LIBRARY 
 
 University of California 
 
 IRVINE
 
 NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 MARMORNE. 
 
 " It is not, however, merely on account of outward characteristics that we have 
 called Marmorne a remarkable book. It is also one of the most powerful novels 
 of the narrative, as opposed to the analytical, class, that has appeared for a long time," 
 says the London Atheii&um. 
 
 Marmorne makes its appearance anonymously ; but we are persuaded that the 
 author is no novice, and are inclined to fancy that we recognize the hand, . . . which 
 reminds us not a little of Round my House. ... He has written a novel which is 
 extremely fascinating and eminently picturesque," says the Saturday Review. 
 
 This can only be characterized as a masterpiece of extraordinary artistic sim 
 plicity. ... In other words, it is a plain narrative of events, written with a skill and 
 a power that are truly admirable," says the London World. 
 
 " As a whole, it is one of the best of the series in which it appears," says the 
 Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " We think no reader of Around my House and The Unknown River will 
 hesitate long as to where to fix the authorship of Marmorne, says the Boston Tran- 
 script. 
 
 " The descriptive passages in this book entitle it to the first rank in the < No Name 
 nes, but there have been so many good novels included under that title that we are 
 not qmte prepared to say it is the best. It is, however, good enough to be included 
 among the most successful stories of the year," says the Boston Courier. 
 
 " We will not call this the best story of the No Name Series, because some one 
 
 is sure to do it, each volume having received that praise as it appeared. Cer- 
 
 unly there has been nothing better in the series ; and, if it is written by an American 
 
 t is a clever performance, for it has a thoroughly foreign air," says the New York 
 
 Herald. 
 
 " Marmorne, the latest of the < No Name Series, and by far the best of those 
 recently ,ssued under the title. It is attributed, and we think without mistake, to 
 the accomplished English painter and art critic, Philip Gilbert Hamerton. It is a 
 clever book," says the Hartford Courant. 
 
 "The No Name Series has had a large reputation : the present volume will add 
 new admirers, as it is the best of the series," says the Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 "One of the best of the No Name Series which has been thus far issued is the 
 lumber now before us. From the very outset it yields the comfort afforded bv the 
 
 uch of a strong hand It is, in any event, a book which Hamerton cannot 
 
 regret to have ascribed to him, as it is full worthy of his genius and reputation," says 
 the Chicago Tribune. 
 
 In one volume, 16mo. Cloth. ilt and red-lettered. 81.00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When 
 not to be found, send directly to the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.

 
 NO NAME SERIES. 
 
 MIRAGE.
 
 NO NAME SERIES. 
 
 11 Is THE GENTLEMAN ANONYMOUS ? Is HE A GREAT UNKNOWN ? " 
 
 DANIEL DERONDA. 
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " KISMET." 
 ft 
 
 ItOrqt 
 J 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 1878.
 
 Copyright, 1878, 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
 
 Natural laws we shall never modify , embarrass 
 us as they may ; but there is still something in the 
 nobler or less noble attitude "with which we watch 
 their fatal combinations."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 I. "PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE" 9 
 
 II. SHOWING HOW THEY WENT UP TO THE TEMPLE . 23 
 
 III. A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS 32 
 
 IV. GOING TO JERICHO 45 
 
 V. SHOWING WHY Miss VARLEY LOOKED AT THE* 
 
 STARS 59 
 
 VI. CROSS COUNTRY 67 
 
 VII. STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE .... 81 
 
 VIII. ON THE HOUSE-TOP 96 
 
 IX. SOME GOOD SAMARITANS 106 
 
 X. BLUE LILIES 116 
 
 XL IN ARCADY 127 
 
 XII. SHOWING HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 136 
 
 XIII. BY THE WATERS OF GALILEE 151 
 
 XIV. SCHON-ROHTRAUT l6o 
 
 XV. DAWN 173 
 
 XVI. AFTER MANY DAYS 186 
 
 XVII. UN ENFANT DU SIECLE 197 
 
 XVIII. WHICH CONTAINS SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LAW 
 RENCE FAMILY 207 
 
 XIX. "!L N EST D AMOUR si TRISTE QUI N AIT SON 
 
 SOUVENIR" 228 
 
 XX. ONE SIDE OF THE QUESTION 242
 
 vm 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXI. THE OTHER SIDE 252 
 
 XXII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END 263 
 
 XXIII. ANOTHER STEP 274 
 
 XXIV. IN WHICH MR. LAWRENCE READS MERIMEE . . 282 
 XXV. ANOTHER LIFE . . 294 
 
 XXVI. "AFTER THREE YEARS" 306 
 
 XXVII. THE LAST LOOK BACK 331 
 
 XXVIII. MIRAGE 340
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE." 
 
 HER name was Constance Constance Varley. 
 At that time she was probably between one and 
 two and twenty ; a fair-haired girl, with eyes as clearly, 
 frankly blue as the open blossom of a blue marsh-flower. 
 Of her character and disposition it is somewhat more 
 difficult to speak. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that 
 in those days there was no one who had any very defi 
 nite understanding of either. Miss Varley herself had 
 perhaps thought rather more about it than is common 
 with girls of her age ; but, on the whole, one s own self- 
 judgment is apt to be of a vague and desultory nature, 
 showing but little of that trenchant singleness of im 
 pression that fine infallibility of decision which 
 enable us to classify the actions, of our fellow-men. It 
 has already been observed that the difficulty of judging 
 any human being is materially increased by the slightest 
 study of the subject. 
 
 But this was a consideration which, fortunately enough, 
 had never occurred to any of Miss Varley s acquain 
 tance. " Constance Varley, the dearest girl in all the 
 world and my intimate friend, has promised to come 
 with us. Tom is delighted. I am delighted. I am 
 sure I need hardly ask if you are not delighted too," 
 Mrs. Thayer had written on this occasion of their jour-
 
 10 MIRAGE. 
 
 ney. " But young men are so curious nowadays. Per 
 haps you do not care for pretty girls any longer, Jack ? " 
 she added ; and Mr. Jack Stuart, reading the letter 
 before his club fire, had laughed and thought what an 
 inveterate match-maker little Fanny had become. It 
 was reported later that he had even grumbled a little 
 over the fact to his more intimate friends ; protesting 
 that things had got to a pretty pass when a man could 
 not even take a trip to the East without being let in for 
 doing escort-duty to a lot of women. It was also re 
 marked with what prompt and unanimous sympathy the 
 complaint was received ; an exhibition of feeling which 
 certainly made it difficult to account for the abnormal 
 alacrity and interest displayed by Mr. Stuart in his final 
 consultations with his tailor and bootmaker on the sub 
 ject of his Syrian outfit. 
 
 " I do like your cousin ; I like him very much," Miss 
 Varley had assured her friend in the privacy of her 
 chamber that morning. " And then, you know, I had 
 seen him before, ever so long ago at the Farm so 
 that he does not seem a stranger. But I don t think he 
 can have been quite so imposing then. At least, I 
 don t remember those boots." And then Mrs. Thayer 
 had grown serious again, and declared that Constance 
 was always making the wrong people appear ridiculous. 
 " As though I should presume to laugh at such a jeune 
 premier as Mr. Stuart, Fanny ; unless, indeed, I did it 
 in self-defence merely, as a protest against being daz 
 zled," the girl answered carelessly. And then her friend 
 had been pacified, and kissed her, and they had gone 
 out together arm-in-arm into the windy solitude of an 
 Ismailian street. 
 
 There had !>een a good deal of previous discussion up 
 at Cairo as to the length of time to be devoted to Is- 
 mai lia. Mrs. Thayer had even waxed eloquent on the 
 subject, bringing a long array of facts and guide-books 
 in support of her enthusiasm ; but by six o clock that 
 evening I fancy there was but little diversity of opinion 
 left among them as to the interest and merits of the
 
 " PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE." 1 1 
 
 desert town. For Isma ilia is only a singularly flat place 
 a city built upon the levelled sand the wide spaces 
 and open look of its streets reminding one of a sea 
 bathing village : its houses running into that hopeless 
 style of ornamentation which suggests the " villa to let." 
 The greater part of them are but one story high, with 
 enormous projecting roofs, from under which the win 
 dows and doors peer out with a crushed yet indomitable 
 expression, and bear a fantastic resemblance to the face 
 of a good man struggling with adverse circumstance. 
 And, indeed, as Major Thayer remarked, the whole 
 place shares in that fantastic and temporary appearance, 
 and affects one oddly after awhile, inspiring curious 
 doubts as to its probable duration and the advisability 
 of sleeping there. For there was not a living creature 
 abroad that day. As they passed along the silent 
 streets, through the large abandoned squares, their ad 
 vent seemed unnoticed and unheralded save by the fierce 
 and steady wind ; and although at first there had been 
 a gallant effort made at merriment, it was not long be 
 fore Mr. Stuart s allusions to the promised beauties of 
 the desert town were received with melancholy resigna 
 tion. By the time they reached the restaurant where 
 dinner had been ordered, I think their leading impres 
 sion was one of blank dismay. 
 
 At the cafe door they all paused for a moment, look 
 ing back. A fiercer gust of wind lifted a cloud of sand 
 across the empty square. A thin despondent pariah 
 dog limped painfully along, seeking for shelter from the 
 blast. From the large white house across the way, 
 bearing the inscription Pensionnat de Demoisells, came 
 the feeble tinkling protest of an aged and unresisting 
 piano. 
 
 " See Ismailia and die, Fanny," suggested Miss Var- 
 ley wickedly. 
 
 " On the whole I think I should prefer to die first," 
 Mrs. Thayer answered, with conviction. 
 
 But as the evening wore on the situation brightened. 
 A long and intimate conversation with the buxom land-
 
 12 MIRAGE. 
 
 lady, who began by informing them, with pardonable 
 pride, of her fourteen years residence dans cet affreux 
 desert, and then dismissed the entire Eastern question 
 with a slight French shrug, had had a reassuring effect 
 upon their nerves. The discovery at the farther end of 
 the hall of the small theatre, by the aid of which ces 
 messieurs were wont to beguile their evenings, was a 
 still stronger argument in favor of the problematic 
 population. 
 
 " In fact, I think you might almost be justified in 
 stating, in your journal, that Ismailia was inhabited at 
 a comparatively recent period of the world s history," 
 Major Thayer remarked to his wife. " I confess I have 
 had my doubts." 
 
 Miss Varley was examining the stage. Miss Varley 
 was great at private theatricals. " Indeed, I consider 
 that quite one of my specialities," she informed Mr. 
 Stuart in a confidential aside ; " it is a pity we did not 
 know of this place before. We might have had a re 
 hearsal this afternoon, and astonished the natives, with 
 a view to charity, at night. I should have liked that. 
 And I should have liked to see their faces at home when 
 they heard, as they would hear, that we were starring it 
 in the provinces on our way to Palestine." 
 
 Mr. Stuart laughed, and sprang up on the platform 
 beside her. 
 
 "It is not half a bad little theatre this," he said, ap 
 provingly. 
 
 " The very place for a play. Major Thayer ! " 
 
 " Well, my dear ? " 
 
 " My name is Pauline, if you please. But what is the 
 Lady of Lyons without a lover ? I want a lover " 
 
 " Why did you not ask me, then ? " said Jack. 
 
 Miss Varley smiled. " I don t know about your making 
 a good lover," she answered calmly. She looked at him 
 critically. "You would probably move about too much 
 on the stage. Major Thayer, now, is famous for his 
 Claude Melnotte, but you " 
 
 It was not the way in which Mr. Stuart was accustomed
 
 "PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE." 13 
 
 to have his remarks received. It was a point which 
 would bear arguing, he observed, leaning up against the 
 side scene and looking down in Miss Varley s face. 
 Miss Varley might at least have given him a trial, he 
 objected perhaps a trifle more earnestly than the oc 
 casion absolutely required. 
 
 In the pause which ensued, Mrs. Thayer made another 
 discovery. The row of wooden boxes ranged along the 
 wall were found, on inspection, to contain the entire 
 dramatic wardrobe of the missing company ; and half 
 an hour later any stranger happening in if such an 
 event had been a possibility in Ismai lia would have 
 been rewarded by the spectacle of two gentlemen in 
 Louis XV. costume and powdered wigs sedately drink 
 ing their tea in friendly companionship with a somewhat 
 dubious Spanish peasant and a young lady clad in com 
 plete bridal array. 
 
 But for this last metamorphosis it was the landlady 
 alone who was responsible. If mademoiselle would 
 only allow her, she had suggested, there was in her own 
 room a costume but a costume ! Of the best! It 
 was but even now that she had been engaged in repair 
 ing it. If mademoiselle would permit ? And Miss 
 Varley had laughed but submitted. 
 
 As she reappeared some moments later the landlady 
 had followed her, a wreath of artificial flowers in her 
 hand. 
 
 It was a thousand pities not to complete the toilette ; 
 and mademoiselle looked so like an angel in all that 
 white : but what would you ? It was a superstition, a 
 betise ; but mademoiselle could not have her orange- 
 blossoms put on by the hand of an old married woman. 
 " Ca porte malheur" she said. If monsieur now would 
 consent ? Her quick eyes swept over the group and 
 fastened with ready tact on Mr. Stuart. If mademoiselle 
 would allow it ? And Miss Varley again consented. 
 
 But as she threw off her wreath an hour later it was 
 with some slight petulant exclamation of dismay. 
 
 " Why do you give me orange flowers with concealed
 
 14 MIRAGE. 
 
 weapons in them, Mr. Stuart ? You bring me bad luck," 
 she said, and held out her hand for him to see, A few 
 red drops were slowly trickling from a deep scratch 
 across its soft pink palm. "You are like the Greeks 
 your gifts are dangerous. I shall avoid them after 
 this," she added, laughing. 
 
 That Mr. Stuart s contrition was both sincere and 
 eloquent in its expression could easily be gathered from 
 the heightened color with which Miss Varley turned 
 away ; but his actual words were lost in the general 
 good-night which followed. The two rooms provided for 
 their party were a few steps farther down the street 
 large empty chambers, with doors opening directly out 
 upon the side-walk. 
 
 " I don t think Ismai lia has turned out so badly after 
 all," Mrs. Thayer remarked, sitting up in bed the better 
 to observe the slower movements of her companion. 
 " At least, you seemed to be enjoying yourself pretty 
 well, Constance. I wonder what Jack thinks of the way 
 he spent his evening now ? " 
 
 It was a question Miss Varley professed herself unable 
 to answer. 
 
 " As a flirtation I think it may be said to have been a 
 success. I do not think no, I really da not think I can 
 remember ever having seen any thing progressing more 
 satisfactorily," Mrs. Thayer continued lazily from her 
 vantage-ground among the pillows. " But whether I 
 ought to countenance it as your chaperon " 
 
 " Is a point you may as well decide upon to-morrow 
 morning, dear. At least, I, for one, am going to sleep. 
 If my flirtations I never flirted in my life but if my 
 flirtations, as you choose to call them, succeed in keep 
 ing you awake, it is more than they have ever done for 
 me," Miss Varley concluded, with a smothered yawn. 
 
 But her next action was perhaps hardly in strict ac 
 cordance with the heartlessness of this speech. Indeed, 
 as she turned her face away from the open window, its 
 changed and softened expression was patent even to 
 Mrs. Thayer s sleepy eyes.
 
 "PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE." 15 
 
 " Is there any thing there to be seen ? What is it, 
 Constance ? " she demanded, raising herself upon one 
 arm. But Miss Varley had blown out the light. It was 
 nothing. In fact, she was only looking at the night, to 
 see if there were any stars, she answered, with some 
 confusion. But the sky was covered with clouds again, 
 and " that was all," she said. 
 
 It was between six and seven o clock the next morning 
 when they started for Port Said. At first the steamer 
 crosses a wide lake-like enclosure whose waves, of a 
 deep sea-blue, were lifting and tossing with what seemed 
 a new and delicious freshness after the long tranquillity 
 of the Nile voyage and then turns suddenly aside and 
 enters the Suez Canal, leaving behind it the billowy 
 sand-hills of Ismai lia, to begin a long, long, endlessly 
 long stretch of water, with high steep banks on either 
 hand, which only break at rare intervals and let one 
 catch a glimpse of the vast level desert beyond. When 
 they started, the sky was still clear overhead, but an 
 ominous wind was tearing and scattering the cloud- 
 masses at the horizon, ruffling the long straight strip 
 of canal, and running along the low gray fringe of shrubs 
 that lines the water s edge. 
 
 The little steamer moved but slowly forward. Now 
 and then they overtook some man, standing up to his 
 waist in the canal, sounding the depth of the encroach 
 ing sand. Once, an Arab sportsman passed them, car 
 rying a long gun over his shoulder, his head muffled in 
 countless folds of linen, his brown dress fluttering wildly 
 in the wind. As they drew nearer he slowly climbed the 
 bank, turning again to look at them, and making Miss 
 Varley point out to her companion the singular beauty 
 and distinctness of a figure seen against the desert sands. 
 " It is a pity you were not with us in Egypt," she added, 
 carelessly. 
 
 As she spoke, Mrs. Thayer rose quietly from her 
 chair, gathered together her gloves and book and par 
 asol, tapped her husband on the shoulder, and delib 
 erately walked away to the farther part of the deck.
 
 1 6 MIRAGE. 
 
 And Constance looked after her with a deprecatory 
 smile. 
 
 "That is Fanny s little protest," she said, laughing. 
 "You see, Major Thayer and I have simply driven 
 poor Fanny wild by talking about the Pharaohs ; and 
 as she hated the Nile, and as she sternly disapproved 
 of each temple and tomb and pyramid, she always flies 
 whenever there is any symptom of our mentioning 
 either." 
 
 " But you liked it, didn t you ? " 
 
 " Liked what ? Egypt ? Well, I don t think that is 
 quite the way I should put it. There are some things 
 to which the word would hardly apply, you know." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I see. I suppose you must have found it 
 rather slow at times," said Mr. Stuart, simply. 
 
 Miss Varley smiled. It was not exactly the idea she 
 had intended to convey. "I meant oh, what is the 
 need of explaining things ? you know what I mean. I 
 would no more think of liking Egypt than of liking the 
 starlight or the sea. It is one of those things which does 
 not admit of pretty epithets. You would not think of 
 calling a sunset pretty, you know." 
 
 "Why not? except that I should say nothing about 
 it in all probability. I never look at sunsets and that 
 kind of thing unfess somebody tells me to. Now 
 you" He hesitated, and looked at the girl rather 
 dubiously. " My cousin Tom must be the very fellow 
 to get along well with you, I suppose. Tom can talk 
 poetry and all that sort of stuff by the hour when he 
 likes." 
 
 " Oh, yes. Major Thayer and I are quite in the habit 
 of doing that," she answered gravely. " You can have 
 no idea, until you have heard us, what extremely poetical 
 people we are." 
 
 Mr. Stuart laughed. But one could never tell when 
 Miss Varley was in earnest, or when she was merely 
 chaffing a fellow, he complained. 
 
 " That is because every thing is premeditated with 
 me," said Constance. " Somebody told me once that I
 
 "PARTANT POUR LA SYRfE." 17 
 
 was inscrutable. I have been endeavoring to become 
 so ever since." 
 
 Mr. Stuart had never guessed a conundrum in his life. 
 But still, impossible to comprehend as Miss Varley might 
 be, he thought that with an effort 
 
 " As though you would be likely to make an effort ! " 
 
 " And why shouldn t I ? " 
 
 "Oh, I don t know. Chiefly because it is not your 
 nature to, I suppose." 
 
 " I should like to know how you found that out." 
 
 " Oh, I m a student of character, Mr. Stuart ; and I 
 have theories : I believe in intuitions and things." 
 
 " I defy you to tell me of a single leading trait of 
 mine," said Stuart, throwing himself back in his chair, 
 and assuming as severely non-committal an expression 
 as was compatible with a somewhat weak yet handsome 
 countenance. 
 
 Miss Varley looked at him with some attention. There 
 can be no doubt that she was distinctly impressed by 
 the striking symmetry of his features in their enforced 
 repose. Whether she understood their weakness it is 
 impossible to say. 
 
 " You are the very reverse of indolent, Mr. Stuart. 
 Indeed, I am convinced that a kind of stern devotion 
 to an ideal of unremitting labor is as marked a trait of 
 your character as is your love of Nature sunsets, and 
 all that sort of thing, you know," she added, mis 
 chievously. 
 
 They were both experiencing that slight but exhilarat 
 ing form of excitement which all young and healthy- 
 minded creatures experience in making one another s 
 acquaintance the delightful curiosity of the explorer 
 into strange lands, where each familiar object derives a 
 new charm from its unaccustomed surrounding. And, 
 like other explorers, they began by looking for resem 
 blances. The discovery of dissonance and limitation 
 belongs properly to the second and later period of such 
 studies. It is true that modern science and the Geo 
 graphical Society have curiously narrowed the extent of
 
 1 8 MIRAGE. 
 
 lands as yet unclassified. I have sometimes thought 
 that what we have agreed to call the best society has 
 achieved a somewhat similar result. 
 
 But this, I need hardly say, was a reflection which did 
 not occur to Mr. Stuart. Nor do I think that either 
 then or later did he ever make any attempt at analyzing 
 his sensations. For the present it was certainly quite 
 enough for him to sit beside this agreeable companion, 
 whom chance had thrown in his way, letting himself be 
 easily amused, and filling up the pauses between his 
 remarks by lazily watching the motion of her fingers. 
 Constance had remarkably pretty hands. At that par 
 ticular moment they were busily employed in alternately 
 ruffling and smoothing down the delicate tawny-colored 
 head of a large Syrian greyhound the last purchase 
 before leaving Cairo. She was leaning a little back in 
 her chair, the dog s head resting on her lap ; and Mr. 
 Stuart s eyes followed, with a certain involuntary inter 
 est, the light, firm pressure of her touch, noting, with an 
 appreciative eye, the warm, creamy curves and shell- 
 pink dimples in the supple hand and wrist. An absurd 
 and unreasonable impatience of her action mixed itself 
 up oddly enough with what he was saying. 
 
 " You will spoil that dog," he said, at last, abruptly. 
 
 Miss Varley glanced at him with some surprise. 
 
 "What spoil Lione? Oh, no; why should I? 
 Poor old boy ! Do see what beautiful eyes he has, Mr. 
 Stuart ? " She took the dog s head in both hands, and 
 held it up towards Jack. " Such loving, melancholy 
 eyes ! But I don t believe in them one bit, you know. 
 People tell me that these greyhounds are wretchedly 
 cold-hearted creatures in their way ; and indeed this 
 fellow here did not mind leaving his old master in the 
 least. And he will follow any one he will go to Has 
 san as quickly as he will come to me." 
 
 She let his head drop again, and one could almost 
 have imagined that the dog understood her words, to 
 see him lay a protesting paw upon her knee, and gravely 
 thrust his cold black nose into her hand.
 
 "PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE." 19 
 
 " What do you keep the brute for, then ? " said Stuart. 
 
 " Oh, I like him. He reminds me of another dog I 
 knew once upon a time. And then all unreasoning 
 animals are fond of me. I don t entirely despair of 
 winning his affections yet, you see. Don t you believe 
 I can ? " 
 
 But Mr. Stuart had moved his chair rather impatiently 
 to one side, and spoke of something else. A moment 
 later he glanced around again. He leaned slightly for 
 ward, and took up a string of amber beads which lay 
 upon Miss Varley s lap. 
 
 " No, please. I can t possibly let you have my beads 
 to play with. I never let any one touch them," said 
 Constance, quickly, putting out her hand. 
 
 "You had these on yesterday. Do you always wear 
 them, then ? " holding the yellow string against the light. 
 
 "Always. I do not think I have been without them 
 a day for the last three years or more. And will you 
 give them back to me, please ? " 
 
 " I don t really see why I should," said Mr. Stuart, 
 deliberately. " If I did, it would only be to gratify 
 you, and you have refused to gratify me. You would 
 not take my advice about that dog, you know." 
 
 " Poor old Lione ! " said Miss Varley, laughing. She 
 bent down and laid her cheek against the delicate tawny 
 head. " As though you and I were not to be friends 
 any more ! But we are above being dictated to in that 
 fashion, are we not, Lione ?" 
 
 " Here, Lione ! Come here, sir ! " said Mr. Stuart, 
 sharply. 
 
 The dog started, pricked up his ears, hesitated for a 
 moment, and then walked deliberately over to Jack. 
 
 " That is what Lione thinks about it. You see that I 
 am generous enough to refrain from any comment," 
 said that gentleman, with a triumphant smile. 
 
 Miss Varley leaned languidly back in her chair. It 
 was a lesson not to count upon people not even upon 
 dogs, she said, and folded her hands meekly together. 
 But the meekness was somewhat out of harmony with
 
 20 MIRAGE. 
 
 the expression of her eyes a moment later. " For a 
 member of the Society for the Promotion of Cruelty to 
 Animals, I am glad to observe that your instincts are 
 rather better than your principles," she said, and looked 
 meaningly at the fingers absently playing with Lione s 
 collar. 
 
 Mr. Stuart drew back his hand and looked extremely 
 foolish. But it was an altogether different affair, he 
 explained. There was no resemblance between that 
 weak indulgence of a dog s worst susceptibilities, which 
 Miss Varley was fostering, and the kindly yet authorita 
 tive touch of a master. It was only proper some ac 
 knowledgment should be made of the animal s prompt 
 and commendable recognition of masculine superiority, 
 he said. 
 
 And in the half-serious discussion which followed, 
 Lione s claims to attention faded entirely away, until 
 like many another blameless individual he found 
 himself of not the slightest interest to the very advocate 
 who was pleading his case. It was perhaps with a for 
 tunate philosophy that he accepted the situation, and 
 laid himself down to sleep at Mr. Stuart s feet. For 
 human biography must, from a dog s point of view, be 
 chiefly characterized by a consistent lack of logic. And 
 much of what followed was strictly biographical. What 
 ever reason Mr. Stuart might have had for listening 
 with a certain pleasure to those details of Miss Varley s 
 home life, those descriptions of her father and step 
 mother, those anecdotes about " the boys," Lione would 
 undoubtedly have heard them with the most disinterested 
 indiffe rence. 
 
 Of Jack s past history I fancy there was something 
 more to tell ; and yet, broadly speaking, it could be 
 reduced to the common-place college experience of an 
 ordinary young man. And following fast upon those 
 years of hearty enjoyment and involuntary study, came 
 years of work Mr. Stuart was in his father s bank 
 in which the same liberal hand seemed to preside over 
 the proportion of enjoyment to labor. Altogether, a
 
 "PART ANT POUR LA SYR IE." 21 
 
 life flowing smoothly and cheerfully along a well-cut 
 channel; a healthy, pleasant, harmless if not a pic 
 turesque existence. 
 
 Once only in the course of that morning the little 
 steamer stopped. It was at a small and dingy inn, 
 built close upon the water s edge, with a rickety wooden 
 piazza running around its front, and a poor attempt at a 
 garden on one side. A wretched little garden it was, 
 full of great boxes of earth, in which a few feeble gera 
 niums and some sickly-looking verbena-plants were 
 vainly struggling for subsistence. And there was some 
 thing of this same suggestion of useless effort in every 
 thing about the place in the loose and slouching 
 figure of the man who waited on the steps to receive 
 such scanty orders for food as the travellers might 
 give ; in the gaunt mistrustful dogs, creeping warily 
 in and out among the tables ; in the pale and hollow- 
 eyed little woman, whose eager, sallow face was light 
 ing up with unfamiliar smiles in answer to Miss 
 Varley s questions. 
 
 For, " Are those your own children ? " that young 
 lady was asking in her gentlest voice. " You must find 
 it very difficult to keep them so wonderfully neat and 
 clean. But what a nice place you have got for them to 
 play in here, and how pleasant it must be for them to 
 sit in the shade and see the ships go by." 
 
 " They will be getting wilder, more like savages, every 
 year. Tony ! come here this moment and speak to 
 mademoiselle when she is good enough to notice you. 
 But they will not come when you call them. It is of no 
 use," the mother said in her complaining, peremptory 
 voice. " They are savages." 
 
 " They are dear littte children, I think," said Con 
 stance, looking up with friendly eyes. " And I am sure 
 I have something here in my bag that Tony would be 
 glad to see, if he would only come here for a moment." 
 She held out her hand, and the child crept shyly nearer, 
 hiding his face in his arm, and glancing at her furtively 
 from behind the shelter of each table-leg and chair, until
 
 22 MIRAGE. 
 
 at last he gained courage to put his small brown fingers 
 into hers. 
 
 And Jack looked on with an approving smile. 
 
 They were dirty little beggars, those children ; and 
 as for the girl, Mr. Stuart had never seen such a terri 
 ble squint in his life. But then it always looked well to 
 see a woman take to a child any child. It was the 
 proper feminine thing to do. And if there was a thing 
 which Mr. Stuart abhorred . " As for myself I quite 
 dislike children, I assure you," said Constance, look 
 ing calmly up. " I have two little half-brothers of my 
 own, you know, and I find them very disagreeable in 
 a general way. Of course that does not prevent One s 
 being kind to the poor little wretches when one has a 
 chance ; but still " 
 
 " I wish you would not say such things about your 
 self. With me, of course, it is different ; but if any 
 body else should hear you make such a speech I 
 should not like it at all," said Jack, very decidedly. 
 
 And so the afternoon wore on. As the hours passed 
 the day grew darker, there were even a few drops of rain, 
 and then the wind rising once more and tearing the 
 low-lying mists asunder a brilliant burst of sunshine, 
 which turned to reddish gold the shining rosy breasts 
 of a flock of pink flamingoes rising from out the marsh. 
 It was the last bit of color in the day. An hour later a 
 violent storm of rain and wind was blotting out the un 
 certain outline of the town. Even before they left the 
 steamer they could already hear that dull booming sound 
 of the surf upon the shore, which in after days became 
 a part of all their impressions of Port Said. 
 
 The ladies were both tired that night, Miss Varley 
 especially so, and shortly after sUnner they had gone to 
 their rooms. But an hour or so later, passing along the 
 corridor, Mr. Stuart came suddenly upon a lighted can 
 dle flaring wildly in the draught, and heard a voice in 
 viting him to come outside upon the terrace and listen 
 to the waves. 
 
 The rain had ceased. A fresh wet wind was blowing
 
 HOW THEY WENT TO THE TEMPLE. 23 
 
 steadily, strongly in, bringing with it the chill salty smell, 
 the monotonous roar of the turbulent seething sea. 
 
 " We shall have a rough passage to-morrow," the young 
 man said, looking up at the inky blackness of the 
 sky. 
 
 Miss Varley did not answer. She was crouching 
 against the balustrade, wrapped in some thick white 
 cloak. Her hair was blown back from her face, her 
 cheeks were pale, her eyelids heavy, with the fierce 
 caresses of the wipd. As they entered the lighted hall 
 again Mr. Stuart was struck by the singular abstracted 
 look of her lips and eyes. 
 
 "There is not a star to be seen," she said absently, 
 glancing up as he closed and bolted the door. " Ever 
 since you joined us do you know this is the third suc 
 cessive night there has not been a star ? I hope it is 
 not an evil omen." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHOWING HOW THEY WENT UP TO THE TEMPLE. 
 
 AND perhaps Miss Varley was right. Perhaps 
 there was some occult influence at work. It 
 certainly looked like it the morning they came in sight 
 of Jaffa a still gray morning, broken by brief sharp 
 intervals of pattering rain. A morning made even more 
 monotonous bv the slow regular grinding of the waves 
 against the beach ; made even more disconsolate by the 
 captain s hesitation as to whether they could ever get 
 ashore. 
 
 For the harbor of Jaffa is a mere convention an 
 accident of wind and tide. A long scattered reef of 
 rock, the debris of the ancient city, reaches across from 
 side to side, broken only by two narrow clefts through 
 which it is just possible for boats to pass ; while all
 
 24 MIRAGE, 
 
 about, a line of leaping water, a cloud of high-tossed 
 spray, flashes and breaks beneath the overhanging town. 
 For Jaffa is a city set upon a hill, a storm-bound, sea 
 girt city, blanched and worn, and beaten by the wind ; 
 the oldest city in the world, gray, heaped, defiant, set 
 ting its steadfast face against the sea. 
 
 And clinging to its steps, thronging its dark and tor 
 tuous lanes, what strange, what multicolored life is 
 there ! Now elbowed off the slippery stepping-stones 
 by some wild Russian pilgrim, his worldly goods slung 
 in a cumbrous roll across his back ; now crushed 
 against some contemplative Turk smoking in his door 
 way by that long string of heavy-laden camels, ad 
 vancing with the calm consciousness of size ; again, 
 compelled to wade through a pool of water to avoid this 
 row of pushing, imperturbable donkeys; knocked about 
 by the natives, shoved aside by every porter, apostro 
 phized in every Eastern tongue ; splashed, muddied to 
 the eyes. 
 
 " Did not some one write a book on the Pleasures of 
 Eastern Travel ? " asked Mrs. Thayer resignedly, as 
 they passed out from under the last crumbling and 
 grass-fringed archway. 
 
 A long- wide common in the condition of a ploughed 
 field after an inundation made picturesque with domes 
 of snowy canvas, made dreary with the mournful line of 
 Cook tourists, each seated in his own mud-puddle at 
 the door of his own tent and they had reached a 
 lovely country lane winding up the side of a hill between 
 two gray-green rows of prickly-pear. Past these a sea 
 of orchards, bending, and fragrant, and golden with 
 orange-trees. The noise and jar of the city fell away 
 from them as in a dream ; the sky was all blue and 
 tremulous after the rain ; a weak soft wind came wan 
 dering across the fields, bringing with it the sweet 
 breath of a world in flower; and, for the first time, 
 Miss Varley realized that this was springtime and 
 springtime in Syria. 
 
 And, as the hours passed, this impression only deep-
 
 HOW THEY WENT TO THE TEMPLE. 2$ 
 
 ened. It was yet early in the afternoon as they rode 
 out of the Jerusalem Gate. A delicate and evanescent 
 sunshine flickered and played about the day. The birds 
 were singing in every hedgerow, a warm and fitful wind 
 dashed in their faces as they cantered on. Looking for 
 miles and miles away, there was no tree, no house, no 
 village to be seen. Only the silence of satisfaction 
 brooded above these flower-crested fields, across whose 
 billowy sweep the lavish spring broke in a sea of life, of 
 color, and of bloom. 
 
 And they rode on and on. The sun sank lower on 
 the horizon, the pale sky whitened, grew more ethereal 
 in the east ; the pallid cacti crowded once more along 
 the narrowing path, until, at last, lifting from out the 
 gray and gleaming shadow of an olive-grove, they saw 
 the tower of Ramleh reddening in the sun. 
 
 Now, having once asserted that Mrs. Thayer, though 
 a small, was yet a perfect, example of the typical Ameri 
 can woman, it is perhaps superfluous to add that Mrs. 
 Thayer was always tired. Indeed, a sensation of lively 
 fatigue might be said to represent her normal experi 
 ence of life. "I am afraid I have been tiring you. 
 Won t you sit down and rest a moment, Fanny?" the 
 Major was reported as having said to her one evening 
 at a ball. It was in the early days of their engagement, 
 and Miss Fanny smiled rapturously at him in return. 
 " Oh, thanks ! But it isn t of any consequence really. 
 I have been tired ever since I was ten years old, you 
 see," she explained, complacently. And a longer ac 
 quaintance had only induced her husband to accept the 
 statement as a fact. 
 
 Mrs. Thayer was one of those women whom it is very 
 safe to praise. As a girl, Miss Morgan had been a 
 general favorite ; as a married woman, Mrs. Thayer 
 was universally popular. From her cradle to her mar 
 riage, the same exhibition of pretty smiling indifference 
 had won her the same tribute and applause. The same 
 quality of tact had obtained an identical result. From 
 the days of lollipops to those of lovers, Fanny Thayer
 
 26 MIRAGE. 
 
 had never offended a single human being her very 
 success was veiled, and quiet, and endurable. 
 
 She was a little woman with many principles, abso 
 lutely no passions, and very little digestion. A charm 
 ingly pretty little woman, with a placid, affectionate 
 disposition. She was good-natured, clear-voiced, scru 
 pulously truthful in words, devoted to the Anglican 
 Church, novel reading, old silver, and to Major Thayer. 
 She was both well-informed and intelligent, making it a 
 rule to read every new book praised either in the " Nation " 
 or the "Atlantic Monthly." She believed in "culture," 
 but was also anxious to possess a " liberal mind," for 
 which purpose she eschewed modern furniture, affected 
 gowns of a peculiar make, and read Matthew Arnold 
 whom as a poet she secretly considered to be far below 
 Coventry Patmore and she was not incapable of lit 
 erary self-denial. When it became a social duty in 
 Boston, she was among the first to read and "analyze" 
 the works of Turgenieff. But the novels in which her 
 very soul delighted were those of "Ouida." 
 
 In age, she was about seven or eight and twenty 
 in appearance, some four or five years younger a 
 delicate, thin little woman, with small regular features, 
 very red lips, and an appealing infantine smile. Her 
 favorite amusement the one which called for all her 
 skill and tact and power of pleasing, the one containing 
 too a strong delicious thrill of vicarious excitement 
 was match-making. I have already stated that Miss 
 Varley was her favorite friend. It is even possible that 
 these last two considerations had had their share in 
 suggesting this Syrian journey. Certainly any other 
 solution of Mrs. Thayer s sudden fancy for Eastern 
 research seemed an inadequate motive, viewed in 
 the light of her injured incredulity when brought face 
 to face with the ruined arches, the silent courts of 
 Ramleh. 
 
 "A tower? Another tower to climb when I have 
 been riding absolutely riding for hours ? Oh, Tom, 
 this is really not considerate."
 
 HOW THEY WENT TO THE TEMPLE. 27 
 
 "Poor Fanny! But you are right. Climbing was 
 distinctly not in the bond," said Constance gaily. 
 
 " It s a bore, of course. Seeing places is always a 
 nuisance. But I think you will find it rather mortifying 
 later on if you have not done it, Fanny. Why, even 
 Cook s tourists do Ramleh, you know," suggested Mr. 
 Stuart. 
 
 " Very fine look-out by top, lady. Him not high 
 tower," added the ubiquitous Hassan. 
 
 But Mrs. Thayer only shook her head with a mild 
 obstinacy peculiarly her own. It was really a matter of 
 duty, she remarked gently it was her duty to abstain 
 from all superfluous exertion. It was of course difficult 
 for people in robust health, like Constance, for instance, 
 to appreciate the effort she had been making all day. 
 It was the most natural thing in the world that Tom 
 
 "Poor little woman! But indeed I was afraid all 
 along it would be too much for you," Tom interrupted 
 her, with great contrition. 
 
 And then there was a general consultation, which 
 ended in Mrs. Thayer being put in her saddle once 
 more, while her husband walked along by her side. 
 She would not hear of the others following. It would 
 be really too bad if they all had to miss the view merely 
 on her account. Mr. Stuart would certainly not object 
 to taking care of Constance ? Mr. Stuart professed 
 himself delighted. 
 
 They went up. The latest shadows of late afternoon 
 were creeping across the plain, but the far-off line of sea 
 was still shining in the sun, and a pale golden light 
 floated above the orange gardens of Jaffa. They leaned 
 out over the crumbling parapet together. From far be 
 low rose up the clear shrill laughter of some children 
 playing among the tombs. Two large brown birds started 
 from their nest half-way down the tower, and sailed 
 slowly past without a motion of their wings. Constance 
 leaned farther out, and watched them lose themselves in 
 that wide sea of space. She made a pretty picture 
 standing there her face all rosy with -pleasure and
 
 28 MIRAGE. 
 
 exercise, and in her eyes, and on her lips, a smile. The 
 gray old stones behind her brought out in strong relief 
 the delicate blonde coloring of her face and hair. The 
 tightly-fitting habit did perfect justice to each graceful 
 supple pose of the rounded figure. Mr. Stuart looked 
 at her with simple admiration. Nothing half so charm 
 ing, the young man thought, had ever come into his way 
 before. 
 
 And perhaps this conviction may have become some 
 what too apparent in the fixity and eagerness of his 
 glance. It is certain that, before many moments had 
 passed, some slight self-consciousness crept into Miss 
 Varley s attitude. The color deepened a little in her 
 cheeks ; an almost imperceptible rigidity tightened the 
 muscles of her mouth ; there was a certain embarrass 
 ment in the fluttering movement of the hands that tri 
 fled with her whip. 
 
 " I think this tower is charming. I delight in towers," 
 she said, abruptly. "There is something glorious in 
 this sense of height, of being lifted above the world 
 out of life, as it were. It makes all little things seem 
 so petty. I don t wonder Saint Simon Stylites was can 
 onized. I believe that living alone and on an elevation 
 would even make a saint of me." 
 
 " You don t get dizzy then ? " said Jack, conversation 
 ally. " Some people do, you know. There was a man 
 in my class at Harvard ; that is, he would have been in 
 my class, only old Davies the mathematical examiner 
 I was telling you about, you know he conditioned 
 him when he came up for his last go at it ; gave him 
 another year, in fact, which was a great shame when you 
 consider " 
 
 " The moon ! Mr. Stuart, I see the moon. Sun, 
 stand thou still upon Gibeon-; and thou, Moon, in the 
 Valley of Ajalon ! Don t you remember ? And there 
 it is." She lifted up her hand and pointed to a pale 
 vaporous disk, the mere ghost of a moon, hanging far 
 off above the darkling hills. "How wonderful how 
 wonderful it is ! "
 
 HO IV THEY WENT TO THE TEMPLE. 29 
 
 " Some one told me a good conundrum about that the 
 other day. Wish I could remember it. Something 
 about Joshua. Why was the prophet Joshua a 
 No ; that isn t it. When was the moon 
 
 Miss Varley started, and looked up apologetically. 
 It was very stupid of her, but she had dropped her whip, 
 her favorite whip. Had they not better go down and 
 look for it ? she suggested innocently. 
 
 To reach camp they passed through the Turkish 
 graveyard. The last glow of the sunset was reddening 
 all the quaint and narrow stones ; a mass of flaunting 
 anemones covered each grave, the blood-red color burst 
 ing like flames from out each crevice in the wall ; and 
 a troop of Syrian children were pursuing each other, 
 with cries of wild, shrill joy, along the path. But, as 
 these two young people rode on, the sun sank suddenly 
 below the horizon ; a sharp chill ran like a shiver through 
 the air; and from between the swaying cypress-trees 
 there came a group of women, white-robed, and veiled, 
 and silent as the dead. It was a wonderful bit of effect 
 the wilderness of wan, gray stones, the sudden si 
 lence, the spectral, shrouded figures among those fune 
 real trees. It was an accident, of course. A mere 
 suggestion. Something which made Constance remem 
 ber the far-off mystery of that shadowy moon. And 
 still the women stood there motionless ; their long loose 
 garments waving in the rising wind "quite like a 
 transformation-scene in a first-class London pantomime," 
 Mr. Stuart suggested cheerfully. 
 
 But Mrs. Thayer looked anxiously into her friend s 
 face, as they cantered up to the door of the largest tent 
 a moment later. " Surely you haven t been quarrelling 
 with Jack, dear child," she asked with genuine concern. 
 
 " What an idea ! " 
 
 " Well, I don t know," doubtfully ; " I thought you 
 were looking rather vexed." 
 
 " It would be difficult to be vexed with Mr. Stuart," 
 Miss Varley answered dryly. " Mr. Stuart was most 
 amiable, certainly. He saw something which reminded
 
 30 MIRAGE. 
 
 him of a conjuring effect. He has been telling me all 
 about it about Maskelyne and Cooke their princi 
 pal tricks, you know, ever since we left Ramleh." And 
 then, in answer to the puzzled look which still cast its 
 shade upon Mrs. Thayer s countenance, " You dear little 
 goose," she said lightly, resting her hands upon Fanny s 
 shoulders and looking affectionately into her face, " why 
 don t you cultivate a little Eastern hospitality instead of 
 standing there and criticising me? Or is this intended 
 for a base modern imitation of Abraham entertaining 
 the angel in the doorway of his tent ? " 
 
 They went in. These Syrian tents are luxurious 
 resting-places in their way. " It reminds me of a 
 painted tomb, don t you know. One of those Theban 
 tombs, I mean," said Major Thayer, looking around at 
 the brilliant and fantastic red, and blue, and white, and 
 yellow decorations of his canvas walls. " I think it 
 simply enchanting," said Fanny, enthusiastically, from 
 the depths of the easiest chair. " So picturesque ! give 
 me that footstool, Jack ; so gipsy-like and the cushion. 
 Thanks. I never could understand why soldiers make 
 such a fuss about roughing it. I suppose they can t 
 help it though, being men." "Him very good when 
 him dry, lady," suggested Paolo, darkly. But it was only 
 the waiter speaking. The prophetic murmur passed 
 unheard. 
 
 The next morning the sun was still low in the east as 
 Constance threw open the curtains of her tent. Before 
 her lay a white and shining world, all glistening with 
 dew. Early as it was, the camp was already in move 
 ment ; a thin blue smoke curled up from between the 
 olive-trees, a group of muleteers were taking their coffee 
 before the fire. As she crossed the field towards the 
 picketed horses, a weird chorus of welcome rose from 
 beside the road, a sound which made her start, and 
 drop her flowers, and then walk hastily back to the 
 shelter of the tents. For she had come upon a ghastly 
 sight, a circle of Syrian lepers hanging about the out 
 skirts of the camp, pale, crippled shapes, whose hollow
 
 HOW THEY WENT TO THE TEMPLE. 31 
 
 cries for alms rang like a mockery through the clean 
 new gladness of the day. 
 
 " Poor things ! I am not quite sure if it is right to 
 pity them, though. Being in the Bible, and all that, 
 makes such a difference. And any thing so exception 
 ally horrible must be accepted as the manifest working 
 of Providence, of course," Fanny remarked, looking 
 mournfully about the breakfast-table as she spoke. 
 
 " As though Providence " 
 
 " Now don t, Tom ; don t, there s a dear ! Don t be 
 profane. It is such mauvais genre. And when you 
 think we shall see Jerusalem to-day ! Why it s like a 
 pilgrimage, something. Oh, that milk ! Constance, 
 look at that milk, will you? And after all that I ve 
 said. Really, Tom, I wish you would speak to Hassan 
 yourself about it. There are some things in life that 
 can t be borne, you know," said Mrs. Thayer. 
 
 The day was cloudless. The lines of the hills were 
 soft ; they seemed to lead the soul away into a dream 
 of peace. This Syrian scenery moves one with a strange 
 emotion. Is it religion ? is it the lingering superstition 
 of childhood the faint persuasive vision of far-off 
 days ? For the one supreme goodness of the world s 
 history has left a crowning grace on field and sky ; the 
 peace which passeth all understanding broods over these 
 sunlit spaces ; there is the shadow of a Presence among 
 those far blue hills. It was late in the afternoon before 
 the travellers reached the level road again. For hours 
 the path had climbed higher and higher through thin, 
 pale olive-groves, past crumbling ruin and wall, higher 
 and higher among the pale and desolate hills. And it 
 was evening when they saw Jerusalem. Its gray wall, 
 its towers and domes, lay before them. They had just 
 made the last ascent of the road, and taken a last turn, 
 when, suddenly, the city of great renown small, gray, 
 impressive was there. Pilgrim and Crusader had 
 been here before them. For centuries that narrow road 
 had been pressed by hastening, weary feet ; the eyes of 
 countless thousands had strained to see that spot ; and
 
 32 MIRAGE. 
 
 with what thoughts, with what deep reverence, what won 
 der, what awe, begotten by no other city of this great 
 world ! Classic Rome, marvellous Athens, radiant Paris, 
 or mighty London could they quicken and still the 
 sense of all that is momentous and unanswerable, like 
 this gray Judean fortress, this old stronghold of religion, 
 this shrine and this tomb ? 
 
 They were a motley crowd of wayfarers upon the 
 narrow pass that day. Strange pilgrims, footsore and 
 ardent ; strange pilgrims from the steppes of Russia, 
 and from the naked hills of Spain ; pilgrims from north 
 and south, and east and west spell-bound, and awe 
 struck, and dumb ! 
 
 And then, in the gray hush of that colorless twilight, 
 they all moved on together to where the best blood of 
 the great mediaeval ages has thronged; to where the 
 best thought of all ages has turned ; to the gate whence 
 came forth the Jews and Gentiles who had known, 
 heard, seen, and crucified Jesus Christ. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ONE day they rode to Bethany. The path wound 
 about the foot of the Mount of Olives, and then 
 up a steep and stony defile. As they rode on they 
 looked down into valleys and out across the rounded 
 slopes of barren hills, all gray with stones and dark 
 with olive-trees, to where a line of more luxuriant green 
 followed the tortuous Jordan in its course, and the Dead 
 Sea water lay all blue and shining in the light. It was 
 a warm and windless afternoon, and the gray old world 
 seemed sleeping in the springtime sun. Every thing 
 was full of an ineffable sense of repose, of peace, and 
 long unbroken silences.
 
 A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 33 
 
 Bethany itself is a small gray village, built of stone 
 a dozen nouses walled about and made secure against 
 the Bedaween raids. At the sound of the clattering 
 hoofs, a troop of pretty, ragged children came swarming 
 out of every hut an eager, laughing, light-footed band 
 
 pushing about the horses feet, offering for sale wild 
 masses of weeds dragged from the nearest bank, crying, 
 gesticulating, appealing: a sudden whirl of noise, and 
 life, and color. They saw the house of Lazarus ; they 
 clambered down a steep and broken flight of stairs into 
 the small, dark opening of the rock-hewn tomb ; they 
 gathered wild-flowers by the door ; they feed the guar 
 dian, they feed the children, they feed some ancient 
 women who were waiting on the road ; and then they 
 stood and looked at each other with that blank, serious, 
 somewhat embarrassed expression not unfamiliar to 
 travellers upon consecrated ground. Nothing is more 
 perturbing than the absence of an expected emotion. 
 
 It was along the upper road that they returned to the 
 city. The stone-strewn fields were full of blossoming 
 almond-trees, a miracle of grace and color among the 
 naked hills encompassing Jerusalem. There was even 
 a certain pathos in the mingling of this frail and ex 
 quisite beauty with the bleak sternness of the landscape 
 
 it was like the tenderness of Christ crowning and 
 transfiguring the stern and rigid forms of the old Jewish 
 faith. And as the twilight fell about them, the rose- 
 tinted bloom of the trees seemed to deepen in color, a 
 faint pink flush glowed along every rocky steep an 
 effect inconceivably lovely as seen against that back 
 ground of gray sky, gray hills, and gray and ghostly 
 graves. For they had passed the Garden of Geth- 
 semane a small, silent enclosure, made shadowy with 
 olive-trees, made sweet and bright with common cot 
 tage flowers : the faint clinging smell of lavender, keen- 
 scented thyme, or rosemary, could always bring that 
 moment back to Constance. They had left the garden 
 behind them, and had entered the shadow of the city 
 walls, down in that silent valley where the dead lie
 
 34 MIRAGE. 
 
 thick and close, a solemn line of sentinels guarding the 
 City of the Grave. And as they checked their horses 
 at the gate the last red color faded from the sky ; high 
 overhead the pale new moon was floating in a sea of 
 silvery mist. 
 
 " And that was not a bad idea ; not a bad idea by 
 any means," remarked Mr. Stuart approvingly, as he 
 helped Mrs. Thayer to dismount before the tents beyond 
 the Jaffa gate. 
 
 "You like Bethany, lady? Very nice place. Some 
 day you go there, stay all day. Take your Bible and 
 your lunch with you, and make his picture," suggested 
 Hassan, cheerfully. 
 
 "Oh, I shall certainly go there repeatedly. I think 
 it is quite the ideal distance for a ride," Mrs. Thayer 
 concluded. 
 
 But in fact they never saw the place again. That 
 night the weather broke. The steady beating of the 
 rain wakened Miss Varley more than once, and there 
 was a certain fascination in the sound ; a singular ex 
 ultation in listening to the gusty wailing of the tempest 
 held at bay beyond those canvas walls. It was perhaps 
 rather more singular than agreeable seen by the dull 
 gray light of morning. Mrs. Thayer certainly found it 
 so. By midday she had traversed every shade of feeling 
 comprised between an amiable resignation to the in 
 evitable, and a gentle but immovable determination to 
 avoid it. By one o clock they had struck camp, and 
 half an hour later were safely under cover again but 
 this time at the Damascus Hotel. 
 
 It is a curious old house in its way. " A capital sub 
 ject to sketch. I should call it a Study for a Stair 
 case, myself," the Major remarked. A quaint confusion 
 of small stone platforms and narrow stairs, where each 
 room opens out upon a different plane, and the safe 
 crossing of the various terraces becomes a cause for 
 congratulation in wet weather ; but it was a comfortable 
 old place as well, and one which Mrs. Thayer showed 
 but little inclination to abandon.
 
 A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 35 
 
 " For if I never can take the slightest interest in any 
 thing unless I am both warm and dry, and if the stones 
 hurt my feet, and the camels tread upon me well, look 
 as though they were going to tread upon me, then 
 and if I hate Jews, what is the use of my going out in 
 this weather, Tom dear? And then you and Constance 
 always see so much more than I do. It s really a 
 waste of energy for me to go myself." 
 
 " J aime mieux le croire que d y alter voir. But unless 
 you are careful you will see Jerusalem with the eye of 
 faith and with that eye alone," Miss Varley answered 
 her on one occasion. 
 
 " I like that, when I am the only one, positively the 
 only one of you, who keeps a journal ! But you can t 
 expect me to see things and write about them too, and 
 I have filled in every thing up to yesterday, Constance. 
 Suppose you tell me what you have seen to-day? To 
 reward you, I will make you a cup of tea. You must 
 be half-frozen, poor child ! I declare it makes me shiver 
 even to look out at such weather." 
 
 "Oh, it is not raining now. Tom says the weather is 
 clearing up. The clouds are blowing all away to sea 
 ward," said Miss Varley, carelessly, walking over to the 
 window as she spoke. "But, O Fanny, you ought to 
 have seen the sunset from the roof of the Armenian 
 Convent ! We have been up there for the last hour or 
 more, exploring ; going into chapels, and out upon ter 
 races, and under archways, and across wide empty courts 
 a place as confused as a dream. When we had lost 
 ourselves for the third or fourth time we -climbed a last 
 staircase, and came suddenly out upon a crowd of Greek 
 pilgrims, women and girls, all dressed in white, with 
 beautiful, sad faces such faces, Fanny ! and still, 
 dark eyes. There must have been a hundred of them 
 at least, sitting in groups along the parapet, waiting for 
 some service to begin ; and behind them such a sunset 
 a great, shining sky of gold. It was like " She hesi 
 tated. "It was like my child-idea of heaven, I think." 
 
 " Ah, yes."
 
 36 MIRAGE. 
 
 Mrs. Thayer poked the fire, drew her furs closer about 
 her, and leaned more luxuriously back in her chair. 
 " Well, go on ; and before that? " 
 
 " Oh, we had merely been wandering about, looking 
 for a walk. Down the Via Dolorosa, by the house of 
 Pilate, through the bazaars. You know how I delight 
 in these old streets. Somehow it seems a perfect reve 
 lation to me that Jerusalem should be picturesque. And 
 we have been in wonderful places sombre and arched 
 and vaulted passages ; ways where the light cut through 
 the shadows like " 
 
 "Like the pavement through one s boots ? " 
 
 " Well admitted ! " laughing ; " but then I console 
 myself for that by looking on these stones as on the very 
 rocks of offence for a gin and for a snare to the in 
 habitants of Jerusalem. But never mind that. After 
 awhile we found ourselves in that sunken courtyard 
 before the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was late, 
 and the place was almost empty ; no image-sellers ; not 
 more than a dozen bead-merchants; not even a " 
 
 " Then Tom did not get my rosary, after all ? " 
 
 " Tom was not there." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I thought you said you 
 both " 
 
 " I meant Mr. Stuart and myself," said Constance. 
 
 " Ah, yes. I see." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " And was it with Tom or with Jack that you went 
 to your heavenly convent, then ? " 
 
 "With Mr. Stuart. Why?" 
 
 " Oh nothing. I merely ask for information s sake, 
 you know." 
 
 Miss Varley was silent for a moment. When she next 
 spoke it was with a somewhat quickened voice, with 
 somewhat heightened color on her cheek. " As far as 
 that goes, Mr. Stuart and I have been alone nearly all 
 the afternoon. Tom left us at the first bazaar. I had 
 not the slightest idea that you would mind our going on 
 without him, and so Why, Fanny, it was for you
 
 A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 37 
 
 for your crosses that Tom went. He said you told 
 him " 
 
 Mrs. Thayer smiled a peculiar smile. "Well ! It 
 is of no great consequence, fortunately. There is really 
 no one we need care for here ; and, at the very worst, 
 they could only mistake you and Jack for " She 
 checked herself with a suggestive laugh. " Well, and 
 afterwards ? For you really have told me nothing for 
 the journal yet." 
 
 "But Mr. Stuart " 
 
 " I positively can t put him in again ; nor the weather. 
 Tom insisted last night my journal read like a meteoro 
 logical report of Jack s proceedings already," said Fanny, 
 plaintively. And Miss Varley went on with her story. 
 It had been late in the day when the two had wandered 
 into the church. Coming out of the cheerless afternoon 
 into that close, warm, silent darkness, they had groped 
 their way along lured by the sound of distant music 
 until they reached the Russian portion of the edifice. 
 Some brilliant and peculiar service was being performed. 
 From three to four hundred pilgrims knelt upon the 
 ground, each with a lighted taper in his hand ; incense 
 was pulsing out in clouds of pale blue smoke ; the sound 
 of music poured from out the chapel-door ; the myriad 
 candles rose and fell in flickering lines of flame, as their 
 bearers stood or knelt to the mournful chanting of the 
 priests. It was a wonderful, magical effect. 
 
 Standing aside, and in the shadow, Miss Varley 
 watched the crowd stream down the chapel-steps a 
 long procession of figures men, women, children, clad 
 in strange garments, in cumbrous furs, all speaking of 
 the North. And in each hand there was a sacred light ; 
 and on each face there shone a wild and fervent faith. 
 
 "They were peasant-faces," she said; "dull faces, 
 deadened by poverty, grown old and hard in dreary 
 acceptance of privation and pain. But, as we stood 
 there, I thought of what that moment was to them ; I 
 thought of the place this pilgrimage would hold in their 
 memory the one poem, the one emotion, the supreme
 
 38 MIRAGE. 
 
 flowering of all those barren years of toil ; I looked at 
 the uncouth, misshapen feet, at the poor rough hands 
 deformed by daily drudgery ; I thought of all the steps 
 that had been taken, of all the weary days and nights 
 those men had wandered on poor human things, ig 
 norant, superstitious, despised thousands upon thou 
 sands of them crossing the bitter steppes of Russia, the 
 swollen rivers, the dreaded unfamiliar sea ; giving up 
 country, home, life even, to stand upon the spot where 
 One has stood to whom all men were equal, all sorrow 
 was sacred, all suffering was familiar. They were only 
 a handful of Russian peasants ; but, Fanny, I looked 
 at them and I thought of the way in which we entered 
 Jerusalem, and it made me oh, it made me ashamed 
 to be alive ! " 
 
 She had risen and gone to the window again a tall 
 slim figure, seen against the twilight gray the light 
 lingering a little upon her clasped white hands, upon 
 the pure and earnest face. There was a moment s si 
 lence in the room, and then Mrs. Thayer moved uneasily, 
 and coughed a little dry cough, and spoke. 
 
 " I think we ought to be upon our guard against 
 being too much taken by these foreign ceremonies, Con 
 stance. You know what dear old Dr. Adams used to 
 say : If the Catholic Church could only be clearly 
 separated 
 
 " It is not that ! It is not Oh, Fanny, can t you 
 understand ? It is not that they are Catholics or 
 Greeks ; it is not that they belong to any one Church ; 
 it is the faith the belief the spirit of it all ! Some 
 of them have been a year upon the way. Think of 
 what that means a year. And they are coming 
 always thousands of them. Coming from north and 
 south ; people of different race, of different nature, 
 of different life; and all coming here, and all moved 
 by one common impulse of adoration, by one common 
 sorrow, by one great common need of hope, and pity, 
 and love." 
 
 She crossed the room quickly and knelt down beside
 
 A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 39 
 
 Fanny s chair. " It is like finding a new horizon. It 
 makes all life seem larger one s own life smaller," 
 she said. 
 
 But Mrs. Thayer only looked at her with gentle 
 wonder. " I don t think I care particularly about dis 
 cussing such subjects myself. I always think they 
 have all been settled for us by people who knew much 
 more about it than we possibly can," she said, with all 
 the mild conviction of a woman who never missed 
 attending church except in the severest weather, and 
 wore " appropriate " bonnets in Lent. And then, after 
 a moment s pause : " Jack is quite right. I never saw 
 any one look so well in a heavy cloak as you do, Con 
 stance. I think it suits your figure, you know," she 
 added cheerfully. 
 
 But Miss Varley did not answer. The last gleam 
 faded from off the gray old city at her feet ; here and 
 there some jewel-like spot of flame began to shine 
 through the gray monotony of twilight ; it was all so 
 still that she could even hear the slow dropping of the 
 rain from off the eaves. The gray clouds drifted 
 slowly to the sea, she pressed her forehead wearily 
 against the window-pane, and her thoughts followed 
 them out with a familiar longing, a new and pas 
 sionate regret. 
 
 Conversation at table (Thole that night went on very 
 much in the usual way. 
 
 " Cook tourists ? oh, dear me, no ! Only fancy, 
 Maggie, this gentleman thought we belonged to Cook ! " 
 said a thin, dark-haired, and vivacious young lady of 
 some five-and-thirty years to a stolid English maiden 
 sitting by her side. And the young person addressed 
 as Maggie, looked up with a fine disdain. " We are 
 travelling under the escort of Mr. Gaze. We are a 
 select party. And Gaze is very genteel," she remarked 
 calmly. 
 
 " Ah, I see. It must be very pleasant to be select," 
 said Major Thayer, gently. " I am afraid I should find 
 it rather trying myself, particularly with my plebeian
 
 40 MIRAGE. 
 
 tastes, for /,delight in Cook. I envy all the person 
 ally-conducted people I meet. And I found a prophecy 
 about them the other day it is in Isaiah: For the 
 multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and 
 the multitude of terrible ones shall be as chaff that 
 passeth away. Rather neat, I thought, considering." 
 
 " My dear Tom ! " from Mrs. Thayer, in parenthesis. 
 
 And at that, old Mr. McMoon the same elderly, 
 smoke-dried, gray-haired Scotchman whom they had 
 met at Jaffa : the man Miss Varley had nicknamed 
 " Lunar Caustic " old Mr. McMoon then looked up 
 with something of a twinkle in his dull gray eyes. 
 "You have no heard my story yet, I m thinking,? he 
 said, speaking with great deliberation. " I was a 
 Cookite myself in the beginning we have all been 
 monkeys once, you know but I left them at the 
 second camp. Will ye no come and join us at our 
 friendly chants this evening, Mr. McMoon ! says the 
 head man to me. It is our custom here to praise the 
 Lord with pipe and tabor as we move along towards 
 Zion, says he. As we go where ? says I. Towards 
 Zion ; towards the Heavenly City, says he, getting 
 rather red in the face. Very sorry, but I m afraid 
 there has been some mistake. I 11 complain about it 
 at the office when I get back, for I see my ticket has 
 only been made out for this world, I said. And the 
 next morning I left them." 
 
 Mrs. Thayer and Constance exchanged glances. 
 " You don t really expect us to believe that ? " said 
 Miss Varley, laughing. 
 
 " It s a fact, my dear madam, I do assure you. 
 And there was another young fellow there a harm 
 less, feckless sort of laddie who went about in hunting 
 trim ; so they gave him the pick of the horses when we 
 left Jaffa. And why don t you come on and try a wee 
 bit canter, then ? I asked him when we had been riding 
 for a mile or two. Oh Mr. McMoon, said he, some 
 one has been meddling with my boots, and I Ve lost 
 one spur, and I don t like to touch him up with the
 
 A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 41 
 
 other/ said he. Why, man alive, said I, just you 
 make one side of your horse canter, and never fash 
 yourself but the other side will follow fast enough, I 
 told him." 
 
 " I saw you at the Holy Sepulchre to-day," said the 
 young curate opposite, leaning forward rather suddenly, 
 and speaking across the table with an elaborate air of 
 not hearing this last anecdote. " I saw you at the Holy 
 Sepulchre this afternoon, with your brother." 
 
 Mrs. Thayer looked up from her plate and smiled. 
 
 "I yes, I was there," said Constance, shortly. 
 
 " I think I overheard your brother asking for the 
 exact " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, but Mr. Stuart is not my 
 brother." 
 
 " Oh, ah, really ! I beg your pardon I m sure, but I 
 thought I did not know and seeing you always 
 together I imagined " 
 
 " Have you decided whether we start to-morrow, 
 Fanny?" said Miss Varley, speaking in a very clear 
 and incisive way. 
 
 Mrs. Thayer smiled again and looked down. "I 
 no really, I don t know," she answered very gently. 
 "Perhaps don t you think you had better ask Mr. 
 Stuart ? " 
 
 And then after dinner they all go back again to the 
 Thayers rooms, high up among the gray and crowded 
 roofs. A lamp is already burning on the table when 
 they enter. There is aheaped-up fire in the open grate. 
 Fanny is always a chilly little soul ; she crosses straight 
 over to the fireplace now, and nestles down beside it, 
 holding up her small, thin, white hands to screen her 
 face. "Your cigarettes are on the mantlepiece behind 
 you, Tom," says Constance, turning round with a lighted 
 candle in each hand. An ample abundance of light is 
 a requisite of happiness for Miss Varley. " And I By 
 Jove ! if we start off to-morrow I must write to the 
 governor to-night," says Jack with a smothered groan. 
 
 Four years ago Mr. Stuart, having in some mysterious
 
 42 MIRAGE. 
 
 fashion successfully fulfilled the inscrutable require 
 ments of a university examination, delighted his family 
 and surprised himself by acquiring the undisputed right 
 of attaching the letters B.A. as an honorable distinction, 
 a qualifying and classifying appendix to his name. 
 And this, after some thirty minutes of laborious silence, 
 is the letter he entreats Miss Vai ley to read : 
 
 " DAMASCUS HOTEL, JERUSALEM, 
 
 March 25, 187 . 
 " MY DEAR FATHER, 
 
 " Yours of the 27th ult. came safely to hand, at Cairo. 
 Thanks for your offer of increasing the sum. For. the 
 present I have more than enough, but will draw upon 
 you at Damascus, as you suggest, should I find my ex 
 penses increasing. We reached Jerusalem safely last 
 Monday week, and have been seeing sights ever since. 
 I called on old Mr. Thurlow and gave him your letter; 
 but the son is away at present, and the matter will have 
 to wait over until his return. This will explain to 
 you " 
 
 " Oh, all that is nothing. Go on ; that part is only 
 business," said Jack. 
 
 " explain to you any delay which may arise. Tell 
 
 mother Jerusalem is a larger place than she would ex 
 pect to find. And, by-the-way, exchange is lower here 
 than at Beyrout. It stands on the summit of a broad 
 irregular mountain range. It has a very dreary and 
 desolate aspect. White rocks project on every side 
 from the scanty soil, except where there is a fountain, 
 or a dusky olive rears up its round top and casts its 
 dark shadow on the ground. The city is very badly 
 built, and the pavement beastly. How sad is the con 
 trast between former glory and present misery! Clus 
 ters of tottering houses, in bad repair, and filthy lanes 
 occupy the building site of Solomon s gilded halls and 
 Herod s marble "
 
 A CASE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 43 
 
 " You don t think it sounds a little, just a little, as 
 though you had been reading Murray, Mr. Stuart ? " 
 
 "Oh, I don t think the governor objects to Murray, " 
 says Jack, with perfect seriousness. 
 
 " and Herod s marble courts. Yesterday we went 
 
 to see the wailing of the Jews. It was very amusing. 
 We also visited the Mosque of Omar." 
 
 " The Mosque of Omar. There ! That is what 
 stopped me. I thought you might give me an idea or 
 two about it. Just enough to fill up this half-page, you 
 know," says Jack. 
 
 Now, among all the wonderful and suggestive sights 
 in this most wonderful and suggestive of cities, surely 
 that very Mosque of Calif Omar is the crown. Those 
 outer walls, covered with Persian tiles, cream-white and 
 blue ; that thick and bursting tracery of bud and leaf 
 and blossom, which binds the pale-gray dome ; the 
 broad flagged walks ; the wide, green, flower-sweet still 
 ness of the place, beneath the swaying cypress-trees 
 I question if Miss Varley had forgotten a single detail 
 of all that proud and joyous pageant. But the magic of 
 beauty lies within. For every window is sombre, yet 
 luminous and glowing a mass of crushed jewels, 
 through which the s unlight filters to the floor. And all 
 about that dome resplendent with gold and green and 
 blue, deep as the inner petal of an iris-flower, clear as 
 the transparent depth, the pale-green light of a wave, 
 and coiling, serpent-wise, about the arch there runs a 
 tracery of mysterious characters, a strange and splendid 
 writing on the wall. And underneath this lies a barren 
 hill-top, a naked mountain summit the Holy Place 
 made sacred to another race of men. 
 
 " About the Mosque of Omar ? No. I m afraid I 
 cannot think of any thing suitable," Miss Varley 
 answers slowly. 
 
 There is a folding case of photographs lying face 
 downwards on the table, and as the girl speaks she
 
 44 MIRAGE. 
 
 turns it over mechanically, then looks long and earn 
 estly at the faces it contains. It is only another version 
 of the same family circle you will find in the first col 
 lection of portraits which chances to come your way. 
 There is nothing particularly new or striking in any of 
 the personalities which it suggests, and yet Miss Varley 
 looks attentively at them all at the elderly lady in 
 black, with the firm-set mouth ("That s an awful 
 thing of mother, but fair people always photograph 
 badly, you know ") at the pretty girl with the elabor 
 ate coiffure dating some two years back ; at the banker s 
 shrewd and handsome features, so oddly reproduced in 
 such quaint miniature in the half-grown boy by his side. 
 " That is not bad of little Jim," says Fanny, carelessly, 
 coming up and looking over Miss Varley s shoulder ; 
 "Jim looks like you, I think." 
 
 " Oh, Jim has got the governor s nose, worse luck for 
 him," says Jack, complacently, with a half-glance at the 
 tarnished mirror which decorates the wall. 
 
 " Three or four photos and an empty place. I must 
 give you one of mine, Jack, to fill up. Or is that place 
 reserved for the future Mrs. Stuart ? " asks Fanny, look 
 ing up with a smile. It is some few years now since the 
 general unaccountability of woman s actions has ceased 
 to preoccupy Major Thayer. And yet more than once 
 that evening he catches himself silently wondering what 
 the deuce there was in that remark to make Constance 
 blush !
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 
 
 " T3 UT if you really want to know " 
 _L) " You know that I really do." 
 
 " And are perfectly sincere about it ? " 
 
 " Perfectly so." 
 
 "Well, in that case, I should advise you to oh, to 
 ask her the question yourself," said Mrs. Thayer, coolly, 
 looking up in her companion s face with a provoking 
 little laugh. 
 
 It was two hours or more since they had left Jerusa 
 lem. It had been early morning still as they sallied 
 forth from the city-gate, a long confused line of gaily 
 caparisoned horses, and stolid baggage-laden mules ; 
 the sun shining here and there on the long matchlocks 
 of the Arab escort, or on the fluttering curtain of Fanny s 
 palanquin and since then the barren road had wound 
 steadily, stonily down. The first freshness of the day 
 died as they crossed the rosy cloud of blossoms about 
 Bethany. Since then the landscape had grown strangely, 
 monotonously arid a desolate mountain-side gray 
 stones, gray skies, and fields whose scanty covering 
 hardly veiled the rock, with here and there a patch of 
 burning red, where the crimson flame of the anemones 
 cast a glory about this pale and sterile land. It was 
 two hours or more since they had left Jerusalem. It 
 was two hours or more since Mr. Stuart had ridden on 
 by the side of Fanny s litter. And still he spoke of 
 Constance. 
 
 " I don t pretend to know more about women than 
 any other man, " Mrs. Thayer smiled " but a fellow 
 can t knock about the world as long as I have without
 
 46 MIRAGE. 
 
 finding out a thing or two for himself; and I can assure 
 you, Constance is by no means like any other girl," the 
 young man went on with simple earnestness, quite un 
 mindful of the look of suppressed amusement shining 
 in his listener s clear brown eyes. " I don t think I 
 ever saw any one like her before ; so proud, so inde 
 pendent, so wilful, and then so gentle with it all. And 
 she is so full of fun, and so clever, and bright ; and 
 then, all at once while you are talking to her, perhaps 
 there will come a look into her face as though she 
 had forgotten all about you, as though she did not even 
 hear your voice, or as if she were listening to some other 
 voices calling her from far off; and that will be, per 
 haps, just when you are trying to be most pleasant : and 
 then, just as you have decided she has the saddest face 
 you ever saw in your life why then she turns around 
 and begins laughing at you for being so grave, until 
 until you think until, by Jove! you don t know what 
 to think, you know." 
 
 " I am afraid the front mule has caught his foot 
 through one of those loose straps. I think he is going 
 a little lame. Would you mind making sure of it, 
 Jack ? " said Mrs. Thayer with perfect gravity. 
 
 " And then she is so kind, so careful of the people 
 about her. You do not know the trouble she takes, 
 Fanny ; but I know it, for I have seen it. But if you 
 should speak to her about it that is quite another 
 thing. It is an accident, or you have been mistaken, 
 or perhaps she will only laugh at you for noticing it at 
 all. Now there was yesterday, for instance " 
 
 "I wonder if it would be quite impossible to make 
 them step more together, Jack ? If you would only 
 speak to Said I am sure Thanks! that is better 
 so. And now, you may go on with your anecdotes now, 
 if you like," said Mrs. Thayer, in a sleepy voice. 
 
 But Mr. Stuart was silent. "Don t be absurd now, 
 Jack," said Fanny carelessly, a moment later. 
 
 The road had taken a sudden turn to the left ; one 
 after the other they could see the scattered horsemen
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 47 
 
 gaining the top of the opposite ravine. " Don t be 
 absurd now, Jack. This weather is really too hot to 
 make it worth one s while to get offended. And then 
 
 | 
 
 you must remember this is not exactly the first time I 
 hear you indulging in a little harmless sentiment. There 
 was that Schuyler girl, for instance was it last winter, 
 now, or was it only this spring I heard you rave 
 about " 
 
 " Oh, bother that Schuyler girl ! " said Mr. Stuart, 
 hotly. 
 
 " Ah, well, I never could see much in her myself, you 
 know. But then I don t believe in discussing other 
 people s tastes. It is generally safer not to discuss 
 what you mean to oppose," Mrs. Thayer rejoined calmly. 
 " But as for this last fancy of yours, I 11 tell you what 
 it is," cried Famny, in a sudden, artless burst of con 
 fidence, "I ll tell you what it is, Jack I m going to 
 give you a piece of excellent advice don t try and 
 get up a flirtation with Constance. For, in the first 
 place, you could not do it, you know ; and, in the next 
 place, I should not allow it; and in the next Look 
 here, Jack. I am going to be perfectly frank with you. 
 I am not going to have Constance vexed or troubled, or 
 her pleasure spoiled by any such nonsense as that. And 
 then, on your own account, my dear boy " 
 
 " You are very good. But it does not strike you 
 stand still there, will you ! it does not strike you that 
 all this anxiety may be just a trine premature ? I don t 
 presume to say any thing about Miss Varley, of course ; 
 but as for myself, I never found any very great difficulty 
 in looking after my own affairs hitherto, and and 
 that is a pretty bit of view over there, Fanny, do you 
 see ? " 
 
 "Very pretty." 
 
 " Do you happen to know, have you the slightest idea, 
 where Hassan intends to give us lunch to-day ? " 
 
 " Not the slightest." 
 
 "I I oh, confound it all ! I should like to know 
 what I have done that you should treat me so," the young
 
 48 MIRAGE. 
 
 man burst out with sudden passion ; "you who always 
 called yourself my friend ! If I am in a scrape I would 
 like to know who brought me here. And I did not 
 no, I did not think you would throw me over in this 
 way just when I needed your help the most," he said, 
 with a curious break in his voice, a curious look of 
 trouble clouding his handsome sunburned face. 
 
 Have you ever tried to realize for yourself the feelings 
 of a small but active spider, towards yonder large and 
 fatuous bluebottle drawing nearer and nearer in ever- 
 lessening circles to the puzzling, shining web the fine 
 contempt, the delightful thrill of anticipated triumph, 
 the unhesitating recognition of the beneficent intentions 
 of Nature, of the great moral law so unmistakably ex 
 pressed in the relative positions of spider and fly? I 
 believe Mrs. Thayer understood it all at that moment. 
 It is true that we have every reason to suppose that the 
 spiders are less preoccupied with the bluebottle s sensa 
 tions than with their own. 
 
 Fanny was keenly conscious of rendering the most 
 praiseworthy, the most vital, assistance possible to the 
 furtherance of the ultimate ends of Providence ; her 
 mind was filled with a quiet pleasure, her face with the 
 friendliest, kindliest light. It was with quite a new sense 
 of gratified power, with quite a new confidence in her 
 own perspicacity, that she said suddenly, 
 
 " Did you ever meet Mr. Stuyvesant, of Newport ? 
 You cannot expect me to quarrel with you, Jack. That s 
 a thing I won t even do for Tom. Of course I can t help 
 it, if you choose to resent my sympathy and call it pat 
 ronage. As I said before, there is no accounting for 
 the fluctuations of a man s taste. But, did you ever 
 happen to meet Mr. Stuyvesant ? " 
 
 " Morris Stuyvesant, you mean ? Little man, with 
 curly hair, who keeps a yacht and drives four-in-hand 
 in the park ? Yes, I know him. He banks with us. 
 Why ? " 
 
 "I never saw him. What is he like?" said Fanny, 
 eagerly.
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 49 
 
 "Very much like anybody else, I suppose, except 
 that he has more money. I don t know much about 
 him. He belongs to quite another set from mine," 
 the young man said impatiently. " But I wonder you 
 haven t seen him! He is rather dull, I think a typi 
 cal heavy swell and very fast, and enormously wealthy. 
 And there isn t a woman in New York to-day who has 
 not, at some time, tried to get him to marry some one 
 herself or somebody else. It s the one creditable thing 
 I ve ever heard of him, by Jove ! to think that they have 
 not succeeded yet." 
 
 " Constance would not marry him," said Mrs. Thayer. 
 
 "Constance well, I don t know," said Mr. Stuart, 
 bluntly, " women are women, all the world over, I 
 suppose." It was curious to note how the likeness 
 to his father came out and deepened as he spoke. It 
 was like a prophecy a palpable foreshadowing of 
 all the shrewd, ordinary, undeniable convictions with 
 which the years were to limit and bind about his life. 
 " Women are women, I suppose ; and Stuy vesant is 
 awfully rich." 
 
 "So Mrs. Van Ness told me; and the story is no 
 secret in any way. Everybody knew it down at Nahant, 
 last summer. It was while I was ill, you know, and 
 Constance was visiting Aunt Van. Sometimes I have 
 thought if I had been there but no ! I daresay it 
 would have been of absolutely no avail," she added, 
 with a perfectly unaffected sigh. " But Aunt Van was 
 something perfectly awful. You don t know Mrs. Van 
 Ness, Jack ?, Ah, well, it would be difficult for you to 
 understand it then." 
 
 " You don t mean to say stand still, you brute, when I 
 tell you to ! you don t mean to say, Fanny, that Morris 
 Stuy vesant actually had the effrontery, the the cheek 
 to ask Constance to ask Miss Varley to marry him !" 
 
 " It was a compliment, I know," said Mrs. Thayer, 
 gravely. " It was quite the match of the season. And 
 Aunt Van was so unhappy about it all ! When Aunt 
 Van is unhappy she has a way of saying my dear, 
 
 4
 
 50 MIRAGE. 
 
 which is simply paralyzing. You feel that your life is 
 merely a wicked mistake. And then she will sit a whole 
 evening without speaking, looking at you and thinking 
 about you until you wish you were dead. And every 
 now and then there comes one small tear into the corner 
 of her pale, porcelain eyes. Constance says it is like 
 drawing water from a rock : you feel as though you had 
 interfered with the economy of Nature." 
 
 "And he he actually asked Constance to marry 
 him ! " said Jack, between his teeth. 
 
 " Oh, dear, yes ; such a scene. Why won t you marry 
 him, Constance ? Because I don t care to, auntie 
 dear. And why don t you care to then, when it is -your 
 duty, your manifest duty, to be down on your knees 
 thanking Providence and your old aunt for what they 
 have done for you ? And so on. I m not sure they 
 did not call in the clergyman. I know there was an 
 appeal to the authorities at home. I never quite under 
 stood that part of it myself," added Fanny, thoughtfully. 
 " Captain Varley is always uneasy about money. I 
 should have thought he would have brought his influence 
 to bear, and I am not generally mistaken in such mat 
 ters." But, indeed, in this case Mrs. Thayer was only 
 partly right, Captain Varley being one of the many 
 people in whom that complaint of poverty is like the 
 muscular contraction of a snake a mere mechanical 
 indication of past anguish, an appearance which endures 
 long after its cause has passed away. But Mrs. Thayer 
 was partly right, as usual. For it is a subject of no small 
 wonderment to the present writer to reflect upon the 
 unbewildered accuracy with which a limited mind can 
 detect and estimate the paltriest motives which influence 
 its noblest fellow-men. One wonders at times if there 
 could be any impulse so unworthy as to escape the in 
 stant recognition of one s friends. 
 
 " I never quite understood that part of it myself," 
 said little Fanny, thoughtfully. " But it was a splendid 
 offer a splendid opportunity wasted. Has Con 
 stance ever regretted it? I do not know. She is the
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 51 
 
 Varleys are all curious, in a way quixotic, romantic ; 
 I hardly know how to call it, but odd, decidedly. And 
 Constance is very like her father in that. You should 
 see the woman Captain Varley has married, Jack ! And 
 I think she was quite capable of caring for him, and yet 
 refusing him for some inscrutable reason of her own. 
 Perhaps she was too proud. Perhaps I have known 
 hundreds of girls in my time, hundreds of them, but I 
 never knew even one who was not a perfect little fool 
 about matters of that kind," said Mrs. Thayer, with an 
 air of profound conviction. 
 
 They rode on for several moments in silence. It was 
 now nearly eleven o clock. Th,e heat had grown in 
 tense. For the last hour the road had been steadily 
 growing more wild and more deserted, winding higher 
 and higher among the fastnesses of the bleak and crumb 
 ling rock. The sky was colorless and blank and very 
 low ; a sky of brass ; one wide, white, blinding glare, 
 beating pitilessly down upon this arid wilderness of stone. 
 The heavy silence of the noon lay all around. One by 
 one the white-cloaked horsemen of the escort had ridden 
 silently forward and disappeared among the rocks, and 
 now there was no living thing in sight but the covered 
 and curtained litter crawling slowly along the narrow 
 mountain-trail. And the mules rattled their betasselled 
 harness ; Mr. Stuart s horse picked his way cautiously 
 among the rolling stones, and chafed and champed im 
 patiently against his bit. From behind the palanquin 
 there rose a slow and wailing chant, the melancholy, 
 monotonous song of the Arab muleteer ; it seemed the 
 very voice and expression of all this dead and silent and 
 shadowless land. 
 
 The mules rattled their betasselled harness, the pal 
 anquin shifted round and lurched heavily to one side. 
 " Oh, have we got there at last? but I think I have been 
 asleep," said Fanny, waking up with a start. 
 
 And this was the moment Mr. Stuart chose to make 
 the following surprising proposition : 
 
 " I have been thinking," the young man said gloomily
 
 52 MIRAGE. 
 
 and indeed it was undeniable that he had been most 
 unusually preoccupied for several moments past "I 
 have been thinking that I will not go any farther with 
 you than Jerusalem." 
 
 Mrs. Thayer was silent. 
 
 "It is not as though you could not all get on per 
 fectly well without me, for I am merely an addition 
 a postscript, as it were to the original party, you 
 know." 
 
 And still Mrs. Thayer did not speak. 
 
 " Now there were those fellows I was talking to last 
 week," the young man went on, in a rather less decided 
 way, " they asked me to join them in the Lebanon. 
 And Hassan tells me there is still a little shooting left. 
 And and if I took the next steamer to Beyrout " 
 
 And then Mrs. Thayer looked up at him with a smile. 
 " I don t think I should go if I were you, Jack," she 
 said, in her clearest voice. She leaned a little farther 
 out of her litter, and laid her hand affectionately upon 
 his arm. " You absurd boy ! But if you care so much 
 to know what Constance thought of him, why don t you 
 ask her the question yourself ? " she said, with great 
 good-humor. 
 
 And even as she spoke the road turned sharply to 
 the left ; a group of picketed horses stood in the midst 
 of the small platform before them ; farther on some men 
 were boiling their coffee and smoking about a fire ; they 
 had reached the midday encampment, and already Con 
 stance was coming lightly forward to welcome them to 
 its narrow strip of shade. Mr. Stuart looked at her with 
 a curious mingling of question and surprise. It seemed 
 to him that he had never really seen her before. He 
 thought of Fanny s story ; but no ! how was it possible 
 to associate any idea of disappointment or regret with 
 the glance of those clear blue eyes, with that frank and 
 happy smile ? 
 
 There was only a narrow strip of shade under the 
 crumbling walls of the desertejd khan, and as Constance 
 took her place at lunch all the light from the wide open
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 53 
 
 sky seemed reflected in her face, and in the loose and 
 shining masses of her hair. 
 
 " And without even a hat, and with your complexion ! 
 Oh, Constance, how burned you will be ! " said Fanny, in 
 lazy remonstrance. 
 
 Miss Varley laughed. " Don t allude to bygones, 
 dear. I was fair once, I know ; but that was before we 
 went to Egypt. For now look, Mr. Stuart" she 
 pushed back the sleeve of her riding-habit above her 
 wrist "look here." 
 
 "Do you believe that can be a bit of myself? or is it 
 a case of mistaken identity?" she said, laughing, and 
 holding out her hand. 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Jack, absently, still keeping his 
 eyes fixed upon her face. And then, after a moment, 
 "I I beg your pardon. I am afraid I did not quite 
 understand what you were saying ? " And, indeed, the 
 young fellow was in a singular state of mental perturba 
 tion, and excitement, and doubt. " The boy is looking 
 quite upset. What have you been doing to him, Fanny ? " 
 Major Thayer inquired, pausing in the act of lighting 
 his cigar, and looking curiously at his cousin striding 
 away. But Mrs. Thayer only laughed. Syria was 
 hotter, decidedly hotter, than Egypt, she observed, with 
 cheerful irrelevance. 
 
 The men had laid aside their empty nargilehs, the 
 mules were once more harnessed to the litter, rugs were 
 being rolled, and saddle-girths tightened for the descent, 
 before Mr. Stuart joined the others once more. As he 
 came sauntering up, the Major was pointing out the 
 road to his wife that road by which a certain man 
 went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among 
 thieves. 
 
 " I believe this may have been the very inn ; or, at 
 least, the site is the same," said Fanny, with enthusiasm. 
 " Look at its position, crowning the ridge, on the very 
 pinnacle of the pass, overlooking all the plain. Tom, I 
 believe this is the place. I know it is. If dear old Dr. 
 Adams were only here ! And Oh, here s Jack !"
 
 54 MIRAGE. 
 
 But Jack had passed on. " What are you lookfhg at, 
 Miss Varley ? " he asked, abruptly, going up and lean 
 ing his arms on the broken parapet beside her, and 
 staring down into the depths of the ravine. 
 
 The girl smiled and pointed with her whip. " You 
 see those flowers there ? No, farther down ; on that 
 little ledge where the wall is broken ? I was consider 
 ing the lilies of the field. They are the first ones we 
 have seen. And quite out of reach." 
 
 " Ah, yes. I see. Yes, they are out of reach," said 
 Stuart. 
 
 But half an hour afterward as the road grew more 
 abrupt, Miss Varley heard a clattering of horse s hoofs 
 pressing nearer and nearer, and presently some one rode 
 up and held out a handful of half-withered flowers. 
 "There there are your lilies," said Jack. 
 
 Constance started and looked round, and then the 
 color rushed to her cheeks. " Oh, Mr. Stuart ! But 
 you should not have done it indeed, you should not." 
 
 " Oh, that was not any thing at all," the young man 
 said, carelessly. " I m not a bad hand at climbing. 
 And I knew you wanted them. And I thought 
 I thought perhaps you might give me one of them 
 to keep," he added, with an embarrassed laugh, and 
 leaned forward and stroked his horse carefully between 
 the ears. 
 
 She looked at him a moment in silence a grave, 
 inquiring look, which sent a curious thrill of excitement 
 through him and then an expression of great friend 
 liness and liking came into her face ; she gave him the 
 flower without a word. She gave him the flower, and 
 for one instant he touched her gauntleted hand, and he 
 saw her blue eyes looking into his. 
 
 "Thank you," he said, beneath his breath. Half- 
 unconsciously he lifted his hat, with a curious feeling 
 of doing her homage, as he reined in his horse to let 
 her pass him by. 
 
 Now Stuart was nothing more than an honest, good- 
 natured, rather self-indulgent, rather talkative young
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 55 
 
 fellow, you might object a perfectly commonplace 
 character, incapable, in all probability, of any great 
 passion ; unvisited as yet by any deep or vital experi 
 ence of life ; a character, too, which the budding germs 
 of a latent Philistinism the barren blight of common 
 sense would alone have debarred from any claim to 
 consideration as a hero of romance. And yet, was there 
 ever a day so prosaic or so dull that some subtle stir 
 ring of color in the morning sky, some rosy revelation 
 of the dawn, has not linked it to all the infinite possibil 
 ities of beauty ? or ever a life too indifferent to all joy 
 not to feel and stir in the blossom-time of its experience 
 the brief, warm, heyday of its youth ? 
 
 It was four o clock by the time they reached the foot 
 of the hills, and turned their horses across the long and 
 undulating plain. A fringe of trees, a tall and waving 
 fringe of reeds, lay straight across their track, marking 
 the boundaries of a little stream ; and a short, quick 
 canter soon brought them to its ford, where the tangled 
 branches cast their deepest shadow over the rushing, 
 bubbling brook. No words could describe the deep 
 relief of that cool silence made only the deeper by 
 the low, cool murmur of the water s flow. The riders 
 stopped, or rather the horses stopped halfway across, 
 drinking greedily, and wading farther and farther up 
 the stream till the water gurgled above their very knees. 
 It was all so still, the little birds in the bushes began to 
 sing once more, fluttering from tree to tree across the 
 brook until the horses would pause for a moment to 
 look around them before plunging their heads in again 
 with deep and eager delight. And then, after some ten 
 minutes halt, the little caravan again pressed forward, 
 up the steep side of a hill and along a wide plateau, 
 where the narrow bridle-path wound in and out between 
 the scattered clumps of mimosa trees, until one had to 
 bend to the saddle-bow to escape the clutch of their 
 thorny branches. 
 
 And then there came a company of mounted Beda- 
 ween ; brown-faced, brown-robed, and sullen-eyed ma-
 
 56 MIRAGE. 
 
 rauders ; and after them followed a troop of big brown 
 cows, who scrambled along like goats, stopping at every 
 step to snatch another mouthful of the short, close grass, 
 until the advancing cavalcade alarmed and separated 
 the herd, and they swept by the horses in wild and 
 jostling disorder. 
 
 " Exit the noble savage. Do you know those are the 
 first living creatures we have met in all this day ? " 
 
 " I should be sorry to hurt your feelings, Constance ; 
 I really should. Consequently I will not remark that 
 your favorite children of the desert look not unlike a 
 group of Digger Indians," said Major Thayer, slowly. 
 
 "Please God we not lose any chickens to-night," 
 added Hassan with a groan. 
 
 The handsome sheikh bowed gravely in his saddle. 
 " The will of God be done." 
 
 And now the horses quickened their pace, and threw 
 up their heads and went off in a wild gallop, at sight of 
 the circle of canvas domes. That night the tents were 
 pitched by the side of Elisha s Well, a little, clear, 
 splashing spring which starts from under a high rock, 
 runs past a fringe of fern and flowers for a few hundred 
 feet, and then disappears again underground. And soon 
 its tinkling lift and fall was the only touch of coolness 
 left. For with sunset the heat grew more intense ; the 
 wind became more sultry ; wild gusts of dust and sand 
 came whirling whitely down across the stony platform 
 from the hillside above it ; and now the sky was of a 
 threatening sulphurous tone, and lurid gleams of light 
 broke through the heavy clouds, throwing a curious 
 reddish glow over all the green tangle of branches 
 beneath. 
 
 As Miss Varley came out of her tent and looked about 
 her, the very air seemed to have grown thick with this 
 suffused yellow light. Nature was in suspense. There 
 was a feeling of suppressed horror in the livid light, 
 in the wild shifting of the clouds, in the low ominous 
 muttering of thunder dying away among the naked 
 hills.
 
 GOING TO JERICHO. 57 
 
 And as the night grew darker this sense of unrest and 
 expectation deepened. 
 
 " It is like the moment before a miracle like waiting 
 for some revelation," Constance said. And indeed the 
 very animals about the camp had caught the infection 
 of terror and disquiet ; the horses refused to eat, and 
 stood facing the wind with wildly-streaming manes ; and 
 even Lione thrust his golden head between Miss Varley s 
 hands, and moaned and struggled in his sleep. 
 
 It was almost a relief after dinner when this tension 
 of silence was broken by a succession of savage cries 
 a wild, high-pitched, rattling call like the voice of some 
 animal grown fierce and unfamiliar with pain. And 
 "There is some Bedawy, ladies and gentlemen," said 
 Hassan, pushing back the door of the tent. " And the 
 chief he come down to do you honor and show you one 
 dance." 
 
 And presently the chairs and rugs had all been car 
 ried outside. A long line of men were drawn up in 
 front of the dining-tent ; at one end a shadowy group of 
 veiled women and children stood back awaiting their 
 turn ; and before them the old sheikh of the tribe, with 
 a drawn sword in his hand. As the travellers came out 
 he began his dance, accompanied by the howls and cries 
 of all the spectators, and marked by a certain rude 
 rhythm kept by the clapping of hands. It was a singu 
 lar and exciting performance ; for as the words of the 
 chant were changed the chief would vary his action, 
 now charging the whole line with a flashing sweep of 
 his sword ; now crouching to the ground as if in ambush, 
 or again throwing himself at their feet and writhing as 
 if wounded unto death. And after every change he 
 would come rushing up to Major Thayer, circle his sword 
 about his head, and again that wild and rattling chorus 
 would start the sleeping echoes of the hill. The two 
 long white cotton lanterns shook" in the wind, casting 
 long curious shadows, wild unexpected gleams of light, 
 upon those savage shapes. Fanny had fallen asleep in 
 her chair: her husband had long since strolled away.
 
 58 MIRAGE. 
 
 As Stuart lay stretched out upon the Persian carpetrat 
 Miss Varley s feet and looking up into her face they two 
 seemed, to the young man s excited fancy, the only pos 
 sessors of a new and fantastic world ; a world peopled 
 by shadowy, swaying forms, full of strange sounds, of 
 warm and sudden wind full, too, of a pale and misty 
 moonlight, of vague and enervated and measureless de 
 light. And Constance ? 
 
 He was lying, I have said, at her feet ; but not all the 
 width of the universe, had he but known it, could have 
 held those two farther apart. 
 
 For Miss Varley, too, was thinking. And as, later on, 
 she lay upon her bed, tossing restlessly from side to side, 
 it seemed those thoughts had well-nigh banished sleep. 
 The wind had loosened the fastenings of her tent-door. 
 Presently she rose to. tighten the cords, and, as she did 
 so, some sudden impulse made her pause and push aside 
 the curtain and look out. The moon had risen high 
 above the clouds ; a great, an infinite silvery stillness 
 lay all about the sleeping camp. From their stony plat 
 form she looked down upon a waving sea of tree-tops 
 a love-gift once to Cleopatra from Mark Antony, and 
 now a dark and rustling solitude where only the night 
 wind seemed awake. But as the girl stood there at the 
 door of her tent, the wind lifting her loosened hair from 
 off her forehead, blowing softly and coolly about her 
 small bare feet of a sudden, there arose a sweet de 
 licious gurgle of sound from among the tangled bushes. 
 It was the voice of a nightingale, singing to the silence 
 and to the stars. And, as she listened, a change swept 
 over the grave proud face, her lips parted, her eyes 
 grew soft and filled with tears. She lifted her face im 
 ploringly, with a sudden gesture of passionate emotion. 
 
 " Oh, my love," she said, " my love ! when when are 
 you coming back to me ? "
 
 LOOKING AT THE STARS. 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SHOWING WHY MISS VARLEY LOOKED AT THE STARS. 
 
 IT was when Constance Varley first began to have her 
 frocks lengthened, her lessons shortened, and her 
 opinion more or less consulted in regard to both she 
 was, in a word, about fifteen years old when an event 
 took place which merits to be briefly mentioned. 
 
 It was at the close of morning school, and a certain 
 riotous stillness was beginning to make itself apparent 
 among the young ladies of the Misses De Walker s French 
 and Family Finishing Establishment. A subdued sound 
 of opening desks, the furtive rustling of contraband 
 paper parcels, a mysterious and increasing succession 
 of smothered laughs, were all witnesses to the absence 
 of any high authority. Matters were evidently approach 
 ing a crisis delayed for a moment as all the heads were 
 lifted, and all eyes turned to watch the servant bringing 
 a message to the door. 
 
 " The young ladies will please give a little attention. 
 Silence there on the left ! Young ladies, I must really 
 beg you to be a little more respectful," said Miss Smith, 
 looking up, flushed and wearied, from a chaotic pile of 
 accounts. " Miss Morgan and Constance Varley are 
 wanted in the parlor." And then, as Constance passes 
 her, " I think it is your father, my dear," the governess 
 adds in kindly preparation. For it is a well-known fact 
 that Constance adores her father. She has seen him 
 perhaps a dozen times in all her life brief visits 
 snatched in the interval between each cruise and has 
 already lavished an amount of ardent hero-worship, of 
 unquestioning admiration, upon her idealized recollection 
 of him, which cannot but give a coloring and bent to all 
 her after years.
 
 60 MIRAGE. 
 
 " And you are never going away again, papa ; never, 
 never going away any more ? " she says exultingly a 
 moment later, standing with both hands clasped about 
 her father s arm; "you are going to give up the ship 
 at last, and live on that nice half-pay, and have a home 
 in the country. Oh, papa, a home in the country for 
 you and me together ! And Fanny shall live with us, 
 of course Fanny shall live with us always ; but I am 
 to be the housekeeper, you know. Fanny shall be the 
 lady, but I am going to be your helper." 
 
 " And Aunt Van ? Have you forgotten Aunt Van ? " 
 says Captain Varley, smiling and smoothing back her 
 hair. 
 
 " Oh, bother Aunt Van ! " answers Constance, gaily. 
 " Papa, I wish you had a better-regulated mind ! It is 
 a deplorable thing to be so utterly devoid of seriousness 
 in discussing vital subjects. For listen to me, please. 
 I want some chickens. You may have all the cows 
 and sheep and oxen for your very own, but I must 
 have some chickens and a horse and and what 
 else can people have who are going to live in the real 
 country and be as happy as the day is long? " 
 
 And as she asks the question Fate appears in the 
 doorway to answer it a dark-haired, deep-eyed Fate, 
 who stops and hesitates, and stands with a pile of loose 
 and fluttering papers in her hand. " I beg your pardon, 
 I did not know there was any one here." 
 
 " Oh, it is not of the slightest consequence. You 
 have not disturbed us at all," says Fanny, coolly. 
 "Only would you be so very kind as to shut the 
 door carefully as you go out ? There is really a terrible 
 draught." 
 
 But Constance has already started forward, and is 
 taking her destiny by the hand. " Come in, Miss 
 Smith. Do come in," she says in her friendly young 
 voice. " It is only papa, you know. And, papa, this 
 is Miss Smith." 
 
 Captain Varley has already risen, and you see at a 
 glance where Constance got that fine upright carriage.
 
 LOOKING AT THE STARS. 6 1 
 
 " Miss Smith will honor us by making use of the room. 
 I am always happy to see my daughter s friends," he 
 answers with grave courtesy. 
 
 " You forget that we are only school-girls yet. We 
 could hardly presume to call ourselves Miss Smith s 
 friends," says Fanny in her sweetest voice. " And " 
 
 " Miss Morgan is right. I am only the nursery 
 governess here. I teach the little ones their multipli 
 cation-table, and keep the accounts, and hear the young 
 ladies practise, Captain Varley. Miss Morgan is quite 
 right I am not anybody s friend," adds Miss Smith, 
 turning very pale. 
 
 Poor Captain Varley turns from one to the other, 
 from his ward to his daughter s governess, with a 
 puzzled look on his frank and weather-beaten face. 
 And it is curious to notice how you see the expression 
 repeated on the frank young countenance by his side. 
 For, as may already have been remarked, Miss Varley s 
 views of life are rather more primitive than is usual 
 even with young ladies who have enjoyed all the oppor 
 tunities for ignorance offered by a liberal education. 
 " In fact, you made a perfect little goose of yourself, 
 my dear," Miss Morgan informs her later on, in private. 
 " And as for the presumption of that creature in accept 
 ing your father s invitation ! I won t go to the theatre 
 with you at all. Yes, I will. I 11 go, and do what you 
 have not the sense to do yourself " 
 
 " Poor thing, and why should she not have a little 
 pleasure then ? " answers Constance, simply. And, in 
 deed, why should she not ? 
 
 Dressed in her best black gown, a bunch of flowers 
 in her hand, a red camellia in her hair (" It is years, 
 years, since any one has sent me such flowers as these," 
 she says softly, looking up into Captain Varley s face, 
 with a fine expression of gratitude in those great dark 
 eyes, which not even the Misses De Walker s unpaid 
 bills have yet contrived to tarnish) dressed I say in 
 her best, seated in the front of an opera-box, a handsome 
 man by her side, and all about her a flood of light and
 
 62 MIRAGE. 
 
 music, why should not this poor woman forget for -an 
 evening all the disappointments, the regret, it might be 
 the remorse, of her life ? For that Miss Smith was a 
 young person with experiences was really an undeni 
 able fact. 
 
 " It is a pretty stage seen from the boxes, is it not ? " 
 asked Fanny, bending forward with a sneer. 
 
 Miss Smith is a young woman with a history, and you 
 may be sure her pupils at the Establishment are not 
 unacquainted with the fact. But is she, then, so very 
 much worse than her neighbors ? If the truth must be 
 told, it was Fanny herself who was the chief narrator, 
 the firmest believer, in these reports. Indeed, I never 
 could persuade myself that those particular anecdotes 
 were any more worthy of credence than any of the other 
 thousand and one legends which form the daily enter 
 tainment of our friends. For how, to take only one 
 instance, how, I ask you, was it probable that Miss 
 Morgan should be so thoroughly versed in all the details 
 about young Winslow s unlucky passion, or the reasons 
 which led to Miss Smith s change of home ? As for 
 her having deliberately planned to attract Captain 
 Varley s attention, could it for a moment be believed 
 that such conduct was even possible under the shelter 
 ing wing of the Misses De Walker s maternal and 
 Christian care ? 
 
 "Maternal and Christian fiddlestick ! " retorts Fanny 
 with profound contempt. " Miss De Walker is an old 
 cat, and Miss Philena is another. They take their 
 teachers where they can pay the least, and as for that 
 creature Captain Varley is only my guardian, I 
 know. But if he were my father, Constance " 
 
 "If he were your father, Fanny but we will nov 
 talk about that, dear. Only, the king can do no wrong," 
 said Miss Varley turning very pale. 
 
 And " Our poor Constance is as infatuated as ever, 
 and as blind as even Miss Smith could desire. Indeed, 
 dear Mrs. Van Ness, I fear it will not be very long
 
 LOOKING AT THE STARS. 63 
 
 before I shall see myself forced to take refuge with you. 
 For I fear the catastrophe is even nearer than we think," 
 Miss Morgan wrote prophetically to a certain old lady 
 at Nahant. It was the one relaxation into strong dis 
 like which Fanny ever allowed herself, and she hated 
 Miss Smith with all the repressed virulence of a studi 
 ously amiable character. 
 
 And, indeed, it was not long before her prediction 
 came to pass. It was hardly a month, I think, after 
 that unlucky night at the opera, before Miss Varley was 
 wanted in the schoolroom parlor again. The interview 
 was very short and very quiet until just at the last. " I 
 hope, I do hope you will be happy, papa," the girl 
 cried out with a sudden burst of passion, as her father 
 was bidding her good-by. She took up his hand in 
 both of hers, and laid her cheek against it with a caress 
 ing motion that was habitual to her. "You you 
 won t forget me, dear ? " she said very gently. The 
 Captain congratulated himself with honest satisfaction 
 upon the sensible fashion in which his little girl was 
 seconding his plans. 
 
 The days went on and on. Captain Varley was often 
 in town now, but it was seldom he found time to visit 
 his daughter s school. Once they met him walking 
 down the street He was dressed with scrupulous care 
 in entirely new clothes, and was giving his arm to Miss 
 Smith. Miss Morgan threw up her head at the sight, 
 and would have walked on without speaking, but Con 
 stance stopped and insisted upon snaking her future 
 stepmother s hand. It was not for her to question her 
 father s choice, the girl thought proudly, choking back 
 her tears. The months went on and on, and brought 
 with them the marriage ; went on and on, and now Miss 
 Smith s matrimonial speculation had grown to be an old 
 story, and there were newer and more interesting wed 
 dings in view. 
 
 " You must come and stay with me this year," wrote 
 young Mrs. Thayer some six months afterwards. " I 
 want you, Constance and you will only be in their
 
 64 MIRAGE. 
 
 way at home." And indeed by this time I think the 
 poor girl was amply conscious of the fact. For this ill- 
 assorted marriage was proving itself a great success to 
 the two most intimately concerned a success so com 
 plete that not even Mrs. Thayer could question its 
 duration. 
 
 As for Constance - but whatever Constance felt, 
 we know how she had accepted the situation from the 
 first. And as the years rolled by, and there came other 
 claimants to her father s love, when baby fingers and 
 baby voices had made the final conquest of his home, I 
 think there even grew to be a certain kindness between 
 Miss Varley and her father s second wife. 
 
 " There s my good Constance ! But I always knew 
 you would behave like a good, sensible girl, my dear," 
 the Captain remarked to her with genuine pleasure. 
 
 And " Yes, papa ; I would do any thing for you, you 
 know," the girl answered, and caught his hand in hers 
 and laid her cheek against it with a silent caress, with a 
 curious new pang at her heart. The old love was there, 
 the old tenderness was there ; but the old passionate 
 admiration, the old ideal, where were they now? 
 
 Constance had been a year or more at home she 
 had grown into a tall, serious-faced, sad-eyed girl of 
 nineteen before the long-promised visit to Mrs. 
 Thayer came to pass. As she thinks of those days 
 now, they seem the nearest as, indeed, they are the 
 most vivid of her life. For it was at Fanny s house, 
 at The Farm, that Constance found the second, the last, 
 the supreme passion of her life. It was a man most 
 unlike her father whom this fond idol-worshipper had 
 now elected to fill the empty temple of her faith ; but I 
 think there was a certain resemblance in the quality of 
 the deep and silent and loyal devotion she lavished 
 upon them both. 
 
 It is an old story now, dating some three years back. 
 Indifference, custom, time, new faces, and new lands 
 have come between her and her love. As she stands 
 there listening to the song of that nightingale, looking
 
 LOOKING AT THE STARS. 65 
 
 up at those serene and melancholy stars, how weak, 
 how short, the time and distance seem ! It is evening 
 now again in the old house at home, a mild spring even 
 ing of three years before ; she is walking up and down 
 the garden-path with the children, and Fanny has writ 
 ten her a letter : 
 
 " Are you not coming back to me soon ? Do come 
 back, there s a darling, for I really cannot do without 
 you any longer ; and surely Mrs. Varley is well enough 
 to spare you now. Do come back ! We all want you 
 that is, all but one. And when shall we see you at 
 The Farm again ? I asked that one, only this morn 
 ing. Probably never. Who ever heard of a man going 
 to Paradise twice, he said, driving off. Pretty, wasn t 
 it ? But then he has a way of saying those pretty 
 things, as you know. And, by-the-way, he left his com 
 pliments for Schon-Rohtraut) and another message I 
 have forgotten what. However, that is of the less con 
 sequence, as I question if we shall see that beau tenebreux 
 again. At all events, he has already sailed for Europe. 
 Tom swears it was business which called him away. / 
 think he was simply bored ; and, indeed, the only won 
 der is we should have kept that unquiet spirit for so 
 long. Of course, the saddest part of it all is the check 
 it gives to our unfortunate play. We are seriously pro 
 posing to cast Jack Stuart for the missing part, and if 
 you will only come back " 
 
 And so on. 
 
 " Conny," said little Walter, plucking curiously at her 
 skirt; "has oo been naughty, Conny? Is oo doin to 
 ky?" 
 
 She looked at him with a blank, bewildered face. 
 She stooped and loosened the little hands, and walked 
 away without a word. And, indeed, what words could 
 describe the storm of shame and incredulous despair, 
 the wild agony of longing which filled that proud and 
 passionate heart ? The coming years might bring their
 
 66 MIRAGE. 
 
 slow-gathering proof of loyalty, but it was at that mo 
 ment, there in that sunny spring garden among the 
 budding trees, that Constance measured, once for all, 
 the force, the vitality, the depth of this her wasted love. 
 
 And presently the brief flickering sunshine faded from 
 off the garden-walks, a face looked out of the window, a 
 servant came to the door, the children went clamorously 
 in to tea, and Constance was alone. 
 
 She was alone. It was a mild, warm evening at the 
 end of March. Spring had come, but the snow was 
 still lying in loose white patches in the hollows of the 
 hill, and the air was full of the damp, earthy smell of 
 the freshly-ploughed fields. Presently she paused in 
 her aimless walking and unclenched her hands, smoothed 
 out the crumpled folds of Fanny s letter it was too 
 dark to read their meaning now and sat wearily down 
 upon the steps of the porch. 
 
 She was very tired. She leaned her head upon her 
 hand ; the tears rolled slowly down across her fingers ; 
 she never moved to brush them away. She was tired. 
 From across the .road she could hear the chilly tinkle of 
 the thawing brook ; a thin white wreath of fog was 
 creeping slowly nearer between the trunks of the apple- 
 trees in the orchard. It seemed to her that she had 
 seen it all before, had lived through it all before, had 
 known it from the very first. 
 
 And now it was all over. " I doubt," said Fanny, 
 "if we shall ever see him again." The intolerable 
 weight of time was pressing on her already, and it was 
 not an hour since she knew that he was gone. He was 
 gone, and he had left her "his compliments"! She 
 stood up ; a hot flush mounted to her forehead ; she 
 pressed her hand against her burning eyes. But no ! 
 not even in that first moment of bitter bewildering pain, 
 not even then would this true heart swerve from its 
 allegiance. And once more the old faith, the old words, 
 came to her lips : her king could do no wrong. 
 
 The pale thin mist came creeping up the path, and 
 the wind blew keen and chill. She shivered. She lifted
 
 CAOSS COUNTRY. 6/ 
 
 her face from her hand and looked up, and there, above 
 her head, shining down to her through the leafltss 
 branches, she saw a solitary star. 
 
 It was an old story of three years before. But as the 
 girl stood at the door of her tent that night, the same 
 wind seemed rustling and whispering through Cleo 
 patra s trees. She listened to the sweet, piercingly 
 sweet rapture of the nightingale ; she lifted up her 
 eyes, and shining through the breaking clouds, far off, 
 and pure and steadfast as her love, she saw a solitary 
 star. 
 
 And the nightingale went on singing, singing through 
 the night. The clouds drifted back and covered the 
 sky, the wind was hushed among the shadowy trees, 
 but the nightingale went on singing till the dawn. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 AND in the gray of that dawn they started for the river 
 Jordan. The day had broken wan and pale, with 
 no sunrise, only a cold dim light, which seemed to promise 
 rain. But how lovely every thing looked about them as 
 they rode away from camp ! It was so early the very 
 flowers were still asleep in the grass, and only here and 
 there the first venturesome daisies and buttercups already 
 opened their eyes at the touch of the morning wind ; 
 but how beautiful were those far-off mountains which 
 barred the horizon with a quivering silver light ! They 
 alone were resplendent in this gray landscape, under 
 this gray sky ; for, after passing the few low ruins of 
 stately Jericho, the travellers rode for hours across a 
 solitary and undulating plain a plain without grass, 
 or flowers, or trees only at rare intervals some dense,
 
 68 MIRAGE. 
 
 dark growth of withered-looking shrubs, which seemed 
 clinging with a desperate tenacity to the sandy soil. 
 There was not a living thing in sight ; no movement 
 but in the sky, where the great loose masses of gray 
 clouds were carelessly and tumultuously drifting onward 
 to the sea. 
 
 . But the vegetation became more luxuriant as they 
 approached the river, and close by the water s edge 
 there was a tangled thicket of vine and bush and broad- 
 leaved sycamore-trees, which only parted in one place 
 far enough to show a glimpse of the turbid and sacred 
 stream a small and swift and muddy river, serving to 
 fertilize a narrow strip of land lost in the wilderness of 
 Judea. 
 
 " So that is the Jordan," said Major Thayer, after a 
 pause. 
 
 "Yes, sir; Jordan, sir." 
 
 " I wonder Now how wide should you say it was, 
 at a guess ? " 
 
 " I give it up. Where s Murray ? 
 
 " I wish, how I do wish Dr. Adams were here ! And 
 I should like to know the precise spot where the Israel 
 ites crossed," said Fanny, with a sigh. 
 
 And then they all got off their horses, and Mrs. 
 Thayer asked for her Bible. It had been left in the 
 palanquin no, in the tent. 
 
 " I am afraid he gone on with the baggage-mules, 
 lady," said Hassan, in a deprecatory way. And then 
 for a few moments they all wandered about under the 
 willows and stared at the stream. And the Arabs sat 
 around in a semicircle, and thought heaven knows 
 what they thought of these Christian dogs ! 
 
 "Will you have one bath, gentlemen? The most 
 gentlemen what come here they go in the water," sug 
 gested Hassan, with an anxious air. 
 
 " A bath ? Oh, hang it all, no ! " 
 
 Mr. Stuart strolled over to where Constance was 
 sitting by the bank. " Stupid river that, I think," he 
 said, pointing with his whip.
 
 CROSS COUNTRY. 69 
 
 Miss Varley unclosed her eyes, and looked at it for a 
 minute. " It is small," she assented indifferently, and 
 let her head fall back once more against the tree. She 
 was not looking well this morning. Her face was pale 
 and weary-looking; her eyelids heavy, her lips colorless. 
 
 " You look tired," said Jack. 
 
 "No; but perhaps I did not sleep enough." She sat 
 up and opened her eyes, and passed her hand through 
 her hair. " Did you hear that nightingale last night, 
 Mr. Stuart?" 
 
 "Nightingale? What nightingale? I did not know 
 there was one," said the young man, in a conversational 
 manner. He took out his knife and cut a carefully- 
 selected branch from one of the willows. "And so 
 there was a nightingale?" he repeated vaguely, and sat 
 down on the bank by her side, and began stripping the 
 bark from off his wand. 
 
 Miss Varley turned her head a little, and looked at 
 him and smiled. She slipped the string of amber beads 
 off her wrist and began swinging them slowly to and fro. 
 
 " How long how long life seems on some days ! " 
 she said, looking down on the river at her feet. 
 
 A pause. 
 
 "Life? Oh I don t know. What is the matter 
 with life? I think it s very jolly. Don t you?" 
 answered Jack, slowly. The breaks were when he 
 stopped to contemplate the effect of his work. 
 
 " There ! I call that a very pretty mo nogram now," 
 he said, presently, holding it up and gazing at it with a 
 critical eye. " It will make you a very good riding- 
 whip in the place of the one you lost." He twisted the 
 stick about and snapped it two or three times in the air. 
 " Lione ! here, Lione ! Come here, sir ! " But the dog 
 only turned his head round and yawned, and laid his 
 nose upon his paws again, winking with amiable in 
 difference. 
 
 " Hassan is filling the bottles ; I must fetch you some 
 of the water to drink," said Jack, getting up slowly to 
 his feet.
 
 70 MIRAGE. 
 
 And presently he came scrambling up the bank. 
 " Leave me a little, will you ? " he said, bending down 
 and giving her the glass with a smile. 
 
 "Thanks." 
 
 She touched the water with her lips, and then began 
 pouring it slowly out upon the ground. 
 
 "Oh, I say, Miss Varley, don t do that! Why, I 
 brought it for you to drink!" 
 
 " If you will look at the dust on the leaves of that un 
 lucky plant " 
 
 " But I want some water myself," said Stuart, quickly, 
 and laid a detaining hand upon her wrist. 
 
 Constance was very tall. Their two faces were nearly 
 on a level, The young man was looking straight into 
 her blue eyes, and there was something defiant, almost 
 hard, in their expression. He had never seen that look 
 before. " Let me go, Mr. Stuart." 
 
 " And you will give me the water, then ? " 
 
 She hesitated ; she looked at the ground and then 
 out at the river ; and then her eyelids drooped, and 
 there came a sudden flush across her face. It was the 
 second time that Stuart had made her feel conscious. 
 " There, take it, please, and let me go," she said in a 
 low voic e ; and there was nothing in her tone of the 
 gracious indifference with which she had hitherto 
 spoken to Jack. 
 
 Mr. Stuart drank his water very slowly, and looked 
 after her with a well-satisfied smile. " Good Lione, 
 good old dog ! " he said, and called the greyhound to 
 him and patted him on the head, "good old Lione." 
 
 " Qui m aime aime mon chien, " observed Fanny, watch 
 ing them from a distance. Major Thayer had studied 
 French for four years at the military academy. So he 
 only opened his eyes and said nothing. 
 
 And in this way they saw the Jordan. 
 
 For, although it was nearly an hour longer before 
 they ceased to ride along its bank, the thicket had now 
 grown even denser than before ; and this was the last 
 sight of the river for many a day. It was with very
 
 CROSS COUNTRY. 7 1 
 
 different feelings that two of that party were to look at 
 the Jordan again. 
 
 But now the path wound through a vast jungle of tall, 
 feathery reeds " shaken by the wind," which shot up 
 high above the horses heads ; and, as they rode along, 
 a wandering gleam of sunshine turned all the yellow 
 plumes into a burning line of gold. And still, as they 
 rode on, the mimosa-trees grew ever farther and farther 
 apart ; the stunted, twisted, tamarisk-bushes, still leafless 
 and spotted with the black remains of last year s fruit, 
 disappeared ; and again they found themselves travers 
 ing a wide reach of plain, green here and there with 
 scanty patches of coarse grass, but for the most part 
 bare even of stones. 
 
 It was pleasant to Constance to be once more in the 
 midst of this voiceless calm a silence as profound, 
 and yet differing in quality from the silence of the 
 desert. She dropped her reins upon her horse s neck, 
 she turned herself carelessly about in her saddle a 
 gallop was out of the question here, where one dared 
 not lose sight of the escort and her eyes wandered 
 well pleased from the soft luminous sky overhead, 
 across the undulations of the plain fawn-colored, or 
 gray, or palest brown, as the cloud-shadows floated 
 slowly by to the low and vast horizon. And now 
 all the weary look had vanished from her face, and in 
 its stead there had come an expression of deep and 
 quiet satisfaction. For she was singularly sensitive to 
 certain chance combinations of line and color, this girl. 
 Great spaces affected her almost in the same manner 
 as music. In some moods, she would find a sensation 
 almost too keen for pleasure in some perfectly un- 
 noticeable effect of light ; although as a general thing 
 she avoided views, and had a perverse dislike to cele 
 brated landscapes and other classified beauties of Na 
 ture. Just now all the delicate, shifting effects of a 
 sirocco morning were transfiguring these, monotonous 
 plains; and the girl noted with ever-renewed pleasure 
 how every bit of color, each touch of crimson or gold
 
 72 MIRAGE. 
 
 or blue in scarf or cufieh, seemed to accentuate and 
 vivify the day. Long afterwards Constance remem 
 bered this as the distinguishing quality of a day made 
 memorable by an indefinite yet all-pervading sense of 
 impending change. But the most important, because 
 the most immediate, result of all this was to make hei 
 forget about Jack. 
 
 For a moment it was only for a moment some 
 thing in Stuart s words, or face, or action had alarmed 
 her with a sense of oppressive scrutiny. His sudden 
 assertion of independent individuality this new reve 
 lation of his power to insist upon and enforce a request 
 had perplexed and startled her pride to a degree .sin 
 gularly out of proportion with the triviality of its cause. 
 But it was difficult to measure the full significance of 
 such a silent concession. It was like stooping to pat 
 some favorite dog, and seeing him look up at you with 
 human eyes. It cast a curious, an alarmingly suggestive 
 light upon much which had gone before. But now, as 
 Mr. Stuart fell naturally once more into his usual place 
 beside the palanquin talking for any length of time to 
 Fanny was calculated to inspire one with a protecting 
 and condescending sense of masculine superiority which 
 was not without its charm as he rode on beside the 
 palanquin, Constance looked at him earnestly again and 
 again, her face clearing after each furtive examination. 
 Not that she was disposed to undervalue Stuart. On 
 the contrary. He was very kind ; handsome ; very 
 good-natured. He rode fairly well. And still Tol 
 erance is not a spontaneous virtue, but rather the final 
 result of disappointment acting upon a noble mind. 
 She filled up the blank with an emphatic smile. The 
 reasons which most potently affect a woman s conduct 
 are, perhaps, the only ones she never puts into words. 
 
 But now they came upon a country of low rolling 
 downs ; and now the hills grew higher, with steep sides 
 cut away until there was barely room for the cavalcade 
 to pass in single file along their summits ; and presently 
 the sheikh, riding on in advance, halted, held up his
 
 COUNTRY. 73 
 
 hand, wheeled about his horse, then dashed furiously 
 down the stony side of a ravine. 
 
 Before them lay a pale and restless sea. The heavy 
 surf broke in dirty yellow foam upon a beach bounded 
 and black with long curving lines of drifted wood 
 bleached boughs of forest-trees, scattered and heaped 
 like lines of dead men s bones upon this desolate shore. 
 All the foreground was in shadow ; but out at sea a 
 ghastly sulphurous light broke through the shifting 
 clouds, turning the water to a dull, deep green. The 
 day had grown oppressively hot, and the white blinding 
 haze on the far-off mountains, the lifeless, enervating 
 wind, the dim sunshine, the slow, sultry splash of the 
 waves, seemed each to add to this oppression. 
 
 " I think I am sorry to keep you waiting, Fanny ; 
 but if Jack is going to have a swim, I might as well be 
 making a sketch," said Major Thayer, breaking the 
 silence with a start. 
 
 Have I given you any definite idea of Major Thayer ? 
 Imagine a tall, loose-jointed, large-boned man of about 
 fifty ; a thin man, with an abundance of straight black 
 hair, streaked here and there with gray, and a sort of 
 hard good-nature written all over the shrewd-eyed, reso 
 lute face the type of face you see everywhere in Amer 
 ica, on the seat of an express-wagon or on the benches 
 of the Senate. But Major Thayer s life had reached to 
 neither extreme. Some thirty years before the time I 
 write of, young Tom Thayer was one of a class of West 
 Point graduates, whom a paternal government had plied 
 for years with small but constantly repeated doses of 
 French Grammar, Fortifications, and the Higher Math 
 ematics, before sending them out to consider upon these 
 points in the undisturbed seclusion of a frontier post. 
 But as not even four years of daily drill can wholly 
 eradicate all individuality, to these resources against 
 ennui young Thayer added the then rather uncommon 
 accomplishment of a pronounced feeling for art, as sym 
 bolized by small water-color sketches of undecided merit. 
 And it was this feeling, doubtless, which saved him from
 
 74 MIRAGE. 
 
 habits whose merit was still more questionable. * for 
 thirty years ago the manners and customs of the army 
 officer were not yet above criticism. Whiskey and cards, 
 until one s pay gave out, and then whiskey again, varied 
 by such conversation as might be naturally expected 
 from a party of isolated men, to whom pleasure was lim 
 ited by their respective powers of drinking, to whom 
 literature was represented by some odd numbers of a 
 sporting novel, and to whom civilization meant the ex 
 termination, in a given space of time, of a given number 
 of Indians such was their commonest formula. 
 
 Second-Lieutenant Thayer had entered the United 
 States army with a certain amount of enthusiasm, a 
 determination to distinguish himself speedily, and a 
 confident belief in the rapidity of well-deserved promo 
 tion. Of course we all know that private interest has 
 nothing to do with advancement in a well-organized 
 republic ; and it is presumable that even in 184 the 
 country had already approximated to its present standard 
 of official integrity. But young Thayer had no influential 
 friends. And sixteen years after entering the service 
 the enthusiasm had somewhat subsided, and Lieutenant 
 Thayer was Lieutenant Thayer of Fort still. 
 
 Perhaps this may have had something to do with it ; 
 perhaps he was only carrying out a long-matured wish 
 of emancipation. In either case, one fine morning he 
 went through his last drill, made out his last report of 
 missing -buttons and unregimental ties, shook hands 
 with all his former comrades at the gate, climbed into 
 the army wagon which already held his modest stock 
 of worldly goods, and started for the East. 
 
 Perhaps it was the fertility of resource of the native 
 American rather than the eternal fitness of things which 
 was illustrated by his next move ; for, three months after 
 this exodus, Mr. Thayer was occupying the chair of 
 .Professor (of Belles Lettres, Painting, and Perspective) 
 in a large Presbyterian College for Young Ladies, where 
 tea-drinking took the place of whiskey, and gossip, dress, 
 and religion offered a pleasing change of topic from the
 
 CROSS COUNTRY. 75 
 
 familiar stories of his late companions. He stayed there 
 nearly six months. 
 
 It was a piquant enough contrast at the first ; but even 
 a contrast need not necessarily be an improvement. I 
 am afraid Mr. Thayer was bored. You see it is quite 
 within the range of possibility that a middle-aged man, 
 with inexpressive eyes and a necktie of the wrong color, 
 may yet be capable of cherishing an ideal which even 
 the most fashionably-dressed young lady of his acquain 
 tance may fail to satisfy. Perhaps the young ladies, on 
 their side, showed but little inclination to discover the 
 secret sentiments of this awkward and silent man, whose 
 embarrassed blushes presented a somewhat startling 
 contrast to their own becoming equanimity. In either 
 case the result was the same ; within six months of his 
 arrival at Princetown, Mr. Thayer again sent in his 
 resignation and departed. 
 
 He departed somewhat suddenly at the last. Rumor 
 averred that this unexpected haste was somehow con 
 nected with an interview of an interesting and strictly 
 private character, which the late professor obtained from 
 one of his youngest and prettiest pupils. But Rumor is 
 a proverbially fallacious goddess, even in the serene 
 exclusion of a female college ; and we need hardly credit 
 this report further than we like. Whatever matrimonial 
 disappointment he may have met with, Mr. Thayer s 
 next reappearance was in California, where he remained 
 for some years : a period in his existence which Fanny 
 always vaguely but decidedly referred to as, " The time 
 when my husband was in business " that elastic phrase 
 which, in a mercantile community, may surely outrival 
 charity in its capacity for covering a multitude of sins. 
 In this case it covered nothing worse than an insurance- 
 office, some experience in the mines, an unlimited quan 
 tity of quartz, and a very small one of gold. 
 
 It was not until after the close of the Civil War 
 through which he had passed in a sober, efficient man 
 ner that Mr., now Major, Thayer once more returned 
 to the East ; and it was with very different prospects.
 
 76 MIRAGE. 
 
 For this time the unexpected inheritance of a rather 
 handsome fortune stood him in good stead a most 
 becoming background to his many excellent traits. At 
 least such was the opinion of Mrs. Van Ness, whom he 
 chanced to meet the very day of his arrival at Nahant, 
 walking upon the sands with a young friend of Mrs. 
 Van Ness, who needed but one moment to see, remem 
 ber, go through some rapid mental calculations, and 
 then advance towards him with a perfectly unaffected 
 smile ; a cordial greeting ; an invitation to dinner. 
 
 "For we shall not let you escape us now. It is our 
 turn to do something for you," she said ; and here Miss 
 Fanny looked up and smiled. " Do let us return a little 
 of what we owe to you to all the brave defenders of 
 our country," said Mrs. Van. 
 
 And there must have been something in the phrase 
 which struck the good lady s fancy ; for it was with a 
 nearly identical choice of words that, three months later, 
 she presented Major Thayer with her blessing, a set of 
 frail old china, and the hand of her dear young friend. 
 
 Unfortunately this opportunity of making a study of 
 Major Thayer s impressions of married life is ren 
 dered impossible by a total lack of material. For of 
 the two people most closely concerned in the ex 
 periment, one of them was silent with the habit of half 
 a lifetime ; and I am under the impression that Mrs. 
 Fanny knew very little about her husband. Certainly 
 she liked him very well ; at the first, was even inclined 
 to fascinate him into subjection with all the small and 
 pretty persistencies of a kitten investigating the un 
 known substance of its ball ; but what with one s toilet, 
 one s servants, and one s pastor, the affections must 
 necessarily be limited in their calls upon one s time. 
 After the second year of their marriage, Mrs. Thayer 
 rather neglected these little conjugal coquetries, sagely 
 reflecting, perhaps, that a devotion to society at large 
 certainly included one s own husband to a quite suffi 
 cient extent. There were a score of men scattered about 
 the world to whose lips old Tom s name was sure to
 
 CROSS COUNTRY. 77 
 
 bring a ready smile, a cordial word of liking and rough 
 devotion ; but to this amiable and demonstrative little 
 woman he called his wife, he soon assumed the place of 
 a secondary providence, whom one might always count 
 upon in an emergency, and being careful of course to 
 propitiate it from time to time safely and affably 
 ignore among the minor pleasures of life. 
 
 And yet, on the whole, above all, seen in the proper 
 focus of her own comprehension of things, it must be 
 conceded that Fanny behaved pretty well. Just now, 
 for instance, she could scarcely be expected to derive 
 much pleasure from this enforced halt by the Dead 
 Sea ; but you would hardly have guessed as much from 
 the facile smile with which she glanced around and beck 
 oned to Constance to draw near. 
 
 " You have been so quiet all the morning," she said 
 coaxingly, looking up into her friend s face. " Are you 
 very tired ? Very hot ? Jack says you have a headache ; 
 is it so ? " 
 
 "Oh I am quite well," Constance answered, with a 
 quick gesture of dissent. 
 
 " Because Jack was afraid you might be over 
 tired." 
 
 Miss Varley smiled ; opened her lips as if about to 
 speak ; thought better of it, and remained silent gaz 
 ing absently out at sea. 
 
 " You are not going to dismount ? " 
 
 " It was hardly worth the trouble," the girl answered, 
 hesitating, and then slipped her foot from the stirrup 
 and swung herself lightly down. One of the muleteers 
 was passing; she threw him the reins and went and sat 
 down on the sand, in the shadow of Fanny s palanquin. 
 It seemed even hotter now that they were no longer in 
 movement, and there was nothing to break the silence 
 but the sleepy lapping of the waves. 
 
 "The world is small after all," said Mrs. Thayer, in 
 a meditative voice, and after a long pause. 
 
 " Why so ? " 
 
 " Oh, I was thinking. I was speaking to Jack about
 
 78 At I RAGE. 
 
 Morris Stuyvesant this morning. It .is curious he should 
 have known " 
 
 "Speaking about Mr. Stuyvesant? Oh, Fanny, ho\v 
 could you do such a thing?" said Constance hastily, 
 biting her underlip and turning very red. 
 
 " Well, and why should I not ? One must speak 
 of somebody or other. And what harm is there in 
 Mr. Stuyvesant s name, you silly child," cried Fanny, 
 in high good-humor, nestling more luxuriously down 
 amongst her cushions, and smiling affectionately at 
 her friend with half-shut eyes. 
 
 And it was precisely this apparent innocence of any 
 ulterior motive which made it so difficult to resent 
 any of Fanny s actions. Somebody said once of Mrs. 
 Thayer, that she was a woman with the nature of a 
 zoophyte. She was gifted with a positive talent for 
 small, incessant effort ; and, like the work of that coral- 
 insect to which she had been likened, there was a 
 wonderful power of cohesion, and hardness, and resist 
 ance in all the accumulated mass of these delicate, im 
 perceptible touches. Just now it suited her plans for 
 Constance s benefit and in point of fact, she was as 
 thoroughly well-intentioned a little woman as you will 
 often find it suited her plans, I say, to fill all her con 
 versation with a thousand floating, intangible allusions 
 and implications, whose immediate effect was first to 
 embarrass, and then to force the girl into ever closer 
 companionship with Jack. 
 
 Miss Varley did not feel particularly interested by 
 young Stuart. This vigorous, energetic young fellow, 
 with his keen enjoyment of life, his shrewd and limited 
 intellect, and his habit of looking at things from their 
 most obvious and common-place side whose concep 
 tion of his relation to his fellow-man never rose higher, 
 or went deeper, than an easy-tempered wish that every 
 one might be as comfortable as possible without disturb 
 ing any existing arrangements ; and whose most inde 
 pendent mental action was the sincere and simple dislike 
 he cherished for any man who did not get along and en-
 
 CX OSS COUNTRY. 79 
 
 joy himself without making a row over it belonged to 
 quite another section of humanity from herself. There 
 was no quality in common between them but their youth ; 
 and yet by some fatality circumstances seemed con 
 stantly conspiring to bring them closer together. 
 
 For example. They had found a lovely spot for their 
 noonday halt a wild and shadowy ravine, shut in by 
 overhanging rocks a deep and fragrant resting-place, 
 all redolent with the faint and clinging perfume of the 
 cyclamen. Luncheon was just over, and they were lying 
 about on the grass and fern, glad to escape for an hour 
 from the vision of that colorless, pitiless sky, and all the 
 heat and burden of the outer day. 
 
 " Does anybody know what has become of that 
 game-bag ? " cried the Major, suddenly looking up from 
 his cigar. " Pass it over here, like a good fellow. I 
 should like to have another look at that last bird you 
 shot." 
 
 " Did Jack shoot those partridges ? I thought it was 
 the sheikh." 
 
 " Oh, no," said Constance, innocently, " it was Jack." 
 
 Mrs. Thayer laughed. 
 
 "I I beg your pardon, Mr. Stuart," the girl stam 
 mered, turning very pink. 
 
 "Why should you? I like it," said Jack, with mali 
 cious emphasis. 
 
 " Never mind, Constance. A rose by any other 
 name, &c.," suggested the Major, good-naturedly, throw 
 ing a chicken-bone to the dog. 
 
 " I heard Dr. Adams read that once. It was to try 
 the effect of the new sounding board. I never heard 
 anybody reading Shakspeare like " 
 
 But had Miss Varley quite lost her head in conse 
 quence of this last blunder ? "I wish Dr. Adams 
 were in Jericho," she said, with sudden calm au 
 dacity. " He belongs to a class of clergymen who are 
 nothing in the world but so many dragomen spiritual 
 dragomen, I mean. They have the same glib inexact 
 ness in their statements about the holiest things "
 
 80 MIRAGE. 
 
 " Constance ! " 
 
 " The same fine indifference to irreconcilable facts," 
 and here she stopped and laughed, and looked demurely 
 defiant at Fanny. " They are equally accustomed to 
 taking people in and doing for them " 
 
 But Mrs. Thayer had assumed an appearance of 
 blank insensibility. She had a rare faculty which 
 she shared with many women and a particular class of 
 beetles for effacing herself morally, for becoming at 
 once flat and blind and tenacious at the first symptom 
 of attack. 
 
 " It was not difficult," she observed presently, wkh a 
 suggestion of cold disapproval in air and voice, "it, was 
 not difficult to understand from whom these sentiments 
 had taken their origin. A girl s assertions are the 
 merest reflex of what she believes to be the convictions 
 of the man she most admires. And she had observed 
 that ever since Mr. " 
 
 " I beg your pardon for interrupting, but Lione is 
 eating up all the sardines," said Jack, with happy 
 irrelevance. 
 
 It was curious what a repugnance the young man was 
 fast acquiring for even the slightest mention of Mr. 
 Stuyvesant s name. 
 
 Not long after that, they began climbing the road to 
 Mar Saba. From time to time a break in the intermin 
 able range of hills let through some glimpse of the Dead 
 Sea, now black with storm, now glittering in the sun, 
 or again, as they rose higher above it, of clearest steely 
 blue. And then, leaving the last rounded hillslope at 
 their feet, and as the day was fast drawing to its close, 
 they reached a winding road hewn out in the living 
 rock. Above them towered a huge mass of mountain, 
 so barren, so nakedly barren, that not even the poorest 
 shrub clings to its rocky side ; below was the precipice. 
 It is a place where Nature seems flayed alive dead 
 and desolate and sterile as the lives whose long blind 
 agonies of patience have consecrated these stones. For 
 here, clinging to the side of the ravine, its gray walls a
 
 STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE. 8 1 
 
 very part of the gray rocks about them, they came upon 
 the oldest convent in the world a living tomb, buried 
 in a wilderness, in the name of a religion whose very 
 principle was life. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE. 
 
 WELL, Constance ! " 
 " I say, Miss Varley, what do you think of 
 this for weather? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear child, how wet you are ! Don t come 
 near me, there s a darling. But you will surely take 
 your death of cold." 
 
 " I think," said Miss Varley, gravely, throwing back 
 the hood of her cloak, and making an ineffectual attempt 
 at closing her umbrella, " I think the Deluge was a dry 
 joke in comparison." 
 
 And the heavy downpour of the storm upon the 
 canvas roof, the wild gust of wind which blew open the 
 tent-door at that moment, only seemed to add emphasis 
 to the remark. 
 
 It had been raining all through the night. It had 
 been raining all the morning. It was already threaten 
 ing rain the day before as they rode away from the 
 almond orchards encompassing about the gray old 
 walls of Bethlehem with a triple crown of pale and 
 fragrant bloom. They were camping now at Bethel, 
 their tents pitched on the grass-grown bottom of an 
 ancient reservoir, which to-day s storm seemed fast 
 restoring to its original purpose. 
 
 " Him one very bad look-out very bad look-out for 
 the ladies, sir," said Hassan, taking off his fez with an 
 air of great despondency. 
 
 The men had been at work since dawn digging a 
 6
 
 82 MIRAGE. 
 
 trench about the encampment, and already a thin treach 
 erous stream was creeping in beneath the sodden can 
 vas, and settling in little yellow pools about each table 
 and chair. 
 
 Towards noon there came a slight break in the clouds. 
 Jack took up his hat and lit a cigar. "I can t stand 
 this any longer," he said, and went out. When he re 
 turned an hour later, the rain was pouring down 
 harder than ever, and he himself was stained with mud 
 from head to foot. There was a kind of village, a dozen 
 Arab huts or so, higher up on the hill, he explained, and 
 he had met one of the natives, an old man, who off.ered 
 to show him a newly-discovered tomb. " He said no 
 one had ever been inside it but himself, an Englishman, 
 and two dogs. I thought I might as well add my name 
 to the list, particularly as the place is not yet down in 
 Murray. " 
 
 " And you saw nothing inside ? " 
 
 " Nothing but mud." 
 
 "You should not try to bring away all you see, Mr. 
 Stuart," said Constance, with a smile. 
 
 But it must be admitted that the situation was assum 
 ing a dreary aspect. 
 
 " I remember just such a storm one night on the 
 Plains in 59," Major Thayer remarked as they sat 
 down to dinner ; and a singularly incoherent repast it 
 proved to be, brought in by relays of dripping servants 
 from the kitchen-tent across the way. " Shall I give 
 you some of this chicken, Fanny, or will you wait for 
 the soup ? " 
 
 And, as he spoke, there came a sudden gust of wind 
 that seized upon the tent, shaking it violently from side 
 to side. 
 
 " There goes the table. Mind your fingers, Con 
 stance ! " said Stuart, with a reckless laugh. 
 
 And the next moment there came a long, tearing 
 crash, a shriek from Fanny, struggling in her arm-chair 
 with the foldings of her plaid, a quick snapping of cords 
 and flapping of wet canvas, and then the night and the
 
 STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE. 83 
 
 storm seemed rushing in upon them. The wind had 
 blown over the tent. 
 
 It was only a moment of course, before the men had 
 got it up again. But now, indeed, things were begin 
 ning to look serious. 
 
 " It is very bad, I am afraid very dam bad for my 
 ladies, sir," said Hassan, with respectful regret. " Beds 
 all wet; tent full of water " 
 
 The men were hammering all around them at the 
 pegs. 
 
 " Those pins can never hold in this soft earth if the 
 wind rises again," said Stuart. 
 
 There was a moment s pause. Fanny had hidden her 
 head among the cushions ; Miss Varley was standing 
 beside her, holding her hand, and looking anxiously at 
 the different speakers in turn. The cold had grown 
 intense. 
 
 " Perhaps . It seems to me that I do not hear 
 
 the rain," she said. 
 
 Major Thayer went to the doorway and looked out. 
 He drew his head in again with a sudden exclamation. 
 " I thought it was coming," he said, quietly ; and held 
 out his arm for them to see. The sleeve of his coat was 
 all white with freshly-fallen snow. 
 
 It was dark by this time, and Paolo was making an 
 ineffectual attempt at lighting the candles. 
 
 " Why don t you bring in the lantern ? " said Jack. 
 
 The insufficient light seemed to make their forlornness 
 more complete, and Fanny moaned feebly at sight of 
 the situation it revealed. 
 
 .But half an hour later, perhaps, Mrs. Thayer was too 
 dismayed to moan. She was clinging with both arms 
 around the neck of a stalwart Syrian, muffled in sheep 
 skins, and looking like a brigand, who with bent head 
 and cautious footsteps was picking his way among the 
 stones and bog towards the shelter of the village. The 
 white drifts of snow only gave greater value to the dark 
 ness ; the driving sleet clashed in her face whenever she 
 lifted it to look about her ; the wind was growing wilder
 
 84 MIRAGE. 
 
 with the falling night ; and now, in surplus of Horror, 
 her guide was ascending a steep and slippery path, and 
 beginning to pant and stagger beneath his load. 
 
 But now, surely, the worst of it was over. They had 
 passed up a narrow stair, and in under a low stone 
 archway ; and now Fanny found herself gently sliding 
 to the earth. Before her was a small vaulted enclosure, 
 bare and absolutely empty of any furniture but a roll of 
 bedding hastily flung upon the ground. The room was 
 full of smoke, and at its farther end she saw a fire, and 
 Constance crouching down before it warming her hands. 
 It was very dreary certainly, but they had had to -turn 
 out a whole family to get even that. 
 
 " And Hassan is delighted. He says it is one very 
 much better place than he expected to find," said Miss 
 Varley, looking up with a laugh. 
 
 It was a wretched evening at the best. The narrow 
 room was barely large enough to hold the four mat 
 tresses and leave a small clear space before the fire. It 
 was impossible to stand ; the smoke was too thick to 
 allow them to sit up for more than a few moments at a 
 time ; and if the door was opened window there was 
 none a quick white drift of snow came whirling in 
 across the floor. 
 
 " I think I begin to discern some of the minor advan 
 tages of civilization," remarked* the Major, grimly. 
 
 Once, towards morning, Constance awoke. The air 
 had grown very chill. The room was still full of a thin 
 blue haze, but the fire was blazing brightly, and Stuart 
 was standing before the hearthstone piling on more 
 wood. At the slight sound she made, raising herself 
 up upon her elbow, he turned his head, saw her eyes 
 open and watching him, and smiled. 
 
 " I think the wind is falling. It is not snowing now," 
 he said in a whisper. 
 
 "It is so cold !" 
 
 " Come and warm yourself by the fire. Wait ; I will 
 make you a seat." 
 
 He dragged a rug from off his bed, rolled it up and
 
 STONE WA LLS DO NOT A PRISON MA KE. 8 5 
 
 threw it down upon the floor. " There ; sit there," he 
 said. 
 
 She came slowly forward, smiling a tall slim figure 
 gathering up the long, dark folds of her habit in both 
 hands. Her face was all warm and rosy with sleep, like 
 the face of a little child. 
 
 " You look about six years old," said Stuart. 
 
 " Hush ! You will wake them up." 
 
 She sat down before the fire, blinking a little, and 
 putting up her hand to shade her eyes from the light. 
 They began talking together in whispers. 
 
 "Is it late?" 
 
 " Half-past three." 
 
 " I wish I could see if it had stopped snowing." 
 
 " Oh, you can look if you like. I have found a way 
 to open the door." 
 
 " Hush ! " said Constance, with her finger to her lip. 
 
 They listened a moment. 
 
 " No. Poor Fanny was awfully tired. I don t think 
 you would wake her easily," said Jack. 
 
 They both rose, and began moving cautiously towards 
 the door. Presently Miss Varley caught her foot in the 
 long folds of her dress and stumbled against the mat 
 tress. Jack seized hold of her arm. " Be careful," 
 he said ; and then Mrs. Thayer sighed heavily, twice, 
 and stirred in her sleep. . They held their breath. Was 
 she awaking ? No, it was nothing. Mr. Stuart turned 
 to his companion with a comical smile of relief. He 
 was still standing with his hand upon her arm, and so 
 close to her that he could see her eyes shining in the 
 firelight ; he could feel her breath coming quicker with 
 stifled laughter. 
 
 " Come on ! " 
 
 They crept to the door, and Jack opened it noiselessly, 
 an inch at a time. 
 
 " There is only a narrow ledge outside there. Mind 
 you don t slip off the step." 
 
 The night was very still and cold. They were look 
 ing out across a wide plain ; the air was full of a strange
 
 86 MIRAGE. 
 
 ***- "* 
 
 uncertain light, reflected from the snow. It was a star 
 less night ; the sky was broken and full of movement : 
 one felt, rather than saw, the ceaseless, tumultuous 
 unrest of the wind-vexed clouds. It had stopped snow 
 ing ; only now and then a large flake floated slowly 
 down and fell upon Miss Varley s upturned face. They 
 were standing under the shelter of a small stone arch 
 way, built over the door. Beside them was a second 
 stairway leading to the roof. Constance laid both her 
 hands upon this parapet, leaning farther out. She 
 shivered. 
 
 " You are cold. Give me your hand again ; I am so 
 afraid you will fall," the young man said in a whispSr. 
 
 The fingers he took in his were burning hot. There 
 was something strangely magnetic in their careless 
 touch. He felt his own pulse quicken a sense of 
 confused pleasure which sent the blood pulsating faster 
 through his veins. 
 
 "I wish she would say something I hope she will 
 not go away," he thought. 
 
 " You see I mean it is not snowing any more," 
 he said aloud, with an effort. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. But the wind blows all your 
 words away. I did not hear " 
 
 "I Oh, it was nothing." And then, after a 
 pause : " Miss Varley ! " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I wish you would tell me something." 
 
 "Tell you what?" she said again, after waiting a 
 moment. 
 
 What was he going to ask her? Perhaps he hardly 
 knew it himself. But as he hesitated they heard the 
 wind rising far down beneath them in the valley, the 
 dark mass of clouds overhead was rent asunder with 
 sudden force, and for one instant, through their trail 
 ing edges, appeared the pallid disk of the pale storm- 
 troubled moon ; and in another second the darkness 
 closed about them, the bitter blast swept in long gusty 
 sighs over the field of snow. As Constance turned her
 
 STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE; 87 
 
 face towards him the wind caught in her long and 
 loosened hair, and blew it full across his lips. 
 
 They both laughed ; they both turned with a common 
 impulse to seek once more the shelter of the room. 
 But Miss Varley was fast asleep she had been calmly 
 asleep for hours before he could free himself from 
 the memory of that clinging, silken touch. 
 
 The next morning broke cold and dark. A wild 
 white storm was raging among the hills, and now the 
 heavy, noiseless fall of snow was interrupted by fierce 
 intervals of hail and sleet. Unfortunately, they had all 
 awakened early. Indeed, they had had but little in 
 ducement to prolong their sleep ; still less, perhaps, to 
 face the uncompromising length of all those smoke-filled 
 hours. For in their hurried exodus of the night before 
 it now appeared no one had contemplated the possibility 
 of a lengthened imprisonment. 
 
 Their resources against ennui were singularly few, and 
 consisted chiefly in cigars, a small pocket Bible,- and a 
 fragmentary pack of cards the two latter a contribu 
 tion from the dragoman. Perhaps there was something 
 in the very incongruity of the gift which served as its 
 antidote ; it may be that even euchre requires a mind 
 unhampered by preoccupation ; certainly Mr. Stuart 
 was the first to throw up his hand, the first to declare 
 that the game was not a success. And although there 
 was a certain satisfaction in knowing this was Bethel, 
 although they had been nearly drowned upon the very 
 spot where Jacob slept and dreamed, still it was really 
 snowing too hard for one to care for Jeroboam. 
 
 Historical associations were all very well in their 
 place. " You need not laugh, Tom ! I m sure there 
 is not one of you more interested in sacred geography 
 than myself ; but, oh, it was dreadful how one missed 
 one s four-o clock tea," Mrs. Thayer remarked, with a 
 yawn. 
 
 " And yet it might have been worse, you know," Con 
 stance suggested cheerfully, looking up from one of the 
 desultory attempts at amateur cookery with which they
 
 88 MIRAGE. 
 
 . "^ 
 
 tried to diversify the day. " When you are anxious not 
 to have your chocolate burn, Mr. Stuart, you should 
 keep your eyes on the fire, and not be watching me. 
 It might have been worse, Fanny, after all," Miss Var- 
 ley said. 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " We might have been here with Aunt Van ! " 
 
 Major Thayer laughed. There are limits to human 
 endurance, he objected, dryly, however little Constance 
 might take the fact into account. 
 
 And " Oh, of course. It is well known that poor 
 Mrs. Van Ness can never do any thing to please Tom," 
 his wife remarked, with a sigh. 
 
 " What ! Not when she introduced me to you, my 
 dear ? " he asked, with perfect good-humor. 
 
 Miss Varley smiled. Her earliest recollection of her 
 aunt was a peculiar one, she observed, turning to Stuart. 
 It dated back years and years ago, to the time when 
 Mr. Van Ness was still alive. Mr. Van Ness had been 
 extremely handsome. " My father remembers him as 
 quite a young man, and very proud of his complexion 
 and hair ; but when we children knew him he had been 
 injured in a railway accident. They told us he had 
 been all patched together, and we used to spend whole 
 hours watching him in the hope he might come undone," 
 Constance added, with a laugh. " But the first time I 
 saw them my father had taken me down to The Cottage 
 with him perhaps as a palliative; for he had gone 
 there with bad news about the marriage of one of our 
 cousins. I remember Aunt Van sitting on one side 
 of him, holding his hand and sobbing : Oh, my dear 
 Henry, if she marries an unbeliever, think think of 
 her immortal soul ! and Uncle Van on the other side : 
 Bother her soul, Henry ; has the man means ? What 
 means has the man got ? Bother his soul ! " 
 
 " And, oh Constance, have you forgotten Miss Wal 
 lace ? Miss Wallace is one of Aunt Van s protegees, 
 Jack" 
 
 " She really is very good, you know."
 
 STONE W ALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE. 89 
 
 "One of her protegees a thin little woman, with a 
 long thin neck, and faded eyes and ringlets. In the 
 afternoon she puts on a black silk apron, and sits in 
 her little garden under a rose-tree, watching the hens 
 and reading Miss Porter s Scottish Chiefs. She is 
 poor oh, wretchedly poor ! but she traces her pedi 
 gree back to Sir William Wallace ; and about twice a 
 year she gets a letter from a cousin who sends her money. 
 She calls that a communication from the family. " 
 
 Miss Varley had remarked as a curious fact that, 
 when by any chance there has been a great man in any 
 family, his descendants seem to pride themselves upon 
 getting as far away from him as possible. 
 
 " Yes ; but I must tell Jack about Aunt Van," said 
 Fanny, laughing. " You see, she had taken a great 
 fancy to a particular dentist in New York Aunt Van 
 is always taking particular fancies and nothing would 
 satisfy her but giving the man a trial. She could not 
 go herself perhaps she did not care to ; so what does 
 she do but send poor Miss Wallace, with strict orders 
 to have all her teeth drawn out and an entirely new set 
 put in at Aunt Van s expense. It will be such a 
 comfort to you, my dear, when it is all over, Aunt Van 
 told her, patting her on the shoulder. But, dear Mrs. 
 Van Ness, I have never had a toothache in my life ! 
 The very reason you should take precautions. There, 
 my dear, there ; we 11 say nothing more about it, says 
 Aunt Van, patting her again. And the poor thing 
 actually had it done. It made her very ill, I remember, 
 and Mrs. Van used to go down and look at her, and tell 
 her how thankful she ought to be to think it was all 
 over. But she has always been especially fond of Miss 
 Wallace to this day." 
 
 Mr. Stuart laughed. "I should like to see her." 
 
 " Oh, it is not unlikely. We left her at Naples ; but 
 there was some talk of her joining us at Damascus 
 before we left." 
 
 " Now, heaven forbid ! " ejaculated the Major, with 
 edifying fervor.
 
 90 MIRAGE. 
 
 . >r - 
 
 " What ! afraid of her are you, Tom ? And you, Miss 
 Varley, are you one of the victims too ? " said Jack. 
 
 There was certainly something peculiar about Mr. 
 Stuart that day. He had hardly spoken to Constance 
 twice since morning, and yet the girl was constantly 
 aware of his attentive and persistent glance. " And 
 you, Miss Varley, are you afraid of her too ? " he asked. 
 
 "Oh, I like Aunt Van in a fashion. I have known 
 her all my life ; and she is really very kind-hearted if 
 you only agree with her." 
 
 Major Thayer shook his head dubiously, making 
 some confidential remark to his cigar. * 
 
 " Well, I frankly admit it if Constance is not afraid 
 of her, I am," said Fanny, laughing. " But that is one 
 of the advantages of being small : you are not expected 
 to be uncomfortably brave." 
 
 But Mr. Stuart questioned the sentiment. The Major 
 went still farther he denied it. 
 
 "The pluckiest man I ever knew," he said deliber 
 ately, "was a quiet, delicate-looking little fellow, and 
 not much to look at, any way. It was quite at the end 
 of the war. He was with the Sanitary Commission peo 
 ple at first, and then in the hospitals. Wouldn t fight 
 because he was half a Southerner by birth, and had some 
 kind of scruple about it ; but he knew the country, and 
 if ever there was a bit of dangerous reconnoitering to be 
 done, it was Lawrence who volunteered." 
 
 " Lawrence ? What Lawrence ? You don t mean 
 Denis Lawrence, surely ? " said Mrs. Thayer. 
 
 Miss Varley started. She got up suddenly, and began 
 collecting the cards scattered over the floor. 
 
 Yes ; Major Thayer meant Denis Lawrence. 
 
 " Why, you knew him, Jack. You must have seen 
 him. Wasn t he at The Farm three years ago, the win 
 ter you were there ? " 
 
 Jack recollected him perfectly. He had never ex 
 changed more than a dozen words with Mr. Lawrence- 
 Fanny would remember he left the day of Mr. Stuart s 
 arrival..
 
 STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE. 91 
 
 " Well, Constance remembers him at any rate." 
 
 Miss Varley was building a card house. This is a 
 delicate operation, requiring a steady hand and undi 
 vided care. Perhaps this was the reason her answer 
 came with some reluctance. " Yes, I remember him," 
 she said. 
 
 "Once it was in the times of Mosby s raids, all the 
 country was upside down, and the niggers coining into 
 camp every day, each one with a different story he 
 started out to do a little scouting. Deuced bad weather 
 it was, raining as it only rains in Virginia, and go where 
 he would there wasn t a gray-coat to be seen. He was 
 coming back. He had stopped to get some supper in a 
 cabin, when the old darky comes running in : Look out, 
 massa ! Massa Mosby comin up to the door ! Law 
 rence runs to the window ; and, by Jove ! there was 
 Mosby himself, and a dozen of his men, riding in at the 
 gate. The house was one of those one-room Southern 
 shanties, built in a clearing, with a wood-pile at the 
 back. Since our fellows came so near trapping him at 
 the Corner, Mosby was always precious careful not to 
 get caught without a sentry again ; so he posts his men 
 about the house, and comes in just as Lawrence swings 
 himself out of the back window and on top of the wood. 
 But, Constance, I am sure I have told you this story 
 before ? " 
 
 " Oh, please go on," said Miss Varley, very quickly. 
 Her card house had fallen to pieces at her feet. She 
 was sitting with her hands clasped tightly together; and 
 Mr. Stuart noted with wonder, with admiration, perhaps 
 even with a certain instinctive and unreasoning jealousy, 
 the rapt excitement transfiguring her face. 
 
 " Well, the guerillas were in high spirits and made a 
 night of it. Twice they sent men out to bring in more 
 wood, and Lawrence felt them dragging the logs out 
 from under his pile, and heard them swearing at the 
 rain. Just before dawn they fired the cabin, to teach 
 
 that d d nigger to give gentlemen a better supper 
 
 another time, and rode away. But the point of the
 
 92 MIRAGE. 
 
 story is that some one asked Denis afterwards what 
 he was thinking of while he was there in hiding. Oh, 
 says Lawrence you know his quiet way of speaking 
 it was raining so hard, and I take cold so easily, I was 
 wishing I had thought to bring an umbrella. " 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " By-the-way, this Mr. Lawrence is a Catholic, isn t 
 he ? " said Jack, suddenly, with an air of great unconcern. 
 
 "Oh, yes; his mother was a Catholic, you know. 
 His mother was a Miss De Bray, from Virginia. The 
 De Brays are all Roman Catholics, but I daresay Mr. 
 Lawrence " 
 
 Miss Varley found it impossible to imagine any reason 
 which should prevent Mr. Lawrence from belonging to 
 any form of religion he preferred ; still, as a matter of 
 fact "I remember his telling me once that, to him, 
 the mind of a modern convert to the Catholic Church 
 was like the walled-up window of a house. The outline 
 of the window was preserved, but serving as a repository 
 for rubbish instead of a passage for light." 
 
 "Would you mind saying that over again? I am 
 afraid I did not quite understand the idea," said Jack. 
 
 Fanny looked at him with unaffected wonder. There 
 must surely be something abnormal in any set of cir 
 cumstances so evidently disturbing to Mr. Stuart s 
 equanimity. 
 
 It may be that the young man is aware of it himself. 
 
 " Confound that snow. I I think I shall go out 
 for a little while, and see what Hassan has been doing 
 with those horses," he says presently, and he goes out 
 with a stride and the door closes behind him. 
 
 Fanny has had time to fall asleep before he returns, 
 but Constance Miss Varley is sitting in precisely 
 the same attitude, and still playing with her cards. It 
 has grown into a wonderful erection by this time, that 
 pasteboard castle at her feet. And Mr. Stuart stands 
 beside it, and looks at the young architect with a suffi 
 ciently peculiar expression. 
 
 "I Fanny is asleep you know, and it would be a
 
 STONE WALLS DO NO T A PRISON MAKE. 93 
 
 pity to wake her up ; but I thought It has stopped 
 snowing," says this considerate young man, " the clouds 
 are all blowing away. Put on your cloak and come up 
 on the terrace and see the sunset," he suggests. 
 
 What a charming idea ! Miss Varley is on her feet 
 in a moment. A sunset, the fresh air what could be 
 pleasanter? " Where is your hat, Tom ? Do find your 
 hat. Has Mr. Stuart seen thg Major s hat ? " 
 
 " It There is a good bit of snow on the ground," 
 Mr. Stuart remarks, "and if the Major has any fear of 
 taking cold " 
 
 " But how am / to go out, then ? " cries some 
 body else in great perplexity. " I have only these 
 boots 
 
 It is a very pretty little foot Miss Varley holds out for 
 inspection, and Mr. Stuart doubtless is not unaware of 
 the fact. 
 
 " I don t think you will get your boots wet," the 
 young man says, looking very foolish ; " the fact is, I 
 thought you might like to go up there. And there wasn t 
 much snow on the steps. And so " 
 
 " And so somebody has been spending his time clear 
 ing it off ?" cries out the Major, with a laugh. "Cer 
 tainly you cannot do less than accept such primitive 
 marks of good-will from from the natives. Go, my 
 dear Constance, go ; it will do you good. But if you will 
 excuse me, I think I shall remain indoors, and and 
 take care of my rheumatism, as Jack suggested." 
 
 And so presently these young people take their de 
 parture. And presently Mrs. Thayer wakes up takes 
 her head from out the cushions, that is to say and 
 looks about her with a very sprightly air. 
 
 " Yes, they have gone. They went while you were 
 sleeping, my dear," says the Major, eying his wife rather 
 curiously. 
 
 "Oh, they have gone, have they?" remarks that lady, 
 with great satisfaction. " Well, let us hope dear Con 
 stance won t catch cold." 
 
 "Let us hope dear Constance won t won t catch
 
 94 MIRAGE. 
 
 the rheumatism, while we are about it," says Tom, with 
 another queer smile. 
 
 " Catch the rheumatism ? Catch the fiddlestick ! " 
 cries Fanny, with great decision. " Jack is a dear, good 
 fellow. I was always fond of Jack." 
 
 "Oh, so am I uncommonly. And, as you were 
 saying, Jack has a very good business head ; and when 
 his father dies he will come into a very pretty iucome, 
 no doubt. And and dear Aunt Van will be so pleased 
 at your marrying off Constance after her own failure in 
 that line." 
 
 It is decidedly dark in this smoky little chamber, but 
 I think there is no doubt that Fanny blushes at this 
 juncture. 
 
 "Have I ever said a word about marrying off Con 
 stance?" she demands with some trepidation. 
 
 "Never, my dear, never ! Let me do you the justice 
 to say you have never mentioned it. And I don t think 
 you ever spoke to me much about that pretty Miss 
 Schuyler Jack was so infatuated with last year. Last 
 year? Stop ! I think it was only this spring. But you 
 should know, Fanny ; you keep a better account of the 
 boy s flirtations than I." 
 
 "I I m sure I don t know what you mean," says 
 Fanny, still more meekly. It was so seldom Major 
 Thayer took the trouble to put his observations into 
 words, his wife was apt to treat them with the kind of 
 respect one accords to a powder-magazine. There was 
 no means of estimating what an explosion of all her little 
 devices might be impending. " I m sure I don t know 
 what you mean," says Fanny. "I don t see what there 
 was to laugh at in Jack s way of coming for her. I 
 thought it was very pretty myself." 
 
 " I thought you were asleep, my love," says the 
 Major, taking out his cigar-case. 
 
 " At all events, Jack is your own cousin your own 
 cousin, remember, and not a relative of mine," says 
 Mrs. Thayer, with great dignity ; " and I think you might 
 I mean, I think " She hesitated, she looked up,
 
 STONE WA LLS DO NOT A PRISON MA KE. 95 
 
 she laughed, and laid her pretty head against her hus 
 band s arm. " Don t interfere, there s a dear good old 
 Tom," she said coaxingly. 
 
 "/ interfere? You are quite right in mapping out 
 your friends careers for them, my dear child ; you cer 
 tainly are a very remarkable judge of character, /inter 
 fere with Master Jack s amusements? Not if I know 
 it," said the Major, grimly. "Jack is my cousin, you 
 say? Very well. I don t know that there is any thing 
 in that fact to prevent his being a young idiot as well. 
 For Constance won t marry him. Constance, let me 
 tell you, has no desire to go and live in the streets of 
 Gath. You cannot bribe her with a country house in 
 Ascalon " 
 
 " Ascalon ! Gath ! " Mrs. Fanny protested she had 
 not an idea what the Major could mean. 
 
 " I mean by George ! I mean that our cousin is a 
 young Philistine, my clear. An honest, good-looking, stu 
 pid young Philistine, with no more chance of ever evolv 
 ing an idea from- that handsome head of his than I have 
 of being made Prime Minister. I mean that Constance 
 has more in her little finger than that good-natured young 
 donkey in all his brain. I mean that Jack had better 
 stick to leading cotillons, and flirting with the Schuyler 
 girls, and putting his father s money into circulation 
 for the next five years at least ; and Constance " 
 
 " Constance is quite old enough to know her own 
 mind quite," said Miss Varley s friend, with some 
 impatience. " But, Tom" (she put her other hand upon 
 her husband s shoulder), "don t interfere, dear Tom. 
 Let things take their own course, that s all I ask of 
 you," she said. 
 
 Major Thayer was in the habit of accepting his wife s 
 caresses with much philosophy. " All right. Only let 
 me light my cigar in peace," he answered good-hu- 
 moredly. " If Jack doesn t make a young fool of himself 
 to please you, you may be sure that Tom or Dick or 
 Harry will. A man can only be young once. Let the 
 boy enjoy himself while he can. He 11 come upon his
 
 96 MIRAGE. 
 
 troubles fast enough and come out of them, too. Men 
 have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love," 
 remarked this ex-Professor. 
 
 " I don t see how that applies to Jack," said Fanny, 
 with mild persistence. 
 
 But, for my part, I fancy the Major was not refer 
 ring to Jack. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON THE HOUSE-TOP. 
 
 AT first she would speak of nothing but the view. 
 " It was a joy, oh, such a joy, to breathe this air ! " 
 she said. She threw back the hood of her cloak ; she 
 leaned her arms upon the parapet ; she looked down 
 into the valley. The desolation of -the winter was 
 about them. Here and there a thin blue fillet of smoke 
 rose steadily up through the windless afternoon, and 
 here and there the brown walls of a house stood clear 
 of the drifted snow. 
 
 The thaw had begun ; the air was full of its faint 
 whisperings the gurgling sound and the stir of run 
 ning water. 
 
 " I can t understand why you should look so happy 
 to-night," said Stuart, presently, leaning forward and 
 looking up into her face ; " what are you smiling to 
 yourself about ? You look," said the young man, sus 
 piciously, " you look like a person who has heard good 
 news." 
 
 Constance laughed. "Well you have just told me 
 we should get away to-morrow," she answered evasively ; 
 but she had the grace to blush as she spoke. 
 
 "I I dreamed about you last night," said Jack, 
 looking away again and digging his stick into the 
 snow.
 
 ON THE HOUSE-TOP. 97 
 
 " Did you ? " 
 
 " It was a nice an extremely nice dream." 
 
 " Indeed," said Miss Varley, very gravely, opening 
 her blue eyes to their widest extent ; " indeed ! " 
 
 " And I say, Miss Varley Constance I wonder 
 if you would mind if I should call you Constance? " 
 
 "Mind it? No!" 
 
 " What ! really not ? " 
 
 " Really not. Why should I ? If it gives you any 
 pleasure, call me so by all means. And then, you 
 know, when one remembers the example I set you the 
 other day " 
 
 "But you ve never called me by my name since 
 not once," says Mr. Stuart, eagerly. 
 
 " Haven t I ? How very neglectful I am to be sure ! " 
 says Miss Constance, beginning to laugh again. 
 
 She is always laughing at him, Mr. Stuart thinks 
 savagely ; and perhaps the young man s face expresses 
 some of the discomfiture he feels, for presently : 
 
 " Have I really vexed you ? I am so sorry. Indeed, 
 I did not mean to. But after all that smoke I think this 
 fresh air must be going to my head ! " somebody says, 
 with the utmost friendliness. " Come, Mr. Stuart 
 come Jack " and here a dogskin gauntlet is held out to 
 him "forgive me, and shake hands, and make friends 
 
 won t you ? " says the owner of the glove. 
 
 Forgive her ! make friends ! Mr. Stuart is ready to 
 
 to In fact, you know he is ready 
 
 Perhaps it is quite as well for the duration of the 
 present peace that he is too much occupied in digging 
 holes in the snow with his stick to look up as he makes the 
 foregoing statements, and see the frank surprise, the mis 
 chievous amusement that fill the blue eyes by his side. 
 
 But it is not to be supposed that such an event as 
 the imprisonment of a whole company of backshish- 
 giving howadji could pass unnoticed in an Arab village. 
 We may be sure that many a pair of dark, intent eyes 
 have been observing the proceedings of these two young 
 people from the neighboring roofs.
 
 98 MIRAGE. 
 
 " Look ! there is a man at his prayers," says ton- 
 stance, pointing with her hand, and then falls silent, 
 watching the tall figure rising and bowing a dusky 
 shape against the winter twilight. There is always a 
 certain suggestion of melancholy in a figure seen thus 
 a black silhouette against a fading sky no longer an 
 individual man, but a mere fraction of humanity half- 
 hidden in the gathering shadows. It is Nature s revenge 
 upon man s daytime supremacy a transfiguration in 
 which all the commonplace of appearance and existence 
 disappear, are lost in the great mystery of coming night. 
 The last wan line of crimson dies away behind the hills ; 
 here and there a star is shining in the pale, cold blu e of 
 the sky. 
 
 "I should like to know what you are thinking of," 
 says Jack, breaking a longer silence than has ever fallen 
 between them before. 
 
 Thinking of ? Miss Varley looks up at him with 
 somewhat wistful eyes. 
 
 " I was thinking of an old ballad I knew once," she 
 says slowly, beginning to count the amber beads about 
 her wrist as she speaks ; it is a familiar action of hers, 
 and one that betokens some inward perturbation. " An 
 old German ballad. I knew some one who I mean, 
 I have heard it sung. Perhaps you know it. Schon- 
 Rohtraut. 1 It is Schumann s music. I cannot tell you 
 who wrote the words." 
 
 " Oh, I should probably be not much the wiser if you 
 did," says Jack simply. " You know I never did care 
 much for books." 
 
 And, indeed, this was quite true. Mr. Stuart s- rela 
 tion to literature being not unlike that of a Newfound 
 land dog to the water. 
 
 He could acquit himself quite creditably while in this 
 unfamiliar element ; might even secure some small waif 
 or stray not too heavy to float, to which his attention 
 had been especially directed ; and, once on dry land 
 again (so to speak), you may be sure he lost no time in 
 shaking off the last vestiges of his late exploit.
 
 ON THE HOUSE-TOP. 99 
 
 "I did not know you cared for German songs," he 
 says. 
 
 " I care for this one." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " I see Hassan bringing up the dinner. I can see 
 Abdallah s smile from this distance," remarks Miss 
 Varley, calmly, in answer to this last demand. 
 
 And this, I protest, is a full, a faithful account of the 
 momentous interview upon which Fanny had based so 
 many hopes. 
 
 But would Fanny believe it ? She greets her friend 
 with her most innocent smile. They have kept dinner 
 waiting? Not a bit of it ! Fanny likes to have dinner 
 wait. She is sure the air has done Constance good. 
 Jack was so very right not to let the Major expose him 
 self. Dear Tom cannot be too careful. 
 
 " Dear Tom can very easily be too hungry, though," 
 says the Major with a grin. 
 
 " I am very sorry. I knew we should be late. But 
 I could not get Jack to come down," says Miss Varley, 
 simply. 
 
 "Dear Constance!" Mrs. Thayer goes up and em 
 braces her friend with artless effusion ; " my dear 
 Constance ! " 
 
 "Pray, don t let me hurry jou. What is dinner in 
 comparison to the affections ? " says the Major, again 
 eying this group. 
 
 " Dinner, Fanny ! and Tom shall tell us some of his 
 army stories at dessert. Tom has developed wonder 
 fully of late," cries Constance, gaily ; " I m sure I 
 never knew him to be so interesting before." 
 
 And this time Mrs. Thayer does not offer any em 
 brace. 
 
 When they leave Bethel, a feeble sun is struggling 
 through the morning mist. At first the road they follow 
 leads them across a field of stones, a plain of scattered 
 ruins buried in the half-melted snow ; and then, for a 
 mile or two, their path is the broken bed of a mountain 
 torrent, where the sure-footed Syrian horses scramble
 
 100 MIRAGE. 
 
 and poise like goats upon the massive boulders, or 
 splash, knee deep, through sudden icy pools. And now 
 they have reached a lower level, where rain, not snow, 
 has fallen through the storm. There is a stirring of 
 color among the hedgerows, a gleam of scarlet anemones, 
 a flash of yellow butter-cups, some hint of hidden sweet 
 ness from a starry clematis-vine. As they go down, 
 lower and lower, dry spots and sheltered nooks appear. 
 At midday they stop for luncheon at the Robber s Foun 
 tain a high, gray cliff towering above three brimming 
 basins of hollowed stone, and all overgrown with deli 
 cate drooping fern and frail white tufts of cyclamen. 
 
 And now the road grows wider, and winds past end 
 less orchards of shadowy olive-trees ; gray-green as a 
 mass, shivering into sharpest silvery light as the wind 
 stirs in their branches. Then a long reach of pale 
 young wheat "springing out of the earth clear shining 
 after the rain," so tender, its color is steel-blue in the 
 sunshine, deepening to rings of greenest emerald where, 
 here and there, an olive stands amongst the grain and 
 casts its shadow on the ground. At every step the 
 terraced hills sink lower, the valley opens farther out 
 before them. A hundred new born flowers look joy 
 ously up from out the grass ; birds are calling to each 
 other from the shelter of the small young leaves ; a 
 weak wind is chasing the light cloud-shadows faster 
 across the plain ; it seems the very resurrection of the 
 spring ! 
 
 "Do you see that village over there? That is Shi- 
 loh," says Constance, pointing with her whip. "Jack, 
 if you will ride up to Fanny and tell her that is Shiloh, I 
 will bet you a pair of gloves she mentions Dr. Adams s 
 famous sermon about the Infant Samuel three times 
 within the next fifteen minutes ! " 
 
 "Why do you so dislike poor Dr. Adams? " says Mr. 
 Stuart, reproachfully. 
 
 " I don t dislike him ; he bores me ; he is a big man 
 who is always making feeble puns and jokes mild, 
 clerical jokes, don t you know, with a musty, flabby
 
 ON THE HOUSE-TOP. IOI 
 
 feeling about them, as though he kept them in the 
 same barrel with his sermons." 
 
 "I wish I really do wish you would not say such 
 things," says Jack, with sudden gravity. 
 
 " What things ? and why npt ? " 
 
 " Oh, laughing at people, and so on. I never heard 
 my mother or my sister laugh at a clergyman in my 
 life," he says in a very positive manner. And then 
 there is a long silence. Miss Varley is looking at the 
 hedgerows with an inquiring air ; Mr. Stuart is watch 
 ing her face. 
 
 " You you are not angry ? " he asks presently, riding 
 up closer to her as he speaks. " Constance, you are not 
 angry ? I would not offend you for the world ! " 
 
 Miss Varley is not offended in the least ; in fact, does 
 not see why she should be and says so, with exasper 
 ating calm. 
 
 " And you will give up the habit for my sake ? " 
 
 "Oh, if I had such a habit, and there was any harm 
 in it which, mind you, I don t admit and if I gave it 
 up for anybody it would certainly be to please Fanny," 
 Miss Varley answers, carelessly enough. 
 
 "And you would not do it for me?" He rests his 
 hand upon the neck of her horse, and half checks his 
 own, and looks down into her face. They are riding in 
 a narrow, sunken lane, across which a branching fig-tree 
 casts the dappled shadow of its small young leaves. As 
 they slacken their pace, Lione comes bounding back and 
 looks up at them and whines and rubs his golden-brown 
 head against Miss Varley s horse. 
 
 " You won t do it for my sake, Constance ? " says Jack. 
 It makes a very pretty group, seen from the palanquin. 
 
 She lifted her face up suddenly and looked. at him 
 straight in the eyes. Once before he had seen this 
 same expression of distress, of defiance in her glance. 
 " I wish you would speak of something else," she says 
 bravely, but with a palpable effort. 
 
 " I will do as you like," the young man answered 
 simply.
 
 102 MIRAGE. 
 
 w. r " 
 
 They rode on for nearly a mile without another word. 
 
 The camp that night was in the plain of Labban. A 
 hundred feet away from the tent-door a little spring 
 bubbled up amongst the fern-grown ruins of an ancient 
 khan. Farther on, a long green reach of meadow-land 
 was dotted with feeding herds big, brown-skinned 
 cattle guarded by brown-cloaked Bedawy. 
 
 It was a simple and patriarchal scene ; and after 
 dinner, as they sat in the doorway of the tent, drinking 
 coffee, it was pleasant to see these strange and savage 
 figures sitting .motionless in the last level rays of the 
 sun, or leaning upon their spears, watching their flocks 
 by night. 
 
 " That village we passed this afternoon was Shiloh," 
 Fanny remarked, after a while. "Did you know it? 
 I wish some one had told me of it sooner, for Dr. 
 Adams " 
 
 Jack laughed involuntarily, and looked over at Miss 
 Varley. She was sitting on the grass, playing with 
 Lione s ears as he rested his head on her lap. There 
 was something very gentle, very subdued in her manner 
 that evening. She hardly spoke. Once or twice as Jack 
 looked up, he felt her eyes fixed upon him. There was 
 a singular seriousness, something almost melancholy in 
 their glance. 
 
 " Are you tired, child ? " asks Fanny, presently, lean 
 ing back in her chair. 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " I m sure I don t wonder at it ! That constant 
 riding is so fatiguing. Even I, with my palanquin, am 
 quite used up. I don t want to disturb you, Jack, but 
 if you would hand me that cushion thanks. And 
 there was another little one. Constance is leaning on 
 it ? Oh, I didn t see," says Mrs. Thayer, sweetly. 
 
 " Oh, take it, Fanny. Lione will do for a pillow 
 quite as well," the girl answers, laughing ; and, as she 
 speaks, the dragoman appears majestically smoking a 
 chibouque^ and asks for a few words with Miss Varley. 
 
 There is a moment s consultation, and then they see
 
 ON THE HOUSE-TOP. 103 
 
 Constance walking hurriedly away in the direction of 
 the kitchen-tent. Presently Luigi comes running back 
 to fetch a box. 
 
 " What is it ? " Fanny asks, with languid interest. 
 
 " My lady want her medicine, lady. One man very 
 bad hurt," says Luigi, with the box under his arm. 
 
 It was so like Constance! She was always doing 
 these ridiculous things. It was just the same way on 
 the Nile ; they used to come to her if any one scratched 
 his finger. 
 
 " As for me, I told Hassan from the very first I was 
 not to be disturbed about the men s accidents. My 
 nerves will not bear it. It is a question of health with 
 me," says Fanny. 
 
 "It is a question of health other people s health 
 with Constance," Major Thayer remarks, placidly. 
 
 " Oh, Constance has always had a mania for sacri 
 ficing herself. It was exactly the same way at school. 
 They used to call her Don Quixote ; she had such 
 ridiculous fancies about things, not a bit like the other 
 girls. She was almost the youngest there ; but I think 
 they were all a little afraid of her, all except me. Con 
 stance can be very severe over any thing she thinks dis 
 honorable ; and proud proud as Lucifer if you take 
 her the wrong way. But I always knew how to manage 
 her. There is nothing she would not do for me," said 
 Fanny, complacently. She settled herself more com 
 fortably back in her chair, and glanced round at Jack. 
 " Do call that dog away. I can t endure to have him 
 touch me," she said. 
 
 "Were you come here, Lionel were you long at 
 school with Constance ? " says Mr. Stuart, bending down 
 to examine the dog s collar. 
 
 " Always. That is I left before she did, of course ; 
 but we have been together since we were babies. You 
 know Captain Varley was my guardian. I remember," 
 said Mrs. Thayer, pensively, " I remember the last term 
 before I left school for good," with a glance at the 
 Major ; " there was a girl we all hated : Walker her
 
 104 MIRAGE. 
 
 name was Mary Walker. I think she was a cousin 
 or something of the principal, and they had her there 
 for charity. She was an ugly, shabby little creature, 
 anyhow, and we none of us would speak to her. She 
 was in training to be a governess reading for a French 
 prize we could not understand how it was she took so 
 many honors, for she was a very stupid girl, until one 
 day, quite by accident, Constance saw her copying her 
 exercises out of some old book. It was Constance s 
 own work, I believe ; something she had done for her 
 amusement. That was one of the queerest things 
 about Constance ; she absolutely studied, to arouse 
 herself " 
 
 " Well ? " said Mr. Stuart. It may be he too was 
 wondering in a simple way over this last announce 
 ment. 
 
 " Well ! the end of it was very characteristic, cer 
 tainly. First, she made the Walker girl swear she would 
 abandon her evil courses as though that were likely! 
 but Constance is so credulous. And then she stayed 
 over Christmas week in town you remember that 
 Christmas week at Aunt Van s, Tom ? she stays over 
 all through the Christmas holidays to coach that wretched 
 creature through her grammar. She got her diploma, 
 I know, and after that they gave her a salary, and her 
 aunt made more of her. But I don t think she ever 
 thanked Constance." 
 
 " Don t you think it is time some one went to see 
 what has become of Miss Varley ? " said Jack, and went 
 out without waiting for an answer. 
 
 It had grown dark meanwhile. There was a leaping 
 fire in front of the kitchen-tent ; a circle of muleteers 
 stood around it, their shadows stirring curiously upon 
 the canvas wall at every motion of the wind-blown 
 flames. The young man sauntered up to the group, 
 and looked in. Miss Varley was kneeling upon the 
 ground ; Hassan was standing near her holding a lighted 
 torch. She had pushed the sleeve of her habit back 
 over her white arm ; there was a sponge and a basin of
 
 ON THE HOUSE-TOP. 105 
 
 water by her side. As Jack drew near, she was already 
 binding up the injured foot with a firm, dexterous touch. 
 
 " Ask him if that feels more comfortable, Hassan," 
 she said. " If it does not feel more comfortable, I will 
 do it all over again." She looked up at her patient with 
 the sweetest, the most compassionate smile. 
 
 " Tdib, Abdallah ? " 
 
 " Taib, ketir /" said the man, with a quick lighting up 
 of the wrinkled, anxious face. 
 
 A broad, white smile flashed responsively around the 
 dusky ring of lookers-on. 
 
 "That Bedawy the one with the child is to have 
 some of that ointment to rub on his shoulder, Hassan," 
 said Miss Varley, getting up to her feet and pulling down 
 her sleeve. And then, for the first time, she was aware 
 of Stuart. 
 
 "What was the matter?" 
 
 " Oh, it was only that unlucky old Abdallah. He is 
 always getting hurt. This time a mule stepped on his 
 foot. I hope Hassan will remember not to make him 
 walk to-morrow. I must get up early and see about it 
 before the train starts off," she said thoughtfully. And 
 then, after a moment s pause : " Considering that I never 
 tied up as much as a cut finger before we went to Egypt, 
 and that I have unlimited control of Fanny s medicine- 
 chest, don t you think I ought to be congratulated that 
 so many of my patients escape with their lives, Mr. 
 Stuart ? " she added, laughing. 
 
 " I think that you are an angel of goodness to 
 everybody but me," said Jack. 
 
 They had adopted very early hours here in Syria. 
 Breakfast was on the table punctually at six o clock, 
 and as a usual thing the lights were all out in the tents 
 long before ten. But that night Miss Varley chose to 
 sit up later. Long after the camp had settled into 
 darkness, a feeble glimmer shone beneath her door. 
 She had taken a key from about her neck, had opened 
 her box, and was sitting before the table, reading. It 
 was a manuscript volume a journal evidently with
 
 106 MIRAGE. 
 
 57" " 
 
 here and there some loose papers, some verses, a pho 
 tograph, a half-finished sketch, thrust in between its 
 leaves. At first, Miss Varley had written a few words 
 in it ; now she sat turning over the pages, looking at the 
 dates. The earliest of them was of three years before, 
 the latest was of yesterday, and on every page some 
 words were constantly repeated. Once, after a long 
 pause, during which she had sat so motionless you might 
 have believed her sleeping, Miss Varley repeated these 
 words aloud. The wind rustled at the door of her tent, 
 and the girl started up, her heart beating, the color com 
 ing and going in her cheeks ; and yet there had been 
 nothing to frighten her in what she said. After a*ll, it 
 was only a name the name of Denis Lawrence. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SOME GOOD SAMARITANS. 
 
 ONE long, unbroken sweep of wheat-fields stretched 
 past and around them. The foot of the hills was 
 thickly overgrown with olives, circling, a silvery gray 
 cloud, about the stones. Higher up, the fig-trees twisted 
 their quaint leafless branches in a network of pale pur 
 ple against the sky, or rested, a violet smoke, in the 
 crevices and fissures of the rock ; and from mountain to 
 mountain the valley flowed one wave of living green. 
 The sky was of a pale and cloudless blue, still tremulous, 
 still quivering with the spent passion of the storm ; and 
 spring, that "child of many winds," was in the air, and all 
 the world was filled with a sweet, faint perfume as of a 
 hundred growing things ; a low melodious calling of 
 bird-voices; the languid whisper of the breeze, running 
 in green-white waves across the rustling sea of wheat. 
 They were riding across one of the fairest plains in 
 Palestine across that parcel of ground that Jacob
 
 SOME GOOD SAMARITANS. IO/ 
 
 bought; where Joseph wandered, looking for his breth 
 ren ; across the valley where Joshua proclaimed the 
 Law ; and on and on across the sun-filled land, to the 
 margin of that wayside well where Jesus rested, being 
 wearied with his journey, and spake with the woman of 
 Samaria. 
 
 I clo not know how it happened that, as they rode 
 along, the conversation fell upon the strange history of 
 Simon Magus. Perhaps it was that Major Thayer had 
 been reading about him of late. It may be Miss Varley 
 had her own reasons for preferring to speak of some im 
 personal matter. But surely there must be something 
 fascinating to the meagrest imagination in the story of 
 this Samaritan fanatic ; this mystic propounder of Egyp 
 tian myth and Jewish doctrine ; this dreamer of dreams 
 
 a prophet bewildered by weak echoes of the large ut 
 terance of the early gods ; this false Christ ; " the Osiris 
 of a known age a Jupiter within our era;" this Syrian 
 peasant to whom a column was erected in far-off Rome 
 
 Simoni Deo Sancto ; this forerunner of Comte, wor 
 shipping the divine idea in the guise of a woman ; this 
 visionary, wise with strange wisdom of the East ; this 
 impostor, performing daily miracles, "to whom they all 
 gave heed, in the city, from the least to the greatest." 
 
 There was, I say, something singularly interesting in 
 this history listened to here under the very shadow of 
 the Mount of Blessing ; and so it came to pass that all 
 through the long sunny morning Constance and the 
 Major rode apart. 
 
 But it was still early in the afternoon as they passed 
 the first houses of that ancient city, Shechem the 
 modern Nablous the city of running streams, and blos 
 som-burdened gardens, and sombre, tunnelled streets. 
 
 As they drew up before the door of the tents they 
 heard a discharge of firearms; a company of Turkish, 
 horsemen were turning slowly away. It was the gover 
 nor and his escort, Hassan informed them in an import 
 ant whisper. 
 
 " Governor very strong man here, sir. I tell him you
 
 IOS MIRAGE. 
 
 one big general, make him afraid. P raps, I not tell him 
 so ! Do something not please him, he take away one, two, 
 three, my men." 
 
 " Nice kind of person that," said Mr. Stuart, lazily. 
 
 "Yes, sir; very big man, sir. Very bad man. I 
 do him honor. Wish I had more guns ; I fire another 
 salute." 
 
 " Here, take my revolver," says Jack, good-naturedly. 
 He drew his pistol out of his belt and passed it over to 
 the dragoman. 
 
 "Oh, Jack, how could you! Think of the horrible 
 noise ! " 
 
 "What! does it really go off? Do you know I am 
 rather surprised at that. I thought it was an ornament," 
 says Constance, smiling. 
 
 The young man turned rather red. " We can t all be 
 Mr. Lawrences," he said, drily; and this time it was 
 Miss Varley s turn to blush. 
 
 After lunch they sallied out to inspect the city. And 
 here again Miss Varley walked off with Tom, leaving 
 the other two to follow at their leisure. 
 
 They followed on for the most part in silence. Was 
 any thing the matter? Had he offended her? Was it 
 possible that she did not understand The young 
 fellow, stalking gloomily along, revolving these and 
 kindred questions in his mind, must surely have been 
 but a sorry companion. And yet Mrs. Thayer did 
 not seemed displeased. 
 
 At first they went to Jacob s house, the house where 
 the father mourned for his son many days and refused 
 to be comforted. They pushed open the creaking gate 
 and passed from out the noisy street into an old and 
 silent garden an up-springing wilderness of rose 
 bushes and oranges, with here and there a mossy peach- 
 tree thrusting a branch of pale pink blossoms across the 
 narrow path. On one side stood the so-called house 
 an old church of the time of the Crusaders, but with a 
 Saracenic arch apparently of much earlier date ; now it 
 is used as a manufactory of clay jars. They went in
 
 SOME GOOD SAMARITANS. 109 
 
 and looked about the deserted enclosure. The workmen 
 had all gone home. The place was quite empty but for 
 the rows upon rows of brown, unbaked jars. 
 
 " It reminds me of a burlesque I saw once, Ali Baba 
 and the Forty Thieves. What a capital place for a 
 ballet ! " says Jack. 
 
 Miss Constance laughs : " Poor Jacob ! " 
 
 They go out. At the farther end of the garden they 
 come upon a dark, shadowy pool. A single ray of sun 
 light pierces the glossy green of the orange-trees that 
 lean from the terrace overhead and catches on a fringe 
 of delicate grasses and rank, pale flowers. Beside it two 
 gnarled and aged cacti stand sentinel by the worn old 
 gateway leading through another garden to the square, 
 ruined tower of a mosque. Its gray time-eaten stones 
 are in full sunlight, high-lifted above the trees ; here 
 and there a tuft of fern, a waving tuft of yellow wall 
 flowers, makes a spot of color on its wind-and-rain 
 blanched surface. There is a still, sunny silence brood 
 ing like a charm over all the abandoned spot. 
 
 It was like the entrance to some enchanted castle, 
 Miss Varley remarked, absently. Had Fanny had 
 Mr. Stuart observed those cacti ? " The cactus is a 
 plant that always looks to me both deaf and dumb. 
 And those fig-trees up there, by the wall, with their dark 
 purplish twigs carved like fingers, and their leaves like 
 open hands is there not something uncanny to you 
 about a fig-tree ? I saw some to-day, as we rode along, 
 with such intricate tracery of branches they might almost 
 have suggested the Saracenic idea of ornamentation by 
 lines." 
 
 " I don t know ; I never studied botany," said Mr. 
 Stuart. 
 
 Once more they followed their guide down the long, 
 dark street, arched tunnel-wise above their heads ; pick 
 ing their way over slippery, jagged stones ; growing sud 
 denly aware of the tumult of hidden streams, and turning 
 a sharp corner to come suddenly out of the gloom and 
 darkness to where a glorious rush of water leaped wildly
 
 HO MIRAGE. 
 
 over the edge of a ruined archway, and fell in dazzling 
 mist in the brimming basin at their feet. Green masses 
 of clinging fern, and starry blooms, and cool pale water- 
 flowers hung down in lovely profusion, glistening with 
 moisture, and trembling with the movement of the fall ; 
 and looking through the archway, and through the won 
 derfully clear water, they could catch glimpses of a 
 sunny lawn and trees waving in the wind. 
 
 A little farther on they came upon the church of the 
 Samaritans. 
 
 " We go in to see the synagogue, of course ? " said the 
 Major. 
 
 It was a bare upper-chamber ; a white-washed room, 
 with curiously-shaped lamps swinging from the vaulted 
 ceiling. At one end a white sheet was drawn before 
 the Holy of Holies. The high-priest a young man 
 with a grave, fervent face, the face of a dreamer and an 
 enthusiast : beautiful, ardent, impassioned, like the face 
 of the boy David the high-priest drew back the cur 
 tain, and brought out and showed them the famous 
 manuscript copy of the Pentateuch. 
 
 It was a curious scene : the little group of sceptical 
 strangers, the roll of tattered vellum, the noble rever 
 ence of the priest bending over it, the three or four slim 
 Syrian lads lounging in the sunny doorway, the small, 
 mean room, the high place and the altar of that strange, 
 forgotten people who feared the Lord and worshipped 
 their own gods. 
 
 As they come out into the street once more the party 
 is again divided. Mrs. Thayer wishes to return to the 
 tents. 
 
 " Tom will take me there. You can go to the bazaar 
 with Constance," she said. 
 
 Mr. Stuart was entirely at Miss Varley s service. 
 
 " I think I shall go back with Fanny," that young 
 lady remarks. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " 
 
 " But, indeed, Fanny " 
 
 " Go on with Jack, and wait for me in the bazaar.
 
 SOME GOOD SAMARITANS. Ill 
 
 I 11 join you presently with Hassan. I m going to make 
 a sketch," the Major says decidedly. And with this 
 understanding they part. 
 
 It was an embarrassing moment for them both the 
 more so, perhaps, that neither was quite sure what had 
 occasioned this change. . Of the two there was one who 
 would have given much to have escaped the necessity of 
 any interview. Naturally enough, this one was the first 
 to speak. 
 
 " I am afraid we have been very selfish, Tom and I," 
 she says, with a slight increase of color on her cheeks \ 
 " Fanny seems so tired. But these people are inter 
 esting. I think this is a delightful place don t 
 you ? " 
 
 "I think so now," says Mr. Stuart. 
 
 Some men passing along the road turn again to stare 
 at the strangers, and Mr. Stuart returns their glances 
 with a little of that abounding contempt we instinctively 
 exhibit towards people who, in all probability, will never 
 be in any fashion connected with ourselves. 
 
 " It is so seldom Tom can be got to talk. Tom is 
 something like an Englishman in that respect. Did you 
 never notice how an American will invariably endeavor 
 to be interesting at any cost either to others or to 
 himself ? Now an Englishman has the courage to be 
 dull." 
 
 " Some of us are dull enough without that," says Jack, 
 moodily. 
 
 The Arabs are still standing watching him. They 
 whisper together. As the young man brushes by them 
 there is a hoarse cry of " Backshish ! " and then an 
 insolent laugh. It is only a trifling annoyance, but it 
 comes charged with the weight of the morning s exas 
 peration, and sends the hot blood flushing to his fore 
 head. He turns upon Constance with that sudden, 
 irrational resentment of an unpleasant impression which 
 is, perhaps, at the bottom of half the follies of life. 
 
 " Don t you think these small travelling-parties are a 
 mistake? " he says, with an air of elaborate impartiality.
 
 112 MIRAGE. 
 
 " One sees the same people so continuously that in 
 fact, you see the same people so much." 
 
 Miss Varley is entirely of his opinion. She says 
 so, and then bends down and busies herself with 
 the folds of her habit to conceal a most unequivocal 
 smile. 
 
 " Yes, I am tired of it," says Mr. Stuart. 
 
 " Indeed ! " 
 
 " I am tired of the whole thing. You treat me like a 
 boy. You laugh at me. You you attempt to to 
 patronize me, by Jove ! " cries the young man, turning 
 very red. " I don t like it. I don t think you are treat 
 ing me fairly, Constance," he says, with sudden . firm 
 ness, with an assertion of mastery in his voice that she 
 has never heard before. 
 
 Miss Varley draws herself up and turns her face full 
 upon him, and all the light and animation have gone 
 out of that face. 
 
 " You are probably not aware of what you are saying. 
 You will excuse me if I fail to understand " she 
 begins very coldly ; and then there comes a sudden look 
 of kindness in her eyes. " What is the use of quarrelling, 
 Jack ? You know you are talking nonsense. When 
 have I ever done any thing purposely to vex you ? " she 
 says very gently. 
 
 A group of fair-haired Nablous children are standing 
 in a doorway. At the sight of the strange faces ap 
 proaching them they dart away like frightened birds, all 
 but one, a little boy of two or three, who stands in the 
 middle of the street and contemplates them meditatively. 
 Such a flower-face as it is ! with the beautiful, open look 
 of a peach-blossom overblown. " Come here, you de 
 lightful little creature, and get some backshish," says 
 Miss Varley, and holds up a tempting silver coin. There 
 is a moment s hesitation, and then the baby comes for 
 ward a few steps, stops, stares about him. " Poor little 
 thing ! " says Constance, and stoops to pick him up. 
 To her surprise the child resists her with sudden, shrill 
 cries of alarm.
 
 SOME GOOD SAMARITANS. 113 
 
 " Oh, put him down, do ! " says Jack, hastily. There 
 is quite a crowd around them by this time. 
 
 " Poor little thing ! You don t suppose it was afraid 
 I had the evil eye ? " begins the girl ; and at the same 
 moment a woman, veiled and shapeless in her cotton 
 gown, breaks through the ring, seizes the sobbing child 
 in her arms, and turns and addresses the crowd in high- 
 pitched Arabic. 
 
 " Come on ! " says Mr. Stuart again, and this time 
 with even stronger emphasis. " Let that little wretch 
 alone ; it doesn t want your money. Here, let s get out 
 of this." 
 
 But this is not so easily done. It is true the crowd 
 parts before them, but only to close about on every side. 
 " Backshish ! " yells a tall, one-eyed lad in a tattered 
 gown, who has followed them persistently since they 
 entered the bazaar. " Backshish ! " calls out a man, 
 putting a hand on Miss Varley s shoulder and stooping 
 to look into her face. " Back " A vigorous push 
 sends him staggering against the wall. 
 
 " Take my arm ; don t be frightened," says Jack, 
 cheerfully. " If we can only get through this infernal 
 bazaar " A shove from the yellow fanatic on the 
 outside of the ring sends the nearest beggar upon him. 
 He turns, and a shove from the other side flings Con 
 stance against his shoulder. No sound ; but the double 
 movement meant mischief. 
 
 " Oh, what shall we do?" says Miss Varley, turning 
 pale. 
 
 To her dying day she will never forget what takes 
 place within the next few minutes. 
 
 He took her hands in his ; he looked at her with a 
 sort of despairing tenderness. 
 
 " Don t be frightened," he says ; "there is going to be 
 a row. Here, stand back under that arch, and don t 
 move, whatever happens. Don t be frightened, and don t 
 cry. Don t cry, my darling, I 11 take care of you." 
 
 As luck will have it, the arch of which he speaks is 
 the gaudy-painted doorway of the mosque. A savage 
 
 8
 
 114 MIRAGE. 
 
 howl of execration runs through the crowd at sight of 
 this new outrage. They press forward, stop, waver ; 
 and then Jack turns and faces them and draws his 
 pistol from his belt. 
 
 " Come on, then ! Why don t you come on, you 
 blackguards ! " he calls out, in English ; and, as by the 
 breaking of a spell, the sound of his voice evokes a very 
 storm of frenzy and abuse. With every moment the 
 tumult increases. A piece of mud knocks off his hat ; 
 in an instant it is seized and torn to shreds ; and the 
 sight of his blonde, Saxon face is the signal for a new 
 outbreak of impotent rage. Twice already the jeering, 
 hissing mass of infuriated men has pushed and swayed 
 up to the very limit of the steps, and twice the sight of 
 his steady, unblenching face has swept them back again 
 with a sound as of the surf grinding upon the shore. 
 And each time they have lessened the distance between 
 them. 
 
 He took three steps forward, paused, then deliber 
 ately drew a deep line with the heel of his boot in the 
 dust. "We 11 see who crosses that, my men ! " he says, 
 significantly. A long howl of defiance is the instant 
 answer. And now, with one common impulse, the mob 
 hurls itself forward and stands straining and foaming 
 like a pack of craven, white-toothed pariah dogs on the 
 farther side of the barrier. 
 
 " Don t be frightened, my darling," says Jack ; his 
 own face is deathly pale, and great beads of moisture 
 are standing on his forehead. 
 
 There is a scuffle, a push ; one of the foremost as 
 sailants, a half-grown lad in a long, blue caftan, is sent 
 staggering across the mark : he falls heavily on his face 
 and is dragged back by his nearest neighbors. And 
 then comes an ominous pause. 
 
 From his vantage-ground on the mosque-steps Stuart 
 overlooks the street ; and at this moment he is aware 
 of a disturbance in the spirit of the mob some new 
 object is drawing their attention. There is a cry of 
 " Allah ! " the sound of a low, wailing, inarticulate chant,
 
 SOME GOOD SAMARITANS. 1 15 
 
 a sudden falling asunder of the close-packed men ; in 
 the centre of this space, advancing slowly towards him, 
 is a creature a man. It has the figure of a man 
 but whether young or old it is impossible to say. A 
 strip of sheepskin is slung about its waist, a long string 
 of coarse amulets dangles from its neck and down upon 
 the naked breast, covered with hair like the breast of 
 an animal. On his head is a fantastic crown of iron 
 spikes, from under which long and matted locks stream 
 down over his thick arms, his naked, shining shoulders, 
 his fixed and vacant eyes. He comes slowly forward, 
 rolling from side to side in his walk, keeping time to the 
 monotonous, lolling chant. The crowd have fallen re 
 spectfully back, he stands alone in the centre of an open 
 space, looking at Stuart with a dull, malignant smile. 
 
 " My God ! what shall I do ? " thought Stuart, clench 
 ing his teeth. He moves, and the dervish catches sight 
 of Constance. A sudden, furious gleam of insanity 
 transfigures the livid face. He turns, with a wild gesture 
 of exhortation he turns and harangues the mob. He 
 turns again he walks deliberately forward. Jack 
 raises the revolver slowly to a level. 
 
 And then a murderous silence falls upon the crowd. 
 The dervish comes steadily forward ; his foot is on the 
 line ; he looks up at Stuart with an idiotic laugh, and 
 then, like a mockery from heaven, they hear through the 
 intense silence the innocent, bubbling laughter of a child. 
 
 The dervish passes the line. Constance springs for 
 ward with a cry. The next sound is the click of the 
 trigger settling back in its lock.
 
 Il6 All RAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BLUE LILIES. 
 
 " TACK ! " She springs forward and clutches him by 
 *J the arm. "Don t fire! Hassan !" she says wildly, 
 with white, breathless lips ; " Hassan Hassan " 
 
 And even as she speaks there is a clattering charge of 
 mounted men, a swinging of sabres, a slashing of whips, 
 a cheer. The surging mob sweeps back against the 
 steps. In a moment the dervish is seized, surrounded, 
 forced bodily into the shelter of the mosque. Major 
 Thayer springs from his saddle. The Turkish soldiers 
 clear the piazza of the last terrified stragglers. The 
 dragoman rushes forward flourishing his koorbash. 
 
 " Thank God ! " says Stuart, seizing Constance by 
 the hand. And then, for the first time, Miss Varley 
 breaks down. 
 
 " Take me home take me home, Tom, to Fanny," 
 she says piteously. 
 
 " Will you ride ? " 
 
 " No ; I don t know : take me home," she says, and 
 walks on blindly, clinging to his arm, the centre of an 
 excited, questioning, explaining group. 
 
 In three or four minutes they have reached the camp. 
 As they enter the tent Miss Varley turns to Stuart : 
 
 " I haven t thanked you. But you know," she says 
 brokenly. She gives him both her hands. Then she 
 sits down on a chair in a corner and begins to cry. 
 
 Mr. Stuart, too, sits down. He looks about him with 
 a bewildered air. 
 
 "Good heavens ! Jack, are you hurt? Will you have 
 some brandy? some water? Your face is as white as a 
 sheet ! O Tom, why don t you do something ? Don t 
 you see that Jack "
 
 BLUE LILIES. 1 17 
 
 " I m not hurt, Fanny. I ve been badly frightened. 
 I never knew what it was like before," says Mr. Stuart, 
 simply ; " but I had Constance to take care of, you know, 
 and Look here !" 
 
 He threw his revolver down upon the table. Major 
 Thayer picks it up curiously, examines it, starts, and 
 throws it down again with an oath. 
 
 " I let Hassan have it for that salute. I had forgotten 
 all about it. You see it wasn t loaded ! " says Jack. 
 
 The following afternoon found them still at Nablous. 
 Fanny did not feel well, for one thing ; her nerves had 
 not yet recovered from yesterday s excitement. Then 
 Abdallah s foot was no better, a horse had gone lame, 
 the head-muleteer had a wife in Shechem. 
 
 " In fact, the more I hear our delay explained, the less 
 I seem to understand it," Major Thayer remarked, testily. 
 
 They were winding up Mount Gerizim, and it was to 
 Miss Varley he spoke. The Major had all that aversion 
 to stopping which you notice in unoccupied people 
 that terror of a pause, which is so suggestive of the 
 anticipation of a corresponding vacuum. And just now 
 this latest annoyance found relief in a proposition pe 
 culiarly unacceptable to Constance, for : 
 
 " I shall stay here and sketch. Fanny particularly 
 wished me to get a good, sketch of Nablous. And I 
 think she was quite right in advising me to take it from 
 half-way up the hill," he said. 
 
 Miss Varley suggested they could wait and all ride up 
 together, later. Mr. Stuart thought it would be a pity 
 to miss the sunset. Hassan was of opinion the horses 
 needed exercise. Of course it ended in their going on. 
 
 It was a sunny, breezy afternoon. As they turned 
 their horses heads towards the distant mountain-top, a 
 cool and playful air blew freshly down upon them, luring 
 them onward to the wind-swept freedom of those heights. 
 The very greyhound, bounding on before, seemed in 
 stinct with new force and life, making wild rushes at 
 elusive birds, flinging his supple, golden-brown body 
 high in air, in frantic efforts to make will take the place
 
 Il8 MIRAGE. 
 
 *. , ~ 
 
 of wings, or pausing, erect and quivering, upon some 
 overhanging rock to watch their slower ascent. They 
 were riding across a strikingly beautiful country, over 
 both sacred and historic ground. But both were pre 
 occupied, and both were unusually silent. 
 
 We hear so much of woman s power of intuition 
 now that the exemption from all that power implies is 
 claimed that possibly the phrase may serve once more 
 to account for the feeling of confused apprehension with 
 which Miss Varley looked forward to the conclusion of 
 this ride. Indeed, she had hardly recovered as yet from 
 the excitement and suspense of yesterday. Stuart s 
 courage, his devotion, the simple fashion in whidi he 
 had accepted her thanks, appealed, each in its different 
 degree, to the keenest instincts of her nature. And 
 liking, admiration, a quick responsive generosity that 
 very habit of thrusting self into the background which 
 was so characteristic of this girl were ranged upon 
 his side ; were met, were answered by the strong in 
 voluntary recoil with which she shrank from admitting 
 any claim the slightest which could modify her 
 sentiment toward Lawrence. 
 
 " He will never know what I gave him ; let me know 
 that I gave it all ! " was her inward cry. 
 
 There was a bitter -satisfaction in the very complete 
 ness of the sacrifice. But now, as she rode on, her pre 
 dominant sensation might have been translated into an 
 unreasonable conviction that something was coming. 
 And it came. 
 
 The afternoon was singularly lovely. When they 
 reached the mountain-summit great patches of cloud- 
 shadow were resting like so many vaporous islands on 
 the broad, billowy sweep of the plain. On one side, the 
 blue line of the Moabite mountains melted away in a 
 dream of distant horizons ; on the other, the wide reach 
 of the Mediterranean curved and glittered in the sun. 
 
 Half-way up, after they had left the Major, even after 
 they had passed the gray olive groves amidst the rocks, 
 there was an attempt at cultivation ; but here were
 
 BLUE LILIES. 119 
 
 stones nothing but stones growing larger and larger 
 as one ascended, until the ground was littered with rows 
 upon rows of square-hewn blocks, and the confusion 
 culminated in a ruined building, whose small, white dome 
 is a landmark for miles across the plain. 
 
 Here they left the horses. A few steps farther on 
 the massive Roman wall is broken into windows. Small 
 knotted fig-trees thrust their weather-beaten branches 
 from between the stones, and the red anemones, bend 
 ing and flickering in the wind like thin, blown flames 
 from subterranean fires, added a touch of crimson grace 
 " Love settling unawares." 
 
 " Those trees remind me of certain personalities," 
 Miss Varley remarked, glancing round her. " Do you 
 remember old Mr. McMoon ? " 
 
 " The old Scotchman at Jerusalem, who admired you 
 so much ? " 
 
 " Yes. That is I don t know about the admiration. 
 I think there was something so pathetic about the poor 
 old fellow old, and unsightly, and grimly tenacious of 
 life, like one of those trees. Do you know he confided 
 to me one day, when we were all out on the roof, that 
 he had been devoting his life since he was eighteen to 
 making money, and, now that his fortune was made, 
 he would like to devote his money to getting back his 
 life ? " 
 
 " The more fool he," said Jack, sententiously. 
 
 " Do you really think so ? He always seemed to me 
 more like a sermon on the folly of telling people to sub 
 due their desires while they are young, and wait for 
 judgment before they face the world. Giving him the 
 use of his life now was like throwing a smoked herring 
 into the sea. He had returned to his native element 
 again ; but after a trial by fire. He was just as much 
 of a fish as ever, only he couldn t swim ! " 
 
 Mr. Stuart smiled. It pleased him to fancy that Con 
 stance was clever, as it had pleased him, a week before, 
 to hear of one of his old class-mates having distinguished 
 himself by a volume of translations from the Greek.
 
 120 MIRAGE. 
 
 The cleverness, in his comprehension of things, bore, 
 perhaps, the same relation to real life as the dead lan 
 guage. Both were distinctions in their way, and neither 
 prevented a pleasant feeling of easy superiority on the 
 part of a man who understood, and acted upon, the facts 
 of existence. 
 
 But, just now, it pleased him most of all to lean 
 against these crumbling ruins and watch Miss Varley s 
 movements, the proud and gracious pose of her head, 
 the flush of color on her cheek. It was with a perfect, 
 a luxurious sense of satisfaction that the young man 
 lounged by her side in the broken embrasure, gazing 
 idly down at those sunny fields, and saw his future 
 stretching out before him, cheerful, and sunny, and 
 secure as they. A premonition of approaching happi 
 ness not of content, but of happiness, full, un 
 measured, incalculable seemed to float in the very 
 air around him, seemed to shine and dazzle through all 
 the sunlight of this brilliant day. He looked up at 
 Constance ; he looked back again at the valley ; he 
 smiled ; he drew a long breath ; he hesitated. It was a 
 supreme moment in his life. 
 
 " I don t know how it is," he observed presently ; 
 " when I am not with you I am always waiting for you, 
 looking for you, expecting you. I feel as though I had 
 something of the utmost importance to tell you. And 
 when you are there " 
 
 He stopped and looked up, suddenly ; then turned 
 away and began thrusting his stick between the crevices 
 in the stones. 
 
 " That is one of the many disadvantages of a small 
 party," said Constance, demurely. 
 
 " You know I never meant that ! " 
 
 " Indeed, I know nothing of the kind ! I ve a very 
 good memory, I assure you." 
 
 " I should like to think you remembered something 
 else I told you yesterday," said Jack. 
 
 Miss Varley blushed, and felt herself blushing. 
 
 " What one says is of less consequence. I never
 
 BLUE LILIES. 121 
 
 shall forget what you did. Never. I shall never thank 
 you for it, because " 
 
 "I don t want to be thanked. I would do any thing 
 for you." 
 
 kl You have done a great deal." She put out her 
 hand, and picked a flower growing on the arch above 
 her head. " I think we had better be going. Tom will 
 be waiting," she said. 
 
 " Are you not comfortable where you are ? " 
 
 " Yes. But Tom " 
 
 " Tom be hanged ! You are always in such a hurry 
 to go," says Jack, reproachfully. " Now I I am differ 
 ent. And, beside that, I want you to stay here. I 
 want to talk to you. Constance." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " I wish you would tell me something about yourself. 
 You always speak of other people of me. It is not 
 my own story I want to know, it is yours. Tell me " 
 
 " There is nothing to tell." 
 
 "Nothing?" 
 
 " Nothing. What sort of a story could I have ? 
 What do I ever do, what have I ever done that could 
 interest you ? " she answered, a little hurriedly. " I 
 never went anywhere until we came here. I never had 
 an adventure in my life until yesterday. I could give 
 you the names of a thousand books or so I have read in 
 the last three years. I can t tell you any thing else. 
 And if I did" 
 
 " Well ? If you did ? " 
 
 " You would not understand." 
 
 " Try me," said Jack, eagerly. 
 
 She shook her head. " You would not understand," 
 she said. 
 
 And I, for one, am inclined to believe that she was 
 right. We see in others what we are prepared to see in 
 them, not what they actually represent. The difference 
 between these two people was a difference of tempera 
 ment, of aim, of quality, of a hundred irreconcilable 
 things.
 
 122 MIRAGE. 
 
 "IK. * 
 Above all, it was a difference of aim ; and there is, 
 
 perhaps, more vital separation implied in this difference 
 of desires than in the most opposing circumstance. 
 
 But of this, which she felt vaguely, he was quite 
 unconscious. He never imagined for a moment that a 
 woman s opinions were less open to modification of 
 more importance as regarded his relation to her than 
 her dress. If you had hinted to Mr. Stuart that Con 
 stance might object to marry him because he took his 
 idea of Browning from the newspapers, preferred Mark 
 Twain to Sophocles, and thought the Mona Lisa a plain 
 woman with a high forehead not half so pretty as "the 
 photographs of half-a-dozen girls he knew well,the 
 probabilities are he would have considered you mad. 
 
 " You spoke of three years ago. How strange it is 
 we should have known each other then. I had seen 
 you, and I did not know I mean who could have 
 ever imagined we should be here to-day together as 
 as we are." 
 
 " Three years ! It is a long time," said Constance. 
 
 "You have not changed." 
 
 "You think not ? " 
 
 She looked away down into the sunlit valley, and little 
 by little the light faded out of her face. 
 
 " I hare changed," she said slowly. She twisted the 
 flower she held between her fingers, and laid its blossom 
 absently against her lips. " I have changed." 
 
 " Yes, so have I," said the young man, eagerly. " I 
 know now what I didn t know then, Constance." He 
 leaned forward a little and took her hand in his. She 
 did not move away, but her fingers grew cold and trem 
 bled, and she kept her eyes fixed upon her lap. " Give 
 me that flower," said Jack. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Constance ! " 
 
 And now she looked up and saw him standing before 
 her a tall, handsome fellow, his face all aglow with 
 excitement and passionate hope. Her eyes dropped. 
 
 " You will give me that flower ? "
 
 BLUE LILIES. 123 
 
 " No," said Constance again. 
 
 " Look at me ! I Look at me, Constance, 
 dearest! Why why do you think I want it?" 
 
 Constance did not answer. 
 
 " See here ! " the young man said, impetuously. He 
 put his hand in his breast-pocket ; took out a card-case. 
 His hand shook as he began turning over its leaves. 
 " Look ! " There was a Syrian lily pressed between the 
 pages. " Do you know where I got that ? You gave 
 it to me. You gave it to me on the way to Jericho. I 
 shall never forget that day. It was the first time 
 I want you to give me that flower because I love you. 
 I love you, Constance ! " 
 
 " No ! " Miss Varley, too, had risen to her feet ; she 
 had pushed away Lione s head ; her flowers had fallen 
 to the ground. And now she lifted up her face, and 
 looked at him with grave, compassionate eyes. " It is 
 impossible," she said, gently. 
 
 " Impossible, Constance ? But I love you ! " 
 
 " Yes. I am very sorry," she said. Her eyes 
 were full of tears. 
 
 And then there was a long silence. 
 
 " Dear Jack," the girl says presently, going up to him 
 and laying her hand upon his arm, " I am so sorry. If 
 I could have helped it But you you would not 
 understand." 
 
 " Do you think I did not ? " he answers bitterly. 
 " Oh, you need not be alarmed. You are right enough. 
 I am not going to blame you. It is no one s fault but 
 my own, and I I loved you so ! " he says, with a sud 
 den break and tremor in his voice. 
 
 " Dear Jack ! " 
 
 " Constance, you do care for me you will ! I don t 
 say now, but some time-, you you must care for me 
 some time ! " he says wildly. " Constance ! you are so 
 good, so dear ; it is impossible you should be so cruel to 
 me ! " For the first time in his experience he has been 
 exalted, lifted above himself by a wave of supreme 
 emotion. "I I can t believe it ! " he cries, with a
 
 124 MIRAGE. 
 
 sort of bewildered rage. " It s impossible. You cannot 
 you will not mean it," he says imploringly, seizing 
 her hand in his. " Constance " 
 
 " I cannot, Jack. I like you ; I am very fond of 
 you. I will always be your friend " 
 
 " And you will never love me ? " 
 
 Miss Varley was silent. 
 
 " Never ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Well, that s hard ! " said Stuart, drawing a long 
 breath. 
 
 He got up ; walked away a few paces. Lione sprang 
 to his feet and stood watching him in eager expectation 
 of the signal to move on. 
 
 Constance too rose, and looked about her, and paused, 
 irresolute. She was profoundly moved by the sight of 
 his distress. 
 
 A woman can rarely persuade herself that by refus 
 ing to marry a man she has not inflicted upon him a 
 serious injury, and this in the face of the clearest con 
 viction of the utter unsuitableness of the match. It 
 is true that we are more apt to estimate a gift by what 
 it costs us than by the value it represents to another. 
 Before blaming Constance for this for any thing which 
 followed it would perhaps be well to remember how 
 all her own conception of suffering was centred, as it 
 were, about this one phase of experience the pain of 
 baffled desire. Memory intensified her comprehension 
 of Stuart s disappointment. The thought of Denis was 
 one with the impulse which made her go forward a few 
 steps and put out her hand. 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 Mr. Stuart turned, his sunburnt, boyish face wearing 
 a look which surely it had never worn before. 
 
 "Don t distress yourself. It hasn t been your fault. 
 Other fellows have been through this sort of thing be 
 fore now," he says ; " only if you are expecting some 
 thing different " 
 
 There is a pause, and then : " Well 1 that is over,"
 
 BLUE LILIES. 125 
 
 he says firmly. "Shall we go down? Tom will be 
 waiting." 
 
 This time it is Miss Varley who hesitates. She hesi 
 tates, and then, perhaps, with a sense of the hopeless 
 ness of further discussion, perhaps even with some 
 slight recognition of the superior wisdom of silence, she 
 gathers up her gloves and whip and signifies her readi 
 ness to go. 
 
 Mr. Stuart s note-case is still lying on the window- 
 ledge. 
 
 " You have left your pocket-book," she says, pointing 
 with her whip. 
 
 He took it up, looked at it, took out the faded lily 
 and held it in his hand. 
 
 " See ! I can let it go now, but it has left a stain," 
 he said sadly, and let the discolored petals flutter to 
 the ground. 
 
 They walked down to where the horses were waiting, 
 without another word, and, once mounted, they picked 
 their way down the difficult mountain-trail with a burn 
 ing consciousness of the irrevocable and the changed. 
 And as they rode on thus in agitated silence : 
 
 " Hollo ! Why, you re not going to ride over me, are 
 you ? " said a brisk and cheerful voice. 
 
 It was Major Thayer the Major, whom they had 
 quite forgotten sitting upon his camp-stool in the 
 shade of an olive, smoking, his white hat resting on the 
 back of his head, and a quiet smile of middle-aged 
 content playing about his mouth as he sat and contem 
 plated his sketch. 
 
 The commonplaces of life reasserted themselves with 
 a start. 
 
 "Well, any new facts about the Samaritans?" the 
 Major asked ; and it was Mr. Stuart who answered him, 
 with admirable composure. The ride had been well, 
 quite worth taking. It was rather rough on the horses, 
 certainly. He had noticed as they were coming down 
 that Miss Varley s horse was going a little lame on the 
 right fore foot. But the view was quite what " Murray " 
 described.
 
 126 MIRAGE. 
 
 " So you are glad you went, Constance ? " 
 
 Miss Varley had turned round to call Lione. She 
 did not hear. 
 
 " So it seems we have all been making good use of 
 an afternoon," the Major concluded cheerfully. " I 
 don t brag much of my sketches as a general thing; 
 but if you will just look at that bit of distance there 
 and the way that minaret comes out between the trees 
 why, hang it all, man, don t stand in your own light! 
 Here, pass it over to Constance. And I think," said 
 the Major, complacently, folding up his camp-stool ajid 
 shutting up his box, " I think, for once, Fanny will, be 
 satisfied with all of us." 
 
 And again it was Mr. Stuart who answered. He had 
 no doubt of it. And all through dinner through the 
 ordeal of Fanny s questioning all through the long 
 evening which followed, the young man preserved this 
 unruffled calm. It is true Mrs. Thayer observed he 
 never looked at Constance ; but then, on the other 
 hand, they spoke to each other often and pleasantly; 
 nor in his manner of addressing Miss Varley could his 
 critic detect the slightest deviation from the general 
 tenor of his speech. It was only after dinner, when the 
 ladies had both retired, and Jack and the Major were 
 sitting together in that friendly silence which is the ex 
 clusive prerogative of our sex, that Mr. Stuart exhibited 
 any symptoms of disquiet. 
 
 He got up, poured himself out a glass of whiskey and 
 water, lit a cigar, set the glass down on the table, and 
 threw the cigar on the floor. 
 
 " I m going out," he said briefly, and suited the ac 
 tion to the word. 
 
 It was a still and starry night. The camp was pitched 
 on a small circular plateau overhanging the ravine. 
 The young man thrust his hands in his pocket, walked 
 over to the farther side and looked down. The shad 
 owy mass of Mount Ebal towered up darkly before him, 
 dimly outlined against the clearer sky. A sound of 
 running water gurgled softly through the stillness. He
 
 IN ARC AD Y. 127 
 
 could hear the jackals calling to one another from the 
 coverts of the mountain. 
 
 He stood there a long while, meditating. He turned 
 his head and looked at a tent where the light was still 
 shining, he glanced up at the stars above him ; once he 
 even whistled softly to himself, and it may be that at 
 this moment a vague idea of shooting jackals mingled 
 with his more sentimental musings. But there was, per 
 haps, less philosophy than might have been expected in 
 this patient lingering to see the last glimmer of light 
 extinguished in that particular tent, or in the half-uttered 
 blessing with which he turned away. 
 
 " Stuyvesant couldn t do it. But I ll do it yet!" he 
 said between his teeth with sudden energy, and looked 
 up as though taking the silent stars to witness of his 
 resolve. The stars shone calmly bright. It may be a 
 more-impassioned lover would have seen some cold and 
 still denial in that calm ; a more superstitious watcher 
 might even have attached some foolish significance to 
 the wild, rattling peal of derisive laughter with which 
 the jackals greeted his remark. But then, Mr. Stuart 
 was not superstitious. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN ARCADY. 
 
 AND then?" 
 " Oh, then we went all the way up to the top. 
 I Ve told you that before." 
 " And then ? " 
 
 "Then we did like the king of France." 
 "The king of " 
 
 "France. Who rode up a hill with all his twenty 
 thousand men, and then rode down again. Fanny, 
 your historical education has been neglected."
 
 128 MIRAGE. 
 
 *-, 
 " I do wish you would be serious," said Mrs. Thayer. 
 
 " I am serious ; perfectly so. If you are curious to 
 know what we talked about, my dear, why that is an 
 other question. I remember speaking of Mr. Mc- 
 Moon for one thing. There was a fig-tree up there that 
 looked exactly like Mr. McMoon." 
 
 " Mr. McMoon had the face of a monkey," Fanny re 
 marked, impatiently. 
 
 " That only shows what a good old family he belongs 
 to. I think it is rather nice myself to resemble one s an 
 cestors," the girl answered, gravely. 
 
 They were on their way to Samaria, riding along a 
 narrow path under leafy boughs by the side of a ftram- 
 ing mill-race. Constance was near the palanquin ; Mr. 
 Stuart and the Major far on in advance ; and the ex 
 pression on Miss Varley s face was hardly in strict uni 
 son with the nonsense she was talking. 
 
 Possibly Mrs. Thayer was aware of the discrepancy. 
 
 " I wonder," she said presently, looking up with an 
 innocent air, " I wonder what Aunt Van we are sure 
 to meet Aunt Van at Damascus what she will think 
 of Jack ? " And then, receiving no answer, " I am 
 so disappointed in Jack," she went on, in a regretful 
 manner. 
 
 "Why, Fanny?" 
 
 " Well, one expects confidence from a friend," said 
 Fanny, softly. 
 
 Miss Varley blushed. " I you must admit yourself, 
 Fanny, that there are certain things " 
 
 " Oh, I was speaking of Jack, my dear. You and I 
 are very old friends, indeed. It would be a pity if we 
 could not understand each other," said Mrs. Thayer, 
 sweetly. 
 
 It was a fact that they had known each other a long 
 while. Looking back, Constance could hardly remem 
 ber a scene in her life in which Fanny had not played 
 her pretty, complacent part. There was never a subject, 
 save one, in which Fanny s preference had not had its 
 influence ; or ever a pleasure, again with that exception,
 
 IN ARC AD Y. 129 
 
 in which Fanny had not shared. And to a nature en 
 dowed with the fatal gift of sentiment, this very habit of 
 giving constituted an irresistible claim. " Constance 
 would do any thing for me," was Fanny s habitual for 
 mula. It seemed to Mrs. Thayer a truly providential 
 arrangement that she should have this opportunity of 
 superintending the fashioning of her friend s life. For, 
 curiously enough, the admiration was chiefly on the 
 other side. With all Fanny s affectionate solicitude, 
 and she was really very fond of Constance, there was 
 mingled some secret doubt and wonder at a simple and 
 generous credulity she was quite unfitted to understand. 
 For, indeed, it is rather remarkable to what a superla 
 tive degree of contempt for human nature the average 
 individual can attain, by simply shutting his eyes to the 
 existence of any loftier standard than that by which he 
 measures his own acts. 
 
 But they are riding to Samaria. It is a soft, gray 
 morning. The sky is overcast, and the warm gusts of 
 wind spatter sharp raindrops in their faces, but as yet 
 there is no shower. They have not been riding long 
 before the road turns abruptly to tha right, and begins 
 climbing the terraced hill to the breezy upland of old 
 Samaria. Its rows of discrowned columns, wind-eaten 
 and worn and gray, stand in an orchard of gray fig-trees, 
 leafless as yet, but with some subtle hint of color playing 
 about them and foretelling spring. The loose, thin veil 
 of clouds gives a new tenderness of coloring to the day. 
 There is nothing jarring, nothing to disturb this sweet 
 monotony of soft, gray skies, gray olive-groves, and the 
 fresh, vivid green of the rain-awakened grass. Some of 
 the columns are stained with yellow lichen, and all are 
 defaced and time-worn. Nature has so taken them to 
 her heart they have become of the very texture of the 
 moss-grown trees about them ; and there seems nothing 
 startling, nothing incongruous, in finding them thus 
 alone amidst the freshness of the blossoming fields. 
 
 " I will make Samaria as an heap of the field and as 
 plantings of a vineyard," Constance quoted beneath her
 
 130 MIRAGE. 
 
 , *~~ 
 
 breath. They had ridden up to the crest of the hill and 
 there dismounted. Major Thayer was making a sketch. 
 
 They were standing perhaps on the very site of the 
 great Baal temple. Here had been the groves of Ash- 
 taroth ; here the brazen serpent that Moses made ; and 
 here the flaming chariot and horses of the sun. Look 
 ing across the swelling upland, "fair with the precious 
 things of the lasting hills, the precious things of the 
 earth and the fulness thereof," where the people had set 
 up their images and groves in every high hill and under 
 every green tree, they could see perhaps the very path 
 the prophet had taken, going out to the wilderness , to 
 yet another chariot and other horses of fire. 
 
 It was curious to turn from those Chaldean sages, 
 grave Eastern worshippers of all the hosts of heaven 
 through the turbulent, blood-stained reign of Jewish pro 
 phet and king to these pilgrims of a later day, these 
 worshippers of another faith, heralded by yet another 
 Star in the East. And still the young flowers smiled 
 and danced like children in the sweet morning air ; the 
 patient mother earth thrilled responsive to the wooing 
 touch of yet another spring ; and all the familiar miracle 
 of life swept, and breathed, and broke with ever fresh 
 insistence about the lonely hill. 
 
 An Arab was ploughing his orchard, among the col 
 umns, under the trees. At the end of the furrow he 
 paused ; he leaned his arms upon his plough the 
 sharpened root of a tree ; the big, brown oxen stood still, 
 and all three turned their heads and gazed at the stran 
 gers with slow, indifferent eyes. He went on with his 
 work without even lifting his head as the travellers rode 
 away. 
 
 Down by the village another surprise was awaiting 
 them a Gothic cathedral, roofless and sunken, but 
 otherwise entire. It was built 
 
 " Don t tell me it was built by the Empress Helena," 
 said Constance, laughing. "That terrible woman! she 
 is as unescapable as original sin ! " 
 
 " This is where John the Baptist is buried. Will you
 
 IN ARC AD Y. 131 
 
 hand me that Murray, Tom ? Yes ; here s thfe place : 
 The total length of the interior That s not it. A 
 little chamber excavated deep in the rock, to which the 
 descent is by Oh, Jack, would you mind going down 
 into that hole and counting the steps? Dr. Adams 
 would be so interested " 
 
 " Then somebody must come with me to carry the 
 candle," said Jack. 
 
 "I ll go." 
 
 Miss Varley took a light from the dragoman. " Let 
 me go first. You might fall ; " and then Fanny, look 
 ing down into the pit, hears only a confused murmur of 
 voices. The lights twinkle and disappear. 
 
 " Brava, Fanny ! Very neat, indeed," says the Major, 
 laying down his sketch-book and beginning to sharpen 
 a pencil, " Very neat, my dear." 
 
 "Neat?" Mrs. Thayer looks about her with an air of 
 ingenuous wonder. " People have different opinions, I 
 know and, of course, I don t pretend to be much of a 
 judge of architecture ; but, upon my word, it is the first 
 time I ever heard the word applied to a ruin ! " she says, 
 with a toss of her head. 
 
 Major Thayer s laughter was distinctly audible in the 
 vault below. 
 
 " Tom is enjoying himself," said Constance, with a 
 smile. She held the candle higher and looked about the 
 blank walls of the dungeon. A long, white lizard started 
 at the unwonted light, scurrying across the stones. 
 There was a slow dripping of water at the farther end of 
 the room. 
 
 " Do you believe John the Baptist was really buried 
 here ? " 
 
 " I don t know." 
 
 " Do you care ? " 
 
 " Not much. Do you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 They both laughed. " Here ! give me the light to 
 carry," said Stuart, with sudden gravity. 
 
 " Constance ! "
 
 132 MIRAGE. 
 
 "Well-?" 
 
 He turned abruptly ; held the candle closer to the 
 wall and began examining the jointure of the blocks. 
 
 "There isn t any mortar. It looks more like Roman 
 work," he began. And then, facing round suddenly; 
 " You said, yesterday, that we might be friends. Very 
 well. I accept your offer. We will be friends," he 
 said, steadily, and held out his hand. 
 
 Fanny looked at them curiously as they came up the 
 steps again and out into the dazzling daylight. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Oh, there was nothing ! " 
 
 " Not even the steps," says Major Thayer, gravely. 
 " Constance, are you a good judge of architecture ? 
 Fanny is " 
 
 " It was the least thing you could do, to go down and 
 look at the grave of your patron saint," says Fanny, 
 hastily, turning to Stuart. 
 
 Was John the Baptist Jack s patron saint? The Major 
 professed himself profoundly ignorant upon these ques 
 tions. " But was not John, your namesake, the John 
 who lost his head for a woman for Salome ? " he asks, 
 with a peculiar smile. 
 
 While they were waiting for the horses, Jack strolled 
 away carelessly down the road between the cactus- 
 hedges. For a wonder he came back with his hands 
 full of flowers. 
 
 "Will you have some blue lilies? " he said to Con 
 stance. 
 
 It was a long, still, uneventful morning. There was 
 a sense of ineffable repose in the sight of those soft, 
 low-hanging clouds, in the touch of that soft and wind 
 less air. At luncheon-time they left the rocky path, 
 forded the wide, shallow bed of the brook that since 
 earliest morning had mingled its joyous babble with 
 their own more desultory talk, and stretched themselves 
 out at ease upon the short, close grass of the mountain- 
 slope. The horses were picketed amongst the trees. A 
 few paces off the muleteers were coming and going, were
 
 IN ARCADY. 133 
 
 piling armfuls of crackling thorn upon the neonday fire. 
 Now and then a pale gleam of sunlight awoke a splen 
 dor of color aVnong the rocks, deep embedded in flowers 
 large cupped anemones, purple and red and opal 
 white ; white daisies, yellow chrysanthemums ; rose- 
 colored cyclamen, and silvery mallows with dark curling 
 leaves, and low-creeping thyme. Now and then some 
 sudden raindrops made a soft, quick pattering over 
 head. 
 
 " Have you any money in your pockets ? Hark ! I 
 hear the first cuckoo of the spring," said Fanny. 
 
 They listened. The melancholy love-cry of the home 
 less bird called to them from the far-off, unseen woods. 
 They listened. There stole a sound of clear, continuous 
 fluting on the air. A thin, sweet sound of shepherds 
 piping to their flocks ; pure and remote as though float 
 ing down to them from out some sunny vale of Arcady ; 
 a faint, unfamiliar joyousness of melody, which made 
 them pause, and turn, and look, in the silence of incred 
 ulous delight. And as the sweet sound ceased, they heard 
 the humming of bees deep in thick-creeping thyme. 
 
 " This is pastoral. A perfect idyl," said the Major. 
 
 Lione lifted his sleek head, pricked up his ears, and 
 growled. 
 
 " There comes the little beggar himself," said Jack. 
 
 There was a soft pattering of many feet across the 
 turf, and the boy passed before them, still fingering his 
 oaten pipe, and followed by a troop of long-haired 
 goats. 
 
 " Do listen to him again," said Constance. 
 
 They listened again. The dappled sunshine flickered 
 to and fro with the gentle stirring of the wind among the 
 leaves. The air was delicious ; the breeze was soft and fit 
 ful ; the sense of peace profound. The boy went on play 
 ing. The wise old goats shook all their venerable beards, 
 nibbling the flower-spotted grass. Here and there some 
 black-faced patriarch of the flock raised himself up, plant 
 ing his sharp feet firmly in the black ivy, and tearing down 
 green wreaths of honeysuckle, or stretched his long neck
 
 134 MIRAGE. 
 
 "^-s. 
 
 upwards to crop the tender shoots of the wild olive. 
 The boy played upon his pipe. Jack tossed him a piece 
 of bread. He let it lie at his feet; placidly looked and 
 played. 
 
 " By Jove ! the little rascal isn t hungry," said Jack. 
 
 " How could you throw it at him in that way ? But 
 do listen," said Constance. 
 
 And now the shepherd blew more softly on his flute, 
 idly, slowly ; the goats came trooping down together, 
 jostling each other, by twos and threes. He turned 
 without a word, and passed away between the olives ; 
 and still, as he turned away, the fitful notes Stole 
 plaintively back borne by the fitful wind. 
 
 " 1 call this exquisite," said Constance, with a deep- 
 drawn sigh of pleasure. 
 
 And it was exquisite. It was like Theocritus : some 
 thing lovely, and young, and utterly untouched by care, 
 full of the simple delight of being. 
 
 " Dear child, what do you care for that boy and his 
 whistle and his nasty goats ? You haven t eaten a thing. 
 Do take a sardine. That little wretch knows nothing 
 of sardines and olives." 
 
 And here Jack, who was lying like a young Theseus, 
 leaning on his elbow, suddenly bent forward. 
 
 "By Jove ! Look look, quick ! Two lizards fight 
 ing. See the little beasts. They mean mischief." 
 
 " Dear me ; how can you look at any thing so horrid ? " 
 said Fanny. 
 
 " They are furious," said Jack. " See them twist. 
 There, they roll over ! He s caught the other fellow by 
 the throat. By Jove ! I believe he 11 kill him in another 
 minute." 
 
 Tom leaned forward ; Constance turned ; Mrs. Thayer 
 went on eating p&te de foie gras. 
 
 The lizards were locked together, ferocious, intense ; 
 their scaly backs were of the most vivid green. The 
 one had gripped the other by the under side of his throat, 
 the jaw sharp-shut upon its soft, white skin. The victim 
 was panting, writhing, struggling for release.
 
 IN ARCADY. 135 
 
 " But he will kill him ! Do separate them, do ! " cried 
 Constance. 
 
 "Yes," said the Major, "it s a death-struggle. And 
 look at Madame Lizard hurrying off, she who has caused 
 the row. See her delicate ladyship scurrying away. Just 
 like a woman ! She can t endure the sight of her own 
 mischief." 
 
 " She is horrid," said Constance ; " an ugly, gray thing 
 not worth looking at. But don t let that dreadful green 
 beast kill the other one. Do stop them, Jack." 
 
 Jack rose and pushed them apart with the end of his 
 riding-whip. They did not even notice his intrusion. 
 They were mad with battle. He had literally to pry 
 them apart ; and, as he did so, they swiftly ran in circles, 
 head to tail and tail to head, snapping at each other s 
 throats, and again the weakest one rolled hopelessly 
 over. Again Jack pried them apart ; this time the 
 smaller one tried to escape, but only to be pursued, 
 overtaken, seized. 
 
 And now even Fanny surrendered her comfortable 
 seat, and stood up to see the fray. 
 
 " How can you ? " Constance asked. 
 
 " Oh, let them have it out. Why stop them ? It s 
 nature ; and I m curious to see which will win." 
 
 " Yes," said Jack, " it s nature ; but the little fellow 
 is plucky, and he s Constance s protege. He shan t be 
 killed." 
 
 " Yes," said Tom, " play Providence ; rescue the one 
 who shows the most fight." 
 
 And this time the larger one glided away, leaving his 
 victim panting among the olive-roots. 
 
 " Rather knocked out of time that last round," Mr. 
 Stuart remarked, poking him up with his stick. 
 
 "Oh, Jack, please " 
 
 " Hollo ! here comes my lady back again," said Jack. 
 
 The timid, plain little animal came out of its hole, 
 and furtively looked about. 
 
 " O woman, not too bright or good, &c.," said 
 Tom, leaning back and lighting his cigar. " She has
 
 136 MIRAGE* 
 
 welcomed the hero of the fight, and now she com&s out 
 in pity to look after the victim ! There s a touch of 
 nature for you ! Lovely woman ! whichever side loses 
 she wins, and finds time to console both parties. And 
 here endeth the first lesson. Pass me those matches, 
 Jack." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Fanny, tossing her head. 
 
 " No," said Constance, " she suffers for both sides. 
 Her sympathies are wide and impersonal. She is an 
 angel of pity." 
 
 " As though a man wanted pity," said Jack. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Constance, thoughtlessly ; 
 "you know it is the very next thing to love." V 
 
 Mr. Stuart was looking at the landscape. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SHOWING HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 
 
 THE Plain of Esdraelon. 
 It was one day last winter, a Sunday, and Con 
 stance was in church. It was a bitterly cold morning ; 
 bitterly cold, that is to say, for the ragged groups of men 
 and women huddled about the station-house fires, loiter 
 ing before the eating-house windows, crouching over the 
 gratings before the newspaper offces to feel the warmth 
 cf the steam-fed machines ; striving in a hundred forlorn 
 fashions to retain some hold upon their objectionable 
 and unimportant lives; but here, in church, it was 
 warm enough in all conscience. It was too warm. 
 Pastor, and discourse, and people all were suffering 
 alike for want of a little freshness. 
 
 Well, the Litany was over. A well-dressed congrega 
 tion had listened in well-bred silence to the repeated 
 and mellifluous admission, on the part of the choir, that 
 they were miserable sinners. Saint Clare s is famous
 
 HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 137 
 
 for its music. Last winter the primo-soprano alone drew 
 a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. Her stage 
 name, I believe, was De Montmorency. The Litany 
 was over; the Ten Commandments had been rehearsed 
 with decorous speed. The clergyman (a pale young 
 man with a severe and ascetic face ; a pastor who spoke 
 to his prosperous flock with a hardly-veiled contempt, 
 and the moment after was well-nigh moved to tears at 
 the thought of the Virgin Mary; an ambitious man, who 
 yet would cheerfully imperil his standing in the diocese 
 and his future prospects in life by the lighting of an 
 extra candle for conscience sake ; an enthusiast, ready 
 to undergo martyrdom for the folding of a chasuble ; 
 equally ready, perhaps, to make a "neat thing" out of 
 the disposal of the church s corner lot) the clergyman 
 had glided into his pulpit, and the sermon had begun. 
 
 It had begun, it had even been progressing for some 
 minutes, when those words, " The Plain of Esdraelon," 
 fell disconnected and imperative among the wandering 
 thoughts of Constance. And straightway there arose 
 before her a vision of wide fields. The crowded church 
 grew dim, faded away; for miles and miles she saw the 
 meadowland opening out before her eyes here, a 
 flaming mass of red anemones ; there, yellow and white 
 with myriad nodding daisies ; farther on, a sheet of 
 burning azure in the sun. Again she saw the noble 
 lines of the landscape lifting and falling with the large 
 freedom of the sea, to rise and lose themselves at last 
 in the shadowy blue mountains at the horizon. The day 
 was perfection ; the sweet rain-washed air blew soft as 
 a caress. All about them the tempered intensity of the 
 sunshine was transfiguring the land until each sun-filled 
 flower-cup burned with vivid and individual life. And 
 there is an intangible, an intoxicating quality in this 
 Syrian spring not to be rendered in \yords. There is no 
 element of sadness in the landscape here. Judasa, silent 
 and desolate and bare, has still a certain reticence, a 
 self-satisfied, self-sufficing expression in her very au 
 sterity. The ineffable languor, the profound melan-
 
 138 MIRAGE. 
 
 choly of the Italian landscape, has no place among 
 these abandoned and luxuriant plains ; and yet, how 
 often that morning had they not been reminded of that 
 " S ra } 7 Campagna sea ? " Even Fanny spoke of it after 
 awhile. 
 
 " I never could understand what people rave about 
 the Roman Campagna for," Stuart remarked. " For 
 my part I think, if people cared so much for the beauties 
 of Nature as they pretend to, they would keep their en 
 thusiasm for places where there was something to look 
 at, like the Yosemite, for instance, or Switzerland. I 
 can understand admiring Mont Blanc, now, but the 
 Campagna ! Why, it s nothing but a big field." . 
 
 " And what do you do with your classics, th^pn, you 
 young vandal, you ? " the Major demanded. 
 
 "Well, I let them pretty much alone as a general rule," 
 said Jack, with his honest laugh. " I didn t come abroad 
 to write a book ; I came to enjoy myself. Classical 
 associations may be all very well in their way for some 
 fellows. I like something more modern myself. Why," 
 said the young man, with a great air of scorn, " I Ve 
 spent the best part of eight or nine years pegging 
 away at Latin and Greek. You can t suppose I like 
 them." 
 
 "Jack, have you ever heard me calumniate my friends 
 in their presence ? " said the Major, solemnly. 
 
 " The fact is," Mr. Stuart rejoined, " I m an Ameri 
 can, and I m glad of it. I don t care to belong to any 
 country where all the biggest men are in their graves. 
 The fact is, Europe has been exaggerated. I don t want 
 to blame the natives for what may not be entirely their 
 own fault, poor devils ! I don t censure any man for 
 sticking up for his own institutions, whatever my opinion 
 may be of their merits," said this magnanimous young 
 critic; "but when I want something lively, something 
 go-ahead-looking, I know where to expect it, that s all ! 
 Somehow, I don t seem to feel very uneasy in my mind 
 about America." 
 
 " I thought it was only the typical Britisher who was
 
 HO W MR. STUA R T BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 1 39 
 
 supposed to travel for the purpose of dividing the world 
 into Englishmen and foreigners, " said Constance. 
 
 " Oh, you mustn t imagine I m not glad to have been 
 over on this side, for once. There s the Leaning Tower 
 at Pisa, now I shall always be glad to have seen the 
 Leaning Tower and Vesuvius ; and the Colosseum; 
 and St. Peter s. St. Peter s was about as large as I 
 expected." 
 
 "St. Peter s is like a tomb," said Constance. "All 
 the Roman churches are like tombs. But St. Peter s is 
 like a great receiving- vault where a dead religion is laid 
 out in state." 
 
 "Ah, Florence is the place for me," said Major Thayer, 
 "Florence and the pictures " 
 
 " Oh, I went to see the galleries too. Because I don t 
 like pictures you needn t think I don t go and see them," 
 said Jack, ingenuously. " I haven t missed a gallery 
 yet except when it was a question of catching a train. 
 I was more than two hours in the Uffizzi at> Florence. 
 There was a Venus there, I remember Titian s Venus. 
 I thought she was very pretty." 
 
 " Ah, yes. It is considered rather a pretty thing, I 
 believe," said the Major, composedly, flicking at his 
 horse s ears with his whip ; " when we go back we must 
 try and go over some galleries together, Jack. I should 
 like to have your opinion " 
 
 " But I m not so sure I mean, I have not made up 
 my mind when and how I shall go back yet," Mr. Stuart 
 remarked gravely. 
 
 The Major opened his eyes, looked at Constance. 
 Miss Varley was watching Lione. "Oh, indeed," he 
 said ; " I didn t know ; " and fell to whistling pensively. 
 
 At midday they halted by the side of a shallow, brawl 
 ing river. A vigorous growth of thick up-springing 
 oleanders followed its course. Some Bedaween were 
 watering their cattle among the bushes. 
 
 " Are there many of those men about here, Hassan ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, plenty, sir." 
 
 " Do you know what tribe they belong to ? "
 
 140 MIRAGE. 
 
 "How I know him, sir? You think perhaps I know 
 that kind of men." 
 
 " But somebody must know how many there are. 
 Doesn t the Government take any kind of census?" 
 
 Hassan looked puzzled. He carefully rubbed a bit 
 of mud off the knee of his black trowsers, coughed, gave 
 an order to the cook. 
 
 " The Major means, doesn t the Government ever 
 count these men ? Send people out here to find out 
 how many there are, and how they live?" explained Mr. 
 Stuart. 
 
 A look of dignified remonstrance came over the 
 dragoman s face. 
 
 " What for the Government count them ? You think, 
 perhaps, Turkish Government got nothing to do but 
 count men," he said reprovingly. 
 
 Jack laughed. 
 
 "Well, they don t look a particularly formidable lot, 
 in spite *f those long lances," the Major remarked 
 leisurely, taking a survey of the scene. 
 
 "No, sir; very good men, sir. I tell the ladies be 
 careful not leave things aBout. Bedawy steal every 
 thing he see," said Hassan, doggedly. He felt that he 
 was being cross-examined. An unfair advantage had 
 been taken of his willingness to impart information he 
 did not possess. From the blue tassel of his fez to the 
 point of his patent-leather boots, there was not an inch 
 of his short, thick-set, broadcloth-covered body which 
 did not protest against the affront. 
 
 The day had grown very warm. It was the first time 
 since their arrival in Palestine that they had been com 
 pelled to lunch out in the open. Fanny pitied them 
 very much from the vantage-ground of her shady seat in 
 the palanquin. It was especially hard, as she remarked, 
 on poor dear Constance, who had already been riding 
 all the morning in the sun. 
 
 The heat made everybody drowsy. As the afternoon 
 wore on, the train was more and more scattered a long, 
 irregular line of silent horsemen"; the jangling mules of
 
 HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 141 
 
 the palanquin slowly and noisily bringing up the rear. 
 The dragoman had loitered far behind, talking to an ac 
 quaintance a little old man, muffled to his eyes in 
 folds of white linen, riding a diminutive donkey and 
 followed by a boy carrying his pipe whom they had 
 picked up by the way. 
 
 The muleteers were half of them asleep, only now and 
 then some guttural malediction followed the stumbling 
 of a tired horse. Luigi was leading-the way, humming 
 an air from an opera in shrill falsetto, sitting sideways 
 upon a baggage-mule among a battery of kitchen pots 
 and pans. 
 
 " May one ask what you are thinking of ?" said Stu 
 art, suddenly, checking his horse to let Miss Varley 
 overtake him ; " you are very silent." 
 
 Constance blushed. They had been riding for some 
 distance in true Syrian fashion the horses following 
 each other in single file. It is an arrangement which 
 has its advantages. For example, she had been think 
 ing of Stuart. Some trivial accident, perhaps the mere 
 catching of the sunlight on the gold-woven cufieh twisted 
 about his hat, had turned her eyes in his direction. 
 Stuart looked very well on horseback ; Fanny had re 
 marked the fact a hundred times, and there was certainly 
 nothing extraordinary in the attention with which Miss 
 Varley watched his movements. Some casual turn of 
 his head, or hand, had reminded her of the portraits she 
 had seen at Jerusalem. One after the other the faces of 
 his family had risen before her. She remembered them 
 all the portly father, with the self-satisfied glance ; 
 his pretty sister, his mother, the small boy-brother with 
 the pert and comical smile. They might have become 
 her brother and her sister, the girl thought with sudden 
 wonder. No one had ever spoken to her of the Stuarts, 
 and yet, in some subtle fashion, essentially feminine 
 (one sees evidences of this faculty in the subordinates of 
 all ages) she had constructed for herself a detailed 
 plan of all their ways and habits. With a curious in 
 terest she realized what her own share in that life would
 
 142 MIRAGE. 
 
 "\K, > 
 
 have been. She saw herself Jack s wife his compan 
 ion living his life, shaping her own existence to meet 
 his requirements; and not his alone the requirements 
 of his family, of his friends. She saw herself trans 
 ported to another milieu, in another atmosphere a 
 world untroubled by thought, cushioned by respectability, 
 secured against emotion. 
 
 She thought of Stuart, of Fanny s counsel. She had 
 reduced her life to an attitude of patient, and loyal, and 
 passionate expectation, until the very force of her pur 
 pose had turned against her, and she shrank instinc 
 tively from any decisive action. The very readi ness 
 with which she was wont to submit her own to another s 
 claim or purpose, gave an inconclusive character to her 
 experience. 
 
 But now a puff of summer wind blew gently in her 
 face, sweet with the wooing sweetness of a thousand 
 flowers. She thought of Lawrence. She looked at the 
 figure moving on before her she looked across the 
 sweep of free, wide fields to the far, serene, unbounded 
 sky. It was with a delicious thrill of triumph Constance 
 remembered that she, too, was free. 
 
 "May one ask what you are thinking of?" said 
 Stuart. 
 
 Constance blushed. She blushed and smiled, and 
 shook her head. " You are riding the new horse ? " she 
 said, interrogatively. 
 
 " Yes. Shaitan." 
 
 " And how do you like him, Jack? Hassan was very 
 enthusiastic." 
 
 " Oh, very well. He s not accustomed to this quiet 
 way of travelling yet, I fancy. See how he is fretting at 
 the bit. I shall have to give him a run before long 
 to keep him from pulling my arms off," said Jack, 
 carelessly. 
 
 " Look ! " cried Constance, pointing with the whip. 
 
 Two black and white storks rose heavily from out a 
 field of grain, their long wings flapping and their red 
 legs dangling in the air. They flew slowly, in winding
 
 HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 143 
 
 circles, as though anxious to guard or watch over their 
 nest ; and a long, waving track in the wheat, the quick 
 apparition of a sleek, brown head showed where Lione 
 was bounding along in pursuit. 
 
 " Hurrah ! two to one on the dog ! " cried Jack, gaily. 
 With a common impulse they touched their horses and 
 clashed up the hill. 
 
 On the level ground beyond, Luigi was trotting se 
 dately onward, his reins fastened to his pommel, the tin 
 cans flashing and shining in the sun. Every now and 
 then the mule would come to a standstill and fall to 
 tearing up huge, hasty mouthfuls of wheat by the roots, 
 until her master, missing the tinkle of the bells, would 
 rouse himself from his sleep with a kick, and send her 
 jogging on again, with much shaking of long ears and 
 rattling of loose tins. 
 
 " Mind your horse here," said Jack, looking back ; 
 and as he spoke his own horse shied violently across 
 the road and then stood immovable, trembling and 
 snorting with fear. 
 
 "Out of the way there, Luigi ! Confound you, man ; 
 can t you move ? Don t you see Miss Varley cannot 
 pass," said Stuart, impatiently. Lione had doubled 
 again on his track, the birds were hidden in the undula 
 tion of the ground. 
 
 " It is of no use ; we have lost them ! " said Con 
 stance, looking about her eagerly. The sharp canter 
 had brought the color to her cheeks and awakened her 
 glance to new life. " Oh, what a pity, I am so afraid 
 Lione will be " 
 
 " By Jove ! there he goes now," said Jack, pointing to 
 a slight rise in the plain far away to the left. " Come 
 on, we can easily cut across again and join the road 
 farther up." 
 
 He dashed the spurs into his horse ; cleared the ditch 
 at a bound. Before Luigi could utter a word of remon 
 strance the two figures were flying fast across the upland. 
 
 " Oh, this is glorious ! " Constance cried. The horses 
 were quite fresh, and going with a will.
 
 144 MIRAGE. 
 
 " Give Sai d his head don t you see how he likes 
 it ? " says Jack, looking back with a laugh. 
 
 Down another dip of the ground, up a long hill, and 
 on and on across the short, elastic turf to the quick fall 
 ing cadence of the hoof-beats, with the wind blowing 
 fresh and wild in their faces, as they dash on faster and 
 faster yet. Hassan has always been proud of his 
 choice of horses, and they do him no discredit to-day, 
 dashing on in free, measured movement, the very embodi 
 ment of lightness and joyous strength. 
 
 " And Lione ? " says Constance, at last, drawing rein. 
 The wind has turned her cheeks to deepest rosej the 
 blue eyes shine and laugh with the sheer exultation of 
 life. " And Lione ? " 
 
 They slacken pace and look about them. All sign of 
 cultivation has vanished far behind. Before them rises 
 a rolling hill on either side a lonely sweep of undulat 
 ing ground. They pause a moment and listen. They hear 
 the deep hurried breathing of the horses ; a lark is sing 
 ing somewhere in the profound blue depths of the sky. 
 
 " Let us go on to the top of that hill. Perhaps we 
 may see something. But slowly now ; give the horses a 
 chance to rest." 
 
 They move on at foot pace. Constance pulls off her 
 gloves, unfastens her large felt hat. " Oh, what a good 
 gallop ! and oh, how hot, how hot I am ! " she cries 
 gaily. She puts her fingers up to her burning cheeks, 
 and turns, and lets the cool wind lift and ruffle her fine 
 blonde hair. " How lucky that tiresome Hassan was 
 not there to stop us ! " 
 
 " Yes, we ve done it this time and no mistake," says 
 Jack, with a laugh. The hill-top was farther off than it 
 seemed ; a quarter of an hour had passed before they 
 reached its summit. Again they looked around them. 
 The low westering sun struck every fold of the ground, 
 every blade of grass, with warm and opulent color. For 
 miles and miles before, behind, about them the vast 
 green plain, the grass-grown battle-field of a hundred 
 combats, stretched away in silent loneliness.
 
 HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 145 
 
 " I hope you are not tired. We shall have to ride 
 fast to reach camp before dark. I had no idea we had 
 come so far." 
 
 " You don t think we ought to go back by the road ? " 
 
 Stuart shook his head. " Too late. I tell you I had 
 no idea we had ridden such a distance." 
 
 "At least I hope you know where camp is?" Con 
 stance inquired rather uneasily. 
 
 " Well, by George, I should hope I did ! A nice fix 
 we should be in otherwise ! " said Jack smiling. " There, 
 look where I am pointing. You see that cleft in the 
 hills? not there more to the right. That is Jezreel. 
 If it wasn t for that dip in the ground you could see 
 the village. I made Hassan point it out to me this 
 morning." 
 
 " That ! why that is miles away," said Constance, 
 following the direction of his hand. 
 
 Oh, they could do it in an hour. But it was a good 
 bit, he admitted cheerfully. " Had they not better be 
 moving on ? " Miss Varley was afraid that if they 
 were to do any more fast riding she would have to 
 trouble Jack to tighten up the girth. " I m so sorry to 
 give you the trouble. But I felt something give way at 
 that last jump." He is out of his saddle and at her 
 side before she has finished speaking. 
 
 "Shall I hold your horse ?" 
 
 " Thanks, I think I can manage." He loosens a 
 buckle, lifts a flap, and gives a long-drawn whistle of 
 dismay. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " 
 
 " Girth broken. You haven t got a knife, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Or a piece of string ? " says Jack, despondently, 
 feeling in all his pockets. 
 
 " I could give you my necktie ? " 
 
 She unfastens the ribbon from her throat, and the 
 operation of mending begins. Before it is half over 
 Stuart s horse turns restive, pulls, fidgets, stamps, at 
 tempts to kick. " Do let me hold him. You can t do
 
 146 MIRAGE. 
 
 "< ^ 
 
 any thing with that creature at your elbow," Constance 
 says, and takes the impatient animal by the rein. 
 
 It was five minutes or more before the delinquent 
 strap was adjusted to Mr. Stuart s fancy, and meantime, 
 far away behind the darkling hills, the day was slowly 
 dying in a royal splendor of flame. When he looked 
 up from his work, a sudden glory had fallen upon the 
 world. Above their heads and all about them floated a 
 deepening glow of fire, as though the very air itself 
 had turned to rose-red flame. 
 
 Constance was still sitting with uncovered head j she 
 was sitting erect in her saddle, looking off at the (Chang 
 ing lights with a vague, mysterious smile ; and to the 
 young man s fancy all the radiance of the sky seemed 
 centring about her face, seemed shining in her deep, 
 large eyes, and crowning with a crown of warm red gold 
 the glorious masses of her hair. He stood and looked 
 at her in silence. Said had dropped his head, and was 
 cropping the grass at his feet. The other horse was 
 looking anxiously about him, snuffing the air and stamp 
 ing. The intense light gave a singular air of wildness 
 to his dilated eyes, his backward-streaming mane. 
 
 "Shall we go?" 
 
 " Go ? Oh yes, we will go," Jack repeated, without 
 moving. 
 
 She looked up surprised, and met his eyes fixed upon 
 hers. His whole face was changed transfigured, as 
 it were by the intensity, the fervent adoration, ex 
 pressed in that glance. His eyes held her captive; the 
 strange, resplendent light seemed to shut them out to 
 gether, to hold them in a world apart ; her breath came 
 quick and quicker ; it seemed a long while to Constance 
 before he spoke. 
 
 " I wish to heaven I had never seen you ! " 
 
 Constance turned pale. "I am very sorry " she 
 began, and then stopped short and bent forward, and 
 began stroking her horse s neck. 
 
 Jack saw her lips tremble. " Constance ! " He put 
 out his hand appealingly, and checked the motion of
 
 HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 147 
 
 her own. "I did not mean that, Constance. Forgive 
 me won t you forgive me, dearest?" 
 
 She lifted her eyes with an effort, and looked at 
 him. 
 
 "I you are so beautiful. By heaven ! I don t think 
 I know myself how much I love you," Stuart answered, 
 with an involuntary tightening of the fingers about her 
 wrist. 
 
 Mechanically Constance had gathered together her 
 reins ; the horses heads were on a level. It was an 
 opportunity which Shaitan could not neglect. In an 
 instant he had seized his stable-companion by the lips. 
 They both reared Jack sprang forward a furious 
 plunge a struggle a sudden violent jerk of the head 
 and Mr. Stuart staggered back on the turf out of the 
 reach of the vicious feet, just in time to save himself, 
 and see his horse galloping wildly across the plain, 
 the broken halter dragging on the ground behind 
 him. 
 
 He got up. He felt his arm. He looked first at the 
 runaway horse, and then at the strap and buckle remain 
 ing in his clutch. 
 
 "Didn t I tell you that leather was rotten ? " he asked, 
 with rueful gravity. 
 
 The tone, the expression, the whole situation were 
 too much for Miss Varley s over-taxed nerves. Their 
 eyes met again, and with a common impulse they broke 
 into a peal of inextinguishable laughter. 
 
 " No, but really this is no joke," said Jack, checking 
 himself abruptly. "How the deuce are we going to get 
 home ? That s the question." 
 
 " Yes," said Constance ; "how are we going to get 
 home ? " 
 
 Again they looked about them. From mountain- 
 range to mountain-range the vast plain lay, one trackless 
 sea of shadow. The light was still lingering on the 
 hill-top ; and now, for one brief instant, the white 
 houses of Nain flashed out with sudden distinctness, 
 and faded slowly away in the folding of the hills. A
 
 148 MIRAGE. 
 
 long distance down the valley a dark object was moving 
 rapidly onward a riderless horse relieving sharply 
 against the sky. 
 
 " You don t think that by galloping Said at speed ?" 
 
 Mr. Stuart shook his head. " There is not a horse 
 in the camp who could come near him. And then look 
 at the start he has got the confounded brute ! " 
 
 " If he reaches the camp before we do he seems to 
 be running in that direction they will be terribly 
 frightened. It will look as though you had met with a 
 bad accident," said Constance. It was another reason 
 for hastening on their way. 
 
 The short Syrian twilight was well-nigh over before, 
 they once more reached the level of the plain. " Have 
 you any idea how we can possibly find our way after 
 dark ? " Miss Varley asked. 
 
 After a moment s deliberation it was decided to follow 
 in the direction of the wind, which was now blowing 
 steadily from the north. 
 
 For the first half-hour or so Mr. Stuart had walked 
 along by her side, his hands in his pockets ; and both 
 had been inclined to make rather merry over the 
 absurdity of his position. But as the evening grew 
 rapidly darker, when they could no longer distinguish 
 the configuration of the ground, and as Said walked 
 more uneasily, showing more and more inclination to 
 start at the lengthening shadows, "You had better let 
 me lead your horse," Jack said. And since then they 
 had hardly exchanged a word. 
 
 It was a very dark night. Above their heads rose a 
 solemn, starless sky, a clear and sombre dome, marked 
 here and there with moving, darker lines of cloud. As 
 their eyes grew more accustomed to the blackness, it 
 was possible to discern the more pronounced inequali 
 ties of the pathway, and even the remoter indefinite out 
 line of the hills. All about them was darkness, silence 
 a sense of mysterious and illimitable space. Once, 
 before they knew it, they found themselves traversing 
 a narrow field of wheat. The ripe and restless grain
 
 HOW MR. STUART BROKE HIS BRIDLE. 149 
 
 rustled and whispered all about them in the darkness, 
 and Mr. Stuart started and peered anxiously around. 
 
 " Provided we don t run foul of any of those Beda- 
 ween," the young man thought, with rising anxiety. He 
 glanced up at his companion, then hesitated, and checked 
 himself as he was beginning to speak. 
 
 As the silence deepened between them, a singular 
 fancy had taken possession of Constance. The dark 
 ness, the profound stillness, the monotonous motion of 
 her horse, served at once to soothe and stimulate her 
 imagination. Naturally fearless, her blind, feminine 
 trust in Stuart s prowess, her equally feminine inca 
 pacity for appreciating different degrees of danger, pre 
 vented her from even suspecting the possible peril of 
 this wild night-ride. She looked about her, but it was 
 only the better to contemplate the veiled, mysterious 
 beauty of the night. She lifted up her eyes it was to 
 see if not a star were shining in all that vast and shad 
 ow-stricken sky. A strange, a solemn emotion, pos 
 sessed and filled her soul. She sat erect, motionless, 
 feeling herself a mere passive atom borne onward and 
 onward into the night ; but her spirit seemed freed and 
 attuned to the very wildness of the wind. The myriad 
 small preoccupations of these last weeks faded and fell 
 away from her like a dream. For the first time for many 
 days she felt alone, alone in spirit ; and with a wild and 
 fervent impulse her heart turned and clung to the very 
 thought of Lawrence. She looked about her ; the vast 
 dim night was silent and calm and mysterious as the 
 grave. A deep and passionate impatience the very 
 sickness of hope long deferred surged in a bitter flood 
 about her overburdened soul. 
 
 "You are tired, Constance. I am sure I heard you 
 sigh," said Jack, tenderly. 
 
 " Yes, I am tired," Constance answered. It was 
 hard to keep her voice from trembling as she spoke. 
 
 And now Said started, quickened his weary footsteps, 
 and then paused and stood still. 
 
 " I think, by Jove ! I think we have struck the road
 
 ISO MIRAGE. 
 
 at last," said Stuart ; and at the same moment Coitsta"nce 
 turned her head and broke into a low exclamation of 
 wonder and delight. For now the whole western sky 
 was flooded with pale and doubtful radiance, and away 
 behind a craggy hill-top they saw the growing splendor 
 of the slowly-rising moon. 
 
 " Yes, this is the right road, surely. We can t be very 
 far from camp, I think." He hesitated and thought a 
 moment. " Yes, I shall risk it," he muttered between 
 his teeth. " Hold your horse well in hand, Constance, 
 and don t be startled. I am going to fire a signal, on 
 the chance Hassan may hear." 
 
 He walked a few steps down the road and toqk out 
 his revolver. Three shots followed each other in quick 
 succession, and seemed to startle the very depths of the 
 silent night. And then again all was quiet, save the 
 quick, anxious panting of the frightened horse. They 
 waited several minutes ; gradually Said grew quiet again, 
 and yet no answering signal came. 
 
 " Well, it was a chance," said Stuart, uneasily. 
 "Hark!" They strained their ears to listen. 
 
 " I am sure yes I am sure I hear hoof-beats," 
 said Constance, almost in a whisper. 
 
 And now it was easy to see that Said, too, had heard 
 them ; he started, pricked up his ears, and snuffed 
 eagerly at the wind. 
 
 " They are several horsemen. They are galloping 
 fast. They are coming this way. I can hear them quite 
 distinctly," said Constance, with rising excitement. " Oh, 
 Jack, are you not glad ? Hassan has found us at last. 
 Don t you hear them, Jack ? It is Hassan ! " 
 
 " No," said Mr. Stuart. He conies closer to her and 
 stands beside her horse. " I hate to have to tell you of 
 it, Constance " the words came out with reluctance 
 "but I must. It is not Hassan. The men are coming 
 the wrong way. Hush ! " he says, with sudden emphasis, 
 and seizes Said by the bridle. 
 
 "But, Jack " 
 
 " The Bedaween," says Stuart, in a warning whisper.
 
 BY THE WATERS OF GALILEE. 151 
 
 The strange horsemen are coming on at full gallop ; 
 already they can distinguish a small confused mass mov 
 ing rapidly across the plain. On the farther side from 
 where they stand a high bank shelters and conceals the 
 road. For a moment the pursuers seem pressing farther 
 on. They hold their breath in silence, crouching back 
 into the shade. But as the strange horses pass abreast, 
 Sai d starts forward with a low whinny of recognition. 
 The enemy halts ; wheels about ; a moment s parley ; 
 and then as Stuart walks boldly forward, a single figure 
 detaches itself from the group, and at the same moment 
 the young man sees a long, tufted spear relieving sharply 
 against the low-hanging moon, and hears a menacing, 
 guttural voice challenging his right to pass. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BY THE WATERS OF GALILEE. 
 
 STUART knew one word of Arabic ; he used it. He 
 walked deliberately forward, keeping his eyes fixed 
 upon his interlocutor. " Backshish," he said, with con 
 ciliatory intonation. The Bedawy halted. Stuart took 
 another step forward. The Bedawy wheeled about his 
 horse, lowered his lance. Jack s fingers fell carelessly 
 upon the handle of the pistol in his belt. " Backshish ; 
 Jezreel ? " he repeated, in an encouraging voice. Then 
 with deep conviction of the necessity of saying something, 
 and a desperate relapse into the vernacular: -"I don t 
 suppose you want to get into trouble, my friend," he 
 remarked cheerfully. " That s a very neat little affair 
 of yours, that lance, I daresay ; but if you would kindly 
 keep it rather more out of the conversation " 
 
 The full moon had risen high enough to outline his 
 adversary in sharpest silhouette against the sky. He 
 saw the man rise in his stirrups and look about him.
 
 152 MIRAGE. 
 
 He saw the light catch and run down the thin,*bla*ck 
 length of spear. The Bedawy turned in his saddle ; a 
 wild, hoarse cry of command ; a sudden move forward 
 of all the waiting horsemen ; a pause ; a short parley. 
 Two muffled figures detached themselves from the group 
 and rode slowly forward. 
 
 "Now don t let your friends excite themselves with 
 too much riding," said Stuart recklessly. He spoke 
 loud enough for Constance to hear him. " But, by 
 Jove ! I d give something to be well out of this," the 
 young man thought. The reinforcement was approach 
 ing with deliberate composure. It looked decidedly 
 unpleasant. 
 
 Another moment, and the foremost rider had halted 
 directly in front of Jack. He halted, leaned forward, 
 threw back the folds of his long, loose Arab cloak. To 
 Stuart s inexpressible astonishment he laughed ; he held 
 out his hand. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Stuart ? I m very glad to see 
 you again ; but, if it s a fair question, I should like to 
 know what the devil you are doing here ? " remarked 
 this midnight assassin. 
 
 And five minutes later found them all riding on to 
 gether along the Jezreel road. It was only a mile or so 
 to camp ; the Bedawy guide could walk ; Stuart should 
 take his horse. The fellow deserved some punishment 
 for having frightened Miss Varley, Mr. Ferris averred 
 politely. " Yes ; we heard your shots. We thought 
 some one was getting into trouble," the gentleman 
 riding beside Constance remarked. " You will allow me 
 to introduce my friend, Mr. Davenant?" said Ferris. In 
 a few words Mr. Davenant explained the situation. 
 
 " I persuaded Ferris to come across by night. The 
 men wanted to wait for the moon. But I thought it 
 would be a finer sensation to see it rising from out the 
 darkness and from behind the hills. It was really a 
 very happy inspiration of Mr. Stuart s that firing. 
 Our men declared we were attacked by Bedaween. It 
 gave us a fine, dramatic effect."
 
 BY THE WATERS OF GALILEE. 153 
 
 " Dramatic ? It was dramatic enough, certainly," 
 said Constance. 
 
 " But you were frightened, perhaps ? Ah, you will ap 
 preciate the value of the sensation better when you look 
 back at it. It was a point, don t you see ? a situation ; 
 an accent. And next to having a great sorrow which, 
 of course, is the finest experience I think accenting 
 one s existence, multiplying one s emotions, heightening, 
 intensifying the quality of one s sensations " 
 
 Miss Varley turned and looked at her companion. 
 
 He had taken off his hat. The moonlight streamed 
 full and clear upon his face. That face was almost an 
 anachronism. It was like one of Holbein s portraits ; 
 a pale, large-featured, individual ; a peculiar, an inter 
 esting countenance, of singularly mild yet ardent expres 
 sion. Mr. Davenant was very young probably not 
 more than one or two and twenty ; but he looked 
 younger. He wore his hair rather long, thrown back, 
 and clustering about his neck like the hair of a mediaeval 
 saint. He spoke with rapidity, in a low voice, with 
 peculiarly distinct enunciation ; he spoke like a man 
 who made a study of expression. He listened like one 
 accustomed to speak. 
 
 " But a great sorrow, Mr. Davenant " 
 
 " Ah, that is the supreme experience, of course ; over 
 powering sorrow suppresses civilization ; -it links a man 
 to all the eternal verities of life. If I were a mother," 
 said the young man, fervently, " if I were a mother, I 
 should wish to have at least one of my sons meet 
 with a tragic, a heroic death. I should wish him to 
 be slain in battle. There would be something so sub 
 lime in one s despair. Great sorrow perhaps great 
 joy " The horse stumbled and recovered himself 
 cleverly. 
 
 "There he goes! Davenant never will attend to 
 what he is doing. He s been off twice to-night already," 
 said Ferris, with a laugh. 
 
 " Can t ride ? " 
 
 " Oh, forgets all about it ! Thinks of something he s
 
 154 AffRAGE. 
 
 been reading, and mistakes his horse for a bookcase Tor 
 all I know." 
 
 " What is he English ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; an Oxford man. Young Oxford, and all 
 that sort of thing, don t you know ? A sort of early 
 Christian brought down to date, and adapted like a 
 restored church. But a capital fellow, for all that. 
 We ve been travelling together for the last six weeks, 
 and the more I know him the more I Davenant ! 
 I say, Davenant ! " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " That s the turn there to the left." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said Mr. Davenant. He wenj on 
 talking to Constance. He was speaking to her of 
 Greece, of Athens the city of the early morning 
 rising in the cool, pale, steady light of dawn, a new 
 Aphrodite, from out the lapping circle of the waves. 
 He spoke to her of the Parthenon, the one temple 
 not a building a temple, as complete, as personal, as 
 a statue. And that first sight of the Acropolis, the 
 delicate, naked columns rising up in the morning sun 
 shine : " It was like coming upon some white Greek 
 goddess. It made one feel " 
 
 "Hurrah! I see a light. Yes, there are the tents!" 
 cried Stuart, pressing forward. And there indeed was 
 camp, and loud-mouthed welcome from Lione, and all 
 the rumor and excitement of return. 
 
 " Hassan is still out looking for you. O Constance, 
 I have been so anxious ! I have been quite wild ; as-k 
 Tom. And Shaitan has come home without his saddle ; 
 I thought I should faint when I saw him coming in. 
 Tom wanted to go and look for you, but of course I 
 would not let him go. I cannot endure to be left alone," 
 said Fanny, sinking back into her chair. " Thank you, 
 Mr. Ferris ; oh, never mind the cushion now. I am 
 sure," she said, smiling very sweetly, and leaning her 
 graceful little head against the chair, " I am sure that 
 you fortunate people who have no nerves " 
 
 " But perhaps Mr. Ferris will stay and dine with us,
 
 BY THE WATERS OF GALILEE. 155 
 
 Fanny. Oh, your tents are close by, next door in fact. 
 It won t be any trouble to you, and I m sure we shall be 
 very happy to have you stay and your friend," the 
 Major interposed eagerly. 
 
 And after dinner this eagerness was explained. " I 
 have not brought any thing with me really. That port 
 folio ? oh, there is nothing much in that," Mr. Ferris 
 had answered with some reluctance. He had been 
 turning over a pile of the Major s drawings for the last 
 half-hour, with civil and appropriate commentary. And 
 Davenant was never of any use on an emergency like 
 this. 
 
 But presently, as Mrs. Thayer was rapturously and 
 quickly examining the contents of the portfolio : " Those 
 are worth looking at. I had forgotten I had them with 
 me," he said, and leaned over and laid some sheets of 
 drawing-paper on the table. " Designs for two com 
 panion pictures the Plain of Esdraelon, you see. 
 They are by by a friend of mine ; a man I know in 
 Damascus." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; I see. Not your own work then," said 
 Fanny, and passed them by with charming nonchalance. 
 
 " Will you show them to me ? " said Constance. 
 
 Both were unfinished sketches. The first was a study 
 of a woman a low-browed Syrian peasant-woman 
 standing in the doorway, one strong arm thrust behind 
 her, dragging together the black folds of the tent. A 
 little child was clinging, unheeded, by her side. Beyond 
 the figure stretched the level fields, and all her face was 
 lighted up with the strange glow of an unseen sunset 
 that thin, common face transfigured, grown terrible and 
 wild with recollection of past and ineffaceable horror. 
 
 And underneath the drawing was written: "And Sis- 
 era said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it 
 shall be, when any man doth come and inquire of thee, 
 and say, Is there any man here ? that thou shalt answer, 
 No." 
 
 Constance drew a long breath. She looked up. " I 
 like it," she said simply.
 
 156 MIRAGE. 
 
 " And this," said Ferris "will you know what this 
 one means?" 
 
 It was the same low-lying plain, by night. A wild, 
 tumultuous sky, torn with sharp lines of stormy light ; a 
 dark hill-ridge ; the uncertain outline of a tall, muffled 
 figure, "taller than any other of the people from the 
 shoulders and upward ; " and, farther on, two other 
 shadows stealing through the night. And next to it, 
 roughly divided off by a mere charcoal scratch across 
 the paper, another study of the principal figure. A 
 man s face, looking out against the dawn large, noble 
 features, with eyes shadowed by the falling folds of 
 the Arab head-dress, with proud and patient mouthu; a 
 young and kingly face, grown pale and wan with suf 
 fering and great weariness, and strange foreshadowing 
 of doom. 
 
 George Ferris was very much pleased with the girl s 
 manner of examining this work. Hitherto he had not 
 paid very much attention to her perhaps ; but now he 
 .turned and favored her with a perfectly respectful and 
 perfectly exhaustive survey. Few details escape the 
 interested eye of an artist ; but for all that, the next 
 morning he became convinced that there had been still 
 another discovery to make. 
 
 It was still very early in the morning. The fresh and 
 dewy fields were hardly shining yet in the first level 
 rays of the sun ; a thin, blue smoke was only now begin 
 ning to float above the double line of tents, and the air 
 was yet cool with the coolness of night. 
 
 But lower down the hill there was plenty of sound 
 and life and confusion a noisy, clattering circle of 
 baggage-mules, jangling with bells and gay with colored 
 trappings, crowding thirstily about the flower-choked 
 well ; and nearer camp, a long line of horses were being 
 driven up the road. The young men stood and criticised 
 them as they trotted by. 
 
 "That wasn t a bad nag of yours the one you lent 
 me last night, Ferris." 
 
 "The sheikh has a better one, though. Those fel-
 
 BY THE WATERS OF GALILEE. l$7 
 
 lows always get the best of every thing," said Ferris, 
 philosophically. 
 
 " Hollo ! why, they are saddling Miss Varley s horse 
 already ! We seem to be going to make an early start 
 of it this morning," said Jack. 
 
 They walked over through the wet grass to where the 
 grooms were bringing out the saddles. 
 
 " The fact is, Hassan, you ought to be most uncom 
 monly obliged to me for not having massacred you in 
 cold blood last night," Stuart remarked conversationally. 
 
 Hassan seemed very much offended. 
 
 " Well, sir, I ve been dragoman thirty years, sir ; and 
 my father, he dragoman before me " 
 
 " Oh, was he, though ? That explains. I could not 
 for the life of me imagine where you had got hold of 
 such a precious lot of rotten old saddles ; but of course, 
 if they re family relics I say, just tell that man to 
 mind what he s about, will you? Those girths are not 
 half properly strapped." 
 
 " Miss Constance knows how to ride," said Hassan 
 sulkily. 
 
 " Miss Constance shall not run the chance of being 
 thrown while /can help it," said the young man coolly. 
 " And what is that ? " 
 
 It was a bit of black ribbon hanging down from Miss 
 Varley s saddle. 
 
 "Oh, I see. The thing I used last night to mend 
 your jolly old strap," he said, indifferently. He hesi 
 tated a moment, patted the horse on the neck, unfast 
 ened the ribbon, and put it deliberately in his pocket. 
 
 " A wise provision against future contingencies is the 
 test of the sage," observed Ferris, gravely, knocking the 
 ashes out of his pipe. 
 
 " Oh, I don t know ; it may be useful," said Jack, in 
 a very off-hand manner. 
 
 Mr. Ferris smiled. He had drawn his conclusions. 
 
 And, still in the early morning, they set out for 
 Nazareth. To-day, for the first time, the crimson and 
 white and gold of the flowers was relieved by patches of
 
 158 MIRAGE. 
 
 "-. * 
 
 tall, pale primroses. And then, beyond the stony moun 
 tain-path, they came upon the ancient cacti hedges 
 girdling about the town. So old are they, so massive 
 and impenetrable is the close rampart of their flat- 
 palmed branches, they seem to have been there from 
 the very beginning of things, and to have started from 
 the mother nursery of some elder world. Like some 
 unholy genii cruel, inactive, unfamiliar they stare 
 weirdly out at the life defiling before them, century after 
 century. They bear an uncanny fruit the native chil 
 dren relish. "But then, have we not seen them eating 
 grass ? " asks Fanny, with a yawn. It has been a long 
 ride, and Mrs. Thayer is tired. They leave the bteak 
 and stony defile behind them, they climb the road, they 
 come full upon this small, gray village spread upon the 
 hillside; and still they can feel nothing but its insignifi 
 cance, its barrenness, its dirt. 
 
 And later on, with the tents pitched on high ground 
 near the olive-grove looking down upon the convents, 
 upon the church-roofs, the huddled houses, the long, 
 blank road that seemed to be leading nowhere this 
 same impression endures. 
 
 And it is only at night, when the shadows have massed 
 and simplified the broken outlines of the small, pale 
 hills it is only at night, when a yellow sunset is 
 dying away behind the distant mountains ; when the 
 voices of the women by the Virgin s Fountain come 
 floating softly up through the silent, gray evening, and 
 the air is sweet with the smell of the small common 
 flowers in the grass it is only then, I say, that they 
 can feel any charm in melancholy, abject Nazareth. 
 
 Once more they started in the early morning. Once 
 more they saw the Mediterranean a deep, blue line 
 between the mountain summits of the farther range 
 once more they rode across the plains. And what a 
 lovely dream is spring in that most lovely country ! 
 The flower-covered slopes rose up before them, break 
 ing in billows of color against the tender sky ; white 
 cranes started from the tall grass through which they
 
 BY THE WATERS OF GALILEE. 159 
 
 waded ; from far-off woods the cuckoo s voice came thin 
 and floating on the wind. 
 
 And all day long they rode in strange and silent 
 solitude. From Nazareth to Galilee is but deserted 
 space. Only, at long intervals, you see or pass some 
 lonely village, perched like a well-guarded nest on the 
 edge of the precipice ; and then again for miles and miles 
 of sunny silence it is as though some mighty storm-wind 
 had swept all life away with Nature left, the only sover 
 eign, of space. 
 
 The afternoon was waning when they came in sigh* 
 of the Sea of Galilee. The great flanks of the hills 
 dropped clown, somewhat abruptly, to the lake. The 
 whole character of the landscape was large and simple 
 and bare ; no trees breaking the great, flowing lines of 
 the hills. After a somewhat rapid descent too rapid 
 for Fanny s heavy palanquin they came upon the flat 
 stretch of sand reaching to the old walls, the crumbling 
 towers of Tiberias. The old city has shrunk to a few 
 squalid huts, rising brokenly above the fields of burning 
 bloom ; and without the curiosity of passing through it 
 the little cavalcade pushed on to where the camp had 
 been pitched by the shore of the lake, some half-hour s 
 ride beyond the town. 
 
 It was a memorable ride to Constance. It was by 
 Galilee ! The sad, gray water lapped the shore ; the 
 Moabite hills rose low against a sad, gray sky ; the air 
 was a little chilly just enough to make you shrink 
 into yourself. They were all tired ; no fund of animal 
 spirits was left, and precisely on this account because 
 physical being was so quiescent mind and spirit rose 
 unobstructed by the mere accidents of travel, and were 
 left to brood, as it were, over the few great facts that 
 consecrate the hill-slopes and the Sea of Galilee. 
 
 Constance looked about her on that quiet evening, 
 over the idle wavelets along the lonely shore, to the cold 
 shade of the nearer hills, thrusting their rocky flanks 
 into the very water. She tried to realize the serene 
 presence of the Galilean the simple fishermen the
 
 160 MIRAGE. 
 
 }**- " 
 storm on the lake the sleeping master the disciple 
 
 sinking in the waves. She thought of the eager multi 
 tudes pouring out of that crowded city where now only 
 the flowers of the field flaunted and flamed above the 
 ruined walls. An infinite sadness filled her soul the 
 sadness of youth, of nature, of religion the helpless 
 stretching out of feeble hands. She looked abstracted ; 
 her impassioned, wide-eyed glance wandered from shore 
 to shore, from sea to sky, unmindful of her companions. 
 She felt for the moment alone. Could she hear, that 
 voice ? Could her spirit know the presence of that Di 
 vine Goodness who walked and taught in the shadow of 
 these everlasting hills, by the waters of that plashing 
 sea? The very doors of her being seemed open to all 
 the infinite possibilities of faith. 
 
 It was but for a moment, but in such moments the soul 
 grows. Touched with tenderness, athirst for something 
 to satisfy it, exalted by poetry and religion, she stood by 
 the waters of Galilee. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SCHON-ROHTRAUT. 
 
 THE lake-shore was covered with long, white rows 
 of tents. 
 
 " Oh, I think we shall find a great many people here 
 to-day," said Fanny, with a pleased expression in her 
 eyes. 
 
 She drew back the curtain of the litter ; picked up 
 a book that had fallen; settled her cuff; put her hat 
 straight upon her head. " If you will take away those 
 flowers from the mules harness, Tom ? I don t want to 
 look like a picnic." 
 
 Some ladies were crossing the beach to their encamp 
 ment. They looked up curiously as the new comers
 
 SCHON-ROHTRA UT. 1 6 1 
 
 came in sight ; and, even at this distance, there was some 
 thing familiar in the aspect of the stout, gray dresses, 
 the strong and serviceable white umbrellas they carried 
 in their hands. 
 
 "It is it must be Constance, it is the Vaughan- 
 Smythes ! " said Fanny, springing to her feet. And then 
 there followed much hand-shaking and loud recognition 
 and greeting by the shore. 
 
 " But you must have travelled very fast to have over 
 taken us ? " Mrs. Vaughan-Smythe remarked that even 
 ing to Mrs. Thayer. " As for ourselves, Mahmoud has 
 turned out to be a perfect treasure so far. We have en 
 joyed our trip so much. We have saved twelve hours 
 already. Twelve hours, without counting the three Sun 
 days, since we left Jerusalem. You make it a point to 
 stop over every Sunday, of course ? " 
 
 And Fanny smiled amiably in reply. 
 
 " Oh, we have had such adventures ! " she said, in 
 her clear, rapid treble ; " oh, dear Mrs. Smythe, if you 
 could only have been with us yesterday ! " 
 
 " Yes ; it is very interesting, of course. We have 
 been here ever since four o clock. We wanted to come 
 early to secure the best places and make sure of having 
 fish for breakfast to-morrow. Of course that is what 
 one thinks of first at Galilee the fish," Miss Adela 
 Smythe was saying to Constance. 
 
 " And when did you leave Nablous then, Mr. Stuart ? " 
 the pretty sister asked Jack. 
 
 " Nablous ? Let me see. This is Friday what, 
 Saturday, is it ? Ah, well then, we left Nablous four days 
 ago. *We got there on a Monday morning." 
 
 "On Monday morning? But you must have been 
 travelling Sunday to reach there so soon," said their 
 hostess, in very positive fashion. 
 
 Fanny smiled. She was intensely annoyed. " For 
 one never can tell what they will think of us for doing it," 
 she complained to Tom in the privacy of their own tent. 
 
 The Major was not sympathetic. " It was all a differ 
 ence of nationality," he said deliberately, eying his wife
 
 1 62 MIRAGE. 
 
 with some amusement. Fanny should have remembered 
 that the Smythes were English, and that an Englishman 
 would as soon leave his bath-tub at home as his con 
 science. "They haven t our loose, easy, American 
 fashion of travelling without baggage, and keeping a 
 running account with Providence," said the Major, phil 
 osophically. And Fanny was very much offended. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. " She was going to hear 
 service they were all going to hear service in the 
 Vaughan-Smythes tent," she remarked coldly. " If 
 they were heathens, as Tom seemed to infer and, 
 indeed, the way I hear you talking to Constance some 
 times would make one believe you were not far wrog . 
 if they were heathens," Mrs. Thayer said with plaintive 
 emphasis, "at least at least it could not be said she 
 ever neglected to take advantage of such opportunities 
 as came in her way." 
 
 And " That you don t, my dear," said the Major with 
 a grin. 
 
 It was, perhaps, in consequence of this conversation, 
 that the Thayer party were so very punctual the next 
 morning. 
 
 " How do you do ? ah, Mr. Stuart, how are you ? I 
 did not see you before. Fine weather, isn t it ? Yes ; 
 we shall have quite a little congregation this morning. 
 Brought your camp-stools with you, I hope ? That s 
 right that s right," said Mr. Smythe, weightily, hold 
 ing out his large, white hand. 
 
 Mr. Smythe was a large, portly man, of severe aspect 
 and indefinite mind. But this latter fact was of the less 
 consequence to him, possibly, that it did not prevent his 
 possessing large, regular features, regular whiskers, a 
 lofty, shining forehead, and a large, sonorous voice an 
 imposing combination of attributes which had long since 
 caused him to adopt a parliamentary career. He had 
 the reputation of being very popular in the House. 
 
 Miss Adela greeted the new comers with momentary 
 enthusiasm. "Oh, did you have fish for breakfast?" 
 she asked, eagerly.
 
 SCHON-ROHTRA UT. 163 
 
 " No," said Constance, smiling. 
 
 " No ? Only fancy ! Why, our dragoman got up be 
 fore daylight to secure it ; he said he had bought it all." 
 
 " Ah, Mahmoud is a sharp fellow," said her father 
 with decorous exultation. 
 
 And presently the service began. 
 
 From the place where Constance sat she could see 
 the rippling play of the water, foaming and breaking 
 about a bed of small shells, worn thin and white by the 
 waves ; and, far across the lake, floated a vision of 
 solemn mountain summits, lifting one above the other, 
 crowned with the radiant morning light. Involuntarily 
 her attention wandered. She glanced about the room. 
 She caught Stuart s eye, and a half smile passed over 
 her lips at sight of his sleek, brushed head and gen 
 eral expression of decorous melancholy. She looked at 
 the doorway where Mahmoud sat in respectful discom 
 fort. " We were determined to have a Christian drago 
 man for the Holy Land," said Mrs. Vaughan-Smythe, 
 "and we got him quite as cheap." And then a wistful 
 look stole into the beautiful eyes gazing out at that 
 peaceful sea. 
 
 It was now about ten o clock. The thin, gray mist 
 had lifted from the lake, a cool, light breeze ruffled the 
 water to a deeper blue ; through the voice of the reader 
 she could hear, quite plainly, the low wash of the waves 
 upon the shore. Some one proposed a walk after the 
 service. There were more people out upon the beach, 
 and they strolled by more than one family group picking 
 flowers for remembrance, or busily collecting shells. 
 But presently they had left the line of tents behind them, 
 and now they entered on a long and lonely stretch of 
 sand. 
 
 Perhaps it was this very loneliness which prompted 
 them to look with something more than ordinary curi 
 osity at a tall and solitary figure, dressed in black, 
 seated upon a rock, her head resting upon her hand, 
 gazing out to sea. There was a great expression of 
 sadness on the pale, fine features and in the listless pose.
 
 1 64 MIRAGE. 
 
 ">--. " 
 
 " What a beautiful face, and how unhappy ! " said Con 
 stance, with quick sympathy. 
 
 " It is Lady Janet Blank. No, I do not know her 
 personally. She has had a great deal of trouble with 
 her husband, I hear ; and I fancy there is something, ah 
 
 something rather fishy about her," said Mrs. Vaughan- 
 Smythe, with a deprecatory smile. 
 
 " Ah," said Fanny, gravely ; " ah, really. How very 
 painful. So glad you warned me of it. Constance 
 Miss Varley was speaking to her little girl only this 
 morning. And one can never be too careful, you know." 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said Constance in her gentlest Voice. 
 She looked up at the brilliant gladness of the day* and. 
 back at the lonely figure on the shore of that sea where 
 the weak, the helpless, the sinking had heard the voice 
 of a Friend. " Poor thing, I should like to ask her " 
 
 " My dear Constance ! " 
 
 " But really, Miss Varley, you know " 
 
 " What, don t you mean to stop at Magdala, Mr. Stuart ? 
 Only fancy ! Why, I would not miss Magdala for any 
 thing." 
 
 " Because of Mary Magdalene ? But surely wasn t 
 there something rather fishy about her? " inquired Con 
 stance gravely. 
 
 Miss Smythe looked up in genuine surprise. 
 
 " Oh, really, you Americans are so very odd, you 
 know." 
 
 And her father quite agreed with her. 
 
 " A very worthy people, my dear ; young very young 
 
 but worthy. I will not say I should hesitate to 
 say they are a nation without a future," said that 
 gentleman magnanimously; "but there is a shocking 
 spirit of levity about the true American ; an entire ab 
 sence of weight, you mark me of weight which 
 ah, which They are a glib people, I don t deny it, 
 but essentially slight, my dear, essentially slight. They 
 have no real conversation ; not what I call conversa 
 tion," said Mr. Smythe. 
 
 He spoke with some asperity, and his words were
 
 SCHON-ROHTRA UT. 165 
 
 followed by appropriate silence. It was only after a 
 long pause that his wife looked up from her book. 
 
 " Very good dinner we had to-day, my dear," she 
 observed thoughtfully. 
 
 " Very, my dear, very," said Mr. Vaughan-Smythe in 
 his most sonorous tones. 
 
 It was early the next morning when Constance came 
 out of her tent. The weather had changed for the 
 worse. There was a wan and chilly light on the moun 
 tains now, the air was cold and still, and the only sound 
 in the morning was the moan of the gray and restless 
 sea. But even if the young day came in pale and color 
 less, there was plenty of light and resolution in the face 
 of the girl as she clambered about the rocks, or sat down 
 on the sands by Lione and filled her lap with flowers. 
 
 This was how the Major found her, coming up with 
 young Stuart from their morning plunge in the lake. 
 He stopped to look at her with a certain pleasure in his 
 face. 
 
 " Well, you look wide awake enough," he observed 
 approvingly. " Fanny not dressed yet, I suppose ? 
 Well, I will go and call her. Now mind you don t keep 
 breakfast waiting, Constance, there s a good girl," he 
 said, walking off through the tall, wet grass. 
 
 "Do you intend not to say good-morning to me at 
 all, then ? " demanded Mr. Stuart. 
 
 Constance smiled. 
 
 " I m extremely happy this morning," she said incon 
 sequentially. "Now at last I feel as though we 
 were really going to Damascus. I shall get some letters 
 there. I shall get two, perhaps three, letters from my 
 father " 
 
 " But you haven t said good-morning, to me yet," 
 said Jack. 
 
 She had been busy fastening a great yellow marigold 
 in Lione s collar, but now she lifted up her face, and he 
 could see the careless, friendly look in her eyes and the 
 faint, fresh color the sea-wind had brought to her cheek. 
 
 " This Syrian air must disagree with me ; I believe I
 
 1 65 MIRAGE. 
 
 am growing rude," she answered gravely. " Good-morn 
 ing, Mr. Stuart. There, that is the great disadvantage 
 of society people are always making comparisons. 
 Now, if you had not spent your afternoon yesterday 
 flirting with that pretty Miss Smythe, why, perhaps you 
 might never have discovered how bad even my manners 
 can be." 
 
 " Miss Smythe ! " 
 
 "Oh, Miss Smythe is very pretty. I think she is a 
 very nice girl," said Constance. " I like English girls ; 
 I like " 
 
 " You like talking nonsense, I think," he interrupted 
 coolly. 
 
 " Well, at least I don t deny my tastes," she answered 
 frankly. " But, really now, I don t see why you should 
 call it nonsense ; I really don t see why you should not 
 flirt with Miss Smythe, or fall in love with Miss Smythe, 
 if" 
 
 She had been speaking almost at random, but now 
 she checked herself suddenly, and there was an expres 
 sion of embarrassment in her eyes. She glanced up 
 timidly at her companion. The young man had turned 
 away his head. There was a curious look on his face, 
 as he stood biting his lip and staring at the pale and 
 restless water. 
 
 " No ; I never supposed you did see it," he answered 
 shortly. 
 
 It seemed a long way back to the tents. 
 
 The shores of the lake are absolutely deserted. As 
 they rode, an hour later, by the ruined battlements of 
 Tiberias only invested now by scarlet poppies or the 
 waving grass a few miserable old Jews crawled out of 
 their hovels to gaze at the travellers, then with some 
 mysterious murmur of imprecation slunk back to their 
 hiding-holes. Not a house was to be seen on either 
 shore ; nothing but deep, misty ravines filled with shift 
 ing, blue shadows ; no sound but the sullen beating of 
 the surf. 
 
 As the path wound higher and higher they could see,
 
 SCHON-ROHTRA UT. 1 67 
 
 at every bend of the leafy road, the wide, gray loneliness 
 of the mountain-girdled sea. And once quite sud 
 denly they came upon a wandering caravan of pil 
 grims men and women and children, clad in strange 
 and beautiful garments : a sudden, brilliant burst of 
 vivid color and gaily-caparisoned horses and flashing 
 arms. They passed each at foot-pace in the narrow 
 pathway. And then a sudden silence fell upon the 
 noisy train ; the men looked warily to their merchandise, 
 the women folded themselves more tightly in their veils : 
 it was the silent negation of an alien race. 
 
 And now indeed they seemed entering into the very 
 heart of solitude ; for now they had left behind them 
 the mournful swamps of Magdala, its ruined mill and the 
 shallow, brawling river where all day long the clustering 
 oleanders flaunt their frail rosy beauty in the sun ; and 
 \)n and on they rode by silent paths, through long, wild 
 stretches of leafy solitudes, or out into the empty, open 
 fields between the yellow primroses and the soft silver- 
 gray of the sky. 
 
 And on the second day they reached the swamps of 
 Huleh. A primitive grandeur marks the long, swelling 
 lines, the mountain barrier of that desolate, unclaimed 
 land. 
 
 Once, towards evening, they came upon a camp of 
 Bedaween. The small "black tents of Kidar," looked 
 like black bats flattened against the ground. The men 
 were in the pastures with the cattle ; a low-browed 
 woman, with shining silver ornaments about her wrists 
 and hair, offered to sell them some milk as they passed 
 through the village ; some thin, brown-skinned children 
 sprang from the road and fled with shrill, wild outcry 
 to the shelter of the tents ; and gaunt and famished 
 pariah dogs pursued them with loud-throated menace 
 far into the open fields. And then one night came the 
 first revelation of Mount Hermon, rising in snow-crowned 
 solitude, far off against the roseate sky. They were 
 camping beside a nameless lake, where big, brown buf 
 faloes trooped slowly down through the sedge to drink,
 
 1 68 MIRAGE. 
 
 and the reedy shore was for a moment transfigurea into 
 a network of gold by the magical weaving of sunset. 
 Then night crept over the land chill, homeless night, 
 with the wailing of wind and the sense of desolation. 
 
 It was the next day they reached Banias. 
 
 But even in this brief interval, a change had come 
 over the spirit of the little party. As Constance said, it 
 seemed at last that they were really going to Damascus ; 
 something of the city s restraint made itself felt. And 
 now, indeed, they could already look forward to the end 
 of this free and careless journeying, and more than one 
 of them secretly questioned what that end should be. 
 It is true that when Fanny attempted to give these 
 questions a more tangible expression, she met with but 
 small success. 
 
 " How can I tell you what I mean to do, Fanny ? 
 What do I know of it myself ? You take it for granted 
 that I am thinking always of what of what other peo 
 ple would like," the girl said, somewhat bitterly ; " but 
 is there nothing ever coming to me out of life ? Am I 
 never to think, to expect, to live, for myself?" 
 
 It was a settled conviction of Mrs. Thayer s, that 
 Constance was incapable of very deep emotion. 
 
 " You ought to marry some man with plenty of money, 
 who would be very devoted to you and very indulgent ; 
 some one who could give you a good position," she 
 argued seriously. "All those romantic and sentimental 
 notions are quite out of place with your character, Con 
 stance. You re the dearest girl in the world, you know, 
 and I love you dearly ; but I don t think you will ever 
 break your heart over anybody much. And really, 
 Constance, with your good sense Tom always says 
 you have more good sense than any woman he knows 
 and when you think of your father at home and all those 
 children, and you with your habits and tastes, I don t 
 know any one who needs to make a good marriage more 
 than yourself, dear child," concluded Fanny, with un 
 sparing frankness. 
 
 The girl was walking by the side of the palanquin,
 
 SCHON-ROHTRA UT. 1 69 
 
 but now she turned her head away, and Mrs. Thayer 
 could only see the nervous trembling of her hands. 
 
 " There is Aunt Van, to be sure," continued that 
 prudent little person ; " of course, if you have really 
 decided never to marry, Aunt Van will have to do some 
 thing for you, I suppose. I dare say she would do it, 
 even after that Stuyvesant affair. But living with Aunt 
 Van! Why, surely, Constance " 
 
 "It had not come to that yet. No, not yet ;" the girl 
 answered proudly, lifting up her eyes. And then, with 
 sudden change of manner : " O Fanny," she said pas 
 sionately, "be good to me; let me alone! I know I 
 know every thing you would say, dear, and it is all true, 
 and you are good to say it, only We have four clays 
 left, haven t we? and then Damascus, and Aunt Van. 
 But those four days belong to me," said Constance. 
 
 It was not like her usual way of speaking. When 
 Mrs. Thayer thought it over afterwards, she sighed and 
 shook her head dubiously. There was something more 
 here than met the eye, the little lady thought some 
 thing she could not understand. 
 
 And meanwhile they were climbing up to Banias. 
 Climbing to the source of the Jordan, by sunny paths 
 and through pale fields of wheat ; by myrtle groves, and 
 hoary old olives, lightning-shattered and gray. There 
 was a delicate, continuous sound of running water in the 
 air ; marble columns and many a fallen capital were 
 lying on the ground, deep hidden in tall weeds ; and far 
 above their heads, high on the mountain s slope, the 
 crumbling citadel lifted its ruined towers. 
 
 And now, winding about the hillside, they pushed 
 their way through a leafy covert of thorn and myrtle, to 
 the secret woodland paths. Frail, white cyclamen grew 
 in abundance in these moist recesses, and rank butter 
 cups thrust their yellow blossoms through the branches 
 to catch and hold each wandering gleam of sunshine. 
 At last, pushing their way through the luxuriant branch 
 ing, they came upon a little open glade where the stream 
 widened to a pool. An oak-tree stretched its branches
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 i 
 clear across the river ; beneath its shade the thicket 
 
 drew back, leaving a little open space of smooth, green 
 turf. And now the horses stood motionless, drinking in 
 the water with the deep-drawn breathing of content. 
 The little river foamed and splashed about their feet, to 
 disappear some ten yards off under a tangle of blossom- 
 whitened boughs. 
 
 Here, in the home of the great god Pan, they seemed 
 to have discovered the most secret of his haunts. As 
 Constance looked about her, the leaves overhead rustled 
 suddenly as though stirred by the white hands of some 
 dryad, " with a face like spring ; " and the girl smiled to 
 fancy that by lifting up her eyes she could meet the mis 
 chievous, startled gaze of some belated faun, or hear in 
 the lift and fall of the splashing water the low laughter 
 of the nymphs hidden amongst sharp-flowering rushes. 
 And then as she looked about her she was struck with 
 a sudden sense of the curious silence of the place. 
 There was not the sound of a bird s song among the 
 branches, not the flutter of a bird s wing across the blue. 
 She listened. A sudden cloud passed over the April 
 sky ; the flower-crowned laurels flung their white arms 
 wildly in the air ; a sudden gust of wind shook all 
 the sturdy branches of the oak, and hushed itself with 
 a shivering sigh among the reeds. And through the 
 sobbing of the water came a wild lament Pan, Pan 
 is dead ! 
 
 It was at Banias that they again fell in with Ferris 
 at Banias and under the trees. The night was warm 
 and still. They sat by the brink of the shadowy river, 
 rushing wildly down from its sacred cave beside the 
 ruined shrines ; they watched it for a moment, flowing 
 thin and clear adown that marble stairway which the 
 footsteps of many a worshipper had pressed they 
 watched it, hastening downward through the shadows, 
 and the moon, riding high above the tree-tops, whitened 
 its foaming fall. 
 
 " Mr. Davenant," said Constance, looking vaguely up 
 above her, " why is it that oak-trees seem so mediaeval ?
 
 SCHON-ROHTRA UT. 1 7 1 
 
 Why should they make one think of old crusaders and 
 knights in armor, like some suggestion of an old 
 romance ? " 
 
 " Ah, I have felt that too," said Davenant gravely. 
 " It is a gothic tree, don t you know ? German in its 
 spirit, I mean, not Greek." 
 
 " I know," said Ferris, 
 
 Einstmals sie ruhten am Eichenbaum 
 Da lacht Schon-Rohtraut. 
 
 She looked up with a quick light on her face. " Oh, 
 Mr. Ferris, do you know the rest of it ? I have not 
 heard that song not for years," she said earnestly. 
 
 Ferris was very willing to please this girl. He made 
 an effort to recollect the half-forgotten words ; in a 
 rough way he even translated them to Fanny. While 
 the oak-trees rustled overhead in the silence, and the 
 river leaped and whitened in the moonlight, he told 
 them the story of Rohtraut King Ringang s young 
 daughter Rohtraut beautiful Rohtraut who all day 
 long would neither spin nor sew, but only ride out into 
 the wild, free wood. And the young page sighed that 
 he too might become a hunter, and follow the beautiful 
 girl into the wild, free wood. "And after a while," he 
 went on, "after a little while, the young man came to- 
 Ringang s castle, in hunting-dress, and with a horse to 
 hunt in the woods with Rohtraut. Oh that I were 
 only a king ! I love her so dearly, this beautiful Roh 
 traut ; but be silent, my heart, be still ! 
 
 In a rough and broken fashion he tried to tell them 
 how one day there came one day when they rested in 
 the oak-forest, and how beautiful Rohtraut laughed. 
 " Why do you look at me," she asks, " why do you look 
 at me so longingly ? Nay, if you have the courage you 
 may kiss my beautiful lips." "Be silent, my heart, be 
 still ! " 
 
 And here was it only fancy that the trees whispered 
 together more loudly through the windless night, and 
 the torrent paused to listen in the moonlight, as he told
 
 1/2 MIRAGE. 
 
 ~>K, *" 
 them how the young man trembled, and how he thought 
 
 " she has allowed it," and how he kissed the beautiful 
 girl upon her mouth ? And then they ride so silently 
 homeward, and there is wild delight in the young man s 
 heart. " And though they made you into an empress 
 to-day, what do I care for that? The thousand leaves 
 in the wood they know it they know that I have kissed 
 her beautiful mouth. Schweig stille, mein fferz, schweig 
 stille!" 
 
 " Ah ! " said Davenant, slowly, " it is one of those 
 songs that die away from their music. Do you remem 
 ber Schubert s music, Miss Varley, and all the wild 
 longing and passionate desire of that accompaniment? 
 I never knew but one person who sang it well." 
 
 " It is a man s song, I suppose," said Stuart. " I 
 have heard of it once before." 
 
 " I know a friend of Ferris s who sings it," the young 
 man answered carelessly; "a countryman of yours, by- 
 the-way, and an artist. His name you may have 
 heard of him, perhaps is Lawrence Denis Law 
 rence." 
 
 He happened to be looking at Constance as he spoke, 
 and even in the uncertain light he could see the startled 
 look in her face. 
 
 " Perhaps you know him, then ? " he said. 
 
 The girl drew farther back into the shadow. 
 
 " I have not seen him, no, not for a long time," she 
 said, with an effort; and it was not Davenant alone who 
 noticed the steady suppression in her voice. 
 
 " Ah, well, Lawrence is a capital fellow," said Ferris, 
 lightly. " I know him very well. We were together at 
 the Beaux Arts, in Paris, once ; I am going to meet 
 him now in a day or two. What," said the young 
 man with some surprise, "is it possible you did not 
 know that Lawrence is at Damascus?" 
 
 And all night long the river flashed, and foamed, and 
 murmured beneath the whispering trees ; and white 
 stars came, and shone, and faded, until the timid dawn 
 awoke in the east ; the topmost branches of the aspen
 
 DAWN. 173 
 
 blushed rosy-red, a bird called to its mate rapturously 
 through the silence, and the river laughed with new joy 
 for the new day. 
 
 And the desire of her heart had come to Constance. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DAWN. 
 
 ONCE already that night Hassan had been awakened 
 by the fancied sound of footsteps prowling about 
 the camp. Once already, when he had gone out hur 
 riedly into the darkness, his camels -hair abbas folded 
 stiffly about him, and the wind ruffling his thin, gray hair, 
 it was only to see the tranquil row of white tents shining 
 peacefully in the moonlight, and to hear the vague sigh 
 ing of the trees. But now, as he looked cautiously around 
 him, something moved out there in the shadow ; a dark 
 figure was coming slowly towards him, lounging about in 
 the moonlight, its hands in its pockets and a cigar in its 
 mouth. 
 
 " What s the matter, Hassan ? Any thing up ? " 
 Stuart demanded in a low tone. 
 
 The young man laughed to scorn any suggestion that 
 harm might come to him of this ghostly wandering. 
 
 " You go to sleep now, and let me alone. Catch the 
 fever ? That s a likely story ! and what the devil does 
 it matter to you if I do ? I tell you what it is, Hassan : 
 the care of this family is getting to be too much for 
 your brain. Now go to bed, there s a good fellow, and 
 don t bother. You d better go to sleep. This is a cap 
 ital place for sleeping, you know. I stumbled over one 
 of your guards a moment ago, and I m blessed if the 
 fellow even winked," he said good-humoredly. 
 
 He walked down into the darkness, and stared at the 
 swirling stream.
 
 174 MIRAGE. 
 
 *^*^_ "^ 
 
 " She cares for me she cares for me as I do for 
 that" he thought, and tossed his cigar into the water, 
 and saw the spark of fire sputter and go out. 
 
 The short summer night was well-nigh over ; a light 
 mist floated above the river ; already the low moon paled 
 against the paling sky. 
 
 " And those other fellows," he went on, thinking sav 
 agely ; and there was perhaps none the less bitterness 
 in his reflections that they took this unsentimental form ; 
 " those other fellows, with their pictures and poetry and 
 stuff : is there one of them who knows her as I know 
 her, or who would do what I would do for her, for 
 a word a look any thing ? They say I haven t kny 
 sentiment. Well, I don t understand German that s 
 true enough ; but can t I be as spooney over a girl as 
 any other fellow ? " 
 
 He thought of other episodes in his experience. But 
 which one of those girls could ever be compared to her ? 
 he asked himself, with cool ingratitude. Each little 
 familiar trick and turn of expression rose up distinctly 
 before him. There was one particular look of hers 
 when any thing had pleased her, a look that came into 
 her eyes 
 
 He stood there so long that a bird began singing in 
 the branches ; there was a deepening glimmer of gold 
 behind the trees, and of a sudden the river leaped and 
 danced and glistened in the sun. He turned his head. 
 Here here she was, Constance herself, coming through 
 the long grass to greet him, with spring in her face and 
 white hands full of flowers. 
 
 A happy inspiration came to Stuart. 
 
 " Oh no, the others are not awake yet," he answered, 
 somewhat eagerly. " Look here, Constance, suppose we 
 "don t wait for them ? Let us, you and I, go up to the 
 fountain together Pan s Fountain, don t you know? 
 There will be such a mob of people when the others are 
 all there," he suggested artfully ; " and I know you don t 
 like mobs." 
 
 Constance laughed.
 
 DAWN. 175 
 
 " I am ready. I am ready for any thing this morning," 
 she said confidentially ; and she looked at him with all 
 the gladness of life in her face. 
 
 They went up. It was a steep and rugged path be 
 neath the cliff, and the stones were still slippery with 
 dew. The wet myrtle branches spattered a shower of 
 raindrops and white petals in their faces as they pushed 
 their way past; it would be hours before the sun en- 
 tered these leafy thickets ; but already high overhead the 
 sheer wall of red granite burned redly in the morning 
 light. And now they had reached the goatherd s terrace, 
 and before them, deep in the heart of the mountain 
 cavern, slumbered a dark and brimming pool. 
 
 The girl sat down on one of the fallen boulders ; her 
 companion threw himself beside her at her feet. They 
 looked about them. It was a still morning. Some swal 
 lows flitted sharply past, clinging with low uneasy cries 
 to the hanging water-plants overhead ; the joyous river 
 foamed from out the cavern, leaping wildly down through 
 the leafy cleft to the valley beneath ; below them the tall 
 sycamores swayed slowly to and fro in the sunlight ; 
 there came a pleasant sound of the winged wind in the 
 tops of the planes. 
 
 " Do you see those niches in the rock ? " asked Stuart. 
 
 And then they both looked up at the empty shrines of 
 the nymphs, shrines curved like some delicate shell of 
 the sea. And on each but one of these forgotten altars 
 grew some blooming plant, the last tribute perhaps of 
 that eternal pagan, Nature, to her dead gods ; not mere 
 white lilies grew there, or the soft poppy with red leaves, 
 but rather young anemones, the flower of golden-haired 
 Venus, and inscribed leaves of hyacinth. 
 
 The ground was covered with low-creeping thyme ; 
 Constance dragged it off in wet handfuls from the drip 
 ping rocks to make a garland for that only empty shrine. 
 And like two young Greeks, and with a fantastic serious 
 ness, they hung the purple tribute in its place. " It 
 might be," the girl said, smiling dreamily, " it might be 
 that the old gods were not dead but only sleeping ; and
 
 176 MIRAGE. 
 
 **S[ r- 
 
 who could tell what answer they would send? For the 
 entrances of the elder world were wide and sure, and 
 brought immortal fruit. " 
 
 The wise, old goats had started off at sight of these 
 strange faces, but now they came trooping boldly back, 
 pushing their way to the water-splashed cave. And as 
 these two young people turned again to descend to the 
 valley, there was a sudden quick pattering of sharp feet 
 among the stones, a black-faced ram with a long, white 
 beard sprang nimbly on a boulder, and, planting his 
 sharp feet firmly against the rock, he reached his vener 
 able head towards the garland. 
 
 " Surely this is only the disguise of some old priest of 
 Pan," the girl said, glancing back mirthfully. " See, 
 Jack see! he has actually reached it " 
 
 Stuart was standing a step or two below her, and she 
 touched his shoulder lightly to make him look up. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I see," he said in a vague fashion. 
 
 They went down a little farther. A brook crossed the 
 pathway ; the stones were slippery with water. It was a 
 steep and difficult descent. 
 
 " Here, let me help you. It is much harder coming 
 down. Give me your hand ; I can lift you over," the 
 young man said eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, I can spring," said Constance. 
 
 She stood balancing herself for a moment on the 
 stone. The little torrent foamed and splashed about 
 her feet ; a sharp ray of sunshine pierced the leaves 
 overhead and touched her hair and the delicate outline 
 of her throat. Stuart looked at her. 
 
 " Oh, very well. But if you fall you will hurt your 
 self ; and if you think I am going to let you have the 
 chance of hurting yourself, why why you are mis 
 taken," he said with sudden audacity. 
 
 He walked back deliberately through the shallow 
 water, and threw his arm about her waist and lifted her 
 to the other side. 
 
 " Constance, are you very angry ? " he asked. He 
 bent down his head and kissed her on the cheek.
 
 DAWN. 177 
 
 For an instant she stood quite still, startled into 
 quiescence. She lifted up her face, arid he in his turn 
 was fairly disconcerted by the look of mute reproach in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " I did not expect that from you, Jack," she said 
 simply. Her lip trembled a little. " Will you let me 
 pass ? " 
 
 " I shall not let you pass," he said boldly ; but there 
 was more of entreaty than of defiance in his voice. " I 
 shall not let you leave me so. Oh, I know that you 
 have a right to be angry but Constance, I could not 
 help it, dear. I am so sorry. But you expect me to be 
 with you, and see you, and talk to you, and never tell 
 you a word of how I love you," he said doggedly, " and 
 I can t do it I won t. You should not ask a man to 
 do the impossible." 
 
 The branches rustled beneath them, and there was a 
 sound of approaching footsteps along the path. 
 
 " Oh, confound it all," he said impatiently, " here 
 comes somebody of course ! And if you would only 
 listen to me for a moment, Constance ; if you will only 
 say you are not " 
 
 Well, it was an awkward meeting for everybody. 
 " And if this was to be the result of early rising," Mr. 
 Ferris remarked afterwards, u why, early rising was a 
 mistake." 
 
 " I told you all along what would be happening," he 
 said to Davenant ; " I knew we should walk into the 
 midst of some lovers quarrel. And a nice mess it was 
 we made ! " 
 
 Which was the more ungrateful that it was Davenant 
 himself who had saved the situation ; Davenant who 
 looked upon Jack Stuart as a Philistine who con 
 sidered him in simple good faith as a mere incident, of 
 no possible importance to art and who now came for 
 ward and was the first to address Constance. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Varley," he said earnestly, " I wish you 
 would come with me a moment. I want you to come 
 and listen to this falling water. Do you know that there
 
 i;3 MIRAGE. 
 
 ~*^ "" 
 was a marble temple here once a fair, white temple to 
 
 Pan ; and now the temple is gone, the god is gone, and 
 there is only the river calling, calling from the secret 
 places of the mountain. It is like the voice of the old 
 gods of Hellas like the love of the Greeks in a man s 
 life something luring and irresistible, and full of mys 
 terious power." 
 
 "Yes; I will come with you," said Constance, very 
 quietly. 
 
 There was a burning and indignant flush on her 
 cheeks, but she spoke quite steadily, and there was little 
 of embarrassment or hesitation to be detected iii her 
 firm, proud bearing as she turned and- walked away. 
 
 " Are you going up ? Oh, well, I am going down," 
 said Stuart. It was in no very enviable mood the 
 young man returned to camp. 
 
 But how was it possible to cherish resentment long 
 on such a morning ? The hillside was a wilderness of 
 joyously-running water-threads ; and as they rode away 
 from camp the horses picked their way across a soaked 
 and spongy soil. The hedges and bushes were ablaze 
 with buds of every color, and flowers that breathed the 
 odors of Paradise. There was a certain bush of myrtle 
 in blossom which Constance will never forget it was 
 only three days ride from Damascus. And how the 
 birds sang that morning ! The very rapture and fulness 
 of life seemed looking at the girl from every flower along 
 the pathway seemed calling to her in every sound of 
 running water and the singing of birds seemed shin 
 ing in the sunlight seemed floating about her on 
 every breath of the warm and fitful breeze. 
 
 She rode between Ferris and the Major. There was 
 no end to the eager questions she asked. Should they 
 reach Damascus in the morning or at evening? Could 
 one see it from a long distance off? Was it a very 
 large city ? And here she bent over and busied herself 
 with the adjustment of her reins. 
 
 " Not so large as Cairo ? Oh, of course not. Cairo," 
 Miss Varley said, " is a city where every one seems lost.
 
 DAWN. 179 
 
 If you have friends there, and they are not staying at 
 your hotel, it may be weeks before you see them at all." 
 
 The Major smiled. " I thought I heard you object 
 ing once at the quantity of people Fanny made us know 
 at Cairo ?" he said. 
 
 But there was no difficulty of that kind at Damascus, 
 Ferris observed carelessly. Miss Varley would find 
 there was but one at least one civilized hotel. 
 
 And all day long they rode on much in this same 
 fashion, climbing steadily higher over rich, green hill- 
 slopes and under darkly-luxuriant trees, until it was 
 almost as good as being in a park, Fanny observed 
 approvingly. Mrs. Thayer was not in the habit of pay 
 ing compliments to Nature. But with evening there 
 came a change in the character of the landscape. They 
 were fast approaching Mount Hermon, the ground 
 had grown rocky, and already there was a snow-chill 
 in the air, and a thin, bleak wind whistling about the 
 tents. It was not an evening for much confidential 
 discourse. 
 
 The next morning found them toiling through a laby 
 rinth of rocky defiles, deep in the heart of the hills. It 
 was an arid and shadowless country a land of pale, 
 barren slopes, where the grass grew thin and sear, 
 crossed by a curious network of small, white paths, 
 which meet and intersect, and part and climb again, like 
 the curious tracery of lines on the rind of a melon a 
 sterile country, where the very rock-forms seem poor 
 and trivial and meaningless. But presently the road 
 narrowed to a track barely wide enough for a single 
 horse. For an hour or more they wound their way along 
 a steep, limestone gully, between two walls of towering 
 rock. The day was terribly hot. The cruel sunshine 
 glared pitilessly down upon the white rocks, the ground 
 under foot was hard like iron. For a long time they 
 rode on in silence, the very song of the muleteers was 
 hushed. The horses plodded wearily forward, with 
 spiritless, drooping heads, and then Lione would run on 
 a few steps and lie down panting, trying vainly to crowd
 
 180 MIRAGE. 
 
 ">V f- 
 
 himself beneath the prickly shade of the dead thorn- 
 bushes, and startling the great lizards basking in the 
 sun. Once a caravan from Damascus met and crossed 
 their path a line of muffled figures, silent and white 
 and exchanged a listless salute. And again there was 
 nothing to be seen but the naked limestone walls, the 
 cruel sunshine, and, overhead, the pitiless dark sky. 
 
 But now the Major, riding on in front, saw the horse 
 before him raise his head, prick up his ears, and start 
 forward with a low whinny of delight. The rocks 
 turned sharply to the right, opened out, fell back ; and 
 now the heat and glare had vanished, for a cool show- 
 wind swept in their faces ; and before them, across a . 
 stretch of level plain, the lord of mountains rose in 
 white, resplendent majesty. 
 
 The track still wound upward, nearer and nearer to 
 the edge of that snow. And presently small flowers 
 and grasses started up beside the pathway ; a little 
 brook sprang suddenly from behind a granite boulder 
 and ran singing along the road ; a flock of big, brown 
 goats ran bleating before the horses, and they entered a 
 narrow valley all silvery with olive-trees. 
 
 Here they dismounted for the noonday halt. It was 
 a silent and a peaceful spot. The little brook babbled 
 softly to itself among the grasses ; the wind lifted and 
 stirred the silvery-gray leaves overhead ; a brindled old 
 sheep-dog, with a gentle, sagacious face, left his flock 
 upon the hillside and came and made friends with Con 
 stance. He even followed her as she strolled slowly 
 along the brook ; he watched her gather flowers ; he 
 gave a low growl of warning, and placed himself pro- 
 tectingly before her, when, leaning against an olive tree, 
 his hands in his pockets, and his hat well over his eyes, 
 they chanced unexpectedly upon Jack. 
 
 He had not heard them coming, and now, as he started 
 and looked up at the sheep-dog s bark, there was some 
 thing so dejected in his attitude, an expression of such 
 dumb, half-understood trouble upon the handsome, sun 
 burned features, that Constance never hesitated for a
 
 DAWN. 181 
 
 moment. She went impulsively forward ; she held out 
 her hand. 
 
 "We There isn t any reason we should not be 
 good friends, Jack, is there ? " she said in her gentle 
 voice. 
 
 And however incoherent Stuart s answer may have 
 been, there was still a certain blunt earnestness about it 
 which touched her to quite a singular degree. F,r, 
 "There is nothing I would not do I would rather cut 
 my hand off than offend you," the young man assured 
 her wildly ; "and you you have hardly spoken to me 
 for these two days." And Constance was moved with 
 something almost like remorse as she thought of the 
 beautiful dreaming in which those two days had passed. 
 To a noble, to a sensitive nature, it is often in this very 
 power which it possesses over another that lies the 
 secret of its heaviest bond. She looked at him, and 
 there was an expression of wistful trouble he had surely 
 never seen in that frank, clear glance before. 
 
 "I am sorry," she answered sadly. "Sometimes 
 sometimes I think I ought to tell you, Jack " 
 
 A hot flush came over her face. She left the sentence 
 unfinished, and turned abruptly away. 
 
 And still the little brook babbled softly to itself 
 among the grasses ; the flickering sunshine came and 
 went with the stirring of the leaves ; the brindled 
 sheep-dog followed their gestures with his gentle, intel 
 ligent eyes, and Stuart wondered in silence over this 
 strange, this delicious new shyness in his companion. 
 "Could it be possible?" the young man asked himself. 
 He felt his pulse beat faster at the very supposition. A 
 wild, new hope, vague and wordless and strong, had 
 awakened, was even now stirring in his heart. When 
 he rejoined the others a moment later, there was no one 
 present who did not feel the contagion of his impetuous 
 high spirits and content. He even endeavored to en 
 courage art ; he asked Ferris to explain the mechanism 
 of his sketching-box ; he listened with perfect compla 
 cency to Davenant s remarks.
 
 1 82 MIRAGE. 
 
 ~-, *^ 
 " I know a man who has made the ascent of Mount 
 
 Hermon," that young gentleman was saying; "he went 
 up to explore for temples. Do you know that there are 
 places here, in this very Lebanon, where the sun-worship 
 is as living, the rites as sacred, as in the old days of 
 Nineveh ? " 
 
 And as the spring wind rustled among the branches, 
 and fleet cloud-shadows passed across the sunny grass, 
 they lay beneath the olive-trees, looking out upon the 
 sacred mountain the lonely mountain where, from the 
 Druse with his half-Egyptian mysteries, to the Greek, to 
 the Mahomedan, to the Jew from Astarte to Christ 
 there is not a religion, not a faith, not a practice,* but 
 has found shelter amid the inviolate sanctity of its 
 snows. 
 
 It was night when they reached Rasheiya. For the 
 first time in many days the camp was pitched within the 
 limits of a town. There was something strange, almost 
 impressive in these long, low lines of silent houses, in 
 these dark and narrow streets where the horses feet 
 awoke a hollow echo from the stones. 
 
 The tents were ranged around a lofty terrace set 
 about with a low wall ; and after dinner Constance 
 slipped out unnoticed, and came and leaned upon this 
 parapet. The night was moonless, but high overhead 
 there was a white glimmer of snow under the stars, and 
 the air had a sharp edge to it as it swept coldly down 
 from those bleak and lonely heights. It was almost the 
 first moment Constance had been alone that day. Now, 
 as she stood in this silent darkness, looking out from 
 the mountain-side across the shadowy stretch of plain, 
 a great trouble and longing were in her heart. She 
 looked out to the far horizon : somewhere in that dark 
 ness, a short day s journey off, lay the city of her 
 dreams. But somehow, in these last moments a deep, 
 shrinking distrust had stolen into her very soul. She 
 remembered the last time she had seen Lawrence ; the 
 manner of their parting: she thought with a sort of 
 despair of the years that had rolled between. All
 
 DAWN. 183 
 
 doubts, all fears, all hesitations seemed to take form 
 and substance in this chilly darkness. 
 
 She looked about her. The uncertain silhouette of 
 the town rose up in dark confusion against a clear, cold 
 sky. She listened, and with a superstitious tremor she 
 heard the wailing note of a bugle borne faintly on the 
 wind from the barracks which crown the hill. For 
 the moment, all her fine, high-strung courage had van 
 ished, had given place to some wild presentiment of 
 woe ; for the moment she absolutely dreaded the idea of 
 Damascus. 
 
 She stood there so long that her dog, who had fol 
 lowed her from the tent, grew impatient ; he came closer 
 to her ; he pushed his cold nose into her hand and 
 whined. And surely there must have been something 
 reassuring in the very touch of this unexpected com 
 panionship, for now she turned suddenly and knelt 
 down beside him, and laid her cheek against his delicate 
 head. 
 
 " Lione," she said with childish earnestness, " tell me, 
 Lione, how will it end?" She looked wistfully out into 
 the darkness. " I have waited so long," she said, " I 
 have been so patient " 
 
 The dog whined again and looked up in her face and 
 laid his paw on her hand. Some one threw back the 
 door of the tent ; a stream of light poured out into the 
 night, and a voice called " Constance ! " And presently 
 Constance came. She came in very quietly ; she sat 
 down beside the table ; she took up a book. When 
 Fanny made some remark she answered it. But she 
 was very silent all the evening, and Stuart remembered 
 aftei~ward how pale she was, and how she did not give 
 him her hand as they bade each other "Good-night." 
 
 "Mrs. Thayer," said Davenant, reining up his horse 
 beside her, late on the following afternoon, " Mrs. 
 Thayer, do you know that in five minutes more we shall 
 have reached the road ? " 
 
 It was the first road they had seen since leaving Jeru 
 salem, and the very horses seemed impressed with this
 
 1 84 MIRAGE. 
 
 **fc^ *"" 
 
 evidence of approaching civilization. They hesitated ; 
 they stood still ; they stepped daintily down upon this 
 smooth, white surface. With one accord they threw up 
 their heads and went off at a mad gallop beneath the 
 overhanging cliffs. And now they passed a small 
 wooden station where men with Arab faces and French 
 livery came out to stare at them as they cantered on ; 
 and now a rumbling, clattering diligence rolled ponder 
 ously by. 
 
 " Are you sorry to be back in the world again ? " 
 asked Ferris, with a smile. He had taken a good deal 
 of artistic interest in watching Miss Varley s face these 
 last two days. As a general rule Mr. Ferris care&very. 
 little for women. 
 
 This was to be the last camp at Dimas. As they 
 got off their horses in front of the white row of tents it 
 was with a certain feeling of reluctance. The pleasant, 
 familiar life was at an end. 
 
 It was only a bare and colorless desert which stretched 
 before them now a low and solitary and undulating 
 waste, set about with blank gray rocks. But, as if to 
 consecrate with some peculiar beauty these last hours of 
 their nomad life, a wonderful sunset shone and flamed 
 behind the barrier of those pale, ashen peaks. The 
 young men brought out an armful of Turkish rugs after 
 dinner. They spread them before the tents, along the 
 terrace-wall ; they smoked, they drank their coffee, they 
 watched the slow and splendid procession of the clouds. 
 
 Somehow the conversation had fallen upon Lawrence. 
 
 " By-the-way, George," said Davenant, suddenly, "it 
 won t be much of a joke, will it, if you get back to 
 Damascus only to find that Lawrence has left?" 
 
 " Well, no. Particularly as I have got those sketches 
 with me. But Oh, he will be there fast enough," 
 said Ferris confidently. 
 
 " I m not so sure about that. We agreed to be only a 
 fortnight, you know ; and it s more than three weeks " 
 
 "What, you think he will be gone then ? I hope not. 
 I should be sorry to miss seeing Lawrence again. But
 
 DAWN. 185 
 
 where did he think of going to, any way ? " asked the 
 Major. 
 
 Mr. Ferris was engaged in lighting his cigar. It was 
 an act requiring some deliberation in this high wind, 
 which was perhaps the reason of his delay in answering. 
 
 "Oh it s only some nonsense of Davenant s," he 
 said uneasily ; " Lawrence thought something of going 
 to Persia once. He never meant it." 
 
 "Oh, didn t he though?" said Davenant. "Why, I 
 saw the beautiful " 
 
 Ferris turned on his elbow and looked at him. 
 
 " It is a pity the ladies are missing all this sunset," 
 he remarked quietly. "I never saw a finer one. Ah, 
 there they are at last." 
 
 He got up and offered his place to Constance. The 
 talk drifted in another way. 
 
 But somehow Davenant seemed possessed with one 
 idea. They had been speaking of the ruined temples, 
 and some one had observed how strange it was that 
 there never should have been any expression of plastic 
 art in Judaea. 
 
 It was easy enough to understand, the young English 
 man averred boldly. For what was the existence of 
 plastic art but an admission of a sense of the regnant 
 force of physical beauty? What was Greek art itself 
 but a recognition that beauty is a form of goodness ? 
 And what was Christianity but the passionate pleading 
 and protest of the suffering soul against the pagan idea ? 
 
 " For my part, I would rather not be merely an angel," 
 said Mr. Davenant ; " I love the earth. When I die I 
 should wish to be like one of the old Hellenic shades, 
 stiil rejoicing and sorrowing over the fortunes of my 
 race full of sad wisdom and pity unutterable." 
 
 "But really, Mr. Davenant ! " said Fanny. 
 
 " That has nothing to do with it, of course," the young 
 man said, evidently following out his own line of thought. 
 " But how could you expect an expression of pure art 
 from a mixed people ? How could Syria produce any 
 thing but a literature, when every civilization of the old
 
 1 86 MIRAGE. 
 
 " >-. " 
 world Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian, Indian had 
 
 poured their science, their legends, and their influence 
 over the land ? If you destroy the purity of the race, 
 you have set the death-seal on the possibility of a pure 
 and distinctive art." 
 
 " Now hold on a moment, Davenant. I protest as 
 an American " 
 
 " As an American, my dear boy, you merely serve to 
 illustrate my theory. Why, look here. If you want a 
 case in point, take Lawrence. We were speaking of 
 Lawrence before you came, Miss Varley " 
 
 " Yes ? " said Constance. 
 
 She was leaning on her elbow, playing with the amber 
 beads about her wrist. But now she looked up and 
 listened. 
 
 " He is half a Frenchman, you know. At least, his 
 mother s family was French " 
 
 " Southerners." 
 
 "Well, French Southerners then. They had French 
 blood in them at all events. And what is the conse 
 quence ? Why, Lawrence is born a cosmopolitan. His 
 feelings, his sympathies " 
 
 " A cosmopolitan ? That is to say, a man belonging 
 to nowhere in particular. A cosmopolitan ! Why, I d 
 sooner be a flying-fish," said Jack. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 
 
 DAVENANT looked back ; there was a great light 
 of enthusiasm on his face. 
 
 " For are not Abana and Pharpar, " he said, " are 
 not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than 
 all the waters of Israel ? 
 
 They had left Dimas in the early morning, and already
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 187 
 
 the sky was paling with the noonday heat. It was a 
 strange country they were passing through. For hours 
 they had ridden across the short, dead turf of the plain 
 beside a blank, white road. It was a land of vast rolling 
 slopes the dark, reddish soil broken here and there by 
 the ploughman s furrow. A country bare of vegetation, 
 shadowless, naked, vast, and grand, because of two grand 
 things simple forms and solitude. 
 
 It was some time now since they had left the baggage- 
 train behind them ; the slow-moving palanquin had 
 dwindled to a mere black spot, crawling along the road. 
 
 " It was a capital idea to make you ride this morning," 
 the Major told his wife. 
 
 " Look here, Constance, I wish you would be reason 
 able and change horses with either Ferris or me," Mr. 
 Stuart observed confidentially ; " that brute shies ; why, 
 he jumps across the road at the shadow of a leaf ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Constance absently. " But I like Shai- 
 tan," she said, turning her face towards him with a 
 smile. 
 
 There was a singular elegance and precision about 
 her every gesture that morning. The young man noted 
 with a certain surprise that she moved more slowly. 
 She spoke little, but her gentle voice seemed to have 
 grown clearer, more bell-like in tone, and tense, like the 
 tense cord of an instrument. Her very riding-dress was 
 adjusted with more than usual care. 
 
 " Can you fancy being so excited over the mere ap 
 proach to a" city, a city where there is no society nor 
 any thing?" Mrs. Thayer -asked Ferris with an indul 
 gent smile. 
 
 They had passed the last mail-station, and now there 
 came a descent, an unexpected turn in the long and 
 weary road. A bald and sun-scorched cliff rose up on 
 either side ; the reflected heat was intense ; they had 
 left the grass, and the dust was rising in choking clouds 
 about the horses feet. 
 
 And now Davenant looked back. 
 
 A sudden turn in the road ; a sudden rush of streams ;
 
 1 88 MIRAGE. 
 
 coolness and shade the sense of running water and 
 the shade of trees slow-swaying poplars and leafy 
 walnuts, and the sunlight shining through pale apple- 
 blooms. 
 
 " For are not Abana and Pharpar, " the young man 
 said, " are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, 
 better than all the waters of Israel? 
 
 The river foamed and whitened under overhanging 
 branches ; the cliffs towered up higher behind them ; 
 the "golden-flowing" waters sank lower out of -sight. 
 "And now we shall see the city soon," said Davenant 
 to Constance. 
 
 She looked up and smiled, and did not answer. - The. 
 inconclusiveness of all her past experience had never 
 fitted her for a moment like this. She had spent her 
 life in dreaming of happiness until its reality had as 
 sumed the aspect of a clream. She followed the others 
 as in a vision ; she heard them laughing, talking about 
 her, riding faster and faster down the narrowing moun 
 tain-gorge ; and the rapid motion, the clattering of hoofs, 
 the rush of the water, seemed sweeping her onward in 
 a sort of trance. 
 
 And now they galloped out again into the blinding" 
 sunlight ; they left the road ; before them rose a low, 
 white range of hills, and on the rocky crest a small, 
 white building with a dome. They left the horses ; they 
 toiled up the sandy path. Stuart was the first one in 
 the doorway. " Come in," he said. He offered Con 
 stance his hand ; he watched with a curious Interest the 
 sudden light in her eyes, the sudden flush of color on 
 her cheek. For they had stepped out upon a small, rocky 
 plateau where a swarm of yellow butterflies hovered 
 about the stones. Beneath them lay a city and a plain 
 a wilderness of deep up-springing green a curving 
 line of warm-tinted houses and glittering mosques and 
 sharply-piercing minarets. And beyond that rose the 
 violet mountains grown silver-pale in the blinding heat ; 
 and beyond that the pale border-line of infinite desert 
 space ; and all about the city a network of shining
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 189 
 
 streams, a foam of blossoming trees, circled and crowned 
 the gardens of Damascus. 
 
 They sat down in the shade of the building; for 
 awhile they sat there in silence, looking at this won 
 derful sight. But the more prosaic a nature, the sooner 
 does it grow familiar with rare beauty. Hardly a moment 
 had passed before Mrs. Thayer and Stuart were dis 
 puting some detail in the view ; in a quarter of an hour 
 they had completely forgotten its existence. Jack was 
 hungry, and Fanny forg^*; to turn her head as they 
 descended the hill. 
 
 And Constance followed them down as in a dream. 
 They mounted their horses again ; they rode past miles 
 of blossom-whitened orchards, by winding rivers, through 
 poplar groves and hedges white with may. And tall, 
 white irises rose up beside the full and silent stream ; 
 and now they had reached the level of the plain, and 
 passed the first bridge and seen the first house, all gilded 
 and gay with fantastic tracery on its walls, and hidden 
 in deep trees. 
 
 " And this is Damascus," said Davenant. But Con 
 stance did not answer. She rode on at foot-pace, 
 checking her horse until the hot-mouthed brute curveted 
 and pranced, flecking his breast with foam. And she 
 rode steadily forward, reining him in, erect, silent, look 
 ing straight ahead with wide open eyes and a smile of 
 vague triumph on the proud and sensitive mouth. 
 
 It was a moment of exquisite delight. The barriers 
 were down, the long anguish of patience at an end. 
 She had risen to the climax of her experience the 
 culminating hour of youth, in which she held and pos 
 sessed the world. The barriers were all down, the years 
 of restraint at an end ; a surging flood of love love 
 irresistible, compelling, supreme had obliterated the 
 last landmark of her past. She rode beneath the 
 flowering branches, and the sunshine crowned her hair 
 with golden touches, and the light wind showered frail, 
 perfumed petals at her feet ; and the song of the birds 
 had a meaning, the sky was cloudless, and all the world
 
 IQO MIRAGE. 
 
 ">^ * 
 was full of gracious promise of fast-coming summer, as 
 
 she passed through the gates of the earthly paradise to 
 take possession of her life. 
 
 Presently they reached the hotel. They rode down 
 the tortuous street called Straight, and dismounted at a 
 small postern-door. It was their first experience of the 
 interior of a Damascene house, and they looked about 
 with some curiosity at the cool and spacious court, the 
 shady divan, the formal rows of orange-trees, the plash 
 ing fountain in its marble tank. 
 
 And here for a time the party separated. Davenant 
 and Ferris had rooms elsewhere in town. 
 
 "I shall see you again this evening. We are alt here- 
 more or less in the evening," the latter said, as he 
 stopped to shake hands with Constance. 
 
 She looked up eagerly, as though about to ask some 
 question. Davenant was watching her. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; I did not hear what you 
 said ? " 
 
 She smiled, and shook her head, and gave him her 
 hand. It was nothing. The two young men walked 
 down the street together for some distance without 
 speaking. 
 
 " It is a pity, for there is the unsatisfied soul of a 
 poet in that nature," said Davenant suddenly, with 
 peculiar emphasis ; and Ferris halted and stared. 
 
 He had thought himself pretty well accustomed to his 
 friend s mental vagaries by this time, but here was a new 
 development something in his tone, an earnestness of 
 conviction in his manner, which filled him with amused 
 surprise. 
 
 " Well, you are the rummiest beggar," he said good- 
 humoredly. He turned and scrutinized with keen amuse 
 ment his companion s dramatic face. 
 
 " As a general rule I should not advise you to study 
 the unsatisfied souls of your young lady acquaintances 
 too closely, my boy," he said dryly ; " you might find 
 Stuart objecting to the process, you see." 
 
 They walked on a few paces.
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 
 
 "Shall we go and find out what s become of that 
 fellow Lawrence ? " said George. 
 
 Constance had gone up to where the Major was busy 
 settling conditions with the turbaned proprietor of the 
 inn. She slipped her hand under his arm and stood 
 silently by his side. 
 
 "Well, Constance?" 
 
 "I like that man s embroidered jacket," Miss Varley 
 answered vaguely. She dipped her fingers into the water 
 and then dried them elaborately on her handkerchief. 
 " You are going are you going to the Consulate, 
 Tom ? " 
 
 For letters ? Well, yes ; the Major had thought some 
 thing of going there. 
 
 " Is there any thing I can do for you ? " he asked with 
 a smile. He looked curiously at her. " Is there any 
 thing you want to know ? " 
 
 She turned her face away. This last hour had brought 
 its own experience. She felt weaker, less sure of herself. 
 She felt, as never before, a sudden craving for support 
 and confidence. 
 
 " Is there any thing I can do for you ? " the Major 
 repeated. 
 
 She lifted up her honest eyes. " Yes," she said shyly, 
 her lips growing pale with the effort. 
 
 It was then that Fanny came up with some question 
 about the rooms. 
 
 " I will see about it," her husband said. He turned 
 to Constance. " You are going to the bazaars, you two ? 
 I shall take Hassan. If I hear any news about any one 
 about about Aunt Van, for instance, I will bring 
 it to you with your letters," he said significantly. 
 
 "Very well." The girl nodded assent. 
 
 "You may expect me in well, say in a couple of 
 hours," the Major said. He took up his stick. " You 
 are coming, Stuart?" 
 
 " Now, don t forget that we are waiting, Tom," expos 
 tulated Mrs. Thayer. 
 
 Some people coming in at that moment hardly glanced
 
 1 92 MIRAGE. 
 
 at the middle-aged man crossing the courtyard, Before 
 turning to gaze curiously at the handsome girl he had 
 just left. But in her eyes, at least, that commonplace 
 gray figure was suddenly invested with all the dignity 
 of fate. " In a couple of hours," he had said. Her breath 
 came quicker with suppressed emotion. She put her 
 hand up, uncertainly, to her lips. In a couple of hours. 
 Her secret seemed slipping out of her grasp. 
 
 Not long after that they went into the bazaar. They 
 went in with a Damascene courier, a wily Greek, with 
 sleek face and black, uneasy eyes. From time to time 
 Mrs. Thayer was struck with the peculiar fashion in 
 which he seemed analyzing her dress. V 
 
 " One would think the man had never seen a woman 
 in his life ! " she complained petulantly to Constance. 
 
 " He seems to me more interested in the cut of your 
 over-dress, dear," said the latter with a laugh. 
 
 It was a Saturday afternoon, and the streets were 
 crowded. Men in white, men in scarlet, men in turbans, 
 in fezes, in scanty cotton shirts and flowing robes of 
 silk, passed and repassed in mute and splendid throngs. 
 A dusty, pulverized sunshine filtered softly through the 
 chinks in the boards overhead, piercing the deep, am 
 ber-toned shadow with sudden revelations and jewels of 
 light. Now and then the wild, melancholy cry of a 
 camel-driver, following the slow and swaying footsteps 
 of his beasts, jarred on the golden silence with strange 
 suggestion of far-off desert space. 
 
 They strolled slowly down the length of the silk ba 
 zaar, lingering here and there as their eyes were caught 
 by some pigeon-throated gleam of color, or the wind 
 brought them some new and subtle hint of fragrant 
 gums and the prisoned roses of Ispahan. And now the 
 guide stopped and gazed at Fanny persuasively. 
 
 " It is Saturday, madame, if you would see the house 
 of one Jew ? Very fine house," he suggested. 
 
 Mrs. Thayer was charmed with the idea. They en 
 tered another courtyard ; it was a larger, more sumptu 
 ous interior than any they had seen. An old woman,
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 1 93 
 
 carrying a nargileh, was crossing the court before them, 
 her high, inlaid pattens making a clicking sound upon 
 the marble floor. The courier hailed her. They spoke 
 for a moment or two in shrill, emphatic voices. 
 
 " She will call the ladies to see you," the man ob 
 served with a complacent air. 
 
 He led them to a marble divan ; there was a Persian 
 rug upon the inlaid pavement : some gold-embroidered 
 cushions ; a gaily-painted wall from which the plaster 
 fell in patches. It was now about three o clock: a still 
 and burning afternoon. The broad fig-leaf shadows lay 
 motionless upon the pavement ; the blue of the sky was 
 dulled and dark with heat. They sat down amongst 
 the tumbled, tinselled cushions ; presently a door 
 opened on the other side of the court. A group of un 
 veiled women came slowly out into the blazing sun 
 shine ; they dropped their pattens at the foot of the 
 divan and crossed languidly over to where Fanny was 
 sitting. . They threw themselves down on the cushions 
 and gazed fixedly at their guests. 
 
 " It is the sister of the gentleman what keeps this 
 house. You wait ; p raps by-and-by see the wife," the 
 guide informed them in a whisper. 
 
 And now another servant appeared, in loose, white 
 dress, bearing a tray of glasses. And then came nargi- 
 lehs, and then a long pause. 
 
 The sunlight flickered on gold-wrought head-dresses, 
 on brown and naked feet, on long, delicate, sinuous 
 forms. Presently a half-grown lad lifted the curtain be 
 hind them, a lad with a smooth, yellow face and a wizened 
 look, and dull and restless eyes. He came slowly down 
 the steps and spoke to the interpreter with a certain 
 listless condescension. A shrill series of exclamations 
 followed suddenly upon his entrance ; a woman rose 
 from the group and touched Miss Varley on the arm. 
 " You go in other room, see his wife," the guide ex 
 plained complacently. 
 
 There were three women sitting in this inner chamber 
 three Jewesses, with hard and splendid eyes, with loose 
 
 12
 
 194 MIRAGE. 
 
 *^w w. 
 
 shawls about their waists, and close-fitting caps thick 
 set with pomegranate blossoms and artificial flowers anc 
 glittering diamond studs. Some little children were 
 sprawling on the carpet at their feet ; the walls were 
 painted with intricate tracery of color ; a coarse, cheap 
 lithograph hung high under the vaulted ceiling against 
 some precious Persian tiles. A table, covered with a 
 cloth, stood against the entrance ; there was another 
 tray of sweetmeats, a new set of silver-mouthed nargi- 
 lehs on the floor. 
 
 And here, by-the-way, they discovered the true purpose 
 of their visit. 
 
 " My lady come from Cairo," the guide began insinu 
 atingly, glancing at Fanny. 
 
 " We have been to Cairo," said Mrs. Thayer. 
 
 " Cairo very fine place,. my lady. The Khedive live in 
 Cairo." He took up the fold of her travelling-dress 
 between his fingers. "You get this in Cairo?" he said. 
 
 Mrs. Thayer smiled uneasily ; she looked at Constance. 
 "I got it there yes," she said, with some reluctance. 
 
 And now the man hesitated. He looked about him ; 
 the woman on the divan followed his movements with in- 
 tensest interest. " My lady very kind. Very good lady. 
 P raps you let one these women see how you make your 
 dress ? " he suggested feebly. 
 
 And Fanny once gone, there was nothing left to oc 
 cupy Constance. A feverish restlessness of impatience 
 had come upon her. She sat there a moment looking 
 around with blank, unseeing eyes ; she got up, she wan 
 dered away across the sunny court, and one or two of 
 the women rose and followed her. 
 
 She went up the wooden staircase at the farther end ; 
 above them was an open terrace, green vine-leaves, and 
 the fierce red of pomegranate blossoms in the sun. She 
 leaned over the balustrade and looked down into the 
 court. A sleepy negress lounged with bare feet in the 
 shadow of the wall. There was not a sound in all the 
 house about her but the cool plashing of the fountain on 
 the stones. She leaned out over the balustrade ; a girl
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 195 
 
 came silently up the winding stair, and paused, and 
 leaned beside her. 
 
 Constance turned her head ; presently she recognized 
 the face. It was one of the young Jewesses, the mother 
 of the little children they had seen below. The two girls 
 stood looking at each other for a moment in silence 
 the representatives of two antagonistic civilizations ; 
 and gradually the interest faded out of the new comer s 
 face. She turned aside with the facile indifference of a 
 child. She crossed her long arms above her head with 
 superb nonchalance ; dragged down a flowering branch of 
 vine. The leaves fluttered slowly to the ground through 
 her listless fingers ; the long lashes drooped lower on 
 her cheek ; her light breathing hardly stirred the flash 
 ing diamonds on her breast; she stood motionless, in 
 absolute repose. 
 
 And Constance looked at her. I don t know what 
 there was about this woman to remind the girl of Law 
 rence. She noted with a sudden sinking of heart every 
 detail of that impassioned and unremembering beauty, 
 the perfect oval of her smooth, sun-warmed cheek, the 
 rings of shadow about those delicate temples, the vapid, 
 scarlet mouth, the dark mystery of the beautiful, cruel 
 eyes. These were the women he had been seeing, she 
 thought. She turned away abruptly. She turned away 
 her face, she looked up at the blank blue sky above her, 
 and her own eyes filled with miserable tears. She dashed 
 them indignantly away. The white walls in the sunshine 
 flashed and flickered before her, and she stared down at 
 them, a great sense of impatience, a bitter feeling of im 
 potence rising slowly within her as she looked. She 
 pressed her hand hard against the wooden balustrade 
 until it left a bruise across the soft, white flesh. 
 
 The Jewess laughed ; a small, green worm had crawled 
 out from between the leaves. She laughed ; she broke 
 off a branch from the tree beside her, stripping it slowly 
 of its leaves, her eyes fixed exultingly upon the crawling 
 insect. And now she leaned curiously forward, with a 
 quick movement a sudden look of hatred and dis-
 
 196 MIRAGE. 
 
 ^_____ ", __ 
 
 ">^ f- 
 
 gust flashing over her face. She struck the thing with 
 the end of her stick she threw it against the wall, 
 thrusting it back and striking at it again and again 
 her whole figure instinct and supple with savage and 
 futile delight. 
 
 Involuntarily Constance put out her hand. 
 
 "Oh, don t, please don t," she said. 
 
 It was a scene she remembered long afterward 
 the blazing sunlight, the cruel, foolish laughter of her 
 companion, the wretched insect crushed beneath their 
 feet. For it was at that moment she heard a voice call 
 ing her. " Come down, Coustance ! The letters^ are 
 here." 
 
 She rose to her feet and went forward a step. " It 
 has come," putting out a hand blindly. 
 
 Hassan was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. 
 She brushed past him ; she went up to Fanny : " Well ? " 
 
 Mrs. Thayer did not answer for a moment. She held 
 an open letter in her hand. There was something 
 which amused her ; she laughed, and crushed the thin, 
 blue paper in her fingers. 
 
 " Well ? Oh, yes ; I had forgotten. There is a note 
 from Tom somewhere. We are to meet him. Why, 
 Constance, what s the matter with you ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 "I oh, it is the sun, I suppose. I have been 
 standing in the sun," incoherently. And then, her face 
 flushing : " You said there was a letter for me to read ? " 
 
 It was a leaf torn from a note-book, and written in 
 pencil. 
 
 " DEAR F. Tell the guide to take you to Aboo 
 Antika s. Will wait for you there. I send the letters 
 by Hassan. There is a pile of them here waiting for 
 Aunt Van. And, by-the-way, tell Constance they knew 
 nothing about Lawrence at the bank, but I have seen 
 the consul s dragoman. He thinks Lawrence has left 
 for Bagdad."
 
 UN ENFANT DU SIECLE. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 UN ENFANT DU SIECLE. 
 
 AND about the same time that Miss Varley was 
 reading this letter, Mr. Ferris was standing in 
 front of a closed door, making the quiet street resound 
 with his impatient knocking. 
 
 After three or four minutes of this exercise there 
 came a slow and distant shuffling of feet. 
 
 " The old idiot ! " said Ferris, between his teeth. He 
 knocked again. The steps drew nearer and paused ; a 
 hand fumbled about the latch. 
 
 " You had better be careful how you introduce dan 
 gerous characters into this palace of yours, my friend," 
 the young man remarked with a certain good-natured 
 contempt. He put his hand in his pocket, and took 
 out a small piece of money : " Here, Methuselah ! " 
 
 The Arab s eyes lightened in their dim sockets ; he 
 bowed profoundly ; a smile flickered over his austere 
 and covetous face. 
 
 But Mr. Ferris did not linger to observe his sensa 
 tions. He walked on with an assured and familiar step 
 through the hot sunshine between the walls. There 
 was a disused bath-house at the farther end of the 
 courtyard; a fig-tree drooped before its entrance; he 
 put aside the branches and looked in. 
 
 There was an artist s easel in the corner, and the 
 artist himself standing before it, whistling in an under 
 tone, and measuring something about his picture with a 
 string. As a shadow fell over his canvas he turned his 
 head. He caught sight of Ferris and put out his hand, 
 with a quick look of pleasure on his face. It was a 
 singularly mobile and sensitive countenance for an
 
 198 MIRAGE. 
 
 T-- *~ 
 
 American : hardly effeminate, and yet you were puzzled 
 by its suggestion of a woman s face until you noticed 
 the changeable gray eyes, and realized how much this 
 man must look like his mother. 
 
 He was a slightly-built young fellow too, rather under 
 than above the average height, with small, clear-cut 
 features, a very firm and beautiful mouth, a quiet and 
 rather indolent manner. Major Thayer had called him 
 insignificant-looking, once ; no woman would have used 
 the epithet. 
 
 " Well, George ! " 
 
 " Ah ! they told me I should find you here/ ^aid 
 Ferris. 
 
 " Been back long ? " 
 
 " About three hours. I went up to the house for you 
 first. They said you had moved your traps over to the 
 other shop." 
 
 Lawrence nodded. " Old Ahmed is only waiting for 
 his brother s camels now to start. I have been expect 
 ing to be off any day this last week," taking up his 
 palette and brushes and turning to his work. " I am glad 
 you are back again in time to see me off, old boy. I 
 had almost given you up." 
 
 " Oh, Davenant would stop ;" absently this, and with 
 an air of chagrin. " We have been travelling with 
 some people Hollo! Why, when did you do that? 
 That is a good bit, by Jove ! Deuced good. And 
 how well that figure comes in there. Who is it? not 
 Abdallah ? " 
 
 " No, the other one ; I don t know his name. The 
 little chap who used to clean my brushes for me. I had 
 him in here one day, and Here s another thing you 
 haven t seen," taking up a second canvas from the 
 corner. 
 
 Mr. Ferris looked at it critically for a moment. 
 
 "Yes ; I don t know where it is exactly." 
 
 " In the Arms Bazaar. I ve been working down there 
 a good deal of late. The only thing finished is the 
 background, of course. The figures are only indicated
 
 UN ENFANT DU SIECLE. 199 
 
 you see. I ve been making some separate studies for 
 those." 
 
 " I see. I don t seem to fancy that sky much, Law 
 rence. Painty, isn t it, rather? There s a good bit of 
 work there on that wall." 
 
 " You think so ? I shan t have time to do much more 
 to it, I in afraid," taking up the canvas, and looking at 
 it regretfully. 
 
 " Well, I m sorry to hear you say that," Ferris answered 
 gravely. 
 
 There was a moment s silence ; then the older man 
 glanced up from his work. 
 
 " Will you smoke ? " 
 
 " I ve got some here," taking out his own cigar- 
 case. 
 
 " Yes ; I m sorry to hear you are going, Lawrence. 
 It s a mistake a foolish business all round. I wish," 
 said Ferris suddenly, " I wish you would give it up, old 
 fellow. I wish to heaven old Ahmed would refuse to 
 take you ! " 
 
 Lawrence laughed. " Wait till you see the picture I 
 bring back. There is not another face in the East like 
 it not one. It is a type apart. And then the 
 romance of the thing, my boy ; the shadowless mystery 
 of it all ; the long desert journey ; the illimitable desert 
 skies ; the silence of waste places " 
 
 " Et cetera. I should expect to hear that sort of 
 stuff from Davenant," said Ferris. 
 
 His companion laughed again good-naturedly. " Well, 
 he isn t wrong half the time, the little beggar. Beauty 
 is a form of goodness, I daresay. At all events, it s the 
 form best suited to my comprehension. And you forget 
 the picture I mean to paint " 
 
 " Provided that old fool Ahmed will let you paint her, 
 which I, for one, don t believe. I sincerely hope he 
 won t. Why, the whole thing is an absurdity on the 
 face of it ! A six-weeks journey with a mob of half 
 civilized savages across a desert, on the chance of paint 
 ing a girl you have only seen once, and that by acci-
 
 200 MIRAGE. 
 
 dent. Why, if you did see her you could not " even 
 speak ! " 
 
 " And I m not so sure that is not the best part of it 
 all," said Lawrence lightly. " That and the getting to 
 Ispahan. I ve been studying Persian while you were 
 away, Ferris. Old Ahmed is a capital master. On the 
 whole, I am not so sure I shall not propose to marry 
 into the family, and turn camel-driver myself. But the 
 choice is between the Desert and Constantinople. I 
 leave this in any case," turning to his work with a gest 
 ure which dismissed the subject. 
 
 A silence, with nothing to break it but the slow drip 
 ping of the fountain and the rustling of the fig-leavesVout 
 there in the sun. Mr. Ferris strolled over to the window, 
 and began turning over some prints. 
 
 " By-the-way, I hope you knew I had that portfolio of 
 yours safely with me ? " he said : " the one with the 
 Esdraelon cartoons. I only found it out at Jerusalem. 
 I suppose I packed it up by mistake." 
 
 " Oh, that s all right," said Lawrence carelessly. 
 
 He went on with his painting. Before long he got up, 
 walked back a few steps, and looked intently at his work, 
 and then a satisfied look came into his face. In a 
 moment he began singing softly to himself : 
 
 Si je vous le disais pourtant, que je vous aime, 
 
 Qui sait, brune aux yeux bleus, ce que vous en diriez ? 
 
 L amour, le vous savez 
 
 "You re a little in my light, old fellow." 
 L amour, vous le savez, cause une peine extreme. 
 
 "But I say," breaking off his song abruptly, "you 
 haven t told me any thing about your trip ? " 
 
 Mr. Ferris looked up from the etchings. " I have not 
 done much. A few sketches they are up at the house 
 with my traps but nothing of consequence. I was 
 disappointed in the country, rather." 
 
 "Well, I don t know," said Lawrence; "there are 
 fine things there about Esdraelon. And how did Dave- 
 nant like it ? You said you had some people with you "
 
 UN ENFANT DU SIECLE. 2OI 
 
 " By Jove ! I had forgotten all about them," the young 
 man said. " And they are friends of yours, too. A 
 Major Thayer and his wife, and " 
 
 " Major Thayer ! What, not old Tom Thayer, surely ? 
 Well, that is a joke ; and what the devil is he doing 
 here, I should like to know ? " 
 
 Well, Major Thayer was travelling, Mr. Ferris sup 
 posed. Travelling, like anybody else. His wife was with 
 him too, and a good-looking man by the name of Stuart. 
 
 Lawrence nodded. "" I know. Jack Stuart, his 
 cousin. I ve seen him once or twice." 
 
 " And then," said Ferris, turning suddenly and look 
 ing his friend hard in the face, " and then Miss Varley 
 is with them, too." 
 
 Mr. Lawrence looked up for a moment with a puzzled 
 air. " Miss Varley ? " he said reflectively. His face 
 lightened. " Constance Varley ! Ah, that is good news, 
 indeed," with cordial pleasure. " A nice girl that, 
 Ferris ; and honest and fearless as the day. I saw a 
 great deal of her three or four years ago, before I left 
 home. We were great friends that winter, I remember. 
 And so she is here ? " taking up his brushes again, and 
 touching his picture softly with a pleased smile. " I 
 must go and look them up. I shall be glad to see her. 
 I don t think she will have forgotten me." 
 
 Mr. Ferris leaned farther back in his chair. " Miss 
 Varley is not, I should imagine, a person to forget old 
 friends. But if you are so much interested in her," with 
 another keen glance of inquiry, " if you are interested, 
 you may care to hear that she is going to be married to 
 Mr. Stuart shortly." 
 
 Lawrence started ; he looked up incredulously. " To 
 Stuart ! Why, I had heard To Stuart! Constance 
 Varley going to marry that fellow ! Why, it s impossi 
 ble, Ferris. But are you sure ? " 
 
 " She has never told me of it herself," knocking the 
 ash from his cigar deliberately. " Of course not. I 
 have only known her four or five days ; and I hardly 
 think it is an official engagement yet."
 
 202 MIRAGE. 
 
 " But that girl marry Jack Stuart ! " 
 
 "Well the friends expect it. Mrs. Thayer told 
 Claude. And Stuart seems a good enough sort of fellow 
 in his way." 
 
 " I should not have thought it would have been Miss 
 Varley s way, that s all," said Lawrence dryly. " Poor 
 little Constance ! Well, it s the kind of match that 
 must be made in heaven, I suppose. At least I know 
 no one on earth who would care to accept the responsi 
 bility of such a waste of good material." 
 
 Ferris smiled. " How about Mrs. Thayer ? " 
 
 " Oh Mrs. Thayer ! That s another suitable -mar 
 riage for you, if you like. The fact is, marriage 1 
 
 He stopped, threw down his brushes impatiently, and 
 faced round on his chair. 
 
 " Give me one of your cigars ; we will talk of some 
 thing else. I haven t seen anybody to speak to for a 
 fortnight ! I am beginning to forget the sound of my 
 own voice." 
 
 The conversation became technical. They criticised 
 some pictures. Ferris had been making some experi 
 ments with a new kind of quick-drying oil. 
 
 " You could not have a better vehicle for hasty 
 sketches. You ought to try it, Lawrence," he said. 
 
 " Try it ? Try what ? " Mr. Lawrence started, and 
 begged his pardon. 
 
 "The fact is, I was thinking of something miles away. 
 I have been living the life of a hermit so long I listen to 
 gossip like a woman," with an indulgent smile at his own 
 weakness. " Now, this marriage of Miss Varley s. But 
 you don t know the girl as I do ; you wouldn t under 
 stand. Why, that girl had all the craving for beauty, 
 for expression, for utterance She had the tempera 
 ment of an artist once," with a puzzled look. 
 
 Ferris looked up slowly. "No; I can t understand. 
 My own experience with women " He got up hastily 
 and walked across to the window. "God knows, it is 
 hard sometimes to understand what a woman wants," with 
 a short laugh, a dark flush creeping over his boyish face.
 
 UN ENFANT DU SIECLE. 203 
 
 The other man glanced at him quickly, and then 
 looked steadily away. He had heard something of 
 Ferris s past history. "Poor old boy! he s thinking of 
 that girl he was engaged to at Venice," he thought. 
 
 " I wish you had been here last night," he said aloud. 
 " There was a Mahomedan festa of some kind in the 
 great mosque. The bazaar was illuminated ; there was 
 a procession of dervishes with torches. I don t know 
 what saint s day they were celebrating, but the consul 
 sent all the strangers word it was safer not to show one s 
 pale Christian face abroad." 
 
 " You were there, of course." 
 
 " Well I find something rather amusing in being 
 persecuted for my religious convictions. I enjoy the 
 injustice of it" (with a laugh) ; "for, personally speak 
 ing, I confess I am still seeking for that Christian religion 
 of which I hear so much, and which I find neither in 
 superb cathedrals erected in honor of a dogma, nor 
 in discourses adapted to the habits of a fashionable 
 congregation, nor even in religious picture-frames and 
 sincere effects of painted glass, like our friend Dave- 
 nant. The Catholics stultify and the Evangelicals 
 starve me, and I am too fastidious well, too selfish, 
 too snobbish, if you like the word better to turn 
 Communist. A paganism, tempered by epigrams, is, I 
 believe, my present condition. When I discover the 
 means of reconciling the irreconcilable of serving 
 God and Mammon with a breath I shall join some 
 well-established Church. But until then " (carelessly) 
 " I am an experimentalist I worship at the altar of 
 the unknown god." 
 
 "Well," said Ferris, "I don t know. You would call 
 it the result of inherent Philistinism, I suppose, but I 
 must say I find heaven and earth about as much as I 
 can manage, even in their present organized condition. 
 To be sure I should not like to have to admit that to 
 Davenant." 
 
 " Davenant ! " Lawrence laughed. " I want to see 
 Davenant. I am curious to know how Jerusalem has
 
 204 MIRAGE. 
 
 affected him. When he went away from here, hi? relig 
 ious formula reminded me rather of one of those statues 
 of the old gods you see occasionally in an Italian church. 
 It was a Venus re-baptized into a Virgin, and the halo 
 was newer than the smile. Have another cigar ? " 
 
 "Thanks. Claude is a good sort of fellow, you 
 know, in spite of all his nonsense. He strikes me as a 
 sort of epitomized Europe. Now at home But I am 
 curious to see if he will accomplish any thing. He has 
 talent." 
 
 " Too cultivated by half," said Lawrence sententiously. 
 " I tell you what it is, old boy this modern mania for 
 cultivating oneself is nothing more nor less than^ sui 
 cidal. Why, take the modern artist ; look at modern 
 art. It is interesting, if you like; but what more? 
 Interesting and impotent. And it must be so, by Jove ! 
 it must," sitting up and speaking with sudden energy, 
 "for culture is necessarily self-conscious. Its final 
 aim is refinement, not strength ; beauty, not exhilar 
 ation ; the thirst for perfection and with perfection 
 melancholy." 
 
 Ferris was leaning back, his hands clasped behind 
 his head, staring placidly at the ceiling. 
 
 " How about the Greeks ? " he said, looking up with 
 an amused air. 
 
 It was a long time since he had seen Lawrence in one 
 of these moods. 
 
 "The Greeks? You don t imagine that the Greeks 
 were cultivated in our sense of the word ? Culture be 
 gan with the Renaissance, my dear fellow when life 
 became complex, when morality interfered, and a man 
 ceased to lose sight of himself in his art. Culture, I 
 tell you, is self-conscious, but genius is personal ; and 
 modern public opinion has suppressed personality, and 
 democracy has outlawed it. And because there is a 
 small set of we artists who see this, it has become the 
 fashion to try to be original to try to be original, by 
 Jove ! and men spend years endeavoring to be spon 
 taneous. Why, look at that thing," pointing to the
 
 UN ENFANT DU SIECLE. 205 
 
 picture on his easel ; " look at that thing if you want 
 to know what I mean. Clever? of course it s clever 
 damnably so. And when you think I meant to paint 
 pictures once Ah, well ! On nciit demi-dieu et I on 
 mcurt epicier ; and that s about the end of it," taking up 
 his brushes again with a sigh. 
 
 He went on working in silence for several minutes, 
 and again the fountain dripped audibly through the 
 stillness, and the thin, cold light crept farther down the 
 wall. And presently Ferris rose ; he stretched his 
 arms, he looked about him. " I must be going. I 
 promised to meet Major Thayer. Are you coming 
 too ? " he asked. 
 
 Lawrence took out his watch and looked at it. 
 
 " I told the boy to come for my traps at five, and I 
 expect Ahmed at the cafe . But give my compliments 
 to the ladies. I will call on them at the hotel. And, I 
 say, Ferris " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Don t say any thing to them about my going ; there s 
 a good fellow. I can t have people canvassing my 
 affairs, to begin with ; and then, the fact is, your- com 
 ing home has demoralized me. I had forgotten that 
 man is a social animal while you were away. Upon my 
 word, I begin to think something of leaving off work and 
 going to Constantinople instead. It s a plan that was 
 suggested to me some time ago. I ve got some busi 
 ness there. That was one of the advantages of Ispa 
 han," with a peculiar expression; "it is some distance 
 from Constantinople." 
 
 " Well, provided you don t start on that fool s errand 
 to Bagdad " 
 
 " Urgent, in season and out of season, old fellow, eh ? 
 It is a foolish plan, I daresay ; but I should have thought 
 you would have appreciated it," smiling. " It was a 
 painter s whim, the dream of Un homme errant qui aims 
 passionement le bleu" 
 
 " Un homme errant 1 } an erring man, I should translate 
 that," said Ferris, with a careless laugh.
 
 206 MIRAGE. 
 
 And presently he went away. He went out if*o the 
 open courtyard, out into the blazing sunshine, his steps 
 echoing quickly across the sun-scorched stones ; and 
 now a door slammed to behind him. 
 
 It was curious to watch the change which came over 
 Lawrence. His whole expression altered suddenly, as 
 only a sensitive face can alter. He worked on dog 
 gedly for a minute or two ; he got up irresolutely ; he took 
 a turn about the room. A large portfolio of drawings 
 was lying open on the chair where Ferris had left it. 
 He glanced at it once or twice, and closed it sharply, 
 with a muttered exclamation of disgust. 
 
 " By Jove, old George is right ! It is a fool s errand. 
 It is late, too, for me to begin," with a curious, restrained 
 contempt. 
 
 He took a piece of paper from his pocket : part of a 
 letter written in French and in a woman s hand. He 
 stood looking at it quietly for a moment, his face grow 
 ing troubled, his lips set and stern. The paper was 
 folded in such a fashion there was one sentence he 
 could not help but read. It began abruptly: 
 
 "June, in Constantinople? But some time I know 
 that you will come back to me. It may be now : it may 
 be long years hence, when all the beautiful youth has 
 passed out of our lives, and you will look back to the 
 days we were together, and your heart will go near to 
 breaking to know that they can never come again. 
 And it will have been your own fault, Denis. You 
 have sworn never to see me again, and I know it, and 
 I am waiting for you. I am waiting to be forgiven. 
 ^ attends." 
 
 He crushed the paper hard between his fingers. He 
 drew a long, deep breath ; his face had altogether lost 
 its color. 
 
 " Grand Dieu ! qrfelle etait belle! 1 the young man 
 said. 
 
 The broken fountain trickled slowly through the still-
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 2O/ 
 
 ness, drop by drop, dripping down upon the marble 
 floor. It was a silent afternoon ; only, now and then, 
 the fig-trees rustled outside there in the sunlight ; a 
 breath of warmer air stole through the doorway into the 
 bare white-washed room. The cold, thin light crept in 
 at the high window ; the colorless stillness seemed to 
 fall like a charm between him and the outer world. 
 He paced up and down for a long time, thinking; turn 
 ing sharply at the corners, with knitted brows and a 
 slow and resolute step. One of these turns brought 
 him near the dripping fountain. He. stopped and 
 watched it with a curious smile. The slow drops fell 
 one by one into the brimming basin in shining circles 
 that rippled and passed away. And the years of his 
 life, as they too passed in mute succession before him, 
 seemed hardly less purposeless, less fatally purposeless, 
 than these. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WHICH CONTAINS SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LAWRENCE 
 FAMILY. 
 
 MISS Marie De Bray had only been home three 
 months from her French convent. Her letters 
 to her five most intimate friends they wrote to each 
 other regularly twice a week, and it was an understood 
 thing that they were never to forget one another her 
 letters to her late companions, then, were still full of 
 delight and wonderment over her own dear home, and 
 her dear father, and her dear brothers, and the dear old 
 plantation life. This young lady, in a word, was in the 
 happiest, the most impressionable, the most sentimental 
 frame of mind imaginable when she met her cousin, 
 Henry Lawrence. 
 
 It was on the occasion of that young gentleman s first
 
 208 MIRAGE. 
 
 visit to the South. He had been spending the Winter 
 in the neighboring town of Richmond, and having 
 awoke one fine morning with a racking headache, and a 
 very indistinct recollection of its cause, it had occurred 
 to him to have his horse saddled, and, like a dutiful 
 nephew, to ride over and pay his respects to his old 
 uncle and aunt. 
 
 What he thought upon meeting his cousin Marie has 
 never transpired. But it was not long before people 
 began to remark upon the fact that Mr. Lawrence s 
 daily rides had assumed one invariable direction. His 
 face had become familiar to every field-hand on the De 
 Bray plantation. There was a standing quarrel afriong 
 the younger negroes as to who should hold Mars Henry s 
 horse. Indeed, so confirmed a habit had these visits 
 become, that when one fine day he changed his hours 
 and rode over early in the morning, he found the stable- 
 yard deserted by all but the smallest and blackest of 
 the grooms. It was a great opportunity for Zip. 
 
 " Mars Edouard out shootin, suh," he said astutely. 
 " Miss Marie gone down in the garden for flowers. 
 Specs Miss Marie all alone dah, suh. Tank you, suh," 
 catching the bit of silver with a grin. 
 
 Miss Marie was in the garden, and alone. She was 
 picking winter roses when her cousin found her. It 
 may be she had expected his coming, for she never 
 looked up at his approach, bending her face down over 
 her basket with cheeks that put to shame the paler 
 winter flowers. 
 
 She had run a thorn into her hand ; she showed him 
 the scratch presently, looking up in his face the while 
 with innocent, brown eyes. It was the prettiest, the 
 dearest little hand in the world, the young man declared, 
 holding the trembling little fingers in his own, and 
 
 " Nonsense, Harry ! " the young girl says, turning 
 away with a blush, and then Well then, Mr. De 
 Bray, senior, who was also taking his *morning stroll 
 about the shrubbery, had the opportunity of witnessing 
 a very pretty scene. 

 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 209 
 
 "Your mother wants you. I think you had better go 
 in for a moment to your mother, Marie," he observed 
 some moments later, and in precisely the same tone of 
 unvarying courtesy his daughter had always heard him 
 use. And then, when Marie had crept away, " Well, 
 sir ! " the planter said, grimly, turning to his nephew. 
 
 Young Lawrence was indisputably a Yankee. His 
 home was in New England. He was known to have 
 been somewhat wild at college. He was also known to 
 have inherited a hundred thousand dollars at his father s 
 death. And for three years back the De Bray cotton 
 crop had hardly paid the cost of its transport to the 
 north. 
 
 " Well, sir ! " the planter said. 
 
 It was the finest wedding the De Bray family had 
 seen for years. It was like old times, the oldest negroes 
 told each other. And from little Zip in the stable-yard 
 to the bevy of bridesmaids, come all the way from the 
 Charleston convent to grace the great event, through all 
 the gamut of black and white and yellow, there was not 
 a voice but had some word of praise for Henry Law 
 rence. The truth is he was a very fascinating young 
 fellow. When he took his bride to Saratoga Springs, 
 Mr. Lawrence was almost more of a social success than 
 his beautiful young wife. For one thing, he cared more 
 about this sort of pleasure than she did. The gentle, 
 convent-bred girl was more repelled than charmed by 
 this first experience of the world. Her Southern educa 
 tion had never prepared her for a life where only the 
 women were at leisure. She could not understand that 
 gentlemen should be in business. These dashing, 
 energetic women frightened her. In a word, she was 
 very shy, very proud, very ignorant, very" much in love 
 with her husband, perhaps a little jealous. And per 
 haps she had sojne reason for this latter feeling. Per 
 haps she was rfct so far wrong when she begged her 
 husband to take her to their new home. 
 
 And this in spite of frequent warnings. " Graveport 
 14
 
 310 MIRAGE. 
 
 is a pretty old place, Marie. I Ve lived there allTny fife, 
 and of course I know every man, woman, and child in 
 the village. But it s different for you ; you won t find a 
 soul to speak to there, remember. But a woman never 
 knows when she s well off," her husband said. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence listened with perfect incredulity. She 
 was in no way apprehensive about her future neighbors. 
 For had not Judge Poynter, the Member of Congress, 
 the one great man of Graveport, called upon her here 
 already ? And had she not spoken to that nice young 
 Mr. Carter, who had been so pleased to see his old 
 friend Lawrence the day they met him in New York ; 
 who had told her so much about the Graveport \fcoods 
 and beaches, and had even offered, with a blush, to 
 send her a copy of his little book of poems "Transla 
 tions from the German, and Other Verses" whose 
 forthcoming publication was the cause of his presence 
 in the city, and thus, in a remote way, if she would allow 
 him to say so, had procured him the honor and pleasure 
 of knowing Mrs. Lawrence ? 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence accepted his compliments with per 
 fect gravity and respect. She could not in the least 
 understand why her husband should burst out laughing 
 in the midst of them. This Mr. Carter was the first 
 living author she had ever seen. She contemplated him 
 with simple admiration. She was pleased to think that 
 her Harry should be on familiar terms with such a 
 literary star. And, like every thing else, it tended to 
 show what a remarkable man her Harry was. 
 
 But it was not until the early autumn that Mr. Law 
 rence took her home. A cool, salt wind was blowing in 
 from the sea as they got out at the small country station 
 of Graveport. The yellowing elms rustled their branches 
 in welcome against a sky of deep and cloudless blue. 
 The pale, golden leaves fluttered down the droppings 
 of some unseen bridal torch about the young wife s 
 path. 
 
 They had been at home a week when Lawrence came 
 in one morning and invited her to accompany him upon
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 
 
 a drive. " I m going down to the village," the young 
 man observed carelessly. " There s nothing much else 
 to do in this confounded, dreary old hole. If we see 
 Bill Carter I 11 ask him to dinner, Marie. We re sure 
 enough to find him too," with a laugh he did not trouble 
 himself to explain. 
 
 Graveport is a typical New England village, an old 
 seaport town grown too small for its shell a town 
 with large, grass-grown wharves, where the tides come 
 in unheeded, and the little boys fish for flounders, and 
 a few old fishermen sit and gossip in the sun ; a town 
 very proud of its elms, with wide and ill-kept roads, and 
 staring white houses with inviolable gates and blinds. 
 And, as the life of a New England home centres about 
 the kitchen-door, so, in this village, it was only about 
 the post-office and the market that a feeble show of 
 activity made itself felt. The linen-drapers displayed 
 their goods more boldly to the public ; Miss Rich 
 ardson s bonnet-shop was gay with autumn fashions. 
 There was a rival flourish of blue and crimson in the 
 colored globes at the chemist s window next door. 
 
 It was in front of this very apothecary s that Mr. 
 Lawrence checked his horses. 
 
 " I thought you were going to call on Mr. Carter, 
 Henry dear ? " 
 
 " Oh, you come along with me," said dear Henry with 
 a grin. 
 
 The little shop was empty when they entered it, but 
 the drug-room door was left ajar, and a potent smell of 
 camphor, the subdued sound of pestle and mortar, gave 
 evidence* its proprietor was within. " Hollo, Carter, are 
 you busy ? Can you come out and see my wife ?" said 
 Mr. Lawrence. 
 
 Well, the apothecary came. He had on a gray alpaca 
 coat, the sleeves of which were neatly turned back over 
 his cuffs, and a large white apron was fastened about 
 his waist; but this latter he hastily removed before 
 shaking hands with his visitors across the counter. He 
 welcomed them to Graveport. He quoted Tennyson.
 
 212 MIRAGE. 
 
 He took some flowers from a glass, and, wrapping tReir 
 stems carefully in a piece of white paper with " Carter, 
 Apothecary," stamped in colored letters across it, he 
 presented the whole with a neat little bow and speech to 
 his old schoolmate s lady. " I don t need to ask you if 
 you want any thing in our line this morning, Harry," he 
 said ; but he insisted upon mixing some sal volatile for 
 Mrs. Lawrence, who indeed was sitting there speechless 
 and pale with mingled surprise and mortification. 
 
 "You ve been furbishing up the shop, old boy, since 
 I was here," remarked that lady s husband, seating him 
 self comfortably upon the counter, and looking about 
 him with a knowing air. " Hollo, French soap ? JVhy, 
 Graveport s looking up in the fashionable world, Carter. 
 And when are you coming to dine with us, by-the-way ? 
 Mrs. Lawrence has been dying to hear the last news 
 about your book." 
 
 Mr. Carter grew pink with pleasure. He stammered* 
 something about appreciative souls ; he produced the 
 promised volume from his desk. It was handsomely 
 bound in blue and gold ; it was perfumed with the best 
 sachet powder ; there was a dedicatory inscription upon 
 the title-page ; and a little girl coming in at that mo 
 ment with a request for a box of rhubarb pills, " which 
 father says the last wasn t made strong enough, Mr. 
 Carter," the poet absolutely kept his customer waiting 
 while he finished reading aloud a sonnet about the 
 inner life. 
 
 And then on their way home, and for the first time, 
 Mr. Lawrence found fault with his wife. " For the 
 sooner you get rid of all these d d Southern no 
 tions, why the better it will be for all of us," he remarked 
 with perfect frankness. "Bill Carter not a gentleman ? 
 Well, he don t keep a crowd of lazy niggers to do his 
 work for him, if that s what you mean. A man s a man 
 in New England," said Mr. Lawrence, "and a gentle 
 man afterwards. But you needn t have Carter at the 
 house if you don t like. Hurt his feelings ? Nonsense ! 
 you re always bothering about people s feelings. I wish
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 21$ 
 
 you had considered mine a little more before you in 
 sisted upon coming here ; but that s just like a woman 
 never knows when she s well off. But it s precious 
 badly off you 11 find yourself, /can tell you, if you don t 
 learn that Graveport is not in Virginia, my dear." 
 
 The golden leaves were still falling along her path 
 way as Mrs. Lawrence entered her home that day 
 The young wife stooped and picked a handful from the 
 grass and looked at them wistfully. It may be she 
 was remembering at that moment that here, too, was 
 the sign of ended summer and only the dead leaves 
 betweetj her and the drifting snow. 
 
 And so, from the very beginning, there was but little 
 question of Mrs. Lawrence s unpopularity with the gooc 
 people of Graveport. Some few infatuated young men, 
 like Mr. William Carter, for instance, might put in a 
 plea on account of her beauty. It was easy to say that 
 she was good ; that she was equally gentle and gracious 
 to every one about her ; that she was devoted to her 
 husband, generous even to excess to the poor: the fact 
 remained the same she was not one of them. Before 
 three months had passed there was hardly an old woman 
 in the village who had not her own particular anecdote 
 to tell about the new French madame ; how Mrs. Dodge 
 had found her breakfasting at ten o clock in the morn 
 ing ; how Mason the grocer had had to send to Boston 
 for all the butter they ate ; and, for all the airs she gave 
 herself, how people had seen her laughing and gossiping 
 by the hour with that negro maid ! And I am afraid 
 that it must be admitted that Marie herself did little or 
 nothing to check the tide of all this popular wrath. The 
 truth is she refused their invitations ; she would not go 
 to their tea-drinkings, after the first ; she laughed at 
 the Lyceum lectures. " I am afraid there has been 
 some mistake. I can assure you I have never thought 
 of being a governess," she said, with her most superb 
 air to Miss Lucy Carter, when that young lady called 
 upon her to suggest a class in French. " As mother 
 thought you might not have much to do with your time,
 
 214 MIRAGE. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence, since Henry is away so mucPf -frbm 
 home," Miss Carter had added with a toss of her head. 
 Miss Carter had been the belle of Graveport in her day, 
 and it may be this allusion to her husband was not es 
 pecially satisfactory to Mrs. Lawrence. 
 
 Perhaps, all things considered, it was hardly to be 
 wondered at that, long before the pale New England 
 spring, the Lawrences had drifted back to the city. It 
 was the last that Graveport saw of them for many and 
 many a day. It is true that from time to time vague 
 rumors would reach there of the fugitives : one year it 
 was Mr. Carter who met them in New York, whether he 
 had taken his wife upon a bridal tour; again it wag old 
 Miss Richardson, going up to Boston for her yearly 
 collection of new fashions, who had chanced upon Marie 
 face to face, " and looking not a day older, my dear, and 
 her with all those little children ; " and yet again the 
 reports were of another character, and people shook 
 their heads with melancholy satisfaction over the tales 
 of young Lawrence s wild doings. " Poor Henry ! he 
 was always weak. But then, what could you expect with 
 such a wife ? " as Miss Carter pertinently inquired. 
 And then came the rumor that they had gone to Europe. 
 And then, quite suddenly, the news that Mr. Lawrence 
 was dead. 
 
 And almost before the excitement caused by this re 
 port had died away, one fine October morning a carriage 
 stopped before the Lawrences door. The unused gate 
 creaked heavily as it turned upon its hinges ; the lawn 
 was strewn with withered leaves from the old elms over 
 head. As Miss Richardson hurried to her parlor win 
 dow, she could see a black-clad figure pass through the 
 brilliant sunshine among the dying leaves. The chil 
 dren were delighted with this rustling carpet; they 
 crowded about her ; they pulled at her dress ; " but 
 she didn t seem to take no notice nor nothing," Miss 
 Richardson commented. And Graveport knew the 
 widow had come home. 
 
 Little Denis was a pretty boy of eight or nine, his
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 21$ 
 
 sisters "the children," as the boy called them con 
 temptuously were still in the nursery, under old black 
 Jenny s rule, at the time of this event ; and it was per 
 haps but natural that, as the years went on, and they 
 grew older, a thousand new ties and associations should 
 spring up between them and the people of the village 
 ties and associations their mother could never under 
 stand. Indeed, to her dying day, this lady remained a 
 stranger to the place. And, for that matter, her whole 
 life was centred in her children : when she addressed her 
 neighbors on any other subject it was with the air of a 
 dethroned princess addressing her inferiors. Since her 
 husband s death she had become more French than 
 ever. She surrounded herself with negro servants. At 
 an age and in a community where a woman of thirty is 
 a faded, shattered, indomitable machine, she dressed 
 herself in delicate and flowing robes of white, and knots 
 of blue, and ruffles of lace about her beautiful, helpless 
 hands. In a land of sectarian prejudice, she was seen 
 by credible witnesses drinking coffee on her lawn at 
 four o clock on a Sunday afternoon, in company with 
 several strangers, and one of these a Roman Catholic 
 priest. " Settin about a table on the grass like a lot o 
 Crazy Janes without house nor home, and her a widder 
 woman, on the Sabbath ! It s what I call a flyin in the 
 face of Providence," said Deacon Davis grimly. 
 
 But perhaps the two worst counts against the innocent 
 sinner were, first, her attendance at the Catholic church, 
 a small, stucco chapel erected for the convenience of the 
 Irish mill-hands, where Mrs. Lawrence sat every Sun 
 day morning, looking serenely beautiful and unconscious 
 of her surroundings ; and then the fact that she rode. 
 For in that land of invalid women and knock-kneed 
 horses (harnessed on Sunday afternoons when the family 
 "carry-all " was needed to take the family to church), it 
 was Mrs. Lawrence s practice to ride ; and the fishermen 
 by the shore, the few woodcutters amongst the pines, had 
 long since grown accustomed to the sound of muffled 
 hoof beats. The children had learned to watch for their
 
 2l6 MIRAGE. 
 
 coming, crowding to the window to see the genufcj* sad- 
 faced lady canter by, and wonder at her boy. 
 
 " I met em again this aternoon. The Jedge was with 
 em," Mr. Jones would remark at dinner Mr. Jones, a 
 scrupulously accurate man, who had been known to add 
 a date-stone to a pound of dates rather than give a cus 
 tomer short measure. " I met em trapesing about, as 
 usual. The French madame had her lap full o weeds, 
 and the boy was a sticking a lot o them purple asters in 
 her hat. They seed me a-comin , and the madame, she 
 asked ater you, Mariar," with a side-glance at the sickly 
 woman bending above the stove. 
 
 "Where was it, father?" asks the eldest girl. 
 
 " By them Folly Woods ; near the crossroad. She was 
 askin her way to " 
 
 " I know the place. Do tell ! So she was there, was 
 she ? I used to go there to pull May-blooms when I was 
 a girl. I hain t seen those woods these fifteen years or 
 more," says Mariar, turning around to hush the crying 
 baby in its chair. " Mary Jones, if you don t let that 
 little brother o yours alone ! and George, keep your 
 fingers out o that molasses, sir. You had a genteel suf 
 ficiency an hour ago. What was she goin after, father ? 
 Did she say ? " 
 
 " After more weeds, I reckon. The way that woman 
 litters up that house o hern do beat the Dutch. Kiting 
 across the country like a white pine-dog with a popple 
 tail ; and the Jedge with em too a man o his sense, 
 and a professor of religion ! I d admire to know what 
 that, boy of hers can come to, seein such goin s on," 
 said Mr. Jones. 
 
 And Mr. Jones s was not the only speculation on 
 this topic. For it was about this time, I think, that a 
 certain interview took place. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence had stayed at home that day. It was 
 a still, warm, beautiful September afternoon. She was 
 pacing up and down the garden-walk ; the train of her 
 white dress brushed against a glowing border of brilliant 
 autumn flowers ; the yellowing leaves were floating down
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 21 7 
 
 in the same old fashion from the frost-touched elms ; 
 the mild autumnal sunshine resting upon her flushed 
 and pensive face a fair and gracious and singularly 
 youthful face it seemed in the eyes of the man who 
 saw it. 
 
 " For you know, dear Mrs. Lawrence, it is impossible," 
 Judge Poynter was saying, in a voice which I doubt if 
 any one but this woman beside him would ever have 
 recognized as his; "quite impossible. Your boy will 
 grow up how old is he now? fifteen? sixteen? in 
 five years time he will be a young man, with a life apart 
 from yours, and you a young woman still." 
 
 " I was six-and-thirty on my last birth-day," said Mrs. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 " A young woman still ; a charming woman always. 
 And to think of your throwing yourself away upon these 
 people here ! It is a shame, Mary a waste, a criminal 
 waste of faculties that were given you to be an orna 
 ment yes, and an honor to any society you deigned 
 to enter, by Jove!" with a sudden relapse into. the Ed 
 ward Poynter of twenty years ago. " And as for this boy, 
 he s a fine little fellow, and a brave little fellow, and 
 we 11 make an honest gentleman of him a man you 
 will be proud of, Mary. For the boy s own sake I think 
 you should say Yes, my dear," said the Judge. 
 
 I think she came very near saying it. She looked up 
 at the handsome, stalwart, gray-haired man beside her. 
 I think that she realized that here was a name and a 
 position any woman might be proud to accept ; and I 
 think that for a moment she wavered. I am sure that 
 after he had left her after she had watched him turn 
 away sorrowful, incredulous, protesting I am sure, I 
 say, that she looked up at the serene beauty of the sky 
 above her, that she looked around at the blazing garden- 
 borders with quite a new sense of narrowness and loss. 
 Perhaps it was only the natural regret of having wounded 
 a friend ; perhaps some old thirst for a wider life, some 
 forgotten but living capacity for enjoyment, for the plea 
 sant excitement of admiration the gracious privilege
 
 218 MIRAGE. 
 
 of giving pleasure had been awakened by his w"ords. 
 There was an unusual flush on the widow s delicate 
 cheek, an almost girlish embarrassment in her manner 
 as she went forward to greet her son returning home 
 from school. 
 
 " I m late and I know it, and I couldn t help it," 
 that young gentleman remarked cheerfully, vaulting over 
 the garden-gate with a dexterous toss of his books at the 
 grinning Jenny s head; "I stayed to see Ned Mason s 
 boat, and she is a beauty ! Ned s going to sea before 
 long, mother. He can t stand it at home since Mrs, 
 Mason s married again. Some people think it s queer 
 of Ned to take it in that fashion ; but /don t woncley at 
 it, you know," said Master Denis, sagely. And to his 
 dying clay Denis Lawrence never guessed why his mother 
 threw her arms about his neck and kissed him at that 
 particular moment. 
 
 It was about this same time young Lawrence made up 
 his mind to become a painter. Of course the lad had 
 always had a taste for drawing. There was portfolio 
 after portfolio full of sketches with " Denis Lawrence, 
 fecit," in the corner, carefully stored away among his 
 mother s treasures. But when he was about nineteen, 
 it so happened the boy spent a winter in New York. 
 It was there that for the first time he saw the interior of 
 an artist s studio ; it was there he abandoned all idea of 
 college ; and it was then and there he decided to study 
 abroad. 
 
 At first Mrs. Lawrence would not hear of his going to 
 Europe. The very thought of his departure distracted 
 her with grief. She implored him not to leave her. She 
 wrote letter after letter to her brother at home, entreat 
 ing him, adjuring him, by his responsibility as a guardian, 
 not to sanction her boy s departure. And in the midst 
 of all this agitation, and quite unexpectedly, Mr. Ed- 
 ouard De Bray came north. 
 
 He arrived at Graveport one wintry evening, wrapped 
 up to his eyes in fur pelisses, and swearing violently and 
 indiscriminately at the Yankees and their climate ; and
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 219 
 
 before twenty-four hours were over, and to the lad s in 
 tense surprise, the plans were entirely settled for Denis s 
 sojourn in Paris. 
 
 His surprise might have been lessened perhaps, had 
 he known then what he only heard years afterwards 
 the purport of an interview which took place between 
 his mother and his guardian the very night of the lat- 
 ter s arrival. 
 
 " Ma sceur, I have something to tell you," said Mr. 
 De Bray. He went to the door and locked it noiselessly. 
 "Are your children, are your servants, all in bed?" he 
 asked. He took the widow by the hand, he led her 
 gravely to the fire, and, stooping down before it, he 
 whispered in her ear. 
 
 She started back with a low cry of terror. 
 
 " Hush ! some one may hear you," the Virginian said 
 again, and with the same strange solemnity of manner. 
 
 The short, gray-haired man standing before that fire, 
 biting his nails and staring at the logs, had some of the 
 authority of a martyr about him at that moment. 
 
 "It may take all," he said slowly, stretching out 
 his hand. " Virginia will need all, my sister," with up 
 lifted head, and the passion of a lifetime flashing suddenly 
 into the heavy face. 
 
 They settled about the boy s departure : he was to 
 remain away a year. 
 
 " And you 11 remember, my boy, you have given me 
 your word your word of honor as a De Bray that 
 you won t come home before that year expires," his uncle 
 reminded him with peculiar significance. 
 
 The lad looked up curiously from his imperturbable 
 guardian to his mother s wan and tear-stained face. 
 
 " All right, sir ! Not unless my mother sends for me," 
 he said stoutly. 
 
 There was only a week before his vessel sailed, and 
 yet, in the midst of all his wild excitement, the boy found 
 time to wonder whatever that promise might mean. 
 
 He found out soon enough. He had not been three 
 months in Paris when the catastrophe came. The flag
 
 220 MIRAGE. 
 
 was fired on at Fort Sumter, and for awhile the laS"w"as 
 half mad with rage and revolt. 
 
 "Our cousins, the other De Brays, have come back 
 from the country. My cousin, the Vicomte, has married 
 a wife young enough to be his daughter. She is one of 
 the most beautiful women in Paris," he wrote to his 
 mother on one occasion. " They want me to paint her 
 portrait ; they ask me continually to go and see them ; 
 and have you not made it impossible ? Shall I go to 
 her house and let her think me a coward ? Or would you 
 have me tell her how my own mother has cheated me 
 like a child?" 
 
 It was the first serious breach between the mother and 
 her son, and for a time it was difficult to say which suf 
 fered from it the most. 
 
 " You tell me I am a De Bray. I answer you I am 
 an American," the young man wrote at last, in answer 
 to one of the widow s piteous letters. " And you would 
 have me stay here like a miserable sham, you would have 
 me skulk like a girl out of reach of danger, when there 
 isn t blood enough left in America to wipe out the insult 
 to our flag. My uncle may fight where he chooses ; my 
 place is at the North. I am coming to take it. I am 
 coming home, mother. Three months from to-day the 
 year I promised you is ended. I shall stay here three 
 months from to-day. " 
 
 He stayed three years. At last, one bleak December 
 night, deep in the frozen heart of the New England 
 winter, and when all the elms stood white and rigid 
 beneath a three-days fall of snow, at last Denis Law 
 rence came home. He came home a man, and it was 
 with an indescribable pang of jealous sorrow the widow 
 realized the fact ; her boy was a boy no more. 
 
 She went in to see him that first night, creeping 
 stealthily to the door of his room when all the house
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 221 
 
 was hushed and silent. It was long after midnight, but 
 a light was burning on his table as she entered, and 
 Denis was seated before it, his face haggard and wan, 
 and buried in his hands. 
 
 He started and looked up at the sound of her gentle 
 entrance. " Is that you, mother?" he said wildly. He 
 clutched a portrait, some papers lying before him, and 
 thrust them hastily aside. 
 
 " Why don t you go to sleep, my darling ? " the mother 
 asked, in the old, tender, well-remembered voice. She 
 laid her hand upon her boy s forehead and smoothed 
 back his tumbled hair. " Why don t you go to sleep, 
 my boy ? " she said trembling. 
 
 And Denis took his mother s hand in his and kissed 
 it. There was but little need of explanation between 
 those two. 
 
 The days went on and on. In spite of his mother s 
 guest, Miss Poynter, it was but a dull house now, this 
 home to which young Lawrence had returned ; a poverty- 
 stricken house, the young man thought with bitter mor 
 tification, remembering the life he had led in the years 
 he had been away. 
 
 He chafed with inexpressible impatience at the thought 
 of his own helplessness. There was no more talk of his 
 going to the war now ; indeed, in those first days, the 
 widow would hardly bear him out of her sight ; and 
 Denis saw with alarm the change those few years had 
 made in her appearance. He spoke of it repeatedly to 
 Miss Poynter ; and there was but little to comfort him 
 in the young girl s report. 
 
 " She is a good girl," the widow said, speaking of 
 Charlotte in one of her many conversations with her 
 son, " a good girl ; she has been a kind little companion 
 to me this summer. I missed your sisters sadly when 
 they went away, Denis." 
 
 " My sisters had no right to leave you," the young 
 man said. 
 
 " It is a dull house, my dear," said the widow, with 
 her melancholy smile ; " and Mrs. Poynter was very
 
 222 MIRAGE. 
 
 ^. <r- 
 
 kind in inviting them ; and the poor children needed 
 society. They were glad to go. And yet I have done 
 what I could for my children," said Mrs. Lawrence. 
 
 Another time she told him about the money that had 
 been lost. " As for all the De Bray fortune, it has gone 
 it has gone for a good cause," she said, her cheeks 
 flushing painfully. 
 
 And then, presently, as Charlotte Poynter got up and 
 left the room, u She is a good girl," the widow repeated, 
 looking after her affectionately. " She will be very 
 wealthy, Denis," she added timidly, after a moment, 
 "she will be wealthy, Denis ; and you oh, my darlhig, 
 if you knew how I have thought of you ! " 
 
 " It was impossible," the young man said impatiently, 
 "impossible." The very suggestion was irksome to 
 him. " I have done with Miss Poynter s fortune 
 is nothing to me," he said. He frowned as he turned 
 away. 
 
 It was a dull winter certainly. The weeks seemed to 
 stretch out to twice their normal length ; the weary 
 battle months rolled by with hardly a break in all their 
 blood-stained monotony. It seemed to Denis sometimes 
 that they were buried alive ; he chafed against his captiv 
 ity in bitter silence, carrying the newspapers to his own 
 room and devouring their contents with eager, humil 
 iated eyes. He paid very little attention to the women 
 of his household on those days, and perhaps it was only 
 natural that they should redouble in their efforts to 
 please him. It was no easy matter at -times, but little 
 Charlotte persevered bravely. They had talked of 
 Lawrence s coming for months before his arrival, and I 
 have small doubt but the mother had made a hero of 
 her boy. 
 
 One afternoon he was sitting with Miss Poynter in 
 the studio. For some weeks past he had been engaged 
 in making a study for a picture, a little bit of genre a 
 girl s head, an open window, and, beyond, a stretch of 
 wintry sky. As chance would have it, he was that day 
 in a particularly happy mood. Miss Poynter was m
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 223 
 
 excellent sitter. He was trying a new process of his 
 own, and the picture promised to be a success. 
 
 " I think, by Jove ! I think I ve got it this time, and 
 no mistake," he said, with quite a new satisfaction in 
 his voice. He looked over to Charlotte for sympathy. 
 
 Miss Poynter was sitting by the window, crying. 
 
 She had had a letter from her cousin Edward that 
 morning. "He is coming he is coming to take me 
 away," the girl ended with a sob. 
 
 If Denis hesitated, it was only for a moment. He 
 laid down his palette and brushes deliberately ; he 
 crossed over to the little shrinking figure beside the 
 window; put his arm about her waist. "Shall shall 
 I tell Judge Poynter you would rather stay here with 
 me, Charlotte?" said Mr. Lawrence. 
 
 It was not a rapturous wooing. There was still light 
 enough in the short winter afternoon to finish the picture 
 after every thing else was settled. And Denis went 
 back to his work. It was his first decidedly successful 
 picture. " A charming bit of sentiment and color," the 
 critics called it. It was bought by Goupl in the course 
 of the following summer. He sold it very well. " As 
 though there was any use in that, while there is all my 
 money lying idle, and you will not even take me where 
 I could spend it," Mrs. Charlotte observed disdainfully. 
 They had been married over six months, and this was 
 not the first remark of the kind which young Mrs. Law 
 rence had made. It had been a singularly unsuccessful 
 marriage from the first. And this not because Char 
 lotte was a badly-intentioned or even a bad-tempered 
 woman. She would have made a happy wife to some 
 other man, Lawrence would think at times. And then 
 very likely he asked himself how it was that this poor 
 little girl, with her exacting and unsympathetic nature, 
 her cramped intensity of aim, should be doomed to this 
 blind struggle with all the perplexities, the baffling dis 
 appointments, of such a life as his? It was not an easy 
 question to answer. " For, after all, I am exactly the 
 same, my poor little Charlotte ! I am exactly what I was
 
 224 MIRAGE. 
 
 when you wished when you consented to 
 he said to her one day ; " I have not changed." 
 
 " Changed ? No. But 1 thought you would," said 
 Charlotte naively. And perhaps in those few words she 
 had unconsciously summed up half of " the old woe o 
 the world." 
 
 It was at the end of one of their reiterated discus 
 sions upon the old, old subject her desire to live in 
 Paris. Paris ! Like the recollection of some anterior 
 existence, the name came back to Lawrence with all its 
 old, luring suggestion of passionate delight. He shivered 
 and closed his eyes. The face was there still the-old 
 beautiful face. He stood up abruptly. " You cannot 
 go. I have to content myself with home," with sudden 
 faltering in the well-trained voice. 
 
 His wife sat working by the window, some elaborate 
 mechanical work which somehow seemed a part of her. 
 She looked up now, glancing at him with helpless irrita 
 tion, with pale, persistent eyes. 
 
 " There was nothing to lose one s temper about," she 
 said presently. " Goodness knows I don t expect you 
 to agree with me, Denis. I wish you would sit down 
 and take a book, or act like anybody else. You make 
 my head ache walking up and down," pressing one thin 
 white hand against her temples ; and, after a moment s 
 silence : " I am not going down to Graveport again, I 
 suppose you know that, Denis ? I am tired of the 
 country ; I hate it. And you must stay where I do this 
 summer, do you hear? People are talking about you 
 already," with fretful insistence, "people are talking 
 about the way you neglect me for your mother, and we 
 have not been married a year." 
 
 And this was to go on all his life. He stood with his 
 back turned upon her, looking through the gathering 
 darkness at the stretch of empty road. He had sold 
 his liberty for this. And other men, other men his 
 face changing suddenly they were at the South those 
 others, fighting, themselves a part of all the grandeur, 
 the splendor, and stress of a heroic cause ; while he
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 22$ 
 
 the thin, complaining voice jarred on his nerves with 
 cruel iteration it was his part, he had chosen it, his 
 part of all the possibilities of life. 
 
 He stood there a long time ; there were two paths 
 opening out in life before him ; he stood there until he 
 had made his choice. If there was temptation left in 
 the old dreams, he forswore it that night ; he thrust it 
 from him. The life before him might be barren, but, 
 come what might, he could live it like a man. 
 
 He looked up quietly. With a sudden revulsion of 
 feeling he stooped and took his wife s hand in his. " I 
 wish I could please you better, Charlotte," he said. 
 
 She was counting the stitches in her work ; she glanced 
 up, her lips still moving. 
 
 " Don t," she said petulantly, and moved away her 
 shoulder. 
 
 It was a little thing, but it hurt him afterwards to 
 remember it, for it was almost the last word they ever 
 exchanged together. 
 
 Before nightfall Lawrence was speeding eastward in 
 answer to an urgent telegram. It was not even his 
 mother who had sent it, and with a terrible sinking of 
 the heart he hastened on his journey, the slow night 
 dragging on before him, and she, it might be, drifting 
 beyond his reach. 
 
 It was an hour or two before morning when he reached 
 Graveport. A foggy, summer night, "white with the 
 whiteness of what is dead" a night of ghastly silence, 
 through which you rather felt than heard the low grind 
 of the distant waves upon the beach. He reached the 
 house, his footsteps echoing loudly down all the wet and 
 silent street. He went in. The door had been left 
 open ; a light was flaring in the draught. There were 
 voices and people in the hall ; he passed them all un 
 heeded, with rigid face, with slow and heavy footsteps 
 he was going to his mother. It was old Jenny who 
 opened the door to him. There was a smell of incense 
 in the room. He saw a white bed, some people stand 
 ing about it. 
 
 S
 
 226 MIRAGE. 
 
 "Tears like as if she had been waitin for you,ltfars 
 Denis," the old woman said, her black face twitching 
 convulsively ; " waitin for the turn o the tide." 
 
 He went up to the bed. She was lying there very 
 quietly, but she opened her eyes and looked at him as 
 he bent over her. Her lips moved painfully : 
 
 " Charlotte ? " 
 
 He took her hand in his. 
 
 " Yes, dear, yes. We are very happy together," he 
 said soothingly. 
 
 A light of sudden joy filled all the dying woman s 
 face. 
 
 " My boy ! " she said. She gathered up her strength 
 in one supreme effort, and turned and laid her lips 
 against his hand. 
 
 The man in black rose from his knees and made the 
 sign of the cross devoutly. 
 
 " The Blessed Virgin give you strength to bear your 
 loss, my son," he said ; and Denis looked at him stupidly. 
 
 " She is gone. Gone ! " with a pitiful, incredulous 
 smile. 
 
 Old Jenny had dragged herself moaning to the win 
 dow ; she threw it wide open now with the dumb, word 
 less superstition of her race. The wind had risen ; the 
 night air rushed in clammy and chill. The harassed 
 trees creaked painfully through the silence, their dark 
 arms tossing wildly against the paling sky. Already 
 the swift summer night was ended ; already the light 
 was breaking over the storm-vexed waves ; the morning 
 tide was ebbing to the sea. 
 
 And presently came morning the cheerful common 
 day, filling the world with pleasant stir and sound ; and 
 later on Judge Poynter had arrived, coming back from 
 the dead woman s room with a face which moved even 
 Denis to faint companionship of sorrow. It was the 
 first thing that had roused him ; and now, towards even 
 ing, he began to write letters. There were despatches 
 to be sent; his sisters to be summoned. His wife 
 
 All day he had been conscious of people moving
 
 THE LAWRENCE FAMILY. 22/ 
 
 about him ; moving with decent and kindly pretence of 
 sorrow, with lowered and respectful voices, and muffled 
 footsteps that seemed to jar slowly, one by on e, upon 
 his brain. 
 
 Now, as he paused to listen, it seemed to him that 
 these footsteps moved more hastily ; there were people 
 crowding before the house. Well, it was nothing to 
 him ; and there was still his wife to write to. His 
 wife ! 
 
 The door opened and let pass two men ; one of them 
 was. Judge Poynter. "It was kind of him to come 
 again, very kind," Lawrence said, getting up mechani 
 cally, and facing him, his hand grasping the back of a 
 chair. He had been writing to Charlotte 
 
 The Judge looked at his companion. "Tell him," 
 he said hoarsely ; he threw himself clown in a chair and 
 covered his face. Denis watched him curiously, he 
 stood there watching him through all the broken story 
 which followed, and by a sort of double consciousness, 
 taking it all in the while with ghastly clearness of de 
 tail Charlotte s impatience at his sudden journey, 
 her jealous following. " She was always difficult to 
 manage, poor girl, poor girl," the Judge broke in with 
 a sob and then the crowded transport train a 
 broken rail an accident. 
 
 "It was the will of God, my son," the priest said 
 solemnly ; and Denis turned and looked at him. The 
 will of God ! and this man, this good-hearted Irishman 
 with his coarse red hands knew all about it ? The will 
 of God? repeating the words after him with patient 
 effort to understand the will of God? and poor, futile, 
 little Charlotte dead ! 
 
 " My poor boy," the Judge said, wringing his hand, 
 "my dear boy, if you could only make an effort rouse 
 yourself." There was something in the patience of the 
 young face that turned and looked upon him which 
 struck the old man dumb. 
 
 And after they had left him the Judge coming back 
 from the door again to ask what he could do when
 
 228 MIRAGE. 
 
 they had left him alone it was still this same shocked 
 sense of the incongruous which would keep uppermost. 
 His mother his mother was a saint, the tears coming 
 slow and burning to his eyes ; but Charlotte, poor little 
 Charlotte, crushed out of life, alone, the familiar little 
 voice hushed, its complainings ended ! A week ago 
 those thin, tenacious hands had seemed strong enough 
 to shape all the coming years for him, and now 
 
 The room was growing full of shadows. He rose 
 mechanically and walked over to the window and looked 
 out. The habitual attitude brought back its own shock 
 of remembrance. Again he saw a white road stretch 
 ing out through the twilight, and leading whfere ? 
 Some boys were tramping cheerily homeward, singing in 
 rude chorus the refrain of a soldier s song. He beat 
 time to the words unconsciously, the light coming stead 
 ily into his eyes. He drew a deep breath, and stood up 
 suddenly. Life was not all his own yet it seemed; not 
 his own while there was work that work to do. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 " IL N EST D AMOUR si TRISTE QUI N AIT SON SOUVENIR." 
 
 AND, after all, they met in the bazaar. Mrs. Thayer 
 had been buying silks. " For if Aunt Van arrives 
 here to-morrow or next day and Tom says there is 
 every chance of it I had better have all my money 
 spent before she gets here. I don t want her to think 
 me extravagant," she observed to Constance pensively. 
 " If I could only decide whether scarlet or this pale- 
 yellow was most becoming. And gold thread? Do you 
 really think now gold embroidery would not look theat 
 rical ? " with a perplexed frown. 
 
 They were deep in the bazaars of Damascus deep 
 in those cool, dim, vaulted spaces, with the lustre of
 
 SON SOUVENIR. 229 
 
 silks, the gleam of metal and porcelain about them, and 
 the odor of gums and curious spices filling the dusty 
 air in a world where all the business of life is carried 
 on in fashions and under conditions totally different 
 from ours, and dignity, tranquillity, and splendor are 
 jostled by strange and loathsome shapes. 
 
 " Now, do you think gold thread theatrical ? " says 
 Fanny with her busy frown. i 
 
 Constance gave some vague answer. They were sit 
 ting upon the small, bright carpet beside the attentive 
 cross-legged merchant ; and between them lay a glisten 
 ing heap of fine tissues and stuffs and silks. Opposite 
 them another tall olive-skinned merchant, in an apple- 
 green robe, was buying sweetmeats at a stand, on either 
 side of which a loose, white net was stretched across the 
 shops whose owners were at prayers. A string of don 
 keys wandered slowly by, their trailing loads of brush 
 wood just clearing the houses on either side ; and now 
 the gentleman in green had found an acquaintance 
 they stopped to speak. A low, mysterious call, the im 
 perative tap of a bronzed finger on her arm, made Con 
 stance start and look round. A barefooted Arab was 
 standing beside her ; he smiled furtively, unrolled one 
 end of his dingy, voluminous turban. 
 
 " O Fanny ! " the girl said, catching her breath. It 
 was a roughly-set turquoise ring, a marvel of blue. 
 
 Mrs. Thayer asked the price. 
 
 " No good man, my lady. You go jewel bazaar byme- 
 by," the guide answered evasively. The man took back 
 his ring with serene indifference. He thrust his hand 
 into his breast and drew out a mass of bracelets tinkling 
 with golden coins. "Mafeesh?" he sauntered away a 
 few steps and leaned against a pillar ; a ray of sunlight 
 touched the tarnished embroidery of his dress, its white 
 folds fell around him in straight lines ; not a muscle 
 moved ; he looked as though he might have been stand 
 ing there for the last thousand years. 
 
 And now a troop of white-veiled women came gliding 
 down the dusky street, their footsteps falling noiselessly
 
 230 MIRAGE. 
 
 upon the beaten earth, flitting from shadow to sunfight, 
 from gloom to gold, as dumb and vivid as a dream. 
 And now a broad-hatted Englishman trotted by on his 
 donkey. He closed his umbrella before the sherbet- 
 seller, and instantly a pet sheep, henna-stained and all 
 crossed and barred with patches of crimson dye, rushed 
 up and knocked it out of his hand. 
 
 "Dear me ! very extraordinary animal that," said the 
 stranger mildly, putting up his eyeglass to look reprov 
 ingly at the sheep. 
 
 Presently a beautiful Jew boy, with straight, small 
 features and scarlet lips, went sauntering past, carrying 
 a painter s box and traps, and in a moment more ;the 
 painter himself followed a young man, and talking to 
 Major Thayer. Something his companion said seemed 
 to amuse him ; he laughed, he took off his hat, and 
 stood facing the wind. 
 
 "Why, Constance," said Fanny, with a sudden start 
 "why, good heavens! Constance, it s Mr. .Law 
 rence." 
 
 Miss Varley looked up quietly. " I know," bending 
 suddenly over to look at some embroidered stuff. 
 
 The two men were talking busily. 
 
 " But look here, Thayer ; that s all rubbish, you know," 
 the younger man was saying rather earnestly as they 
 came within earshot of the ladies ; " that Persian brand 
 is all a mistake. Why, ten times out of twelve you 
 don t even get real tobacco, and I ve heard lots of 
 fellows " 
 
 He looked up. Mrs. Thayer was beckoning to him. 
 
 " You haven t quite forgotten us I hope, Mr. Law 
 rence ? " giving him her hand with a brilliant smile. 
 
 He made some appropriate answer. 
 
 "And you, Miss Varley," glancing rather doubtfully 
 at the girl s grave face, " you have not forgotten " 
 
 She did not smile in return. 
 
 " No," putting out her hand shyly, " I haven t for 
 gotten." 
 
 Their fingers met, the color flushing suddenly across
 
 SON SOUVENIR. 231 
 
 her throat and cheek. She turned aside, pulling about 
 the silks upon her lap with tremulous fingers. 
 
 The young man stood and looked at her a moment 
 in silence. He was a trifle disappointed in her manner 
 it seemed. 
 
 " We can t stop. I m going with Lawrence to see 
 some famous bits for sketches. I think I will begin one 
 to-day, if the light holds out," said the Major, look 
 ing about him critically. " Lawrence is on his way to 
 some cafe by the riverside. I met him by accident, 
 and brought him here quite by force, I assure you, 
 Fanny " 
 
 " Oh, of course. Mrs. Thayer would know how much 
 truth there was likely to be in that," the young man as 
 sented carelessly. He reached out his hand and pulled 
 down one end of a silken cufieh. 
 
 " You ought to buy some of those coarser Bedawy 
 handkerchiefs, Mrs. Thayer. The color is simply superb. 
 And don t you like old things better? This modern 
 stuff is all very commonplace, as poor and mechanical 
 in design as a Roman scarf," tossing back the silk con 
 temptuously. He glanced up and down the street, then 
 turned again to Constance. " It is too early yet to ask 
 you what you think of Damascus?" with a doubtful 
 inflection in his voice. 
 
 This time she looked at him. 
 
 " I have not seen it. I think it must be the most 
 beautiful city in the world," she said, her face lighting 
 up with a sudden, swift smile of delight. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence was very much pleased. He came and 
 leaned against the wall beside her. 
 
 " You must have lots of news to tell me about the 
 people at home," he said, and incontinently fell to talk 
 ing about Damascus. He was going to a certain native 
 cafe". " I go there very often. It isn t the sort of place 
 to see in a crowd, you know," with an imperceptible 
 glance towards Mrs. Thayer, " but I wish you were go 
 ing there with us. I should like to have you see it as it 
 is looking now, when there are only a few shadowy old
 
 232 MIRAGE. 
 
 men in the darkest corners, and the sky is growing^pcfle 
 and cool, and all the sunshine has gone off the river. 
 This bazaar is stifling, but out there you will find the 
 wind again, and the waving of trees, and the motion of 
 running water. Perhaps, if you stay here long enough, 
 you will hear the people at your hotel say they have 
 been to these cafes ; but that is all nonsense. They go 
 there in mobs, and the dragomen bully them. But now 
 if you went there with me It is all cool and very 
 silent, you know, and there are tables out on the plat 
 form above the water where one might sit " 
 
 "Yes!" She leaned forward eagerly. "But can I 
 go? can I go really?" 
 
 "Well," he said laughing, "why not? If the Major 
 is willing to take you " 
 
 There was little or nothing to ^remember in all the 
 walk which followed, but this girl remembered it all her 
 life. She was very silent that afternoon, listening for 
 the most part very quietly to the talk of her compan 
 ions. It was more than three years since she had heard 
 his voice ! 
 
 " Are you tired ? I am afraid the walk has been too 
 much for you," the Major asked her once ; and Law 
 rence smiled to himself at the question, for indeed there 
 was but small suggestion of fatigue in the still content 
 ment of her face. And as for her well, she was 
 happy, as one is happy perhaps twice or thrice in a life 
 time. The strange and beautiful figures about her 
 passed and repassed like the pale figures of a dream. 
 Once a line of heavy-laden camels went swaying by, 
 and Lawrence laid his hand upon her arm. 
 
 " Take care ! " he said. 
 
 They were standing close together for an instant, her 
 dress brushing against him when she moved. Her arm 
 trembled, her hands growing cold and nerveless under 
 his touch. She looked away with sudden shyness. 
 She had not seen him for three years ! 
 
 And when they got to the cafe : " This is a very nice 
 place for your sketch, you know, Major. I ve done
 
 SON SOUVENIR. 233 
 
 those buildings myself. But of course Miss Varley 
 can t wait for you out here. There 11 be a mob about 
 you before you know where you are," the young man 
 remarked. 
 
 " Oh, of course not," said Major Thayer, good- 
 humoredly. The old fellow was very fond of Con 
 stance. It was he who suggested to Miss Varley that 
 they should wait for him on the wooden platform out 
 side near the river. " I daresay Lawrence won t mind 
 looking after you for a few minutes. I shall be right 
 here ; in the next room, you know," with sudden guilty 
 remembrance of Fanny s injunctions. 
 
 They went out on the platform. A very old man 
 with a black turban and a long white beard rose up and 
 bowed gravely at their entrance. 
 
 " That is an old acquaintance of mine. An Armenian 
 merchant. He has been giving me lessons in Persian 
 of late ; I daresay he is waiting for me now," nodding 
 to him carelessly as they passed. " Sit here. I am 
 going to order some Damascene sweetmeats .for you. 
 You know you were always as fond as a baby of 
 sweets " 
 
 " But I don t want to keep you from your lesson," the 
 girl said shyly. 
 
 " And if I want to be kept ? " 
 
 " I see a rose the first rose of the season. Summer 
 has come," she said incoherently, bending suddenly for 
 ward to look at the full and silent stream. 
 
 The water rushed swiftly by without a ripple or a 
 sound ; only the delicate-footed wind kept up a low, con 
 tinuous murmuring amongst the deep water-splashed 
 foliage of the trees, and high up above them a single 
 palm leaned in full sunlight from a garden-wall. 
 
 " It is such a beautiful world ! " the girl said sud 
 denly, looking up with a level, radiant glance. 
 
 " I should like to make a drawing of you some day," 
 Lawrence told her presently. " You will pose for me 
 some time ? And are you going to stay ? You have told 
 me nothing of your plans."
 
 234 MIRAGE. 
 
 " Aunt Van is coming. One can t have Aun>-Van 
 and settled plans at the same time, you know," with a 
 careless laugh. " But you, Mr. Lawrence ? You never 
 used to have plans once, I know," resting her cheek 
 upon her hand, and looking at him frankly. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence did not answer for a few minutes. 
 Some chance turn of her head or hand, some faltering 
 inflection in her voice, had struck him with a sudden 
 flash of recollection, evoking another face from out the 
 past. The likeness troubled him. 
 
 " I ? my plans ? " he repeated absently. " I had 
 nearly decided to go to Constantinople, but now r " 
 
 " Now ? " catching her breath anxiously. 
 
 He frowned slightly, still keeping his eyes fixed upon 
 the river. 
 
 " I have an idea for a picture You remember that 
 talk we had about my painting once ? I have often 
 thought of what you said that day. It is enough to 
 make a man stick to his work at any cost to have been 
 believed, in in that fashion," turning to her with one of 
 his rare, sudden smiles. 
 
 She could hardly trust herself to speak about that 
 past, she remembered it all so well. But he alluded to 
 it constantly lightly, easily, with a blurring over of 
 details, a confusion of names and dates she invariably 
 noted, and without comment. 
 
 " It scarcely seems three years ago, does it ? " he said 
 to her once. "What have you been doing all that 
 time ? You have not changed in the least," looking at 
 her with slow scrutiny. 
 
 " I have been living at home," said Constance, simply. 
 " I think I have done nothing but read. You said 
 I remember somebody told me once that women never 
 read any thing through. I don t think any one could 
 say that of me now," with a low, happy laugh. 
 
 There was nothing especial, nothing to remember in 
 all that silent, idle afternoon, and yet they both remem 
 bered it. 
 
 " It is so long since I have seen any one to speak to
 
 SON SOUVENIR. . 235 
 
 beside a lot of men. I am really very glad you have 
 come," said Lawrence. " While I am here you must 
 let me show you something of the city ; there are lots of 
 out-of-the-way places where I can take you you and 
 the Major and Mrs. Thayer." 
 
 " Jack Mr. Stuart is travelling with us," said Con 
 stance abruptly. 
 
 She had utterly forgotten his existence until that 
 moment. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence was looking at her with attention. 
 
 " Mr. Stuart? ah, yes. Ferris told me that he was 
 that he was with you." 
 
 He got up and stood leaning over the balustrade, 
 looking down at the water. He put out his hand and 
 plucked a rose from the trellis beside him. 
 
 " You know the story about roses ? " he said, crump 
 ling the crimson petals in his hand. 
 
 " The story ? " 
 
 " It is part of an Arabian love-song," said Lawrence, 
 absently. " How, when Eve was driven out of Eden, 
 she lingered outside at the closed gate praying the 
 angel for a single flower to carry with her into exile. 
 And the angel looked at her, and because she was so 
 exceeding fair he threw her out a single red rose a 
 rose of Paradise. And ever since that day every 
 descendant of Eve, at some time of his life and once 
 has smelt the perfume of that flower, and after 
 that after that and until he dies well ! There are 
 earthly roses, fortunately," looking down with an odd 
 expression at the crumpled flower. 
 
 " You are crushing it," said Constance, putting out 
 her hand. 
 
 He did not see the gesture. The old Armenian mer 
 chant had been watching them with patient gravity 
 since they entered. When Lawrence moved he laid 
 down his pipe, and stood up. He approached them 
 now, and bowed, standing deferentially aside and not 
 looking at Constance. 
 
 " You will excuse me, Miss Varley," the young
 
 236 MIRAGE. 
 
 man said, "if I leave you an instant to speak to 
 Ahmed ? " 
 
 And then as they were talking together he took out 
 his pocket-book to look over some notes, and as he 
 held it open in his hand the wind caught up a crumpled 
 piece of paper and threw it at Miss Varley s feet. 
 
 The young man rejoined her again in a moment ; he 
 was looking rather annoyed. 
 
 " I told you old Ahmed was a merchant, didn t I ? 
 Well, he is going almost immediately. His caravan is 
 nearly ready now ; he starts for Bagdad within three 
 days." 
 
 She answered nothing to this. Old Ahmed and his 
 movements were equally indifferent to her. 
 
 " But, oh, Mr. Lawrence," she said suddenly, " is not 
 this paper yours ? I picked it up " 
 
 He took it from her and looked at it. It was the 
 letter he had been reading an hour or two before. 
 
 " Yes, it is mine," he said in a low voice, and after a 
 slight pause. He held it in his hand in an undecided 
 way for a minute or two, then tore it deliberately across 
 into strips and flung them into the river. 
 
 " Do you know what sort of a thing is a protested 
 note, Miss Varley ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, that was one," pointing to the fragments and 
 speaking in a harder voice than she had ever heard him 
 use before. " There are natures," he went on presently, 
 " so absolutely truthful that they make every wilful fas 
 cination seem tawdry as a stage jewel in comparison. 
 It is fresh air and sunshine after the perfumed shade 
 of the forbidden tree. One respects such natures, Miss 
 Varley," looking at her with a great expression of liking 
 in his eyes. 
 
 By this time the Major had finished his picture. He 
 came in, holding it in his hand, and very much pleased. 
 
 " Not so bad, not so bad, I think, eh, Lawrence ? " 
 contemplating the sketch fondly at arm s-length. He 
 glanced about him curiously. " So this is the sort of
 
 SON SOUVENIR. 237 
 
 place you talk about, is it ? Nice sort of place for a 
 hot day, perhaps. I don t see much in it. myself. You 
 are coming to dine with us to-night, my boy ? Non 
 sense ! but you must. Mrs. Thayer told me to bring 
 you ; and we don t disobey orders, do we, Constance ? 
 Hollo ! you Ve lost your rose," pointing to some scattered 
 petals on the floor. 
 
 " Mr. Lawrence never gave it to me," said Constance. 
 
 When they reached the hotel, the first person they 
 saw was Jack Stuart, leaning against the door-post, 
 smoking. He threw away his cigar and took off his 
 hat as Constance approached him, but otherwise he did 
 not trouble himself to move. 
 
 " Hollo, Jack ! Why, where have you been, and what 
 have you been doing with yourself? " said the Major. 
 
 " I Ve been amusing myself," said Jack shortly. It 
 seemed an unsuccessful form of entertainment by his 
 voice. 
 
 "You ought to have been with us. Lawrence took us 
 to a cafe , and let me see ; I think you must remember 
 having met Mr. Lawrence ? " 
 
 The two young men looked up at each other and 
 nodded distantly. 
 
 " I saw you at the Farm, I think ? " 
 
 " I believe so," said Denis carelessly. 
 
 They went into the courtyard together ; the light was 
 stronger here than in the narrow street. When they 
 reached the fountain, Stuart turned and looked with 
 keen attention first at Lawrence and then at the girl. 
 He was a shrewd observer of faces, and something in 
 her attitude as they came up the street, some slight ex 
 pression of languor in the proud and erect carriage, the 
 turn of her head, the shy, swift smile with which she 
 answered some chance remark of her companion 
 nothing, every thing had struck him with some sud 
 den intimation of the truth. " But proving nothing," he 
 told himself, " proving nothing," looking down at the 
 plashing water with a quick, nervous shiver, as though 
 the summer night had suddenly grown cold.
 
 238 MIRAGE. 
 
 "My glove, please, Mr. Stuart. It is there by" your 
 foot," said Constance, turning. Her voice, too, had 
 changed ; it was gentle as ever, but tremulous, vibrat 
 ing with the same baffling intangible sense of change. 
 He stooped and handed her the glove, looking straight 
 into her eyes as he did so. The color shifted uneasily 
 upon her cheek. 
 
 " It is some lover s quarrel," thought Lawrence, curi 
 ously, watching them with coldly critical eyes. He took 
 the Major by the arm. " You have never finished that 
 story about old Johnson ? I have not seen him since 
 we were in the hospital together swearing John-son 
 we used to call him there," turning aside to leaved the 
 others freer. And it might have been the Major s story 
 which brought that look upon his face. 
 
 The twilight deepened into darkness, a cool and odor- 
 ous darkness, full of faint scent of flowers and the sound 
 of water falling. The wind was hushed ; the lamp 
 hardly flickered by the doorway, but from time to time 
 the small, new leaves overhead rustled suddenly and 
 were still. 
 
 They were sitting out in the courtyard after dinner, 
 all of them sitting or lying upon the cushions of the 
 divan, and Davenant was at Miss Varley s feet. There 
 was something about this girl which appealed irresistibly 
 to the young man s imagination a simple largeness of 
 line and joyousness of nature and repose. "She is as 
 fresh and harmonious and passionless as the early morn 
 ing," he said one day quite seriously to Ferris. And 
 now, as they lounged in the uncertain moonlight for 
 now the young crescent moon had climbed above the 
 tree-tops, and the thread of water glistened, the fig-leaf 
 shadows fell upon the marble floor the charm of her 
 personality possessed him ^ he offered her a secret 
 homage of sentiment as delicate and elusive as those 
 shadows. 
 
 Her fan had fallen to the ground ; he opened it wide 
 and held it up against the moonlight. 
 
 " I wrote some verses for your fan, for your Japanese
 
 SON SOUVENIR. 239 
 
 fan, the other day," he said dreamily ; and after a mo 
 ment, and as no one answered, he began to repeat some 
 lines, half to himself, and in a low and singularly well- 
 modulated voice : 
 
 A flowery fan for a white, flower hand 
 ( White cranes flying across the moon) 
 
 A breath of wind from a windless land 
 A breath in the breathless noon. 
 
 Flowers that blossom a wind that blows 
 ( White cranes sailing across the sky] 
 
 A sigh for the light love, the love that goes, 
 A flower for the loves that die ! 
 
 "Very pretty," said Fanny, as he finished, "very 
 pretty, indeed. But I m afraid you will think me sadly 
 stupid for asking, and indeed it is hardly a fair ques 
 tion to ask, but what did you intend it to mean, Mr. 
 Davenant?" 
 
 " Ah, but I never explain things," said Davenant, in 
 his most languid tone. 
 
 There was an awkward silence, broken at last by the 
 Major s voice, inquiring of Lawrence if he knew what 
 had become of their old regimental chaplain. 
 
 " Oh, he gave up the army, and went to Paris after 
 the war. He is more High Church than ever now, and 
 has an especial day for hearing young ladies confess. 
 I heard about him only the other day," said Lawrence 
 carelessly, " and, quriously enough, I heard of him from 
 a man he had just converted." 
 
 The Major laughed. 
 
 "May I ask what there is so curious in that?" said 
 Mrs. Thayer, rather sharply. 
 
 "Well," rejoined Lawrence very calmly, "perhaps 
 there is not much in it after all. Tom was only re 
 membering some old story about our chaplain the 
 Infant Samuel, the soldiers called him. I don t throw 
 any doubt upon the man s conversion myself, you will 
 please observe. Indeed, I think it highly probable. 
 He is by no means the first man who has been saved
 
 240 MIRAGE. . 
 
 by the voice of a humble preacher since the days when 
 Balaam was saved by the voice of an ass." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Fanny blankly. 
 
 And then a moment later : " Constance dear, it is 
 really growing quite chilly, and I see you have no wrap," 
 she said softly. " Don t you think it is time to leave the 
 gentlemen to their cigars and their stories ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Thayer, if you mean me, I am mute from this 
 time henceforth," said Lawrence laughing. 
 
 Mr. Stuart sprang up : "I will fetch Constance a 
 shawl," glad of any excuse for doing something. He 
 came back in a moment. " This is yours, I think ? " 
 he said, but he did not offer to put the wrap about her, 
 and it was Ferris who took it out of his hand. 
 
 " Mr. Stuart has exhibited his taste. You should al 
 ways wear white, Miss Varley," said Lawrence, " soft, 
 flexible, white things like this," taking up a corner of 
 the drapery. It was almost the first time he had spoken 
 to her that evening, and she turned to him at once with 
 a soft, sudden stir of pleasure. 
 
 " Yes," she answered simply, drawing the shawl more 
 closely about her. 
 
 The moon had long since vanished behind the dark 
 and rustling trees ; the sky was pale and starlit and 
 very silent. 
 
 " A night for music," said Davenant, "for the sound 
 of falling water, and the clear notes of stringed instru 
 ments, and song." 
 
 " You used to sing once upon a time, Lawrence ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, do ! " said Mrs. Thayer suavely. She had a 
 strong antipathy to Lawrence. 
 
 The young man hesitated a moment ; he looked up at 
 Constance. " I don t know," he began doubtfully ; and 
 then, as still she did not speak, he moved slightly, and 
 leaning on his elbow, looking up at the pale, luminous 
 sky above him, and in a clear and singularly flexible 
 voice, he began to sing : 
 
 Wie heisst Konig Ringang s Tochterlein ? 
 Rohtraut, Schon-Rohtraut !
 
 SON SOUVENIR. 241 
 
 In the faint half-light Stuart could see the girl start 
 and lean forward at the first familiar notes ; but what 
 could he, what could any of them, know of the deep 
 and passionate sadness and longing which filled her 
 heart at the sound of those old and unforgotten words? 
 
 Darauf sie ijtten schweigend heim, 
 
 Rohtraut, Schon-Rohtraut ! 
 Es jauchzt der Knab in seinem Sinn ; 
 Und wiirdst du heute Kaiserin 
 Mich sollst nicht Kranken : 
 Ihr tausend Blatter im Walde wisst 
 Ich hab Schon-Rohtraut s Mund gekiisst 
 Schweig stille, mein Herz, schweig still ! 
 
 He had begun carelessly enough, but as the sentiment 
 of the lines touched his imagination, his voice deepened 
 and gained in tone. The last words were given with a 
 curious and passionate restraint, and as he ended 
 and for a moment no one spoke only the splash of 
 the fountain sounded through the silence. 
 
 " That is a very old song, you know," he said at last, 
 turning to Constance. 
 
 " I remember it," the girl said quickly ; and then, as 
 Mrs. Thayer moved, she too arose, and they all walked 
 on together towards the house. 
 
 The " Good-nights " were said at the foot of the 
 stairway leading to the upper gallery surrounding the 
 court. 
 
 "Good-night, Constance dear," said Mrs. Thayer, 
 leaning over this balustrade. 
 
 The girl was waiting while Lawrence lighted her 
 candle. 
 
 " Well, Constance, good-night," said the Major, turn 
 ing to follow the young men to the door. 
 
 A lamp was burning at the foot of the staircase ; 
 its light shone full upon her face. She was strangely 
 pale, and her eyes were dewy and dark with emotion ; 
 they glistened in the light as she took her candle from 
 Denis. 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Lawrence," she said shyly. She 
 16
 
 242 MIRAGE. 
 
 went up a step or two and looked back at him, ^Good 
 night ! " 
 
 The young man started. "Won t you give me your 
 hand ?" he said. He just touched her fingers. "Good 
 night, Constance." 
 
 She lifted her eyes for an instant and looked at him. 
 Without another word she turned and went slowly up 
 the stairs. Her room fronted the street. The window 
 was open, and the flickering flare of a street-lamp 
 streamed redly in as she entered. She locked the door 
 behind her, and set her candle down upon the table. A 
 mirror hung before her ; she leaned both hands upon 
 the table, she looked long and earnestly at the reflection ^ 
 in the tarnished frame. 
 
 " After three years ! " she said aloud. 
 
 The sound of her own voice startled her. She gazed 
 fixedly at the face in the glass, and, as she gazed, a 
 wave of happy color swept over her delicate cheek. 
 
 "Good-night, Constance, you happy Constance! " she 
 whispered under her breath. Her face burned ; she 
 put up her hands before it. She leaned over with a 
 sudden motion and blew out the light. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ONE SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 MEANWHILE the young men had gathered about 
 the street door ; they were tajking and lighting 
 their pipes. It was rather late that evening to go any 
 where, would not Mr. Stuart come round to their lodg 
 ings with them and have something, Mr. Ferris suggested 
 politely? There was some very fair Lebanon wine. 
 
 " Oh, bother the rooms ! " said Davenant quickly ; 
 "come round to the cafe and hear some native music." 
 " The dancing-girls here were not worth looking at
 
 ONE SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 243 
 
 after Cairo," Mr. Lawrence remarked confidentially to 
 his cigar. 
 
 "Thank you," said Stuart stiffly, "I m engaged;" 
 and there was an intentional emphasis of refusal in his 
 manner which made the others turn and stare. 
 
 "Well," began Davenant, as Jack walked off, "well, 
 of all the cheeky " 
 
 " Be quiet ! " said Ferris, in a stage whisper. " Per 
 haps," he went on aloud, " we may be more fortunate 
 with you than with your cousin, Major? " 
 
 As for Stuart, he went down by the river ; he sat on 
 the parapet of the bridge and stared at the dark, swift 
 water rushing by through the night, with the dumbness 
 of baffled desire in a nature which knew no expression 
 for itself but action. All the strong common-sense, 
 which was the dominant quality in the young man s 
 character, warned him against the encroaching influence 
 of Constance. 
 
 " If I can t do any thing else I can go away," he 
 thought desperately. " I 11 go away and leave her," 
 taking up a stone and flinging it savagely at the nearest 
 pariah dog. The animal limped away with a sharp yelp 
 of discomfiture, and even in the depths of his misery 
 the young man could not restrain a smile. It died 
 away as suddenly as it had come. He turned back 
 towards the hotel. There was a light still shining in 
 her room as he came down the street ; but even as he 
 turned to look at it again a shadow moved quickly 
 across the curtain, and the candle was blown out. 
 
 The courtyard was empty and quiet enough when he 
 reached it. He met no one on his way to his room but 
 a sleepy servant, who sprang up from the mat on which 
 he was dreaming to salute the young man gravely as he 
 passed. The others had long since gone their different 
 ways. 
 
 " Oh, come along and take a walk, Lawrence," 
 Davenant had suggested, as they passed down the 
 narrow street. 
 
 Ferris laughed. " I believe you two fellows ne /er
 
 244 MIRAGE. 
 
 sleep at all," he said with lazy amusement. And^sothe 
 young men parted. 
 
 It was a quiet and very beautiful night. They strolled 
 along the river s bank for some distance beyond the 
 town. The sky overhead was pale and luminous with 
 the wan radiance of the stars, and out here in the open 
 fields the world seemed larger ; the damp wind from the 
 water blew more freshly about them. 
 
 " Ah," said Davenant, " this was indeed worth coming 
 for;" taking off his hat and letting the breeze play 
 coolly about his bared forehead and throat. He threw 
 himself down on the short, close grass by the river s 
 brink. "Sit down, Lawrence, won t you?" ;, 
 
 They sat there a long time in silence, listening to the 
 water s stealthy flow. The river poured by them through 
 the open fields, dark and mobile and dumb. 
 
 " Black as the waters of accursed Styx," said Dave 
 nant dreamily. He turned, leaning upon his elbow : 
 " Lawrence ! " 
 
 " I hear." 
 
 " That girl is in love with you," abruptly. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence did not answer for a moment. " If 
 you mean that for a joke, Davenant " 
 
 " A joke ! I ? and on such a night, in this divine 
 silence ? I would as soon I would as soon think of 
 writing a parody on the Antigone, " the young man 
 said, indignantly. And then, as Denis did not answer : 
 " I said that girl was in love with you," he repeated 
 placidly ; " and so she is. I don t think she knows it, 
 though. I hope she won t find it out, myself. You 
 would not wish her to, either, if you could only have 
 seen the divine melancholy in her eyes while you were 
 singing. I thought of Shelley s Prometheus : 
 
 Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven 
 Contracted to two circles underneath, 
 Their long, fine lashes, dark, far, measureless, 
 Orb within orb, and line through line enwoven. 
 
 And then, don t you remember ? Panthea asks, 
 Why lookest thou as if a spirit passed ?
 
 ONE SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 24$ 
 
 No, I hope that she will never know that she has loved 
 you." 
 
 Lawrence moved uneasily. 
 
 " I don t know whether you are aware of it, my boy, 
 but you are certainly talking greater rubbish than usual, 
 it seems to me," forcing a careless laugh. 
 
 He took up a stone and flung it into the water. 
 
 " Miss Varley and I only say it to put a stop to a 
 a ridiculous discussion into which her name should 
 not be brought Miss Varley is engaged to be married 
 to Stuart," bringing out the last words with great 
 distinctness. 
 
 " Well ? " said Davenant simply. 
 
 The reply staggered him. 
 
 "Well why, man, don t you understand English? 
 She is engaged to be married, I tell you ; has been in 
 love with the fellow for years for all I know to the con 
 trary ; and then, because she listens to a beautiful song 
 with some human sentiment, you want me to believe 
 you might as well tell me I was in love with Mrs. 
 Thayer," with a short laugh. 
 
 " Mrs. Thayer," said Davenant seriously, " is a very 
 pretty woman. She reminds me of nothing so much as 
 of a paper doll. I can see no use for natures of that 
 quality in the world, if it is not to serve to heighten and 
 intensify, by force of contrast, the divine anguish of 
 thinkers and poets. Yes, they have their use, perhaps, 
 after all. But as for Miss Varley are all her people 
 Americans, Lawrence ? " 
 
 " No ; I don t know." 
 
 " Because it would be an interesting fact to verify. 
 As a mere matter of opinion, I feel convinced she has 
 European blood in her. Perhaps on her mother s 
 side ? " 
 
 " I don t know," said Mr. Lawrence. 
 
 " You see," said Davenant, thoughtfully, " the few 
 American women I have known impressed me rather 
 differently. It s a commonplace to say that they lack 
 sentiment, but a commonplace fact. They are lovely,
 
 246 MIRAGE. 
 
 but they have no hold upon the imagination ; their very 
 beauty affects me like the keen and brilliant sunshine 
 of a windy day. Now, Miss Varley to go back to 
 what we were saying you re not asleep, Lawrence?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Miss Varley is quite different. When I look at 
 that girl and realize the beautiful artistic capacity for 
 suffering, and for deep, passionate emotion in that 
 nature, and then when I look at Mr. Stuart and 
 reflect upon the hideously comfortable and bourgeois 
 happiness he will stifle her under Lawrence," said 
 Davenant, raising himself up and speaking with a 
 mournful solemnity, " I feel as though I were Seeing 
 some piece of rare and exquisite Venetian glass some 
 thin, priceless, wave-tinted marvel of beauty given 
 over into the hands of a German beer-drinker. I feel 
 as though I were witnessing a sacrilege." 
 
 " Oh, come now," said Lawrence sharply, " Stuart 
 isn t a bad fellow in his way." 
 
 " Bad ? oh, clear no. He s quite incapable of bad 
 ness, poor devil ! " said Davenant, with serene compas 
 sion. " He hasn t even the consciousness of his superb 
 brute force. Think of the calm, sweet exultation of a 
 Greek in such perfection of physical power ! And he ! 
 I was looking at him this evening ; why the fellow does 
 not even know-how handsome he is," with a faint smile 
 of contempt. 
 
 " Ah, well, other people are not so blind, perhaps," 
 Lawrence suggested with a short laugh. He rolled 
 over and leaned his face upon his hands, looking down 
 at the swift-moving darkness below him. The very 
 silence of the night seemed full of remembrance and 
 subtle suggestion. He moved uneasily. " You are 
 ready to go home, Davenant ? " 
 
 " I was thinking," the young man said dreamily, " if 
 I were richer, and ten years older, I should marry Miss 
 Varley myself." 
 
 " You marry Miss Varley ! " 
 
 "Oh, there are objections, -I know." He spoke
 
 ONE SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 247 
 
 placidly, and precisely in the manner with which he 
 would have discussed some old picture. "There are 
 many other emotions I wish to experience before I 
 marry emotions absolutely essential to the artistic 
 consummation of a life. I was thinking more of Miss 
 Varley when I spoke. And yet, do you know, I can 
 quite well imagine that Mr. Stuart would be an agree 
 able lover? He s a good-natured creature^ and very 
 pleasant to look at, and love modern love I mean 
 not the fatal, demoniac possession of the Greek poets, 
 but the love of these latter days sad with insatiable 
 desire, faint with pity, and over-shadowed with the aw 
 ful sense of its own import and brevity. The modern 
 passion of love," said Mr. Davenant reflectively, "is, to 
 my thinking, like the mirage of the desert a sem 
 blance, a reflection of far-off beauty cast upon gifting 
 sands." 
 
 " You have tried it, of course ? " said Lawrence, 
 dryly. 
 
 "And in all probability," Davenant continued he 
 did not pay the smallest attention to the interruption 
 " in all probability they will be married, and be as dis 
 gustingly contented with the polite inanities of life as all 
 the other members of society one knows. Still, I don t 
 know, I have some hope for Miss Varley." 
 
 u Some hope that she may be picturesquely miserable, 
 perhaps ? " 
 
 " A hope that this unconscious love of hers and I 
 really can assure you that the higher part of that girl s 
 nature is in love with you, Lawrence a hope, I say, 
 that this love may prove a saving influence in her future 
 life a beautiful grave in which she will keep her soul, 
 as in a place out of sight a holy place, full of the 
 sound of the sorrow of years. I think, in your place, I 
 should not have allowed that" mildly "and yet, 
 perhaps, you are right. It may be one of those sublime 
 sacrifices to self which art demands. Your life is 
 formed already, and it might be very fatal to a man s 
 artistic development to marry young, don t you think ?"
 
 248 MIRAGE. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence did not answer. He was Quietly 
 stretched out on the grass listening. No other man 
 alive would have been allowed to speak to him in this 
 fashion, he thought ; but this boy, Davenant, Claude 
 why, his very unconsciousness of offence privileged him. 
 He lay there a few minutes longer, quite motionless. 
 Perhaps he was waiting to hear if Davenant had no 
 more to say ; but as the younger man remained silent, 
 he got up presently with some inarticulate exclamation 
 and walked away. Davenant let him go without a 
 word. 
 
 He walked on restlessly. It was a warm, still night, 
 but he shivered nervously as he flung himself down 
 beside the river, pressing both hands before his face, 
 with a resolute effort to think it over calmly and dis- 
 passio%ately, this strange revelation he had heard. 
 
 And, To begin with, what truth was there in it ? At 
 another time he might have scoffed at the very idea, 
 passing it over as the idle chatter of a romantic boy ; 
 but here, to-night, with the recollection of the look she 
 had given him still vividly before him no, it was not 
 all a jest! with a sudden curious thrill of excitement. 
 He was not in the least in love with Constance ? No ! 
 He asked himself the question gravely, and the answer 
 was still the same. In love ! Why, up to this morning 
 he had quite forgotten the girl s existence. And she 
 had been a child when he had known her before, a 
 mere child ; and then to suppose that she would have 
 remembered him all these years ! It was preposterous, 
 looking up with a half-apologetic smile at his own 
 folly. 
 
 He got up, humming an air carelessly, and pacing to 
 and fro along the path between the thin, dark trees. 
 
 He thrust his hand in his pocket and took out his 
 pipe. A quiet smoke would set him all right, perhaps. 
 He was nervous, uneasy. " There must be thunder in 
 the air" looking about him curiously. 
 
 The starry sky overhead was clear, and bare of clouds. 
 The sleeping city lay dark, huddled, and silent at his
 
 ONE SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 249 
 
 feet. The river flowed between him and the houses, 
 flowed noiseless and shadowy between the ramparts of 
 its banks. There was nothing stirring in these wide, 
 open fields, nothing but the damp river-wind touching 
 his face like a caress. 
 
 He let his hand drop irresolutely to his side. What 
 did this boy know of the real needs of men and women ? 
 " This world and life s too big to pass for a dream" he 
 muttered to himself, passing his hand impatiently across 
 his face. But was it a dream ? 
 
 All day long he seemed to have been under the 
 influence of some inexplicable emotion, something of 
 too impalpable a nature to be grasped and throttled and 
 thrust away ; and Davenant s words seemed only to 
 have given the phantom form and substance, and yet 
 it was absurd. He ought not to think of it. He would 
 not think of it. 
 
 He sat down beside the bank again, and looked 
 moodily at the water. Well, granted the worst ; granted 
 that she was in love with him unconsciously in love, 
 had Davenant said? what then? There was this 
 Stuart she was engaged to marry a pleasant, manly 
 fellow. Davenant abused him, to be sure ; but then, 
 what did that signify ? Claude was full of these odd 
 dislikes. A man whom all her friends approved of ; a 
 good match, too, he believed, trying to remember 
 some story he had heard about Stuart s father. Yes, a 
 good match, and madly in love with her, that was 
 easy enough to see. A suitable marriage in every way, 
 his reason told him. And as for Miss Varley well, 
 granting again the girl had had some other fancy; why, 
 women got over these fancies in time ; they got over 
 most things with a cold smile. 
 
 Ordinary women, yes ; but Constance ? The sweet, 
 grave face rose up before him distinctly, a face as 
 loyal and simple as a child s. She had always seemed 
 to him the most absolutely truthful creature he had ever 
 known, this little friend of his, thinking of her with 
 a touch of tenderness as of a child. But was it a child s
 
 250 MIRAGE. 
 
 face that had looked into his on the stairs that^hight? 
 In that one brief glance he seemed to have read all the 
 passion of surrender of a human soul. He thought of 
 it now with a certain reticence, with a sense of profana 
 tion, a chivalric respect for the woman s heart she had 
 betrayed. He could soon turn this sentiment into love, 
 if he liked ; he could do that, with a sudden flash of 
 troubled delight, but who was he to do it? The 
 young, noble figure seemed to his imagination like one 
 moving apart, looking down with beautiful, ignorant 
 eyes upon the turmoil and stain of life; and was it for 
 him to bring her down to its level ? And then- the 
 thought would come again he did not love her. ;No ; 
 a whole world of dead desires, " old memories, faiths in 
 firm and dead," seemed lying deep between him and the 
 glance of those tender, wistful eyes. But she was a 
 good girl very good : poor little Constance ! 
 
 And then, for the first time in years, he thought long 
 and steadily of his wife, going back over the old story 
 with grave compassion and regret. And, good God ! 
 how little he had missed her ! He thought how he had 
 seen her that last day, full of eager demands and fan 
 cies, jealous, poor child, of his very mother s love! 
 Her life seemed to have gone out suddenly, a mere 
 pebble tossed into the sea, gone down out of sight. 
 Lawrence was not what is technically called a religious 
 man ; but he had something of the soul, something of 
 the sensitive imagination, of a poet. He looked up 
 now with a sudden passionate appeal at that mute and 
 fatal sky. 
 
 The after years came back to him in that strange, un 
 familiar hush before the dawn. One after one the fruit 
 less years came back with question of their use. One 
 after one the years of his early youth returned. He 
 saw himself again a boy at home ; a young man facing 
 life, eager, expectant, self-reliant, ready to answer to 
 any call, full of all generous enthusiasm and purpose ; 
 and all this but such a short time ago ! And how could 
 it have been otherwise ? He was not a man addicted
 
 ONE SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 251 
 
 to morbid self-study, the very inherent logic of his 
 French blood would have saved him from that ; but to 
 night he seemed, as never before, to look back upon his 
 past experience as on an inevitable and fatal progress 
 from the delight of desire to the quiet acceptance of 
 defeat. For these were things which were over for him 
 now. 
 
 He looked the fact steadily in the face, saw it as 
 any other practical man could have done, unbiassed by 
 its relation to himself. It was over looking up 
 gravely and Constance, perhaps, all unconscious, had 
 saved him from the greatest mistake of his life. A ves 
 tal virgin with a quiet smile at Davenant s fancy a 
 vestal virgin, rescuing another s existence by the mere 
 fact of her own serene presence. 
 
 He got up from his place and walked slowly back to 
 where he had left Davenant. The lad had fallen asleep 
 by the river. One arm was thrown back under his 
 head, and his pale, large-featured face was uncovered 
 to the sky. He was sleeping as quietly as a tired boy. 
 Lawrence did not awaken him. He stood looking down 
 at him a moment, listening to his peaceful breathing. 
 How many other fellows he had seen lying just so on 
 those old battle-fields at the South : men who had given 
 their lives for something, while he 
 
 And there were chances for him yet, yes, chances. 
 He had plenty of talent : something of the old hunger 
 for work coming back at the thought. 
 
 He sat down presently, clasping his hands behind his 
 head, and staring up above him at the paling stars. 
 Yes, a vestal. Davenant was right. The day might 
 come, perhaps, when he should tell her of it. It should 
 come, if she chose, an eager smile coming over his 
 mouth and eyes. If she chose. And if not, well, 
 the child s life would not have been disturbed for noth 
 ing; and she should never know. There should never 
 be a word to bring a look of trouble into that grave, 
 sweet, innocent face. 
 
 The brief southern night had been waning while he
 
 252 MIRAGE. 
 
 pondered. Already there was a breath of morning in 
 the blue-gray air about him ; the sky was paling ; the 
 river ran more blackly across the open fields, with here 
 and there the glitter of a star upon its rapid current. 
 In the last few minutes the light had been creeping 
 steadily all about him. The trees on the hillside began 
 to detach themselves one by one from the confused 
 mass of their fellows. The far-off mountain peaks 
 were growing darker, the color was faintly stealing back 
 across the meadows, and already a hint of yellow light 
 was stirring in the eastern sky. 
 
 The wind was growing chilly with the dawn. 
 
 " Wake up, Davenant ! " Lawrence said ; " you fcan t 
 sleep here any longer, old fellow," bending over and 
 touching the other s arm. 
 
 " Hollo, what s the row ? " said Davenant, springing 
 to his feet. 
 
 The other man laughed. 
 
 " You haven t caught cold, my boy?" laying his hand 
 kindly on the lad s shoulder. 
 
 " Why, what did you wake me for ? " Davenant asked, 
 looking about him with a bewildered air. " Why, Law 
 rence, the morning hasn t come ? " 
 
 And Lawrence, too, looked about him confidently. 
 
 " It will be morning soon," he said. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 THE next morning, at about eleven o clock, Major 
 Thayer s dragoman, Hassan, was quietly sitting 
 in the entrance of the hotel, smoking a nargileh. He 
 had not long since returned from the bazaar, whither he 
 had accompanied his party, leaving them safely in the 
 hands of " one very good guide," when a stress t of im-
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 253 
 
 portant business absolutely necessitated his departure ; 
 and now, as he sat in the cool and quiet courtyard, 
 puffing meditatively at his pipe, and from time to time 
 consulting the rows of figures in his private account- 
 book, a gentle satisfaction was slowly creeping over his 
 anxious and weather-beaten countenance ; he looked 
 with benign indifference in the faces of the passers-by. 
 
 He might have been sitting in this way for perhaps a 
 quarter of an hour, when a sudden and unaccustomed 
 sound disturbed the dignified silence of the street, and 
 a moment after a cumbersome travelling-carriage rolled 
 slowly into sight. Hassan looked at it with some 
 attention. 
 
 " It is Mahmoud the son of Abdallah, Mahmoud of 
 Beyrout," he said to himself presently, as the equipage 
 drew near enough for him to distinguish the features of 
 the gaudily-dressed individual on the box beside the 
 coachman ; nor did the old man move or look up again 
 as the horses drew up with a flourish before the hotel- 
 door. - 
 
 The new-comers were three in number two ladies, 
 and a tall, elderly man dressed in black with a white 
 scarf about his hat, who got out first, accepting Mah- 
 moud s pro ffered help with a certain awkwardness, and 
 then wavin g him aside and turning slowly and stiffly to 
 assist the ladies out. The first to descend was a small, 
 active-looking woman, with short, high-kilted skirts, and 
 a girl s hat pushed back from the faded, eager face. 
 
 " Dear me, Edwin, is this the hotel ? " she demanded. 
 " Why, I thought it was an old palace. I m sure the 
 guide-book says so. Dear me ! And is this man smok 
 ing, the landlord? We want three rooms front rooms 
 and a salon and What, not the landlord ? Where 
 is the landlord, then ? " turning sharply to Hassan. 
 
 " The man Mahmoud attends to that, my dear," the 
 tall man in black remarked slowly. 
 
 And at the same moment the lady in the carriage 
 looked around. " My dear Mrs. Card, pray do not give 
 yourself the trouble. Mahmoud will make all those
 
 254 MIRAGE. 
 
 arrangements for me, and oh, Mahmoud, vouiez-vous 
 prenez the ah, the basket, you know," pointing to 
 a sHken roll upon the seat before her. " My little pet is 
 fast asleep still," patting the bundle with her plump and 
 well-gloved hand. 
 
 But by this time the news of the arrival had spread all 
 over the house ; the turbaned landlord appeared, bow 
 ing in grave welcome, and half-a-dozen servants began 
 taking out the various rugs, fur cloaks, and cushions 
 with which the carriage was filled. The lady followed 
 last of all, her short, fat person almost disappearing 
 under the voluminous character of her wraps. 
 
 " You will inquire if Major Thayer is in the huse, 
 Mahmoud," she said, slipping her hand under Mrs. 
 Card s thin arm. 
 
 " Yes, my lady." 
 
 " And order tea." 
 
 " Yes, my lady." 
 
 " And ah, yes the basket. I cannot bear to 
 have the poor darling out of my sight. I am sure that 
 if he waked he would miss me," turning with a com 
 placent smile to Mr. Gard. 
 
 "I was not aware," that gentlernan began slowly, " I 
 was not previously aware that the animals belonging to 
 this species " 
 
 " Beg your pardons, gentleman," said Hassan, rising 
 gravely, " but I think you ask Major Thayer ? The 
 Major my gentleman." 
 
 " Ah," said the last comer, looking at him with some 
 interest, "you are Major Thayer s dragoman, then. 
 Very curious he should not find any thing more useful 
 for you to do. Go at once and tell him I am waiting 
 for him, if. you please : Mrs. Van Ness you will not 
 forget the name." 
 
 She turned and mounted the stair, still leaning upon 
 Mrs. Gard. The rooms which had been assigned to her 
 were in the front of the house. " The best there are, I 
 suppose?" she said, looking about her critically; "it 
 does not make much difference for a day or two. I
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 255 
 
 shall not remain here longer. And oh, very well, 
 Mahmoud ; put the basket down there, in the sun. 
 Excuse me, Mrs. Gard, but if you would not mind mov 
 ing I am sure my little pet will enjoy that chair. And 
 Mahmoud ! " 
 
 " My lady ? " 
 
 "Go," said Mrs. Van Ness, sinking down upon the 
 sofa, "go at once, at once, you understand and find 
 Major Thayer. And tell the man below I shall not 
 need the carriage." 
 
 "Yes, my lady," said Mahmoud, bowing and shutting 
 the door so respectfully and noiselessly behind him that 
 Mrs. Van Ness could not repress an approving smile. 
 " That poor creature quite worships me. I call it touch 
 ing to see that kind of devotion in a common person," 
 she observed languidly. There was a tacit war going 
 on between Mrs. Gard and the dragoman. She looked 
 up grimly now, setting her pale, coarse lips more firmly 
 together. " I do not believe it," she said. 
 
 Meanwhile the subject of these remarks was passing 
 with the utmost deliberation through the courtyard where 
 Hassan was still smoking in the shade, and talking to 
 the driver. 
 
 " Well ? " said the latter, looking up with some 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Oh, you had better wait,"- remarked the younger 
 dragoman carelessly. " She may not use you, but she 
 pays all the same." He turned to Hassan. " Your 
 beautiful boy is well, God willing ? " with a grave in 
 clination of his supple and sumptuously-clad figure. 
 
 " My son," said the old man slowly, "is well ; may 
 God avert the omen ! He will be better, O Mahmoud, 
 when thy father hath repaid me for those stores." 
 
 There was a moment s silence. 
 
 " My father is an old man," said Mahmoud presently ; 
 " his beard is white." 
 
 "They were English stores," said Hassan slowly, 
 "potted meats and pickles." 
 
 " The season has been bad."
 
 256 MIRAGE. 
 
 " Forty bottles of pickles," said Hassan, looting" at 
 his pipe, " and the preserved meat of the howadji." 
 
 " My father will try the case with you, for know that 
 there are law-courts in Beyrout, O Hassan." 
 
 "What!" said the old man, with a sneer, "has the 
 cadi then ceased to be thine uncle?" 
 
 Mahmoud did not seem to have hqard this remark. 
 He drew an embroidered pouch from his belt, and 
 began rolling a cigarette between his dexterous yellow 
 fingers. 
 
 They smoked for several moments without speaking. 
 
 " Do your howadji stay here long ? " he asked fin-ally, 
 a conciliating smile creeping over his insolent ami ser 
 vile face. 
 
 " God knows." 
 
 " My lady is a great American princess. The money 
 flies from her hands like the sand before the wind. But 
 God hath visited her with the curse of the English mati : 
 she cannot remain still. If," said Mahmoud suddenly, 
 " thy howadji remain, she too will tarry in Damascus the 
 blest ; and if she tarries thou shalt be paid, O Hassan, 
 thy just debt, yes, and something over." 
 
 Hassan looked up : " The debt in full ? " 
 
 " By the beard of the prophet ! " 
 
 The old man took off his fez and passed his hand 
 through his venerable gray hair. " Mashallah. In the 
 name of God, so be it ! " he said solemnly. 
 
 It was nearly twelve o clock when Constance returned 
 from the bazaar. She went up to her room ; the door 
 was open, and Fanny was standing before the mjrror, 
 looking at herself with an expression of deep anxiety. 
 
 " Why, what s the matter, dear ? " the girl asked, 
 stopping in the doorway. 
 
 " Constance," said Mrs. Thayer, impressively, " Aunt 
 Van has arrived." 
 
 "Aunt Van? When? Where is she? I ll go and 
 see her." 
 
 " She has been here perhaps an hour," said Fanny 
 mournfully ; " and she has brought a clergyman and his
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 257 
 
 wife with her, my dear people she picked up on the 
 way, I suppose ; and she has got a tame lizard in a 
 basket ; and she has made me pull this hat to pieces, 
 and change my way of dressing my hair." 
 
 Constance laughed. 
 
 " Where is she ? You make Aunt Van twice as un 
 reasonable by being so afraid of her, Fanny. Now she 
 never does those things to me. Poor old Auntie ! " 
 
 " Poor old Well ! " with a resigned sigh, " she is 
 waiting for you, you know." And then, as Constance 
 still lingered in the doorway, "That dress becomes you; 
 you are looking very well to-day," said Fanny thought 
 fully. And indeed, within these last two days, the girl s 
 large and noble beauty had seemed to awaken into new 
 color and life, blossoming out like a rose that feels the 
 stirring of the summer about its secret and folded leaves. 
 There was a change in her face too a look of depen 
 dence ; something more childish and yielding in the 
 expression of the proud-cut mouth. " A handsome girl," 
 Fanny thought, looking after her critically ; " a little 
 larger than I like to see a woman though," with true 
 American distrust of flesh and blood. 
 
 Mrs. Gard, too, looked curiously and attentively at 
 Constance as she entered her aunt s room. Mrs. Van 
 Ness had all the garrulity of a selfish woman, and it is 
 probable that her present companion knew somewhat 
 more about Miss Varley s private affairs than that young 
 lady ever imagined. She came in now with rather a 
 pleased look upon her face. 
 
 " Well, Aunt Van ! " 
 
 Mrs. Van Ness was standing beside the window. 
 She turned and embraced her niece with effusion, with 
 a lingering pressure to her ample bosom, a soft rustle 
 of silks, a faint scattering of familiar perfume on the 
 air, which carried Constance back to the very earliest 
 associations of her childhood. 
 
 " Ah," she said pressing her warm, plump hand heav 
 ily upon the girl s shoulder, " ah, my dear, I am so very 
 glad you have come at last. It seems quite romantic 
 
 17
 
 258 MIRAGE. 
 
 meeting you here. Fanny has told -me every thing". I 
 have a thousand things to ask you." 
 
 Here Mrs. Gard got up and left the room. 
 
 " You remember her, of course ? The clergyman s 
 wife at Bellevue. A good creature and perfectly de 
 voted to me. She cannot bear the courier ; and if you 
 knew the trouble I have between the two ! Why, they 
 are both as jealous about me It s quite touching, I 
 assure you," said Mrs. Van Ness languidly. She sank 
 back upon the sofa. " You have not told me what you 
 think of my lizard, Constance." 
 
 Miss Varley turned and looked at the animal in 
 question, who was sunning himself complacently Upon 
 a cushion on the floor. 
 
 " It seems so like home to see you with your pets, 
 Aunt Van." 
 
 " He is such a romantic little darling, I could not live 
 without him. I am quite devoted to him. Mahmoud 
 got him for me this morning at Beyrout. He nearly 
 bit Mr. Card s finger off on the way down here ; the 
 poor, dear man is so clumsy." 
 
 " I don t remember Mr. Gard," said Constance. 
 
 " Why, the clergyman at Bellevue, my dear ; the man 
 who had sunstroke. You are looking very well yourself, 
 Constance. Come here, and sit by me. Fanny has 
 told me all about Mr. Stuart, you know," said Mrs. 
 Van Ness suddenly. " I know old Mr. Stuart. My 
 dear husband used to bank with him ; and I congrat 
 ulate you, my dear," patting her niece approvingly 
 upon the shoulder. 
 
 "Aunt Van " 
 
 " There, my dear, there. You need say nothing more 
 about it. I understand," said the little lady on the sofa, 
 with a gracious and patronizing air. "It is true that 
 at one time I had other views for you, Constance ; but 
 taking every thing altogether " 
 
 " This is really too absurd," said the girl, getting up 
 impatiently and nearly knocking over the lizard. " My 
 dear Aunt Van "
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 259 
 
 " My dear Constance, there is not the slightest use in 
 your arguing with me upon the subject. I will not for 
 a moment imagine that my niece my niece, I say 
 could have given any young man the encouragement 
 you have given Mr. Stuart without " 
 
 " I have never given Mr. Stuart the slightest en 
 couragement." 
 
 " Without having considered all the consequences ! 
 A young woman of your age, Constance " 
 
 " I m only one-and-twenty, Aunt Van." 
 
 " A young woman of one-and-twenty is a responsible 
 person," said Mrs. Van Ness severely, while the lizard 
 blinked approvingly from his cushion in the sun. And 
 then, and with an increasing coldness of manner, she 
 preceeded to ask her niece a few questions. Had Con 
 stance, then, absolutely no plans or intentions for the 
 future ? had she, then, no idea of the state of her father s 
 affairs ? 
 
 " What you are expecting or what you are waiting for 
 I confess I am unable to understand. You are of age, 
 and I might wash my hands of your affairs. I have 
 not," said Mrs. Van Ness, pressing her perfumed hand 
 kerchief against her pale and glittering eyes, " I have 
 not been accustomed to much confidence from you, 
 Constance ; but still, as your only near relative, as an 
 old aunt who has always been kind to you, and proud 
 of you, and " 
 
 " Dear Aunt Van," said the girl, kneeling down 
 quickly beside her and trying to take her hand. 
 
 "And when I think," went on the handkerchief, 
 " that I used to imagine that that you cared for 
 me " 
 
 " You know," said Constance earnestly, " that I am 
 not ungrateful." 
 
 "Ah gratitude !" 
 
 "If there is any thing I can do to prove it " 
 
 The handkerchief dropped. 
 
 " Then why won t you marry Mr. Stuart ? " demanded 
 its owner briskly, looking sharply at her niece.
 
 260 MIRAGE. 
 
 The girl s face flushed. She made an effort t6*ris"e, 
 but the jewelled ringers were laid upon her arm. 
 
 "Poor Jack!" she said bitterly. "I don t think he 
 would thank you for this, Aunt Van. I clon t care for 
 him. If Fanny has told you every thing, perhaps she 
 has not forgotten to tell you that. I don t love him ; 
 I Good heavens ! " she said suddenly, getting up to 
 her feet, her proud lips beginning to tremble a little 
 as she spoke, " am I to marry a man simply because 
 he is a good match because he has money? Other 
 girls I " 
 
 " Other girls fall in love, Constance. I presume that 
 is what you mean, although I must say I had not^ex- 
 pected to hear this sort of objection from a practical and 
 sensible young woman, like yourself," with a cutting 
 little laugh. " However, so be it. We will consider it 
 settled that you are waiting for some young man who- ~ 
 you can love. Excuse me, my clear ; that is precise^ 
 what you have been saying. And therefore, as you will 
 not marry, may I ask what you intend to do ? You are 
 not bad-looking," said Mrs. Van Ness calmly, "and I 
 have heard that people consider you clever. As my 
 niece you will always have a certain entree into society, 
 although I cannot imagine the use this privilege will be 
 to you, living upon a secluded country farm in the so 
 ciety of a parcel of children and your step-mother. It 
 is no affair of mine, my dear. You are old enough to 
 decide these questions for yourself. No ; excuse me, I 
 am not angry. Mrs. Varley, a pcrpetuite, is perhaps 
 hardly the companionship I should have chosen for 
 ) ou," said Mrs. Van Ness, shrugging her shoulders 
 contemptuously; "but there is no accounting for tastes 
 in this world. Be kind enough to ring the bell, Con 
 stance. My head aches," pressing two jewelled fingers 
 languidly against her forehead ; " I wish to order tea." 
 
 The girl put out her hand and complied with the 
 request mechanically. There was something in the 
 warm and over-perfumed atmosphere of the room, in 
 the familiar tones of her aunt s voice, in the very look
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 261 
 
 of her cold blue eyes, which overpowered Constance 
 with a feeling of mental lassitude and discouragement. 
 All the hope and dream of the last few days seemed 
 degraded and outraged by this chilling flood of com 
 mon sense. Mrs. Van Ness had the faculty of a 
 prosaic nature: she made beautiful things seem im 
 possible. 
 
 " I shall not say any thing more about this matter," 
 she went on now, with deliberation. "You are quite 
 mistaken in supposing I have ever urged you to marry 
 money. It is the commonest thing in the world," 
 pensively. " Look at Fanny Thayer ; look at half the 
 people you know. Mr. Lawrence Fanny tells me he 
 spent the evening with you yesterday." 
 
 "Yes," in a low voice after a slight pause. 
 
 Mrs. Van Ness looked keenly at her niece. 
 
 " Mr. Lawrence is a case in point. I knew his wife, 
 a little, thin creature, with a pretty face, a cousin 
 of the Edward Poynter who married But what was 
 I saying ? Ah, yes, about your friend Mr. Lawrence ; 
 he married his wife for money, notoriously. His own 
 fortune had gone with the war. The Lawrences for 
 tunes are always going with something." 
 
 " I think," said Constance, suddenly bending over 
 and looking at the lizard, " I think that Mr. Lawrence 
 was very fond of his wife." 
 
 "Has he told you so? Nonsense, my dear child. 
 That is the difference between a man and a woman," 
 said Mrs. Van Ness, meditatively ; "the longer a man 
 is married the more apt he is to be fond of his wife, 
 while a woman " 
 
 She passed her handkerchief across her lips. 
 
 " Hand me those salts, Constance. My dear hus 
 band used to say there were two important things in 
 life, religion and money, and plenty of both. The 
 one is, I trust, within the reach of all of us," in a hasty 
 voice; "but the other, the other, Constance," laying 
 her hand impressively upon the girl s arm, while the 
 lizard, lifting up his white and skinny throat, seemed
 
 262 MIRAGE. 
 
 *V*^ **"" 
 
 watching her with grotesque malice from his sunny 
 corner, " the other " 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 " Oh, Fanny may come in. Fanny knows all about 
 it. We were speaking of Mr. Stuart, Fanny, my dear," 
 said Mrs. Van Ness graciously, " and we should be glad 
 to hear any thing " 
 
 "Oh, I never speak on the subject, thank you. Con 
 stance can do me the justice to say / have never tried 
 to force her confidence," said Mrs. Thayer, gloomily. 
 
 The new hat was less becoming ; Tom had told her 
 so, and she was deeply aggrieved. 
 
 "7" am not capable of interfering with another per 
 son s comfort, or of saying that so-and-so is not be 
 coming when " 
 
 " Do you happen to know if the tea is passable in 
 this hotel ? " said Mrs. Van Ness, looking at her steadily. 
 " I have ordered some tea." 
 
 For the last few minutes Constance had been stand 
 ing by the window. She leaned forward now, a smile 
 breaking over her face. Her eyes brightened. 
 
 "You have nothing more to say, Auntie? Tom is 
 beckoning me," pausing an instant before shutting the 
 door behind her. 
 
 Mrs. Van Ness and Fanny looked at each other with 
 out a word. The younger woman sprang up and hurried 
 to the window. 
 
 " No, there is only Tom," she said in a puzzled voice, 
 and as though answering a question. "Oh, and Jack; 
 I see poor Jack, and that Mr. Lawrence. Oh, Aunt 
 Van ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mrs. Van. 
 
 "You don t think Mr. Lawrence " 
 
 " I wish you would be kind enough to ring that bell 
 again, my dear." 
 
 Mrs. Thayer obeyed in mortified silence. But silence 
 was not Fanny s strong point. " Constance is so pe 
 culiar," she began again. " Do you know, Aunt Van, 1 
 should really advise you "
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 263 
 
 Can you imagine General Von Moltke listening to the 
 critical suggestions of a young militiaman ? 
 
 " I think, my dear," said the little old lady very dis 
 tinctly, " that this is a matter which requires tact. Per 
 haps you had better leave it entirely to me, Fanny ; it 
 requires tact." 
 
 It had been a pleasant morning for the lizard. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 THEY were all standing in a group before the foun 
 tain, when Constance joined them. Lawrence 
 noticed she was looking rather pale. 
 
 " Yes," said Davenant, lifting his hat automatically, 
 " that is one of the strange things of experience, that it 
 can be shared with dumb beings who evoke a thousand 
 thoughts and fancies which endear them ; just as there 
 are certain people one may meet and live with and like, 
 who yet remain outside of all the sentiments and feel 
 ings that have been quickened by a common life with 
 them. Are you fond of animals, Miss Varley?" 
 
 " Davenant means that we are going to see the last 
 of our horses. Hassan sends them off to Jerusalem to 
 morrow," said Jack. 
 
 " Hassan tells me he cannot get us a passage, and he 
 is afraid we may have to wait here another ten days. 
 Very provoking, but not his fault. He is dreadfully cut 
 up about it though, poor old fellow. I suppose he is 
 afraid we will think he has not managed well," said the 
 Major in his good-natured fashion. 
 
 "The dragomen my experience is doubtless limited 
 but the dragomen I have chanced to meet have by 
 no me ans seemed to me to justify their reputation for 
 extortion or double dealing. I find these Syrians a
 
 264 MIRAGE. 
 
 simple and a childlike race of men," said Mr. Gard*hesi- 
 tatingly. He took off his hat and passed his hand with 
 a weary indecision across his high and narrow forehead. 
 
 " Your head aches, Edwin. Let me " 
 
 " No, my dear, no," impatiently. " My wife is per 
 haps unduly anxious since my accident; a very Martha, 
 troubled about many things : but women are creatures 
 of extremes, I observe," with an apologetic smile to the 
 Major. 
 
 And through all this sound of voices the water dripped, 
 the fig-leaves rustled in the sunlight. Overhead loose 
 masses of cloud were drifting in slow procession acr-oss 
 a blue and opaque sky. 
 
 "The summer is coming," said Constance, smiling as 
 she met Lawrence s glance. She bent down and stroked 
 Lione. " My dog has made friends with you already, 
 I see," pulling the long, silken ears slowly through her 
 fingers. 
 
 " I like dogs, you know." 
 
 " I remember," passing her hand more caressingly 
 over Lione s head. 
 
 " I think these creatures should be kept in the sta 
 ble," said Mrs. Gard. 
 
 "Ah," said Davenant mildly, "you don t believe in 
 the transmigration of souls then, I suppose?" 
 
 Mrs. Gard turned sharply and looked at him, her 
 faded face flushing a dull red. " Perhaps this gentle 
 man is not aware I am a clergyman s wife, Miss Var- 
 ley," with a nervous, uncertain laugh. 
 
 " Oh, I am sure Miss Varley agrees with me," dream 
 ily; "I really like this old Egyptian idea. It binds 
 one so firmly to the whole mysterious sequence of life, 
 and our attachments to animals grow to mean so much 
 more than mere habit or association. Why, take a 
 favorite dog: what is the impression he leaves upon you 
 in his absence ? One remembers a look, perhaps ; for 
 there is something in the glance of an animal which is 
 like the glance of children, a look from a world out of 
 which we have grown and yet faintly remember."
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 26$ 
 
 " Oh, come now," said Stuart, in a soothing and con 
 ciliatory tone, " a horse is a horse, and a dog is a dog, 
 my good fellow." 
 
 " And an appointment is an appointment," said the 
 Major, taking out his watch. 
 
 The trusty Hassan was waiting for them in the door 
 way. They went out slowly, Constance and Mr. Law 
 rence passing out together, together, but not talking 
 to each other, as Stuart noticed with mingled irritation 
 and relief. He remembered afterwards how through all 
 the idle sauntering, the desultory chatter of that morn 
 ing, there had been a singular persistence of observa 
 tion in Lawrence s attitude, a look which suggested 
 a question piercing through all the careless quietude of 
 his manner. Once, as they were standing for a moment 
 side by side, " You are going away before long, I think 
 you said," Stuart remarked abruptly. 
 
 The other man nodded. 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 " I don t know. I never have plans." 
 
 " A precious queer way of travelling, that," said Jack 
 impatiently. 
 
 The young fellow could hardly be civil. He was in a 
 rage of jealousy and angry suspicion ; and the worst of 
 it was that nobody seemed to care, or be aware of it, 
 but himself, and, perhaps, Mrs. Gard. 
 
 The eager-eyed little woman looked at him curiously 
 once or twice as they crossed the square before the 
 hotel, going over to see the horses. 
 
 It was a picturesque group they found there : a dozen 
 horses ; a little company of muleteers, fine, hardy 
 Syrians, in all their bravery of silken scarfs and sashes 
 and yellow slippers fresh from the bazaar. 
 
 " And so good-by to all the old days," said Stuart, 
 looking at them regretfully. He colored a moment 
 after, meeting Mrs. Card s eye. The woman s notice 
 embarrassed him. He turned to her husband. 
 
 The Major and Mr. Gard were discussing the politics 
 of their country, standing with perturbed and absorbed
 
 266 MIRAGE. 
 
 "w r- 
 
 faces, their elderly backs turned upon the world at 
 large, deep in the question of the new Army-Reductions 
 Bill, " which, as a minister of the gospel, I cannot but 
 approve," Mr. Card was proclaiming sententiously. 
 
 The Major shook his gray old head. 
 
 " The country is going to the dogs, my dear sir." 
 
 " Let it. If it goes in the name of Christianity, that 
 is all I ask, in the name of Christianity." 
 
 "You are getting over-excited, Edwin dear." 
 
 " I say let it go. It can t do better. And I appeal 
 to you as an army man to answer me frankly, Have you, 
 or have you not, gone forth to meet these unfortunate 
 Indian brethren of ours with outstretched hand - " 
 
 " That I have," said the Major with a grin. 
 
 " With words of peace upon your lips " 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 Mr. Stuart turned his head. 
 
 "Shaitan is leaving, Jack. Won t you come and say 
 good-by to the poor old fellow ? " asked Constance in 
 her clear, girlish voice. 
 
 He crossed over quickly to where she was standing. 
 
 " You had forgotten the dear old horse," she said 
 reproachfully, "the horse who brought me into Da 
 mascus," reaching up her hand to pat its glossy neck. 
 
 " That was only yesterday," answering the tone rather 
 than the words. 
 
 " Only yesterday," she repeated softly, with a slow, 
 irrepressible smile which hurt him as nothing else could 
 have done. 
 
 He turned away sharply. 
 
 "You are ill," she said with a sudden change of 
 manner, catching a glimpse of his pale, averted face. 
 
 "No." 
 
 The frank blue eyes watching him so kindly seemed 
 to trouble him. He moved abruptly. 
 
 " You are not sorry that thing is over," he said 
 brusquely, indicating with a nod the train of horses 
 and attendants before them. 
 
 Constance hesitated.
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 267 
 
 " It has been quite perfect in its way. There are 
 things I shall never forget some of the days we spent 
 together," the color deepening a little on her cheek. 
 
 Jack looked up eagerly. 
 
 " Nor I. Do you remember " He wanted to ask, 
 " Do you remember that day at Nablous ? " but some 
 thing stopped him. " Do you remember Esdraelon ? " 
 he said. 
 
 " And the night we were lost ? You were so very 
 kind to me that evening." 
 
 " And our meeting Ferris. It was a close shave that 
 time, by Jove ! " with an eager laugh. 
 
 Whatever jealous doubts had tormented him that 
 day were forgotten now in the familiar delight of her 
 presence. 
 
 He drew a long breath, looking about him with a 
 sudden sense of pleasure. " One feels cramped and 
 restless in the city. I could not sleep last night." 
 
 "Last night? I was awake too," said Constance, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I meant to have asked you. I saw the light in 
 your window. See here, Constance," a quick, pleased 
 look coming into his handsome face- " I have an idea. 
 Can t we have another ride together, just you and I ? 
 Say we go to-morrow ; I can get the horses " 
 
 "Not to-morrow. Mr. Lawrence has asked me to 
 ride with him to-morrow," she said. 
 
 Perhaps it was just as well that Davenant interfered. 
 He joined them now, his hat pushed back a little from 
 his forehead, a look of quiet pleasure upon his mild and 
 abstracted face. 
 
 " I have been looking at those horses," he said, 
 coming up to where Constance was standing; "they 
 are wonderfully like women delicate, swift, proud, 
 affectionate." 
 
 " Affectionate ! " repeated Stuart. 
 
 " Oh, don t bear malice, Jack. I m sure Shaitan was 
 more surprised than yourself on the only occasion you 
 ever came to grief together," carelessly.
 
 268 MIRAGE. 
 
 *^*^ *"" 
 
 " A horse is like any other good thing in this life," 
 said Davenant ; " you must be alone with him to know 
 him. I don t boast much of my own riding," with 
 frank simplicity ; " but I think, after watching an Arab 
 going over these Syrian hills at full speed, one gains 
 quite a new revelation of the beauty of the old Centaur 
 fable the doubled existence ; the keen animal enjoy 
 ment ; the appeal to all the higher life of the senses, 
 and dominion over Nature in her hidden places ; the 
 knowledge of the silent uplands under strange constel 
 lations, and secret sea-washed places of the world." 
 
 "Well, I don t know," said Lawrence doubtfully; 
 " we have been long enough trying to get free froin ani- 
 mal conditions. I hardly covet going back to them 
 myself, not even to meet my ancestors." 
 
 He turned to Constance. " I think there is some 
 plan for going to the jewellers bazaar. You will come ? 
 Mrs. Gard is going," putting out his hand and touching 
 the fan that hung from a ribbon at her waist. He 
 opened and shut it slowly. " Is that the Japanese fan 
 for which Davenant wrote those verses? It s a good 
 bit of color, you know, with that gray dress," looking at 
 her with a smile. .And presently there was a general 
 move towards the bazaar. It was a delightful May 
 morning, a warm, breezy day, full of delicate sun 
 shine and the flicker of young leaf-shadows on the 
 ground ; and the girl s happy glance wandered, full of a 
 still content, from blossoming earth to sky, that blue, 
 stainless sky of summer she had never yet looked on 
 with him by her side before. For it had been in winter, 
 and in the bleak New England spring, that she had 
 known Lawrence. Listening to him, walking by his 
 side through this warm and caressing air, seemed a new 
 and exquisite refinement of delight. 
 
 " Where were you a year ago to-day ? " she asked 
 him once, after a long silence. 
 
 " A year ago ? " 
 
 " Last May. I was at home " a vivid picture of 
 the old place rising up before her. There was a certain
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 269 
 
 hill behind the house there, the highest point for miles 
 around, overlooking a wide stretch of characterless 
 landscape a confused reach of low meadow-land and 
 arid, rock-strewn pasturage and endless, straggling lines 
 of weather-beaten fence. And there was a road wind 
 ing up this hill ; a sunken, sheltered lane where the 
 small, brown tree-buds glistened first in the mild March 
 afternoons, and the barberry bushes still kept a few 
 scarlet clusters long after the first snow. Now, as she 
 spoke, the vision of this place came back to her with 
 the recollection of all the evenings she had waited there 
 to see the sunset cast some brief interval of beauty 
 about this joyless New England world. A hundred 
 familiar memories came back to her of short wintry 
 afternoons, dying redly above a mute and snow-stricken 
 country ; of warm June nights, and long hours full of 
 the ineffable melancholy of the spring, and with one 
 thought, one longing, running through them all and 
 that a thought of Lawrence. For in those years that 
 were past now past Denis Lawrence had grown to 
 mean to her all the desirable, the precious, the ideal 
 part of life. It said something for this man s sincerity 
 of nature that even now, after all these years of idealiza 
 tion, and face to face with the disenchanting touch of 
 reality, it seemed to this girl the one good thing in all 
 her life to remember how she had loved him. 
 
 The silversmiths bazaar was vast and cool and 
 shadowy ; a roofed enclosure divided into square, raised 
 compartments by countless, narrow passage-ways ; a 
 place of dim light, and the glow of furnaces, and the 
 sound of metal striking metal. They wandered on from 
 one small platform to another. The outer sunshine 
 streamed in through the small, narrow openings, high 
 up between the lines of rude stone columns supporting 
 the vaulted roof streamed in on the crouching, and 
 swaying, and prostrate forms of the workmen, white- 
 clad and blurred, seen through the curling smoke, the 
 light catching here and there on some pale heap of 
 wrought silver, some mass of glittering coin, or quaint,
 
 2/0 MIRAGE. 
 
 mysterious amulet, graven with strange characters and 
 set about with dull and curious stones. 
 
 Constance was looking at a collection of these charms 
 against the evil eye when her sleeve slipped back a little, 
 and the keen glance of the native workman caught the 
 yellow gleam of amber about her wrist. He leaned for 
 ward a tall, sinuous Arab, clad in dark-colored robes, 
 his head bound about with fine white linen. He leaned 
 forward, and looked and smiled. 
 
 " Taib ? " 
 
 He held out a small, fretted band of gold to Con 
 stance. " I don t understand," the girl said quickly. 
 
 " I think, as near as I can make it out, he wants to* 
 buy your beads," said Lawrence. " See, he is offering 
 you that other bracelet in exchange. He says they are 
 very good. Would you mind letting him look at them ? " 
 putting out his hand to take the string of amber. 
 
 He looked at it a moment before giving it back to her. 
 
 "You used to wear that when I first knew you," he 
 said. " It suits you that amber," slipping the smooth 
 yellow balls through his fingers. " I remember break 
 ing the clasp of this once." 
 
 "You had it mounted for me; I am superstitious 
 about it," said Constance. " I have worn it such a long 
 while now as a charm." 
 
 Lawrence looked at it curiously. 
 
 " It is getting worn thin again. Let me take it ; I 
 can have it put in order for you," fingering the beads 
 with a certain childish pleasure. 
 
 He was still holding them in his hand when Stuart 
 came up with some message. 
 
 " I have been looking for you everywhere, Constance." 
 
 " I have been sitting here." 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Gard wants you. They are going to 
 buy perfumes, and Hassan is waiting, and You have 
 lost your beads," his eye resting suddenly upon her 
 bared white wrist. 
 
 "Mr. Lawrence has got them for me." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Lawrence," repeated Jack slowly.
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 2/1 
 
 He was not a man to notice trifles. He was singu 
 larly free from whims and fancies. A man who prided 
 himself, as a general rule, upon the cool and reliable 
 quality of his common sense. And yet it required an 
 effort now for him to keep his temper an effort which 
 made him clench his hand and brought -the blood 
 mantling to his face. 
 
 " Well, come when you are ready," he said, with an 
 elaborate assumption of indifference, and addressing 
 himself pointedly to Miss Varley. As much as possible 
 he avoided looking at her companion. 
 
 " I am afraid poor Jack must be ill to-day," the girl 
 said, glancing after him anxiously. 
 
 They went out into the street again and through the 
 small, quiet square where the vendors of perfumes as 
 semble old men for the most part, and many of them 
 Jews. They sat down on the carpet before a shop 
 a dingy array of shelves and dim glass bottles, and dry, 
 glittering piles of gums and heavy lumps of incense. 
 A wrinkled old man, with a long white beard and a 
 curious fur cap upon his head, came out to take their 
 orders. He served them reluctantly, with tremulous, 
 yellow hands that shook as he held the precious drugs 
 up against the light, gloating with old, covetous eyes 
 over their thick and enervating odors. 
 
 When they left this place the air about them was heavy 
 with escaping perfume, and for hours (he faint scent 
 clung to their hands and the folds of their hair and dress. 
 
 They went back into the main bazaar. 
 
 " I should like to have another look at that old 
 mosque," said Mr. Gard. 
 
 They paused before it, watching the natives pass 
 through the cloistered court or loiter about its delicate 
 trickling fountain, or disappear into its cool and sombre 
 depths. 
 
 " Dear me," said Mrs. Gard, with a sigh, " when one 
 thinks that all this belonged to the Christians once ! 
 And now to see it in the hands of those nasty Arabs: 
 people without a religion or or "
 
 2/2 MIRAGE. 
 
 " Or morality," suggested Mr. Gard. 
 
 " Or any thing else," added his wife. 
 
 " Pardon me," said Davenant seriously ; " but surely 
 you forget their rugs? " 
 
 " Rugs ! " repeated Mrs. Gard. 
 
 " Well, -Persian carpets then, if you like the term 
 better. When I think of what treasures there are in 
 that building, what old and priceless fabrics from what 
 remote and forgotten looms, and when I reflect that we 
 are even debarred from entering in all humility to gaze 
 upon this lost beauty, it justifies in my mind what I have 
 always considered as one of the fatal mistakes of the 
 middle age I refer, of course, to the later crusades. 
 
 "Well, I never!" said Mrs. Gard blankly. 
 
 She looked round as though appealing to Stuart for 
 sympathy, but Stuart was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 Meantime Mr. Lawrence was speaking to Constance 
 about his proposed journey to Bagdad, speaking of it 
 rather as of a remote possibility, a plan of the past : 
 "Apian I had undertaken half out of desire to find 
 myself once more in the desert, because the fascination 
 of vast horizons and great silence was still about me ; 
 and half perhaps well, to get rid for awhile of my 
 own personality. I have been growing restless here of 
 late dissatisfied. People don t understand," thrust 
 ing his stick into the ground impatiently. 
 
 " You are dissatisfied with your work, perhaps," said 
 Constance doubtfully. 
 
 " My work ! " he laughed. " It is kind of you to call 
 it by any such name, Miss Varley. I 11 tell you what I 
 wish you would do, though. Come and see it. I ve got 
 rather a nice place here in old Ahmed s house. You re 
 member the Armenian I pointed out to you yesterday ? " 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Well, I m staying in his house at present. A jolly 
 old place. I wish you would come and see it. Come 
 to-morrow with Mrs. Thayer." 
 
 " I will ask her," looking up at him eagerly. 
 
 They had come in sight of the hotel now. " I wonder
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 273 
 
 if Jack went home ; " Constance suggested. It troubled 
 her, in the . midst of her own exceeding content, to 
 think of Stuart s disappointment. She had never felt 
 so inclined to friendliness towards him as now, when 
 any thing but friendliness was impossible. All the gen 
 erous impulse of her nature, the deep tenderness 
 born of a hopeless love, and going out with quick com 
 passion to all futile and hopeless longing, intensified 
 and vitalized her sympathy, and gave her a feeling of 
 comradeship with Stuart. As she said to herself simply, 
 she was very sorry for Jack. 
 
 They came upon him quite unexpectedly now, stand 
 ing beside the fountain, speaking to one of the men 
 staying in the hotel. He looked up and nodded as 
 they passed. 
 
 " You had better make up your mind to do it," his 
 companion was saying. " You 11 find it decidedly pleas- 
 anter going there with a party, and the other men " 
 and a moment after Constance heard him laugh. 
 
 She had stopped at the foot of the staircase to say 
 good-by to Lawrence. 
 
 "We shall see you this evening? " she asked. 
 
 "This evening?" he hesitated. "I have half an en 
 gagement. Yes, I will come," looking suddenly into 
 her face. " I must make interest with Mrs. Van Ness," 
 smiling. " I must get leave to take you out riding 
 to-morrow." 
 
 He lifted his hat and walked quickly away. As he 
 passed out of the door, Stuart turned and looked after 
 him. 
 
 " I seem to know that man by sight," his companion 
 observed carelessly. "Friend of yours, isn t he?" 
 
 " No," said Stuart. 
 
 He excused himself a moment later. " I must speak 
 to that lady a minute," looking over to where Constance 
 was standing with her hand on Lione s collar. 
 
 " All right," said the stranger, nodding good-naturedly. 
 " You can always find me again if you make up your 
 mind to join us. You had better come, I think." 
 18
 
 2/4 MIRAGE. 
 
 "v*^ *"" 
 Stuart waited until he had left the courtyard. " He 
 
 walked over deliberately to Constance. " I should like 
 to speak to you," he said. 
 
 " To speak to me ? " The girl looked up wonderingly. 
 "Why, certainly, Jack. Is there any thing " 
 
 " I should like to speak to you alone, if you will 
 kindly step into the parlor with me. The place is 
 quite empty at this time of day. I shall only detain 
 you a moment." 
 
 There was something in his tone, or perhaps in the 
 unusual formality of his manner, which touched the 
 girl s pride to the quick. She dropped Lione s bead, 
 stood up, and looked the young man steadily iiv the 
 face. 
 
 "As you like; I am quite ready," she said. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ANOTHER STEP. 
 
 AS Stuart had said, the drawing-room was empty : a 
 large, vaulted room, built for coolness, with nar 
 row, darkened windows, and a brimming marble basin 
 into which a thread of glittering water fell back without 
 ripple or sound. As in all Damascene houses, the 
 room was divided in two parts by a raised platform 
 covered with Persian carpets; but here a concession 
 to European luxury a table and some chairs had 
 been added to the furniture, and a couple of large 
 ostrich eggs swung slowly before the doorway, sus 
 pended from the ceiling by a string. 
 
 A broad divan of leather made the circuit of the 
 room against the wall. Constance crossed over and 
 took her seat upon it, in the farthest corner. Her clog 
 had followed her in, and came and laid down at her 
 feet. She turned her head a little and glanced from 
 under her eyelids at Stuart. She drew a long breath,
 
 ANOTHER STEP. 2?$ 
 
 and pressed her gloved hands tightly together. She 
 waited for him to begin. 
 
 His first words startled her. 
 
 " Did you happen to notice that man I was speaking 
 to out there a moment ago?" indicating the courtyard 
 with a nod. 
 
 She looked up. 
 
 " I saw nothing especial about him." 
 
 " No," with a short laugh, " only I was not sure that 
 you had noticed him. I m going away with him. I m 
 going to Baalbeck to-morrow." 
 
 Constance said nothing. 
 
 " You don t ask me why I am going ? " 
 
 " I suppose you want to see Baalbeck," she answered, 
 looking straight before her. She would have given 
 something just then to avoid further explanation. 
 
 " Oh, that s it, of course," the young man said de 
 fiantly. 
 
 He stood where he was for several minutes, his hands 
 in his pockets, his eyes fixed upon the ground. Through 
 the silence he could hear her light, hurried breathing ; 
 a bee flew in at the open doorway and dashed itself 
 audibly against the window-pane. 
 
 " Constance ! " 
 
 His whole manner had changed to one of utmost 
 gentleness. He sat down on the divan beside her, and 
 laid his hand very quietly upon hers. 
 
 " Do you think I am going away on your account ? " 
 he said. 
 
 She did not move her hand. She looked at him 
 without speaking. Her face was quite pale. 
 
 " I think," said Stuart, after a moment s silence, "I 
 think it would be well for us to understand each other 
 better. I think " he drew himself back abruptly. 
 " You have believed that I was jealous to-day." 
 
 She moved uneasily at that. 
 
 " You ask me questions " 
 
 " T was jealous ; you are right," said Stuart quietly. 
 
 He waited a moment, trying to collect the words.
 
 2/6 MIRAGE. 
 
 " I said we ought to understand each other belief," 
 looking at her gravely. " Until we came here I thought, 
 I believed, there was a a chance of your caring for 
 me in time. I should not tell you this now if it did not 
 explain I m not very good at explanations," with a 
 faint smile, his face flushing red. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 " Until we came here," the young man went on more 
 rapidly, " I had always that hope before me. I thought 
 that in time I have never cared for any one as I 
 have cared for you. It seems to me now that I must 
 have loved you from the first day I ever saw you, I 
 don t go in much for being clever myself not^like 
 those other fellows but I know enough to see the 
 difference. I could admire you. To be sure I couldn t 
 tell it to you in German, like Lawrence." 
 
 She looked up quickly, but he did not give her time 
 to speak. 
 
 " I suppose you think that all this doesn t make much 
 difference ; that I tried to get up a flirtation with you be 
 cause you were the only, girl around ; and the conse 
 quences serve me right. Fanny told me as much as that 
 once on her own account. I didn t take the trouble to 
 deny it to her, but I should like to have you know " 
 his voice grew suddenly husky ; he passed his hand 
 impatiently across his lips "I should like to have you 
 believe that I loved you as well as any man can love. 
 That s what I wanted to say to you. I gave you every 
 thing," getting up and walking hastily to the door. 
 
 He stood there for a minute or two, staring out at the 
 blinding sunshine. 
 
 Miss Varley had not moved. There was a brass 
 plate lying on the table before her. When he began 
 speaking, her eyes had fastened upon this unconsciously. 
 She sat mechanically tracing the arabesques graven up 
 on it with her finger, with the dull persistence of a fever- 
 dream, with a sickening realization of the cruelty of her 
 silence deepening with every moment that passed. 
 
 He came back and stood before her.
 
 ANOTHER STEP. 
 
 " There s not much more to be said now between us. 
 You Ve been very honest with me. I I never blamed 
 you. You will be glad to remember that, only Look 
 here, Constance," he said, with sudden passion, and 
 stooped and took both her unresisting hands in his, 
 " don t think I want to worry you. Lots of fellows 
 have had this kind of trouble ; I suppose I can bear it 
 as well as they. But there is one thing I want to ask 
 you " 
 
 " Yes, Jack." 
 
 "You do care for me a little, I know; or, stop! I 
 don t mean that ; but you like me ? You won t mind 
 saying that ; you like me ? " 
 
 " Yes," the tears gathering slowly in her eyes. 
 
 "Then" he drew a long breath "isn t there 
 any thing I can clo, any thing? I m not a man to say 
 what I don t mean ; you know me well enough for that : 
 but if there was any thing about myself that I could do 
 or change," watching her face intently, "I d. wait any 
 length of time." 
 
 I think what hurt her the most in this speech was the 
 sense of its utter uselessness. The simple loyalty of 
 this girl s nature was too deeply ingrained, too much a 
 part of all her daily self, to leave room for hesitation, 
 much less doubt. But her imagination was touched by 
 the piteous hopelessness of his appeal. She lifted her 
 eyes a moment and then looked steadily away, her face 
 growing white and rigid and expressionless. She was 
 accustomed to be very honest with herself. Deep down 
 below all the passion of pity, the natural womanly 
 emotion of the hour she was aware that nothing 
 stirred responsive to his voice; that she- did not really 
 suffer ; that that inmost self which thrilled with infinite 
 tenderness at Lawrence s most careless word was dumb 
 here dumb and apathetic. All the innate honesty of 
 her nature held her wordless. 
 
 " If there is any thing that I could change," he said. 
 
 She repeated the words to herself blindly, trying to 
 realize their significance to -him as a man might wrench
 
 2/8 MIRAGE. 
 
 a paralyzed limb to prove to himself its vitality. Ttwas 
 of no use. Even the knowledge of his daily, hourly care 
 for her, the unswerving preoccupation with her with 
 her who had not even an honest impulse of liking *o 
 give in return even this could not make her feel. 
 
 She put up her gloved hand to her lips ; there was a 
 faint perfume clinging to it still of which she was dis 
 tinctly conscious. She tried to speak, and the horrible 
 silence lengthened between them ; and she knew, with 
 out looking, what expression of desperate hope was 
 dawning in the eyes fastened upon her face. 
 
 " If you tell me to stay," he said, " nothing more than 
 that I can wait," with a curious catching of his breath. 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 " I can wait," getting up to his feet with sudden, 
 uncontrollable excitement. " I won t trouble you, don t 
 fear. You are not bound to any thing. But I think 
 you 11 understand some day. I m not afraid to leave 
 my life in your hands," with a nervous laugh. 
 
 She looked up without speaking, and something in her 
 face checked him in his triumph abruptly. 
 
 He hesitated ; his hands pressed hard upon the table 
 which stood between them. The room was very still ; 
 the fountain glittered silently in the sunshine ; now and 
 then a warmer gust of air came blowing in at the open 
 door. The bee was still beating its life out hopelessly 
 against the window ; there were footsteps crossing the 
 courtyard ; Lione lifted up his head from between his 
 paws and listened with ears erect. " Sometimes I think 
 it would be a relief to you if I went away," said Stuart 
 slowly. 
 " A rdiefl " 
 
 If this were only the story of Constance Varley, I 
 think it would have finished here. I believe that in that 
 moment she resisted one of the greatest possible tempta 
 tions to insincerity the impulse to put an end, at any 
 cost, to all this misery; for perhaps the most betraying 
 form of insincerity consists in this conscious self-aban 
 donment to temporary high-pitched impulse.
 
 ANOTHER STEP. 279 
 
 Her lips trembled and turned pale ; he could see her 
 eyes glistening in the half-darkness ; she had never 
 seemed so beautiful to him, so desirable, as now. 
 
 " I think you had better go, dear Jack," she said. 
 
 The footsteps in the couit drew nearer. Lione 
 scrambled to his feet, and shook himself and growled. 
 It was Mr. Gard who entered ; he came in with his hat 
 in his hand, with a deep-drawn sigh of content. " For 
 the sun is growing intolerably hot, I assure you. You 
 young people have shown your discretion in selecting 
 this shady place." 
 
 No one answered for a moment. He looked at them 
 both, not curiously, but with a slow and mild surprise. 
 
 " I am not interrupting you, I hope ? " 
 
 " I was only explaining my future plans to Miss 
 Varley. I think of going away to-morrow, Mr. Gard. 
 To Baalbeck." 
 
 " But not for a lengthened period, I presume ? " 
 
 He looked at Constance before answering. "I do 
 not know," he said. 
 
 Mr. Gard had seated himself on a chair beside the 
 table. 
 
 " I find it difficult to use those lounges," with a grave 
 smile at the divan. " I see you prefer them, Miss 
 Varley. And what is this a recent purchase, per 
 haps ? " taking up one of the brass plates from the 
 table. 
 
 " No," said Constance. 
 
 " I thought you might have been making purchases in 
 the bazaar. They have certainly a peculiar interest of 
 their own, these brazen vessels, being, one can imagine, 
 fashioned much in the same way as the brazen censers 
 of the rebellious children of Israel. Have you any idea 
 of the probable antiquity of these? " turning the platter 
 curiously between his long, thin hands. 
 
 " I don t know any thing about those things," said 
 Jack. 
 
 " Ah, you are not an antiquarian, I see, like your 
 friend Mr. Lawrence. A very interesting young man, I
 
 280 MIRAGE. 
 
 found him. We had some slight conversation together 
 this morning ; I thought him remarkably well in 
 formed." 
 
 " I believe that he and Davenant know all about old 
 carpets and old cracked teacups and that sort of thing. 
 I don t go in for that kind of information myself." 
 
 " I confess I am somewhat of the same frame of 
 mind," said Mr. Gard slowly ; " my opportunities for 
 acquiring such tastes have been few," speaking with a 
 certain regret. " In my time this diversity of pursuits 
 was hardly expected from a young man. We were 
 educated on a somewhat severer method ; but it paid, 
 sir, it paid. We worked in those days," his voice gjow- 
 ing rapid and thin. " We tried without ceasing. There s 
 a new set of men come in since then, Mr. Stuart. They 
 say we lack scientific training and all that. Maybe it s 
 true. I don t deny it. But it seems hard to hear, 
 when a man has worked on through poverty all his life, 
 doing his duty by the light that was given him. I am 
 not an old man, sir ; there is work in me yet," holding 
 up his hand with an unsteady laugh. 
 
 "Edwin!" Mrs. Gard had come in without their 
 hearing her. 
 
 She went and stood beside her husband s chair, 
 chafing his hand between her own roughened fingers. 
 " Is your head getting bad again, dear? I thought I 
 heard your voice," turning distrustfully and with a cer 
 tain defiant anguish from Miss Varley to Stuart. 
 
 Mr. Gard looked at his wife doubtfully, with an 
 excited, reddened face. "I I was only speaking to 
 Mr. Stuart, Mary," pressing his other hand wearily to 
 his forehead. 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 "The sun would give any one a headache to-day," 
 said Constance gently. 
 
 " Don t you think you had better come with me and 
 lie down a little while, Edwin ? " 
 
 He rose irresolutely. "I I am very well where I 
 am. Let me pick up my own hat, Mary. I desire you
 
 ANOTHER STEP, 28 1 
 
 not to do those things for me," with a nervous twitching 
 of his careworn, irritable mouth. 
 
 " Very well, dear." 
 
 She looked back anxiously at the other two from the 
 doorway ; a grotesque little woman, ill-dressed and fussy 
 and commonplace, but with something about her which 
 brought the tears to the girl s eyes. " I believe I 
 believe that is as good a woman as ever lived. I admire 
 her, I respect her," she said with sudden passion. 
 
 " What, Mrs. Card ? " asked Stuart, doubtfully. 
 
 He had hardly noticed the scene which had taken 
 place before him. The old man had got a little excited 
 there was nothing so wonderful in that. In a certain 
 way I think he was even grateful for the interruption. 
 It had steadied his nerves. He was an obstinate fellow 
 in his own way, Stuart. When he had looked at a thing 
 long enough it never seemed so impossible. And back 
 once more on the ordinary level of life he felt surer 
 of himself. He was determined to profit by every 
 opportunity. 
 
 "I believe," he said now with more firmness, "that 
 it is Lawrence and Lawrence alone who is standing be 
 tween us. Stop a moment, Constance" as the girl 
 made some sign of dissent "hear me out. You can 
 safely leave me this much hope, I think. It won t make 
 much difference to you, and to me it would be some 
 thing to remember," with a sudden quiver in his voice. 
 He took her gloved hands in his, and held them tightly 
 for a moment. " If ever I know that he that you are 
 not together, I shall believe that there is still a chance 
 for me, that s all." He dropped her hands and turned 
 away, and then came back and stood before her silently. 
 
 " I think you will find that I don t forget, Constance." 
 
 He left her without another word.
 
 282 MIRAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 IN WHICH MR. LAWRENCE READS MERIMEE. 
 
 LAWRENCE had gone directly home. A group of 
 models were waiting before the door of his studio: 
 he had been at some pains to induce these men to pose 
 to him, but now he sent them away with hardly a: mo 
 ment s hesitation ; he wished to be alone. Lilfce all^ 
 naturally undemonstrative men gifted with quick and 
 mobile sympathies, the continued presence of a crowd 
 of people fatigued his nerves, and ended by throwing 
 him into a state of lassitude and profound melancholy. 
 Now, as he opened the door, the cool silence of his 
 room gave him a sensation of positive pleasure. He 
 looked about him ; every thing was as he had left it the 
 day before ; the window was still open, the same locust 
 was chirping from time to time among the fig-leaves 
 the only sound, except the rustling of some loose papers 
 the wind had scattered on the floor. 
 
 He picked up one of these papers as he entered ; it 
 was a letter from his sister. " I must answer this," he 
 thought, and tossed it over on the writing-table, and 
 threw himself down on his divan. 
 
 The hot glare of the streets seemed still before him, 
 in confused impressions of color and movement and 
 light. He pressed his hand before his eyes ; there was 
 another face, a soft and harmonious personality which 
 seemed to belong more fitly to this moment of satisfac 
 tion and repose. There was a sense of radiant self- 
 reliance about Constance which was infinitely attractive 
 to him. He thought of her now with a look of pleased 
 recollection on his face. He had found in her that 
 most fascinating of qualities an idealized reflection 
 of himself. " She is just about where / was two or
 
 9 MR. LAWRENCE READS MERIMEE. 283 
 
 three years ago," he thought. He was charmed by the 
 way in which they understood each other ; being with 
 her was like breathing once more in the fresh moral 
 atmosphere of his own youth ; when he listened to her 
 he found again the expression of his* own old dreams 
 and desires, untouched, as yet very eager, and un 
 wearied of life. What had attracted him was shown to 
 him again, but clad with a new expression, and instinct 
 to him with a new sense of beauty and fleetness and 
 loss ; but he no more imagined that he had a part in 
 bringing this about than he held himself responsible for 
 her love of animals or her taste in dress. 
 
 There had been two or three trifling incidents in their 
 morning s experience together which came back now 
 with irritating accuracy. That anxiety about Stuart, 
 for instance. How was it reconcilable with with 
 
 " Why, I might as well be Davenant, and be done 
 with it," he said aloud with sudden impatience. He 
 got up hastily, crossed the room, and sat down before 
 his writing-desk, with the gesture of a man who has 
 come to some decision. He glanced over his sister s 
 letter, took a piece of paper, and began to write. 
 
 "DAMASCUS: May, 187 
 " MY DEAR KATE, 
 
 " I start for Bagdad to-morrow. I have not the 
 slightest idea how long " 
 
 Rethrew the perr down with some muttered, impa 
 tient exclamation of disgust. Going to Bagdad? The 
 plan was an absurdity. Why, there were lots of things 
 to do in Damascus. These people, whose presence had 
 disturbed him, would be gone in a week at the farthest, 
 and there would be nothing more to interrupt his work. 
 
 "They would be gone," with a feeling of the same 
 sudden and inexplicable irritation. 
 
 He took up his pen again and fell to drawing designs 
 on the paper cover of the nearest book. It happened 
 to be a volume of Me rimee s "Letters." 
 
 Lawrence had long ago passed that stage of literary
 
 284 MIRAGE. * 
 
 development which exalts into genius the jadea and 
 careful ennui of this elaborate, this misanthropic Pari 
 sian ; but the book had the charm of old association 
 for him. He opened it now at random ; he opened it 
 at a passage in which Merimee alludes to his first visit 
 to Italy: 
 
 "When I left Paris I felt myself on the verge of 3. 
 great passion," he says ; " but I reflected upon all it 
 would cost her, and it seemed to me that such love as 
 I had to offer could never requite her sacrifice. I left 
 Paris, and she has never known the truth. Elle n en 
 sut jamais rien." I 
 
 The words made an impression upon him. There , 
 was something in the idea which appealed to all the 
 refining, and perhaps a little fantastic chivalry of his 
 nature. " Elle n en stit jamais rien" There was a deli 
 cacy of sentiment, a subtle generosity, about the feeling 
 which touched his imagination with a foreshadowing of 
 silent and tender regret. After all, it was only a differ 
 ent version of his resolve of the night before. It was 
 Constance who should decide the situation ; but would 
 she ? It was with an inexplicable restlessness and im 
 patience he waited for that answer to come. 
 
 He was still sitting befere his desk, looking vacantly 
 out at the narrow strip of sky above the barrier of 
 broad fig-leaves, spreading green and fan-like in the 
 windless afternoon, when some one knocked at the 
 studio door. 
 
 "Come in!" 
 
 It was Ahmed, the Armenian, who entered. He 
 came forward slowly, with measured steps. 
 
 " The long-expected are here, O Howadji." 
 
 " The deuce they are ! " said Lawrence. He got up 
 hastily. " When do you start? " 
 
 Ahmed stroked his beard gravely. It might be to 
 morrow night. Allah was great ; it might not be till 
 after to-morrow. If the howadji still intended going 
 with a penetrating look from his keen old eyes it was 
 necessary^ to be ready at any moment.
 
 MR. LAWRENCE READS MERIMEE. 285 
 
 " The desert is wide, howadji." 
 
 " The feet of thy camels are swift, O Ahmed," the 
 young man answered absently. 
 
 He looked down at the open book before him : " Elle 
 n en sut jamais rien." 
 
 " I am going to the hotel again to-night," he added 
 slowly. " I am going to see some friends there. When 
 I return you shall have my answer. You shall have my 
 answer before I sleep, O Ahmed." 
 
 " Mashallah ! So be it, in the name of God," the 
 old man said. 
 
 He left the room with the same leisurely dignity of 
 gesture, and Lawrence was once more alone. 
 
 The afternoon Alight was failing rapidly ; there was a 
 grayish tinge now creeping over the fig-trees ; the sky, 
 seen through them, had grown cooler in tint, and the 
 life of the city had awakened. He could catch a mur 
 mur of voices, the sound of far-off laughter, and the 
 dull thrumming of a native drum marking the cadence 
 of a song. 
 
 The noise came from that cafe by the river to which 
 he had taken Constance. He would go there now, he 
 thought ; and took up his hat and threw it down ir 
 resolutely. Some bits of old leather and stuff were 
 hanging on the walls ; he unfastened two or three of 
 these and folded them together, and tossed them back 
 in a heap upon the floor. It was useless beginning his 
 preparations for departure yet. 
 
 But Davenant, coming in at that moment, was struck 
 at once by signs of displacement and change. 
 
 "Hollo," he said, staring round him, "why, what have 
 you been doing? You re not going away, Lawrence?" 
 He sat down on the divan and pushed his hat off tys 
 forehead. " How long is it since you have been at the 
 hotel ? " 
 
 " Not since morning," carelessly. " Have a cigar, 
 Claude ? " 
 
 " Ah, then you can know nothing about it. Thanks, 
 no : I won t smoke."
 
 286 MIRAGE. 
 
 " Know nothing about what? Has has anything 
 happened at the hotel ? " 
 
 " Well, I ve been making rather a fool of myself, I 
 think," said Davenant mildly. He looked around the 
 room again, and then up at the ceiling. " I say, Law 
 rence, have you got any money to spare ? " 
 
 Denis nodded. 
 
 " Plenty. How much do you want?" getting up and 
 going over to his trunk. 
 
 " I m really very much obliged to you, old fellow." 
 
 "Oh, that s all right. You startled me, though," 
 taking up a cigar and lighting it ; "I thought something 
 might have happened to to the hotel." 
 
 " I can return it to you next month," said Davenant 
 earnestly. " I meant to have sailed for home directly if 
 you could not let me have it : third class." 
 
 Lawrence went on smoking in silence a few minutes. 
 
 " I won t preach ; but don t get into worse scrapes 
 than you can get out of," he began doubtfully. 
 
 " Oh," said Davenant, " you couldn t have helped 
 doing the same thing yourself. I never saw one like it; 
 five hundred years old at the least, and in almost per 
 fect preservation " 
 
 " What?" said Lawrence, laying down his cigar. 
 
 " Five hundred at least. You never saw any thing 
 more exquisite. I happened to be just in time to save 
 it. Mrs. Van Ness you ve seen her Miss Varley s 
 aunt?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 She was going to buy it and have the work trans 
 ferred to some new piece of stuff, absolutely new, 
 modern stuff; fancy that ! " 
 
 Lawrence laughed. 
 
 " If you would not mind telling me what it was, to 
 begin with, Davenant " 
 
 " Well," said Davenant, reflectively, " I should call it 
 an inspiration a poem in color. I can t describe it ; 
 but imagine a piece of frail, blue-gray silk, thin and 
 silvery, and worn and very old, and all inwrought with
 
 MR. LA WRENCE READS MERIMEE. 287 
 
 strange beasts and growing plants ; great blossoms in 
 flat, bright tints, intermingled with fantastic arfhnal 
 forms, a splendid and indeterminate life. And, scat 
 tered all through it, binding the work together, a rain of 
 sweet and curious flowers, flowers delicate and pre 
 cise in form, and of faint color. And Mrs. Van Ness 
 was going to transfer it ! Upon my word," said the 
 young man earnestly, " she made me feel quite ill." 
 
 Lawrence laughed again. 
 
 "You haven t seen Ferris lately?" 
 
 " He was round at the consul s this morning, getting 
 letters. I asked him to come to the hotel, but he said 
 he wouldn t. Ferris doesn t care much for women, I 
 think." 
 
 " Ferris," said Lawrence slowly, " is one of the best 
 fellows alive. I had some letters this morning too," 
 looking over at his table. " One from my sister. They 
 are both married now, my sisters. I wish some one 
 would found a society for the selection of brothers-in- 
 law." 
 
 " I don t object to mine particularly," said Davenant ; 
 " to be sure I don t see much of him. Their house is 
 pure Elizabethan, and they have furnished it with 
 Louis Quinze chairs those gilt things with legs, don t 
 you know. I m sorry, for I was very fond of my 
 sister." 
 
 " But when it s a question between furniture and 
 family affection " said Lawrence, with quiet amuse 
 ment. 
 
 " Oh, of course. Still, I do go down there every 
 autumn for a few days, to shoot. Last year I shot the 
 dog," he added mildly. 
 
 They stayed there talking until the room had grown 
 quite dark, and then went out to dine together. Law 
 rence looked back as he was closing the door. 
 
 " Forgotten any thing ? " asked his companion, pausing 
 on the stairway. 
 
 " Nothing." The heavy door swung to behind them 
 with a crash.
 
 288 MIRAGE. 
 
 " I shall know all about it," thought Denis, ^before 
 I offen that door again." 
 
 He ran lightly down the steps and linked his arm in 
 Davenant s. " Come on and find Ferris. Who knows 
 when we three shall dine together again ?" he said gaily. 
 But even Ferris noticed that he was not like himself 
 that night. 
 
 The hotel parlor seemed already full of people and 
 lights when they entered it. There was quite a crowd 
 about Mrs. Van Ness ; the floor in front of her was 
 strewn with old rugs and stuffs and porcelains and 
 arms ; and an almond-eyed Syrian and a wrinkled old 
 Jew were kneeling on the platform, placidly unfolding 
 yet more of the precious things of the East. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Lawrence " she looked" up graciously, 
 holding up a fat and jewelled hand "you are the very 
 person I wanted to see ; your fine artistic taste, you 
 know. And isn t this too enchanting ; quite romantic 
 all these beautiful embroideries and things? " 
 
 " Have you been getting many of them ? " said 
 Lawrence. 
 
 The old Jew had looked up with grave alarm at the 
 young man s appearance, and had begun hurriedly roll 
 ing some silken stuff together. 
 
 "I know that old fellow the greatest old cheat in 
 Damascus," Denis commented carelessly. 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Van Ness, "but my dragoman, 
 Mahmoud, sent for him for me as a special favor ; he 
 always sends his assistant to sell his things unless to 
 persons of very great consequence. Such a romantic 
 idea ! I really think you must be mistaken, Mr. Law 
 rence, for Mahmoud is perfectly devoted to me. He 
 never would allow any thing of that kind, I assure 
 you." 
 
 " I see," said Lawrence shortly. 
 
 Miss Varley had looked up and bowed gravely as he 
 came in. She was sitting a little away from the others, 
 and nearer the window, working. Half the length of 
 the room was between them, and he was conscious of
 
 MR. LA WRENCE READS MERIMEE. 289 
 
 her slightest movement. He was still standing by Mrs. 
 Van Ness, looking down at a piece of linen she was 
 showing him ; but he knew when Stuart went over to 
 speak to the girl. 
 
 " Oh, Persian, I should say ; Persian decidedly," he 
 said aloud. 
 
 He could have given no name to this vague and 
 potent feeling which was gradually taking possession 
 of all his being; he did not wish to name it. Only 
 he was conscious of some subtle and uneasy delight 
 which seemed to creep between him and the outer 
 world. It is, perhaps, with some such unresisting 
 pleasure that the trees in the orchards feel the rose- 
 white promise of their blossoms burst from the barren 
 branches at the warm, compelling touch of spring. 
 
 He had, in reality, been but a very few minutes in 
 the room before he went over to where Constance was 
 sitting. He stood leaning against the wall, his hand 
 on the back of a chair, looking down at her moving 
 fingers. It was a work belonging to Mrs. Van Ness 
 over which the girl was busy, but he could not know 
 this, and something in her constrained attitude and 
 bent head annoyed him. He was a man full of fan 
 cies. There seemed to him something ominous in 
 her silence to-night. 
 
 The swift, white fingers trembled a little as he 
 watched them. She looked up. 
 
 " You have seen Mr. Stuart ? " 
 
 " Not to speak to." 
 
 "I think he was looking for you," said Constance. 
 She bent her face over her work. " Jack is going away 
 to-morrow," turning to him naturally, with a sudden 
 passionate craving for understanding and sympathy. 
 
 He did not answer. She glanced at him again a 
 moment later, thinking he had not heard. He was 
 looking out at the moonlight in the courtyard with the 
 expression of a man whose thoughts were miles away. 
 Her eyes fell again with a feeling of baffled expectation. 
 She had thought all day of this moment, and now it
 
 2QO MIRAGE, 
 
 seemed that he did not care to speak or listen!! 
 kept her eyes fixed upon the sewing. " You are indus 
 trious to-night," said Fanny, passing. Constance had 
 lost all that fine color; she was looking quite pale and 
 insignificant, Mrs. Thayer thought. 
 
 " Mr. Lawrence ! " 
 
 Mrs. Van Ness had crossed the room slowly, with a 
 rustle of silk and a dropping of shawls and a scatter 
 ing of faint perfume on the air. " I want to speak to 
 you ; and you have not seen my lizard," she said. The 
 young man followed her reluctantly to a sofa beside 
 the door. 
 
 "Sit down;" she pushed away some pillows, ,and 
 made a place for him by her side. " I really have a 
 great many things to talk to you about. My lizard is 
 upstairs. He has bitten Mr. Gard twice already," with 
 languid amusement; "but some people are so clumsy, 
 you know. He is the most affectionate little creature 
 in reality " 
 
 " Mr. Gard is ? " 
 
 Mrs. Van Ness laughed. " Poor Mr. Gard. He is 
 our old clergyman, you know. At least my dear hus 
 band used to go and hear him ; I never went to that 
 church. And entre nous, you know," tapping Law 
 rence s arm confidentially, "the poor old man is really 
 quite " she shrugged her shoulders significantly. " He 
 has been passe de mode for years ; an excellent man, but 
 such a very dull preacher, and so shockingly poor ! He 
 had sunstroke last year, and his wife says that is the 
 reason he resigned his parish ; but the fact is," looking 
 cautiously about her, and lowering her voice mysteri 
 ously, "they would have got rid of him anyway I 
 know it. They had found a younger man to take his 
 place, and really a young clergyman is so much more 
 popular, you know. My dear husband always said it 
 would make a difference of fifty per cent, in the pew 
 rents when Mr. Gard was gone." 
 
 " Pleasant for him, poor devil ! " said Lawrence com 
 passionately.
 
 MR. LAWRENCE READS MERIMEE. 291 
 
 " Oh, you are a Roman Catholic, Mr. Lawrence ; you 
 don t understand these things. His old congregation 
 behaved quite handsomely, you know ; they gave him 
 a silver teapot with an inscription. To be sure, he 
 could not live on that," with a deprecating smile. " He 
 had got some employment as a book-agent, when I 
 brought him and his wife abroad. I m very fond of 
 helping people ; I like gratitude," folding her* luxurious 
 drapery about herself complacently. 
 
 "Gratitude?" repeated Lawrence absently, "that pre 
 supposes a most generous nature. My mother used to 
 be fond of poor people " 
 
 " I knew your mother ; a beautiful girl she was, and 
 very shy. I met her once at a reception at Judge 
 Poynter s the Member of Congress, I mean." 
 
 " I know," said Lawrence. 
 
 " Ah, of course," with a recollecting smile, "of course. 
 He s a connection of yours, I remember, by marriage. 
 Well, what was I saying? ah, yes. Your mother. I 
 wanted to bring her out a little ; I tried to give her a 
 dinner ; but there was something the matter with you 
 you had some ridiculous cold or other and she 
 would not come. Your father came without her. You 
 are not like your father," turning to look at the young 
 man with a critical glance. 
 
 " I remember your wife too," she said a moment after, 
 "a little Hm ! " calling herself to order abruptly. 
 " I remember everybody, you see, Mr. Lawrence." 
 
 But Lawrence was silent. There was something which 
 troubled him in this sudden evoking of dead faces out 
 of the past at this moment, and when he most desired 
 to hold his life, plastic and unshackled, in his grasp. 
 
 " You must come and dine with me when we all get 
 back to New York again. You are going back soon, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 "I?" said Denis, looking up with a start; "how 
 can I tell?" 
 
 " I 11 give you a dinner if you will let me know when 
 you arrive," said Mrs. Van Ness blandly. " A little
 
 2Q2 MIRAGE. 
 
 dinner. I have never had more than eight peopte at 
 once at my table since my dear husband died. Eight 
 has been my limit," laying her hand impressively upon 
 the young man s arm. " Eight, ever since." 
 
 Mrs. Thayer had been watching this long conference 
 with some uneasiness. She passed them now ; looked 
 out at the clear, moonlit sky for a minute. "Jack 
 will have* a lovely day for starting to-morrow," she 
 said. 
 
 " Is Mr. Stuart going?" asked Davenant. He began 
 to speak of his own departure. " I feel like a man 
 who has been on a spree," he said : " this sumptupus 
 life of the East, this splendid use of color and material, 
 has given me an excess of sensation. These rugs and 
 scarfs, and all this wrought metal and worked linen 
 and incense, amongst which these placid Orientals bask 
 as unconscious of its significance as the insect of the 
 color of its glittering wings excite me still ; but they 
 no longer satisfy me ; and I turn back instinctively to 
 that Europe over which arose those two stars of the 
 material and the spiritual life the Venus of the 
 Greeks and the Virgin of the Italians." 
 
 " Deaf me. Do you suppose he means the Virgin 
 Mary ? " asked Mrs. Gard in a horrified whisper to 
 Constance. 
 
 "Yes," said Davenant, turning to her in all sim 
 plicity, " that is what I mean. The worship of Venus 
 is homage to the supreme beauty in woman ; the wor 
 ship of the Virgin is homage to her most sacred form 
 of suffering the two ideas which form and resume 
 all the world of art and literature, and without which 
 our life would be that of the Oriental a sumptuous 
 and wordless and sterile thing." 
 
 " Oh," said the old Major, with his dry smile, " you 
 forget 
 
 A Persian s heaven is easily made, 
 Tis but black eyes and lemonade. 
 
 A rare old song we used to think that, in the days when 
 I was young. You boys don t read Tom Moore."
 
 MR. LA WRENCE READS MERIMEE. 293 
 
 " I should hope not, indeed," said Fanny, with a toss 
 of her head. She had no particular opinion about 
 Moore, but any allusion to the Major s youth inspired 
 her with a vague feeling of resentment. 
 
 Where Fanny was, the conversation was apt to grow 
 personal. In a few minutes they were all discussing 
 the details of a recent social scandal, with whose prin 
 cipal actors they were all more or less acquainted. 
 " And I must say I should like to know what made her 
 do it," Fanny concluded candidly ; " and unfortunately 
 that is the one point one can never hope to understand." 
 
 " I think I can understand it," said Constance quietly. 
 She hesitated and looked out at the splashing fountain 
 in the moonlight. " There are some appeals a man has 
 no right to make," she said with sudden passion. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence looked up quickly. "You would have 
 had him keep silence then ? " 
 
 " If I had been in his place," said Constance proudly, 
 " I would have kept silent though I had died." 
 
 They went out into the courtyard together. It was a 
 pale, blue-gray night. There was not a breath of wind 
 stirring ; the very shadows thrown by the young moon 
 were motionless and half transparent ; and the moon 
 itself was reflected, a thin and yellow disc, in the smooth 
 surface of the brimming pool. 
 
 Lawrence lingered a little behind the others. " I 
 want to speak to you a moment," he said, and stood 
 there irresolute, dipping his fingers in the tepid water, 
 and breaking the placid reflection into wide gleaming 
 circles of light. A mad impulse to tell her every thing 
 was on him, and still his lips were sealed by what he 
 believed to have been her instinctive protest against lis 
 tening to his speech. " I want to ask you " he began 
 again and hesitated. 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 The branches stirring a little overhead, the moonlight 
 shone down full upon the pure and sensitive face a 
 child s face it seemed to him, and troubled with a child s 
 dim apprehension of pain.
 
 294 MIRAGE. 
 
 One moment he stood irresolute. Then he looked^ up 
 quietly. " I have tgld your aunt I was coming for you 
 to-morrow. You will like the horse I have got for you, 
 Miss Varley a very spirited creature ; but he has been 
 ridden by a lady before." His tone was the same that 
 he would have used to a mere acquaintance. And yet, 
 as he turned by the doorway to bid her good-night, there 
 was something in his manner which made her put out 
 her hand involuntarily, and speak. 
 
 " There is something the matter, Mr. Lawrence. I 
 I have been wanting to ask you all the evening." She 
 pressed her hands together nervously. "You are in 
 trouble, or something has happened since I saw you this 
 morning. You have been doing something " 
 
 " I," said Lawrence, looking at her steadily, " I have 
 been reading Meriinee." He took her hand in his, 
 and held it for a moment. " Good-by," he said slowly. 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 He looked up smiling. " You mean it is only good 
 night ? " 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ANOTHER LIFE. 
 
 CONSTANCE was in her own room the next morn 
 ing, when Mrs. Gard knocked at the door. 
 " Come in ! " The girl started up, surprised at the 
 unexpected face of her visitor. " I thought it might be 
 Fanny," she said half apologetically ; and then, with 
 instinctive hospitality, hastened to make the new-comer 
 comfortable, pushing the one easy-chair nearer the win 
 dow, which stood wide-open this mild spring morning. 
 There were some books and a half-finished letter lying 
 upon the table, but she had been sitting before them 
 with folded hands, she did not herself know how long.
 
 ANOTHER LIFE. 295 
 
 " I hope that Mr. Gard is better this morning has 
 got over his headache?" she said presently, seeing that 
 her guest showed no disposition to speak. 
 
 Mrs. Gard looked up quickly. " I wanted to tell you 
 about that. He my husband he is not well; the 
 least thing excites him, and for strangers, who do not 
 know " 
 
 " But I do know," said Constance, with a ready wish 
 to spare her the pain of telling ; " my aunt has told me." 
 
 The little woman opposite looked up with eager eyes. 
 " She has told you ? " leaning forward a little and catch 
 ing at her breath. 
 
 Miss Varley glanced about her uneasily. " I heard 
 that Mr. Gard had had sunstroke," she said gently. 
 "I was very sorry to hear it." 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 " And that that he had given up his parish. It 
 must have been a great sorrow to you," looking up with 
 grave compassion. 
 
 She moved her hand impatiently, as though putting 
 herself out of the question. " And she told you nothing 
 else about him, then ? Nothing about the reason of his 
 leaving ? " 
 
 Miss Varley looked at her bewildered. 
 
 " She said he had sunstroke, and never told you how 
 or why, and you never thought to ask her, or she answered 
 you as she did that Mr. Lawrence last night. They 
 thought I did not hear them talking of Edwin. A dull 
 old man, they called him, and shockingly poor ; and the 
 parish the parish would have got rid of him any way. 
 Our own parish, Miss Varley," clasping her thin, rough 
 hands together, and looking down at them with a cer 
 tain bewildered incredulity. " And she said she knew 
 it ; that they had come to her for advice." 
 
 " I am sure," said Constance, hesitating, " I am sure 
 that my aunt meant nothing unkind. And I know that 
 Mr. Lawrence If you will tell me what you would 
 like him to know, I promise you that he shall hear it to 
 day," lifting up her blue eyes frankly.
 
 296 MIRAGE. 
 
 V *v^. *"" 
 Mrs. Gard did not seem to notice the offer. 
 
 " Our own parish," she repeated vacantly. " Why, 
 Miss Varley, we went there when we were first married, 
 Edwin and I ; and we made it our home. It was a 
 poor enough place until Edwin came, just a small coun 
 try church ; and he started every thing the evening 
 service for the mill-hands, and the Sunday-school, and 
 the Wednesday prayer-meetings ; he never missed one 
 of them in twenty years, summer or winter, until last 
 year. There wasn t another minister in all the country 
 round who could say as much," with a sharp nod, " not 
 one. And to call him a dull preacher! Why, we have 
 had people visiting us people from Boston, who fcad 
 heard every thing and they said they had never list 
 ened to better sermons than my Edwin s," a dull look 
 of pleasure creeping over her strained and anxious face. 
 
 Perhaps it was some relief to her to say these things 
 to Constance. People had a way of coming to the girl 
 with stories which demanded sympathy ; she never 
 failed to meet them, whatever trouble she might have 
 of her own thrust out of sight and speechless ; and in 
 all things she had found it easier to give than ask. She 
 listened now in silence. 
 
 " It was a poor little place of ours our parish but 
 there were green fields all about the village, and country 
 air and quiet ; that was what made Edwin think of it," 
 putting up her hand nervously to her coarse, colorless 
 lips. " It was a terrible summer in New York, and we 
 heard how the people were dying every day in the city, 
 and he thought it was his duty to give some other man 
 some younger man a chance. He told me of it 
 one night after the evening service we were walking 
 home together ; " sitting up abruptly, " and the next 
 week he had gone there and made the exchange, and 
 before the month was over It is the man whose place 
 he took who has got our parish now Edwin s parish," 
 repeating the words with dogged protest. 
 
 " Do you mean to say he took it ? " the girl asked 
 indignantly.
 
 ANOTHER LIFE. 297 
 
 Mrs. Gard looked up. 
 
 " People must live, you know. And when Edwin was 
 not strong enough Edwin will not have me speak 
 of it. He says it was the will of Providence ; but I say 
 I say it was our home," with a sudden break in the 
 thin, harsh voice. She got up presently. " I didn t 
 mean to have troubled you so long, Miss Varley." She 
 turned towards the door and looked back. " I am a 
 clergyman s wife," she said hurriedly. " I have a right 
 to speak. I have been listening to you all since I have 
 been here. I have sat by and heard you speak. I have 
 heard those young men talk of their carpets and their 
 pictures, and laugh at this, and sneer at that, and talk 
 of the proper understanding of life Life ! There is 
 not one of you who knows what the word means. You 
 call yourselves artists; I say you are nothing but 
 lookers-on people who stand by and weigh and criti 
 cise, while others And while you are talking about 
 life, my Edwin has gone out and acted ; he has laid 
 down his life for another, while you And you have 
 every thing in this world," the dull color rushing sud 
 denly to her faded cheek. 
 
 " I think you should be very proud of your husband," 
 said Constance, simply. 
 
 Mrs. Gard stood still a moment, fumbling nervously 
 with the key in the lock. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," she said presently, taking out 
 her coarse cotton handkerchief and passing it quickly 
 over her face. " I m sure I didn t mean to be uncivil, 
 Miss Varley; and after all your aunt s kindness to my 
 husband " 
 
 She hesitated, and put her hand in her pocket and 
 looked up wistfully. 
 
 " I thought I d like to show you " with a hesitating 
 glance at the girl s face. " It s a photograph we had 
 taken of Edwin s testimonial, the silver teapot and 
 tray they gave him in the parish. It isn t a very good 
 photograph ; but if you look at it by the light I 
 copied the inscription on the back there," with a foolish, 
 embarrassed laugh.
 
 298 MIRAGE. 
 
 *^^. ^ 
 
 Miss Varley took the poor little bit of cheap card 
 board in her hand and looked at it for a moment steadily, 
 and then she turned and looked at her companion. 
 The sharp, commonplace face had grown almost beauti 
 ful by the mere force of sincerity and tenderness. She 
 stooped with- a sudden impulse and kissed Mrs. Gard 
 upon the cheek. 
 
 "When the time comes, I think some of us may be 
 ready to give up our lives too," she said. 
 
 The undemonstrative New England woman looked 
 down, embarrassed by the unusual caress. 
 
 "I I did not mean to be uncivil," she repe ated 
 vaguely, and slipped out of the room a moment ^ater 
 with a mute and doubtful glance. 
 
 It was a very mild spring day. 
 
 When she was once more alone, Constance turned 
 instinctively to the window, resting -her arms upon its 
 cushioned ledge and looking out absently at the soft 
 and luminous gray of the sky. 
 
 It was one of those silent, colorless days, when every 
 sound seems to come from far off, and every note of 
 color is intensified to twice its normal value. A day 
 full of light, warm gusts of wind, and quick drops of 
 rain which wet nothing ; the sun shining the while 
 behind the clouds with a silvery and muffled glare. 
 
 She leaned upon the window-sill and looked out 
 absently. 
 
 Once Major Thayer passed under her window ; he 
 was coming back from the bazaar with Mr. Gard, and 
 looked up cheerfully and called her name. She watched 
 them pass in at the open doorway, the clergyman follow 
 ing last with stiff alacrity, a smile upon his thin, ascetic 
 face. He held his hat in his hand as he came in, and 
 the light shone down full upon his high, bald forehead 
 and its meek fringe of smooth gray hair. 
 
 And this man had known supreme self-sacrifice to an 
 ideal ? 
 
 She looked after him meditatively, pausing there on 
 the threshold, as it were, of her own experience, with
 
 ANOTHER LIFE. 299 
 
 the soft, enervating wind blowing about her, in a world 
 made fair and sweet with the rapturous awakening of 
 the spring, lingering a moment to look back at this 
 other life with a vague and anxious inquiry. He had 
 answered the question in his own way; but how when it 
 came to her ? 
 
 The day deepened into noon. She began to move 
 about her room restlessly, fingering her riding-whip, 
 straightening the feather in her hat, dwelling in a hun 
 dred different ways upon the details of her preparation. 
 For this ride had grown to assume a curious importance 
 in her eyes. She looked forward to it with a curious, 
 unworded presentiment, the color flushing softly to her 
 cheeks as she thought how, out there in the silent fields, 
 there might come some look, some word And even 
 to herself she did not end the sentence ; standing sud 
 denly still, on her face a smile of grave and incredulous 
 delight. 
 
 It was after twelve o clock when Fanny came up for 
 her. 
 
 Stuart was going to Baalbeck. His friends had 
 started ; his horse was waiting at the door. 
 
 " He is only delaying to say good-by to you," Mrs. 
 Thayer told the girl reproachfully. 
 
 It was not an impassioned parting. They shook 
 hands by the foot of the stairway. 
 
 " Well, take care of yourself, Constance," said Jack, 
 in his matter-of-fact voice. 
 
 On the whole, I think the young man was inclined to 
 feel a little ashamed of his previous emotion. 
 
 He turned back once more as he was going out of the 
 door. 
 
 "I mean what what I told you yesterday. I ll 
 come back then," with an emphatic nod and a new look 
 of firmness about his mouth. And then he took her 
 hand in his again and held it. 
 
 " You 11 come back ? " said the Major, catching at his 
 last words ; " oh, you 11 come back soon enough, never 
 fear. I think I d back our attractions against Baalbeck."
 
 300 MIRAGE. 
 
 w^ * 
 
 And so, with a good-natured laugh on the old man s 
 side, they parted. 
 
 " It will do the boy good. I don t half like the way 
 he is looking," the Major said to himself softly, gazing 
 after the horseman clattering down the street. And 
 then he turned and contemplated Miss Constance s 
 pale face with a smile of considerable humor, as much 
 as to say, "Good heavena! what tragic young fools 
 these are ! " But I don t think that Constance paid 
 much attention to his meaning. 
 
 She looked up now, drawing a deep, long breath, 
 with the action of a person putting some puzzling ques 
 tion out of mind. She slipped her hand underi- the 
 Major s arm, and paced slowly up and down the court 
 yard at his side. 
 
 " I wish I knew some one who could tell me what I 
 wish to know," she said half aloud. 
 
 The Major looked a-t her with undisguised alarm. 
 
 " My dear, ask Fanny," he began. " Fanny is the 
 proper person " 
 
 And then Constance laughed. 
 
 " I was thinking of the significance of life," she said, 
 with a touch of her old imperiousness. " It seems to 
 make so little difference what one tries to do " 
 
 " A man must be very young to think it makes any 
 difference," said the Major, philosophically. " You 
 young people fancy that your little plans and hesita 
 tions and decisions are shaping life ; and all the while 
 But mind, I am not giving you any advice, you 
 know." 
 
 " No," said Constance, smiling; "you send people to 
 Fanny for that." 
 
 "Exactly," the Major assented, with perfect com 
 posure ; " and when you have been married as long as 
 I have But now about this ride. I suppose you ve 
 heard that I m ordered out for escort-duty ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; you re coming, of course," said Constance, 
 looking down. 
 
 The Major smiled to himself confidentially.
 
 ANOTHER LIFE. 30 1 
 
 " Don t mention it at headquarters," he said aloud, 
 " but I m beginning to find it rather a bore to have to 
 regulate my movements by Mrs. Van Ness." Adding 
 hastily a moment later : " To be sure it always pays 
 better to give in to a woman than to have a row with 
 her ; she s sure to carry her point either way." 
 
 And then he turned and looked at Constance again 
 with an air of amused relief. It was perfectly evident 
 the girl had not been listening to a word of what he 
 said. 
 
 She went back to her own room presently. The 
 absolute quiet of intense expectation had taken posses 
 sion of her. As the hours passed, this self-control only 
 deepened. Fanny, moving restlessly in and out of the 
 room, found her always in the same attitude sitting 
 quietly by the window looking out at the sky. 
 
 " And what you .can find in that dull, gray day to stare 
 at is more than I can see," the little woman told her at 
 last with secret impatience. 
 
 " If you watched it long enough you would see that 
 all those clouds are moving," the girl answered, looking 
 up with a sudden smile in her blue eyes. There was 
 something in the silence, the still and ceaseless unrest 
 :>f this colorless day, wfiich suited her fancy. She could 
 feel the minutes passing one by one, and the sensation 
 gave her a certain pleasure. She had no wish to hurry 
 the flight of time ; on the contrary, this pause of sus 
 pense seemed to her inexpressibly grateful. She kept 
 her thoughts turned resolutely away from what might be 
 coming, only from time to time she felt her heart beat 
 ing quicker, and once she put her hand up to her eyes 
 with a sudden smile to find them full of tears. 
 
 But all the day was not full of this same silence. 
 Down by old Ahmed s house, near the shoemakers 
 bazaar, the narrow street was crowded with loitering 
 groups of men. Now and then these groups were scat 
 tered by the passing of the bare-legged porters bending 
 double under the weight of their heavy bales ; newcomers 
 were constantly arriving, and at every moment the door
 
 302 MIRAGE. 
 
 opened to give passage to some anxious-faced 
 or swarthy Bedawy, with scant, discolored drapery and 
 imperturbable gait. At one moment a large white 
 donkey came trotting down the street, shaking his crim 
 son trappings and bells, and every one made way 
 respectfully for its master, Ahmed himself coming to 
 the door to receive the small, wrinkled old man in the 
 brown-and-white striped abbas and the yellow handker 
 chief bound about his temples with cords of camels 
 hair. 
 
 As the gate was thrown open before him, the men 
 waiting about outside could catch a brief glimpse .of a 
 crowded courtyard, a curious medley of bales and boxes 
 and rope-bound saddles and lines of waiting drome-" 
 daries, huge threadbare-looking beasts, moving their 
 long, thin necks restlessly from side to side, or crouching 
 in uncouth rest along the narrow strip of shadow by the 
 wall. The place was full of men and noise and color 
 the guttural moaning of camels and voluble Arabic 
 voices, and white-clad figures and fluttering robes of 
 blue. 
 
 " By Jove ! a fellow can t help but envy you," said 
 Ferris, looking out at the shifting crowd. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence, to whom the words were addressed, 
 was taking a last look at his old studio. Here, too, was 
 every sign of movement and change ; bare walls and 
 corded boxes, and a confused litter of papers and half- 
 finished sketches and empty color-tubes strewing the 
 tables and floor. 
 
 He looked up now. " I have left you that portfolio 
 of drawings. And, by-the-way, Ferris, there s a lot of 
 blue tiles at Aboo Antika s I ve got the old beggar s 
 receipt for them somewhere ; I told him to send them 
 around to you. I should like to have you keep them. 
 They will do to build a mausoleum to my memory," 
 with a laugh. " You know you never expect to see me 
 back." 
 
 And then again, after a moment s silence : " You 11 
 be glad to hear old Ahmed has come to terms at last."
 
 ANOTHER LIFE. 303 
 
 " About that girl ? " 
 
 Lawrence nodded. " It s all settled ; I m going to 
 paint her. It suddenly occurred to our friend Ahmed 
 that, being an infidel Jewess already, it could hardly 
 hurt little Ayassa much to win her dowry from the 
 exceeding folly of a dog of a Christian. It is a view of 
 the case I take care not to discourage. I shall make 
 something out of that I think, old fellow," looking up 
 with a confident smile. " I believe old Ahmed hardly 
 expected me to go," he added presently ; " and, indeed, 
 until last night " 
 
 The fascination of desert travel seemed to have taken 
 possession of Lawrence already. He went out a dozen 
 times in the course of the morning to watch the prepara 
 tions of the caravan. This silent and sober prevision 
 of great distances, of a barren and lifeless land, affected 
 his imagination. The Bedawy sheikh halted a moment 
 under his window, and the sight of his keen and fleshless 
 face, the thin, black beard and piercing eyes looking out 
 from under the shadow of his gaudy head-dress, gave 
 him a curious thrill of excitement. He sat down and 
 began telling Ferris of his former experiences of 
 desert stretches seen at dawn, of long, silent journeys 
 through the cooler hours before the morning, of even 
 ing encampments, and changeless skies high-arched 
 above illimitable space. And through all his rambling 
 talk, through all the enforced quiet of his manner, 
 Ferris detected, or thought that he detected, the pres 
 ence of some unwonted emotion held out of sight. 
 This very restlessness was something new in Lawrence. 
 
 On entering the studio, his friend had found him 
 busied in nailing up some of the various boxes which 
 filled the room, and although he rose at once, throwing 
 away his hammer with some muttered allusion to the 
 cursed stupidity of these Arab fellows, it had struck 
 Ferris even then that there was something beside the 
 mere desire of travel which was urging him on to push 
 his preparations beyond the possibility of recall. 
 
 " You might have left all this until to-morrow," he
 
 304 MIRAGE. 
 
 suggested once, looking around at the disfftantled 
 studio; "you will find it deuced uncomfortable work 
 waiting all the afternoon with nothing especial to do." 
 
 " I Ve got an engagement," said Lawrence ; " I am 
 going out riding. 1 promised to show Miss Varley some 
 gardens outside the gates." 
 
 Mr. Ferris was silent a moment. 
 
 " Stuart has gone away, I think Davenant told me ? " 
 
 " Stuart," said Mr. Lawrence, looking his friend 
 steadily in the face, " has gone for four or five days to 
 Baalbeck." 
 
 " I suppose you have told them all the people down 
 there at the hotel, I mean that you were leaving^? " 
 
 The young man colored slightly. " ! have not men-* 
 tioned it. I have not seen any one since it was finally 
 decided ; it is not a matter of such very great impor 
 tance," looking out of the window absently. " I hate to 
 have my affairs discussed by a lot of women," he said 
 with sudden irritation. 
 
 Mr. Ferris smiled significantly. " I took a curious 
 liking to that girl, you know," he added presently with 
 a certain irrelevance, and Denis did not ask him what 
 he meant. In the silence which followed there came a 
 knock upon the studio-door. " I say, Lawrence 
 hallo, Ferris, and how did you come here? I say, 
 Lawrence, there s a boy out here who s asking after 
 you," said Davenant, putting in his head. 
 
 He came in and looked about him disconsolately. " I 
 hate these changes. I wish I had not come to spoil my 
 old impression. Do have that boy in, Lawrence. He s 
 got a beautiful face, I noticed, and it will be something 
 to look at," with a reproachful glance at the bare walls. 
 
 The boy was the same boy Jew of whom mention has 
 been made already ; a half-grown lad, whom Denis had 
 picked up between two and three o clock on a bitter 
 March morning, half starved and nearly speechless with 
 the cold. He had been turned out of the house where 
 he worked some day or two before, and had been living 
 in any way he could ever since, prowling about the
 
 ANOTHER LIFE. 
 
 bazaars by day, and fighting with the pariah dogs for 
 the warmest corner at night. On further inquiry, he 
 admitted frankly that he had been turned out for steal 
 ing his late master s dinner. He also remarked casually 
 that that was the way he had been getting his dinners 
 ever since, and there was a nai ve unconcern about his 
 way of mentioning the fact which appealed forcibly to 
 Lawrence s taste for the morally picturesque. He took 
 the boy home with him that night from motives which, I 
 am bound to admit, had more to do with the state of the 
 temperature and the relative thickness of their coats 
 than with the higher forms of justice ; and the lad had 
 attached himself persistently to the young man ever 
 since, carrying his painting-traps from place to place, 
 spending whole days waiting for him outside the door 
 step a loyal and patient and utterly irresponsible little 
 scamp. 
 
 He came in now, carrying a small, folded package 
 which he placed listlessly upon the nearest table. He 
 went and leaned against the wall, an effeminate, supple 
 figure in scarlet and white, gazing calmly at the three 
 young men with his still, dark, oriental eyes. " And 
 what will become of that fellow when you leave ? " said 
 Ferris. 
 
 " Oh, I take the boy with me. That is the worst of 
 playing amateur providence," with a careless look and 
 laugh. 
 
 " You are always picking up desperate characters, 
 Lawrence. You will have to be suppressed some day 
 from motives of sound political economy," said George. 
 
 The package had come unfastened as the boy laid it 
 down ; some yellow beads were lying on the table. 
 
 "More tribute to the beautiful Ayassa? If it s any 
 thing worth looking at I wish you would hang it up in 
 a conspicuous place. These naked walls are simply in 
 tolerable," said Davenant, putting his hand to his eyes 
 as though they ached. 
 
 Denis laughed. " It is only a string of beads I have 
 been having mended for Miss Varley."
 
 306 MIRAGE. 
 
 But he neither touched nor looked at them until The 
 others had left him, and even then he hesitated a mo 
 ment before taking the bauble into his hands. A man 
 with something of a woman s sentiment for trifles I 
 have called him ; he looked at these beads now with a 
 curious attention, holding them a long while between 
 his ringers, as though the mere contact brought him, in 
 some mysterious way, in closer relation to their owner. 
 He found some fanciful analogy between the impression 
 the girl had made upon him and these smooth, delicate 
 circles of sunshine-colored amber. " Something apart 
 and mysterious and inimitable," he thought idly, slipping 
 the yellow chaplet through his fingers, and, as ibout 
 every thing else which she had worn the day before, 
 he noticed that about these beads there lingered the 
 faint suggestion of clinging oriental perfume. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 
 
 THEY started. There was quite a little crowd col 
 lected about the doorway to see the young girl 
 appear in her riding-dress. Mrs. Van Ness herself had 
 come down into the courtyard where she stood leaning 
 upon Fanny s arm, and watching her niece s movements 
 with coldly-unfavorable eyes. 
 
 " And to think, my dear, that your husband should 
 insist upon finishing that sketch before he starts. A 
 man of his age ! It is really too ridiculous," she said 
 with sudden exasperation, as the injudicious Lione 
 brushed by her with one of his ecstatic bounds. 
 
 " I am sure, Aunt Van, if you knew the trouble I 
 have had in persuading him to go at all ; " Fanny pro 
 tested in her plaintive little voice. 
 
 And then they both turned to look at the tall, erect 
 girl moving swiftly down the winding stair, and hold-
 
 " AFTER THREE YEARS." 307 
 
 ing up her habit and fastening her gloves as she 
 came. 
 
 " Such a lovely day, Aunt Van ! Down, sir ; be quiet, 
 Lione ! Such a day for a ride ! " she said with such 
 frank, eager joyousness in all her manner that even 
 Mrs. Van Ness was startled for the moment into some 
 thing very like assent ; and it was only when they had 
 started down the street together, Miss Varley s horse 
 shying and prancing at every wave of Lione s golden- 
 brown ears it was only when the two were fairly off 
 upon their expedition that the old lady devoted herself 
 to the pleasing task of finding fault with Fanny, which 
 she did with an ingenuity of insinuation and a calm se 
 verity of conclusion which would, I fear, have afforded a 
 certain grim and retributive satisfaction to the Major. 
 
 "For I find something shocking, positively shocking, 
 quite inconvenant, in the way you allow Constance to 
 dispose of her own time. Constance has a will of her 
 own? Nonsense, Fanny! A woman of your age," 
 looking Mrs. Thayer stonily in the face, " should know 
 how to manage better than that. There, my dear, you 
 need not answer me. I know what I am saying per 
 fectly well. I consider," said Mrs. Van Ness calmly, 
 "that my niece is as good as engaged to young Stuart. 
 She does not think so, but I do. And under the cir 
 cumstances nothing could be in more deplorable taste 
 than the slightest suspicion of a flirtation with Mr. 
 Lawrence a charming young fellow; a capital list 
 ener ; rather different in that respect from your hus 
 band, my dear Fanny, who never seems to be aware 
 that I am speaking a charming young fellow," said 
 Mrs. Van Ness majestically, " but not a marrying 
 man." 
 
 But this was a consideration which did not seem to 
 have occurred to either of the two young people. It 
 would have been difficult indeed to have found two 
 people more thoroughly well satisfied than they, as they 
 picked their way leisurely along the crowded streets, the 
 horses slipping and starting over the smooth, round
 
 308 MIRAGE. 
 
 stones until the noise of the clattering hoofs overpow 
 ered every other sound ; and their riders were silent, 
 only turning their heads from time to time to exchange 
 a well-contented glance. Once, as they were passing 
 Ahmed s house, the cries of the camels frightened Miss 
 Varley s horse, who shied violently across the road. 
 She was a brave rider, and independent to a fault, but 
 now, when Lawrence laid his hand upon her reins, she 
 gave them up without a word. It seemed the most 
 natural thing to them both that he should have as 
 sumed entire control of their movements. He spoke 
 of it once : 
 
 " I am taking it for granted that I know whichway 
 you wish to go," he said smiling. 
 
 She looked up brightly. 
 
 " I like to be tyrannized over," she said, and then, 
 all at once, it seemed to her that she had always 
 liked it. 
 
 They rode on. Some half-a-dozen Turkish soldiers 
 were lounging and smoking about the city-gate ; a laden 
 camel was crouching by the roadside ; a heavy ordnance- 
 wagon jolted noisily on before them between two lines 
 of sordid yellow wall ; a few paces more, and a palm- 
 tree nodded to them from some hidden garden, the 
 creaking wagon stopped with a clank before the bar 
 rack door, another gate lifted before them its piles of 
 Roman masonry. 
 
 "Now!" said Lawrence, pointing with his whip. 
 The horses sprang forward with a common impulse. 
 The river rushed and foamed on a level with the turf 
 bordering the wide, white road ; and there were tall, 
 green poplar-trees standing deep in the limpid water, 
 and all strong, vigorous-growing things were there 
 tall bulrushes, and low, thick willows, and dark beds 
 of lily-leaves up-springing greenly beneath a pale and 
 luminous sky. 
 
 " At last ! " said Lawrence, drawing a deep breath. 
 
 She looked all about her, and laughed for very joy. 
 "At last!"
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 309 
 
 And then for many minutes there was no other word 
 spoken ; no sound but the muffled beat of horses hoofs 
 sweeping along in quickening cadence on a line with 
 the water s flow. 
 
 It would be difficult to say what the young girl was 
 experiencing in those moments. A feeling of wild 
 delight and of unreality above all, a sentiment of 
 unreality mingled in the strangest fashion with the 
 purely physical exultation in rapid motion and the 
 touch of the warm, moist wind. It was a gray, sunless 
 day, but the horses stopped of their own accord at the 
 foot of the second hill, panting deep breaths, with 
 heaving flanks, and breasts all streaked and shining 
 with heat. 
 
 "There must be a touch of khemseen in the air. 
 We shall have to take it a little more quietly," said 
 Denis, leaning back in his saddle, and pulling off his 
 hat. 
 
 They went on at foot-pace. In that first, long gallop 
 they had left all sight, all suggestion of the city far 
 behind. They were passing now between two long lines 
 of blossoming orchards, deep, walled-in spaces of white 
 and spreading boughs. 
 
 When they ceased to ride fast, the day seemed to 
 grow more still ; there was not a breath of wind stirring, 
 not a sound ; they were entirely alone, only all about 
 them there were great dome-like masses of bloom and 
 whiteness rising up against the gray of the sky. The 
 river, too, had wandered away ; but when they listened 
 they could catch a hundred faint, murmuring sounds ct 
 water, the voice of countless, unseen brooks deep-hidden 
 in the orchard-grass. It was like some forgotten day 
 which had strayed back from its place in the very early 
 spring ; the atmosphere was tepid and moist, as on 
 some silent afternoon in April, with every now and then 
 a thrill of warmer and more enervating air. The sky 
 was low and gray and restless. The horses were con 
 tent to walk on slowly, whinnying from time to time, 
 and striking the ground with impatienf feet.
 
 310 MIRAGE. 
 
 Once, when they were passing before a high, wftoden 
 paling, Lawrence pointed out the place to her. 
 
 " Ahmed s garden. I have had it opened for you. I 
 told the Major to meet us there. We will dismount 
 and go in and see it, if you like, on our way back." 
 
 " You must positively let me get a sketch of you to 
 day," he said a moment later. " The merest outline, a 
 pencil-note, will be enough but I want it this after 
 noon." 
 
 She smiled, well pleased. "Whenever you like, 
 to-day or to-morrow." 
 
 "You have been telling me that for the last tkree 
 days," said Denis. ^ 
 
 " Is it really only three days since we came here ? " 
 with a startled glance. " Why, it seems " She hesi 
 tated, a sudden realization of what those three days 
 counted for in her life sweeping over her and checking 
 her speech. " But you shall have the sketch whenever 
 you please," she said hurriedly. 
 
 " I hardly think that I shall have time to-morrow " 
 He paused so long that she looked up surprised. 
 
 " To-morroW? " 
 
 He opened his lips to speak of his journey. I do not 
 know what impulse it was which kept him silent. The 
 day was so harmonious ; they were both so contented ; 
 there seemed something absolutely brutal in marring 
 this fine unison with any thought of change. And with 
 those questioning blue eyes fixed upon his face, it 
 seemed easier to speak of any thing than leaving. 
 
 " Tell me what was the matter with you last night," 
 he said, putting out his hand and drawing a wisp of her 
 horse s thin mane through his fingers. " I wanted to 
 ask you, several times." 
 
 Her cheek flushed a little. " You ? Why, you were 
 talking to my aunt," she said evasively. 
 
 " I have made a very good impression on Mrs. Van 
 Ness," said Lawrence, smiling. " And, by the way, she 
 has not told you that I am a very charming fellow ? " 
 
 " Never ! "
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 311 
 
 "Ah, well, that is all to come then. You wait and 
 see. I am exceedingly charming, quite remarkably 
 so, in fact ; and when I go home to New York, whenever 
 that event may occur, I am to be invited to a dinner in 
 consequence, to a little dinner." 
 
 "Only eight?" 
 
 "Only eight, of course. I call that exceedingly dis 
 respectful of you, Miss Varley." 
 
 She laughed. " And yet I am fond of my aunt, you 
 know in a fashion." 
 
 " So is Mrs. Thayer." He dropped the lock of coarse 
 black hair, and straightened himself suddenly in his 
 saddle. "You will not tell me why you were so sad 
 last night, then ? " looking keenly at her. 
 
 She was silent, the flush deepening upon her face: a 
 girl made reticent by temperament as well as habit ; un 
 used to sympathy. She would have told him any thing ; 
 but even to herself the words seemed meagre and un 
 satisfactory when they came. But it was impossible 
 he should not understand. 
 
 " Mr. Stuart had told me he was going away. It is 
 only for a few days, but I knew it was my fault, and 
 there are some things that seem so hard to do. I could 
 not help being sorry," her eyes filling suddenly with 
 tears. 
 
 He was the only person who would understand her. 
 It was so easy, so natural to tell him every thing. She 
 turned to him now eagerly. " And then Aunt Van had 
 been finding fault with me all the morning, you know." 
 
 " About Mr. Stuart ? " 
 
 She looked up relieved. It was plain he must under 
 stand to have asked that question. There was some 
 thing in the expression of his face which made her shrink 
 back doubtfully, the same baffled, disappointed feeling 
 of last night creeping over her. And yet he had not 
 said a word ; he was only looking straight ahead at the 
 long, empty road, his hand resting carelessly on his 
 horse s neck. 
 
 "It was about Mr. Stuart?"
 
 312 MIRAGE. 
 
 He turned, and repeated his question gravely ^^and 
 somehow, she could not have told why, but it seemed 
 to her that there was more in his meaning than in the 
 simple words. Yet she answered him with all her cus 
 tomary directness. 
 
 "Yes ; about Mr. Stuart." 
 
 " Aunt Van does not mean any harm," she said in 
 coherently, a moment later, bending over to stroke the 
 horse between his eyes; "I would not like you to think 
 that. Only one s relatives have a way of expecting you 
 to be happy after their own ideas of happiness ; al 
 though, I must say, my experience of near relatives is 
 rather limited. I think there cannot be many girls 
 with so few people belonging to them as I " breaking 
 off with a confused laugh. 
 
 He looked at her fixedly for a minute or two. " Is 
 Mrs. Van Ness your only aunt ? Tell me all about 
 her. Tell me something more about yourself. It seems 
 curious to think how little I know about you in reality," 
 bending forward a little with one of his rare, sudden 
 smiles. Whatever might have been the motive which 
 had made him irresponsive, it was plain that he had rid 
 himself of its influence for the nonce. "Tell me," he 
 said ; and she no more hesitated to grow communicative 
 at his bidding than one of the blossoms about them 
 would have hesitated about unfolding its petals in the 
 sun. 
 
 There was so little to tell, she answered. Mrs. Van 
 Ness was her only near connection; yes. "Aunt Van 
 was my mother s half-sister, and much, very much, the 
 elder of the two. My mother was only twenty when she 
 died," the girl said softly. " My father has a picture of 
 her, taken just after their marriage, an old-fashioned 
 pastel thing with pink cheeks and her hair all brushed 
 back ; but I think it must have been a good likeness, it 
 looks so very much like me." 
 
 She was silent for a moment, looking out wistfully at 
 the sweet spring fields. " She was only twenty ; younger 
 than I am," she repeated softly ; "only twenty, and my
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 313 
 
 father loved her so dearly, and she died. You see I 
 can t help caring for Aunt Van a little, can I ? " turning 
 to Lawrence with a sudden appeal. 
 
 She was so near that he could see the very quivering 
 of her lips. He put up his hand to his own mouth 
 uneasily, smoothing down the ends of his moustache. 
 "Engaged to marry Stuart," he reminded himself once 
 or twice ; chance words out of Mrs. Van Ness s confi 
 dences coming back with gathering meaning. " Damn 
 the woman ! " he thought savagely. 
 
 " You ought to wish me joy," he said to Constance a 
 moment later ; " this is my birth-day. To-day I m 
 thirty-one. I suppose that is a reason for being con 
 gratulated ? " 
 
 "Eight, nine only nine years older than I," said 
 Constance. 
 
 He nodded. "Nine years in point of fact, perhaps; 
 but I am incalculably older than you in reality. Why, 
 I had half got through with life before I was your age. 
 There must be centuries of experience between us by 
 this time," with a sudden tone in his voice which seemed 
 to push her miles away. 
 
 She looked up at him with a patient, puzzled glance. 
 She had done nothing ; there was no reason he should 
 be unkind to her, with a sudden, childish passion of 
 resentment. It was unkind, unjust. 
 
 " You should take that horse up a little more on his 
 curb, Miss Varley. So. These Arab horses are un 
 reliable brutes ; and I can t be responsible for you if 
 you are not obedient," adjusting the reins slowly, and 
 looking into her face the while. He saw something there 
 which seemed to amuse him. " Yes, it is my birthday. 
 We used to have a way of celebrating our birthdays 
 when I was a boy at home : presents first, of course; 
 and then, before we went to sleep at night, a sort of 
 general confession, an overhauling of all the year s 
 mistakes. I used to look forward to that part of 
 it with a sort of nervous horror when I was a little 
 fellow ; it is only as one gets older that one learns
 
 314 MIRAGE. 
 
 to take a paternal interest in the enumeration of*one s 
 faults." 
 
 She bent down and touched Lione s head with the 
 lash of her riding-whip. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Now you are very proud," watching her averted face 
 with the same attentive amusement. " A few years ago, 
 if any one had told you that, you would have felt very 
 unhappy about it and promised to reform ; and now I 
 want you to observe how the best of us degenerate 
 you are playing with your dog and thinking 
 
 She looked up and laughed. 
 
 " Well ? " closing her mouth defiantly. .;. 
 
 " The Sphinx in person ? No ; I don t read thoughts. 
 Your pride is so much a part of you," he said suddenly, 
 "that I honestly believe it would be easier for you to 
 stand by and see your dearest hope founder than put 
 out your hand or save it by a word." 
 
 She turned to him with a startled air. 
 
 " Would I ? I don t know," the color rising suddenly 
 about her throat and cheek. 
 
 " I know it," said Lawrence gravely. " Now, my own 
 faults my own faults," flicking his horse s ears, with a 
 frank, careless laugh, " are vastly worse, belong to quite 
 a lower order of moral turpitude. For one thing, I am 
 more easily diverted from my purpose than any one you 
 ever knew. I should call it a certain plasticity of nature 
 if I were describing the trait to an outsider ; but between 
 you and me," confidentially, " I think it is a horribly 
 mortifying fact. My only line of self-defence is a sort 
 of stony obduracy," laughing. " For if I once begin to 
 listen to the voice of the charmer ! And the worst 
 of it is that it isn t people alone, but days, places, the 
 very commonest things which influence me. Why, the 
 mer fact that the wind is blowing from a certain quarter 
 I m like a French revolution you know the 
 story?" with a sudden touch of mockery "I can t 
 build my barricades if it rains." 
 
 "But that is only one fault if you call it a fault,"
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS: 1 315 
 
 said Constance seriously. " For my part I think I am 
 just a little tired of hermetically-sealed natures. At 
 least I don t know. The outside world seems to me 
 to be something more than just a side-scene or a farm." 
 
 " Did it ever occur to you that there might be people 
 yet, susceptible to precisely those influences which the 
 Greeks embodied in all the wild and beautiful creatures 
 of the water and the woods in fauns and dryads and 
 the shy, white nymphs? It s all very well to call that 
 sort of thing mythical," said Lawrence, " but it was no 
 more a fiction than the religion of the Egyptians was a 
 fiction until the Greeks appeared, or than the religion of 
 the early Hebrews, with all its strange admixture of 
 idol worship and curious Chaldean lore. Why, the high 
 places of these very hills around us were once as sacred 
 to unseen and beautiful or terrible presences as the 
 most nymph-haunted wood in Greece. And who knows 
 what tales will be told, in the course of some thousand 
 years, of a religion which peopled the remote and silent 
 places of mountain and forest and lagoon with way-side 
 shrines and crosses, until there is hardly a spot in 
 Catholic Europe u.ntenanted by the effigy of a god ? 
 And then all the long litany of saints It will not be 
 difficult for our descendants to trace out our mythology, 
 I fancy." 
 
 Constance smiled. 
 
 " The plastic nature again, Mr. Lawrence ? I might 
 have thought Mr. Davenant was speaking if I had shut 
 my eyes." 
 
 " Oh, come now," said Denis hastily ; " I said plastic, 
 you know, not imitative. I believe in the niceties of 
 language, Miss Varley " 
 
 " In discussing your faults ? " 
 
 " In speaking of myself generally. And I don t 
 know about the wisdom of confessing any further. It 
 might affect your present opinion " 
 
 " Try me," said Constance, with her clear, confident 
 glance. 
 
 The horses had been moving on while they were
 
 316 MIRAGE. 
 
 talking. They had reached the extreme limit <tr> trie 
 Field of Damascus, a vast and undulating plain of red 
 dish soil, streaked here and there with lines and patches 
 of young grass. The circling hills seemed nearer and 
 darker under this effect of colorless sky, and between 
 them and that farther range of mountains they could 
 catch a gleam of silvery-looking water, a still, unruffled 
 lake, at which Lawrence glanced curiously from time to 
 time. 
 
 " Do you think it would be too far for us to ride out 
 there ? " Constance asked, pointing to the water with 
 her whip. 
 
 He looked at her gaily. +. 
 
 " If one could get there ! It is odd enough, but this 
 place, this red clay soil, and that gap over there in the 
 hills remind me so strongly of a certain part of Vir 
 ginia. I spent part of a summer there once." 
 
 " I know," the girl said eagerly ; " when you were 
 fighting, when you were in the war." 
 
 " When I was looking on at other people fighting, 
 you mean." 
 
 " Ah," she said, turning quickly, with a great light in 
 her face. "I know more about it than you think. I 
 know what you did. I know the Major has told me." 
 
 " The Major is growing imaginative. But a woman 
 will never understand what a plain, prosaic thing the 
 greater part of a war must be. You forget the camp- 
 life and the tedium and the dulness. And you re right 
 about that, perhaps ; there s nothing very heroic in bad 
 rations and muddy roads and toothache. I think 
 that was one of the greatest shocks I ever had in my 
 life " (laughing) ; " the first time I slept under canvas 
 there were three men in my tent with the toothache. I 
 went down there with the idea that every man fighting 
 for the North was something between a martyr and a 
 hero, and I found them grumbling over a camp-fire with 
 their faces tied up in handkerchiefs like so many old 
 women. Fancy indulging in hero-worship about a man 
 who swore at you for not being a professional dentist ! "
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 3 1/ 
 
 " But you did other things beside that," she insisted ; 
 " you were in a battle ; you were wounded yourself try 
 ing to help some wounded men ; Tom has told me. 
 And I think I would rather have done that what you 
 did than " She bent down and examined the 
 buckle of her reins critically. " I wish you would tell 
 me all about it," the light growing bright and steady in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " But you know it all ; there isn t any story," said 
 Lawrence quietly. " There were a lot of us down there. 
 I wasn t a soldier myself, you know." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " I know. You were one of the Sanitary Commission 
 people ; you were taking care of the poor men in the 
 hospitals, saving their lives " 
 
 " And trying to keep them provided with tolerable 
 soup and biscuit. We might as well stick to facts 
 while we are about it, Miss Varley. Well I really 
 don t know how to make any thing out of such an. un- 
 romantic experience. I happened to be out with the 
 ambulance-men one day. There had been a lively 
 skirmish going on for a couple of days all along the 
 front, and a good many men were missing, shot or 
 bushwhacked, we did not know which ; and so, as I said 
 before, some of us started out to look them up. We 
 knew where we were going when we started to a place 
 where they had driven in our pickets the night before." 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 " Well, we got there and found a couple of graycoats 
 alive still our men had come down on them so quick 
 that they hadn t time to carry off their wounded, so we 
 sent these two into camp on stretchers. They both died 
 on their way there, poor devils ! and we started for home 
 ourselves. And then I really can t tell you how it 
 happened there was a lot of firing, and we all started 
 down the hill at a run, dodging in and out behind the 
 trees ; and the first thing I knew I tripped over some 
 thing, and found myself lying on my back among the 
 sassafras-bushes with a couple of bullets in me."
 
 318 MIRAGE. 
 
 >-. 
 
 She nodded gravely, rubbing the buckle softly with 
 the finger of her glove. 
 
 " Go on ! " 
 
 " Well, that was about the end of it, as far as I was 
 concerned. I suppose I must have fainted then loss 
 of blood and all that sort of thing, you know because, 
 when I opened my eyes again, I could see the stars 
 shining down between the sides of the gully. It was a 
 beautiful, starlight night, I remember, and I could see 
 every thing about me the cracks in the rocks, and 
 the leaves on the bushes nearest me, and then the 
 face of the man the man I stumbled over, /you 
 know." 
 
 She looked up. 
 
 " I suppose he had been dead a good while," said 
 Lawrence slowly; "a young fellow he looked like a 
 gentleman, too, with long hair like a young Virginian. 
 I couldn t move much, you know, so I just lay still and 
 looked at him : he had a fine face, not disfigured in the 
 least. And then towards morning it got awfully cold, 
 and then I felt as though somebody was sawing me in 
 two with a piece of red-hot iron ; well, that was pretty 
 bad. And then two or three times I died. And every 
 time I came to, there was this fellow lying still beside 
 me, with his eyes wide open ; and at last I got so that 
 I found a sort of companionship in having him there ; 
 and I suppose I went off my head a little, for I remem 
 ber quite well hearing myself speaking to him, and 
 saying the most beautiful things you can imagine about 
 death and immortality and swearing frightfully all 
 the while." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Well, then but this was after an interval of two 
 or three hundred years, you know, and I did not much 
 care what happened then, just before daybreak, I 
 saw some lights moving through the bushes, and I heard 
 the voices of some men, and I couldn t call out to them. 
 Perhaps that was the worst moment of it all, when I 
 found I could not speak above a whisper. However,
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 319 
 
 they came up all the same I warned you in the be 
 ginning that it was a very mild tragedy, Miss Varley 
 and one of them put his lantern down over the top of 
 my bush " 
 
 "And then, what did he do? what did he say?" 
 asked Constance. 
 
 Lawrence looked up and laughed. "He said I 
 was in civilian s dress, you know he said, Hollo, 
 here s another of those d d newspaper correspon 
 dents ; and that put me in an awful rage, because I 
 knew the man by sight: his name was Jackson. So 
 I bided my time, and the moment they had poured some 
 brandy down my throat I opened my eyes as wide as I 
 could, and I said : Don t be a fool, Bill Jackson ! and 
 there, as far as I know, the war ended. It was nothing 
 but surgeons and hospital-gruel after that." 
 
 He gathered his reins together as he ceased speak 
 ing, and the horses went off across the plain at a gal 
 lop. "You still want to go as far as that lake?" he 
 asked presently, looking back over his shoulder at 
 Constance. 
 
 Something in his tone puzzled her. " If it is not 
 too far," she began doubtfully, trying to see what he 
 meant by his face. "Is there any thing peculiar I 
 don t quite understand. Is any thing the matter with 
 that lake, Mr. Lawrence ? " 
 
 "Look at Lione," motioning with his whip. 
 
 The dog had been bounding on before them, he had 
 reached the edge of the gleaming water now, and ran 
 straight forward, the shining waves parting and falling 
 away from him on either side. 
 
 " It is the mirage," said Denis quietly ; " is it possible 
 you did not know it ? But indeed I hardly remember 
 ever having seen such a perfect one before." 
 
 " Mirage ! " she repeated incredulously. 
 
 They checked their horses and stood still looking at 
 it. The wide, shining expanse of water lay apparently 
 but a stone s throw off, seeming to gather into itself and 
 focus all the light of the day and sky. "Mirage," said
 
 320 MIRAGE. 
 
 Constance slowly. She forced a smile, even tfiecf to 
 laugh, when Lawrence insisted that they ought to ride 
 on until they reached the lake, since that had been 
 her object ; but the laugh proved a failure ; there was 
 something strangely disconcerting about the illusion 
 just then. 
 
 " And I thought I had meant that to be the end of 
 our ride," she said, with a touch of superstitious regret. 
 It was the merest folly, but it sufficed to make her face 
 a little graver as they turned their horses heads home 
 wards. And on the crest of the hill she paused and 
 looked back at the still and glittering phantasm wkh a 
 sudden shiver of dumb, unreasonable dread. .^ 
 
 " Are you looking for Lione ? " the young man asked 
 carelessly. " He has passed us already ; I saw him 
 running down the road." 
 
 " Oh, he has learned to take care of himself." 
 
 She answered lightly, but it was not so easy to shake 
 off the disturbing impression. Now, at this moment, 
 when her life seemed trembling in the balance for good 
 or ill, the slightest incident a word, a look seemed 
 to have gained a sudden, vital importance. There were 
 no trifles in Miss Varley s eyes to-day. They went back 
 by another road. The river had joined them again ; 
 full-fed and swift and silent beneath its canopy of 
 boughs. And now, in attempting a short cut, they 
 passed through an abandoned Turkish cemetery 
 hundreds of ruined stones crowding about the white- 
 domed tomb of a santon. It was a singularly deserted 
 looking place, all overgrown with thick, rank grass. 
 A peach-tree leaned its full and pink-tipped branches 
 against the -weather-beaten grave, and one small twig 
 which had burst into premature blossom brushed its 
 rose-colored petals against Lawrence s shoulder, as the 
 riders picked their way between the fallen stones. 
 
 "Ah, there is something for you. You must have 
 that," the young man said, bending from his saddle. 
 
 Flower o the peach 
 
 Death for us all and his own life for each.
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 321 
 
 " Here, Miss Varley." 
 
 She took the blossoms silently, and fastened them in 
 her dress. They made a pretty spot of color there, 
 Lawrence told her, glancing back. " You always used 
 to wear flowers. I never remember having seen you at 
 The Farm without some flowers about you. I always 
 thought I had a good memory for details, but I never 
 knew how good it was until within these last few days," 
 he said, watching her curiously. 
 
 She caught his look and turned her face away. 
 
 " I remember things a long while. We shall be late, 
 I am afraid, Mr. Lawrence. You said the Major was 
 to meet us, I believe ? " with a sudden hurry in her 
 voice. 
 
 She looked down at her blossoms two or three times 
 as they cantered along the road, putting up her hand 
 to touch them. It was a long time since he had given 
 her flowers. 
 
 When they reached the gate of Ahmed s garden they 
 both dismounted, Lawrence leading the horses by their 
 bridles along the narrow path. It was a large and 
 green enclosure which they now entered ; a vegetable 
 garden at first ; a place thick-set with apricot-trees, 
 divided into squares by countless small channels of 
 running water, the ground quite covered by thick, dark, 
 spreading leaves. Farther on was an open space of 
 grass, where Lawrence tethered the horses, and beyond 
 that th e ground sloped rapidly down to the river ; a long, 
 white stretch of trees in fullest bloom. 
 
 They took a path which led them to the water. The 
 fruit-trees met and branched above their heads ; thick, 
 foam-white masses of cherry-blossom, and sturdy apple- 
 boughs, all clustered over with crisp, rosy flowers, and 
 the frail, shivering beauty of the pear. And here, in 
 these sheltered places, were young peach-trees, with 
 bare, shining stems, and here and there a single rose- 
 flushed star ; and down in the hollows the full-petalled, 
 flesh-colored quince-blossoms, which opened wide among 
 the coarser leaves. It was not an orchard ; it could not
 
 322 MIRAGE. 
 
 be called a flower-garden ; it was only a place ^blos 
 soming the home of all strong, green things ; for here 
 were broad-leaved vines climbing between the branches, 
 and a tangled network of rose-bushes covered .all over 
 with large, green rosebuds streaked with dullest red ; 
 and on the ground the grass was gay with tall, rank 
 buttercups and the flaunting yellow of the melon- 
 flower ; and by the edge of the river were all thick 
 growths of water-plants, and leafy, lisping poplars 
 "the verdurous wall of Paradise;" and everywhere 
 the clean, moist smell of the earth, the feeling of 
 abundant moving water, the sense of exuberant -veg 
 etable life. V 
 
 There was something in the languid softness of the 
 air which made the slightest movement an exertion. 
 They rested now, warm and breathless, upon a dark, 
 elastic couch of lily-leaves close by the river s brink. 
 A pale and silvery sunshine was breaking through the 
 clouds. 
 
 "Listen ! it seems as though one could almost hear 
 the things growing in fhis stillness," Constance said ; 
 and then for several minutes they were silent, she fan 
 ning herself slowly with a bunch of the stiff lily-leaves, 
 and Denis lying upon his back, his hands clasped 
 behind his head, looking up at the gray sky through 
 the motionless white boughs. 
 
 It was a delicious moment of satisfied animal exist 
 ence. They could feel themselves living, a part of all 
 the still, strong life about them, growing slowly con 
 scious of a hundred well-nigh imperceptible sights and 
 sounds the varying voice of the water, and sudden 
 mysterious thrills and shivers among the leaves, where 
 not a breath of air was stirring a whole new world 
 of noiseless insect-existence ; the low, sharp note of 
 some passing bird ; the ceaseless dropping of over 
 blown petals into deep grass. 
 
 In the intervals of sunshine the trees seemed to grow 
 larger and whiter. 
 
 " How far can you see ? " the young girl asked, after
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 323 
 
 a long pause. "A moment ago all the line of that hill 
 came out in shadow, and there, between those poplars, 
 I could see something shining, a line of yellow close 
 to the horizon, a line of desert sands." 
 
 "The desert!" repeated Lawrence vaguely. " In 
 the desert love builds triumphal arches out of the 
 shifting sands. That is a Persian proverb, you know. 
 I think," picking up a dead bit of wood and snapping 
 it in two between his fingers with a sudden, impatient 
 recollection of Stuart, " I think it is an everyday 
 fact." 
 
 He tossed the broken splinters in the stream and 
 sat up abruptly. The charm of silence was broken 
 with the first intrusion even the imaginary intrusion 
 of another personality. He sat up now and talked, 
 talked to her witjj an impulse of confidence which he had 
 never felt but once before in his life towards any woman. 
 They spoke of many things, but it was noticeable they 
 spoke more of things than of people ; of books which 
 they had read ; of impressions which they had received ; 
 of a hundred personal fancies and desires peculiar to 
 each, and yet shared or understood by the other. 
 
 " You are the only person I ever met who reminded 
 me of my mother," Lawrence said to her once. " No 
 two people could h ave grown up under more widely- 
 differing influences, and yet there is something a 
 certain quality of nature. She was, in one sense of 
 the word, an ignorant woman ; she never cared for 
 politics or literature ; she lived and died a fervent 
 Roman Catholic, an ardent Southerner and believer 
 in the divine right of slavery there was hardly a point 
 on which, as I grew older, we two were agreed; and 
 yet, when I remember her now, I can see that there 
 has never been a good impulse in my life, a love of the 
 beautiful, a recognition of high purpose in others, which 
 I cannot trace directly to my mother s influence. She 
 was a woman who evoked goodness in others as the sun 
 brings life out of the frozen earth," he said slowly, with 
 a sudden thrill of emotion in his well-controlled voice.
 
 324 MIRAGE. 
 
 It was the first time since she had known hfifi- ttiat 
 Constance had heard him speak of his early life. She 
 listened to him now with a silent, passionate tenderness, 
 extending back through all those unknown years, for 
 she was. curiously ignorant of all but the most evident 
 facts of that past. Lawrence was a man who seldom 
 spoke of himself ; and since the very first days of their 
 acquaintance, in speaking to others, his name had never 
 crossed her lips. 
 
 As he talked to her now of those old boyish days, 
 he seemed, with every careless, familiar detail, to grow 
 nearer and more inexpressibly dear ; and at every word 
 she shrank more into herself, growing more reserved; and 
 silent. She had been used to think of him as of an 
 ideal, isolated, away from the contact of common as 
 sociations and ties ; and this new aspect of his life 
 impressed her with a curious sense of bewilderment ; 
 it seemed so full and self-sufficing an existence, and 
 she so much a stranger to it all. 
 
 She had asked him some question about his mother. 
 
 "The girls my sisters were never so intimate 
 with her," he said. " I don t know how it was, but in 
 some way we two always seemed to belong more par 
 ticularly to one another. Long after I was grown up 
 we were in the habit of going off constantly on expe 
 ditions, travelling, amusing ourselves together, until I 
 was quite a young man, until " (with a sudden effort) 
 "I married." 
 
 She bent her head, keeping her eyes fixed upon the 
 water. " Yes," she said gravely, " I know." 
 
 But there had been something in the words which 
 jarred upon them both. The girl rose hastily a moment 
 after. " If we should miss the Major ! You told him 
 to meet us at the gate yonder," in a tone which seemed 
 to put an end to the discussion. 
 
 She followed him silently to the gate. It was some 
 thing which she had never felt before this dumb and 
 burning passion. They had never hitherto been thrown 
 into close enough personal relations to evoke a feeling
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS: 1 325 
 
 of jealousy, but now Her hand trembled at his touch 
 as he helped her into the saddle, but the eyes which 
 met his glance were steady as ever and unspeakably 
 sad. It was a look he remembered long after ; at the 
 moment it had slipped aside, crowded out of mind by 
 the merest detail of fact. For the Major was nowhere 
 to be seen. 
 
 " If you really care about meeting him, we might 
 walk our horses back as far as the cross-roads. He 
 is after his time now. We are sure to find him at 
 the turning." 
 
 They started back accordingly. The day had grown 
 darker ; the uniform, gray sky was parting now, torn 
 into jagged, flying strips of cloud. " A sea-sky, that," 
 Lawrence remarked idly, glancing up at the hurrying 
 and vexed mists. The words seemed to bring back 
 some other recollection. 
 
 " I had a letter from a friend of mine. You have 
 been at Nahant, Miss Varley?" looking at her with 
 a new attention. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You went a good deal into society there ? You knew 
 a great many people ? " 
 
 " I was staying with my aunt last summer. Yes, we 
 went out a great deal. I did not like it," she said 
 indifferently. 
 
 " I had a letter from a man there, a day or two ago. 
 I daresay you know him Morris Stuyvesant. He and 
 I are rather old friends." 
 
 It amused him for the moment to see the effect of 
 his words in the sudden color which flushed across her 
 cheek. But she answered with the simple straight 
 forwardness which gave a purpose and a meaning to 
 her slightest word. " I did know Mr. Stuyvesant. He 
 is a friend of my aunt s. I should not have thought," 
 looking at him gravely, " that you would have made 
 Mr. Stuyvesant a friend of yours." 
 
 He did not reply at once, and when he did it was only 
 to say quietly, " One has to know all kinds of men. I ve
 
 326 MIRAGE. 
 
 ~-^ *" 
 seen a great many worse fellows than Stuyvesant," but 
 
 he was annoyed at himself all the same ; he felt fastid 
 iously irritated at the thought of having introduced 
 this stranger s name between them. It suited him for 
 the moment to ignore every thing but the pleasure of 
 this frank, responsive companionship ; and already a 
 dozen things had occurred since they started to remind 
 him of the limitations set all about their intercourse. 
 This one spring afternoon might be all that they should 
 know of each other for years, he thought regretfully ; 
 for as Mr. Stuart s wife And then he looked away 
 across the opening fields before them. But was it frue ? 
 he asked himself. Was it? - 
 
 " If you don t mind waiting here a moment, the 
 Major is sure to join us now in a minute or two," he 
 said aloud ; " and meanwhile I might get my drawing." 
 
 He drew a small sketch-book out of his pocket as he 
 spoke. They had halted at the turning of two roads. 
 Behind them lay the foamy sea of blossoms, before them, 
 the bare and melancholy plain stretched to the city- 
 walls. The tepid, fitful wind blowing across these open 
 spaces came to them sweet with inexplicable sweetness, 
 and faint with all the languor of the spring. It was the 
 hour for sunset, but the sad, gray sky hung pale and 
 irresponsive above the empty plain. It was only far off 
 and low down by the horizon that a warmer flush r- a 
 color pale as the later crocus which comes with the 
 autumn skies showed where the day was dying slowly 
 behind the shadowy hills. 
 
 Denis had nearly finished his sketch. He lingered 
 over his work for a moment, looking up from his draw 
 ing at the pure and noble outline of the face before him. 
 In those few days it had already become associated in 
 his mind with some of the loveliest things in Nature, 
 with soft and limpid skies, spring winds, and all the 
 large and liberal stirring of life about the new-born 
 year. But now he looked at her with something of a 
 more personal feeling; with an irritated chafing at the 
 very vagueness of their relations, with a sudden desire
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 327 
 
 to break out of this charmed space of silence into what 
 ever of real life for good or ill might lie beyond. His 
 journey, his plans, his intentions, had sunk into the in 
 significance of a dream. All the refining of sentiment, 
 the hesitation which was natural to him had abandoned 
 him at this moment. The whole world seemed to have 
 narrowed down to this ; an open plain, a sad, spring 
 twilight, and the face of this silent girl. 
 
 But he made an effort to speak in his ordinary tone. 
 "You have forgotten that I had something of yours all 
 this time, and yet I think it is something you care for/ 
 putting his hand in his breast-pocket and drawing out 
 her amber beads. " You will let me put them on for 
 you ? " His own voice sounded to him uncertain and 
 strange. She held out her bared wrist without speaking, 
 and he wound the string of beads about it awkwardly, 
 his fingers growing suddenly irresolute as they touched 
 the firm white skin. 
 
 She drew back shivering. " I think I mean " 
 
 She turned her head abruptly, put out her hand and 
 picked a leaf from off the nearest branch, and looked at 
 it, and threw it away. 
 
 There was a long silence after this. He was sitting 
 with his hand upon the crutch of her saddle. From far 
 down the darkening road came the muffled clatter of 
 horsemen riding fast ; their own horses stirred uneasily 
 at the sound, pricking up their ears, with a low whinny 
 of expectation. " I hear some one coming," said Con 
 stance beneath her breath. 
 
 He did not heed her speaking. " I want to ask you 
 something," he said irresolutely. He passed his hand 
 quickly over his face and looked at her. " I ought not 
 to have spoken to you about Stuyvesant. I knew that 
 you had refused to marry him. I thought 1 would like 
 to ask you why if it was, because " To save his 
 life he could not have mentioned Stuart s name at 
 that moment. "Do you love any one else?" he said 
 brusquely, with a sudden determination to face and 
 know the truth.
 
 328 MIRAGE. 
 
 She shivered again as though the wind had IStru ck 
 her. For three years she had waited for some such 
 moment, and now words failed her ; she tried to speak, 
 and felt her lips tremble. She could not look at him ; 
 and now did he not understand ? And then through the 
 silence she heard the measured hoof-beats coming 
 nearer and nearer. 
 
 " I did not marry Mr. Stuyvesant," repeating his 
 words blindly, " because I loved some one else. Be 
 cause It is three years now three years " 
 
 " That you love Stuart ? I knew it ! " He spoke 
 the words out sharply, putting up his hand as though to 
 prevent her saying them. "I think God kncjys," 
 with a sudden, generous effort, " I hope you will both be 
 happy. He he is a good fellow, Stuart. He deserves 
 his luck." 
 
 He was careful not to look at her as he spoke, keep 
 ing his face turned towards the approaching riders, 
 jealously careful of any thing which might cast so 
 much as a shadow over the happy unconsciousness of 
 her love. Every tender, every chivalric instinct in his 
 nature had been touched by the brave simplicity of her 
 confession. He was silent now until he could com 
 mand his voice fully. " That is the Major and Hassan, of 
 course ; but I cannot make out the third figure," he said. 
 
 The men were drawing rapidly nearer, and now the 
 Major raised his hat to Constance. 
 
 " So sorry to have kept you waiting," his kindly old 
 voice ringing cheerily through the twilight ; " but I 
 bring news, Lawrence. You re under marching orders 
 again, my boy," bringing up his horse alongside of them. 
 " Here, Mustapha, Selim what the deuce is the fel 
 low s name ? Give us a look at that paper." 
 
 The third rider was Lawrence s own servant, the little 
 Jew boy, muffled in an Arab cloak. He came up now 
 at a canter, waving a letter above his head : " From my 
 Lord Ahmed, O Howadji." 
 
 The young man glanced over the scrawl eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, it s too late to read that now," the Major said ;
 
 "AFTER THREE YEARS." 329 
 
 " why you d require an hour to figure out those hiero 
 glyphics ; but we Ve brought the gist of it with us, my 
 boy. They are in a dreadful state of excitement about 
 you down there at the hotel. You haven t a moment to 
 lose, you know, for your caravan starts for Bagdad, or 
 the Mountains of the Moon, or wherever else you are 
 going, to-night. That s what you call short notice, eh, 
 Constance? But it s nothing to what we were used to 
 in the old army days." 
 
 The girl was looking down vacantly at the reins be 
 tween her fingers. She gathered them tighter together 
 now. " I think we had better ride fast to the hotel. 
 Mr. Lawrence will be hurried," in a subdued, monoto 
 nous voice. 
 
 The Major laughed. " As practical as ever, Con 
 stance ! But you are quite right." 
 
 "Come along, Lawrence; Constance is right you 
 haven t a moment to lose. And you 11 see that I shall 
 be the only one to say I mean to miss you," turning 
 his horse s head about with his shrewd, good-humored 
 laugh. 
 
 It was not twenty minutes hard riding to the hotel- 
 door. The courtyard was full of men when they en 
 tered. Old Ahmed had sent messenger after messenger, 
 and there was a sudden chatter of excited voices, a 
 sudden pressing forward of urgent hands as Lawrence 
 dismounted from his horse. He put them all aside 
 impatiently, helping Constance out of the saddle, and 
 following her to the foot of the stairs without a word. 
 
 " I m sorry, very sorry, to say good-by to you," he 
 said simply. 
 
 It was growing dark in this walled-in place ; one of 
 the last comers had brought with him a lantern ; the 
 light flashed for an instant across the girl s white and 
 rigid face, and then he could see nothing more but the 
 silhouette of her figure relieving darkly against the wall. 
 
 " Come on, Lawrence ! Look sharp about it, and I 
 shall have time to ride round and see you fairly off 
 before dinner."
 
 330 MIRAGE. 
 
 She put out her hand with a sudden movement n I 
 hope you will be very happy, Mr. Lawrence. Good-by." 
 
 He bent down over her hand and kissed it, but I 
 think she was hardly conscious of it at the time. She 
 turned, and left him standing at the foot of the stair, 
 and looking after her as she had left him once before, 
 but with what a difference ! 
 
 Mrs. Thayer was passing down the upper gallery. 
 The girl stopped and spoke to her. " Yes, a very 
 pleasant ride, thank you. Mr. Lawrence is going, 
 Fanny, if you care to say good-by." 
 
 " What ! going away ? " 
 
 She looked back and nodded without speaking. The 
 door of her room was standing open ; she went in sud 
 denly, and closed and locked this door behind her. 
 Her room was in the front of the house ; her window 
 was still open as she had left it that morning ; she could 
 hear the sound of the men s voices, the clatter of hoofs 
 upon the pavement below. 
 
 She crossed over slowly to where her small travelling- 
 trunk had been thrown in one corner, bending over it, 
 and opening it with a curious deliberation. She took 
 out a small, sealed package and laid it upon the table, 
 and then she lighted a candle, her gloved hands begin 
 ning to tremble a little, so that she had to strike three 
 or four matches before she could get one to burn. 
 
 She tore off the paper covering and took out of it a 
 journal. There were some loose papers, a sketch, a 
 photograph lying upon it ; but these she put carefully to 
 one side, tearing out each leaf of the book methodically, 
 and holding it over the flame until it curled and crum 
 bled into ashes between her fingers. And, last of all, 
 she took up the photograph. The fire charred and 
 blackened it along the edges ; she let it fall ; she drew 
 a long breath, leaning hard against the table, and then 
 for the first time she lifted up her eyes and saw herself 
 in the glass. 
 
 " After three years ! " 
 
 She looked down at her hands, and began to pull off
 
 THE LAST LOOK BACK. 331 
 
 the blackened gloves nervously. The room was full of 
 smoke and the pungent smell of burning paper. She 
 looked over at the window, through which the smoke 
 was floating slowly out and melting into the quiet gray 
 of the evening. 
 
 " After three years ! " she repeated again slowly, look 
 ing down with a pitiful laugh at the dust of crumpled 
 ashes on the floor. And then for a few minutes she 
 ceased to think at all, standing there quite motionless 
 long after the last red sparkle of fire had died away, and 
 the last glimmer of light had sunk into ashes and dust. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE LAST LOOK BACK. 
 
 DURING the week which followed, Ferris saw a 
 good deal of Miss Varley. 
 
 By his quiet attention he managed very often to keep 
 her occupied shielded from the questions and ob 
 servations of her aunt ; and in thinking of these sad 
 old days of her youth, she has often had occasion to 
 remember and be grateful for an unobtrusive kindness 
 of which at the time she was hardly aware. 
 
 The Major, too, was very good to her. How much 
 he understood or had guessed of her story, Constance 
 never knew she never cared to ask. She accepted 
 whatever came to her in those days with a silent and 
 well-nigh dogged endurance, which rarely looked beyond 
 the matter in hand. 
 
 Mrs. Thayer may have noticed that she was a trifle 
 thinner and paler and more quiet than usual. Mrs. 
 Van Ness patted her upon the shoulder and spoke of 
 Constantinople. " When your nice young friend, Mr. 
 Stuart, returns from Baalbeck, my dear " And both 
 of them reioiced in private over this most fortunate
 
 332 MIRAGE. 
 
 turn of affairs, discussing the girl s possible disappoint 
 ment placidly, with essentially feminine scepticism. 
 And then they spoke eagerly of her probable establish 
 ment, and criticised the Stuart family at large, and were 
 both of them as sincerely glad as they were both, in 
 their different degrees, sincerely fond of Constance. 
 
 " If only Tom does not spoil it all with his foolish 
 ness ! " Fanny sighed. 
 
 It was just a week after Lawrence s departure, and 
 the Major had taken Constance out for a ride. They 
 had gone again to Ahmed s garden. 
 
 When they reached the cross-roads the Major had 
 proposed taking another direction. + 
 
 "I should like to go back to where to where we 
 rode a few days ago," the girl answered steadily. 
 
 " As you please, my dear," turning about his horse s 
 head with as much wonder over feminine perversity as 
 could well be expected of a married man with a taste 
 for philosophy. 
 
 And when they had reached the gate, he let her go in 
 alone. 
 
 " I shall stay here and sketch," rubbing his short 
 gray beard doubtfully. He called her back again as 
 she was turning away. " Don t stay too long on the 
 damp grass by that river, child. It s unhealthy low, 
 marshy ground. The whole country seems designed for 
 frogs or angels. It s no place for human beings subject 
 to rheumatism," fitting his palette leisurely across his 
 strong, large hand. 
 
 But there was no smile on his vigilant face as he 
 watched her pass quietly out of sight between the rose 
 bush hedges. He looked after her with a rough tender 
 ness which would rather have astonished Fanny. 
 
 " Poor little girl ! " he said, shaking his grizzled head 
 thoughtfully. It is possible that his thoughts had wan 
 dered back to a time when he too was young and most 
 miserable. " If she could only know for how short a 
 time it makes a difference," he said, and fell to painting 
 philosophically, life being brief, and moist water-
 
 THE LAST LOOK BACK. 333 
 
 colors a precarious possession at best in such a 
 climate. 
 
 It was a sea-blue summer day. There was nothing 
 about her but had undergone some change since the 
 last time Constance had walked between these hedges. 
 The ineffable hesitation of the spring-time had vanished. 
 Every note of color was accentuated. The trees cast 
 a deeper shadow across the path ; the soft new grass 
 was brilliant with new flowers ; the reign of the blos 
 soms was over, and in their place a thousand small 
 green leaves were glistening in the sun. Already there 
 was a new, full breath of opening roses upon the drier 
 air. 
 
 It was only down by the river that nothing was 
 altered, neither the swift, smooth, abundant flowing 
 of the water, nor the strong, thick growth of the water- 
 plants, nor the bitter smell of beds of lily-leaves. She 
 sat down under the same old poplar-tree ; a ray of sun 
 light slipped between its branches, and the restless 
 movement of the foliage kept a perpetual play of light 
 leaf-shadows dancing about her hands and hair. She 
 could not have told herself what motive had prompted 
 her to revisit this place ; only, through all the dreary 
 days and nights through which she had been living, she 
 had been haunted by a restless desire to come here 
 once again ; and now she drew a deep breath, and 
 looked about her with the air of a person who has 
 accomplished some purpose. 
 
 She leaned her face upon her hand and closed her 
 eyes like one physically tired. And she was weary 
 enough, poor child ! weary of effort of long and loyal 
 and fruitless effort and weary above all of idle ques 
 tioning of fate. It might be easy now to see how all 
 this could have been averted ; but even now, when she 
 thought of it, her silence towards Lawrence seemed to 
 her to have been the one inevitable fact, the only thing 
 she could have done, the one moment to which she 
 looked back with a sort of despairing pride. For he 
 had congratulated her upon her marriage with Stuart.
 
 334 MIRAGE. 
 
 He had congratulated her ! closing her hands*"ha rd 
 one upon the other, and looking down at them with a 
 pitiful laugh. 
 
 And then for a moment all thought of self was swept 
 away in one passionate revulsion of feeling, in one 
 wild desire to see him, to be with him, to speak to him 
 again, to see him for one moment. 
 
 She did not cry, these long years of repression, 
 this life-long habit of self-control, stood her now in 
 good stead ; but she turned and pressed her cheek 
 against the rough bark of the tree. He had leaned 
 there beside her only a week ago. She put up -her 
 hand to her throat helplessly, her blue eyes growing 
 dark and misty with a look of unutterable grief. It was 
 the farewell of a loyal and patient heart, dumb and 
 faithful even unto death. 
 
 For Constance had made up her mind to marry 
 Stuart. 
 
 If she had not been thrown into close personal rela 
 tion with Denis Lawrence, it is possible it is probable 
 that the devotion to this ideal might have sufficed for 
 many years to fill her life. But, once brought near to 
 him, the old barriers broken down, the girl s clream had 
 changed into the passionate love of the woman. There 
 was no return possible to the old condition of things. 
 For she did love him. He had never, perhaps, been so 
 inexpressibly dear to her as at that moment. There was 
 not a look, not a familiar gesture, the turn of his head, 
 the trick of his voice, which she did not remember and 
 go over again and look at with a passion of hopeless 
 pain, with something, it may be, of the yearning 
 anguish of a mother looking upon the dead face of her 
 child. For it was not a common love this girl was 
 losing ; it was the loyal love of all her life, that had 
 grown with her growth, the ideal of her existence ; it 
 was more than all this, it was her youth which Con 
 stance Varley buried that day. 
 
 And she did love him. Whatever any one else 
 might think of Lawrence, he was to her still what he
 
 THE LAST LOOK BACK. 335 
 
 had always been always since the first day she had 
 known him. Only then she had loved him and hoped, 
 and now the hope was dead. 
 
 She looked down at the stream flowing by her in cool 
 and beautiful and unreturning waves ; and there came 
 to her at that moment a sudden revelation of the awful 
 futility of all experience, the fatal passing away of 
 youth and love, of sorrow and joy, to one common and 
 swift and inevitable end. The sunshine shone upon 
 the abundant water ; a thrush was singing rapturously 
 to its mate among the hawthorn bushes ; the full-leafed 
 summer trees waved in the warm, still air ; the sky was 
 of a deep and fleckless blue ; there was not an object 
 in all this beautiful world about her but rejoiced in the 
 ample fruition of its life : and for the first time she felt 
 herself an alien to it all, a troubled human soul 
 questioning, and unanswered, and alone. 
 
 She thought of Stuart ; the possibility of making him 
 the happier for her own existence had come to repre 
 sent to her the only significance of her life. It was 
 what Denis s mother would have done in her place, she 
 thought ; that woman, " who was so sad in her own life 
 she spent it all in making others happy." And then as 
 she repeated the words she could almost hear his voice 
 saying them, and then again it seemed to her that she 
 could not bear it. If she had ever cared in the least for 
 Stuart, if she had ever felt the first spontaneous impulse 
 of attraction towards him, she could never have decided 
 to have married him then. But the thing came to her 
 as a sacrifice ; she herself had had one chance for hap 
 piness in life and lost it, and her first instinct was to put 
 out her hand to give to another what she herself might 
 never have. 
 
 For she had no illusions about that probable future. 
 What life was coming to her she saw and understood, 
 clearly and simply, with no mental reservations, with a 
 despairing acceptance of duty and limitation alike. 
 
 To live, to comprehend the highest beauty, the pro- 
 foundest significance of every passing moment* to know
 
 33^ MIRAGE. 
 
 ,___ . 
 
 the ecstasy of love ; to know the blessedness of pfcsses- 
 sion, the rare blessedness of gift this is success in life, 
 and this is happiness. But to make of suffering the key 
 note to another s pain ; to learn from loneliness the pity 
 for another s grief ; to merge all sorrow, all despair, in 
 one wide brotherhood of understanding surely, this 
 too is success. 
 
 Success, but not happiness. 
 
 It is not happiness but to the majority of human 
 beings this absolute personal happiness will never come. 
 We are young, and the world is ours to win : we are 
 older, and the promise and the glory, " all those things 
 are passed away like a shadow, and as a post Jhat 
 hasted by." 
 
 And in this brief life we all die many times in 
 friendship outgrown, in faith, in changed experience. 
 Surely, they too may be called blessed to whom this 
 death comes quickly, to whom past love remains ideal, 
 hidden away safe from the touch of time and change, 
 deep in some charmed and silent space of life. 
 
 But Constance was rather acting upon than thinking 
 of these things. When, as she fancied, she had pre 
 pared herself to surrender all the old dreams, the old 
 desires, she had not counted upon the influence of this 
 place. It was here that she had come with Lawrence 
 in the still, spring afternoon which already seemed so 
 far, so very far away ; it was here Her hand in pass 
 ing over her dress had brushed against some faded 
 blossoms still fastened in it from the other day s ride, 
 and now the only thing left to her out of all the days 
 that had been. She sat looking at them quietly enough 
 for a moment, and then her proud lips began to tremble, 
 she put her hands out with a passionate gesture. " Oh, 
 my love ! " she said aloud, and the bitter tears rose 
 slowly to her eyes, as she said it, " oh, my dear love, I 
 could have made you so happy if you had only let me ! " 
 
 And then through the murmurous silence of the sum 
 mer day, she heard the quick tramp of a man s step 
 coming towards her through the grass. And then, for
 
 THE LAST LOOK BACK. 337 
 
 an instant, she leaned heavily against the tree, and her 
 heart seemed beating up in her throat, and she felt her 
 very lips grow cold. 
 
 It was Stuart who joined her there under the poplars. 
 She knew it ; she had known it all along ; but she 
 pressed her hand hard against her lip before she an 
 swered him ; her voice seemed to have grown broken 
 and beyond her control. 
 
 He came up rapidly and caught her hands in his. 
 " Constance ! " 
 
 It was not until long afterwards that he remembered 
 that she had expressed no surprise at his sudden reap 
 pearance. "I I have come back," he said breath 
 lessly. " I couldn t stay away any longer. And they 
 told me at the hotel that you were out here, and It s 
 a very nice place you ve found here," without taking his 
 eyes off her face. 
 
 " Yes," said Constance. 
 
 " I saw old Tom at the gate, you know. Baalbeck is 
 a fine old place, for a ruin. I should think one could 
 get a little shooting out there occasionally ; we saw some 
 partridges. Tom asked me to tell you that he was ready 
 to go," with a nervous laugh. 
 
 " I am ready," she answered gravely. And neither of 
 them moved. 
 
 The low sunlight shining in beneath the trees filled all 
 the space about them with a reddish glow. He stood and 
 looked at her a moment in silence the woman he loved. 
 
 The young fellow s voice had grown unsteady with 
 excitement as he repeated her name. 
 
 " Constance ! " 
 
 She turned her head and waited. 
 
 " I saw Davenant at Baalbeck. He is going to 
 Palmyra " 
 
 " I know." 
 
 " He said he told me Lawrence has gone away, 
 Constance." 
 
 She put her hand up to her throat suddenly. " Yes," 
 in a sharp, unnatural tone. " He has gone."
 
 33 8 MIRAGE. 
 
 He did not care for her manner. It was the fac^ribt 
 the words, he wanted. He came close by her now. 
 Her hand was hanging by her side ; he took it in his 
 and looked down at it, lying white and nerveless in his 
 grasp. " I told you I should come back, and I am here, 
 Constance," closing his ringers slowly over hers as he 
 spoke. 
 
 She looked at him now. " I will tell you something. 
 You are very good to me, Jack. I don t know why you 
 should care for me. It is rather hard to understand 
 this life" (with a little pitiful smile), " but at least one 
 can be honest. You say that Mr. Lawrence " . 
 
 He put out his other hand quickly. " Don t speak to 
 me of Mr. Lawrence, dear. You need not tell me. I 
 don t want to know. We have all of us had our fancies 
 for other people, I suppose," with blunt simplicity, a 
 kind, sweet-tempered look coming into his clear, blue 
 eyes. " I don t imagine you are different from other 
 people. Heaven knows, I might not care to have to 
 own up to all my own flirtations." He stopped abruptly 
 and looked at her, the color rising slowly to his hand 
 some face. " I m not afraid of Lawrence or of Stuyve- 
 sant," with a delicious thrill of triumph, " or of any 
 other man, if you say once that you will be my wife. 
 I You ve got all my life in your hands, Constance, 
 and for the rest I trust you." 
 
 There was a moment of profound silence, and then 
 he saw her breast heave suddenly. 
 
 She stood up and turned her face away, and loosened 
 her hands. 
 
 " I have the right to say that you can trust me 
 utterly," she said. 
 
 The red glow of the sunset was all about them now. 
 He stood holding her hands and looking down at her 
 with a kind of bewildered delight. Jealousy, except 
 the immediate personal jealousy of a rival present in 
 flesh and blood, was a passion absolutely unknown to 
 Stuart ; his nature was too objective for that. Where 
 Lawrence would have driven himself mad with per-
 
 THE LAST LOOK BACK. 339 
 
 sistent imaginings, he saw nothing bXit the facts 
 her presence. 
 
 " Constance ! " repeating her name again and again. 
 " Constance ! " And she was to be his wife. 
 
 And then I think it was that poor Jack indulged in 
 the one piece of sentiment of his life. 
 
 " Do you remember that day on Mount Gerizim ? 
 You were very unkind to me that day, dearest," bending 
 down and kissing her hair. " I asked you to do a great 
 many things for me that day, and you would not. You 
 would not even give me the flowers you wore ; do you 
 remember? And now you will give me this," touching 
 the faded peach-blossoms in her dress. " I want it as a 
 sign a promise." 
 
 She looked at him and then down at the flowers. " I 
 cannot give you these, Jack," she took them out of her 
 dress and held them in her hand ; " they are dead." 
 
 " But I can get you some others in a minute," said 
 Stuart eagerly. He swung himself lightly clown the 
 bank to where a belated cherry-tree spread its white 
 boughs across the little river. The blossoms were over 
 blown, and fell and scattered at his touch. " I 11 get 
 them yet ! " he called out gaily, trampling in amongst 
 the river-reeds. 
 
 She held the faded blossoms in her hand and looked 
 at them. It was all she had left. She crushed them 
 against her lips with a sudden, passionate gesture, and 
 then her face grew quite white ; she stretched out her 
 hand slowly and let the poor, dead flower fall into the 
 stream. It caught for an instant among the grasses, and 
 then the water seized it and swept it out of sight. 
 
 " And I have brought you back nothing but empty 
 hands," said Stuart. "The blossoms are all faded. I 
 might have known it before I went after them. The 
 spring is over now." 
 
 He took her hand in his and led her away through 
 the sunny garden. At first there was a trampled spot 
 among the lily-leaves where their footsteps had pressed, 
 but before long the freshness of the evening: had lifted
 
 340 MIRAGE. 
 
 up the grass ; -the wind had blown away the scattered 
 blossoms by the river ; the thrush was singing once more 
 in wild, full-throated rapture it was all as though they 
 had never been. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 SOME two or three seasons have passed since then ; 
 but there are still a good many people in London 
 who recollect the furore of admiration which raged for 
 awhile in a certain artistic set the year Denis Lawrence 
 brought back his pictures from the East. It is true that he 
 had arrived there at a singularly fortunate moment, and 
 when the critics were already beginning to inquire if there 
 was nothing then in modern art between the production 
 of pictures in every way adapted to the family circle and 
 the work of a school, the chief of which was like Lazarus 
 one risen from the dead, and with the scent of the 
 grave about him ? 
 
 Lawrence had not been in town a month before his 
 name became the signal for discussion in the studios. 
 People went and looked at his large picture (the " Study 
 of a Jewess "), and came away and shook their heads. 
 And all the men of genius, who had ideas they did not 
 know how to paint, said it was preposterous ; and all the 
 men of talent, who knew exactly how to paint the ideas 
 they did not have, said it was rubbish. And then Mr. 
 Lawrence sent his picture to the Academy. 
 
 It was accepted ; it was hung on the line. And then 
 more people went and looked at it ; and at the dinner 
 parties, and between the entr actes of the opera, all the 
 young ladies asked their partners : " Who is this Mr. 
 Lawrence ? " 
 
 The answer varied. He came from New York, and 
 had studied for years under Gerome, at Paris : you
 
 MIRAGE. 341 
 
 found that out by looking at his drawing. He came 
 from the South, and had been a Confederate General. 
 He was immensely wealthy, and painted for his own 
 amusement. He had not a penny to his name, poor 
 devil ! and had been sent over by a charitable associa 
 tion : " You know they do those things in America." 
 
 And this went on for about a week. 
 
 There happened to be at that time a young man writ 
 ing for a certain influential journal, by the name of 
 Challoner. He was an enthusiastic fellow, and very 
 anxious to distinguish himself ; and he had met Law 
 rence in Paris and travelled up to London with him by 
 the Dover mail. And so he sat down and wrote a re 
 view of the Academy exhibition, in which he demon 
 strated to his own entire satisfaction that the " Jewess " 
 was not only the most remarkable picture there, but one 
 of the most remarkable pictures of modern times. Well, 
 of course this made a great disturbance. There were 
 other articles in other papers to prove that the " Jewess " 
 was a daub, and counter articles on the opposite side to 
 assert and maintain its pre-eminence. 
 
 And, in the midst of all this confusion, some one dis 
 covered that the picture was absolutely not for sale. 
 
 And so in this way people concluded they had met a 
 new genius in the young artist and an American 
 genius, which made it even more wonderful. He had 
 two reception-days in the week by this time ; his brother 
 artists advised him to go and study in Rome ; he could 
 have spent his life refusing " private views ; " in a word, 
 his success was complete. 
 
 One afternoon, late in the season, a party of three or 
 four of us were standing before Lawrence s easel. It 
 was the first time we had been thrown together, he and 
 I, since the old Parisian days ; I was struck by the 
 change which had come over him since then. He 
 seemed to me much older ; not merely older in years, 
 but in thought, in feeling, in aim above all, in aim. 
 He had become at once more positive and less serious 
 in his way of looking at things. And there was some-
 
 342 MIRAGE. 
 
 thing of sadness about him, too, as in every imaginative 
 man who has taken his own measure, and learned by 
 experience the limitation of his effort. He worked much 
 harder, but he seemed to have less belief in his work ; 
 he was what the French call detache from many things. 
 " I have missed my chance somewhere," he said to me 
 one day. " When was it ? I cannot tell you, but some 
 thing assures me that it is gone, and so Calypso s esf 
 consolee du depart d Ulysse " (with a laugh) ; " moi,je me 
 console de la realite." 
 
 Of course these are not entirely my first impressions, 
 but I recollect that even that afternoon he seemed. to 
 me to have lost to an extraordinary degree the expe^ta- 
 tion of life. Lawrence and I are very old friends, and I 
 confess I watched him then with some curiosity. 
 
 Challoner was there too, that afternoon, and he had 
 brought some ladies with him. I was introduced to one 
 of them, a Mrs. Sinclair ; a very pretty woman, with 
 large, brown eyes, with which she made incessant play 
 while she was speaking. 
 
 " But of all the things you have shown us, Mr. Law 
 rence, I think I enjoy and covet that head the most," 
 she said now with a graceful movement of her fine 
 shoulders. 
 
 It was a portrait which Lawrence had just uncovered, 
 and for a moment no one else spoke. 
 
 " You were thinking of the Mona Lisa in that back 
 ground, I see," said Challoner after an interval of 
 silence. 
 
 " It is wonderful, wonderful ! " said Mrs. Sinclair, under 
 her breath. She went nearer, and looked at it more 
 steadily. *" Mr. Lawrence, you read Browning, surely ?" 
 
 "Why?" said Denis. 
 
 " Don t you remember it ? " opening her beautiful 
 eyes upon him suddenly ; "why, that is the very expres 
 sion Browning speaks of 
 
 "... only I discern 
 Infinite passion and the pain 
 Of finite hearts that yearn."
 
 MIRAGE. 343 
 
 Mrs. Sinclair s voice was not the least of her attrac 
 tions, and after this little bit of declamation it was felt 
 that there was nothing more to say. Lawrence saw his 
 visitors safely out of the door of the other studio and 
 came back ; he found Challoner still standing before the 
 portrait, looking at it with his head on one side, his 
 hands in his pockets whistling softly to himself. 
 
 " I don t pretend to say you are always up to your 
 own mark, Lawrence," he said argumentatively, " but 
 when you do try for certain things, by Jove ! there isn t 
 another man in London can touch you. This head, 
 now. There s a delicacy and a solidity in those flesh- 
 tints ; there s a strength and a sweetness in that model 
 ling. Why, it s enough to make an ordinary man s 
 reputation as a portrait-painter. Finish it for the next 
 R. A., like a good fellow, and wori t I just give it a lift ? " 
 
 " I can t. It s a portrait taken without the permission 
 of the original," said Lawrence. "I don t think it s a 
 bad thing myself. But the original was better." 
 
 He moved the picture round into a more favorable 
 light, and then I, too, began to look at it. It was my 
 first impression of a face which was destined to become 
 very dear and very familiar to me later on, and perhaps 
 some vague presentiment of the fact made me examine 
 it with more than ordinary attention. 
 
 It was the life-size study of a girl s head. The face 
 was slightly turned aside ; she was dressed in some dark, 
 tightly-fitting garment, and the eyes and forehead were 
 shaded by a broad-brimmed cavalier s hat. Perhaps no 
 better idea of the impression it produced could be given 
 than by the lines which Mrs. Sinclair had quoted ; for 
 there was a singular suggestion of sadness about the 
 grave, sweet eyes and on the small, close mouth, a sug 
 gestion very happily carried out in the sentiment of the 
 background. Only the face could be said to be finished. 
 Behind it was a slight indication of pale, luminous sky, 
 a low horizon, a gleaming line of some strange water. 
 The whole picture was full of this curious reflected light. 
 The hands and the lower part of the figure were roughly
 
 344 MIRAGE. 
 
 blocked out, and it was characteristic of Denis "*tha*t 
 he had left the lower part of his canvas still un 
 covered. 
 
 " There is something curious about that sketch," he 
 said now, looking at it meditatively. " There are days 
 when I hate it, and have to turn it to the wall not to run 
 my palette-knife through it. There are days when it 
 stares at me like a material reproach, the visible sign of 
 my falling off." 
 
 He took a turn up and down the studio. "Talk 
 about knowledge and all that sort of stuff," he began 
 again, stopping in front of the picture, " why, there, is 
 more in that head more expressed, not worked out, 
 mind you than I can reach again by studying twenty 
 years for it. The thing is an accident, the mere expres 
 sion of an influence," he said moodily; "it isn t a 
 measure of my work." 
 
 " But, my dear boy, all you have got to do is to 
 fall in love with your next model, if you can only 
 paint by inspiration and all that sort of thing," said 
 Challoner. 
 
 I happened to be looking at Denis, and I saw him 
 change color at the speech. 
 
 "Confound your falling in love!" he said hastily; 
 " you don t suppose I was ever in love with that girl, 
 do you ? " He bent down and looked more closely at 
 the portrait " She is married now," he said. " It s 
 three years or more since that head was painted, and 
 full two years since I saw the notice of her wedding in 
 an old newspaper. I remember I was at Bagdad at 
 the time." 
 
 The girl s face interested me, and I asked who it 
 was she had married. 
 
 "A man by the name of Stuart. A good sort of 
 fellow, too ; but with about as many brains as your 
 little finger, and rather less imagination. From some 
 thing she told me one day the very day I got the 
 hint for that portrait, by-the-way I imagine she had 
 been in love with him for some time for several years,
 
 MIRAGE. 345 
 
 in fact. I suppose she thought him handsome and 
 so he was ; but a man of that calibre can only be 
 interesting while he is desperately in love. In the 
 ordinary wear and tear of life Ah, well! Allah 
 is great, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet! 
 
 " Well, I don t know. I should not have thought 
 that girl would have made that kind of mistake," said 
 Challoner thoughtfully. " Why," looking up from his 
 cigar with a yawn, " why, she would have done better 
 to have taken a fancy to you, Lawrence." 
 
 " Ah, well ! but then you see she never did," lightly. 
 "But I think," said Lawrence, with sudden seriousness, 
 " I think she had one of the noblest natures it has ever 
 been my privilege to meet." 
 
 We spoke of something else after that ; Lawrence 
 wanted me to go and dine with him at his club, I 
 remember. 
 
 " I won t promise you any thing particularly won 
 derful in the way of a dinner ; they are getting 
 deuced careless with their cooking of late : but old 
 Ferris will be there," he said, "and another man I 
 want you to meet a capital fellow I knew in the 
 East. I know you will like him a man by the name 
 of Davenant." 
 
 It was only as we were all going out of the studio 
 together that Challoner spoke of the picture again. 
 
 " You can say what you like, Lawrence, but, by Jove ! 
 I stick to my own opinion," he said doggedly, stopping 
 to take a last look at the portrait of Constance. " I 11 
 bet you a hundred pounds that such a face was never 
 intended to belong to a woman without a name and 
 a history ! " 
 
 " Then you would lose your money, my dear fel 
 low, let me tell you," Lawrence answered carelessly. 
 "As for the name, if I ever decide to finish it, I 
 shall call it Mirage ; but it is a face without a 
 history." 
 
 The door shut noisily behind them, filling the empty 
 old house with a hollow, echoing sound. And then the
 
 346 
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 room grew very quiet. For a little while the~pate 
 afternoon light made a glimmering space about the 
 window, the color slowly fading out of picture and 
 carpet and stuff. It lingered for a moment more on 
 the sad, sweet face of Constance, and then that too 
 faded away into the deepening night.
 
 NO NAME SERIES. 
 
 FROM THE -LIBRARY TABLE." 
 
 An Extract from a Review of the "No Name Series." 
 
 " That novel-readers are yearly growing more appreciative, more critical, is 
 an acknowledged fact ; and it is a question deserving of some consideration, 
 whether the tendency of certain publishing firms to embody all the works of 
 fiction issued by them in one or more series, that is, in similar size and bind 
 ing, with some attractive general title, is not a movement having for its root 
 an increasing and more dainty appetite for the best light literature. Of course, 
 the desire of publishers to reduce to a minimum the cost of production must 
 be taken into consideration. ... In these pretty, uniform volumes, this end 
 is attained ; while the artistic designs of the cover, and the similarity of size 
 and color, which, though objectionable to the epicurean bibliophile, is apt to 
 appeal pleasurably to the taste of the many, are, or should be in themselves, 
 guarantees that the contents must be above the average to be worthy of a debut 
 in so dainty a form. 
 
 " One of the most consistent and appreciative efforts in this line is the No 
 Name Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers ; consistent, because the tacit agree 
 ment that each issue should be of the best literary merit has, in this instance, 
 and thus far, been faithfully adhered to ; it is not as yet numerically strong ; it 
 numbers but eight volumes, but among the eight there is not one that has not 
 deserved and received its meed of praise. And that there has not been lacking 
 among them sufficient variety of style and diversity of talent, the three volumes 
 which have served to give subject to this article ( A Modern Mephistopheles, 
 Afterglow, Hetty s Strange History ), and which are the latest issues of this 
 series, will sufficiently attest : three novels more dissimilar in method and in 
 treatment it would be difficult to cite." 
 
 FOR A LIST OF THE " No NAME SERIES," SEE NEXT PAGE.
 
 THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 A MODERN MEPHISTOPHEtES. 
 
 " It is decidedly the best novel of the series, thus far. . . . The leading idea of A 
 Modern Mephistopheles is ingenious. The characters are skilfully chosen to repre 
 sent it : the one secret in the story is beyond the guessing of most readers, and 
 admirably concealed until the true moment for its disclosure; and the denouement is 
 as satisfactory as we could expect. Helwyze, like Goethe s Mephistopheles, wills the 
 bad and works the good : the justice of Fate falls upon him, and not upon his victim. 
 But this is the only point of resemblance. Gladys, although occupying the place of 
 Margaret, is an entirely different creature, and it is the best success of the author s 
 art that she is more real to us than the other three characters. The work belongs to 
 the class of imaginative fiction which claims its right to dispense with probability or 
 even strict dramatic consistency. It cannot be measured by the standard which we 
 apply to novels of society or of ordinary human interests, but rather by th^t which 
 belongs to poetry." New York Tribune, , 
 
 " The latest issue of the No Name Series claims precedence not only because it 
 is the freshest novelty, but through an excellence that places it readily first. Consid 
 ered alike for its interest as a tale and for its elegance of literary art, it is a work that 
 alone will give distinction to the series. The plot is peculiarly novel in its details if not 
 in its general conception ; and throughout the story the most pervading impression is 
 that of the freshness not crudeness, but the freshness of mature thought which 
 it everywhere carries. . . . The title is but a hint. It is no revamping of Goethe s 
 story of Faust, nor a plagiarism of ideas in any form ; unless the central thought, of 
 the woman-soul that leads us upward and on, which is common to romantic as to 
 psychological fiction, may be considered such. The characters are drawn with a 
 sharp outline, standing forth as distinctly individual as the etchings of Retzsch ; and 
 for symmetry and consistency, in every word and every action which the author makes 
 them think, speak, or do, they are thoroughly admirable creations. Four figures only 
 appear in the action on this little stage; and the story, when analyzed, shows a strange 
 absence of what is usually considered the dramatic element. Yet such is the skill of 
 the author that the reader is led on as by the most vivid material tragedy, compelled 
 by the development of thought and feeling. . . . More than this, the book is a constant 
 intellectual delight. The grace of the author s style is equalled by its fimVh. De" 
 scription and conversation are like a fine mosaic, in which the delicate art of the 
 workmanship passes unseen, and the eye catches only the perfect picture until a close 
 examination reveals the method of its structure." Boston Post. 
 
 " This series, so far, has brought us no prose work equal in depth and dramatic 
 design to this one. ... It is unquestionably the work of genius, powerful in concep 
 tion, elegant in construction, lofty in tone, proving, as few books do, the power of one 
 clean, white soul, to cope with evil in its most insidious forms, while preserving its 
 own crystal clarity. . . . But who wrote this story ? Whose hand painted these 
 marvellous pictures of the angel and the demon striving for the mastery in every 
 human soul ? " Tlie New Age. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. When not 
 to be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON.
 
 THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 AFTERGLOW. 
 
 " The seventh of the No Name Series, Afterglow, is a strong novel, and, in 
 many respects, a remarkable one. . . . The style is easy, and that of an accomplished 
 writer ; the tone, through most of the book, cool, satirical, with more than a touch of 
 mockery, and sparkling with unexpected wit, touches of exquisite drollery, and ingen 
 ious lancies. Although each character is by itself unattractive, and its faulty side 
 carefully displayed, tne complications and social plots are so easy and admirably 
 handled that, mean as they are, they become of great interest, and the matter of per 
 sonal mutual influence is so prominent that it gives the story a philosophical air, and 
 the dignity that it needs. . . . For three-quarters of the book the reader admires the 
 cleverness, the capital workmanship only : he closes it with the verdict that the story 
 is not only clever, but that it is far more and far better than clever. 1 Boston Daily 
 A dvertiser. 
 
 " With the exception of the delicately written sketch, Is That All? none of the 
 No Name books have been so good literature as Afterglow, the latest on the list ; 
 and the qualities of this story stand in an order which ought to gain it the favor of the 
 best readers. ... In fact, the simple and direct narration, and the treatment of inci 
 dents and characters, more than once recall the master of modern fiction." The 
 Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 " It is so seldom that one finds in a recent American novel a positive addition to 
 literature that the issue of a work like Afterglow, the latest volume of the No 
 Name Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, merits cordial recognition. The book is 
 the production of no ordinary mind. . . . Those inclined to guess the authorship need 
 not go beyond the men who are known in literature. There are some sketchy features 
 in the story, but there is a firm grasp in the narrative which proves the hand" that 
 weaves it to be that of a master. It is thoroughly polished in its satire, and the wit 
 in which it abounds is of the keenest character. ... It is, it may safely be said, the 
 production of one of the Atlantic Monthly school of writers. Afterglow is not the 
 kind of novel that is generally designated as popular, but it is a work displaying more 
 talent and more originality than any of its predecessors in the No Name Series, and 
 will be a standard favorite with thoughtful and cultivated people." Boston Saturday 
 Gazette. 
 
 " Whether or not Afterglow, which is the latest, is also the best of the No 
 Name novels, is a question upon which the faithful readers of that excellent series 
 will probably differ, but there will be no hesitation on the part of any of them to accord 
 it a place as at least one of the best." N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 One volume. Bound in cardinal red and black. Price $1.00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When not to 
 be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston.
 
 "NO NAME SERIES : 
 
 WILL DENBIGH, NOBLEMAN. 
 
 " The latest of the No Name Series is a simple, lovely Devonshire story, 
 exquisitely told. Will Denbigh, whose name is the title of the book, is a 
 noble hero ; the little heroine wins and keeps his heart ; but the great charm of 
 the tale is not in its love stories, hearty and direct as those are, but in its pict 
 ures of country life and country curates, the curates who must be scattered 
 all over England, of whom Charles Kingsley was one, gentlemen and scholars, 
 who devote all they are and all they have to the cause of Christianity, and whose 
 lives of service in the little parishes of fanners or fishermen are a close following 
 of the Master whom they worship. The author does not preach, but tells these 
 beautiful things and paints these noble and tender pictures as if he or she had 
 always known them, had always been familiar with such characters, and talks 
 about them with a tenderness and direct simplicity that makes them alive and 
 real to the reader. The book is thoroughly sweet, sound and hopeful in 
 spirit ; the style has the strength and simplicity of an accomplished writer." - 
 Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " This charming and clever story we are disposed to regard as the best tale 
 yet produced in the No Name Series. " The Philadelphia Press. 
 
 " Inferior to none of them in point of interest. ... Its perusal will be a 
 source of delight to every reader, and will add greatly to the reputation of a 
 most deservedly popular series. New Bedford Mercury. 
 
 " The novels in the No Name Series seem to take on a more ambitious 
 character as their number increases, and the one here before us ( Will Den 
 bigh ) ranks higher up in the scale of literary merit than most of its prede 
 cessors." Boston Post. 
 
 "The story admirably maintains the reputation of the series." Boston 
 Common wealth . 
 
 " Will Denbigh is the best of the novels that have as yet appeared in 
 the No Name Series. It is ajresh, wholesome, and thoroughly agreeable 
 story." Portland Press. 
 
 " No Name is considered a perfect guarantee of excellence. The last 
 issue, Will Denbigh will not detract from the conceded excellence of the 
 series." Albany Evening Journal. 
 
 "On the whole, Will Denbigh continues the series well, and is still 
 another kind of link in this chain, unlike in form and ring of metal to any of 
 its predecessors." Boston Traveller. 
 
 One volume, bound in Cardinal red and black. Price $1.00. 
 
 Our Publications are to be had of all booksellers. When not to be found, 
 send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 Boston. 
 

 
 THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 DEIRDRE. 
 
 " Deirdre is a remarkable poem, written in ten-syllable lines, with almost 
 perfect ease of versification. . . . The author has an enthusiastic and delicate 
 love of nature in all her moods. His battle scenes are all set in glowing land 
 scapes ; he sings the glories of the earth and of the skies, as well as the 
 achievements of his heroes; he makes ynufeel the weather and the landscape, 
 the sharpness of late autumn, the life and sweetness of spring. The fault of 
 the poem is an excess of its beauties (?)." Boston Daily Adi ertiser. 
 
 " Such is the story of Deirdre ; a story of extraordinary power and pathos, 
 and one which, though dealing with remote times and barbarous characters, 
 awakens a strong sympathy in the breast of the reader. Some of the passages 
 of the poem are absolutely Homeric, particularly the descriptions of the battles ; 
 while there are here and there subtle touches of nature, all the more potent 
 because of their savage setting. Altogether it is the poem of this day and 
 generation, and worthy a place beside the best work of the best living poets of 
 England or America." Boston Transcript. 
 
 "One s first thought on reading the last line of this poem is of its absolute 
 integrity of excellence. Not a faulty line mars its expansive beauty ; not a 
 Commonplace sentiment degrades it. ... We have never read a poem whose 
 perfection is so steadfastly sustained ; from the first line to the last there is no 
 descent from the original nobility of thought and style. ... Its atmosphere 
 is strangely high and healthful. Honor rules almost every act in the eventful 
 drama. . . . The most exigent sense of duty seems to animate every person in 
 the poem ; and the episode of their deaths illustrates the noblest qualities of 
 human nature. . . . Over the whole sky of his poem there broods an atmos 
 phere of the most exquisite refinement. . . . But words cannot do justice to 
 the grandeur and beauty of Deirdre; it is the poem of the century." 
 Literary World. 
 
 " Thus Deirdre comes forth a grand epic, a poem of which America can 
 be proud as the country from which it issues, and all other reading lands glad 
 and satisfied. There is in it the grandeur and magnificence of the Greek of the 
 Iliad and Odyssey ; the beauty and grace, the rich imagery of the /Eneid, and 
 the rythmic flow of Dante s writings. The power of the poem is not spasmo 
 dic, the genius of the writer is not fitful, and the beauty of the verse is nowhere 
 hampered by artifice or lessened by signs of relapsing from the highest standard. 
 On the contrary, steadily, firmly, grandly the story progresses, with a rich fer 
 tility of poetic skill and rare picturing, to its closing page. The poem is des 
 tined to live and rank among modern classics." Boston Traveller. 
 
 " Deirdre would have attracted attention without the adjunct of mystery 
 (No Name?). It is a narrative poem, original in its material,, boldly conceived, 
 and written with sufficient poetic skill and feeling to separate it wholly from the 
 crowd of crude and ambitious attempts which are constantly issuing from the 
 press. New York Tribune. 
 
 " The reader easily discovers that it is a poem of very rare quality, a great 
 poem, we may say, without misusing the adjective ; but precisely how great it 
 is, precisely how it compares with other works of a like kind, it is not easy to 
 determine while the glamour of a first reading is upon us. For the present it 
 is enough that we shall read it and enjoy it, recognizing its richness in all that 
 makes poetry good, and learning to know its spirit and its significance." New 
 York Evening Post. 
 
 In one volume, 16mo. Cloth. Gilt and red-lettered. l1.00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When not to 
 be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston.
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 NO NAME SEEIES, 
 
 The "No Name Series" of 
 original Novels and Tales, by 
 well-known writers, to be pub 
 lished anonymously, will be is 
 sued at convenient intervals, in 
 handsome library form. i6md. 
 Cloth. Price $1.00 each. 
 
 Works already Published: 
 
 MERCY PHILBRICK S 
 CHOICE. 
 
 DEIRDRE. 
 
 IS THAT ALL? 
 
 KISMET. 
 
 THE GREAT MATCH. 
 
 A MODERN MEPHIS- 
 TOPHELES. 
 
 AFTERGLOW. 
 
 HETTY S STRANGE HIS 
 TORY. 
 
 WILL DENBIGH, NO 
 BLEMAN. . 
 
 MIRAGE. By the Author of 
 Kismet." 
 
 THE WOLF AT THE 
 DOOR. 
 
 MARMORNE. 
 
 GEMINI. 
 
 The Nove s in this Series are hav 
 ing a larpe sale, nut only mi account of 
 the curiositv attending their authorship, 
 
 but bticause they are works of endur 
 ing merit Some of the most popular 
 writers of the day are engaged in this 
 enterprise. 
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY 
 SEEIES, 
 
 " Books sliould to one of these four ends 
 
 conduce : 
 
 For wisdom, piety, delight, or use." 
 SIR J. DENHAM. 
 
 It will be the aim of the Pub 
 lishers to make the " Town and 
 Country Series " a collection of 
 entertaining, thoughtful, serious 
 works, selected from the choicest 
 home and foreign contempprary 
 literature ; books acceptable at 
 all seasons in Town and Coun- 
 try. 
 
 Works already Published: 
 
 BEN MILKER S WOO 
 ING. A Novel. By Holme 
 Lee. 
 
 FROM TRADITIONAL 
 TO RATIONAL FAITH. 
 
 By Rev. R. Andrew Griffin. 
 
 A WINTER STORY. A 
 
 Novel. By the Author of 
 " The Rose Garden." 
 
 SYRIAN SUNSHINE. 
 
 Notes of Travel. By Thomas 
 G. Appleton. 
 
 JAN OF THE WIND 
 MILL. A Novel. By Mrs. 
 Ewing. 
 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price $i oo each. 
 
 Tlie books in the " A r o Name Series" and " Town and Country 
 Series " are for sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or u ill be mailed, 
 pa paid, on receipt of price, by tlie Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
 THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 KISMET. A Nile Novel. 
 
 Opinions, generous tributes to genius, by well-known authors 
 whose names are withheld. 
 
 "Well, I have read Kismet, and it is certainly very remarkable. The 
 story is interesting, any well-told love story is, you know, but the book itself is 
 a great deal more so. Descriptively and sentimentally, I use the word with 
 entire respect, it is, in spots, fairly exquisite. It seems to me all glowing and 
 overflowing with what the French call beauti du diable. . . . The conversa 
 tions are very clever, and the wit is often astonishingly like the wit of an accom 
 plished man of the world. One thing which seems to me to show promiae 
 great promise, if you will for the future is that the author can not only repro 
 duce the conversation of one brilliant man, but can make two men talk together as 
 if they tacrc men, not women in manly clothes." 
 
 " It is a charming book. I have read it twice, and looked it over again, and 
 I wish I had it all new to sit up with to-night It is so fresh and sweet and inno 
 cent and joyous, the dialogue is so natural and bright, the characters so keenly 
 edged, and the descriptions so poetic. I don t know when I have enjoyed 
 any thing more, never since I went sailing up the Nile with Harriet Martineau. 
 ... You must give the author love and greeting from one of the fraternity. 
 The hand that gives us this pleasure will give us plenty more of an improving 
 quality every year, I think." 
 
 " Kismet is indeed a delightful story, the best of the series undoubtedly." 
 
 " If Kismet is the first work of a young lady, as reported, it shows a great 
 gift of language, and powers of description and of insight into character and life 
 quite uncommon. . . . Of the whole series so far, I think Mercy Philbrick s 
 Choice is the best, because it has, beside literary merit, some moral tone and 
 vigor. Still there are capabilities in the writer of Kismet even higher than in 
 that of the writer of Mercy Philbrick s Choice. " 
 
 " I liked it extremely. It is the best in the series so far, except in con 
 struction, in which Is That All ? slight as it is, seems to me superior. 
 Kismet is winning golden opinions everywhere. I have nothing but praises 
 for it, and have nothing but praise to give it" 
 
 " I have read Kismet once, and mean to read it again. It is thoroughly 
 charming, and will be a success." 
 
 One volume, bound in cardinal red and black. Price SI. 00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. When not 
 to be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 
 

 
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