rising with the thrifty alert 
 ness of a woman who had happy household cares 
 and pleasing domestic anxieties to spur her through 
 the long sunlit hours ? 
 
 Josephine, in a spasm of remorse for her OAVH 
 duplicity, had quietly seated herself near the win 
 dow with her knitting, when her mistress asked 
 again : 
 
 " What time is it, Josephine ?" 
 
 The maid careened her turbaned head sufficiently 
 to one side to get a view of the mantel clock : 
 
 "By dis clock," she said, oracularly, tain t but 
 half-pas nine ; but I sholy think you is slow, for I 
 know it mus a-ben mo n an hour sence Abram an 
 de doctor done lef , an I yhere de doctor tell Miss 
 Fanny he couldn wait no longer, kase lies cousin 
 would be lookin for him anxious, an he lef word 
 for her he d be back to tek brekfis wid her, lessen 
 Mars Glen were ve y sick, which he didn have 
 nothin but cramps from too much watermillion, 
 honey." 
 
 Josephine had composed this skillful prologue
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 355 
 
 while impatiently waiting for the moment of its 
 delivery. She flattered herself that she had art 
 fully condensed therein sufficient material to pique 
 even her Miss Thersie s languid curiosity into active 
 operation. She was not disappointed. Theresa 
 raised herself on one elbow and asked quickly : 
 
 ; Is my brother ill fc" 
 
 u Xothing but cramps from watermilb on, hone} . 
 You know Mars Glen is got a weakness that way, 
 but the doctor gin him. the word wid the bark on it 
 this time. He say p intedly Mars Glen s got to lef 
 em alone." 
 
 " What doctor ?" 
 
 " Doctor Murray in co se," said Josephine, placing 
 dressing-slippers and gown suggestively in front of 
 the young lady. 
 
 " "What cousin are you talking about, Josephine ?" 
 her mistress asked, looking at her confusedly, while 
 she mechanically permitted herself to be invested in 
 gown and slippers. 
 
 " Doctor Murray s cousin. Abram say he ain t 
 seen her yet, but he savs the old colored lady which 
 
 J */ 
 
 come from Virginia wid her and Mars Hugh Maury 
 talk lak she were a none such. They all got yhere 
 late las night, Abram say, an the young lady warn t 
 up w en he ro\v de doctor over here." 
 
 The perplexed look had been deepening on her 
 mistress face all this time, and Josephine s moment 
 of triumph had come : 
 
 " Hugh Maury ? All got here last night ! 
 Who are all, Josephine? "What are you talking 
 about ?"
 
 25G A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " TS talking bout Doctor Murray s cousin. Abram 
 say lie sorter get her, from the way the old colored 
 lady talk, that her an the doctor is ben ol sweet 
 hearts, an now that her ma is dead, an"*fcan t stan 
 betwix em no longer, they gwine git married right 
 off." 
 
 " Yes," said Theresa, turning very white and sink 
 ing limply into an arm-chair by the dressing-table. 
 " I see, I see !" She laughed mirthlessly. " But 
 who do you mean by all ? " 
 
 " Her, and Mars George Bemish, and Mars Hugh 
 Maury, and the ol colored lady. Abram say they 
 all come together las night from somewhar, he ain t 
 quite clar whar ; an Abram say from the ve y mo 
 ment Mars George Bemish put hes head inside the 
 ol man s bed-room and say, Father, I come hon:e 
 to stay wid you, Hugh s made it all right ! the oi 
 gentleman begin t men . Abram say Doctor Mur 
 ray thought he were goin to die las night, but now 
 he say he s all right." 
 
 Josephine had nothing to complain of in her list 
 ener. Theresa submitted to be dressed with the 
 passivity of a doll stuifed with sawdust, and while 
 Josephine combed, brushed and curled her pretty 
 hair, buttoned her boots, and tied the long sash- 
 ends of her morning-wrapper about her slim waist, 
 she sat in a sort of trance, trying to elucidate the 
 strange story of these strange happenings over yon 
 der at Doctor Bemish s. 
 
 She was quite dressed at last, but nervelessly dis 
 inclined to leave her room in quest of breakfast. 
 
 " Bring me a cup of coffee here," she said, petu
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 357 
 
 lantly, twitching the ribbons out of Josephine s 
 clinging fingers. " I don t want any breakfast." 
 
 She rested her head against the tall back of her 
 chair and closed her eyes. She was enraged with 
 herself to feel that hot, scalding tears were rising 
 beneath their lids. 
 
 " What a weakling I am become I" she said, spring 
 ing passionately to her feet as the door closed on 
 Josephine s receding form. " What difference does 
 it make to me if a thousand cousins come to claim 
 him ?" 
 
 Mrs. Glen s bright face was suddenly thrust 
 through the shutters of the window that opened on 
 the gallery. Her face was full of importance this 
 morning. 
 
 " Do come out of this dungeon, Thersie. I am 
 dying to tell you the news. Would have waked 
 you up two hours ago, but Josephine says you were 
 very restless last night." 
 
 " I suspect that Josephine had an object in keep 
 ing you at bay," Theresa answered, with her gayest 
 laugh. "She wanted to be the iirst to tell the won 
 derful tidings that Doctor Murray s pretty cousin 
 has come all the way from Virginia, with her col 
 ored mammy, to consummate their long engagement, 
 and that George Bemish and Hugh Maury have 
 come back together to straighten out that horrid 
 affair of Adrien Michelet. You see I know it all." 
 
 u A good deal more than I do," said Mrs. Glen, 
 looking perplexedly into the beautiful flushed faca 
 of the girl who had just treated a matter which had 
 always been spoken of in the family circle with
 
 258 -A- STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 bated breath with such shocking flippancy. 
 tor Murray told me that a young cousin of his had 
 arrived, most unexpectedly to him, last night, bring 
 ing with her important family papers which she was 
 afraid to intrust to the mail." 
 
 Theresa; laughed skeptically. 
 
 " He really seemed worried how to dispose of her. 
 She can t stay over at Doctor Bemislr s with a house 
 ful of men, you know." 
 
 " I imagine he won t be at a loss long. But about 
 the others George Bemish and Hugh Maury. I 
 knew they would come back together some time, if 
 both of them were alive." 
 
 " You knew it and never told even your brother 
 or me ?" 
 
 " Yes. I knew that Hugh Maury had gone on a 
 pilgrimage in search of the friend he had wronged 
 knew that his only chance of peace on earth lay in 
 finding George Bemish. I am not taken unawares 
 by that. I was not called on to criminate the man 
 who had struck that rash blow for my sake, was I ?" 
 
 " But the strangest part of the whole story you 
 don t know you can t know ; for Doctor Murray 
 told it to Leonard and me with closed doors. Hugh 
 Maury has come home a hero and a martyr !" 
 
 "In the sight of man, perhaps; in the sight of 
 God a murderer, once and forever !" Theresa said, 
 gravely. 
 
 Such a deathly pallor spread over her tortured 
 face that Mrs. Glen flung wide open the long shut 
 ters and drew her through them out into the 
 fresher air of the gallery.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 359 
 
 " Doctor Murray asked me to tell you all about 
 this affair, Tliersie, as soon as you awoke. He said 
 lie thought you would be glad to know that George 
 Bemish was once more at home with his father, 
 freed from every suspicion. You are trembling. I 
 will tell you the rest while you eat your breakfast." 
 
 She led the trembling girl into the breakfast- room, 
 and after seeing her well supplied with food, with 
 which she toyed mechanically, Mrs. Glen resumed : 
 
 " Doctor Murray says that Doctor Bemish be^s to 
 
 t/ */ O 
 
 see you as soon as possible, lie says George looks 
 thin and rather rough, was his expression, but that 
 he is undoubtedly one of the handsomest and most 
 winning young fellows he ever met." 
 
 "Did Doctor Murray row over here early this 
 morning just to chant the praises of the returned 
 prodigal?" Theresa asked, sharply. 
 
 U I don t think he is the prodigal at all," Mrs. 
 Glen answered, quietly ignoring the sharpness. " He 
 says poor Hugh Maury is an absolute wreck walks 
 on crutches and has lost the use of both eyes. It 
 seems he has been teaching in the young lady s 
 family, and their house caught on lire and he heroic 
 ally risked his life by rushing into the burning house 
 where some one told him an eld negro woman was 
 confined. It was this very old woman, too, who has 
 come here with him and Doctor Murray s cousin. 
 They brought him home he was too helpless to 
 travel alone. Tin; old darky naturally adores him." 
 
 u Tlio way of the transgressor is hard ! Perhaps," 
 Theresa said, in a voice of pure pity, "God will 
 judge him more leniently than man can, and will
 
 260 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 call his expiation complete. It was a mad, rash, 
 foolish thing that he did, and he wrapped my life in 
 the gloom of it. Has he done well in coming back 
 here 2" 
 
 " He came back here to clear George Bemish s 
 name from suspicion. He was compelled to give up 
 his search for him, in his maimed condition. His 
 intention now is to inform the authorities of the 
 entire transaction. He says if they see fit to arrest, 
 imprison, try and execute the remnant of Hugh 
 Maury which he has brought back here, he shall 
 make no opposition. He says that when he heard 
 Adrien Michelet s scoffing laugh following him down 
 the road where you and he were driving, he sprang 
 from the buggy meaning only to 
 
 Theresa raised her hand imploringly : 
 
 " For God s sake spare me ! Hugh Maury has 
 shown depths of nobility I did not believe him ca 
 pable of. He has shielded me at his own expense 
 long enough ! Tell my brother, Fanny (I cannot 
 talk of this again), that if it comes to a question of a 
 public trial for the killing of Adrien Michelet, to let 
 me know. Then, but not before then, I will tell the 
 entire provocation to that fearful deed. No jury on 
 earth would harm a hair of Hugh Maury s head 
 after hearing my statement. 
 
 " Dear child ! poor, poor Thersie ! how much you 
 have endured, w r ith no one to help you," said Mrs. 
 Glen, weaving her arms caressingly about her sister- 
 in-law r s neck. " I never knew before how 
 
 " Don t fall into any more mistakes, Fanny," Miss 
 Glen said, firmly ; " don t imagine that that awful
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 261 
 
 affair has broken my heart. It shocked me im 
 measurably, and I think if I had loved Hugh Maury 
 very much it would have killed me. 
 
 " I shall never know why I had promised to marry 
 him. Poor man ! In his helpless condition, who will 
 care for him ? No mother, no sister !" 
 
 " The Bemishes ! Depend upon that. He will never 
 want for friends. Doctor Murray says Miss Ogden 
 is devoted to him. He says Hugh saved her life 
 once when she was skating and went through the ice." 
 
 Mrs Glen here pulled out her watch. 
 
 " By the way, Thersie, I promised Doctor Murray 
 I would come over after dinner and see if Miss 
 Ogden would not come here to stay for the few days 
 she will be compelled to wait for a packet. I can t 
 leave a young girl in a house full of stupid men, you 
 know. And, besides, I want to see the others." 
 
 " Did Doctor Murray ask this if" Theresa asked. 
 
 "Xo. Stupidly enough he did not seem to have 
 seen any impropriety in her staying at Doctor 
 Bemish s." 
 
 Theresa arose from the table unsteadily and held by 
 the back of her chair, as she said : 
 
 " When you are ready to go for Miss Ogden, come 
 for me, Fanny. I will go with you." 
 
 " Do you think you can stand it, dear ?" 
 
 " Stand what ?" she asked, haughtily. 
 
 " The trip," Mrs. Glen answered, looking at her 
 pale face and twitching limbs in anxious concern. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I can stand the trip," Theresa said with 
 a hysterical laugh ; " I should think by this time you 
 had discovered I can stand anything."
 
 202 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW. 
 
 MRS. GLEX did not find it such a simple mat 
 ter to fulfill her promise to Archibald Mur 
 ray about coming across the lake to see Hetty that 
 afternoon. There were various impediments in the 
 way when she came to make her arrangements, 
 chief among them being the lack of a conveyance. 
 
 Mr. Glen, miraculously relieved of his physical 
 discomfort by hearing of the wondrous happen 
 ings over at Doctor Bemish s the night just gone, 
 had hurried off alone before dinner to see George 
 Bemish and to consult with the other men about 
 Hugh Maury s situation. 
 
 He had always been excessively fond of George, 
 and was correspondingly rejoiced over the happy 
 turn events had taken for him. Moreover, Murray 
 had engaged him, as one of the leading and most 
 influential citizens in the parish, to go with him into 
 Hawkspoint that morning to make a statement con 
 cerning Hugh Maury, preparatory to the voluntary 
 surrender of himself, which the returned pilgrim was 
 resolved upon. 
 
 Truth to tell, the movements of his women-folks 
 did not concern him at all that morning, there was 
 matter of so much graver import on hand. 
 
 k Of course Leonard had to take the onlv decent
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 263 
 
 skiff in the boat-house," Mrs. Glen said tartl} r , when 
 she came to report to Theresa that they "would 
 have to wait for the old boat to be caulked." 
 
 "Did brother know you had any intention of 
 going over at all*" Theresa asked, with that fine 
 sense of justice which never forsook her. 
 
 " No ; but men are so selfish that if he had it 
 wouldn t have made a particle of difference," Mrs. 
 Glen answered, logically. " I will call you as soon 
 as there is any sign of Tim s being ready. You 
 know it takes him a year to do what any one else 
 could do in an hour." 
 
 "Poor Timothy! Evidently my little sister is 
 consumed with impatience to see some one on the 
 other side of the lake. Is it the returned native or 
 the Doctor s pretty cousin?" 
 
 Theresa turned from the mirror where she had 
 been tying the soft mull strings of her white straw 
 hat under her smooth chin with unusual delibera 
 tion for her. She was in a state of complete and 
 dainty readiness for the start. Mrs. Glen looked 
 her over from head to foot in admiring silence before 
 bursting forth, inconsequently : 
 
 "Thersie, you are perfect, this morning! Just 
 superb ! Why don t you do it oftener ?" 
 
 " Do what oftener ?" Theresa asked, composedly, 
 shaking the folds out of a lace-trimmed parasol 
 which had been buttoned and furled for many a day. 
 
 " Fix yourself up that way." 
 
 " Do I look fixed up ? Horrors !" She arched her 
 eyebrows comically in an assumption of distress. 
 "Surely a white nun s veiling that has done service
 
 2G4 A STRAXGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 for two seasons, an old straw hat trimmc:! with 
 mull muslin, and a fresh bunch of violets do not com 
 prise a very elaborate get-up." 
 
 I don t know what it is. It must be your high 
 color, then, or your eyes gracious, how they do 
 
 sparkle ! or that Thank goodness, there s Tim 
 
 bawling for us now. Don t forget your parasol! 
 Hadn t we better take an umbrella, sc we can both 
 sit behind it ? The setting sun will be right in our 
 eyes all the way over." 
 
 "Xo," Theresa said, curtly. "This parasol will 
 answer for both." 
 
 She did not propose to mar the effect of her ar 
 tistic design by supporting a hideous black alpaca 
 umbrella during the two miles of water-travel they 
 had before them. 
 
 Yes. " design !" The last time she had been in a 
 boat alone with Archibald Murray oh. how long 
 ago it seemed now he had daringly criticised her 
 cool, fresh costume, and his eyes had said more than 
 his words that day. She wanted him to see that- 
 even though she knew he was the pledged lover of 
 this girl Avhom she was going over to greet gra 
 ciously, her own adornment was a matter of fastidi 
 ous import still. He could scarcely think, after this 
 afternoon, that his words or glances carried any 
 Aveight with them. She was glad of her beauty to 
 day. 
 
 As Mrs. Glen rushed tumultuously out of the 
 room at Timothy s first "Halloo!* Theresa deliber 
 ately turned to take one more look at herself in the 
 long mirror. She smiled at her majestic reflection.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 265 
 
 " I am glad my cheeks are burning," she said, lay 
 ing the back of her cool white hand against them, 
 one after the other; "glad that my eyes have 
 caught fire, too. I don r t think I look like a woman 
 who has been stabbed to the heart by a child s 
 hand !" 
 
 She rearranged the violets in her belt and joined 
 Mrs. Glen, who was already seated in the skiff, with 
 a face studiously divested of all traces of the fierce 
 storm that had swept her soul since her late a waken 
 ing that morning. She was serenely handsome that 
 afternoon. 
 
 On the other side of the lake, Hugh Maury, rest 
 ing his crutches against the thorny trunk of a 
 honey-locust which grew out upon the bank quite a 
 distance above the doctor s front gate, was sitting 
 on a fallen log Avith his hands clasped before him 
 and his head drooped forward a listless attitude 
 which had become common with him since losing 
 the use of his eyes. 
 
 Hetty was sitting beside him on the log. lie had 
 come to her room-door an hour or two before with 
 a pathetic plea. 
 
 " The sun is setting, Miss Hetty," he had said, 
 " and I know just how the dear old lake used to look 
 at this time of the day ; yet I think I should like to 
 see it once more. You have been eyes for me, dear 
 child, for months now. I want you to walk a bit 
 up the lake bank with me. to the old honey -locust. I 
 can lead you straight to it with these poor, sight 
 less eyes of mine. I want to know just how it all 
 looks, on this side and on the other. If there have
 
 >G6 A STRANGK PILGttlMAGti. 
 
 been any changes I can detect them in your descrip 
 tion. I should like to take a photograph of it all 
 away in my heart. "Will you come with me?" 
 
 There were tears in her eyes Avlien she had opened 
 the door to him. She would not trust her voice 
 with anything more than a prompt "certainly" just 
 then. 
 
 It had been such a trying, bewildering sort of day 
 to her. 
 
 She had thrown her black veil over her head with 
 out other covering and joined him at once. It was 
 lie who had piloted her through the long privet- 
 hedging that led by the side of the house to a gate, 
 going directly on to the lake. It was he who led 
 the way, slowly and tediously on his clumsy 
 crutches, along the grassy, sloping banks to where 
 the spreading branches of the thorn offered them 
 shelter from the hot rays of the slanting sunshine 
 and the fallen log invited them to rest. Then she 
 asked, taking his crutches away from him and seat 
 ing him with that matter-of-course sisterliness 
 which had come to her naturally since his mishap : 
 
 " What do you mean by wanting to take a photo 
 graph away in your heart, Mr. Maury ? I thought 
 your pilgrimage ended here, and that here you 
 would cast anchor." 
 
 " Not yet, dear child, not yet !" 
 
 How could he tell her that his pilgrimage would 
 lead him on the morrow to the doors of the jail he 
 had so long evaded ? How could he tell her that the 
 majesty of the law might consign him to a sadder 
 anchorage than her pure fancy could even picture ?
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 2o? 
 
 She only knew his past in part knew that he had 
 wronged his friend in some way, hut had now re 
 stored him to homo and honor. l>ut she did not 
 know that in doing- this he had calmly counted the 
 cost and was ready to abide by the decision of his 
 peers. 
 
 lie wished she might never know this last sad 
 dest, darkest chapter in his whole career. 
 
 " I don t think I should not think," said Hetty, 
 speaking once more, hesitatingly, "that you would 
 be permitted to go away by yourself. Oh, if only I 
 had a home to take you to you, who risked so much 
 for me and mine you should never, never, never 
 leave it ! But think of it ! "What a leaf upon the 
 current I am ! Mamma gone, the boys scattered, 
 my cousin She stopped. There were tears 
 
 in her eyes. "Xo one but Aunt Lucy left to 
 me." 
 
 " There, there, poor, tired little soul ! To think 
 that I should whine like a whipped spaniel in your 
 presence," said Hugh, soothingly. " Come, tell me 
 what you see, Hetty tell me all that you see. I 
 could not ask any one else to do me the service 
 they would have taken me for a dotard Picture 
 it for me, child earth, water and sky, just as they 
 lie stretched out before you now." 
 
 Hetty turned her eyes away from the drawn and 
 haggard features of the poor wreck by her side and 
 began in a soft, sweet monotone : 
 
 " I see a beautiful lake," she said, " lying bathed 
 in the brightest sunshine. The sun is setting in a 
 bank of rose-colored clouds, and the water, as far as
 
 5>C8 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 the eve can reach, lies rose-red under the crimsoned 
 
 sky." 
 
 " I have seen it juct that way so often, so often !" 
 Hugh murmured, softly. Go or ; you describe it 
 prettily. 
 
 " And I see across the lake, on the other side, 
 broad fields of brown corn-tassels and bushy cotton- 
 plants. I can see the negroes moving along the 
 green lanes of the cotton with hoes and plows. 
 They are singing, at their work, happy, wild bits of 
 songs - 
 
 " Yes, I hear them I hear them ! That is Glen- 
 cove across there. It stretches all along the lake- 
 front. There is a tall orange-hedging at one part 
 of it just down that way." 
 
 "Yes down toward the lower end, where the 
 trees and the shrubs grow thick behind a gleaming 
 white fence, and "where the red-brick chimney, on 
 the outside of the white house, can just be seen 
 through the green trees." 
 
 " Yes, yes. That is Glencove." 
 
 " Glencove ?" there was a nervous catch in the 
 young girl s voice. " Is that where my cousin s 
 where 
 
 " That is where Miss Theresa Glen lives," said 
 Hugh Maury, with no perceptible tremor in his 
 voice. For him, there would be no marrying nor 
 giving in marriage in this world. He did not even 
 mean that Theresa should look upon his maimed and 
 altered form. For him, women s vows and women s 
 caresses were things less attainable than the celestial 
 heights. He wondered at his own impassive condi-
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 269 
 
 tion. He could only account for it on the score of 
 his absolute and single-hearted devotion to one idea 
 for the past four years. There had been no room in 
 his soul for any other desire than to atone for his 
 crime by exculpating George Bemish. 
 
 " She whom you loved once ?" said Hetty, with 
 gentle boldness. 
 
 " Yes, once ; but all that happened centuries ago, 
 my child. In front of the white house with the 
 brick chimney is " 
 
 " Come, don t spoil our photograph !" 
 
 " A little boat-house, and lily-pads are all around 
 about it. It has a gayly-painted roof the boat- 
 house, I mean." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know, I know." 
 
 " On this side of the lake," Hetty continued, turn 
 ing her eyes away from tho home of Theresa Glen, 
 " I see a skiff coming rapidly in this direction. 
 The willows along the bank must have been hiding 
 it. It has three people in it. The oarsman is a 
 black man, and wait ; they ve gone behind another 
 clump of those water-willows ; I think they are 
 afraid of the hot sun the passengers are two ladies. 
 They have a big white parasol held between us and 
 them. I can only see that one of them has on a 
 dark blue dress, and the other a white one." 
 
 The sound of oars came closer. Tim was hugging 
 the bank closely in order to give his passengers tho 
 full benefit of the shade cast by the trees on the bank. 
 As the cooler shadows fell across the bow of their 
 boat, Miss Glen shifted the parasol and let its handle 
 rest upon her shoulder. Its pink silk lining formed
 
 270 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 an effective background to her white straw hat and 
 the lovely face it framed. The boat glided close 
 enough for Hetty to have thrown her handkerchief 
 into the lap of the beautiful woman, who, in her 
 turn, was scanning the sweet pale face under the 
 clinging black veil with burning eyes. 
 
 The lessening sound of the oars caught Hugh 
 Alaury s strained ear. 
 
 " They have passed !" he said, quickly. 
 
 " Yes ! There was again that catch in Hetty s 
 voice. 
 
 " Who ? What > AVhat was it, Hetty ?" 
 
 " A vision of fair women !" said Hetty, dreamily. 
 "Oh! how beautiful she is. How handsome the 
 other one is, too. The younger one is radiant !" 
 
 " Describe them. 1 " 
 
 " The one the one who wore the dark blue dress 
 had a pretty round waist, and shining black hair, and 
 bright, bright eyes. She was dark, and looked as if 
 she might be one o those brisk and quick women in 
 all her ways, and so neat that everybody around her 
 has to be, too. Oh, the very tie of her bonnet- 
 strings showed that ; but the other 
 
 "Yes the other - 
 
 " She was tall and stately, and her hair was like 
 fine-spun gold ; and her eyes such wonderful eyes 
 I don t know how to tell you about them ; violet, 
 perhaps seemed to look one through and through ! 
 She was dressed all in pure white, and she wore 
 a big bunch of purple violets in her belt - 
 
 " I caught their breath ! Yes, their sweetness is 
 in the air yet. She always loved the violets so."
 
 . I STB A NGE PIL GRIM A GE. 2 T 1 
 
 " And that is " Hetty asked, eagerly. 
 
 That is Miss Theresa Glen," said Ilugh Maury, 
 slowly and distinctly. " A very beautiful woman, 
 but she has her sting. She can be merciless." 
 
 A long silence fell between them. Hugh s interest 
 in the landscape had waned. Hetty s skill as a 
 word-painter had failed her. The sound of receding 
 oars died away entirely. 
 
 The vision of fair women had passed. 
 
 In the boat Mrs. Glen was saying to her sister-in- 
 law, in a voice of intense pity : 
 
 " Did you see him, Thersie ? Did you see those 
 crutches leaning against the tree * Poor, poor fel 
 low ! what a wreck he is. It must be Hugh Maury." 
 
 " I was not looking at the man. I don t think it 
 occurred to me that Mr. Maury would be out on the 
 bank, either. I was looking at the young lady. I 
 think you must be mistaken about her companion." 
 
 " I may be mistaken. I hope I am," Mrs. Glen 
 said, hurriedly. " I looked at the girl, too, but I 
 could not see anything but a pair of big eyes under 
 a black veil." 
 
 " JJut I imagine there is a good deal more to the 
 young lady than we have seen yet," said Theresa, 
 composedly. 
 
 But of a sudden her assumed composure was 
 violently broken up, and she clutched Mrs. Glen s 
 arm in both her hands while she almost hissed into 
 her ears : 
 
 "Why did he come back here* What did he 
 mean by coming back here to make me live the hor 
 ror of that time over once more ( Why did you not
 
 272 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 tell me he was here, here in this very house ? How 
 should I know it ? "Why did you let me come ( 
 Look do you see that wagon coming up the road C 
 
 Mrs. Glen did look. A wagonette drawn by two 
 horses was whirling through the dusty lane that lay 
 between Doctor Bemish s house and his stables. 
 There were two men sitting in it men whom the 
 ladies from Glencove knew only b} T sight. 
 
 Timothy, standing up to cast the chain of his 
 boat about the peg driven into the bank, gasped out 
 in unreasoning terror : 
 
 " De Shurff, Mr. Miles an hes deputy ! Bless de 
 lam , who he arter ?" 
 
 The wagon halted in the lane but a second. 
 
 The women in the skiff saw the men in the wagon 
 lean over the side of the vehicle and ask a question 
 of a negro who had just opened the gate to the 
 mule-lot. The negro raised his hand and pointed 
 toward the honey-locust. The wagon drove off rap 
 idly in that direction. 
 
 " Fool, fool, rash fool, to come back !" Mrs. Glen 
 cried, wringing her hands in despair. " And the 
 men ! Where are they George, and the doctor, 
 and Leonard? I thought they were to prevent 
 this ?" 
 
 No answer came from the quiet house ; no answer 
 came from Theresa Glen as she stepped from the 
 swaying boat, and, walking rapidly up the sloping 
 bank, stood there waiting for the sheriff and his 
 deputy. 
 
 They came presently. On the back seat of the 
 vehicle sat a motionless figure. Beside him on ^he
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 073 
 
 seat lay a pair of crutches. Theresa raised her 
 hand imperiously. The driver drew rein, and both 
 men lifted their hats, holding them aloft while the 
 stately lady, not heeding nor caring that her soft 
 white draperies lay against the defiling, dusty 
 wheels, stepped close up to Hugh Maury s side ami 
 laid upon his folded hands the bunch of violets that 
 had rested in her belt a second before. 
 
 kk Theresa Miss Glen !" 
 
 II er name broke in a cry of mingled terror and 
 gladness from Hugh Maury s white lips terror 
 that she should have seen him thus, gladness for 
 the sweet womanliness of her thought for him. 
 
 kk I wanted you to know that friends were near !" 
 she said, softly ; then, with a gesture to the driver, 
 she stepped backward from between the dusty 
 wheels and turned her face steadily in the direction 
 of the honey-locust, where Hetty Ogden stood alone, 
 frightened, bewildered.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY ? 
 
 A SPECIAL midsummer term of court had been 
 \. convened in the judicial district to which the 
 little town of Hawkspoint appertained. 
 
 Never had that slumberous locality been so pro 
 foundly stirred. Every vacant room in every 
 house known to be available to the general public 
 had been engaged for a certain date weeks before 
 hand, The hospitality of the most exclusive private 
 house was invaded and taxed to the utmost, and 
 that in the dull season. 
 
 Mid- August ! The cotton-fields spread their 
 snowy pennons under a scorching sky. The corn 
 fields lay parched and yellow, ready for the harvest. 
 Along the dusty public road vehicle after vehicle 
 rolled noiselessly toward the little brick court-house, 
 about whose open doors and windows the hot air 
 quivered visibly. 
 
 Horsemen shunned the thick clouds of dust raised 
 by the rolling of innumerable wheels and gal 
 loped along the grassy crest of the levee. The heat 
 was no deterrent to speed ; the one danger Avas that 
 of being too late. The mail-clerk out at the land 
 ing, who was imperatively confined to the store to 
 await the arrival of the mail-packet, chafed and 
 fumed openly at its abnormal slowness. The col-
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 2?c 
 
 ored drivers of ox-teams, which were plodding their 
 way townward laden with cord-wood, prodded their 
 slow beasts with such unwonted persistency that 
 they essayed a clumsy bovine trot, with huge red 
 tongues lolling from their exasperated jaws. 
 
 There was but one thing worth striving for that 
 day. Every one wanted to be in time for the open 
 ing of Hugh Maury s trial. This was the day that 
 the State had appointed to give him a hearing in 
 that matter of the killing of George Bemish s 
 French tutor, who had been found dead in Doctor 
 Bemish s lane, murdered as had been believed for 
 four years by George Bemish s own hand, upon 
 little or no provocation. 
 
 There was so much of unusual interest attaching 
 to this trial that high and low, old and young, men 
 and women of pure Caucasian lineage or of hum 
 blest slave estate, rich and poor, journeyed and hur 
 ried through the sweltering heat of that August 
 day to hear with their own ears and see with their 
 own eyes what the long-delayed verdict was to 
 be. 
 
 There was the voluntary return of the true crimi 
 nal, whom no one had ever suspected, and the giving 
 of himself up to the authorities. The story had al 
 ready gone abroad how, when his friends had gone 
 to make a special plea for him to be left at liberty 
 on parole, as it were, until the regular fall term of 
 the court, he had privately dispatched a messenger 
 for the Sheriff and given himself into custody. 
 
 There was the old, revived romance connecting 
 the name of the prisoner with Leonard Glen s hand-
 
 276 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 some sister, whom the gossips had freshly given to 
 the new doctor for a possible bride. 
 
 There was the foundationless but universally-ac 
 cepted addenda to this love-episode of the pretty 
 girl from Virgima who had come all the way from 
 her distant home to stand by Hugh JMaury, to whom 
 she had pledged herself in marriage as soon as the 
 demands of justice were satisfied. 
 
 There was the dramatic feature of George I3e- 
 misli s sudden reappearance under his father s roof- 
 coming from whence no one could surmise, but 
 bringing back with him that tlcbonnaire fascination 
 of face and manner that had made him irresistible 
 to men and women in those by-gone days to which 
 all Ilawkspoint seemed to be returning. 
 
 There was the thrilling feature of his absolute de 
 votion to the person and the cause of the man for 
 whose crime he had been suffering these four years. 
 There was something magnanimously line in it that 
 tended the universal heart to outspoken appreciation. 
 
 There was the whispered report that Miss Glen 
 and the young lady from Virginia were to be in 
 attendance at the trial. Why, no one could divine ; 
 but the bare possibility of such a novel spectacle as 
 fair women within the precincts of Ilawspoint s 
 dingy court-room served to swell the crowd im 
 measurably. Oh, yes, there was abundant cause for 
 the crowding of Hawkspoint s Court-house that 
 August morning. 
 
 There were those who said, snarlingly, that a 
 criminal with less influential friends than the Glens 
 and the Bemishes and Doctor Murray would have
 
 A STtlANGti PILGRIMAGE. -^i 
 
 v 1 t 
 
 been compelled to await the regular fall term of 
 court, biding his time in the same miserable, illy- 
 ventilated jail-room wherein George Bcmish had lain 
 for a month, until he had succeeded in releasing him- 
 
 O 
 
 self one dark night. 
 
 There were others those who knew best who 
 said that if Hugh Maury were kept incarcerated 
 through the entire sultry summer there would be 
 no prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty before any 
 earthly tribunal. His powers of physical endurance 
 were on the wane. 
 
 There was a notable array of u turn-outs " grouped 
 about under the trees in front of the Court-house 
 that morning. The very earliest comers had the 
 satisfaction of seeing these line vehicles unloaded 
 before they were driven off for shelter under the 
 trees whose dust-laden leaves hung motionless under 
 the coppery skies. 
 
 M>. Leonard Glen and three closely-veiled ladies 
 had come in the open barouche whose splendid 
 dapple greys, freed from the carriage-pole, were 
 scornfully sniffing the burnt grass under their 
 p:impered noses. One of the three ladies whom the 
 clerk of the court obsequiously showed to seats 
 inside the railed space sacred to the "Bar was small, 
 and was dressed in deep mourning. The oldest 
 Ilawkspointer could not remember having ever seen 
 her; the youngest villager immediately announced 
 that Hugh Maury s affianced bride was already in 
 the court-room. 
 
 Doctor .Bcmish, leaning heavily on George s arm, 
 had appeared in person, much to the surprise of
 
 0*8 A ST12AXGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 every one, he having boen invisible to his old con 
 stituents for so long. lie looked worn and aged as 
 he clambered laboriously down from his buggy, but 
 there was a placid light on his benevolent face that 
 was good to see. 
 
 Close behind the Bemish buggy had come Doctor 
 Murray s drag, the toniest turn-out in all the coun 
 try-side. On the back seat of the drag \vas a figure 
 which excited universal attention and some furtive 
 smiles. It was an ancient dame, whose high-piled, 
 comical bandana turban flashed its gay plaids into 
 the eyes of the spectators, in sharp contrast with the 
 weazened black face beneath it. 
 
 Springing lightly from the drag, the doctor had 
 given both hands to the ancient dame and almost 
 lifted her from the vehicle. Side by side with the 
 withered old negress the broad-shouldered, stalwart 
 young doctor, whom everybody knew and liked by 
 this time, entered the Court-house, and were shown to 
 seats alongside the Glens and Bemishes inside the 
 railing. 
 
 After them the herd ! They were all there, gentle 
 and simple the well-wisher of this repentant evil 
 doer and the blatant clamorer for that sort of 
 justice which demands an eye for an eye, a life for a 
 life Avhen the Sheriff and his deputy came through 
 a side-door, walking slowly, to accommodate their 
 steps to those of the prisoner. Between them, lean 
 ing heavily on his polished crutches, but with his 
 handsome head held well up, with a look of perfect 
 peace pervading every feature of his marred visage, 
 Hunii Maury walked.
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 0^9 
 
 There was a confused murmur in the Court-house ; 
 a buzz of commingled surprise, pity and incredulity ! 
 More than one indignant denial of the once hand 
 some young Creole s identity passed from lip to lip. 
 That Hugh Maury ? Never! Nothing on earth 
 could have changed him to such an extent ! When 
 the first dull thud of his wooden crutches fell upon 
 the stillness of the court-room, a small, black-gloved 
 hand went out convulsively toward Theresa Glen. 
 
 She took it between both her own and held it 
 there. There was not even a perceptible tremor in 
 her own frame ; she had screwed her courage up to 
 this ordeal ; she would not relax the tension by one 
 thread. She was there to stand loyally by the man 
 who had been involved in all this woe and shame fcr 
 her sake. She was ready, if the occasion demanded, 
 to stand up before all these people and repeat the 
 vile insult which had cost that intoxicated French 
 man his life. 
 
 Among them all they had failed in preventing her 
 coming there that day. George Bemish, the old 
 doctor and Archibald Murray he whose lightest 
 word she would gladly have made the law of her 
 life failed in moving her from her firmly-expressed 
 resolution to be present at this trial. 
 
 There was some slight commotion when the 
 prisoner reached the seat assigned him. The Sheriff 
 and his deputy withdrew from his side to give place 
 to the Bernishes, father and son, who ranged them 
 selves on either side of the accused. 
 
 In a voice not quite firm, the clerk of the court 
 commanded the prisoner to stand. By the aid of
 
 280 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 George s firm hand the cripple was sooi poised upon 
 his crutches. Then, in the dreary verb age of the 
 law, the indictment in the case of tha State of 
 Louisiana versus Hugh Maury was set forth in pro 
 lix terms. The prisoner stood with his head held 
 slightly bent, listening. He kne\v that somewhere 
 near him was the State s Attorney, whose solemn 
 duty it was to bend every energy for the convic 
 tion of his maimed and broken body. He knew 
 that somewhere before him were seated twelve 
 men, whose solemn duty it was to divest them 
 selves of all personal bias in this grave juncture. 
 Could Ben McBride, their foreman, do that? lie 
 knew that somewhere near him close enough for 
 him to touch them, perhaps, if he had put out his 
 hand were Hetty (dear, faithful little friend !) and 
 Theresa, who had not shrunk from seeing him pass 
 through this ordeal, and old Lucy, his most abject 
 and devoted slave ; but it was not of them he was 
 thinking. His entire attention was riveted upon the 
 clerk of the court, as lie solemnly intoned (so his im 
 patient soul called it) the indictment. At its close 
 he stood indicted for murder. 
 
 There was an ominous stillness, a profound hush, 
 in the court-room when this mere prologue to the 
 drama they were all assembled to witness came to a 
 close. There was, too, an ominous hush outside. 
 The coppery August skies had suddenly become 
 overcast with masses of black, flying clouds, that 
 scudded athwart the hot sunshine. The song-birds 
 in the dusty tree-tops twittered in low, frightened 
 tones. Forks of lightning darted earthward from
 
 A STRAtfGE PILGRIMAGE. $${ 
 
 the high-piled clouds, followed swiftly by one awful 
 burst of sound, as of a huge cannon discharged 
 without premeditation. It smote startlingly upon 
 the air. The tethered beasts snorted with terror. 
 The loose window-sash of the court-room rattled un 
 der the shock. Theresa Glen passed a protecting 
 arm around Hetty s trembling form. There was a 
 moment of profound stillness. Then the Judge, in a 
 voice made puny by that awful trump of sound from 
 on high, was heard saying: 
 
 " What has the counsel for the defense to say ?" 
 
 Hugh Maury, turning his sightless eyes in the 
 direction of the Judge s bench, answered in a clear, 
 firm voice : 
 
 " May it please your Honor, there is no counsel 
 for the defense !" 
 
 "What, then, has the prisoner to answer for 
 himself?" the Judge resumed, in an official mono 
 tone. "Is he guilty or not guilty of the crime of 
 murder, as charged in the indictment of the State 
 against Hugh Maury, just heard of all these 
 present ?" 
 
 " Xot guilty !" 
 
 The words fell unfalteringly from the lips of the 
 prisoner. Kot even by an added shade of pallor did 
 his face bear witness to the awful tumult of his soul. 
 Xever, even in the first moment of his keen remorse 
 and terror over the passionate deed that had been 
 his undoing had he suffered more. There was a 
 murmur of surprise among the auditors. 
 
 The Judge told him to be seated. He sank 
 gratefully into the vacant chair between Doctor
 
 282 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Bemish and George. "With his hands resting upon 
 the cross-piece of his crutches, he listened unmoved 
 while the State s Attorney set forth, with ghastly 
 precision, all the details of the finding of Adrien 
 Michelet s dead body, all the bits of circumstantial 
 evidence that had led to the imprisonment of the 
 wrong man, and all the dastardliness of this murder 
 of a friendless foreigner, with lurid vehemence. It 
 was his duty to convict. 
 
 At its close, Hugh Maury arose voluntarily. 
 
 " I arise," he said., slowly and impressively, stand 
 ing with his unseeing eyes turned respectfully to 
 ward the Judge on the bench, " to make my state 
 ment in the cause of law and justice." 
 
 Again that awful trump of sound from the cloud- 
 capped sky. Then the summer thunder-storm was 
 upon them in all its fury. Peal after peal of awful 
 thunder followed quickly on the dancing, leaping, 
 darting forks of lightning with crashes which made 
 strong men start nervously and the little group of 
 women in the court-room to turn pale with appre 
 hension. In the midst of this uproar Hugh Maury 
 entered upon his public confession : 
 
 " As the indictment stands, your Honor, I am 
 charged with having, on the sixteenth day of May, 
 in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
 and fifty-six, willfully and with malice aforethought 
 murdered one Adrien Michelet, on the premises of 
 Doctor Henry Bemish, in this parish. 
 
 " To that charge of murder, your Honor, I plead 
 not guilty. But for the woe and suffering I have 
 wittinglv and unwittin^-lv inflicted on others some
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 0^3 
 
 punishment should be meted out to me, and it shall 
 be left to the judgment of the gentlemen of the 
 jury, who have been impaneled for this occasion, to 
 decide what my sentence shall be after I have told 
 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
 truth, nbout the killing of Adrien Michelet on the 
 sixteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one 
 thousand eight hundred and fifty -six. 
 
 ; For the pain my statement must necessarily give 
 to some present, I ask their pardon in advance." He 
 bent his head slightly in the direction of the spot 
 where Theresa Glen sat holding fast to Hetty s 
 little hand. "But my explanation must be full and 
 entire. 
 
 " On that day, may it please your Honor, a num 
 ber of the young people of this neighborhood had 
 met together, for a day of merry-making and fishing, 
 on the banks of the bayou that runs through the 
 Bemish place. Among the other young people as 
 sembled there was the unfortunate Adrien Michelet, 
 a Xew Orleans Creole whom Doctor Bemish had en 
 gaged as companion or tutor for his son, George Be 
 rn ish. If Adrien Michelet s character was under 
 discussion, I think there are those present who 
 would bear me out in saying that he was at all 
 times given to a certain freedom of speech and man 
 ner to ladies which filled every true man with dis 
 gust and indignation. 
 
 I was on the committee of refreshments at that 
 entertainment in the woods, and, returning from a 
 distant grove which we had selected for the table 
 arrangements, I came suddenly upon the lady whom
 
 284 A ST tlAKdH PfLdKLMAGM. 
 
 I had had the honor of escorting to the fish-fry, 
 walking rapidly toward me, closely followed by 
 Adrien Michelet, whose impudent assurance was 
 quelled at sight of me bearing wrath fully down 
 upon him. 
 
 "Some one caught my arm and begged me not to 
 break up the whole thing by a row. Jt was George 
 Bemish. 
 
 " I told him it was hard to keep my hands off the 
 scoundrel. He answered, Leave him to me! J 
 believe those words of his were fatally used against 
 him later on. All that he meant by them he imme 
 diately put into execution by ordering the French 
 man to return to the house and not appear among 
 his guests again that day an order which the tutor 
 obeyed, scowling savagely at me as he turned 
 away. 
 
 " It was perhaps four hours after that that I was 
 driving rapidly along Doctor Bemislfs lane, taking 
 home from the fish-fry the young lady whom Mich- 
 elet had annoyed. The sun had been below the 
 tree-tops long enough for dark shadows to lie along 
 the hedging that lined the lane. As I drove along, 
 Adrien Michelet sprang from among the shadows 
 with a mocking, insulting laugh. The horse shied, 
 and with a jump carried the buggy so far beyond 
 the spot where Michel et stood that he was left out 
 of sight. 
 
 " The whole thing was so sudden, and the lady s 
 fright at the plunge the horse made centered her 
 attention so exclusively on her own danger, that she 
 did not see what I saw a piece of blue ribbon held
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 285 
 
 tauntingly aloft by the Frenchman. I had missed 
 the bow from her neck and knew it belonged to 
 her. 
 
 " I could not drive on and leave that trophy in his 
 possession, knowing him capable of making false, 
 coarse boasts. Perhaps your Honor will say I 
 might have waited. I did not. I was out of the 
 buggy, with some mumbled excuse about having 
 dropped a glove. I am glad my horse carried the 
 buggy so far that day that by the time I got back 
 to Michelet the vehicle and its inmate were not to 
 be seen. 
 
 "I tried to ask for that bit of blue ribbon without 
 showing the fury that was blinding me. He told 
 me, with a devilish laugh, that it had been given to 
 him. I told him that he lied. In a moment his 
 knife was at my heart, and it was only a question as 
 to which one of us should strike first. The lot fell 
 to me. I left him there, not knowing, not caring 
 then, whether he was dead or alive. 
 
 u I had come off victor the bow of blue ribbon 
 was in my pocket. I hurried back to the buggy. 
 My blood was in such a feverish tumult that I do 
 not think I realized at all what I had done until 1 
 saw the horror of it reflected in other eyes. 
 
 u I left the neighborhood that night Hying as 
 men will try to fly from their own consciences and 
 the results of their own evil deeds. I think it never 
 once occurred to me that my rash deed could be laid 
 at another man s door. When I had been away a 
 month, or perhaps longer, I ventured to write to a 
 trusted friend, who was of the opinion that I had
 
 280 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 been called away to the sick-bed of a near relative. 
 I told him to write me of everything that had hap 
 pened in the neighborhood since my departure. 
 
 " He answered very promptly. He told me of the 
 finding of Adrien Michelet s body in Doctor Be- 
 mish s lane ; of George Bemish s arrest on suspicion 
 of the murder; of his subsequent escape from jail 
 and departure from the neighborhood ; of his old 
 father s crushed and despairing condition. 
 
 " It was then, may it please your Honor, that con 
 science plied her scorpion-lash most fiercely. George 
 Bemish had been my best-beloved friend through all 
 my brotherless, sisterless boyhood ! George Be 
 mish s father had been friend, father and mother, all 
 in one, to me. That they should be the selected vic 
 tims for my crime seemed a relined cruelty on the 
 part of fate. 
 
 " I wrote to my friend to learn, if possible, in 
 what direction George Bemish had fled. Following 
 the clew he sent me in reply, I began a pilgrimage 
 in search of the friend to whom I meant to confess 
 the truth and to bring home in triumph to his 
 father. God, in his infinite wisdom, however, or 
 dained otherwise. 
 
 " When, a- few months ago, your Honor, I found 
 m} T self the distorted and helpless thing I am to-day, 
 and knew that I could no longer pursue my search 
 for George Bemish, I turned my steps this way, 
 meaning to do all that it seemed I was to be per 
 mitted to do, and that was to relieve this, my friend, 
 from the foul suspicion that wrongfully attached to 
 his name, and to put myself into the hands of the
 
 A STP.ANGE PILGRIMAGE. 287 
 
 law, to be dealt with according to the judgment of 
 my peers. 
 
 " I have done both the case is in your hands." 
 
 He sat down exhausted, and for a moment his 
 heavy breathing could be heard by those nearest 
 him. 
 
 The storm was still raging. The rain was dashing 
 against the closed sash in blinding sheets. It was 
 only when Hugh Maury stopped speaking that any 
 one thought of the uproar outside. 
 
 All eyes Avere turned upon the State s Attor 
 ney. What step would he take next ? Before the 
 State s official had time to answer that question to 
 himself Doctor Bemish arose slowly to his feet. 
 
 He Avas an impressiA*e figure, standing there with 
 his sih^ery locks uncovered, one hand resting on 
 Hugh Maury s shoulder, Avhile -with the othfer he 
 motioned to be heard. He Avas a man whom all the 
 country-side had delighted to honor in the days of 
 his useful and beneficent reie;n as the doctor. 
 
 o 
 
 " May it please your Honor, and you, my friends, 
 who have come here for the sensation of this thing, 
 I should like to announce myself as a Avitness for the 
 defense. May I go on ?" This with his line blue 
 eves raised to the Judge, Avho responded by a low- 
 spoken " Yes." He AA-as afraid, stern official as he 
 Avas, to trust his A T oice with a longer ansAver. 
 
 " By the laAvs of compensation," the old man Avent 
 on in his IOAV, gentle voice, the voice that had in the 
 days gone by brought cheer and comfort to many a 
 sick and suffering one among his listeners, " this our 
 fellow-sinner deserves to be dealt by very leniently.
 
 288 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 The very elements are in a tumult over this scene of 
 man s retributive judgment. I, the man who above 
 all others have suffered most from that rash deed 
 with this single grave exception," laying his fatherly 
 hand upon Hugh s wavy brown hair, "desire to 
 plead his cause. Through him, I was bereft of son, 
 good name and peace of mind at one blow ! Through 
 him, I was left to battle against suspicion and cold 
 ness and aversion, where always friendly greetings 
 had been mine. Through him the son of my loins, 
 the one joy and comfort of my life, lay hidden like a 
 hunted animal for four bitter years. Through him 
 I was doomed to spend my declining years in such 
 bitterness of spirit, in such dreary loneliness, that I 
 have been tempted over and over again, my friends, 
 to curse God and die ! And yet I am proud this 
 day to call Hugh Maury my friend. 
 
 " Look at him, your Honor; look at him well ! Look 
 at the wooden crutches which so poorly supply the 
 place of a young man s strong, swift limbs ! Look 
 at the scarred lids which shield his sightless eyes ! 
 Does he need any counsel for the defense ? Has not 
 the God of infinite justice traced His own verdict 
 indelibly upon the poor maimed form of this man 
 whom I honor myself in calling my friend ? What 
 can your laws, or your lawyers, or your jury of his 
 peers take from him that would rob his life of one 
 single joy ? His peers !" The old man turned 
 abruptly upon the twelve jurymen in the box. 
 " Are you his peers ? Is there one among you all 
 who would have periled his life in the fierce flames 
 of a burning building to rescue, not a fair, young
 
 A. STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 280 
 
 heroine of romance, but a poor, old, humble slave, 
 whom every one else had forgotten \ Is there one 
 among you all who, having in a moment of hot 
 wrath taken the life of a fellow-creature, would have 
 consumed your years and your substance to free 
 another man s name from suspicion that, too, when 
 justice slumbered or had forgotten you ? If there is 
 such a one among you, gentlemen, then you are his 
 peer, and I honor you in admitting it." 
 
 The State s Attorney turned from this old man 
 eloquent as he ceased speaking, to address himself to 
 the jury. There was a commotion among the group 
 of women sitting within the rail. George Bemish 
 and Archibald Murray sprang forward simultane 
 ously. It was George Bemish who reached the 
 group first, and lifting Theresa s limp form in his 
 arms, bore her swiftly through the crowd into the 
 fresh, rain-washed air, followed closely by Archie 
 and Mrs. Glen. 
 
 A few moments of suspense ! Then there floated 
 out to them on the little balcony to w r hich they had 
 carried the fainting girl a murmur of applause 
 which swelled into an excited, triumphant cry ! The 
 crowd came surging from the open doors. 
 
 " What is it ? What are they saying ?" Theresa 
 asked, opening her eyes and looking into the first 
 pair of eyes that met hers. They were glistening 
 with tears ! those great, luminous eyes of George 
 Bemish s. 
 
 "It is a nolle pros." he answered, wishing from 
 his heart that she had not chosen that critical mo 
 ment to give Avay in. lie wanted to be in there
 
 200 A STRANGE PILGRTMAG-E. 
 
 Avhere the men were weaving their arms together 
 into a triumphal car for Hugh Maury, and where his 
 old father was sitting sobbing like a hysterical girl, 
 and where the Judge and the State s Attorney and 
 the twelve jurymen were all either searching for 
 their pocket-handkerchiefs or furtively stuffing 
 them back into their side pockets, and where Hetty 
 Ogden, that demure-faced, dove-eyed little Virginian 
 who in the last few weeks had come to enter so 
 largely into his calculations for the future, was 
 hovering about his father in that angelically con 
 solatory fashion which is given to but few women 
 and no man.
 
 A 8TRANUE PlLUULUAUE. 291 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIY. 
 
 HETTY STRAIGHTENS OUT THE SNARL. 
 
 TO FEEL that fate has done its very worst; 
 that there is no longer any call to gird up 
 one s loins to resistance ; to know that malice has 
 not a single poisoned dart left in its quiver ; to glide 
 monotonously through the hours that bring with 
 them nothing to shock or to startle the tired pulse, 
 sometimes brings a feeling akin to happiness to souls 
 that have been storm-tossed. 
 
 Theresa Glen, swinging lazily in a low-swung 
 hammock, out under the clear blue October skies, 
 reasoned thus to herself, and fancied for the moment 
 that she was enunciating a great moral axiom 
 which time had left for her to formulate. 
 
 She imagined she had conquered every rebellious 
 fiber of her moral being. In reality she was simply 
 extremely weak from the severe tension of mind 
 and body under which she had labored so long, and 
 was too tired to think, almost too tired to feel. To 
 her this lull was the death of passion. 
 
 Through the swaying branches of the glossy-leaved 
 magnolia grandiflora, into whose bark was driven 
 the ring and staple that supported one end of her 
 hammock, she could catch glimpses of bright blue 
 sky-patches ; through the nodding, waving rose 
 bushes that .were swinging their heavily-burdened
 
 202 A KTRANQE 
 
 branches restlessly under the cool evening breeze 
 she could see the lake dimpled and rumpled und 
 blue; Paul s tame poulter-pigeons were strutting 
 and cooing softly on the grass all about her feet. 
 Paul had been there in the hammock with her up to 
 a little while ago. The largest crumbs he had scat 
 tered to his pets were not all consumed yet. He had 
 been chattering to her in a sweet, childish treble 
 about his boy hopes and desires. 
 
 She liked to have Paul with her. He rested her. 
 He belonged to the future, and his childish prattle 
 was all of the things that were going to happen to 
 him or be done by him in the great untried to come. 
 More and more she tried to merge every interest of 
 her own life such a poor, marred life as it had 
 proven to be, she thought, with infinite sadness into 
 the fresh, springing, joyous hopes and fancies of the 
 boy who had just gone away from her, singing and 
 caroling like a lark. Paul s future should be her 
 future ! No one could rob her of that pure joy ! 
 
 A faint metallic click caused her to turn her eyes 
 in the direction of the front gate. Hetty Ogden 
 had just come through it, walking quickly, with her 
 little hands clasped about an immense bunch of 
 golden-rod, above whose yellow plumes her sweet, 
 flushed face could just be seen. 
 
 She was glad that the sight of the girl s bright, 
 sweet face had come to be really pleasant to her. 
 She ranked her affection for Hetty among her 
 achievements. It was a sure sign, she told herself, 
 that she was entirely and forever cured of that 
 transitory weakness for Hetty s cousin. She was
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIM AGE. 393 
 
 glad she could feel so lazily comfortable in her 
 swinging nest in spite of the fact that Hetty had 
 just parted from Archibald Murray at the front 
 gate after a long drive, which had kept them away 
 from the house fully an hour and sent the child 
 back to her with glowing cheeks and dancing eyes. 
 
 " May I sit in one end f she asked, untying her 
 hat-strings as she neared the hammock, and pushing 
 the damp rings of hair back from her forehead. 
 
 " Certainly," said Theresa, drawing her skirts a 
 little closer about her ankles ; " on one condition." 
 
 " And that is ?" Hetty asked, preparing to appro 
 priate her allowance of the hammock. 
 
 " That you don t swing, and that you do all the 
 talking. Swinging always makes me giddy, unless 
 I can regulate the motion, and I am afaid I am lazy 
 this afternoon." 
 
 Hetty laughed luxuriously as she curled up in a 
 knot, and with her clasped hands under her head 
 answered : 
 
 " I call that two conditions. I want to do all the 
 talking, however, this time, Miss Thersie. I have 
 something to tell you. I want your advice in a very 
 important matter." 
 
 She laid her offering of golden-rod in Theresa s 
 lap. 
 
 "Very important, pretty one?" 
 
 "Very nothing less than the selection of a 
 home !" she said, in a demure voice. 
 
 Theresa was silent. Hetty laughed musically. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of girl having three offers 
 in one day $" she asked, opening her eyes very wide
 
 94 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 to emphasize the magnitude of this annoance- 
 ment. 
 
 " Three offers ? From " 
 
 Theresa s voice was peculiarly distant. She had 
 never seen any approach to vulgarity in Doctor 
 Murray s pretty cousin. She hoped none was about 
 to develop on the strength of these conquests. 
 
 "Three offers from three gentlemen one, two, 
 three!" said Hetty, saucily, counting them off on 
 her fingers. " And all so equally eligible that with 
 out your advice, dear Miss Thersie, I am quite sure 
 I shall make a wrong choice, and that would be 
 fatal, you know." 
 
 "Then you have no individual preferences by 
 which to guide yourself in this grave decision?" 
 Theresa said, frigidly. There were limits to her 
 powers of endurance, she began to suspect, angrily. 
 
 Hetty laughed a little, low, almost insolent laugh, 
 and looked at her a second fixedly. It angered 
 Theresa still more to find herself flushing and paling 
 under the steady gaze of the girl s great, clear gray 
 eyes. Such a child as she was, too ! 
 
 " Oh, yes, I have !" said Hetty, mercifully turning 
 her eyes away and fixing them on a patch of blue 
 sky immediately over her head. " I have a very 
 decided preference ; but one s preferences are not 
 always the best guides, are they, in matters of this 
 sort 3" 
 
 "Not always," said Theresa. "But suppose you 
 tell me all about your conquests ?" 
 
 " Conquests ?" 
 
 " Offers, then, and I can advise better."
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 393 
 
 Instead of answering immediately, Hetty struck 
 the grass beneath the hammock sharply with the 
 toe of one little boot. The poulter-pigeons fluttered 
 clumsily out of her reach. The hammock swung 
 briskly. Theresa turned deathly white. 
 
 " Oh, what a wretch ! You told me not to swing ! 
 You are as pale as death ! I ll get right up and tell 
 my story on my knees ! That s where I ought to be 
 in your presence !" 
 
 " You ll do nothing of the sort, you ridiculous 
 child," Theresa said, putting out a detaining hand. 
 
 "I was trying to get this letter out of my 
 pocket," Hetty said, remorsefully, " and pockets are 
 so hard to get into nowadays. You are pale 
 yet," 
 
 " Xever mind me. If you have anything to tell me, 
 do it at once, Hetty. I dare not stay out after the 
 dew begins to fall. .1 am getting to be a rickety 
 old maid." 
 
 " Yes hum ! "Well, my first offer comes from 
 poor old Mr. John Rose." 
 
 " The brother of the crazy woman who made so 
 much trouble for your cousin ?" 
 
 "The very same. But Mr. Hose himself is a 
 saint." 
 
 " Rather an old saint for you, isn t he, Hetty ?" 
 
 Old for me ? Oh, oh, dear !" 
 
 The hammock swung again. This time involun 
 tarily. Hetty s irrepressible laugh rang clear as a 
 bell upon the quiet air. 
 
 " Dear, dear Miss Thersie, what a goose you must 
 take me for 1"
 
 29C A RTKANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " No, only for a very happy girl. I love to hear 
 you laugh." 
 
 " Poor old Mr. John ! He writes to tell me that, 
 as I was staying here so much longer than I had at 
 first planned to do, it had occurred to him that per 
 haps I was in some doubts as to where to make my 
 future home. He writes that poor Miss Parmelie is 
 dead at rest, he calls it and that if I will come 
 with the boys and take up my home there, he will 
 be a father to us all. Isn t he good P 
 
 " Very. But you don t want to go ?" 
 
 " I am going to do just whatever you advise me 
 to do. Just now, when Cousin Archie was putting 
 me out at the gate, he told me to go to you for ad 
 vice. He said I never could go to a sweeter or 
 wiser woman." 
 
 " Thanks both to you and your cousin. I only 
 wish I deserved such exalted commendation," said 
 Theresa, with a ring of irony in her cool tones. 
 
 " My second offer comes from Doctor Bemish and 
 is dreadfully like the first. You know Mr. Bemish 
 wants to take Mr. Maury to Europe. He says a sea 
 voyage will quite set him up." 
 
 Of course Theresa knew it. Since the day of 
 Hugh Maury s acquittal George Bemish had been a 
 very constant visitor at Glencove. 
 
 " To see Theresa," Archibald Murray said bitterly 
 to himself. 
 
 " To see the girl who is already affianced to her 
 cousin," Theresa said, as bitterly to herself. 
 
 " To see that dove-eyed girl, who, when her year 
 of mourning is expired, 1 will woo as never man
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. op? 
 
 wooed maiden before," George Bemish said to him 
 self. 
 
 Hetty alone saw nothing but a very pleasant 
 break in the long, quiet days, in having handsome 
 George Bemish row across the lake to play croquet, 
 or to take her out upon the water, or to sit by her as 
 she prattled as she never had prattled since the days 
 before she had helped " defraud her cousin." 
 
 Of course the Glens knew all about his plans for 
 Hugh Maury. 
 
 " I don t doubt it would be beneficial, but he 
 seems very happy with the Bemishes," she quietly 
 answered. 
 
 " Yes, happier than I ever saw him in Virginia. 
 Well, Doctor Bemish Avants me to come and keep 
 house for him while Mr. Bemish and Mr. Maury are 
 in Europe." 
 
 " And you would like that ?" 
 
 " Immensely, if nothing better offered. You 
 know I simply adore Doctor Bemish. He makes me 
 feel like a bird in a soft, warm nest." 
 
 " Then something better has offered ?" 
 
 " Yes ; Cousin Archie wants me to make a home 
 for him," Hetty said simply. 
 
 The shades of evening were falling fast. From 
 beneath the hand she had put up to arrange the 
 short curls over her forehead she watched Theresa 
 Glen furtively. Her quick ear caught the gasping 
 breath, her keen eyes the white-drawn pain in the 
 lovely face opposite her. It was Theresa who 
 presently broke the silence. 
 
 " That, then, would make you entirely happy ?"
 
 ?98 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 " I am not so sure. That arrangement, too, would 
 nave its drawbacks." 
 
 " Drawbacks !" 
 
 "Yes. Cousin Archie might get married, and 
 then where would I be ?" 
 
 " Married ! But I thought " 
 
 Hetty was out of the hammock now, and kneeling 
 down close by Theresa, she flung her arms about her 
 neck, kissing her tumultuously. 
 
 "Yes, married! What would I do when oh, 
 Thersie, don t let us all go on playing at cross-pur 
 poses any longer. I told Cousin Archie to drive 
 back this way after he had seen about old Mrs. 
 Matthews bad leg, and I would tell him what 
 you advised me to do. I see him getting out of the 
 buggy now. He needs some one to make a home 
 for him, sweet lady, but it is not Hetty. Not poor, 
 little, ridiculous, childish Hetty, to whom he never 
 gave a thought of that sort. Do you suppose 
 I have been blind?" A shower of kisses fell on 
 Theresa s lips, eyes and ears. The next moment she 
 was alone alone and trying to hush the wild 
 throbbing of a heart which only half an hour 
 before she had pronounced as well-regulated as a 
 first-class chronometer. She knew Hetty had rushed 
 away after that storm of kisses, leaving her white 
 dress, the hammock and the grass strewn with the 
 yellow plumes she had been at so much pains to cull 
 from the golden-rod along the route of her drive. 
 
 She heard some one breathing near her. She 
 would not open her eyes. Some one took the hands 
 that she had pressed to their quivering lids and
 
 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 399 
 
 softly removed them. Some one knelt by her side. 
 She opened her eyes in obedience to a subtle power 
 she could no longer resist. For a second she gazed 
 mutely in Archibald Murray s eyes. Then in a slow, 
 sweet, far-away voice she said to him : 
 
 " Once before I opened my eyes to find you kneel 
 ing just so by my side. Then, as now, you took my 
 hands and held them tenderly. You called yourself 
 my- - 
 
 " Lover !" he said, taking the words from her lips. 
 " Now, as then, I love you. Now as then, I would 
 give all that the world holds to call you mine. 
 Hetty sent me here. My wise, sweet little cousin, 
 who claims to be able to read the hearts of men and 
 maidens. Hetty promised me you would not repulse 
 me. 
 
 " She says I am all astray in thinking that any 
 one has a better right to speak to you this way than 
 I have - 
 
 " Hugh Maury ! Oh, no, no ! He we I was 
 very young, and " 
 
 "Not Hugh Maury George Bemish. Has he 
 not haunted Glencove ever since his reappearance ?" 
 
 "Hetty is here!" said Theresa, with a smile of 
 such radiance that all his doubts and fears melted 
 before it like snow under a noonday sun. 
 
 " And you oh, Theresa 
 
 He stretched out his arms imploringly. 
 
 " I am yours yours in very truth. Oh, my love, 
 where else have I been since first fate brought us 
 face to face ?" 
 
 Hetty, coming out upon the gallery refreshed and
 
 300 A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 redressed after her drive, heard a murmur of voices 
 out there in the hammock which made her smile as 
 she said, a little wistfully : 
 
 " Dear, dear old Archie ! Have I not more than 
 compensated for driving him from his home ?" 
 Raising her voice she said, in mocking tones that 
 reached the hammock with clearness : 
 
 " If you have anything to tell me, do it at once, 
 Hetty. I dare not stay out after the dew begins to 
 fall. I am getting to be a rickety old maid. " 
 
 Theresa laughed, and giving both hands to Doctor 
 Murray, rose from the hammock and walked sub 
 missively toward the spot where the laughing girl 
 stood waiting for them. 
 
 No, he would not go in, Archibald said ; he would 
 only wait for Hetty to tell him what answer he 
 must carry back to Doctor Bemish that evening, he 
 having been the old gentleman s ambassador. 
 
 " Tell him," said Hetty, " that I am going back to 
 Virginia to keep house for poor old Mr. John Rose. 
 Tell him, though, that I love him, dear old doctor, 
 just like a father." 
 
 It was George Bemish who crossed the lake that 
 same evening and persuaded Hetty to go out with 
 him under the full flood of moonlight, which she de 
 clared afterward was entirely responsible for her 
 sudden change of programme, and used such persua 
 sive arguments that on her way to her own room, 
 after he had left her, she stopped at Theresa s door 
 and opened it just wide enough to say, in a hissing 
 whisper : 
 
 " Thersie, I have changed my mind 1"
 
 .1 STRA A G E PILr.tt nf,\ G E. 301 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I am going to keep house for Doctor Bemish." 
 
 " Until when ?" 
 
 " Until Geo until Mr. Bemish and Mr. Maury 
 get back from Europe." 
 
 u And then 
 
 " We will all keep house together," she said, with 
 a clear, low laugh, that ran like a thread of sweet 
 music through Theresa Glen s happy reveries that 
 night. 
 
 THH END.